From Mad in Ireland: As a voice-hearer of 30 years â and 27 years as a user/survivor of psychiatry â I could say, like Stephen Fry did this week, that âpsychiatry saved meâ. But I could also say that it failed me miserably. After five months in a psychiatric unit 27 years ago in Ireland I was very physically debilitated; that was after receiving I donât know how many bouts of electroconvulsive therapy and drugs like chlorpromazine and haloperidol. The initial phase of my treatment- five months inpatient -was a deathlike experience. I am still harrowed by those âtreatmentsâ. Yes they stopped the voices and visions â which were a comfortable place to be to me, and a âcoping mechanismâ as R.D. Laing â the famous Scottish psychiatrist, said, but in which I was sometimes wretched and overall very vulnerable.
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