You present a very good explanation above. I've read a lot about it. Seems to me your brain works pretty good. The drug I mentioned above treats Parkinson's by stimulating dopamine. It was ordered for me to treat nightime RLS from anemia. It helped.

I worked as an aid in nursing homes back when many patients had tardive dyskinesia from having been kept quiet with antipsychotics - Haldol, Thorazine or Mellaril. That's not allowed as much any longer. I think TD is horrid. I'm shocked to see those TV commercials touting new drugs claiming to treat TD, so psych patients can go right on taking their "important" psych medication. I think this specific class of drugs - antipsychotics - is way, way overused. Several were ordered for me to treat my basic depression. They were useless for me.

Prescribing antipsychotics is what keeps a lot of psychiatrists and their stand-ins employed. They are ordered to a degree that is utterly ridiculous. I know this first hand, as a patient and as a nurse. Twice I refused to administer antipsychotics for situations that I readily handled through some appropriate TLC. Has anyone told you that long term use of antipsychotics can cause you to someday develop Parkinskn's Disease? Someone dear to me has taken antipsychotics for decades and now has Parkinson's. It may not have been caused by the drugs, but it may have been. No one can tell. Google it for yourself.

The psychiatric professions have done a thorough job of convincing distressed people that they can not hope to learn to control their behavior without dangerous drugs because they have damaged brains. IMO, often it is not the brain that's been damaged . . . but the soul. I am not religious. I use "soul" as a metaphor for one's personhood. Neither am I a big believer in the effectiveness of weekly visits to a therapist that go on for years and years. At some point, becoming mature means recognizing that I may have an approach to life that isn't working for me. I may need to figure out a different approach to living in this world that is a tough place. I may have to stop being mad that life is as it is. That's what I'm working on. It is hard, I'll admit. Life can be painful and unfair. I haven't found any med that fixes that. I take an antidepressant that I find helpful, but it doesn't "undepress" me. It gives me more energy to keep striving, which is what life is all about. Eventually, enough effort tends to pay off.

BTW - I agree with you about going inpatient. Often it's just confinement to prevent self-harm, which is all it is intended to be in our system. On the other hand, it can be restorative once in a while, especially when you find yourself among supportive peers. You've tried it all. Depend mostly on yourself and your own strength, which is greater than you realize. I think most psych problems are problems of socialization. (True in my case.) Look for ways to interact usefully with other people. That is the only thing that makes life worthwhile.