Dear Psychiatrist – I Survived
It took me over 20 years to believe in myself enough to walk away from psychiatry and psych drugs and regain my life. I not only survived, but I am also thriving.
I Navigated the Mental Health System and Never Took Medications
I kept thinking, why was I the one to be labeled when my husband was doing all this unhealthy, violent stuff? I sought out doctors through health food stores and communities that didn’t believe in medications for a social and family problem. That way no controlling, pill-pushing medical doctor had authority over me.
Dan’s Journey Through OCD
Editor's Note: To protect the anonymity of her son, this author has published under a pseudonym.
With the help of the Internet, my seventeen-year-old son...
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.
The Unveiling of the Truth: A Journey Into the Invisible World
It is through the experience of suffering that God educates us with the knowledge of the heart that He alone holds the key to.
The Failure to Acknowledge Suicidality
I feel like I have been failed by the healthcare system over and over again. I expected to be able to rely on therapists, psychologists, and doctors to properly evaluate, diagnosis, and treat me… especially when chronic suicidality is in the picture. Instead, I have a lengthy list of ways I have been failed. These failures have often added to my hopelessness.
I Had No Idea That Gabapentin Could Do This…
I am now a few months off of Gabapentin, and my withdrawal problems have not passed. I still deal daily with internal tremors throughout my head and back.
NGRI: The Gilligan’s Island of the Criminal Justice System
I approached the NGRI system with the belief that my commitment would be short and sweet and that in less than one year I would be back to living in the community. That year turned into nearly two decades.
The Bipolar Artist: A Lifelong Sentence to Bear
I was told that I had only two choices: Do not have children, or take lithium while I was pregnant—the drug that posed the least amount of birth defects, and the very medication that had killed the painter in me years ago. I refused both options and set out on my own, and luckily found a willing psychiatrist to help me taper off the meds.
You’re Not Crazy
I want others who have PTSD to know that, yes, recovery is tough going, but you can rebuild trust in the world and your future.
Creatively Managing Voice-Hearing Through Spiritual Writing
I am a psychiatric survivor of over thirty-six years. Since my nervous breakdown in 1978, I have undergone multitudinous experiences ranging from the subtly humiliating to the horrifically debilitating at the hands of incompetent psychiatrists and psychopharmacologists who, in the name of medicine, did more harm than good.
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.
Southern Vapors: A Comeback Story Not Born of Chemistry
Imagine my excitement, the hope that relief from the sucking tar of misery that dogged too many of my days was within my reach. From that moment and for thirty years to follow, I was the willing guinea pig for any number of drugs. Nothing helped for long.
My Hospital Discharge Summary: An Intriguing Work of Fiction
I recalled a brief intercourse with a lady two months earlier that went something like this: “Why don’t you want to take medication?” to which I replied, “Because I think psychiatry is a sham.” Needless to say, my response hastily resulted in a temporary though adequately lengthy loss of my autonomy.
Psychiatric Medication: Does It Work?
One can lead a good life with a “mental illness” and I am the case. Yes, it is possible. Even with a diagnosis of “bipolar” above your head.
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.
Dangers of Antidepressants: My Personal Struggle with Conventional Medicine
I believed my doctor knew best about my health. I trusted that he knew it would be safe to switch me from an anti-anxiety drug that I had been taking for several years and put me on this new drug. It was only during the horror I went through afterward that I found out everything about this evil drug all on my own. To this day, I still get brain zaps in my sleep.
Living Together – With More Resilience and Less Medication
My own experiences have shown that specific exercises can help me to recognize the early symptoms of psychosis even earlier and more subtly, and reduce their intensity — even the delusions!
Women We Call Crazy
“You’re so different,” people would say to Betty and me. We joked about the thinly veiled criticism—people thought we were crazy because we were women who consciously defined ourselves and how we wanted to live.
Bearing False Witness: Childhood Psychiatry, Trauma, and Memory
Through journaling, I realized that my lifelong confusion surrounding my memories of traumatic events was the direct result of the psychiatric labels and drugs I swallowed alongside years of parental abuse.
The Prescription that Changed My Life
What I have learned is that benzos don’t discriminate. They don’t care that you have a master’s degree or that you are a good person in the community or that you were just doing what the doctors told you to do and you were woefully ignorant and misinformed of their dangers.
Treatment Providers Have the Power to Make or Break Recovery
We need treatment providers that listen to their patients and treat them like human beings. Their job is to support our recovery, not stymie it.
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.
My Recovery from ‘Schizophrenia’ through Psychotherapy and Writing
I was never told directly that I had 'schizophrenia', and I am very glad about this. I know I was feeling bad, very bad, and was unsure of what to do, but I don’t see how a diagnosis could have helped me at that time. What could I have done with it? To be marked with a label like that would likely have caused me to rebel even more.
Boy, Interrupted: A Story of Akathisia
I watched my son’s life change almost overnight. He developed akathisia from antidepressants, taken as prescribed for just a few weeks for garden-variety anxiety.
