Corrections Officers, Not Clinicians
Six months ago, I was just starting in a position called "Treatment Team Coordinator" at a secure residential treatment facility. In my home state,...
Psychiatry Almost Drove Me Crazy
I am a survivor of severe psychiatric abuse. There was a year or so in the early 1980’s when I was in and out...
The Wind Never Lies
When I was young I believed the world spoke to me. Lightning split across the sky to the pulse of my thoughts. Rings around...
Seeing Mental Illness as a Spiritual Illness
I am a simple woman, 47, single mother of two beautiful children, diagnosed bipolar 10 years ago, and I want more from the way...
The Mystery is Solved, and Now I’m Undoing the Harm (With Strength and a...
I’d like you to get to know me as you read this. I think I have an important personal story to tell. Frankly, I...
I Know With a Sane Mind When I’m Going Insane
This was my son’s answer when I was questioning him, trying desperately to find out what was going on in his mind. Why did...
Reconstruction: A Recovery Narrative
When I read recovery stories, I am sometimes challenged by the prospect of thinking about my life in linear terms, "Here are the years...
Surviving Schizophrenia: A Memoir
I was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was just nineteen. I am forty-three now, and I have recovered – and I use the term...
The Manifesto of a Noncompliant Mental Patient
I see it everywhere: People with mental illness need medication. It sounds reasonable.
Today, there are even political organizations that seek to make it easy to force a person to take it.
A Psychiatrist Remembers His Recovery from Schizophrenia
A psychiatrist since 1949, I was psychiatrically hospitalized on December 21, 1963 at New York City's Mt. Sinai Hospital. I stayed for three months,...
From the Loony Bin To Stand-Up Comedy
I was sixteen and going on seventeen and I had never gone crazy before. I think the most startling aspect of it is how...
