Awakening: Shedding the “Mentally Ill” Identity and Reclaiming My Life
If I had not crumbled, brought to my knees beneath the weight of the misdiagnoses and sordid side-effects of the medications, I would not have had the opportunity to rise up and gain such a strong sense of selfâsomething for which many spend their whole life searching.
Eugenics, Lobotomy, Risperidone: “Science” Gone Awry
The worst thing about psychiatry is how it convinces your family to do things that they think are correct, which ultimately gets them to participate in harming you.
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.
My Diagnosis of ADHD and the Downfall That Followed
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 Am Not the Next Headline in Tragedy
I may be psychotic but I am not the next headline in the news. I am thoughtful and questioning. I am different and unique, but I am not violent and my life will never be anyone's tragedy.
Would you like to stand with me?
Instrument of the Machine No More
Early in my social work career, I truly believed that medication and forced confinement helped heal âmental illness.â Then an abrupt awakening completely altered my worldview.
Parenting Changed My Perspective on âADHDâ
My experience of raising a son who was bright and creative but didnât fit the mold helped me to approach my restless, impulsive students more compassionately and creatively.
Invisible Trauma: The Children Left Behind When Parents Are Hospitalized
It would take decades before I recognized the trauma caused by repeatedly being separated from my mom when she was hospitalized. I grieved almost exactly the way children did who had lost a parent to death. Yet it was grief without closure because my mom was not dead, just... gone.
Lucky to Be Alive: The Suicide Attempt I Don’t Remember
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.Â
What Happened When I Went Off Meds and Onto Nutrients
I remember clearly thinking, âIâm done. Iâm not putting myself through this again.â I wasnât 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.
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.
Coercion in Care
To this day I do not know how I found my way back. I think it mightâve 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 hospitalâthose âchronic schizophrenicsâ, as they say. I was going to find my way back, back to myself.
Inhumane Medicine in Germany: A Dark Chapter Continued
Although I left UeckermĂźnde without the ability to speak, heavily traumatized and barely able to move, I managed to reclaim life after more than a decade. Today I am one of the few witnesses who survived the Hell of UeckermĂźnde, who can tell the story of my companions and raise awareness of the injustice committed against us as well as demand answers.
Being Mad is Liberating
Being mad is liberating. Well, at least with practice and determination, because, letâs face it, being mental (with a confirmed diagnosis) is not a high status on the scale of popularity in our society, defined as it is by the standards of normality.
The Great Grey Beast
I am not the only child to have been devoured by the great grey beast that is the American psychiatric system. You're eaten away little by little, every single day, until what's left is barely a person.
My Mental Health Awakening
Although itâs taken me a while to acknowledge my right to be in this world, I know that I am not âmentally ill,â but rather have a dynamic spiritual and emotional sensitivity to this world. I am here for a reason, and having to go into the depths of a very dark cave in order to see the light is how I was able to grow and discover that I don't have to take medications for the rest of my life.
Psychiatry Poured Oil Down the Hill I Was Climbing
I have nothing good to say about the psychiatric drugs prescribed to me or about the psychiatrists that prescribed them. I did not have a condition that needed to be medicated. There was no informed consent about the severe and indefinite damage that the drugs caused me, and I did not have the appropriate help withdrawing from them.
Our Day in Mental Health Court
For weeks I had been trying to get released from the psychiatric ward, and none of my arguments, compliance, or attempted air of normality had made an impression on the barely-visible ward psychiatrist. I had, I was told, made a very serious suicide attempt and this was a predictor of future attempts. They would let me know when they thought I was sufficiently remorseful and stabilized to be released.
âAll for the Best of the Patientâ
For psychiatric âhelpâ 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 âhelping systemâ 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.
Making the Transition to Compassionate Care
I feel my brother was harmed not only by psychiatric drugs, poor nutrition, and dehydration but also by the lack of compassion, social isolation, and dehumanization experience typical of psychiatric facilities.
How 1 Panic Attack Led to 15 Years of Psychiatric DrugsÂ
My brain zapsâsymptoms of benzo withdrawalâwere like having a mini seizure on a daily basis. But my doctor kept telling me that my âunderlyingâ anxiety was causing all my distress.
The Relapsing Peer Supervisor
Peer supervision is often silent and stigmatizing instead of including necessary, robust discussions around relapse.
Mental Hell-Care: My Sibling’s Story
Doctors refuse to believe psychiatric medications have caused my sibling, Pat, any harm. Over a three-year period, however, Pat's insurance companies have paid out more than one million dollars to warehouse Pat and to provide "treatment" that has caused complete disability.
Bloodtime
Free flow had characterized my creative process â and now an art practice that had come naturally since my childhood was extinguished. Not only were my reproductive capabilities shut down on psychiatric drugs, my ability to create art had been effectively disabled.
One Familyâs Encounter with Modern Psychiatry and a Call for Social Change
Asking the psychiatrist to discontinue medication was one of our bravest moments. It went against everything doctors had told us over the past twelve monthsâagainst Rebeckaâs regular psychiatristâs vehement opposition (âYou can come back when it doesnât work.â). It went against what we heard repeatedly in the media and in pop culture. It went against what we saw in the advertisements during the evening news. And it was the turning point in Rebeckaâs journey toward optimal mental health.