So there is but fire In you, in me?

  As we shall see in the next chapter, neuroleptic drugs dampen down all spontaneous thought and action and their effects are not restricted to psychotic phenomena. Therefore, if we abandon the assumption that neuroleptic drugs act in a disease-centred manner, their effects provide no support for the dopamine theory... Moncrieff.  The Myth of the Chemical Cure : A Critique of Psychiatric Drug Treatment (pp. 89-90). Palgrave Macmillan.  So overall... I personally have no regrets about 'the cold turkey' experience. It was terrifying, yes. Despite that, the sense of being out of control on so many levels was manageable because the 'cold turkey' had been planned. This whole psychosis 'trip' has been through Terra Incognita. If I'd known then what I know now, I wouldn't have worried, and I certainly would not have listened to those compelling voices - the psychiatrists - who meant well, but nevertheless...were doing harm by transmitting a sense of powerlessne

This is personal..I have no idea how things work for you, or what the truth is. What follows is my own view. A couple of years ago I was at an inquest for a young man who had committed suicide. When his mother asked if the doctor (present)  thought that SSIs had contributed to her son's death, I like the doctor and the magistrate thought that it was unreasonable to blame the SSI. After all, the anti-depressant was just one more drug in his system, and he had clearly been in a psychotic state nine hours before his death. Sam had been drinking, smoking weed and taking 'legal highs' it had been his birthday so....it wasn't surprising he became disturbed. A part of me thought his mom was trying not too blame herself, and Prozac was an easy target. I wondered why his mom had not phoned anyone for help when she realised how bizarre and paranoid her son's thinking had become..Surely she must now be agonizing over why she didn't pick up the phone while h

It seems ages since I last wrote here. And I know that my memory will be faulty... Nevertheless, this is is a hazy account of how 'things have been'.. It appeared to me that the first day after Citalopram was gone (about 7 and a half days after taking the last dose) things grew much worse. A period of worsening happened with the end of Risperidone. When that left Josh's system he became frantic - is a better way to describe it... Possessed  would be the medieval diagnosis. And, as with the end of Risperidone, each subsequent day gets better than the one before Extreme behavior grows less and becomes less intense And Josh regains self control, and a sense of humor. There were a few days between the end of R and then the end of C. So I found it difficult, six days later when Citalopram 'left the building' to witness the reversal and descent back down into the constant walking, walking, walking. On the first day of Citalopram being out of his system (as opposed to not

My daughter asked the hospital to send her a 'welcome pack'. I haven't seen it yet, she explained what it contained over the phone. To be honest it didn't seem to say very much.  But one particular word used in the pack caught my attention. Alliance... Alliance is a noble aspiration, and something a set of people dedicated to caring for others shouldn't have too much difficulty in creating. So what went wrong? First thing, the psychiatrist we saw when we attended via the A+E drop-in, looked like a man who had been outside standing in the rain without a hat or umbrella for too long. That is how I summed him up at the time. This was our first experience of 'how a psychiatrist talks' to a 'patient'. Perhaps I categorized him as bored, annoyed, had enough...because of the way he spoke? It must have contributed? Anyway, a psychiatrist asks a person about recent events. The psychiatrist is interested in factual content. He is open to your phenomenological

 Thinking about the meeting... It was intimidating. I know no one there meant it to be But one way or another, with  the holding pen  just a few doors down the corridor away, and this being all about being kept in or allowed to go home.. Knowing that we don't know the rules of the game... It is even more intimidating now we know there isn't any help available - not because the hospital has withdrawn its help - it has not, and they want to help us, but the only help available is medication or the holding pen. And the consequence of phoning up to say this is too difficult would be that Service User has to return or...? Actually I don't know what would happen...no one has told us or Service User anything. And this is a big part of the problem, everything is hidden behind statements about ethos and ethics. In the meeting, the consultant explained to me about how they made every effort to work cooperatively with the family, and how the wishes of the Service User were actively so

We managed to get beyond the barriers and park the car, by phoning and getting someone to swipe the keypad and let us in. So I was apprehensive about how we would get out! We arrived in time, and got to sit for about 40 minutes...waiting. I realized i felt that watching the people in the outside area is the only safe way to look at the people locked up here.  Eye contact or any contact prevented by the doors and windows..I noticed how the back wall was covered in an out of focus image of a field of sunflowers.  Poor Van Gogh. Then suddenly we were called into the meeting. 5 people..a nurse, someone from the home visit team, a social worker, the psychiatrist and someone else.. The psychiatrist was definitely a character from a Tim Burton movie, exuberant and light on his feet... Nevertheless, this meeting was an ordeal. Service User proved that he has 'capacity' and we the parents made it clear that we felt betrayed by the hospital, and the psychiatrist who had seen him on the t

 That feeling, when something scuttles, the sensation of cold water down my spine. The feeling of nightmare. Nothing adds up. Subtle wrongness. But mostly spiders. Trying to navigate my way without setting off any traps. We are caught in a web, and it breaks my heart.