Iatrogenic Domino: I Was Poisoned by Polypharmacy
I did not suddenly develop some perverse form of mental illness out of thin air. IÂ was a victim of repeated misdiagnoses, unrecognized adverse drug reactions/drug toxicity, and profound polypharmacy.
Involuntary Obedience: Rituals of Humiliation Disguised as ‘Care’
Like slavery took such a long time to be âofficiallyâ forbidden, psychiatric hospitals will be with us for some time yet. Their masters, the doctors or administrators, no longer give beatings with their hands but with the far more treacherous chemicals that allow them to keep a good conscience and distribute what are beatings nevertheless.
Snakes and Ladders: How Psychiatry Took Away My Choices
The psychiatric system takes away all choices and freedom and calls the resulting state "mental illness." Psychiatry justifies alienation rather than repairing it.
The Forced Psychiatric Treatment of a Child
This is my story of forced psychiatric treatment as an eight-year-old girl, from my perspective as an adult mental health professional. Being held down kicking and screaming to be injected with a benzodiazepine is a human rights violation no child should endure for saying no to a pharmaceutical. In hindsight, when I reflect on that day, it feels like a form of child abuse.
A Troubled Teen With a Pocket Full of Lithium and Nowhere to Go
Despite the full awareness of Congress and hundreds of deaths in these facilities, little has been done to enact standards in private pay facilities that house troubled teens.
Why Iâm Glad I Did Not Complete the Mental Health Counselor Education Program
One needs no psychiatric or counseling degree to have the common sense of displaying some good manners in a profession that claims to be all about helping people. Iâm glad I did not get further involved within a field that seems to be so hypocritical and moody.
Memories of a Childhood in a Mental Hospital
My stay at the hospital had no impact on the problem that led to my admission. But it did exacerbate other problems and change me in fundamental ways. I am a deformed product of that âcutting-edge facilityâ and the âtreatmentsâ I received there â social isolation, pills and shots, ice bath and ECT.
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.
Recovery of Soul After 22 Years on Antipsychotics
After 22 years and many attempts I finally stopped taking antipsychotics. I still feel weak and quite injured by the accumulated doses of numbing drugs, though I feel brighter, and love life more than ever.
From âMadnessâ to Self-Mastery: Overcoming a Life of Disconnection
You are trained to trust a system, to trust a professional⌠But I was always following my intuitive self telling me that there was a way out of the madness and the labels.
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...
Mood Tracking: My System for Reducing Psychiatric Hospitalizations
Mood tracking can make someone realize: Iâm starting to become manic, and this is why, and this is what I can do about it.
On the Other Side
It was the first time in my Klonopin journey it occurred to me the problem might not be inherent in me. The problem might actually be the Klonopin. Convinced my very life was at stake, I made the firm decision to get off the stuff once and for all.
The Breaking Point
How did I become someone who could barely function? I was a high-performing sales executive ranked in the top 2% of an international business communications company. But now, after using powerful psych meds for depression and anxiety for more than a decade, I couldnât do basic things like go to the grocery store, plan a meal, make dinner, or get together with friends.
Whatâs Missing from NAMI and Pro-Psychiatry: Lived Experience
Since many psych patients become forced consumers, their advocates have a duty to be educated and concerned with adverse reactions.
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.
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?
What Itâs Like to Be Involuntarily Committed
Ten years after being fired for taking a mental health leave after the Virginia Tech massacre, I was diagnosed as "schizophrenic" and involuntarily committed to a hospital. Now I have a job and a life, but I'm still forced to take drugs and report to a social worker.
The Hidden Harms Within the Psychedelic Renaissance
If I would have read a story like this before I entered into psychedelic-assisted therapy, I would have been more careful, which might have prevented a lot of unnecessary hurt.
Harmed by Psychiatric Drugs Prescribed for Acid Reflux
I was unaware that metoclopramide is in the same drug class as antipsychotics with the same potential for serious side effects.
Against the Odds: âUnimproved Schizophrenicâ to Yale PhD
Forty years after I had first been admitted to the hospital, I was ready to confront my past. So, I sent for my hospital records, and I read them. As an experienced clinician, I recognized immediately what the doctors hadnât been able to see in 1960: my problem wasnât âschizophreniaâ but PTSD, connected with incest.
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.
The “Shotgun Method” â A Story of Mental Health Crisis in Iceland
"Let's try the shotgun method," my psychiatrist said â meaning that you load the gun with a bunch of pellets and hope that one of them hits the target. I went through 16 different psychiatric medications in five years, and they were not the right choice for me.
Out of the Abyss (with a Little Help from My Friends)
An ER doctor told me I was experiencing venlafaxine withdrawal, then told me to go home and take care of myself. Unbeknownst to me, I was about to enter pure hell.
Eulogy for Abraham Leighton McNeill
A friend said to me recently, "Oh, he suffered such a lot. Thatâs over for him." I know their words were intended to comfort me over my sonâs suicide. Our fine, excellent son, Abraham, had committed suicide a month before Christmas 2019. Nevertheless, I bridled inwardly at the suggestion, not wanting to remember Abraham as merely the sum of his sufferingsâhe was so much more than that.
