Book Review: “Opening Up: The Parenting Journey”
This is a book about stories, urging families to recognize their own strengths and create new narratives on the path ahead.
âFloss on the Wavesâ: My Sisterâs Journey
It takes a long time to recover from a psychotic episode, I understand now, and I wish someone had found a way, especially during those early years of her troubles, to give Rachel more space and time to find her own path to health.
Postpartum Anxiety, Psychiatric Drugs and Paternalism
My postpartum anxiety diagnosis became subsumed by an arbitrary diagnosis of depression. And this diagnosis has followed me for 30 years and counting.
The Sins of Conservatorship: Why Britney Spears Compared It to Slavery
For the last three years of my motherâs life, she was under absolute control of her conservator. If we dared to object to the neglect or abuse, retaliation was certain.
Garbage in, Garbage out: The Newest Cochrane Meta-Analysis of Depression Pills in Children
In May 2021, Cochrane published a network meta-analysis of depression pills for children. The abstract is misleading and reads like drug company marketing.
Why I Fight for Trauma-Informed Systems
I am not sure what was worse: being abused growing up while my community documentedâthen ignoredâmy torment, or being attacked for going public with my story.
So Long, Pill Mill: A Letter to My Former Patients and Their Families
I love being a psych nurse practitioner, and I never want to feel that my only role is pushing pills. The private practice I started is my effort to move away from this dysfunctional system.
Suicidality: When Your Feelings Are Too Dangerous
After finding a cop at my door, I learned it wasnât safe to talk about my feelings of wanting to die. As a result, I spent the better part of the next decade not telling anyone when I was suicidal.
When Homosexuality Was a “Disease”: My Story of Abuse
The horrors I was forced to undergo to âtreatâ my homosexuality are now unthinkable, but continue to raise questions about psychiatryâs ethics.
Making Mental Health an Ongoing Priority:Â A Patch Adams Approach
My brotherâs sudden death and Mental Health Awareness Month spurred me to spend May making small, very personal efforts to both honor his memory and move the mental health conversation forward.
The Worst Thing: How My Motherâs Death Pushed Me to Overcome OCD
The goal of creating a legacy for my mother required that I go beyond managing my symptoms to confronting my OCD at its roots. I had to fundamentally change my understanding of anxiety.
Boy, Interrupted: A Story of Akathisia
I watched my sonâs life change almost overnight. He developed akathisia from antidepressants, taken as prescribed for just a few weeks for garden-variety anxiety.
My Mother Wound: Rethinking “Fear of Abandonment”
Therapists are quick to refer to this pain I feel as a âfear of abandonment,â as if it is a figment of my mind and something not worth the time to attend to.
Bearing False Witness: Childhood Psychiatry, Trauma, and Memory
Through journaling, I realized that my lifelong confusion surrounding my memories of traumatic events was the direct result of the psychiatric labels and drugs I swallowed alongside years of parental abuse.
Someone I Used to Know
When I sit in Billieâs office, I am still 13 years old, bitter anger saturating my body. I am 23, sobbing that I cannot do this anymore. I am 24, celebrating my first year of college. I am all of these people and none of these people.
Childhood Trauma Is Not a Mental Illness
My childhood was stolen by systems focused on labeling and medicating me instead of healing the effects of abuse and neglect.
The Role of Love in Mental Health
The one core ingredient on which any recovery from emotional distress depends is the one that never makes an appearance in any medical handbook or psychiatric diagnostic manualâthat is, love.
A Nurseâs Nightmare: Child Nearly Dies from ADHD Drug
My hope and prayer is that this dramatic look at a negative effect of this class of drugs will help you understand that, in my professional assessment, their risks outweigh their benefits.
Now I See a Person: A New Model for Breaking Free of Mental Health...
NISAPI helps people achieve recovery by pairing the normalcy of a ranch and the nurturance of horses with a philosophy of postmodern collaborative practice.
To the Young Person Who Doesnât Identify with Their Disability Diagnosis Anymore
Your diagnosis should serve YOU. Not your parents, your doctors, your teachers, or the next door neighbor. We should be fighting for a future where the person being labeled has the ultimate say over how doctors and therapists view them.
Writing Is My Best Medicine
For me, writing is a powerful tool for wellness and healing, whether that involves an escape into science fiction or simply putting my dreams, emotions, memories, and observations on paper.
Four Children
I went to the childrenâs ward, to work with the kids. I remembered to tell all of them that I had been locked up my whole childhood on psych wards, and this always made them trust me.
Suicidal Thoughts, Psychiatric Diagnosis, and What Really Helps: Part Two
This piece is the second of a two-part essay about suicide, diagnosis, what doesn't help, and what does help. This part is about barriers to seeking help and about the ways we actually can be of help to people who are considering suicide.
Suicidal Thoughts, Psychiatric Diagnosis, and What Really Helps: Part One
This piece is the first of a two-part essay about suicide, diagnosis, what doesn't help, and what does help. This part is about suicide, diagnosis, and some of what fails to help.
CAUTION: Spin Ahead! There is No Evidence That Psychostimulants Reduce the Risk for Infection...
Debunking a recent study on ADHD and COVID-19: It suffers from a series of manipulations and spins that are inappropriate in scientific research that aspires to objectivity and that aims to reveal truths.