Personal Stories

In 1994, my nineteen-year old daughter, Cristina, was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). It was a diagnosis that came totally out of the blue and as a complete shock. Soon after she was diagnosed, it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to sleep because of the tremendous stress, so I asked the very kind doctor who diagnosed Cristina if he could give me a prescription for something that would help me sleep. He agreed, and so began my “relationship” with Xanax. I had never taken anything like that before and didn’t know anything about it. All I knew was that as my daughter’s primary caregiver, I needed sleep in order to fight to keep her alive.

In the wake of psychiatry, there was a fracture, a gulf that opened between me and the authentic sound of my voice when it is connected and resonates with my truth.

The pain has gone now, and I am grateful for who it has made me — a happier person than before. Perhaps broken open a bit, but in a good way.

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.

Before my nightmare with psychiatric medication began, my life was full and happy. But since being prescribed 12 different psychiatric drugs in one year, I have become bedridden, ill and jobless.

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 don’t just feel things; I translate them. For those of us who experience it, it is not a novelty. It is a structure for thinking.

This was no illness. And I knew my biochemistry was not the primary issue. I chose to call it a severe stress breakdown.

It’s time to seek out and rescue those pieces of me still trapped in that time and allow them to finally be at peace.

The problem of staff brutality towards patients on the psych wards disproportionately affects people of color and continues to happen every day behind locked doors.

It's hard, if not impossible, to impose on my son’s story any kind of literary “sense.” As a writer and a mother both, this has been my challenge. 

Jean was never warned about Librium's potential to cause physical dependence or the subsequent withdrawal effects that can result from its long-term use, nor was she counseled on an exit plan. So when she decided to taper off the drug, her withdrawal symptoms were so severe that her life and health quickly spiraled out of control.

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.

My friend Kathleen Fliller ended her life last month. She had written a chronicle of her struggles with psychiatric drug withdrawal and akathisia, which she asked me to share with Mad In America to be published in hopes that it might help others not feel so alone.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” said Edmund Burke. This is as true on...

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.

The goal of creating a legacy for my mother required that I go beyond managing my symptoms to confronting my OCD at its roots. I had to fundamentally change my understanding of anxiety.

I’ve come to understand that a single-minded focus on either therapy or medication can do great, if unintended, harm. I’m sharing this brief history of my journey, with both my good and bad decisions, to illustrate the importance of conscious care, and of maintaining the ability to change course.

At the hospital, what traumatized me the most was that my freedom was in the hands of a professional who was steadfast in his conviction that I was feeling things I was not.

I was face down on a cold hospital floor. My submissiveness came before the needle made contact. The shock and shame of such a violation silenced me.

Here and now, I am Ativan-free and slowly tapering off Wellbutrin after 25+ years. Unable to work due to the severity of iatrogenic injury, I sometimes think of myself as a healing journeywoman. When the terrain is especially rough, I reflect on the words: "The best revenge is living a happy, healthy life." When circumstances and symptoms permit, I’m doing just that.

Richard was more than a therapist; he was a faithful witness to my spiritual transformation. His faith in me is the sturdy banister I hold on to as I move forward.

I slowly recognized that I wanted to fight every single person who used language based on their learned beliefs about “mental illness.” They didn’t know any better—so why did I feel so angry?

I have been on Cymbalta for 17 years now and am gutted that my five-year taper did not free me of the drug.

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.