Without anti-psychotic drugs, I am finally free to be me

[cinephile]

Just found this. The title speaks for itself. Even though it's about antipsychotics, I just know everyone on this board can relate.

 

Without anti-psychotic drugs, I am finally free to be me

[Altostrata]

Very poignant from a member of MindFreedom:

 

"....My reality was a chemical reality, not the reality of a normal adolescent. Standing at the crossroads now, I see all that was wrong with my situation, and there is a large part of me that is angry.

 

....

I just needed someone to understand and believe in me. I needed more than the support of well-wishing doctors, parents and the local community resources around me.

 

Since the age of 11, I have been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, schizo-affective disorder, bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, clinical depression, anxiety disorder with panic attacks, and the toxic phrase “potentially dangerous.”

 

What no one understood was that while I had symptoms of all these disorders, I was still a person underneath. I was never given a chance to be anything other than what was contained in those infernal medical records — and because of this, I was unable to comprehend the circumstances of a poisoned existence.

 

Changing my situation took the intuition of a young woman I met just five months ago. She saw something beyond the classifications of disorders. She saw a gentle soul struggling to keep his head above water.

 

As she tells the story now, I was a lost and desperate young man, looking for some sort of non-water-soluble security.

 

I needed someone who I could completely trust, allowing myself to remember what it was really like to truly be me — the young boy at heart, the boy who was never given the chance to become the man he was destined to be.

 

As of today, I am no longer that boy, I am the man I was supposed to be — and this makes me happy and whole...."

[cinephile]

Indeed. That segment really resonated with me as I'm in a similar situation having "come of age" on SSRIs (sigh) and now coming to the end of an era (error!).

 

This line in particular struck a chord:

 

I just needed someone to understand and believe in me. I needed more than the support of well-wishing doctors, parents and the local community resources around me.

I've recently come to the conclusion that many people, no matter how true and noble their intentions, just aren't good, therapeutic listeners. And this goes for psychologists as well, who are often tangled up in clinical thinking and trying therapeutic concepts like CBT. Not to say CBT doesn't work, but I think a lot of people just need to be LISTENED to, without judgment, but with compassion. And to be listened to means that the listener will not instantly launch into "problem solving mode" and be pragmatic and treat a delicate, multi-layered problem like a fix-it job like installing a second bath. Honestly I think that's all that is needed in many cases: just a compassionate friend or family member who knows how to listen, or as this person puts it, understand and believe in them. To tell them they're not crazy/dysfunctional, but are just reacting in a very normal way to a crazy world.

 

For me, the most memorable thing about Michael Moore's BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE was the Marilyn Manson interview. He was targeted by many parent groups for being a bad influence on kids and perhaps initiating the Columbine Massacre, and Moore asked him what he would say to these troubled kids if they were still alive. What he said was so simple but so powerful that nobody else thought of it: he simply said, "I wouldn't ask them anything. I'd LISTEN, and that's precisely what nobody did." Very, very true. And yet we as a society STILL can't get that through our heads

[summer]

People of all ages need to be "listened" to. That's the only "medication" most of us need. Now, finding that person who truly listens is a whole other story.