Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood: A Tale of Psychotherapy
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and not knowing which one to take, I stood straight, watching my life pass me by. But in therapy, I began to feel the knots of my life come alive inside me. The point is not just to talk, it is to feel your story inside, to hear your silences, and to realize who you are⊠and who you can be.
I Have a Night Life: When Doctors Become Fathers, and Fathers Become Patients
Dad, itâs going to be okay, I say. Dad, you have delirium. He is losing his mind. And so am I. At night time.
Gabapentin Withdrawal: One Year Later
Even though I was only on the medication for a little over six months, I am still traveling down the long road of psychiatric drug withdrawal. This is the hardest thing I have ever endured.
Death in a Bottle: My 24-Year Battle with Benzodiazepines
Iâm not even taking Klonopin because it helps me. Iâm taking Klonopin so I donât go through withdrawal from Klonopin. Thatâs the trap.
Someone I Used to Know
When I sit in Billieâs office, I am still 13 years old, bitter anger saturating my body. I am 23, sobbing that I cannot do this anymore. I am 24, celebrating my first year of college. I am all of these people and none of these people.
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.
The Whispered Rules of Belonging: How Counseling Education Tried to Silence Me
I started to understand that I wasnât just being trained in therapeutic skills. I was being trained to conform.
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 Cost of Being Psychotic in America
People living with psychosisâpeople like meâare dying because we are being discriminated against by people whoâd rather see us hurt than attempt to work with us and give us the decency and respect that should be accorded us as a human right. And nobody deserves to be assaulted or shot after theyâve reached out for help.
Blindsided by Benzos: Had I Known
Doctors are not disclosing the harrowing truth that discontinuing these medications can plunge patients into relentless mental and physical torment.
Searching for Zen and Finding a Cow
If I had a clinical problem, why was something as ancient and simple as meditation helping me? And if normal positive human habits could be so profoundly useful, why the heck was the field marketing pills and âclinicalâ coping mechanisms to me instead? This frustration helped me jump ship from the medical mindset and hop into the world of humanity.
The Abused Children to Bipolar Pipeline
The mental health system traumatized me further. They were allies with my abusers to cover up and continue my abuse.
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.
My Time at Bellevue
I've never been so proud of such a display of civil disobedience. These heretofore robots, pumped with power sedatives, still possessed human emotions and had, overnight, found a voice to express their discontent. The riots would continue for several more nights and the ward became a chaotic jungle.
On Psychotherapeutic Literacy
The counselor, a rather awkward individual, did his best to play the role of an effective psychotherapist. Our sessions continued to be a quiet standoff, a battle of nerves to see who would break the silence first.
How I Became My Own Psychiatrist
I now am more conversant with the latest literature on the medications I take than my prescriber is. While I consider his opinion and clinical judgment, I no longer accept every word as the Gospel truth.
Snapshots of Spring: Journeying Off Psych Meds After 20 Years of Compliance
My prayer to be taken out of my misery was answered, just not the way I used to envision. I managed to escape the system and here I am in the same lifetime, alive and well. Iâm slowly getting acquainted with this new setup and am eternally grateful for yet another opportunity at life, which I hope does not slip through my fingers.
The Psychiatric Patient: Who Is She?
The psychiatric patient is interestingânot your average person. She is the one who might tell you: âThere is more to this reality, and I saw the proof.â
Elizabeth Loftus, False Memories and the Search for My True Self
A cautionary tale about the largely unconscious need for power and dominance that mental health clinicians have over patientsâ narratives, especially for children and adolescents.
The One That Was Away
I had read about such places in The Bell Jar, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, and One Flew Over the Cuckooâs Nest. For more than a year, this place was my home.
The Light in the Dark
Darkness began to consume my life, both literally and metaphorically. My surroundings and even my own thoughts would become distorted into something terrifying. As the nights droned on, shadows in my dorm room would contort themselves into threatening figures. The whispers continued to grow, overcoming the thoughts in my head.
Unmedicated Clarity: How I Reclaimed My Voice After Psychiatry Silenced It
My healing didnât begin with that pill. It began the moment I stopped handing over my truth for someone else to interpret.
When Treatment Makes You Sick: The Eating Disorder Clinic
Eight years after beginning âtreatmentâ for an âeating disorderâ, I was eating worse than ever. Yet three years after quitting that âtreatmentâ, food is a pleasure, not a problem.
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.
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.
