āThis year is the first time I have made a choice to back away from the mental health system. I never felt I had a choice before. I felt compelled to seek help from a system that had bullied me for years. I was conditioned to run back to them to protect me from the monster I carried on my back. When I turned to face this monster, I learned that it isnāt a monster at all. In fact, some of the most creative and authentic pieces of me are housed in this so-called monster that they have named Bipolar. I was first hospitalized at age sixteen after the death of my grandmother. She was a genius with a photographic memory and she understood me. When I sat with her I didnāt feel like a freak or a misfit. I was just me, and she made space for all my quirks. Once she was gone, my safe space was gone and I never fully recovered. Looking back now I believe I was hospitalized for grief, but labeled with disorder. My stay in hospital at age sixteen included being told that they had tested my IQ and I was smart, therefore making it all up. I was given ECT as a treatment for making it all up, and then was discharged with ten words laced heavily with contempt. These words still echo in my head: āGet her out of here, she will never get well.ā I was discharged without the meds I had been on in the hospital, and I went through withdrawal at home with no idea what withdrawal was. I now understand that the nightmare I went through was from the sudden discontinuation of medications such as Ativan and Prozac. Twenty years later, I finally realized that death was better than here, but I didnāt want to die. āHereā was medication-induced Lupus. āHereā was a medication-induced tic. āHereā was my life unraveling despite following all the orders and taking all the medications. I still had regular hospital stays, and when I did I would be blamed outright. āWe all know this is what you do. You mess with your meds!ā my therapist told me after my last hospital stay. In her mind the answer was clear and simple, but she was building a puzzle without having all the pieces. The doctor told me that the rash I had all over my body was from anxiety or the sun, not the new medication. The fact that I was concerned about it was a sign of my obsessions. I couldnāt win. They were fighting dirty. A Bipolar 1 diagnosis made me an easy target to blame. I couldnāt convince them that I was compliant even by being compliant, and this compliance almost killed me. I couldnāt prove that I had insight because they had already made their minds up. I was in a very dangerous position. The most dangerous weapon that has been used against me is this idea that I am incapable of insight because of my diagnosis. There will be occasions when my insight is faulty, like there is with any person, but this is the exception and not an everyday occurrence. Iām tired of rules being written for me based on exceptions to the rule. Learning over a lifetime in the system that I couldnāt trust my own insight did more damage to my intellect and ability than this illness ever has. I stopped trying. I was terrified of me, but I was even more afraid of what the doctors could do to me. Even portions of my experience that are very human were scrutinized and then pathologized. I was no longer allowed to just grieve or vent. I felt envious of the people around me who did not have a diagnosis. I watched them scream at traffic or stomp their feet or cry, all without fear of lock up. I imposed on myself an emotional prison. I thought that if I kept myself locked up mentally, they wouldnāt lock me up physically. When I asked for a referral to a new psychiatrist, my doctor was offended and I was blamed again. When did my ability to decide if a relationship is working or not shut down? I stayed with the same doctor for fifteen years. The sicker my medication made me, the harder the doctors pushed back. They could only see my psychiatric diagnosis despite me having a very visible physical reaction to the medications I had been taking. I believe now that fifteen years is more than a fair try. Fifteen years of getting treatment without returning to function is actually insanity. I should have given up after year two. Instead of trusting my intuition and insight, I pushed it down and downā¦ until it finally fought its way back to the surface. I could no longer ignore the obvious. My body was screaming the truth at me and finally I had no choice but to listen. What scared me the most in my quest to gain distance from psychiatry was the anger and resistance I encountered from my team. [ā¦] If I am afraid of what the imbalance of power can do to me it is because I have lived it, only I was on the side without any power. [ā¦] I had believed that I would have to do this alone, and was even considering going into hiding, but there are supports and advocates out there. I just wasnāt looking in the right places. I donāt want to hide because if I hide, then my experience canāt help others. If someone had told me this story when I was sixteen, things might have been different. Now I am working on becoming friends with my quirks again. Self-compassion has been a more effective treatment than the medication straitjacket ever accomplished. I am as guilty as the medical system, though, because when they told me how dangerous these parts of me were, I jumped on board and began a twenty-year fight against myself. After all, that āmonsterā was me. I will never be able to make up for the abuse I inflicted upon myself in the name of mental health. But this year I realized how cruel I have been. This year I apologized to myself and began grieving everything I have lost. Now my life is reconfigured to include helpers, advocates and friends who have my best interests at heart and who see potential in me. Best of all, I am now relearning to trust my insight and become one of my own supports. I am still backing away from the psychiatric system. I am not yet at the safety of the hill I saw in my dream, but Iām getting closer, and with each step I feel happier and more secure. Iām sure that when I get to the hill and look around, I will see that Iām not outside in the dark and all alone. There is a crowd of us, and the sun is coming up.ā
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