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 simmere...

  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...

  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. Prev...

  Five months ago, after finding a psychiatrist who met my criteria, I reached out for help. I’d already spent over 3 years clearing out 7 medications. I’d already delved into my personal issues and worked on identifying and addressing my issues. On my own, I came that far, but it wasn’t enough to ward off cycling moods and an ever-present wish to just not exist at all. I approached that first appointment, the initial evaluation, with trepidation. To my relief, all went well. This psychiatrist met my expectations. He took a thorough history, heard my realist goals, and suggested a medication that might help without clouding my creativity, inflicting intense sleepiness, or entangling me in disabling adverse effects. My goals were simple. I wanted to be more physically active, develop social interests outside of my apartment, and make new art. This psychiatrist asked what I might like to do socially. I told him I’d really enjoyed, while in art school years ago, sitting with a...

  What did I do for 40 years in mental health treatment besides take medications, sit in psych units, pepper in some ECT, and do psychiatrist check-ins? Therapy of course. I can’t leave out therapy. Often, I signed up for psychotherapy that ended up being tutoring in coping skills. Or, the psychotherapist approached me fearfully, which did nothing to coax me from my own trepidation over revealing myself. Other times, therapists were all over the board with weird stuff, distractions from the promise that, yes, today we’ll get down to letting you talk about hard stuff. My talking would be cut off – what? Oh, identify your cognitive distortion off this worksheet, or let’s do a brief guided meditation, or try this tapping, or recenter with 5 things you see, hear feel, then 4 things, 3, 2, 1. I didn’t bolt out the door because I thought this was psychotherapy, at least part of it. Maybe if I stuck around, delving safely into deeply hidden problems would happen. It didn’t. I could go o...

  Back in the summer of 2019, when I was in the throes of wretched withdrawal coming off 5 psych meds (details are in my other posts, like Update on My Psych Drug Withdrawal ), I had to re-learn sleeping. Most of that was due to some 20 years on quetiapine, a powerful sleep agent, and suddenly without it, I hit big problems. If I could doze off, vivid nightmares would jolt me awake. While up, I was not only exhausted, but extremely sensitive to, well everything, but one particularly glaring issue was the bare white walls. I’d stripped my apartment down (because I thought I’d be moving 2000 miles away, but that’s another story) and now the empty walls ricocheted my paranoid fears straight back into my head. I needed certain colors to be on those walls, wasn’t sure which, but would know when I saw them. So, I looked online, and I found inexpensive tapestries that seemed right, plus they could be delivered within 2 days. Once I’d tacked them up with push pins, a warmth enveloped me, a...

These days, I'm more balanced, self-assured, and stable. Continuing on, hopefully in a forward motion, allows for slowly resolving past issues and establishing a satisfying quality of life. Treatment with a conscientious and caring psychiatrist (truly caring, not just claiming to be so in an internet blurb) benefits me and gives me faith in the profession, for once. I'm glad I had the opportunity to clean out seven meds I was previously prescribed, with time on my own to know myself better, and to gradually find a progressive, trustworthy psychiatrist. Now I'm a partner in my own care, a contrast from having treatment done at me, often in harmful, dismissive, insulting, or outright abusive ways. I'm grateful, but I'll never shake the imprint bad experiences have left on my mind and body. In the need to keep revisiting these awful times of years past, so they don't creep into my psyche and overwhelm me, I've put together a brief, illustrative window into what...

  After over 3 years off psychiatric medications, letting my body clear them, coming to terms with my hurt and anger over that last psychiatric stopping 5 meds without taper, and working on my issues in isolation, free of irritation from others’ interference, I came to realizations. My mind is definitely clearer (7 different meds daily clouded everything) and I’ve learned so much more about my personal issues through writing and art. I’ve also tightened up my finances, providing more of a sense of independence. This is all good, helps me tremendously, but it’s not enough. I still experience too many lows tinged with suicidal thoughts, resistance to stepping out of my apartment (or off my sofa most days), mired in life’s pointlessness and drudgery. And then there’s the flip side. When I do get moving, I’m propelled into some sense of never stopping, sure I have all the answers, and happy like I’m high, flitting from one thing to the next, whirling about until I drop back into exha...

  Almost every day I wake up and I hate it, sorry I’m conscious, resenting the hours ahead of thinking and being in this apartment box, and even that the cat needs food, and doing my own basic care, and that I feel this way again, again, again. Even on rare days, when I come to with optimism, some excitement about the day, I don’t trust it. It’s probably an upswing, the start of an overly active period that will shrink away into darkness. Or, I’ll   hit a wall, break into a million pieces, once more to pick up, once more to glue back into some fashion of myself. Some would advise that I need psychiatric assistance. I’ve been through that already. Not that I don’t run that around my pessimistic mind, head still on my pillow, trying to convince myself that helpful psychiatry exists, in my geographic area, that accepts my current healthcare coverage. Make a plan! Make a budget and start leafing through who is out there and calling and making appointments and before you know...