A Manner of Speaking
A cinematic prose poem that uses metaphor and symbol to capture the essence of experiences for which there are no words.
Community, Ethics, and Healing Amidst the Great Unraveling
If our treatment is only aligned with the individualist reductionist model, we are unwittingly contributing to destruction.
When Repair Doesnât Come: A Trauma Survivor Reflects on a Rupture With Her Therapist
I spent years in therapy slowly learning how to feel safe with another human being. But then came the rupture.
Reflections on My Mistrust for Other Mental Health Workers
I learned to hold my tongue around mental health workers. I dealt with their slurs by working harder and longer than them.
Are We Sober Yet?
I asked my psychiatrist if the Lexapro could be making it harder for me to stop drinking. He laughed and assured me that it was impossible.
Trauma Survivors Speak Out Against Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
Despite the majority of the individuals being sent to DBT having histories of severe childhood trauma, little about DBT treatment is âtrauma-informed.â
Two Years Later: My TMS Story, From Gaslighting to Finding My Voice
This didnât feel like a temporary adjustment phase. It felt like my brain was glitching.
AntipsychoticsâAnd How Iâve Learned to Manage the Side Effects
While suppressing pathological symptoms, drugs also suppress the normal instinct of "wanting to move" and "wanting to enjoy life".
They Called It Psychiatry â I Call It Punishment
I was fighting something far more dangerous than madness â I was fighting a culture of fear and suppression masquerading as mental health care.
Conceptual Synaesthesia as Cognitive Literacy   Â
I donât just feel things; I translate them. For those of us who experience it, it is not a novelty. It is a structure for thinking.
“Please Be Normal!” My Experience Working for NAMI
At my job with a NAMI affiliate, I heard daily from people who looked at family members with âmental illnessâ as non-people, non-human, the âother.â In the office, it was no different. If NAMI had a tagline, it would be âPlease be normal like us.â
Blindsided by Benzos: Had I Known
Doctors are not disclosing the harrowing truth that discontinuing these medications can plunge patients into relentless mental and physical torment.
From Wonder Drug to Catastrophe: My Seroquel Story
What my doctor had told me would be a two-week withdrawal from Seroquel turned into a 14-month nightmare with lasting repercussions: the movement disorder tardive dyskinesia.
The Report That Erased Me: How Misdiagnosis and Neglect Delayed My Healing
What looks like defiance is often a child screaming: "I don't know how to trust you, prove me wrong."
Against the Odds: âUnimproved Schizophrenicâ to Yale PhD
Forty years after I had first been admitted to the hospital, I was ready to confront my past. So, I sent for my hospital records, and I read them. As an experienced clinician, I recognized immediately what the doctors hadnât been able to see in 1960: my problem wasnât âschizophreniaâ but PTSD, connected with incest.
The Death of Joey Marino
There needs to be more informed consent with these medications. If Joey was more aware of the potential side effects at the very beginning, I feel he would still be here today.
Tortured by the Mental Health System Due to Misdiagnosis of Schizophrenia
The police think my non-existent "schizophrenia" makes me a danger to the community. If I don't show up for my injections I'm subject to police arrest and kidnapping from my home.
On Not Becoming David Foster Wallace
I didn't know Wallace was a poster boy for antidepressant withdrawal because I didn't know that antidepressant withdrawal was common, or that I would be experiencing it myself.
Two Voices and One Chair
Itâs a war between two voices. The writerâs voice shapes, composes, imagines. The traumaâs voice: raw, insistent, unfiltered, breaking in.
Elizabeth Loftus, False Memories and the Search for My True Self
A cautionary tale about the largely unconscious need for power and dominance that mental health clinicians have over patientsâ narratives, especially for children and adolescents.
The Pill That Stays After the Panic Ends
We need to stop expecting pills to do the work that only truth, connection, and expression can do. Relief is not the same as recovery.
The Betrayal of Professionals with Lived Experience
I know that being âoutâ at work could help challenge stereotypes and reduce stigma but I hide. I have that luxury.
The Whispered Rules of Belonging: How Counseling Education Tried to Silence Me
I started to understand that I wasnât just being trained in therapeutic skills. I was being trained to conform.
The Degrees on the Wall
The therapists who helped me most werenât the ones who dazzled with their knowledge. They were the ones who made me feel less alone.
Akathisia After a Five-Year Taper: Chained to an Antidepressant Forever
I have been on Cymbalta for 17 years now and am gutted that my five-year taper did not free me of the drug.
