In the past four years, I have heard the classic psychiatric questions a few too many times…
No, I don’t feel good.
No, I am not seeing or hearing things that are not there.
No, I haven’t been sleeping or eating normally.
No, how I feel on a scale from 1-10 has not shifted significantly since last time.
No, I do not have a suicide plan.
The first time I admitted to a mental health professional (a therapist) that I had suicidal ideation, she asked if I had a plan. It was clear that she was asking if the suicidality was “active” or “passive.” Given that I didn’t have a plan that day, she dropped it and didn’t ask further. What she missed was alarming. No, I did not have a set plan, such as a specific date, but I did not expect to live to see the end of the summer. At home, I spent hours upon hours obsessively searching on the dark side of the internet, the sites full of posts on suicide methods, lethal suggestions, and those encouraging the suicidal visitors to “go ahead and do it already.” A major factor that prevented me from actually carrying out an attempt was that I thought I would possibly not actually die from an attempt and simply get really hurt, possibly leading to becoming an even bigger burden on those who love me. Anxiety also leads me to a state of mental paralysis. Suicide takes at least a bit of planning, and just that amount of planning seemed too much to manage in a state during which even creating sentences was a struggle.
My first psychiatrist was overly confident that she knew exactly what type of case I was: a simple case of adolescent unipolar depression. Take your newly prescribed antidepressants and you’ll be feeling great in a few weeks. Case closed. What she failed to realize was that she had it all backwards. She had just given a patient with bipolar disorder SSRIs, a mistake that would be disastrous. When I became manic, my parents and friends were alarmed and another doctor’s appointment was made. This time, she warned against taking SSRIs in the future and prescribed a mood stabilizer; however, she failed to tell me that I may have bipolar disorder. I was still under the impression that I just had one random summer of depression, one that was unlikely to ever happen again. The lack of open communication with me paired with the lack of follow-up led to my unraveling.
Mania came in like a storm, destroying my ability to function and reason. I was obsessed with my psychiatric diagnosis. Depression just had to be wrong! Since the doctor got it wrong, it was up to me to diagnosis myself. I mean, who knows me better than I do? That is what my manic thinking led to: hours of researching psychiatric diagnoses, family medical histories, and my own erratic behaviors over the past few months. Through a professor’s recommendation, I ended up seeing a clinical psychologist who officially diagnosed me with bipolar disorder. When I asked her if it was fine to not take medication, she said that I may need a small dose but I might be fine without any.
During the process of being evaluated by this clinical psychologist, I went from hypomania to full-blown mania, the classic type with delusional grandiosity, irrational behaviors, paranoia, excessive energy, insomnia, weight loss, and odd goal-oriented behaviors. I went on one manic road trip in search of the answer to my mental health problems, landing in an ER in another state with a doctor who didn’t know what to do with a mildly manic girl who wanders in the middle of the night into his small hospital, one unequipped for mental health emergencies. My parents were called, I was picked up, and I simply went home.
Shortly afterwards, I went on another manic road trip, this time to D.C., on a grandiose mission to talk to the current president and tell him of my grand plan to completely revolutionize mental health care. When I had a panic attack in front of the White House, an ambulance was called. Once again, I was released without having to be admitted, despite clearly being in a full-blown manic state. From D.C., I went to Durham, where I told a hospital officer there that I simply wanted to talk to a psychiatrist. I could see this was getting out of control and was not looking forward to the depressive crash sure to follow this euphoric, manic high. I knew that it would take weeks in order to see a psychiatrist in the outpatient setting, and I didn’t have weeks.
In the ER, I was told that I would have to become an involuntarily committed patient in order to get any help. This led to my first in-patient hospitalization, a very unhelpful week full of arguing with doctors and feeling imprisoned in a ward full of pain, desperation, and hopelessness. When I wasn’t given a timetable for when I would be able to leave, I was advised by a member of the hospital to just do what I was told, then I could do whatever I wanted when I left the hospital. It became apparent that the hospital was not the place to actually get treatment: it was simply an overpriced stay in a glorified cage.
As soon as I got out of the hospital, I stopped taking the medications I had been forced on. My clinical psychologist no longer wanted to see me following my manic episode and hospital stays, making me feel like I was too severe a case to even get help. If someone in the hospital had sat me down and taken the time to actually listen to me and explain my condition, perhaps I would have been less resistant to psychiatric treatment. Instead, I was being threatened, told I wouldn’t be able to leave the ward unless I took the pills. Resentment builds when the patient feels deprived of any options or freedom.
My second hospitalization featured two police officers showing up at my door, with me being transported in handcuffs to the hospital as if I had committed a crime. The nurse in the ER yelled at me, accusing me of being suicidal. I actually was not… but the longer I stayed there, the worse I became. I refused to be stripped of my clothing and I repeatedly tore off my patient wristband in a little act of rebellion; I refuse to be a “crazy” psychiatric patient and lose my identity as a person.
I could feel myself become more manic, a dark type of mania with a depressive, desperate edge. In the small closet of a room, I was hyperaware of everything from the overwhelming pain it must have taken a former patient to etch “KILL ME” into the wall to the adrenaline and panic flooding my veins. I couldn’t stand to be in the room, so I paced the short hallway, back and forth at a frantic pace endlessly. Hours later, patients opened up their doorways. One girl commented that she realized the purple scrubs she was forced into labeled her as the “crazy” patient. I remarked, “If you aren’t suicidal when you get in, you sure as hell are by the time you get out.” It is no surprise to me that suicide rates increase following a hospitalization; the trauma one can experience as a patient is often overlooked, from being confined in small rooms to complete isolation to being forced onto medications which make it difficult to even walk.
The following year, my summer was once again full of suicidal ideation. This time, however, I had countless pills on hand. I discovered that psychiatrists do not really keep up with how much medications are prescribed or even if I was compliant. Also, my doctor prescribed me benzodiazepines, something I did not need and certainly should not have been given at all. He was another mental health provider that failed to see the obvious: my constant suicidality.
That summer, I overdosed on pills more than once, one time landing myself in the ER. That time, I remember feeling so overwhelmed by my feelings that I just wanted to die. After taking pills, my memory fails me. I woke up the next day incapable of remembering entire conversations I had or how I ended up in the hospital. This time, given an actual suicidal time in my life, I was immediately released, no psychiatric stay required. Once again, someone failed to see the obvious. At the mandatory follow-up appointment with my out-patient psychiatrist, not only did he not get into the overdose, but he actually was ready to prescribe even more of the very pills that just landed me in the hospital.
I feel like I have been failed by the healthcare system over and over again. I expected to be able to rely on therapists, psychologists, and doctors to properly evaluate, diagnosis, and treat me… especially when chronic suicidality is in the picture. Instead, I have a lengthy list of ways I have been failed. These failures have often added to my hopelessness. It is hard to see the point in even seeking treatment with a history of it failing me. I have driven myself into a worse mental state with my anxiety over my diagnosis and related healthcare. Each failure by the mental health system was a missed chance to save a life.
For what it’s worth Anja, putting “bipolar” cases on SSRI’s is standard treatment for many psychiatrists. They generally make it a cocktail, adding neuroleptics and “mood stabilizers” to the former.
I had a horrible reaction to the SSRI Anafranil so I was sleepless for 21 days and went bonkers. They said I was “Bipolar 2” but after tapering off the drugs I took for 25 years I don’t have mood swings or thoughts of suicide. There are many out there like us.
Since you believe in psychiatric remedies please take your pills as prescribed. A pill box can really be a life saver (literally.) You don’t want to take more than the psychiatrist prescribes. In my experience, they are not minimalist in their prescriptions.
I wish you well, Anja.
Once again, we see how absolutely evil psychiatry is. Through neglect and force, it has wrecked Anja’s life. She would have been fine, if psychiatry had done its job – put a reasonable, prompt, and thorough plan in place for her. Instead, it neglected her, until she couldn’t be ignored by ANYONE. Then psychiatry caged her, as it knew it would do from the start. Every moment of Anja’s caging was premeditated and preventable.
Anja,
Are you aware that these DSM “diagnoses” have no validity, and very low reliability? Are you aware that many of the drugs (since they do not address a disease process, they are not medications, and I do not mis-label them as such) actually cause people to experience the very things they are purported to resolve? and that many people develop new problems in thinking, living and relating because of the psychiatric drugs? Please educate yourself, and don’t accept the “mental health” rhetoric without questioning it. You will save yourself a LOT of pain, and may even save your life.
I second LS and strongly suggest Anja read Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker. There is no known physical cause of depression or bipolar so the drugs cannot resolve anything. Some find them useful as emotional pain killers. I found them way more useful as joy killers though. They blunt the emotions–good and bad–as well as dulling the cognitive processes including social skills and executive functions.
Thanks Rachel.
Wouldn’t it be great if every author who posts here had read that book? I’d love it if that were a requirement.
I wish I had read Toxic Psychiatry when it came out the year Dr. M gas lighted me. 🙁 I was clueless anyone but Scientologists opposed psychiatry. And a few “crazies” who thought their hallucinations were real so they wouldn’t take their “meds.”
But, unfortunately, gas lighting people is what today’s psychiatric and psychologic industries seem to be all about. Especially when it comes to gas lighting child abuse or rape victims, according to the “mental health” industry’s own medical literature.
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/04/heal-for-life/
What a shame the “mental health professionals” have turned themselves into a bunch of child abuse and rape covering up mental health “abusers.” As Wiki used to properly describe gas lighters, rather than “mental health professionals.” Now Wiki just describes the “mental health professionals” gas lighting crimes as “psychological manipulation.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting
Anja, as another person who had the common adverse effects of an antidepressant misdiagnosed as “bipolar,” according to all DSMs, except the current DSM5. I do truly recommend you read Whitaker’s “Anatomy of an Epidemic.”
When one’s symptoms are caused by psychiatric drugs, and the antidepressants are known to cause suicidal thinking, one’s problems likely have an iatrogenic, not genetic, etiology. As today’s “mental health professionals” incorrectly theorize, and fraudulently claim as fact, to all their patients.
I hope you wake up to the likely iatrogenic (doctor and their psych drug induced cause) of your suicidal feelings. And get on a real healing path. God bless, and thanks for sharing your story of the harm of today’s fraud based, and iatrogenic illness creating, “mental health” system.
Hey Anja, well written. And your article echos my own experience years ago. People with “issues” are often encouraged to seek help, yet the “help” provided is often clumsy, traumatic. So yes, its a rough process.
As a patient, you know better than anyone what does and does not help. You become your own expert. Be informed by your lived-experience and avoid “bad” doctors and “traumatic” healthcare. Take care Anja…
Anja, the treachery of the mental health system doesn’t stop merely with its refusal to recognize the precariousness of a patient’s life when it sees it. No, things go a lot further than that.
I was mismedicated, incredibly depressed, and suicidal one night in 1987 when I had the good sense to try to get into a hospital. I requested voluntary admission in the ER I’d gone to, an interval I had the insurance to pay for. In order to deny my request, hospital staff completely perverted the state’s involuntary committment statute in order to say NO to me. My life was really
in danger because of this, such as it had never been before. I didn’t know WHAT to do; this was like being hit with a ton of bricks. Even now, I don’t think I’ve completely recovered from this. At that time, no crisis bed programs had been established yet in Baltimore City. There was no alternative.
I am not by any stretch of the imagination, a fan of N.A.M.I.’s. But I must say that the kind of systemwide /societywide disregard for the sanctity of patients’ lives which I ran into that night, is the kind of thing N.A.M.I. loves to sink their teeth into.
I do not understand why you want help from enemy. No one will listen to human being in psychiatric hospital, they are there to condemn, dehumanize. Empty nominalism and history of the fake illness in the place of psychological reality won’t help anyone except psychiatrists. Psychiatry is using psyche to their inhumane authoritarian rituals of condemnation.
Theological institution with roots in inquisitional darkness, is not a friend of psychological reality, because of strong connections between psyche and the death, and we should remember that normal people are far away from the most difficult parts of psyche. Those people are convenient materialists, they won’t believe in your psychological life, because they are there to condemn it and pray to mental health assumptions.
You, know, we all fight here in the name of those killed and evaluated by psychiatry.
No one will help psychological man in psychiatry, they will condemn him, because he is not normal.
And normalcy (apollonian ego) is their only god, the rest of psychological reality (death) does not exists for them.
Death for psychological apollonians begins and ends in the grave. (Think about it, before they send you there) This is strongly materialistic and psychopatic archetype. They confused psychological reality with brain illnesses for their own convenience.
And gods of apollonian ego are career money and power over psychological reality of others, those less privileged in apollonian inhumane, strongly material and psychopatic reality. They condemned and ridiculed psychological man, because they do not believe in psychological reality, they believe in their negation and false empiricism.
I am convinced that there should be places for death reality, for suicidal people, for those who are psychologically in death reality. AND I AM SURE THAT Apollonians (normal, egoic people, theological fundamentalists) should stay away from those people. Stay away kids, go to your schools to learn how to serve to inquisition and biological model of dehumanization, because you must have money to survive, and survival is so difficult for….. Hillman, Szasz, Whitaker, Breggin, Gotzsche, are not for impaired corrupted servants.
I tell you what, if someone can’t survive and he is psychologically in apollonian archetype (far away from death), he is lazy dumb and weak.
The only people who have right to have a “problem” with survival are those in death reality, because this is hard to bear reality The rest is simply lazy.
People in the shallowest psychological archetypes should stay away from psychological man.
Apollonian people cannot recognize psychological reality, they are psychologically beyond that reality. They are highly dangerous theological criminals who are using empty nominalism, inhumane ideologies and some pseudo medical rituals.
Normal people need psychiatric hospitals, prisoners, outcasts, because truth about psyche is too difficult for their simple convenient reality. Yes, I do hate apollonian fundamentalists.
People in depression cannot get out of the bed.
People in death reality, in agony, cannot stay in bed anymore.
I have one thing to say to apollonic psychiatry—- your negation will destroy you, sonner or later. You are the destroyers OF PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITY, and you will be destroyed BY PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITY.
James Hillman Re- Visionning psychology.
I believe in the greatness of human psyche, not in your fake and lame inhumane pseud science.
Psyche is not a science. Psyche is mythical reality, it begins in death reality (psychological hades) -autistics, schizophrenics, and ends in strongly materialistic shallow reality of apollonian ego – normal people, the least psychological people.
Apollonian ego is the simplest archetype, that simple archetype wants to take over all of the psychological reality, mostly because of theological negation.
Even depression is sth which is very easy, because ego remain intact by death reality, depression is also apollonic. In depression we see only the shadow of death.
People like Annelise Michel were psychologically in death reality, and this is reality in which ego has got absolutely nothing to say. Nothing.
You can not even imagine that LETHAL reality, far beyond ego control. Empaths can, it costs a lot.
Egoic psychiatrists cannot even compare themselves with empaths.
Psychiatry without proper image of the psyche means nothing. It is something which have destroyed and still is destroying the state. Apollonians, materialistic people destroyed psychological reality and have build up a reality which suits the needs of biological machines, not human beings.
Apollonians are obliged to show respect to the death reality, because they are in the simplest psychological archetype. Their psychopatic attitude toward the rest of psyche, can be seen as a form of mental handicap.
Science does not hold all the answers to life’s problems Psyche. I agree with you there. I’ve seen TED talks about managers who hire humanities majors to solve the tech company’s problems because STEM majors tend to be narrow minded and only thinking in the box. When it comes to getting people to work together or improve morale STEM experts have no advantage.
Anja, thank you so much for revealing your experiences. A close friend of mine has had similar experiences as you. She did not have suicidal tendencies, but the rest of your experiences, and your recounting of your psychosis, as well as your hospitalizations, hit very close to home.
Emergency Rooms won’t do Voluntary Commitment in my experience. My loved one had been put on a cocktail that had only bad effects on her already troubled state. We tried to get her back into the facility to correct through the ER. They denied her on several occasions over the years. The only way to get her into a facility is to go Involuntarily. Additionally, if you have ever called a crisis-care agency, you may here “call 911, now.” I have NEVER heard them say, get to the ER. Once you call 911, that is Involuntary Commitment.
As for the Mental Health System. . . a joke. It is also criminal in the sense that those seeking help and caregivers will look for help and the Mental Health professionals are supposed to have answers. Their answers, more medications that contribute to the reasons for commitment in the first place. It is rare that there is ever a medical rule-out when it comes to a DSM related Psychiatric, not medical, Diagnosis.
There is an ever mounting pile of research that “mental health” conditions are directly related to Traumatic events. These events can be of an acute nature, spiritual, prolonged and/or imagined. One must remember, it’s not that it actually happened. It is important that the individual perceived it happening and was unable to Cope, leaving the trauma unresolved. The unresolved hopelessness often manifests itself in Anxiety (fight or flee), leading to an inability to sleep and psychosis and/or mania.. . sound familiar?
I DO NOT promote stop taking your prescribed medication. The psychiatric medications have numerous side-effects, especially as your body withdraws. That’s when the side-effects pronounce the most. What I have researched to be a more commonsense approach to a situation such as yours, finding a good therapist that understands Trauma and can define real-world coping skills.
Of equal importance, a more routine lifestyle. Make time for sleep, keep track so you know when it’s too little. Make time for exercise . . .even walking will do. Get your heart rate up, your blood flowing. If you do stop taking medication, make sure you are under the care of a regular MD at the time that knows what you are suffering with. There are protocols for weening off psychiatric medications, although Psyche staffs don’t practice this. They cold turkey patients to solidify their conclusions that a patient “needs” the medications.
For Caregivers: I love a woman who has been hospitalized many times. She has never gone off her medication. She has followed all Psychiatric recommendations. Someone with little or no knowledge about the Mental/Behavioral health field would say she has not be medicated correctly. A psyche doctor would say she is “extremely ill.” The real world truth is that the system is INCAPABLE of providing the answers. . . anecdotal experiences of those suffering from crippling issues such as in this article, are the examples of the failures of the System. A system that us Caregivers unwittingly give credence to as they are Doctors.
One must remember that Doctors do not have the answers. Yes, they are needed in acute situations such as a broken leg or appendicitis, but for more chronic conditions, complimentary alternatives tend to be more successful. I am not a doctor, but this is my personal experience. I would consider those suffering from the issues described in the article as more chronic in nature. The truth is, answer lies within (addressing unresolved trauma), barring an actual medical reason, such as a diagnosed sleep disorder.
I hope my observations help someone. You are not alone on this path, you just need the correct guidance.
My primary care doctor started giving every patient a written questionnaire at the beginning of each visit, to screen for suicidality. It was the same basic questions you mention in your article. When their office sent me a feedback survey in the mail, I explained that these questionnaires don’t help prevent suicide. If you want your patients to tell you what’s going on in their emotional lives, you have to make a habit of listening to the patient every time they come in your office, I said. They stopped using the questionnaires and started making a point to connect personally with the patient at each visit. Yes! Progress!
Your experience with the system sounds horrible- and typical. For your information, SSRIs can cause mania in anyone- not just someone who has bipolar depression. They can CAUSE the tendency to mania. Who knows if you had any tendency toward mania before you took an SSRI. It’s not just that SSRIs are bad for people who have bipolar. They can CAUSE it.
I guess you learned the hard way, not to go off of psychiatric drugs quickly, or cold turkey. The safest way to go off of them is VERY slowly. A friend of mine went off of them safely and successfully, by taking about 2 years per drug, to gradually reduce the dosage. She gradually reduced the dosage of drug number 1, and over two years, reduced it to zero. Then she did the same with drug number 2. So it took 4 years to go off of two drugs. But it worked. No relapes, no withdrawal symptoms.
It’s understandable after your experience, that you don’t trust the system that’s purported to be there to help you. I don’t trust them either. For good reasons. WTF. I have found that it’s more successful not to expect them to be any good, and not to expect them to be helpful.
I seek out individual people who I can trust. I don’t trust the system in general. I rely mostly on self care and on good friends. Basic physical self care goes really far, especially for the problems that get classified as “bipolar.” I mean things like good nutrition (especially green vegetables for folate, magnesium, and B vitamins; omega 3 fatty acids, enough protein, and avoiding chemicals and simple sugars as much as possible), regular exercise (it doesn’t have to be high intensity or long, though it can be- mostly the consistency of doing something every day is what makes the most difference), a regular sleep cycle of sleeping enough and at the same times each night, and getting outdoors during daylight hours, go really far toward taking care of the brain biologically. Then there are your emotional needs, which are also very important. I took psychiatric drugs in the early 1990s. I found that consistency with these things made the drugs less and less needed, until eventually I didn’t need them. That doesn’t mean that will be true for everyone. Different things work for different people, and it’s fine to do what’s right for you. You have options of who you choose to work with and of what things you do or don’t do, to take care of yourself. Long term, you can do what you want; you don’t have to accept a choice someone else has made for you. Short term, it’s safest to make small changes, very slowly, starting with adding positive lifestyle changes. Whether you continue to take the psych drugs long term, is your choice, and it’s no one else’s business. If you do ever choose to go off of them, just do it very very gradually.
One of the tricky things about psych drugs is that their effects change over time. They can appear to work, and then years later, it becomes apparent that they’re causing problems. Mental health professionals have varying amounts of competence in helping with this.
I think Robert Whitaker’s “Anatomy of an Epidemic” is an excellent read, and so are Grace Jackson MD’s “Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs: A Guide for Informed Consent” and just about everything by Johanna Moncrieff, MD. The point is to fully inform yourself so that you can make the best possible choices for yourself in the future.
As for emotional needs, I might be unusual in this, but I don’t look for my emotional needs to be met by “peers.” I just find that there’s too much dysfunction and abuse in those settings. Nor do I rely on any organizations of any kind. I rely on friends who are actually my friends, where the friendship stands on its own and the person and I truly care about each other and there is no possible intermediary who could mess with it (such as a leader of an organization).
There’s a relationship between self care and friendship. If both people are taking good care of themselves, the friendship goes better, because neither person is asking the other to fill a hole that is caused by lack of basic care of oneself. It’s a balance. When people do “self care” in the form of “I don’t have time to spend on the friendship because I am too busy with self care,” that makes it pretty hard to be friends. Theres a middle ground where both people take good care of themselves and make time for each other.
In the early days when I was taking psychiatric drugs and then shortly after I went off of them, I relied a lot on the arts for my emotional life- especially music, and also dance. I sang, I played instruments, I danced- a lot. Arts were the main emotional outlet in my life. I got away from that later, and now I’m going back to it. It was very helpful to have an emotional outlet that wasn’t dependent on other people- that I could do by myself, sometimes, and share with others when they were available. Music is that.
A more recent development is that I found out I have celiac. Knowing that and taking care of it, has helped me a lot. There are many medical conditions that have mental-health effects.
Anja, since tapering off my drugs I no longer have mood swings or suicidal thoughts. (Sadly the brain damage is real. Very poor short term memory and executive function.)
In Anatomy of an Epidemic Robert Whitaker talks about SSRI drugs triggering “bipolar” mood swings. But he didn’t do research on people curing the roller coaster simply by getting off. I’m not the only person who succeeded–by any means. 🙂
I do not recommend going cold turkey. Slow and steady is best. I highly recommend Surviving Antidepressants. Not sure how long you have been on psych drugs. But IF you decide to go off a good rule of thumb is one year for every ten spent taking them. If you’ve been on your cocktail for a decade or less–give yourself a year to gently taper.
Dear Anja, Your story of the difficulties you have faced in obtaining appropriate “help” is compelling and meaningful. I don’t have faith in psychiatry as their only treatment is to label and drug, but I think there are still some good psychologists around. From my experience psychologists are more willing to look at what happened to you then what is wrong with you. But you have to find the right psychologist, it really has to be a good fit. You have probably seen this booklet recently made available on MIA and hopefully may find something in it that helps bring some sense of calm.
https://www.madinamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/BOOKLET-FINAL-PATHWAYS-TO-WELL-BEING-12-8-18.pdf
Take care, I really wish you well.
I agree with Rosalee. I am anti-psychiatry but believe good CAN come from counseling sessions between consenting adults. Of course the thing must be perceived as a partnership of equals. If the counseled person can’t fire the counselor it’s unequal and tends toward abuse.
Mindfreedom has a list of therapists/counselors/coaches not associated with psychiatry. I recommend Will Hall since I have had a few sessions with him. Nice guy and great listener!
Try googling Choice Theory Reality Therapy. Also William Glasser Institute. Counselors who subscribe to this school reject psychiatric labels or “remedies.”
If you want to flee the Mental Illness System avoid psycho-therapists who work for these community centers. They told me how hopeless, helpless and crazy I was for 20 years. My depression is gone now that I left this negativity disguised as therapy. If you have an SMI label they tend to be worse than useless with all their negative self-fulfilling prophecies.
If you’re not ready that’s okay too, Anja. I understand. Took me 4 years to make my escape. Scary as heck.
Anja, you have stockholm syndrome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
“Stockholm syndrome is a condition that causes hostages to develop a psychological alliance with their captors as a survival strategy during captivity. These alliances, resulting from a bond formed between captor and captives during intimate time spent together, are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims”
The abuses and neglect of the system are not unique to you, they are by design. Severe emotional neglect, gaslighting, pushing people to suicide, and denial of pain and abuse are guaranteed to keep happening to you if you keep associating yourself with the system. The idea that SSRIs “unveil inherent bipolar disorder” is pure and steaming bullshit- rather the toxic pills cause the symptoms labeled as such. Your feelings were ignored in favor of labeling you with a disease that no-one has ever shown to exist, and then milking you for cash and subjecting you to a roundup like a caged animal when you dared not worship the ground they walk on after you were smart and emotionally attuned to the fact that they never cared about you, what you were really going through, or what you were really saying. They are braindead, emotionally empty profiteers, you will never get empathy or attention from them. The purpose is to keep you enslaved, not help you. It is not your fault, but only you can take action to escape. If it is left up to them, they will never encourage you to put your own needs and safety first.
Hi Anja,
First off, thoughts in our heads are often just thoughts. The thoughts that come in response to distress are
ones that look for instant relief.
The brain does actually record and replay. There are no tricks but actively thinking, looking inside to see what things you enjoy, what kind of people you like to be around, is an idea.
I think more young people should sign up for wilderness/canoe trips, instead of going to a psychiatrist.
Some brains take longer to change and you are young.
When we look back 20 years later, we are different. It is quite an interesting trip. We are not even guaranteed to be happy, or the kind of happy we imagined.
But a guarantee you will be different.
If you feed your brain more goals, actual goals like a wilderness trip, it will appreciate it.
Look those up online, save up, put a down payment on it, and make it a reality. And if your goal goes awry, make another one.