I Was God: And You Were A Figment Of My Imagination
The drugs combined with my desire to know how life worked and what made a human broke down all past social conditioning of my individual self. I realized I was God. So was everyone else and I shared with anyone who would listen, but found no one who could understand or navigate the territory. There was little internet to speak of then and no Google to find others who experienced life as I was, so I voyaged on my own as best I could.
My Ativan Affair and the Aftermath
My sincere message to those whose vitality and lives have been sapped and zapped by this iatrogenic dis-order: most of us DO recover! And even if it is not without some benzo remnants lodged in our cellular memory, what we learn about our own resilience will guide us to places in our lives we didn't expect to reach. HOPE was my key through the arduous path of withdrawal and recovery.
The Monster in Our House: What Psychiatric Medication Did to My Father
When we eliminated his last psychotropic prescription, it was as if my father came back from the dead. All of the monster-like qualities that we thought were severe symptoms of his dementia have practically disappeared. We’ve found ourselves questioning whether he has dementia at all.
Ambushed by Antidepressants for 30 Years
They helped me function for a while, but the debilitating side effects of antidepressants held me prisoner. I'm still having a hard time understanding how this could have happened. It's been suggested to me by a therapist that what I'm going through now is another kind of PTSD: the ongoing trauma of realizing what antidepressants did to me for 30 years.
Psychedelic Therapy Will Not Save Us
For women survivors of sexual or physical trauma, MDMA should be used judiciously. Or maybe it shouldn’t be used at all.
Becoming the Trauma-Informed Trainer I Needed
It was my experience, which I later found was supported by research, that exercise had the power to help me heal, but it also had the potential to exacerbate my trauma symptoms.
Peer Behind the Mask of My Smile
Inside the hospital, I was a social butterfly and knew practically everyone on my wing, but at home, I was a nobody and a loner. If only I had the energy to fake it one hundred percent of the time, then nobody would suspect a thing.
Child Abuse and Psychosis: My Healing Journey
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?
“Gravely Disabled” — How I Narrowly Escaped a Conservatorship
"What’s going on? Is the idea for me to live in a locked facility forever?” A silent wail of despair wells up inside me. What’s happening to my life?
Called by God: Dealing With Depression and Psychosis
God supported me during my psychosis. I was afraid that I would lose God when I took antipsychotics again. That had happened after my first forced medication.
What I Learned as a Moderator for an Antidepressant Taper Support Group
Medication support groups are saving lives and brains because doctors do not know how to safely taper off psych meds.
Trapped
Back in 1983, I put myself in a mental ward. I desperately wanted help with my eating disorder, but no one took these types of problems seriously back then. The ward was rather nice, so I returned many times. Nothing good ever came of it, but I always hoped this time, it will do some magic. Every time I left, I'd realize my eating problems hadn't been solved at all.
The Whispered Rules of Belonging: How Counseling Education Tried to Silence Me
I started to understand that I wasn’t just being trained in therapeutic skills. I was being trained to conform.
Grief, Bereavement, Public Health, and Me
In public health, we talk about death. But we don’t talk about grief or bereavement. We don’t study the hole left behind in the family system or social sphere.
Learning to Speak the Subtle Language of Pain
It gradually dawned on me that my back pain was another mask that depression wore. Instead of crying and feeling overwhelmed or giving up, my body was sending distress signals to help me realize that I was in a difficult spot. I began to realize some of the metaphorical aspects of the pain I experienced.
The Outing of a Consumer
The problem with being a consumer is that we get consumed. I’ve been the bacon at far too many mental health picnics. Someone’s salary gets paid, someone’s program gets funded, someone’s career gets enhanced, someone gets accolades for being so altruistic and such a great savior — and me, what do I get? Exposed, laid bare, and isolated.
When Facebook Sent the Cops to My Shelter
Somehow, something I had said in this “secret” Facebook group had been made known. And now, at almost midnight, a cop was banging at the door of the lady who had been keeping me safe in a secret place. How did a “secret” Facebook conversation bring the cops to an address I didn’t have to perform a suicide prevention “welfare check”? Here’s what their “safe” meant to my safety.
Stealing My Mother From Me: The Horrors of Conservatorship
My beloved mother was mistreated, cheated, abused mentally, and alienated from her family by her conservator and the courts.
Reversing My Diagnosis
I was fine until traumatic events collided and pushed me to a state of emotional crisis. Yet I emerged this time as a different person, and knew I had to exit the mainstream mental health system.
My Encounter with the University of Minnesota’s Psychiatric Department
The voice came to me for three nights in a row, and changed me at my core. I believe my voice was, and is, the voice of G-d, of love. But one devoted friend, an influential physician at the University of Minnesota, felt strongly that I had “lost it” and tried to persuade me to see his psychiatry buddy at the university.
Only When It Poured
Disposable toothbrushes and sporks. Crayons instead of pens. Little pills in little paper cups. Someone would come. Someone would go. The days turned into nights and back again.
Race and Abuse in Inpatient Settings: What Happens Behind Locked Doors
The problem of staff brutality towards patients on the psych wards disproportionately affects people of color and continues to happen every day behind locked doors.
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.
The AI Who Helped Me Leave
In quiet desperation, I opened ChatGPT. I didn’t know then that I was about to build the most consistent, emotionally attuned dialogue I’d ever had.
Mad Parenting: On Becoming an Unlikely Family Man
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.
