[Sometimes psychotic]

The closer I am to freedom...getting off the meds the more rebellion I feel. As much as I should be thanking people for my care and getting me to this point it's been long in coming almost to the point where I've been forced to become dependent on my psychiatrist. Part of me just wants to lash out and rebel like a teenager to their parents. It's like I had to repress part of myself in order to get the right care and now I can be me again. So part of me has bought a thank you card for pdoc because I do feel thanks need to be expressed;however another part thinks I'm thanking him because its the last time I will be thankful. There is a rapid slide occurring into anti-psychiatry of a sort. Not anti meds because they helped me immensely but they also took parts of me away. Why is there only one medicine for something that is made of a thosand divergent parts? No matter which antipsychotic you pick you get a dopamine blocker which is going to ruin your cognition. The only variation is the extent to which other receptors are mucked up as well. Why does cancer have a hundred different drugs. HIV while mostly preventable has the highest funding levels and in twenty years we've come up with numerous ways of combating the virus. Why is mental health so far behind? We already know that therapy can help based on other countries but we have to run our own trials to test it out just to introduce the idea. Like somehow people with sz and psychosis can't benefit from the same things everybody else does.

I just keep thinking about getting into the science of psychosis but with an insiders perspective. Maybe I could do some good. Meds that wouldn't make you fat or stupid or sexually inert. Meds that help the third of people that cant be cured.

That's where my quote comes in....can I give up everything I have to now to become something else? I'm just not sure but I'm more committed every day. I don't want to leave people behind as I get well. I want to be like that guy that runs into the flaming building to rescue those that cannot rescue themselves. I suppose I'm overdramatizing but in becoming a microbiologist I always thought I might get sick with something incurable and dedicate the rest of my life to finding the cure. This is it only its not a microbe so I need to retrain. How ironic that my form of rebellion may be pharmacy school...better drugs more options less pain. Ok mini-rant over. Comments? Ideas? Questions? Maybe I'm just talking to myself here but I needed a record to remind myself who I want to be when I wake up from this nightmare. I don't want to just carry on like it never happened.

[faerie_moon_x]

I don't think you have to give up who you are to become something else. I think that humans change naturally over time. We learn from experience and it's not you give up who you are so much as you mold who you are from where you start. That is what makes us unique.

The key to becoming the person you want to be is taking your experiences and learning from them. To know you're going to make mistakes but to learn from them.

My psychology teacher in high school had this sculpture on his desk that was a replica of a larger one somewhere. It's like a nesting doll with smaller sculptures inside. It was just a white egg shape, whith holes in it. On the outside it was smooth. When you look in the holes you see different things. Sometimes you could see all the way through to the middle, places you could se down only one level. Sometimes there were soft things inside, sometimes, shinny things, sometimes sharp or yucky things. This was to represent the change of the human psyche. We are what we become because of who we were, not because we discard it. Sometimes those things poke through the wholesto who we are now, sometimes they are hidden by what we've become.

I think it's normal to rebel. We had a patient who will be 90 years old this year. She was born right around the time insulin was invented and it saved her life, because she has type 1 diabetes and had it very early in her life. She actually had cousins who died because insulin came too late for them. She lives with her son and daughter-in-law, who bring her to her appointments, and at the time was starting to have dementia. Her daughter-in-law was telling me how they had to cancel a camping trip because the last time they left Mom alone she ate a whole key lime pie. I remember she looked and sniffed and just like a teenage girl says, "I know what I'm doing, you can go if you want." (I can just see her having a huge old lady party and saying "come on, my son's not here, let's live it up!") So.... rebellion is normal.

I think You're doing great! You should be proud of yourself!

[Secretum]

I love how you want to take your experiences and your scientific background to make a difference for the mentally ill! I think its excellent. I want to be a psychiatrist (splitting my time between patient care and research) for the same reason. I think that you can do a lot of good!

[Sometimes psychotic]

Originally Posted by faerie_moon_x

I don't think you have to give up who you are to become something else. I think that humans change naturally over time. We learn from experience and it's not you give up who you are so much as you mold who you are from where you start. That is what makes us unique.

I have to give up comfort. I've got a 9 to 5 job that would ramp up to 60 hours a week in grad school. I have decent pay that would be cut in half at school. I'd have to give up my condo at a loss to move. I'm not saying it would change who I am but a lot of comfort would be lost. I would have to give up my shrink unless I went to pharm school here which I don't know if I can get into. Realistically I will have to move. But its not like I can just keep denying my need to research psychosis/sz. I do a lot of good with my research now so it wouldn't be that different but it would be a huge loss in comfort. I just need to make sure I go into exactly the right field where I can do the best work and it will be worth it.

[Sometimes psychotic]

Originally Posted by Secretum

I love how you want to take your experiences and your scientific background to make a difference for the mentally ill! I think its excellent. I want to be a psychiatrist (splitting my time between patient care and research) for the same reason. I think that you can do a lot of good!

That's awesome---I considered psychiatry but I'm still too shy around people for something like that otherwise its optimal. Good luck to you!

[mimi2112]

SP; You have put into words what I have been wanting to articulate here for awhile. Thank you.
Because of your background and your connections, I feel you will be able to reach many and make a huge difference.
I have taken a quieter stance only because when I have posted about Mind Freedom, Robert Whitaker, and Peter Breggin's " Toxic Psychiatry", I felt ostracized by some in the community. Also nobody responded to my thread, so I let it rest. If I took my thread to the other forums here on PC, you'd better believe there would be angry opposition. Some people embrace their Dx, and their meds like the holy grail. I cannot change the world.


I feel people think I am anti-meds, which isn't entirely true. I am against treating extreme emotional states with a cocktail of drugs for a lifetime. We do need more therapy and holistic approaches to crises, not just drugs.

I feel your passion SP. I do agree that there are parts of ourselves we need to lose in order to grow and change. I have done a complete 180 regarding my thinking on MI. I once was wholly convinced that MI is a biological disease and that I am diseased and broken. I believed once that the only way to fix MI is to chemically intervene. I was brainwashed by psychiatry. I have given up that belief and moved on to believe true healing is through compassion and listening and all the things Daniel Mackler advocates.

[Sometimes psychotic]

Originally Posted by mimi2112

I feel people think I am anti-meds, which isn't entirely true. I am against treating extreme emotional states with a cocktail of drugs for a lifetime. We do need more therapy and holistic approaches to crises, not just drugs.

I feel your passion SP. I do agree that there are parts of ourselves we need to lose in order to grow and change. I have done a complete 180 regarding my thinking on MI. I once was wholly convinced that MI is a biological disease and that I am diseased and broken. I believed once that the only way to fix MI is to chemically intervene. I was brainwashed by psychiatry. I have given up that belief and moved on to believe true healing is through compassion and listening and all the things Daniel Mackler advocates.

I'm somewhere in the middle of this I think people should be given the option of therapy or drugs or both depending on what suits them. What I want is more choices not less. I feel that CBT is well on its way since its already at the pdoc level, but there are so few new drugs in the pipelines and I feel sz etc are so much more complicated than dopamine. How are 1/3 of people not being helped by anything? I considered becoming a psychiatrist or psychologist with sz specialty but it is not for me. My family has chemistry in the blood, my grandma on my mom's side was a chemist even though she eventually gave it up to be a latin teacher. I loved organic chemistry in college. So that's why I'm leaning strongly toward medicinal chemistry in a pharm school. Its just a hard road but I don't know if I can not do it now. I have such a strong desire to make the change and as I get better it gets even stronger.

[faerie_moon_x]

Maybe instead of thinking of it like you're giving up these things, more like.... you're exchanging them for now. They will return once you finish school and get settled in a career. And, they may not totally go away, either. You may find things you never expected at school that give you positive experiences.

[Sometimes psychotic]

Originally Posted by mimi2112

I have taken a quieter stance only because when I have posted about Mind Freedom, Robert Whitaker, and Peter Breggin's " Toxic Psychiatry", I felt ostracized by some in the community. Also nobody responded to my thread, so I let it rest. If I took my thread to the other forums here on PC, you'd better believe there would be angry opposition. Some people embrace their Dx, and their meds like the holy grail. I cannot change the world.
.

Part of it for me is that I'm only sliding toward anti-psychiatry---in some respects I see my pdoc as the rebel king...he is the one who pushed me off the meds after all. But I still feel suppressed somehow like have you seen where someone will put a biscuit on a dogs nose then make them wait. He told me from the beginning that I could potentially get off the meds because my prognosis was good but that I had to wait 6 months. So you know be good and we'll see, he had all the control or the disease had all the control and I have no one else to blame. There's just something in the interaction that is either parental or pet-like(with me being the pet) where I don't feel I can express everything that is a part of me.

[Sometimes psychotic]

I have two things in my amazon cart the book beyond medication by Daniel Mackler and a guide to the GRE----unfortunately I'll have to retake them since the format has changed and its been 15 years since I took them last.

[mimi2112]

I understand completely the dynamic with our pdocs that you speak of. What IS so cool is that your doc is progressive in his gentle approach. What I have experienced along with you and others is this feeling of turning over our will and lives absolutely to them. I never ever want to be that vulnerable again. I want to feel some control in my process, without being deemed the "stereotypical noncompliant psych patient." The problem I guess is that when we are in that extreme state, we can feel so fearful that we give power to these doctors. SP I really feel you are fortunate to have what you do in that there are many options, you can take back your power and you are respected(even by your pdoc) because of your education and work. A lot of MI people are getting stuck with a 15 minute appointment at a community clinic with an Rn that's been trained to overmedicate and label.
I think what rebellion you are feeling is natural. Anger with the status quo is a good motivator for change, too.

[Sometimes psychotic]

Originally Posted by mimi2112

SP I really feel you are fortunate to have what you do in that there are many options, you can take back your power and you are respected(even by your pdoc) because of your education and work. A lot of MI people are getting stuck with a 15 minute appointment at a community clinic with an Rn that's been trained to overmedicate and label.
I think what rebellion you are feeling is natural. Anger with the status quo is a good motivator for change, too.

I think this is why I mixed this post so much---so there's the sense of rebellion and that's why I have to change and do something that will change the system but it has to be something I consider fun too. Admittedly I'd like to play a bigger role in changing psychiatry or psychology but getting mad at them does nothing. My pdoc said they had an invited speaker from the hearing voices network and they guy was just sitting up in grand rounds bashing psychiatry all the while they were trying to understand his perspective on voices, he said it was terrible and it certainly did nothing to change psychiatry. Even though he was horribly embarrassed about the whole thing he still let the guy put up a flier on by the elevator in case any of the patients were interested. He really respects peoples need to walk their own path. So yes I am lucky, thus the thank you card for pdoc.

I'm sorry that you feel that some of your posts have been ignored Mimi I know that I've read them, but yet know very little about alternatives to psychiatry which is why I never commented. I actually have 'Toxic Psychiatry' as one of the books I have to read, and I really want to do some research about Daniel Mackler etc. The problem is that I'm struggling to read at the moment, even on here, which is holding me back.

In terms of how I feel about psychiatry, I feel mixed too. I intended to become a psychiatrist, but became disillusioned with medication considering not one single anti-depressant I've taken has helped my depression, many have horrible side effects, and then similar problems with anti-psychotics, although one drug does help the voices mostly.

I like and respect my pdoc and he does try to include me in treatment decisions; we talk about the science behind them, and he respects my idiosyncratic response to medication side effects by never pushing me to go to quick tapering the doses. If anything he's too cautious at times! I think he tries to help people, but I personally would feel impotent at only being able to offer medications, when I want, and feel that I need, a psychological input.

After studying medicine, I don't feel that I can ever fully be anti-psychiatry because I understand their viewpoint too well, but I'm starting to doubt how much of it is biological, really really doubt that medication is the only answer, and I guess that I'm starting to feel a bit angry that the NHS is failing to treat me holistically. Much as I like my pdoc, "take this medication and see you in 4 weeks" is not helping me. I'm really concerned about long term effects of medications on my brain and body, and really want to get off them, but I know that right now I will fail as I have in the past because I have had no psychological support and input.

I wish you the best with your possible career change, Sometimes. It is a big decision, but you have time to save while you study for the GRE, and if it is what you want to do, then it will be worth it. I'm thinking that I'd like to work psychologically with psychosis, maybe in one of these mythical early intervention programmes that I hear so much about yet cannot access!! All the best

*Willow*

[Secretum]

If you want to go to pharmacy school, I think you have to take the PCAT, not the GRE. My lab partner is planning to go to pharm school, and she's studying for the PCAT. According to her, the exam is mostly math and organic chemistry.

Good luck!

[Sometimes psychotic]

Originally Posted by Secretum

If you want to go to pharmacy school, I think you have to take the PCAT, not the GRE. My lab partner is planning to go to pharm school, and she's studying for the PCAT. According to her, the exam is mostly math and organic chemistry.

Good luck!

It's the GRE because its medicinal chemistry I want to do and not real pharmacy...so phD not PharmD plus I can't afford a pharm degree where they actually pay you a tiny stipend to do med chem. it's just that med chem is in the pharm school rather than the med school.

[Secretum]

Ok, thanks for the clarification. I just wanted to make sure that you didn't buy the wrong book.

[Sometimes psychotic]

So I just calculated that if I go now I'll be losing $125,000 over five years in salary just because the salary is like 23,000 a year for grad school. Thinking about waiting a few years so I can build up a nest egg first or if I lose my job or something. GRE book should be in the mail though. Not sure what I'm going to do. I could do a lot of good donating that money or part of it somewhere else, maybe more than I could do as a chemist. Maybe I I could fund my own sz genome project. Have to think this through a little more. I just have to contribute somehow. I don't know any more.

[Sometimes psychotic]

So back to my rebellion...it's the need to break apart the relationship and re-establish something that is less dependent...not serious rebellion but something of that nature. The funny thing is I doubt he sees me as dependent at all, this is a self-inflicted thought but I might hurt him in the process of sorting it out. I'd rather not do that. Although I do think about slipping him the daniel mackler DVD once I'm done with it

[Sometimes psychotic]

Originally Posted by Secretum

Ok, thanks for the clarification. I just wanted to make sure that you didn't buy the wrong book.

That would have been terrible if I was studying for the wrong test all along! Thanks

[The_little_didgee]

Illness changes you. It seems to put everything in perspective. Suddenly, the world is different and it causes you to think about your place in it. I know it did for me, so I am not surprised you want to change careers.

I can relate to your desire to help people. I am thinking of a career in medicine.

Originally Posted by The_little_didgee

Illness changes you. It seems to put everything in perspective. Suddenly, the world is different and it causes you to think about your place in it. I know it did for me, so I am not surprised you want to change careers.

Absolutely! I'm still trying to figure out my way through this, but I knew that I didn't want to continue medicine anymore, but wanted to switch to psychology. I wonder how many find psychosis, or MI in general, 'transformative'??!

*Willow*