Unmedicated Clarity: How I Reclaimed My Voice After Psychiatry Silenced It

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I remember the moment the psychiatrist handed me the script. It was not a dramatic moment. No shouting, no crying. Just a quiet, firm assertion that if I didn’t take the medication, I would not get better. Paroxetine, 20 mg. “You’re highly anxious,” she said. “This will help regulate the serotonin levels in your brain. You’ll think more clearly.”

The irony? I was a counselor. A trauma-informed, art-based, deeply invested-in-people kind of counselor. I had trained for this. Believed in the body-mind-spirit connection. Supported others in processing grief, trauma, disconnection. Yet here I was, being told that what I felt, what I thought, what I knew to be true, was just chemistry. I was, in her eyes, a brain in imbalance.

I protested at first. I said I wanted to heal, not numb. I had explored the roots of the anxiety for years in therapy—from childhood abuse to unresolved grief—but was told this was something I would simply have to manage for the rest of my life. There was no talk of overcoming it, only of keeping it under control. I said I believed in neuroplasticity, in meaning-making, in connection. But I was tired. So tired. I had been fighting for so long to stay afloat while counseling others, managing family, and trying to survive my own trauma history. I was told this was the “therapeutic level” I needed to reach before therapy could even begin. And then the familiar script: “You wouldn’t deny insulin to a diabetic, would you?”

I swallowed the first pill reluctantly. The first few days were surreal. Side effects, yes. But more than that, a sense of unease in my spirit. Like I had just betrayed something sacred inside myself. My clarity. My knowing. My voice.

Over time, the fog set in. Not all at once. But slowly, almost imperceptibly. My thoughts became duller, my reactions slower, my feelings muted. I still painted, but the work lacked the depth and risk it once held. My journal entries flattened. My body felt foreign. I lost the wildness, the spark, the ability to cry freely or laugh uncontrollably. My clients noticed too. I withdrew from my practice, telling myself I needed a break, when in fact I no longer trusted my own intuition.

The most painful part? I started to believe the diagnosis. Maybe I was just broken. Maybe this was as good as it got.

But something inside me never stopped whispering. Something primal. Spirit-breathed. It came alive in the quiet hours, in the presence of trees, in the pull of the paintbrush across canvas. I began to question. Not loudly, not defiantly. Just gently. I asked: What if this isn’t the truth? What if this pill is a cage, not a cure?

The decision to taper was mine. No doctor encouraged it. In fact, I was warned. Told that the symptoms I experienced upon reducing the dosage would be “proof” that I needed to stay on it. But I had read enough by then. I had listened to stories. I had felt the flicker of my own soul returning. And I wanted out.

Withdrawal was brutal. The “brain zaps,” the vertigo, the emotional waves, the shallow breathing. I also experienced dissociation—like I was floating outside myself, watching from a distance as I moved through daily life. But alongside the suffering came moments of breathtaking clarity. My memory returned. My sense of humor. My voice. I painted again—bold, risky strokes. I cried deeply. I laughed till my stomach hurt. I found my feet on the earth, barefoot, breathing, remembering.

And I realized something terrifying and beautiful: I was never ill in the way they claimed. I was traumatized. I was grieving. I was carrying the weight of stories and wounds that had never been held with care.

Psychiatry never asked me about that. Not really. They didn’t ask about the abuse, or the medical gaslighting, or the years of survival. They asked if I had trouble sleeping, if I felt overwhelmed, if I had panic attacks. I said yes. They said, “chemical imbalance.”

I say now: trauma response.

My healing didn’t begin with that pill. It began the moment I stopped handing over my truth for someone else to interpret. It began when I chose to feel again—all of it. The raw, the real, the terrifying, the holy.

The day I left the psychiatric hospital, I signed myself out against medical advice. I remember standing by the window with my packed bag, waiting for my husband. The staff avoided my eyes. I wasn’t combative; I was simply done. My voice was quiet, but firm. I walked down the hallway with dignity, not as a defeated patient, but as a woman reclaiming her life. My husband opened the car door, and as I climbed in, I felt the weight of freedom settle in my chest. I was terrified. I was elated. And I was finally on my way home—not just physically, but to myself.

And now, I speak. Not as a victim, not as a rebel. But as a woman who reclaimed her knowing.

We need to rethink psychiatry. Not because it is all wrong. But because it is not enough. Because it often silences the very voices that hold the key to healing. Because it fears what it cannot quantify. Because it pathologizes pain rather than honoring it.

There is a place for science. For medicine. But there must also be room for mystery, for story, for the wisdom of the body and spirit. There must be room for the barefoot woman walking in the veld, weeping and laughing and finally, finally coming home.

My story is not over. But it is mine again.

And that is where the healing truly begins.

***

Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

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48 COMMENTS

  2. A really Beautiful story!!!!
    Please come discover another approach to trauma. Neurofeedback. I have been practucing this for 31 years and have walked the discontinuation path with many. Healing is possible, neuroplasticity is real. This is not the path of medication. Bandaids are only useful to allow the body to accomplish the healing pathways. Medications do not offer healing. Teaching your brain new pathways that help process differently do allow the work of the individual to heal.
    I celebrate your healing!!!!

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    • Thank you Joy! What a beautiful name. I have various practices in place that intentionally work at. Firstly my faith, talking it out with God. Then writing, art and exercise. When I do struggle, I do grounding work for immediate relief and my own, learn as i go version of neurofeedback. I am daily amazed at how my middle aged brain is still able to change old pathways! Thanks for the support.

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      • Thank you! I sponsor several women in AA and am also certified as a Peer Support Professional. I encourage them to re-examine their reliance on anti-depressants but, many don’t want to listen. They are numbed. It’s heartbreaking; I find it difficult to guide them to a spiritual awakening and many don’t achieve long-term recovery. Another point; were you drinking at all when you suffered from the anxiety? I’m finding with peers that even a little alcohol (a glass of wine or two) can cause profound anxiety. Alcohol is that powerful. Weed causes the same effect, too. Here in Colorado, ‘marijuana maintenance’ is common but the weed causes psychosis!

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    • Yes, wisdom is important, but paired with a certain amount of bravery, knowing that I am swimming upstream with my views. But what can they do to me now? Criticize me, judge me, push me away? None of those responses can affect my life anymore. They are free to live their lives and so am I.

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        • In South Africa it is much the same. You automatically submit to the experts and people like us are marginalised for swimming upstream. I might seem brave but I am merely fed up enough to not care about the backlash. What can they do to me? Force me to buy their medications? It’s actually very simple. Once you have survived coming off the meds, you need to simply start taking care of yourself. Become well, not to prove anything, but because you are doing it for yourself. There are other people much more clever than I am with the right credentials whose voices carry more weight. But ours need to be heard as well. Even if it is just in your inner circle. It causes a ripple that can change the world.

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          • There are laws in United States that allow people to be force-medicated, and awful things can happen to people just for calling a suicide prevention hotline. Operators are trained to notify police who show
            up unannounced at your doorstep, and you may dragged off to a psych ward where you’re forcibly injected with neuroleptics. The same thing can happen after seeing a therapist. That’s why it pays to be cautious in a world where people with the ‘right’ credentials wield “diagnoses” like weapons.

            I think people are finally realizing that the mental health system does not have their best interests at heart.

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    • This is my view. The spirit is eternal. It is the part of us that is constantly searching for meaning. That asks the big questions. Why am I here? What is the meaning of pain? And we are not powerless. We can choose to reclaim and honor that voice. For those who feel helped by the drugs, that is their choice. Mine and yours are to take a different path. May you find answers to your why’s as well.

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        • I agree. I was coerced. And pressured. Maybe this way is all they know, all they have been trained to do. When I counsel people, I also have a certain mindset and methodology which I bring into that space. And I am also accountable for how I handle other people’s emotions. But, yes, there is a line and in my case it was definitely crossed.

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          • FACT: Psychiatry rarely holds itself accountable for anything bad that happens. You, on the other hand, are nothing like that.

            P.S. There’s no shame in taking a hard line — especially when accountability is at stake. Sometimes it’s the only way forward.

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  6. Thankfully and at last, people are beginning to find that they can take back their lives and find answers beyond the world of scientism. We need to realize that the medical model has no place in the metaphysical dimension–the soul cannot be “fixed” using medical intervention. It is my hope that, like you Trudie, we may understand that the way to healing is through a true connection to Spirit. (This does not necessarily mean a religious way nor is it the New Age system, although we may see some connections in both.) What I see it as, is more of a deep personal journey to discover oneself. I applaud your courage!

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    • In my experience, true. I do wonder though about people with schizophrenia and the like. I’m not qualified to speak for their suffering. But, it stands to reason that there is a possible principle that no chemical substance can be good for anyone’s brain? I dare to venture my opinion that it’s not.

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      • Dear Trudie,

        The term “people with schizophrenia” is incorrect. There are no biological tests or scans that can confirm any of the 297 ‘diagnoses’ in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Greenberg, G., Burstow, B. et al).

        Kind regards,

        Cat

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        • Not my of expertise but…If my diagnosis was based off of symptoms only (no objective testing) it stands to reason that other labels are just that. When I counsel a hurting soul, my training leads me to traditional boxes to try and understand. I have to fight through that to get to seeing just the person and sit with them in their pain. Just as I didn’t like being labelled, medicated and dismissed, my clients also deserve to be seen as people, no lables needed.

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      • That was a beautiful story. I truly appreciate you sharing it. Im very happy for you.
        Might as well be a fairy tale for me tho. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1984. After a doctor gave me a drug without knowing me. Before I met him I was depressed. Period. Not that that is a small thing. I had an abusive home life. I was truly suffering. But I had a paradoxical reaction to the drug and since all he had ever seen was the effects of that drug, which granted were extreme, he labeled me schizophrenic and gave me more drugs. When the additional drugs caused more psych symptoms, he labeled me treatment resistant, kept me on the drugs and gave me 50 shock treatments over the next 5 years and institutionalized me in a cycle of inpatient and outpatient for 40 years. Every time I politely said no, I was restrained and force injected. I was born & live in the USA—a free country (ha ha ha)
        I escaped the psychiatric system (literally & figuratively) 3 years ago at age 56. I am now living my life, tip toeing around, so the DRs don’t have an excuse to bring me back to their fold. I have a nervous system/brain injury—Unable to work but trying to care for myself & my elderly sick mother even tho I’m in chronic pain & sick as a dog 24/7. The injury that 50 electrical injuries, 40 years on a drug cocktail and the abrupt withdrawal of the drugs caused. Rethinking psychiatry — sounds like a great idea. A better one? LEAVING IT TO ROT!

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        • The reality, however Blu, is that since all doctors are taught in med school – including the psychiatrists – that the antidepressants and antipsychotics can create “psychosis,” via anticholinergic toxidrome, your adverse reactions to the psych drugs was not likely “paradoxical.” Not the mention the antipsychotics can also create the negative symptoms of “schizophrenia,” via neuroleptic induced deficit syndrome.

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  9. Thanks for sharing Trudie. I was intrigued when I saw you are a South African. I am too. I have just tapered off a large dose of psychiatric medications. It took five months and it was the worst five months of my life. I did it all on my own because of the willful blindness of the psychiatric profession in this country. My psychiatrist was completely disinterested in the symptoms I experienced and if I had followed his tapering schedule I doubt I would have survived. Seventeen years on these terrible drugs but now I am free. I want to speak out about the terrible injustice innocent and trusting people are exposed to by the arrogant and ignorant so called psychiatric professionals. It is time for a Mad in South Africa I think.

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    • Yes brother! Let’s do something. I’m one week fully “clean” and after months of withdrawal I still spent my morning today doing somatic exercises, breathing work, yoga stretches, singing out loud, painting and talking to loved ones. All because I was floating outside of my body and was desperate to get back in. Before I used the meds, I never had any such symptoms. My “diagnosis” is C-PTSD and Generalized anxiety disorder. I choose to discard those labels now and see myself as someone who has been traumatised and on the way to recovery. Well done, Chris. Withdrawals are brutal and 17 years? Unimaginable. Feel free to contact me.

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  10. The psych “professions” do like to silence their clients. I had to leave my former psychiatrist once I realized he had very literally declared my entire life to be “a credible fictional story” in his medical records, as if I would believe his delusions.

    Decades after I left that nut job psychiatrist, I was attacked by a psychologist, in a church, who tried to gaslight me into signing a thievery contract. Of course I didn’t sign it. But apparently my art work was “too truthful” for him, at least according to recovered emails I found, after learning this “creepy” psychologist, had been hacking into my computer for years.

    And, yes, covering up child abuse is the number one actual societal function of the psych industries, and it’s all by design, according to their debunked DSM.

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-child-does-not-have-bipolar-disorder/201402/dsm-5-and-child-neglect-and-abuse-1

    Thank you for sharing your story, Trudie. And God bless you on your healing journey.

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    • Thank you for your message—and for your courage in sharing such painful and deeply personal experiences. I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through. It’s horrifying when those in positions of trust not only fail us but actively cause harm. No one should have their truth dismissed or be violated in such invasive ways.

      I do believe that art—especially honest art—can be incredibly threatening to systems that rely on control and silence. So when your work was deemed “too truthful,” it sounds like it was doing exactly what powerful art is meant to do: speak what others try to bury.

      While our experiences differ, I deeply resonate with the feeling of being discredited and shut down. That’s part of why I shared my story—because I believe these harmful dynamics need to be exposed and challenged if we’re ever going to see real change.

      Thank you for your blessing. I return it with sincerity, and I hope your voice and your art continue to be sources of strength and truth..

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  12. Dear Trudie,

    Thank you for sharing your narrative illuminating the cult of psychiatry. Unfortunately, your portrayal is frustratingly customary: diagnosis, drugs, disablement and detainment.

    Your assertion that “We need to rethink psychiatry. Not because it is all wrong” is erroneous. How can unsubstantiated diagnoses, neurotoxic drugs, involuntary incarceration, restraint, electricity-induced seizures, and the violation of internationally ratified human rights laws be anything short of “all wrong”?

    Kind regards,

    Cat

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  13. So moving… thank you!
    “And now, I speak. Not as a victim, not as a rebel. But as a woman who reclaimed her knowing.

    We need to rethink psychiatry. Not because it is all wrong. But because it is not enough. Because it often silences the very voices that hold the key to healing. Because it fears what it cannot quantify. Because it pathologizes pain rather than honoring it.

    There is a place for science. For medicine. But there must also be room for mystery, for story, for the wisdom of the body and spirit. There must be room for the barefoot woman walking in the veld, weeping and laughing and finally, finally coming home.

    My story is not over. But it is mine again.

    And that is where the healing truly begins.”

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  16. Well they need to keep up drug prices and use propaganda to convince people to take them.

    “In the first quarter of the year, Big Pharma’s top lobbying group spent a record-breaking $12.9 million on federal lobbying.”

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