Put Psyche Back Into Psychiatry and Add Psychological Intimacy
Dr. Jones spoke to me in a way no doctor ever had. His affect, his demeanor, his presence, lit an ember in the darkness within my soul.
Death in a Bottle: My 24-Year Battle with Benzodiazepines
I’m not even taking Klonopin because it helps me. I’m taking Klonopin so I don’t go through withdrawal from Klonopin. That’s the trap.
Life on the Ledge
When images of myself climbing over the Golden Gate Bridge’s unmistakable red railing appear on the screen, questions shoot through my mind: Where did this footage come from? Why is it on TV?
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 patients’ narratives, especially for children and adolescents.
How the Internet Helped Save My Mental Health
My experience has shown me that if you have enough pain in your life, you will look anywhere for the truth, even if this truth goes against what the medical system is telling you.
Searching for Zen and Finding a Cow
If I had a clinical problem, why was something as ancient and simple as meditation helping me? And if normal positive human habits could be so profoundly useful, why the heck was the field marketing pills and “clinical” coping mechanisms to me instead? This frustration helped me jump ship from the medical mindset and hop into the world of humanity.
Systematic Failure
This is the story of a life in turmoil, my failings and those of the systems meant to help such persons.
Psychic Gardening and Walking the Sensitive Path
I learned that trying to fight, ignore, push away what I was dealing with was not working. I had to face it, accept it, work out what it had come to teach me and then work out how to set it free.
Two Years Later: My TMS Story, From Gaslighting to Finding My Voice
This didn’t feel like a temporary adjustment phase. It felt like my brain was glitching.
A Secret No Longer
My psychiatrist/therapist was able to give me a true understanding into what addiction and psychosis really are and how they can be treated with little or no medication. I still struggle, but I have been able to manage my symptoms with the help of ACT therapy, exercise, "forest bathing," storytelling, music and art. I am now able to feel a sense of peaceful fulfillment, and that is all anyone can really ask for.
Green Star Mother Demands Answers from VA Secretary
If the Veterans Administration is sincere in wanting to reduce veteran suicides, the first place to start is to collect information following these deaths to try to better understand the causes.
Backing Away from Psychiatry
I believe now that fifteen years is more than a fair try. Fifteen years of getting treatment without returning to function is actually insanity. I should have given up after year two. Instead of trusting my intuition and insight, I pushed it down and down... until it finally fought its way back to the surface.
The Healing Power of Tea
Tea is my weapon of choice for battling anxiety and depression. But its true power comes from the people behind the cup. Tea is merely the drink that brings us together.
Trauma in a Place Where Peace Should Be
It should have been safe and healing for me in the hospital. Instead, it was like being at home with my stepfather: I was abused and invisible, just trying to protect myself.
Falling Through the Cracks
I am an award-winning singer/songwriter with a number one record to my credit. I also owned several small businesses and founded a 501c3 non-profit for women's health. I ate healthy, swam and cycled every day and had a very active lifestyle. This was before benzos came into my life.
Chasing that Elusive Insight
The psychiatric concept of insight rests on the assumption that the psychiatrist, designated sane, knows what’s best. But if we question that assumption and consider that the medical model of mental illness may be incorrect, then the question of which party actually possesses insight becomes less clear.
“Peers,” Therapeutic Harm, and Buddhist Forgiveness
I'd like to be peers with anyone struggling against persecution, anyone struggling toward the promise of dignity and respect for marginalized communities, for freaks and weirdos. To fit the diversity of our experiences, maybe our definitions need to be as flexible and individual as we are.
“Floss on the Waves”: My Sister’s 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.
Admission: A Story of Solidarity and Survival
I survived not because I received excellent care from the staff on the ward. On the contrary, the treatment was objectifying and cold. It’s not surprising that many end up in suicide behind locked doors. I survived because I felt, however fleetingly, my experiences mirrored by others.
Hospitalized and Heading Toward Homelessness
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?
Letter From Israel
Here in Israel we are assigned to only one hospital according to our address — there is no freedom of choice. Why is the choice of psychiatric institution so important and urgent? Because conditions in psychiatric hospitals are often unbearable. We believe that if people have a right to choose, the worst hospitals will have to improve.
Instrument of the Machine No More
Early in my social work career, I truly believed that medication and forced confinement helped heal “mental illness.” Then an abrupt awakening completely altered my worldview.
Training Days: Surthriving an Execution, Antidepressants, then Myself — A Cop’s Tale
Recovery from PTSD and from all the drugs I was prescribed was a journey filled with ups and downs, setbacks, and breakthroughs.
Creativity and COVID: Art-Making During the Pandemic
The pandemic lockdown last year afforded me a precious gift of time to explore my creative spirit, and that, in turn, gave me a powerful way to cope.
Manic and Mistreated
I was shaking and crying as I told a stranger everything about my life, and they looked at me like I was a criminal. Like I was crazy. I started to think maybe I was.
