Insanity or grief
Prescribed drugs can destroy your life.
My father died and my doctor suggested a visit to a psychiatrist. Why oh why would any sane doctor do that? I was going crazy with grief and instead of giving me support, he pushed me off to someone who almost killed me with anti-psychotic drugs.
The first day I went to the psychiatrist he immediately prescribed psychotropic drugs. I never had any mental health issues and I thought, well maybe he is right. From the first day I used the drugs my mind left me. It completely left me, and for four months I was in a trance. I only found out what happened to me after a stint in a mental asylum.
I had no idea I was acting crazy because I wasn’t present. About a month into this induced trance, I cut my wrists to the bone. You could literally see the bones. My friend told me I was acting like a crazed lunatic while they drove me to the ER.
A couple of weeks after that I drove my car off a bridge. I flew through the windshield of the vehicle and died. Fortunately for me, an ambulance drove past the scene of the accident stopped, found me lying in a ditch, and administered CPR. I have no recollection of that.
The psychiatrist then had me declared insane by the court and had me admitted to a mental asylum. Locked up with the criminally insane. I received no more drugs and returned to my senses. What a shock when I found out what happened to me. Can you imagine waking up one day and there you are, locked up with insane criminals? I was terrified beyond belief. I never slept, because I thought one of the inmates would kill me.
The psychologist in charge of me evaluated me after a week and found me sane. When my husband came to fetch me I sobbed all the way home. How on earth can a psychiatrist treat you for psychosis because you are grieving the loss of your father?
When I lost my son, Emile, to suicide I was too terrified to seek help with my grief. What if they locked me up again? Thank God I found a psychologist who cared about my mental well-being. Without trying to drug me up to the gills again. He taught me Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and it saved my life!
I hope my story will help someone else in this situation.
Namaste
People are keen to give listeners a blow by blow account of so many of their hospitalisations. Heart attacks, strokes, accidents. But discussing psychosis is not on the list. Thanks for sharing. I look forward to reading more.
Rea, I just can’t imagine the depth of your loneliness and sense of abandonment when you were hospitalised. What is so sad about this account of yours is that it shows, yet again, how appallingly society treats people who have temporarily lost control of themselves because they are in an intolerable amount of pain. There is still so much ignorance and fear surrounding severe psychological pain- people mix up psychosis with psychopathy, and psychology with psychotherapy, and simplify suffering individuals into a few basic categories (1): “get some therapy!” (2): take these pills or else God knows what you might do!” (3): get the team, this person needs to be hospitalised now or God knows what they might do!” or (4) “this person is breaking things and hitting people, lock them up and throw away the key! We don’t want to see that kind of thing!” There is so much unnecessary fear and unkindness. Even serial killers get a fairer hearing.