Personal Stories

Why am I whole when I dance and paint but deathly ill when faced by a European/American medical mechanic? Why was I locked in a room for a week in the first place? Was it to heal? Or was it to fill a bed?

Imagine for a moment that you had a sleepwalking episode in which you tried to commit suicide.  When you awaken you are in a hospital bed, having no idea where or even who you are nor how you got there. Then someone who loves you tells you that you tried to take your own life. 

To this day I do not know how I found my way back. I think it might’ve had something to do with willpower, as I was NOT going to lose myself. I was NOT going to end up like those people who were living indefinitely in the hospital—those “chronic schizophrenics”, as they say. I was going to find my way back, back to myself.

Hospitalized for "grandiose delusions," I began to wonder: Was my dis-orientation really just a sickness? Or in "treating" it, was I missing a powerful re-orientation toward healing old wounds?

I still believe I was Anne Frank in my past life, and nothing is wrong with such a belief. I am no longer Buddha, though, because they crashed my spiritual awakening when it was happening. But I go on. I deserve to be happy. I have a family to think of, I want to contribute to society on some level. I want to live. They won’t crash me. Or so I hope.

When I was born, everyone was expecting me to have arms. The doctor's mind raced; how am I going to tell this mother and the father that their son has hands but not arms? If he's missing so much in his extremities, mustn’t he also be missing a mind? My mom looked into my eyes and knew - in a way that only mothers know - that I had a mind, and spirit.

Only two hours after we got home, Dan fearlessly told me of the suicide plan that he'd devised while in the hospital. He had all that time to think about it while nobody was listening. He'd lost his dignity, his identity and his place in society. He had lost the will to live.

With nothing left to lose, I’d reached the point at which I had to make a choice: to fight, or to give up. Though things seemed to not be going my way, I decided to take back control and make drastic changes in hopes to survive. That’s when yoga, meditation and nutrition came into my life, but first, I had to find a doctor to help me get off the medication I was currently on.

I remember clearly thinking, “I’m done. I’m not putting myself through this again.” I wasn’t going to settle for the side effects of a marginally better than placebo treatment again. Here is a brief look into my rollercoaster journey of recovery, returning to work, having my trauma re-triggered, finding a way through, and finally living well.

I’ve often been told I shouldn’t have kids because I’m “bipolar.” But since my twins’ birth, I’ve been way more stable than I thought I would be, and I’ve found what I’ve always been looking for.

Imagine going to the airport to travel to London, only to find yourself locked in a high-security psychiatric ward a few hours later, paralyzed by psychoactive drugs and deprived of all your belongings. This happened to me, and you will be shocked to learn how easily it could happen to you.

Suddenly I had an insight into why my dad decided to end his life in 1976. I learned that, like me, he was on antidepressant medication. It seems highly likely that his illness could have been entirely caused by side effects of medication, just like it was with me.

My personal and professional experiences have taught me that the only way to address mental health is holistically. If you are struggling with anxiety or depression, I believe it is necessary to attend to all of your bodies—physical, mental, emotional and spiritual—in order to achieve wellness.

I am here today because I didn't take the psychotropic medication I was prescribed. Because I didn't accept someone else's narrative about MY story. Because I listened to my voices. Because I let them guide me— into the underworld, and back.

And so I embarked on the darkest journey of my life, one for which neither I nor my husband were prepared. I soon found out that there was no one who could help us. The psychiatrists, even the more sympathetic ones, were not making sense to me. I was coming from the business world and I was not used to accepting superficial answers. They could not tell me what was wrong with Helia and why this had happened to her. They could not answer my challenging questions about the scientific research in the field.

A simple, one-time visit to an unfamiliar counselor resulted in my diagnosis of ADHD. That same visit started my avalanche of drug abuse. I was 19 years old when I was falsely diagnosed with ADHD, and it forever changed my life.

I slowly recognized that I wanted to fight every single person who used language based on their learned beliefs about “mental illness.” They didn’t know any better—so why did I feel so angry?

Upon my release I was dumped at a motel with no ID, no money or method of payment, and not even a cell phone to call friends or family for help. My belongings were still locked in a safe back at the hospital. Where are the real advocates for more low-income housing, and where the hell have they been for those who are incarcerated, whether it be in jails and prisons or mental facilities?

My therapist and I jointly made the decision to wean me off of the drugs. In the beginning, it was a very scary process for me. Since I had twice gone off medications on my own, I knew how bad it could get. The good news is, I am alive. I feel alive, and I now have emotions, both good and bad. I am very grateful to have all of them.

We have all become assembly line workers in the factory of mental health. At the facility, I put in at least 50 hours and live with a constant dread of not having clicked a button, of not having made another phone call, of overlooking the sadness in someone’s eyes. The risk of burnout or empathy fatigue is high, yet the machine hums along.

In searching for answers as to what went wrong with my treatment, my family and I discovered that there is already much scientific evidence demonstrating the dangers of antipsychotic medications and why they should not be used to treat illnesses such as Tourette Syndrome.

My doctor estimates that I have less than a year to live. I do not want my life to end as it began, with trauma, pain and dehumanization. I would like dignity and compassion in my final days.

Without doubt, Extended Leave profoundly curtails one's freedoms and rights, and the threshold for what is deemed “unacceptable” behaviour is invariably lowered. My only crime was being offensive towards an ACT team member. It seems that the goal I am now reduced to fighting for is merely the right to be rude in my own home.

Psychotherapy (I’m still searching for a better term, since the word ‘therapy’ involves thinking that there is sickness somewhere) is not about knowing everything. It’s about humanity, doubts and uncertainty. It’s about reaching out and reaching in, authenticity and honesty. It’s the most demanding thing I have ever done, because I’ve fully involved myself in this work; I use my own feelings, scratch away at my existential issues and try to care as deeply as I can for people who choose to enter my office. Sometimes, I know exactly what helps and what doesn’t. Sometimes, I have no idea. In a very odd way, it’s the most professional attitude I can think of. But it is also the lonely way.

For psychiatric ‘help’ to happen by force is a paradox and makes absolutely no sense. It can destroy people's personality and self-confidence. It can lead, in the long run, to physical and psychological disability. My dear daughter Luise got caught in this ‘helping system’ by mistake, but she didn't make it out alive. I'm sad to say I later discovered that the way Luise was treated was more the rule than the exception.