That Imprint Stays

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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 down, but I feel that period of outrage was essential and justified.

As I railed at anything representing psych or mental health or medications or crisis lines or hospitalization, I also started writing and making art again. What a great outlet that turned out to be, letting off steam while I formulated new ideas about me and who I am to myself. Yes, I’d lost my relationship to self, hidden under a thick, grey cloud of prolonged despair.

The objective became to break through that murk, clearing my negativity like the sun burning off the fog.

Eventually, I became curious about what competent and effective psychiatric treatment is supposed to be, which led to me educating myself through various points of view available on all kinds of media. I discovered that there are great clinicians out there (not the ones I’d seen) and that the newer generation of psychiatrists really want to help, and value patients’ own decisions and choices in the process. I still wasn’t ready to go back in there, but I also wasn’t as down on it.

I spent more time trying to unwind my own issues, writing, drawing, tracking my dreams, walking, and thinking long and hard. My goal was to prove I didn’t have bipolar, just unresolved trauma or something like that, and I did figure out a lot, but not how to ward off bipolar, not in the end.

I still had problems to overcome. I declared myself out of psych med withdrawal, because I was, and lingering in suffering with withdrawal as a go-to explanation wasn’t hitting me right. This was an important step in moving forward. I had to accept that I was in a different life, not forever cemented into whatever past prescribing had done to me. It was time to let the intense anger go, and time to rejoin the world in some capacity, and time to have hope.

As I felt better, I paid attention to my money, so I could budget for what I might need. Learning about all aspects of my money, how disability payments work, exactly what I spend on each month, how to get some bills discounted, my rights around debt and apartment leasing, and planning for bigger bills that come during the year frightened me initially, but was ultimately freeing. The more I know about how my money comes in and goes out, the better I control how I want to use it.

During all this time, I’ve put more effort into family relationships, not just so my voice is heard, but so that I can show how much I care, that I haven't been completely darkened by terrible experiences. In doing so, I establish boundaries along with a fresh openness. This is mostly rewarding, not without pain, but so vital in finding connection again.

I kept moving forward, but this delicate, forgotten part way down inside, a part that longed to die as it yearned for love, still remained, so quietly. It hadn’t seen the light of day for decades or been touched or felt the warmth of kind words. How could I reach that piece of me when my larger life still consisted of plunging so low, on so many days? And then it became clear. My bipolar is a real thing, not imagined, not fabricated. If I stuff it down, I further compress the little tormented being inside, gradually crushing it into splinters.

That’s when I found one of the new generation psychiatrists and got back on a med, one med, and put my faith in the help offered there. Because I'd gained control of my finances, I had resources to pay for a psychiatrist independently, not bound to health care coverage restrictions.  So far, I’ve found the med to be fine, but a surprise bonus is how much assistance I get from my psychiatrist. He’s really tuned into what I want, listening, offering suggestions, supporting me, and making me glad I put my trust back into what I assumed was a totally corrupted practice.

There’s no guide for recovering from harrowing mental health treatment experiences. The imprint stays and should be respected. Nobody said I have to pursue recovery. It’s what I’ve wanted to do, and I persist, because, really, it has no end.

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