Leaving Psychiatry: Two Weeks In, 10 Years to Exit

It was a sunny day in September. I stared through a narrow window at lush green trees from the inpatient psychiatric unit on the third floor of Evanston Hospital. A week-long alcohol bender during new student week at my university, combined with sleep deprivation, had resulted in a psychotic episode. Days earlier, I felt on top of the world. But as I looked through that window, it felt as if the party had ended.

Unfortunately, this was not my first involuntary hospitalization. Roughly one year prior, I experienced a manic episode as I entered my freshman year of college. At the time, I was unaware that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) could induce mania in a subset of the population. During my senior year of high school, I was prescribed the drug to cope with anxiety stemming from final exams, however, I didn’t end up starting the medication until the end of the summer.

After I was discharged from that first hospitalization, my father and I stopped at CVS Pharmacy in downtown Evanston to pick up my prescription for Abilify, an “atypical” antipsychotic. As we walked toward campus, a friend whom I had met during a pre-orientation program waved hi and wished me a happy birthday. I had turned nineteen years old a couple of days prior.

Upon returning to campus, I spiraled into a deep depression. The freedom I experienced as I entered college quickly faded, and I struggled to tolerate the side effects of the medication. Intense restlessness made it excruciating to sit through lectures or dinner with family and friends. Brain fog and lethargy severely impaired my ability to keep up with academic demands. I slept upwards of 14 hours a day, self-medicating with drugs and alcohol in the few hours I was awake. I felt trapped in my own misery and disconnected from my peers.

To my great fortune, I received permission from my psychiatrist to taper off the antipsychotic over the course of the school year. I began to feel like myself again, and for about six months, I was symptom-free. After freshman week of my sophomore year, however, I experienced a second manic episode that landed me in the psychiatric unit at Evanston Hospital.

As I stared out that narrow window on the third floor, I didn’t want the high to end. I refused to take medication, dreading the depression I had faced the year prior.

“Don’t worry about a thing, ’cause every little thing gonna be alright.”

I loudly sang the words to “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley as a group of nurses in white scrubs ambushed me in my room. Using brown leather straps, they restrained me to the small hospital bed due to the perceived disruption. As I flailed and screamed, a man wearing thin, round glasses injected my right buttock with a syringe filled with Haldol, a powerful tranquilizing drug. When I woke up hours later, I was greeted by Dr. M, the chief psychiatrist. In a moment of desperation, I pleaded with her resident with a distraught look on my face. My request to not take medication was met with silence.

After returning to campus from medical leave that winter, my parents and I met with Dr. S, the school psychologist. I sat quietly as they chatted. According to conventional psychiatry, a second manic episode confirmed the diagnosis of “bipolar 1” I had received a year prior, and the factors that precipitated these episodes were either dismissed or ignored; I was destined to a life of medication.

While I struggled to accept this prognosis, I eventually resigned to my fate. And after four and a half years, I managed to scrape together enough credits to graduate. The debilitating migraines I began experiencing in college followed me into my professional life. I became isolated, spending the next decade on a rotating mix of psych drugs, including Lithium, Olanzapine, Trazodone, and Seroquel.

In a moment of resolve—at the age of 27—I flushed my marijuana stash down the toilet before flying out to South Carolina to visit my family for Easter weekend. While at a buffet that Saturday, I took my last sip of a mint mojito from a frosted plastic cup as I watched the sun descend over the marsh. I was done with drugs and alcohol.

I struggled to keep up with my 12-step peers during those early years of sobriety. Although I spent much of my energy searching for a medication “cocktail” that would offer relief, any benefits I encountered were extremely short-lived. Unable to tolerate the demands of the Chicago corporate life, I left my marketing job of three years to pursue a career in the counseling field.

By 2020, I had gained nearly 65 pounds since my early 20s from a combination of poor lifestyle habits and the side effects of the psychiatric drugs. At the time, I was living in the Bridgeport neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago and running an outpatient substance use treatment program at a nearby safety net hospital. A friend I had met through Alcoholics Anonymous suggested that I try a ketogenic diet to lose weight. To my surprise, I started feeling better both physically and mentally, and the migraines that had dominated my life began to subside.

As the summer of 2021 came to an end, I came across a book called Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker through a personal blog on bipolar disorder. An exposé of psychiatry’s questionable past, the book offered personal stories that validated my experience and evidence that confirmed my suspicions about mental health treatment in the U.S. I once again found myself grappling with the idea of coming off medication.

At roughly two and a half years sober, I had made up my mind. And with permission from my psychiatrist, I tapered off seven drugs over the next two years. I experienced numerous debilitating withdrawal effects during this period, including anxiety, insomnia, physical pain, and agitation, which led me to question whether I would ever feel okay again. Three weeks after I took my last quarter tablet of a mood stabilizer, I began a master’s program in social work at the University of Chicago.

While walking to class that spring, I noticed the leaves glisten as the sun touched the trees. A warm breeze hit my face, and I was calmed by the rustling of the leaves. I felt connected to the world in a way I hadn’t while on medication. But the serenity I experienced in that moment was quickly replaced with dread. Due to those manic highs and subsequent hospitalizations I’d experienced during undergrad, I had become conditioned to fear joy.

Fortunately, a lot has changed over the last few years; with time, my body is healing, and I’m slowly learning how to feel my emotions. While I’m immensely grateful for the progress I’ve made, I can’t help but think about the thousands of individuals across the country who are entering our broken mental health system for the first time. As a result of my journey, I strive to help others develop the tools that I lacked. I was only hospitalized for two weeks, but it took me over 10 years to exit. I wonder what could have been done to shorten my psychiatric stay.