WARNING: THIS IS A VERY ANGRY POST. It contains angry swearing language and is “not nice”…If you only want to “like” me then click LIKE without reading, as usual. (You know who you are.) If you want to read what I wrote, then go ahead, but be forewarned: you won’t like what you read.
I am in the middle of a move to Vermont, the state of my dreams, the state where I was well for six weeks and where I was happy and in a happy state. Was I in a dream state? Am I in a dream state to think that I can make it there, move there in one piece? And make a new life?
Du must dein leben andern…You must change your life. That’s the last line of the most important poem I ever read in my life, “The Archaic Torso of Apollo” by Rainer Maria Rilke, which I read at least 30 years ago, and never forgot. Yet I never changed my life until now. Oh, I have tried, in my way, I have tried. I have tried many times to stop taking my so-called anti-psychotic medications and go it alone, but always informed the relevant medical personnel in my life, with disastrous results. I believe it was the informing that caused the disasters however, NOT the stopping of my meds. Belief, and expectation play a huge role in what happens to people, and when EVERYONE around you anticipates the worst and looks for it, when everyone KNOWs you will become psychotic without the drugs, somehow they make it happen. It happens all the time, so that even if you wouldn’t become psychotic otherwise, they force it on you, or look so hard for symptoms that they see what might not be there. And then the hospital forces the drugs on you and you react with anger and traumatized combativeness and they react with more force and brutality and it just escalates and everyone tells you you MUST take the meds from now on OR ELSE.
But it ain’t true, because the meds are bogus as anyone who has ever been drugged up with Haldol would tell you, if they were honest. Haldol, the doctors’ favorite tranquilizer and “anti-psychotic” drug, does diddly-squat for psychosis. It only drugs you out of your gourd so you shut the fuck up about it. But it doesn’t change a thing inside, it just quiets you down so you don’t make the noise you did, and you submit. You submit and no one gives a shit about what is really going on.
Except that I didn’t really quiet down on Haldol, because every time Yale held me down for injections in the ass, I retaliated by stripping my clothing off and shitting on the floor of my non-seclusion seclusion room, and smearing it all over the place. That was my retaliation for their punishing me with a torture drug that did nothing for me only against me. And they knew it perfectly well. So I punished them with my SHIT!
Fuck them! Let the aides call me “Pig” and “Swine,” I didn’t care. No one believed me when I told them what that aide was doing. But I got back at him by calling him “rapist” every time he grabbed me to keep me in that room. “Darien, the Rapist!” I’d scream, just to call attention to his physically attacking me. “Rapist!” So he got back at me by muttering,”Pig, swine…” under his breath when no one else could hear him, just so it seemed like I was hallucinating. But I wasn’t. I knew what was what, and I knew what he was doing.
Haldol is a shit drug, by the way. It does NOTHING to help anyone but punish them and torture them, but the thing is, it is a model for all the other anti-psychotic drugs. Keep that in mind, because none of the other AP drugs works any better than Haldol and you are fooling yourselves if you think they do. You want to believe the drugs help you, and your belief makes the drugs work. That is all. It is the placebo effect, pure and simple. But the drugs also harm you. Why else would you be obese or tremulous or any of the other detrimental things that have happened since you started taking anti-psychotic drugs? Do you think they are harmless? Do you think that diabetes just happened to you out of the blue? No, the drugs not only offer only a placebo treatment that you could get on your own, but they cause obesity and diabetes as well. And a whole host of other problems.
But far be it from me to tell you what to do. I just know that I am not going to continue with this garbage. I will NOT be told by anyone hired by the drug companies and instructed by them as well that I should take these drugs for the rest of my SHORTENED life..BULLSHIT!
Look, you do what you want. If you want to live 25 years less than you would have otherwise, fine. FUCK ME! I don’t give a shit what you do, but I will not lie to myself any longer. These drugs do nothing. They have never kept me sane or cured my psychotic episodes. They do nothing for me, and they only hurt me. If you were honest with yourself you might admit the same thing.
WHATEVER!!!!!!
Fuck me. I don’t give a shit. Do whatever suits you, I’m outta here, I’m moving to Vermont and getting off this shit and having a better life than this bullshit in Connecticut. I’m moving on and moving out, and CHANGING MY LIFE. Du must dein Leben andern. You people can go on and take your pills and stay sick and play the good patient and pretend that Haldol and all the other derivative drugs “help” you. I don’t give a good goddam. I won’t live that lie any longer. The drugs are bogus and if you bothered to do your homework and read about them, you would know what I know. And If you were honest about your life you would admit that they do nothing for you too.
Go ahead, leave my blog, don’t read what I write any more. I don’t care. I’m sick of popularity contests and “LIKES” by people who don’t bother to read what I write. Don’t LIKE me! I don’t care. You haven’t even read this far anyway. Don’t LIKE me! I don’t give a shit. I’m moving to Vermont. Connecticut and all of you can go blow.
(Sorry, but I am sick of BS and I had to get this off my chest. I don’t care who dis-likes me after this blog post. You either want me to speak my truth or you don’t…But I won’t lie any longer or be diplomatic either. Take it or leave it.)
WAGblog: Dum Spiro Spero 
Dear Juliet,
Thank you. I meant no “likes” by people who clearly just click “like” in order to get “liked” back, those who don’t bother to read anything just click “like”, for the credit. I am being such a curmudgeon, but there are those people you know! Anyhow, I write to be read and if someone doesn’t bother to read me, why do they bother to click “like” for the helluvit! ( You clearly read my blog post, but I am sure you get this problem at yours too, no?) Anyhow, thank you for the support. I really appreciated the “you rock” a lot!
Best wishes,
Pam
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Yeah, I would have liked this but you wrote you don’t want that and so I’m just writing this comment instead. You’re entitled to do whatever and I think you rock.
I wish you well.
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I wish you well, Pam. Enjoy your new home. Feel free to call me at any time (678)531.0262.
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Dear Alaina, Wow, do I understand your predicament vis a vis your hubby. I have a very longterm friend whose situation is much like his, with similar symptoms but she refuses to do anything to change anything…so it seems to me. Won’t see a therapist or talk about anything. Just drugs herself up to numb herslef on more and more drugs and it seems like they just make things worse. I tell her the drugs are NO GOOD, but it does no good. Despite diabetes and COPD (smoking still) and a whole host of related problems, she still believes that the drugs do more to help than harm her, though frankly I think they have caused incalculable damage, and have NEVER helped her at all. But I can say nothing. I am moving, and that is all I can do, change my life and let her deal with her own life as she will, because I cannot let her refusing to change make me stay stagnating and in danger of dying in a local hospital or simply never changing my life just for her sake…I need to do this and she would be happy if i just stayed the same and did nothing to make anything better for myself.
But she is not my husband and so that situation is even worse, because of course you won’t and don’t want to leave him. And he has tried to get off the drugs, at least once…Though I think that ADs may be even more addictive than AP drugs, not to mention the associated benzos that so many with depression also take regularly. What a mess. what a mess.
Anyhow, I am doing this, moving on, and moving to Vermont, scared as I am. And whatever happens happens. But I will not stay in CT just to be a pawn of the System and end up dead in some psychiatric unit,victim of some “accident” or “natural causes” that were never natural or accidental at all.
Thanks for the comment. I’m with you! I just don’t know how or whether I will succeed at stopping the meds myself, because of how long I have taken some AP drug one or another, steadily ever since I was on 1500mg of Thorazine in the early 80s. We will see. I am hopeful, but trying to stay realistic. It is only that I am often the last to recognize when things have gone down the tubes…
Pam
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Wow. WOW. Pam, you are so real, so true, so honest and heroic. You amaze me. I am in awe of you.
Through my extensive research on the subject of schizophrenic psychosis, I have come to the conclusion that the main reason I recovered from schizophrenia at the age of 16 — and have never had a single psychotic relapse in the 45 years since my release from the insane asylum — is probably due to the fact that I did NOT take any “antipsychotic” drugs after I left the institution in 1969.
My mother told me not to take any more of my medication, which is why I stopped. She did not tell me this because she had my best interests at heart — quite the opposite. She told me that she could not afford to pay for the medication, so therefore I might as well not bother to take the pills that had been sent home with me. She also told me, less than a week after I was home from the hospital, that she could not afford to feed me, as she had 5 younger children to feed, and therefore, she said, I would be doing the family a great favor if I would run away from home…. in the dead of winter, in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere where I knew no one, and with snow on the ground. Never one to stay where I was not wanted, I left, and went cold-turkey off the Thorazine.
Ironically, I believe that not having a family who gave enough of a damn about me to see to it that I got the meds the all-knowing doctor prescribed, is what saved me.
I am now 61 years old and I have complex post-traumatic stress disorder, primarily caused by my extremely abusive childhood AND the horrors I endured in the insane asylum in the 1960s. But I do not take any medication now, with the sole exception of a thyroid replacement. I was on an antidepressant and an antianxiety drug in recent years, but the side effects were horrible and the “benefit,” if any, was nil. So I slowly weaned myself off and today, after being on nothing but the low dose thyroid medication for well over a year, I truly feel better than I have felt in decades. I mean, I feel better than I did when I was half the age I am now. I function!
My 65-year-old husband is on an antidepressant for his PTSD, which was caused by Vietnam. He has been on an antidepressant for something like 20 years, which was before I even knew him. He is obese, he is lethargic, he is numb emotionally. It seems to me like he is going through life asleep. Yet he cannot sleep at night. I am so afraid that his obesity is going to shorten his life. He has already had two heart attacks. He gets out of breath with the slightest exertion. I have tried to talk him into tapering off the drugs, but he does not want to do it. He tried going off cold turkey a few months ago and he felt so horrible that he decided he “needs” the drugs.
I have to remember it is his decision to make, but it hurts me to see him like this.
I am wishing all the best for you, dearest Pam.
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Pam, I never for once feel you are angry with me. I know some of that F system you talk about and of some lousy attitude of some ‘sick’. My Brother thought America had the magic pill for his epilepsy and eventual bipolar etc – sure the pill came in his coffin weeks ago.
Try my friend, it could happen to any of us. I am sincerely so fortunate to be learning so much from the likes of you 🙂
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Emm, I agree with you but have two points to add. I guess most doctors know but have their commissions from big brother pharma to secure and medical reps outnumber patients. 🙂
As for patients, when you start out, all you want is something to relieve the pain – the next thing you know is dependency on those drugs and brain washing as you rightly put.
Am not on meds, and frankly hope to never get close.
You are equally right in saying people do what they like 🙂
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I think you are a brave strong courageous person and you are obviously extremely smart and gifted with your art. You are so honest. I will keep you in my thoughts
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Thank you, Amanda. Yes, I have read that you moved to Sweden, which must have been quite the uprooting! The move is stressful, esp with giving away most of my furniture and things so I can do so without taking huge amounts with me, though I still have boxes and boxes, mostly art stuff. I have never done anything like this in my life, so it is a real change, and real adventure. I can only hope it goes well. I have a place to stay for 2 months, and presumably will find somewhere to go after that. But I will make it, I know I will. Thank you so much again for your reading my drastic post all the way through. I appreciate it!
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You are so kind to “them” by hoping for their best…that they never feel depressed or bad. I do not wish such a fate on “them” but wish that they too could experience the effects of their drugs so they would KNOW first hand what they do to people. The problem is that people take the drugs often willingly, because they WANT to be sick and WANT to have a label and WANT to feel like a patient with a mental illness. Let’s face it, there are reasons why people won’t go to a talk therapist but stick with drugs that wreak havoc with their system, and why the medical model has such a hold on the American public. They LIKE IT! They LIKE labels and being called Mentally Ill, especially when they by and large are not so ill, but just want to — OH I DUNNO> I am just so sick of people saying, I’m DEPRESSED because they are sad and won’t talk about painful things but just pop another pill!!!! What the F— is wrong with people???? Sorry, Marie, You are a good person and I am not angry with you. I am angry with myself for buying into the system for so long and being abused by it and letting it abuse me…and It is hard to get out of it, even in Vermont! But I am trying, and I will keep on Trying…Thank you so very much for the reblog. You amazed me by your daring to do so. I did not expect that. Amazing! Thank you again.
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I AM tapering them, and I am OKAY! I am just angry because i have seen how the drugs destroy lives, Physically and mentally, and I do not know WHAT I NEED and what I do not need, but I know that the two AP drugs I take have never kept me OUT of the hospital so what the F do they do for me???? Besides satisfy the doctors need to feel like an RD (real doctor)? I do have a psychiatrist, a fairly decent one, but I am LEAVING Connecticut and I hope to do so in time to avoid any conflict with her over the meds. In the meantime, I will take half of what I am prescribed for as long as I can, then taper that…I can only do what I can do. And tolerate the pain that I can tolerate. After that, what will be will be….I dunnno what else to do, because god knows no doctor will help me do this the right way or encourage me to get through it…
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THANK YOU!!! But of course, beware, because people will say I am irresponsible and wrong-headed etc. And BAD BAD BAD to encourage anyone not to take their meds. Which I think I am NOT doing actually though I think ALL meds are bogus. People can do what they want but they often are so drugged up that they no longer know their own minds. I just read in fact that women who take a BEnzodiazapine within 5 years of turning 66 have a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease…5 years! They don’t know what they are doing, people who take meds, but the doctors don’t know either, that is the problem, They just don’t give a damn, they aren’t doctors unless they do something “medical” so they bought the notion that these drugs are effective in treating some entities that is just a LIE and a fiction. But it makes them feel like RD’s real doctors so they stop thinking and just prescribe…
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oh I hope you are ok. It is not a good idea to go off the meds without tapering. Not because you need them, but because going off them will cause a major malfunction in your chemistry that the meds have created.
You are a talented, passionate, caring person who deserves better.
please taper, find a psychiatrist that will work with you.
ooh, and I read your posts 2 times usually, and I look forward to them, but this one hurts me to see you in so much pain
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Reblogged this on Marie Abanga's Blog and commented:
I reblog this post because l feel Pam’s anger. I reblog because l share her hope. I reblog once more because l have seen how that shitty system drugs people up, just short of the label addict.
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My dear Pam,
I read you to the end. I not only like you, but l feel you. I saw my brother fight medications but we were so scared of blabla and thought the systrm knew best. We saw the shocking results, tried to grab same system’s reevaluation, but oh no they knew best right?
l think people should be helped to gradually get off drugs and not become addicts. Halfol, Prozac, Lithium, Tegretol and blabla, are no diff shit from coke, weed, acid, u name them. I sincerely wish you a fruitful move to vermont and l hope you come to find some one you trust. Share your past with that person and review your present. The future is future.
The sad thing is, those drugs have already done such damage on the immune sys, nerves and all, that an abrupt withdrawal will lead to abrupy and drastic results. Now, if u ve the patience and stamina to live out the withdrawal effect whilr hopeful going for alternative treatment, then u could make it.
I really feel for u friend. I am so sorry. Shitty and scrwed system indeed.
I always concludr by saying l hope they live for ever and are never even depressed. Dem a…h.les.
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I liked you and I read you all the way through. I hope that your move goes well. I have moved long distances in my life, from Vancouver to Sweden most recently (5 years ago); do take care of yourself, moving is stressful, and although it can be healing to be able to reinvent yourself in the new place, it can also be isolating. I hope that you keep writing and keep discovering your own inner truths. Warm regards and happy travels.
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Unfortunately they already know…So that is out of the question, but I don’t have to stay in the system, and I don’t have to grant the psychiatric system the right to talk to any medical system…THat is my right. So I do have that choice. The ONLY people I am involved with so far are Human services….So I COULD start fresh. If I can. But I do not work and cannot work, so I am stuck with human services at this point. I just do not have to grant them the right to communicate with any medical personnel I interact with or admit to interaction with HS to any strictly medical personnel…AND as long as I stay okay, I will be okay.
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Yeah, I’ve found that telling psychiatrists I was going off my meds/had gone off my meds only ever got me hospitalized, even when I was doing okay. Or they’d try to convince me that withdrawal symptoms–which are a normal response to spending most of your life on drugs that screw with your brain chemistry in ways even the doctors don’t understand–meant that I was “severely mentally ill” and couldn’t stop my meds ever. But I found that if I could wait out the withdrawals, the symptoms eased eventually. Sometimes it took a long time, but that makes sense after having been on these drugs since I was 5.
So now I don’t tell anyone. My “treatment team” thinks I’m still taking antidepressants…and I don’t plan on telling them I’m not. Honestly, I don’t think it’s their business, and I don’t trust them with that information. I know they would misuse it.
I hope that your move to Vermont gives you the opportunity to start over. My advice would be not to disclose to any doctors that you have a previous history of psychiatric treatment. Just leave it off the medical history forms. I’m sure people are going to yell at me for saying that, and they’ll tell me it’s irresponsible to omit medical information…but until there’s PROOF of the existence of mental illness, it’s not really leaving out verified medical information. It’s leaving out people’s guesses and suppositions and prejudice, and leaving it out is often the only way I can get decent medical care.
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