I am an ACON, an Adult Child of Narcissistic Parents. I am also a Psychiatric Survivor. Much of what you will read will shock and amaze you, that things like this can happen to someone. I am not alone, it has happened, is happening still, to too many people.
I have a blogspot, Spirit Within. http://acornlog.blogspot.com I write under the pseudonym Acorn, for my protection. I prefer not to use my real name, I'm still too afraid of psychs and the psych system to come forward and say who I am.
I've been on psych drugs for over 37 years. I've started to taper myself off of them, and I want to connect with others who have been on these drugs for a long time and successfully come off. I'm getting no help from doctors and doing this on my own. I would like some support.
I believe in Freedom Center and all they do. I want to start something similar, but on the West Coast. I don't know anyone near where I live who feels as strongly as I do, who has been harmed by psychiatry as badly as I have. I was 36 years in the psych system before I found the courage to leave and start a life without the "help" of a therapist or any other psych.
I have a movement disorder which no doctor will confirm a diagnosis of Tardive Dyskinesia/Tardive Dystonia. After 37 years on these psych drugs, various Neuroleptics including, Thorazine, Mellaril, Stelazine, Navane, Haldol, all the Atypicals, how can they not consider I suffer from TD?
I'm presently taking Abilify and Remeron. I am tapering off the Abilify first, I've gone from 15mg to 5 mg and steady at 45 mg of Remeron. It's been a year since I stopped Lithium and I'm doing better than ever.
I think it's a shame there are so many resources for people to get drugs and stay on these psych drugs, but very few resources for getting off them. I almost get the feeling once on, stay on or else. The or else is not nice. I feel the power these doctors and psychs exercise over us must be broken.
I wonder why they don't take these very same drugs they so freely prescribe if they help so much, but no. They don't want to take or even start on these drugs and often I wonder why. What do they know that they aren't telling the general public?
I get the old, “I'm afraid for you, I'm afraid you'll get sick again,” so often I want to tell these well meaning, kind doctors, “If you're so afraid, why don't you take some of these psych drugs to help control your fears? why don't you start talk therapy to work out and confront your fears?” the same crap they hand me all the time.
I am so sick and tired of doctors but recognize my need for them. Having an iatrogenic illness which they recognize but refuse to admit is tough. I feel very strongly, until doctors quit covering up for the mistakes of their colleagues, no one is going to get anywhere with the drug problem.
I took Zoloft for a time and hated it. On Lexapro I became very suicidal, and was denied admission to the psych hospital. That was the only time I ever had a plan, and told the resident my plan. I was sent home and told if I was still feeling this way the next day, come back and then he'll admit me. I don't know how I survived, but I took myself cold turkey off Lexapro and refuse to touch the stuff ever again.
I've been on so many drugs now I'm reacting to every drug the docs put in my body. I am slowly tapering off the Abilify, 1 mg every two weeks, and things are going fine. I'm down to 5mg from 15 mg. The State doc who is supposedly the person to take people like me off these drugs told me I suffer from brain damage since birth and I need these drugs to stay healthy, sane. He got to know me from reading my chart and I felt came to his decision before he even first talked with me. So much for the competence of the State doctor trained to take people like me off these drugs.
I am bitter and angry, very angry at what is happening to me and my body which no doctor is willing to admit though I feel they all know why I am the way I am. Until I find a doctor willing to work with me to taper me slowly and carefully off these drugs, the mistake made by the first diagnostician is perpetuated by all. I understand they need to protect themselves and their license but whatever happened to the oath they took, first do no harm. I am being told it's all in my head and I agree, it is all ABOUT my head. I am being forced to continue to take psych drugs which affect how my brain functions. The longer these drugs insult my brain the less chances I have of any hope of getting better.
I started to stick out my tongue when I was on Haldol. That was way back in the early 80's. The psych just told me, “you don't do it when you're with me”. The State doc told me to "bring it all in to him". I get the feeling, unless these docs see it, they don’t believe me. I am not aware I have these extrapyramidal symptoms and often told to quit “acting out for attention”. I often want to control these symptoms as they are very embarrasing but I am not aware when I am “acting” this way.
I've decided to "do it" on my own and expect no help from anyone. I know I need to be careful when blood tests are required and will "cheat" to cover my butt so these doctors of mine are snowed, kept in the dark what I'm doing. I know because of my past psych history, no one is willing to risk on a hopeless case as me.
I stopped my psych drugs suddenly, cold turkey, many times only to experience a psychotic rebound reaction which no psych or doctor is willing to admit or recognize. These psychs and doctors won’t admit they made me physically dependent on these drugs. As much as I want to just stop the Abilify now that I'm down to 5 mg, I won't. I'll steadily decrease until the crap is out of my system, rather, I won't put any more poison in my system. By now the psych drugs are a part of me. They are in my cells and tissues, I'll never be free of them. I've taken them for over 37 years, I know the damage they've done will always be with me.
How can these doctors explain the wellness of me without these drugs which were supposed to help me control my paranoia, and make me less confused, but only made me so paranoid that I could barely function, and so confused that I could barely talk.
I was encouraged to talk about anything I wanted, yet when I did, all my talk was redirected to something else, what they wanted to talk about. I understand this is a technique psychs use on people who they believe suffer from delusions. Psychiatry never believed a word I said and treated me as a liar. I became so angry and confused, I was telling the truth all the time but kept not being believed, you know what that can do to a person? It made me very angry and bitter, and hated psychiatry and all it stood for. I think psychiatrists, et al are the cruelest and meanest people on the earth, my anger and hatred for everyone psych has made me avoid them all.
My depression was supposedly treatment resistant. I think I was given ECT without my knowledge or consent while I was heavily drugged. What I needed to do was separate myself from my family and psychiatry and find new friends, make new connections who have nothing to do with my family or psychiatry.
NO one can explain my miraculous "recovery", NO one can explain why I'm able to hold three volunteer jobs and be doing well in all three. I often wonder what that State doctor would think if he knew I was decreasing the drugs and doing so well? Why no one is even considering I was reacting very badly, toxic, on these drugs is a puzzlement. My whole behavior and attitude has changed, I am no longer so confused I am unable to think, I am no longer paranoid.
These docs of mine only know me on these drugs, they don't know me off the drugs, have never known me off them. I am incensed and enraged, how dare they tell me these drugs are helping me when all they are doing is basing the types of drugs and their dosages on what the first diagnositician, 37 years ago, believed about me.
I'm tired of doctors who only treat the label and never see the person they labeled. I walk around with these labels on me, screaming I'm a person, see me, feel me, touch me, I'm real, not a label, but all people seem to see and believe are my labels. Once stamped and labeled, forget about being treated as a human being.
The only place I will consent to have medical treatment is at an alternative medical clinic. The atmosphere is more conducive to healing the whole of me. My mind, body, and spirit are addressed, not separated, which suits me fine. However, not all practitioners treat the mind/body/spirit as one, some of them do separate, so the clinic isn't all so great. I've learned to take the good out of the bad, and since I find the clinic mainly good, I'm staying there. I just avoid those practitioners who only see me as a mental case.
I need to be very careful what I say so as not to alienate the docs who are trying, but I realize that they are bound and fettered by a system so powerful and controlling that they too are hampered in their efforts to help me. I view them as "innocent" though you and I know they are far from being innocent, but are victims too.
I wish I can reach others who want to start taking these psych drugs and tell them my story. Maybe they will think twice, or many times, if they know my story and how I got TD, and how I'm being treated, rather ignored now. The truth needs to be known about these drugs and how most doctors and medical people treat me with TD. A psych label is bad enough, but have TD on top of everything and I might as well hang a sign out saying, avoid me at all costs. NO one wants to take a chance with me, as they all know I have an iatrogenically caused disease. Most doctors cover each other, so covering the mistakes made by their psych colleagues is "old hat" and now I'm finding it rather a norm.
I do want to write something of how I got TD, how all the psychs and most doctors ignored my symptoms and the disease progressed to the point that I have lost much of my ability to voice, and now need a walker when I go outside. My balance has been affected so wide open spaces tends to throw my balance off now. I am angry and want my voice back. Whether I will ever have a physical voice again I don't know but I write, a lot, and voice that way.
I have a blogspot, Spirit Within. I write under the pseudonym Acorn, for my protection. I prefer not to use my real name, I'm still too afraid of psychs and the psych system to come forward and say who I am. I feel a great need to protect myself from some doctors who can't stand being talked about with such truth.
I realize how angry I am and want to write without the anger. I just want to tell my story simply and truthfully so others who read it won't walk away saying, wow, this woman is really angry, but will walk away and maybe think about what happened to me might be happening to others, and what can they do about it.
I too believe people can be better reached through personal stories. I say make it personal, these psychs took away my personal liberties, denied me my basic personal rights, took away my life and my rights to live my life as I wanted. So I say do as they did, and make it personal. I say take it to the streets, to coffeehouses and restaurants and be vocal about what happened to me and others because of psychiatry and all it's mistreatments. No more hiding, no more protecting these psychs from our truth.
These psychs refuse to sit down and talk with me about how they treated me and why, so I'll talk about how I was treated to anyone who will listen. I wanted to talk with these "doctors" of mine and keep it within their four walls, but not anymore. Secrets are no good, for anybody and I want to be out there with my story so others who are thinking of taking these drugs won't. So doctors who so freely prescribe these drugs like candy will think twice and maybe many more times before they use these psych drugs as the first line defense, or offense, for conditions caused by people, family, living situations, society at large.
I've learned and grown up in the system so leaving it I left my life behind. All that I knew and taught I had to dump. I've reverted to who I mainly was pre-psych, back to behaving and reacting as I used to pre-psych. What psychiatry taught me is mainly left behind, dumped, useless garbage. I am grateful though, psychs kept me alive all these years. But the way they did it needs to be known so no other person will be subjected to those abusive techniques, for it is plain abuse what these psychs did to me so I would stay alive. How I survived I don't know, but I did.
I definitely hate psychiatry and my hatred for that particular field of medicine grows every day. I think right now my hatred is what's keeping me alive, keeping me living. I'm finding a purpose in my life I've never had before, to tell others about psychiatry and my experiences in it.
I say NO DRUGS. Drugs are not AN answer, are NEVER the answer, are never THE answer. This I do believe.
Me and Psych Drugs
What Psych Drugs Did to Me:
They put me in the medical hospital.
They took me out of the mental hospital.
They made me more depressed.
They caused me to become manic.
They made me shuffle when I walked.
They made me mumble when I talked.
They made my legs swing.
They made my neck spasm.
They made me poop less.
They made me pee more.
They upset my tummy.
They irritated my lungs.
They made me walk slow as molasses.
They made me pace the floor.
They made me drool.
They made me stick out my tongue.
They made me sit as still as a rock.
They made me sit and rock.
They gave me problems with my joints.
They made me lose lots of hair.
They gave me insomnia.
They gave me nightmares.
They made my blood pressure drop.
They made my triglycerides rise.
They made my mouth dry.
They made my hands shake.
Most of all they gave me Tardive Dyskinesia/Tardive Dystonia.
These pills were supposed to:
Help me talk better.
Help me relate and reason better.
Help me sleep better.
Never once did they do anything they were supposed to do.
I have D.I.D., Drug Induced Dystonia. Mine is caused by long term use of psychiatric medications.
The psych drugs took me out of the mental hospital but they caused me to have a drug induced movement disorder.
Medications caused my disorder. Stress did not cause me to have a dystonia, but stress does make me worse. I’d rather handle my stress in other ways than with medication.
Some may say my disorder is genetic. My uncle had Parkinsons disease. I believe I may have a predisposition to a Dystonia. I believe that the long term use of these psych drugs caused this predisposition to become a reality. I’ve taken many other medications besides psychiatric medications. I realize a combination of all the drugs I’ve taken in my life time has a cumulative effect and together, they all caused me to have D.I.D. I believe the psychiatric medications, in particular the neuroleptics, mellaril, stelazine, thorazine and haldol caused my disorder. Atypicals are less likely to cause a dystonia, but once a dystonia is present, they can cause it to get worse.
The neuroleptics affect the area of my brain called the basal ganglion. This part of the brain controls movements. These drugs are thought to make dystonia better, all they do is mask the symptoms. The sooner I’m withdrawn from these drugs, the better my chances for a remission.
Recipe for Tardive Dyskinesia/Tardive Dystonia
Ingredients:
psychiatrists with their never ending questions.
me, a patient, confused and afraid.
various neuroleptic and anti-depressant drugs.
Directions for preparation:
Start with one psychiatrist who wants to know me. Mix me up really good with questions aimed to prove that I suffer from delusions.
Add:
Stelazine and Mellaril to help me overcome my delusions.
Elavil to combat the anxiety that all these questions are eliciting.
The family to bind and confine me.
While stirring me up add these questions, either one at a time or together:
Are you sure this happened?
Are you certain that you couldn’t be wrong?
Are you positive that this happened as you said it did?
Liberally sprinkle it with these comments:
You know you often mistaken phrases and words to mean other than what I mean.
You know you often perceive things in a different manner than what it’s meant to be.
You know you often mistakenly believe you heard differently than what I said.
While mixing well, stir in these words:
Paranoid schizophrenic.
Bipolar depression.
Schizoaffective disorder.
Borderline personality disorder.
Hallucinatory experiences.
Delusional.
Paranoid.
Arrogant.
Conceited.
Attention seeker.
Controller.
Mix well and stir vigorously for the next 28 years.
Give it 6 years to rise.
Let rest 2 years.
Result: a very paranoid, confused woman suffering from Tardive Dyskinesia and Tardive Dystonia.
Feel Like Me
I’ve been told so many times by doctors how hard it is for them to keep me, a mentally ill patient on my psych drugs. I’ve told doctors why I want to stop my psych drugs. Doctors tell me I need these drugs because they’re afraid I’ll get sick again.
Gee doctor, why don’t you start on an anti-psychotic if you can’t control your fears. I hope you take them long enough so you’ll start to feel agitated inside and unable to sit still,. Then when you have start to have difficulty sleeping, start to take an anti-depressant.
When you are unable to understand simple directions or remember people’s names start on another anti-psychotic which might help the first anti-psychotic work better. Better start a drug called Cogentin to counter any side effects you may have. If you continue to shake and drool, up your dose of either anti-psychotic and your shaking and drooling will stop. If it continues, up your dose even more until the shaking and drooling stops.
If you still can think clearly to make the connection all you’re experiencing is the same symptoms I’ve been coming to you and complaining about for years now.
Maybe you’ll take me seriously and won’t dismiss me as just some mentally ill woman seeking attention.
Psych Patient
Becoming a psych patient means:
You give up your right to say no.
You’re forced to agree to everything.
You’re forced to endure treatments that you know are harmful to you.
You’re forced to accept situations and conditions no one should be forced into.
You give up the right to choose.
You’re told what to do, how to do it, when to do it and if you can do it at all.
You basically lose all rights as a human being.
You become, a no-body, a non-being, a no one.
You become isolated, shunned, a medical leper, unwanted, uncared for, an undesirable. No one wants to be around you anymore.
No one wants to be your friend.
No one wants to be seen with you.
Your family will shame you and humiliate you in an attempt to get you to “drop the act” and stop the “attention seeking” behavior.
If you weren’t mad when you entered psychiatry, you certainly will end up mad.
Who’s Guilty
I am being threatened with jail if I should continue to accuse a convicted pedophile of raping me. I told my first psychiatrist about the rape. I was told he was glad I “confessed” to a rape. I was puzzled by his choice of words. A guilty person confesses. I was not guilty of a crime, a crime had been committed to me. Since I have confessed to a rape, I have been treated by psychiatry like a dangerous criminal.
I never knew I had talked about the rape when the first psychiatrist drugged me so heavily I slept 24 hours for 7 days straight. I was only told this after I finally trusted my psychiatrist enough to tell him I had been raped. Since then I was forced by psychiatry to carry a burden of guilt and shame for over 36 years. I do not understand why therapists encouraged me to talk about the rape, then when I did, the talk was redirected to other subjects. I understand this is a technique employed by therapists when they are confronted with delusional ideations.
I am angry at psychiatry. I do not understand how they came to the decision I was delusional. I do not understand how psychiatry can believe a convicted pedophile would not rape me. I do not understand why I’ve been treated like a criminal, threatened with jail for trying to ruin a “good” man’s reputation. I do not understand psychiatry’s attitude at all.
Forgiveness
I cannot forgive someone who claims there is nothing to forgive. I think it’s a bit pompous of me to offer forgiveness if the person has not asked for my forgiveness.
I was told by my psychiatrists I had to learn to forgive my parents. My parents don’t have a clue what they did and never asked me to forgive them. I was the one who had to learn to ask them to forgive me, but I was not in therapy to ask for forgiveness. I told the story of my life as I saw it and experienced it. I am being told by psychiatry that I must accept my parent’s reality of my childhood as the only reality. I kept refusing as this idea is so absurd. I am expected to accept there is only one way to perceive what happens between two people and my views are always wrong.
I became very depressed. I was being suppressed, my feelings and perceptions were being denied me. I learned that I had to admit I was very sick, that I suffered from delusions and needed to learn to trust the therapist and accept their perceptions as the only truth. Psychiatry was just like father, suppressing and oppressing me. It’s no wonder I never got better while I was under psychiatric care.
All the drug treatments and the drug cocktails I was forced to take never helped me. I became confused, belligerent and offensive. My behavior changed for the worse as more and more drugs were forced on me in an effort to calm me into sedateness. It wasn’t until I started to decrease my drug load that my behavior changed for the better.
I went to a Survivor’s Center complaining that I was toxic on these psych drugs, that my behavior was being affected in a bad way and wanted help to taper off these drugs. I knew that the drugs were affecting my behavior and making me act in ways that were strange to me. I was disbelieved. I was subjected to humiliation after humiliation. When I was told I could not accuse anyone of sexual misconduct, I knew my “story” of a childhood rape was again being disbelieved. I knew that I was being perceived as a mentally ill woman seeking attention when I was offered services for my psychiatric condition instead of for my physical condition.
I became very angry and enraged, I tried to focus attention on my physical ailments but kept being ignored. Only my emotional state was addressed while I was at that Center. A Staff Person employed techniques to change the way I talked. I had to learn to ask for help in the manner she expected, talk the way she wanted. I protested. If I had to learn how to ask in the manner she wanted, I wanted her to learn to answer me in the manner I wanted. Such an attitude caused me much grief and I left the Center filled with anger and rage.
I cannot forgive any of the Survivors at that center for the way they treated me. I feel they should have known better. Try as they did, these survivors, like psychiatrists and therapists, could not touch the Spirit that lives within.
Simple Acts of Kindness
I focus on myself and keep all other thoughts of others out of my mind. I cared about others so much that I never learned to take proper care of myself. I had been punished as a child whenever I put my self ahead of any of my family. I was taught not to focus any attention on my self but to think constantly of others, thinking of others and sacrificing my self became the purpose of my life.
I concentrated on others and their care so much I did not deal with the anger that was building up inside. I was constantly thinking of others yet it became clear to me that no one ever thought of me, my feelings, my wants or dreams. The anger and resentment built up inside with no release, I became very depressed and wanted to commit suicide. I could see no way out of my dilemma.
A teacher recognized the signs of my extreme distress, and the day that I had decided to commit suicide, I went to say good-bye to the only person who tried to help me. I was taken by him and the school nurse to various hospitals where I was refused help. I was finally taken to one hospital where my life as a psych patient began.
In hospital I was not like the other teenagers. They came from broken homes or were committed to the hospital by the juvenile court for observation and assessment. I had nothing in common with my fellow patients, we were worlds apart. They were drug dealers, prostitutes, thieves, the “dregs” of society.
My parents went to the parent’s support group where my mother cried over the sad stories told by the other parents who struggled with their unruly teenagers. My parents quit going to the parents group on the grounds they had nothing in common with these other parents.
I found much empathy and compassion from these teens. They showed me an understanding and kindness I had never known. I grew to like my fellow teens very much. Though we were worlds apart, we shared one experience, parents who didn’t understand us or our anger.
All of us showed our anger in inappropriate ways. We were all abused in one way or another, but psychiatry focused only on us and only us, it was our behavior that needed to be changed, not anyone else’s.
As a group, we patients fought against the system in our own little ways. I would hide a pea under my napkin, my plate was always monitored to make sure I ate enough. I was forced to eat even though the food was unpalatable. I had help, the other kids would “steal” food off my plate to fool staff into thinking I had eaten. I was taught survival skills by the kids, not by any staff. Staff only taught me to lie, cheat and steal, this was necessary to survive inside a locked teenage psych unit.
I was often put in restraints for my behavior. I had been taught to walk away from situations that would cause me anger, and I followed my training. The first time I did this, I was tackled by male staff, thrown to the floor, and then wrapped in sheets for 6 hours, the required punishment time. I had no idea what was happening and fought like a tiger. I was started on Mellaril, Stelazine, Elavil, and Cogentin for my uncontrolled behavior. I got worse on the medication, I fought and cursed and refused to follow the program. My parents were appalled at the change in me, I had never behaved like that before. I became abusive to the staff, tried to break windows and punch out walls. I was forcibly tackled, had my pants and panties yanked down and a shot of Thorazine injected into my butt and spent many hours in sheets. Once I was sheeted for twelve hours to teach me a lesson.
Being in sheets is sheer torture. I was wrapped up like a mummy with only my head and feet sticking out. I was tied at the elbows and knees and strapped down with a sheet over my breast, waist and legs. Depending on the staff’s whim, I could be strapped down very tightly enough to restrict the blood flow to my body. I was punished with more sheet time if I yelled or screamed or called for help. Silence was golden and the rule. I would become very hot in sheets, but no one was allowed to give me any water. I passed out quite frequently, I grew so hot.
Sheets are very effective to convince me to behave. I have a fear of being sheeted and will instantly obey any command given if threatened with sheets. I was last in the ER when I was to be sheeted. I was to be given the full treatment, whatever that meant, while in sheets. My mother sat there while the ER staff prepared a sheet bed. I knew I could count on no help from her. I tried to center myself and calm my fears. I knew if I fought it would be worse for me but my fear of sheets and my hatred of sheets grew and I knew once I walked out the room and was tackled, I would fight with every ounce of strength to not be sheeted. Sheets are an outrage to the body, an insult to the soul, and a degradation to a human being. I want all psychiatrists and doctors to have a sheet experience, to spend six hours in sheets and then relate to me how they felt. I want them to experience the pain of sheets, the heat exhaustion and the aches in the body caused by sheets. There are no bathroom breaks while in sheets, I learned either to hold it in or soil myself. I learned that soiling myself was punished with more sheet time, it was better to suffer the agonies of holding myself in than more sheet time.
Restraints are said to be used only when necessary. I was restrained for refusing to take my psych drugs. I was being given Haldol, a drug which caused me to have painful spasms and stick my tongue out. I had a psychiatrist not believe I did this since I never stuck out my tongue or spasmed in front of him. I saw him once a week for 50 minutes, I lived with my family 24/7 who witnessed this happening. I had taken myself off Haldol, went into a withdrawal psychosis, was hospitalized and refused to restart Haldol. I was thrown on the floor, injected with Haldol, and I heard one staff say, put her in sheets to teach her a lesson. I was injected and sheeted every time I refused to take my Haldol. I was taught by a prostitute and a transvestite I could maintain my dignity while I obeyed the staff. I was taught the fine art of hiding within myself, my true self while appearing to obey and do whatever the staff wanted.
I had been brutally beaten, tortured and raped by a pedophile when I was a little girl. What I experienced that hospitalization resembled what that pedophile subjected me to. I groveled and did many humiliating things with a smile and a grin. Eventually I got out. As I was leaving, my friend the whore called after me, ”remember your lessons well and never return”.
Because of a whore and a drag queen, the staff and the doctors never touched the Spirit that lives within.
I survived the agonies and brutalities of psychiatric treatments through a lot of simple acts of kindness.
My Story
I have an condition that no doctor wants to confirm, Tardive Dyskinesia and Tardive Dystonia. Fancy words for a drug induced movement disorder. I take these two psych drugs, Abilify and Remeron, which affect the basal ganglion of my brain. I’ve been taking these type of drugs for over 36 years and these drugs have caused me to have this condition called TD.
My symptoms first started during the 1980’s when I was taking Haldol. I would rock incessantly and my tongue would protrude. It wasn’t until sometime in the 1990’s my medication was switched from Haldol to Seroquel. The rocking subsided and my tongue stopped protruding. A combination of Seroquel and Geodon landed me in the ER where I was admitted to a cardiac unit. It was on this unit I first started to have audio hallucinations.
The Hallucinations: I heard voices on the TV talking to me, such vile sex trash it turned my face red. I asked the nurse to turn the TV off and she was puzzled and said, “the TV is off.” The phone talked to me, but when I looked at it, it was on the receiver.
The Condition: The doctors were convinced I was faking not being able to move, urinate, or swallow. I woke up once and found my hospital gown had slipped down, exposing one breast. People passed by and stared. Finally a male nurse came in cursing and said, “Can’t everyone see she really can’t move,” and covered my exposed breast.
Diagnosis and Treatment: The physical therapist came to see me. I looked up at him as he asked the nurse, “What’s her diagnosis?” The nurse answered, “The doctors can’t find anything wrong.” The physical therapist immediately replied, “Psych Consult!”
I was told by the physical therapist if I could walk from my bed to the far wall and back, I would be discharged home. We found that I walked better without a walker. I reached the far wall, was told to turn and I did. I felt myself falling and heard someone say, “Oh Shit.” I couldn’t see. I felt hands all over me. I felt myself being lifted off the floor and carried back to my bed where I was firmly tucked in. My sight gradually returned but no one would answer my pleas for an explanation. I never saw the physical therapist again. At all times, the doctors’ bedside manner was brusque, bordering on rudeness.
Once I woke up and found myself talking with the head nurse. I have no idea why we were talking. All I can remember was the head nurse telling me that he had witnessed what happened between me and a doctor. He had all his nurses pass by my room to witness and chart what they saw and heard. I was then reassured that in a court of law, the nurses’ notes took precedence over any doctor’s notes. I have absolutely no idea what he was talking about.
I remember hearing the ward chief talking with my parents, telling them how she resented being woken at all hours of the night because the staff called concerned about me. I was puzzled. What was the concern? Why was I on a cardiac unit? Why couldn’t I move? Why couldn’t I swallow? Why did I black out? Why was I being treated as less than human, with no courtesy or regard for my feelings? To this day I’m still asking these questions.
As I was being transferred to the psych unit a nurse yelled after me and the nurse escort, “You’ll be sorry when you find her hanging from the ceiling. She belongs on a secured locked unit. People coming off these drugs need to be watched very closely. You’ll be sorry, wait and see.” I was reassured that on the psych unit I would get the treatment I needed for the psychiatrists and psych nurses know best how to treat people like me.
Why Are Psychiatrists MD’s?
Why are Psychiatrists considered medical doctors when all the medicine they practice is prescribing psychiatric drugs? Beyond the initial physical exam when entering the hospital, these doctors write out the prescription for me to take and it’s the nursing staff’s responsibility to see that I take what I need per doctor’s orders.
These psychiatrists have everyone, even their fellow medical doctors, all specialists in different diseases of the BODY, convinced that they, the psychiatrists, are the ONLY ones who are knowledgeable about these psych drugs. After all, they took special training and courses and keep updated on these drugs, proof they are truly the only ones qualified to prescribe, regulate and monitor these special medications.
I ask everyone, why, at the first signs of a drug reaction, like hives, why am I sent to a medical doctor to rule out a medical condition, and when the hives are not an allergic reaction to a physical allergy, then why are my hives considered a psychogenic reaction so my dose of the psych drug increased to treat my hives? And, why do the hives disappear for awhile but come back and be treated again with a higher dosage, and so the merry-go-round continues until I’m switched to another drug that doesn’t give me hives but another reaction occurs and here I go again, back to a medical who is getting resentful of my using up his time with these psychogenic reactions when he has real patients with real diseases to treat. So I get told, bad news, your blood test is negative. So back I go to my psychiatrist to be re-evaluated for a hidden mental illness or a deep seated psychic disturbance.
I was hospitalized because I couldn’t urinate or move my legs and had difficulty swallowing. The medicals couldn’t find anything wrong with me. The physical therapist who came to evaluate me asked the nurse what was wrong with me. The nurse said the doctors don’t know. The physical therapist said, psych consult.
The nurses kept calling the ward chief about me, at all hours of the day and night. The other residents and attendants were frustrated with me because they could come up with no reason why I should be having trouble swallowing and walking. They all were very angry at me and as a result, I was sent to the psych unit for evaluation as everything physical had been ruled out.
They were right to be resentful and angry and I did belong in the psych unit because I was having a reaction to an atypical which only psychiatrists are qualified to deal with as they are specially trained to be the only ones who can identify and treat these mysterious drug reactions, as they keep reminding everyone. So why were the nurses calling the ward chief? Why weren’t they calling my psychiatrist? And where was my psychiatrist anyway?
All these psych drugs are still too new. Not even the psychiatrists themselves can claim they know all the potential side effects. So when I have a reaction that isn’t classified yet, why am I instantly accused of faking it? Of having a psychogenic reaction? Why would I want to put myself back under the care of a psychiatrist, when it’s psychiatrists, through their neglect, lack of attention, and lack of caring, that have left me a body that is damaged almost beyond repair?
A Lesson Learned
Before I entered psychiatry’s hallowed hallways, I would have answered any questions beginning with the words, I’m pretty sure … .
I’ve been under the tutelage of psychiatry for over 36 years. My first day at Psychiatry’s school was with my first hospitalization at the young age of 16. Self-confidence and self-reliance were my chief subjects. To learn self-reliance, I had to learn to become dependent. Inside a psychiatric institution, I was taught to announce to everyone what I was going to do, where I was going and why. Then I had to learn how to ask, like how to ask permission to go to the bathroom. Eventually I couldn’t do anything without asking for someone’s approval. Lessons learned and I was discharged.
Learning self-confidence was my downfall. My stories of childhood abuse was disbelieved because of one incident, when I applied all that I had learned from psychiatry’s teachers, my therapists. In therapy I had learned to be positive without a doubt and if I had doubts, not to show or voice them. I learned to answer yes with such confidence that I showed I had no room for doubt. I was becoming suspicious when my last therapist, like a marine drill instructor, kept asking me, are you sure you know where the deli is, are you positive, and like a dumb, frightened boot, I answered with such conviction that I showed I was immovable in my beliefs. This solid stance I took was my downfall, for all my “stories” of abuse became that, just stories. Leaving no possibility for a mistake, I showed that I could not and would not accept a mistake in any of my childhood perceptions, that my reality was the only reality I would accept.
For me to heal, I had to free myself of psychiatry. I had to unlearn what psychiatry had taught me and I did it by writing in my journal. I wrote what I thought had happened to me, incorporated the person I am now with my child. I believe my reality but am open to questions to clarify some discrepancies.
I’m no longer a psychiatric patient, haven’t been for almost 3 months now. I trust only myself and a few others, no psychiatrist included. I have become self-reliant. I first had to learn not to trust others as much as I did and learn to trust myself, the only person I did not trust or believe. I had to self-acknowledge the fact that I was abused, and believe that fact before my healing could begin. Psychiatry still does not believe my stories of abuse and would do anything and everything to disprove me. But I no longer need to prove anything to anybody anymore, for I believe myself and I believe that what happened to me really happened. I trust in my reality enough to say this, I could be wrong about some of the things that happened to me, but the majority of what I talk about did happen and that I’m sure of. I have become self-confident.
Lessons learned, unlearned, and retaught and relearned. I am back to who I was before I came under the tutelage of psychiatry, but better for the experience for I know who I am and now believe in myself and trust myself, the only person I did not believe and trust.
Thoughts
People reading my blogspot may think I’m feeling sorry for myself. I just have to laugh at this presumption on their part. I believe they are feeling sorry for themselves. They are not being shown to be the good, kind people they believe they are. What I’m doing, in the privacy of my home, by my blogging, is working out the feelings that were denied me by my family. I need to vent, rage, and do whatever I need to do to go through the feelings, work through my feelings before I can detach from them.
This is how I emotionally detach. I write, and write, and say whatever comes to mind. I do whatever I need to do to experience the feelings all the way through. Then and only then will I be able to detach from them, then from the situations that caused me to feel that way.
I am processing what I’m feeling in such a way that I am getting in touch with my feelings. I am permitting myself to feel my feelings, something therapists, psychiatrists, and my family have denied me all my years of life. I am feeling for the first time in my life, without the “help” of drugs to numb me so I can handle my feelings better.
Drugs never helped me, they numbed me and made me dumb, but they never helped me experience and work through my feelings. I had to take myself off these drugs, myself, before I could start to deal with my feelings. I was so emotionally suppressed I became severely depressed. The psychiatrists treated my severe depression with more drugs which only made me suicidal.
When I was denied admission to the psych hospital, I knew I had to do something about me and these drugs. I knew no doctor was going to help me. I was denied admission by a doctor when I went there for help. I did as taught, asked for help using the words I was taught by psychiatrists and it was a psych resident who told me I didn’t really want to be in the hospital. I was suicidal, I had a plan, I was so scared of myself I knew the only safe place for me was on a locked unit in a hospital. I stated this, and was denied admission.
I went home, so dejected and so hurt. I had done as taught, as berated and humiliated by my psychiatrists, and I was denied admission. I hated that night and survived on hate. I turned to the devil himself to get me through that night. I hated with every ounce of my being, with every part of my soul. I filled my body with hatred and when I felt the death thoughts creeping up on me, I filled myself with more hate. I became so full of hate I died in spirit that night. I killed myself that night in such a way that a body survived, but my soul was destroyed.
How I returned, how I got my soul back, a patient labeled person walked me back through my dark corridors of hate. If not for her, I would be still lost in the dark halls of hatred.
I do not feel sorry for myself, no, I’m processing out my feelings of anger, rage and hate in the only way left to me, blogging.
I wrote Psych USA which I am publishing on my blogspot for all to see. I want people to know it’s Acorn who is talking, it’s a nut, an Acorn who wrote about her abuse, in such a way that I am freeing myself from hatred. I pity those who don’t understand. I don’t ask for pity, I don’t look for pity, I don’t write for pity. All I ask is to be heard.
Acorn; It is wrong not only to kill a mockingbird, but to silence one as well.
I am an ACON, an Adult Child of Narcissistic Parents. I am also a Psychiatric Survivor. Much of what you will read will shock and amaze you, that things like this can happen to someone. I am not alone, it has happened, is happening still, to too many people.
I have a blogspot, Spirit Within. I write under the pseudonym Acorn, for my protection. I prefer not to use my real name, I'm still too afraid of psychs and the psych system to come forward and say who I am.
For more great anti-psychiatry perspectives, from this author and others, check out our evolving resource; http://www.againstpsychiatry.com