Psychiatry Gave Me PTSD by Nicola Clare

Psychiatry gave me PTSD.
Psychiatry gave me PTSD
A silhouette now
Or a hologram
Wedged between sheets of sound
Proof, somehow
Shatter proof glass
Stuck
For an eternity; cast,
A mad ranting lunatic!
Labels glued so firmly that any passage of time is insufficient to reverse the grim reality of
‘Ah, she suffers with her nerves’ ‘has reduced capacity,,,,, functionality’
‘What, she’s dead? Ah yeah, the mental health sure!
The increased mortality’

Psychiatry gave me PTSD
A body adorned in scars
Designed within its grasp
No art without red
No gain without dread and
The painful hypnotic
Decline;
Into the clutches of
Anxiety, depression, bipolar, borderline.
Any former shine, scratched, as I stumbled, all
Time losing meaning, the line between fine and not fine
Erased; beneath the medicated shuffle. Cries to be heard an inaudible muffle
As I’m handed a couple more pills

Psychiatry gave me PTSD
A battle of wills
That killed any discourse or dialogue
Power imbalance
Tilted to monologue,
Orders, and instructions from the sane to the insane
The ordered to the
Post-Traumatic Stress Disordered.
Disordered?
Or a response to being engulfed in madness, dressed for weeks in pyjamas, repeatedly knocked down by, badness, and sadness!
Time for a fresh canvas!

Can you listen? Can you see?
My emotions and responses aren’t pathology!

***

From the author: What an inverted reality we live in where things are often the very opposite of what they seem. I entered the psychiatric system to get help with PTSD. It left me with a second bout!!!! That realization hit after a dream where I saw myself as a silhouette behind glass (heavy Perspex really). I was shouting truths but no-one could hear me. This piece attempts to give a voice to those stuck in that system.

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Thumb image credit: Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash