Travels Through Psychiatry

Psychotropic medications, that I’d been a long time, some for 2 decades continuously, were suddenly stopped by the psychiatrist. I shouldn’t happen this way, ever, no matter the reason. But here’s how I can best estimate that it did happen. At a psych unit 2 weeks previously, the inpatient psychiatrist discontinued quetiapine because he said I was too sleepy. I was off it for a few days, then at home, I started taking it again right away. Shortly after, within a week, I met with my regular psychiatrist. I reported to her about the quetiapine being stopped briefly and that the other psychiatrist had concerns about me being on it. She decided, right then, that I should cease taking quetiapine and 2 other meds, benztropine and gabapentin, and to bring in what I had left for disposal the next day, so I did. Several days later I was sick, mostly with intestinal problems and dizziness, and unable to think clearly, but did manage to make a call for transport to a hospital. I was in seve...

  *This post contains these sensitive topics: drug use, self-harm, sexual assault. Twenty years ago, I woke up in a hospital bed, sat up, sighed deeply, and thought, it’s over, done, enough of this. Visitors gathered around the other occupied bed in the room, annoying and simultaneously sweet in chatter, emphasizing how alone I was. When the doctor signed off on me leaving, I pulled on jeans and caught a bus home. Leaning into the window, I confirmed that I’d changed inside, moved to a new place within. My mood, though remaining as grey as the low hanging fog, didn’t fade my resolve, my faith shining like the sun about to burst through clouds. And it was over, the constant sitting in my room inhaling deeply from a bong, calculating how to conserve the weed I had left, smoking a measured amount and holding the hit to get it all, making some art while listening to public broadcasting on a borrowed radio, stepping onto the porch for a coffee and cigarette, and plotting how to find m...