Travels Through Psychiatry

  For me, psychiatric treatment began in 1980 and I thought it ended in 2019. I’d only found misunderstanding, abuse, bad attitudes, and overmedicating there, culminating in a psychiatrist stopping 5 of my 7 meds without any taper, leaving me with nothing but a deep imprint on my psyche. But I’ve always clawed my way out of the pit, chipped and bruised, and this last insult is no exception. So, how have I been recovering from all that badness in the name of care? There’s no guide for healing and finding goodness again after mistreatment in mental health systems, so I improvise. And I follow what feels right to do, trust my intuition, because I don’t want to sink into an abyss. At first, my anger spilled all over the place, into every relationship, online, and into the mental health center complaint department. I was like an evangelist shouting about psychiatry’s evils to the populace, determined to save some souls and have justice prevail. After quite a while of this, I simmered do

  Around age 8, I became fearful of bugs possibly being in my bed, and I can’t remember any incident that set this off, but I started doing a bedtime ritual. I’d pick up my pillow, look under it, then repeat a specific number of times. This is where my obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) began. My OCD was pervasive, but not so pronounced that it interfered heavily with functioning. And I kept it secretive, not wanting anyone to know I had special routines to ward off the bad. As OCD rituals increased, I often didn’t associate them with warding off anything in particular. It was more about feeling anxious if the placements and counting weren’t properly done. Also, I don’t recall how new OCD practices were added, which was happening all the time, or how they might be modified, these actions becoming a part of me, automatic so to speak. I had protocols to follow, all day long, morning to night. Most involved placing objects a certain way, lifting them, then placing them down again, fo

  I was 14 when I first encountered a mental health clinician. She was a psychologist, and there I was in her office, after a suicidal gesture, depressed, feeling very isolated within family issues, and full of fear about how to grow up. This psychologist administered psychological tests, including lengthy questionnaires and Rorschach inkblot tests. The process was intimidating and made me feel odd. At the end, when all summations were made, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, but no explanation was offered, and, in fact, my mom and I were told not to probe into it. I was referred to a child psychiatrist for therapy and things didn’t improve. That clinician had me draw a picture and then tell a line of a story, and then she’d add a picture and add her line to the story, and so on, and it was a bit infantilizing and failed to open me up to discuss my problems. I quit that therapy and struggled along on my own. A couple of years later, I found a book, this book:  

 *This post is a discussion of self-harm. Though it doesn't contain any graphic descriptions, please don't read it if you feel it might be too unsettling or set you off. Self-harm is in my mental illness history, and I’m grateful I haven’t had urges in over 2 years. But I’ll never be free from the prominent scars on my arms, legs, and torso that draw unwanted attention when uncovered and always stay in my mind. People (mental health professionals and fellow patients alike) don't understand my hopefully former self-harming. It was brutal, not the type of temporary relief from pain many do. It was, at times, nearly suicidal, though that was never my intent. My motivation was to get into a psych unit, even as that was a crapshoot, an uncertainty about which hospital I'd land in and what type of staff would be overseeing me. I wanted out of my head, or just to be cared for, in episodes where I felt out of myself and lost in the depth of life. It was bipolar and obsessive-

I love my happy mind, the one that enjoys activities and people and the simplicity of a clean, colorful home, the mind that delights in playfulness and whimsy, quick to laugh at the silliest of situations. That mind swears it can always be this good, if I stick to a schedule, if I keep up motivation, if I don’t stop because I’m tired or even overwhelmed by all the positivity. When my cynical mind comes back around to claim its time, I’m not loving that, and in fact, I’m angry. I ask why it’s such a downer. But then, I’m more familiar with it than the happy mind, as it seems to be more of who I am. Happy mind is a more elusive state, less connected, and highly irritating to think of when my darker side prevails. Yet I pursue happiness as my ultimate goal, as if I just haven’t yet hit on the secret to holding it. Depressed days, certainly not as dire as before medication, mock me as if they’ve been holding echoes of my anguished cries and are now releasing them into the air. I’ve o

  Once my med for bipolar kicked in and started improving my mood, of course I was excited. I immediately increased my activity level and imagined that, before I knew it, I’d be working again, out socializing regularly, and exercising as vigorously as I did 15 years ago. No, that’s now how it’s unfolding. I have added activities, like cooking and attending an art club. I can read books again and create new art. All of that is great, but my energy is limited, and the initial med-assisted burst has evened out. I’m grateful for this. My past pattern was always to grab periods of my mood lifting and launch into a flurry of action. Inevitably, I’d fall into exhaustion and despair because this is not sustainable. The feeling of that is harsh. By that, I mean I’d deeply criticize myself as a failure. There I’d been, all the chances in the world for success, and again I’d blown it. I’d truly only failed at realizing that bipolar causes me to roll through cycles of ups and downs. Previous