Last month I celebrated being three years free of psychiatric medication. It was my second attempt to withdraw. The first was in 2017. I’m still not sure how I survived it. This is the beginning of an attempt to unravel the mess of it, to shine some light, and in doing so to bring about healing and hopefully, eventually, a feeling of safety and security that its likes will never plague me again. The fear of a repeat run has been haunting me. It’s time to seek out and rescue those pieces of me still trapped in that time and allow them to finally be at peace.
I still don’t fully understand what happened. I’ve no clear external or internal narrative. No absolute comprehension of cause and effect. No definitive ‘A’ led to ‘B’ and therefore ‘C’, but more like I swallowed the English alphabet and spat out hieroglyphs. Months and months of complete out-of-control mayhem led me to places I’d never imagined visiting. I was driven by a huge sense of social injustice and an absolute certain conviction that it was my moral duty to bring light to societal wrongs, and, in particular, wrongs being done to children, past, present and future.
The perfect storm
My intentions were noble, but my methods were not. Filters and integrity evaporated rapidly as urgency and distress consumed me. Any singular cause for this sideways step in consciousness seems unlikely but it might have been a too abrupt cessation of medications. It might have been the re-activation of deeply rooted childhood trauma brought on by situations in my workplace. It might have been a spiritual awakening. It could have been persecution by dark forces, human or otherwise. The most likely scenario, however, is that it was a combination of all of the above. The perfect storm! And the most painful, destructive, and terrifying time of my life.
It’s only now, seven years on, that I feel even slightly ready to begin a proper exploration and investigation of that time. I had a diary I carried around with me, as I bulldozed all over the country, and that gives me a rough chronology or timeline. It contains scribbles of places I’d been, sometimes written in pen, others scribbled in what might be eyeliner, urgency evident in the scrawl, almost as though a higher version of me prompted me into knowing I would need this record one day. There was only a small space to record daily events and there are many blanks among the pages. It’s painful to even look at — the terror, desperation and the speedy worsening of my mental and emotional state bleeds from those pages. It’s taped together like a visual representation of my condition at that time; when I was vilified, accused, accosted, arrested and altogether quite wild. It culminated in a diagnosis of bipolar affective disorder type one, my state described as ‘dysphoric mania with psychotic aspects’. I was told I would be on heavy medication for life, that it was inevitable in order to manage me.
Helping the girl within
I read through the diary entries the other night. I could feel my heartbeat quicken, nausea stir, legs go to jelly and a ferocious heat rise all the way up my spine as I did so. Shame, fear and compassion battled each other. I’m glad to report that compassion won out, cheered on by genuine curiosity and concern. What would I do with that girl if I happened upon her now? What would I say to her? How might I help comfort her? What might help soothe her? How might I manage as she screams obscenities, threats and demands and then cries and wails like a wounded animal? How might I begin to understand what is happening and what has happened to her? How might I allow her to feel safe?
I understand now that, all along, it was a feeling of safety she sought. How had everything suddenly become so unbearably terrifying and unstable? I was like an abused five-year-old trapped in an adult body, in an adult world, where absolutely nothing was as it seemed. And I screamed and I screamed and I screamed; in person and online. I behaved deplorably, by adult standards. I felt deplorable, by any standards. I speculate now about withdrawal akathisia, extreme sleep deprivation, spiritual awakening, deep awareness, empathy and sensory experiencing, an invalidating environment, defensiveness, corruption and spiritual attack.
It’s hard to identify a definitive starting point. I took out that diary in order to try to find that certainty. What I found however was evidence of an elevated mood-state that then quickly spiralled into despair, delirium, desperation, and destruction.
Embedded in the system
In 2009 I had exited the workforce and entered psychiatry; something I have spoken and written about previously. I’d made a few attempts to get back to my institutional state job over the years but finally made the return in 2016. It was a much changed environment, with a fundamental cultural shift from recovery and rehabilitation to detention and containment. I struggled within it. I was also still hugely vulnerable, medicated and somewhat mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically depleted. Simultaneously, however, the return to work brought a return of some element of self-worth. I had money again, and a purpose. I was contributing. I might be worth something. I could lift my head up, even a tiny bit. I had something to talk about, something to connect over.
I was still firmly wedged in psychiatry, however, and after seven or eight years in the inpatient system, I could not untangle myself just like that. Every slight mood change was analysed. I scrutinised my every move, thought, feeling and behaviour for proof that I was slipping.
I returned to hospital in late February 2017 and was discharged in early April. My diary records show that I was upset and agitated for much of that admission. I was involved in an art exhibition within the hospital but it seems that I was quite snipey and irritable otherwise. I was also starving, refusing food and sneakily chomping down laxatives in an attempt to control something. From my diary entries it seems something was different even at that point. It seems I’d become really untrusting of any authority whatsoever and it also seems I was not too shy about saying so either. I do not have a record of possible medication changes during that admission but I imagine there might have been some. (Obtaining hospital records is something I’ve wanted to do but have been too ashamed to even contemplate it up until now.)
I was discharged on April 4th and went on a week-long family holiday to Lanzarote the next day. There was no time or attention given to adjusting. Almost immediately upon my return I began to de-clutter my house. I’d decided that things were weighing me down and needed to go. This was just a taster of what was to come. Later in the summer almost the entire contents of the house were gone as I became convinced they were possessed and filled with dark energies. At this time, however, it had all the appearances of ‘normal’. I was beginning to look and feel like a functioning, effective person for the first time in years.
Up and up
I trained in Reiki One the following week. The world was surely my oyster now as all manner of possibilities began to open up. I made a plan to return to work. I began to reduce medication. I would not allow myself to be pulled down again. I hiked more. I went to yoga classes. I socialised. I became friendly with my neighbours. I held gatherings in my house. I was finally alive. The mood lift seemed to happen almost immediately. With no hindsight available in real time, I took it as a sign that I was doing really well. I was finally on the up. And up. And up!
Life had never been better. I felt connected to myself, other people, and the world. Almost overnight the world turned from sepia to the most vivid Technicolor imaginable. All was connected. Synchronicities were off the charts. Absolutely anything was possible. I was invincible. I could achieve anything. I had all the answers. I had arrived! I was starting to put some weight back on and looked a bit ‘healthier’. I thought I looked great. I was able to look in the mirror for the first time in years without those dead, sad eyes looking at me in disgust. On Sunday the 21st of May there is an entry in the diary that reads, “Took the selfie that got me a fan club. First time I was ever fully happy.” My opinion of myself was elevating dangerously.
The next day I came up with a six-week plan with my GP to get off all of my medication. Two weeks later I stopped them all. From thirteen different medications on a script at its peak to zilch, zero, nothing; I was winning. Nothing could stop me. Not everyone shared my enthusiasm. I did not care.
Within those two weeks I completed what was to be my final shift ever in a job that I had once loved. I became unshakeably convinced that serious violations against children were happening there or were known about by people there and being allowed to continue under the guise of care. My workplace was in chaos at the time and had hit national media after a series of serious riots had caused extensive damage. Nobody at work was able to hear my concerns. Nor was I able to articulate them in a calm and concise manner. I was beginning to feel that I was a part of an elaborate film set. I decided that I could no longer be a part of it and got signed off. I was barely back and I was gone again. I don’t imagine anyone was sorry to see me go.
I tried to tell people outside of there what was going on. Nobody would listen. I became more and more upset and irate. I felt that I needed to be fully off the medication and therefore ‘sane’ in order for people to listen, understand and take action. I stopped them completely. And then I stopped sleeping. The urgency and energy that ripped through me was otherworldly. It was as if something had entered me and was compelling me to move. Lying down and resting became an impossibility. I was pacing and pacing and began tearing my house asunder. An uncontrollable and unreachable itch resided deep within me. It was utter torment. And meanwhile I was convinced that children were being hurt. I was convinced that young girls were being raped in their own homes, that state bodies were aware of it and that the minister in charge was ignoring it.
And so began my interactions with the Gardaí (Ireland’s national police and security service). I called them at about 3am one morning in early June to report a Government Minister for abuses on children. Imagine the response. I started falling out with friends and family around this time also. I had a one-track mission, supported by God, to save the children. Woe betide anyone who dared get in my way. I lost my filter. I shredded my integrity. My relentless pursuit for justice took me all over the country, to organisations, institutions and individuals. At times I ran as if I was running for my life. And in a way I was. After a traumatising restraint in a hospital that I wrote of previously, I became that child that up to this point had been external to me. The one I was calling the guards about; willing them to save her, willing them to save me.
There are chapters and chapters of stories to be written of the events of that time. I visited a total of eight hospitals looking for help in one form or another. Not once was the possibility of a reaction to medication cessation discussed. I am not sure I would have been open to hearing it even if it was. I am ready to hear about it now.
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This article was first published on Mad in America. Find the original post here.