 
| “ I had a life before these
medications [ Psychiatric or Psychotropic ] and I am
going to have a life without them ! “ “ Good for you
! “ comes the unexpected reply from Dr. Mark Popper,
Assistant Director of San Joaquin Psychotherapy
Center, on the other end of the phone. For me the
moment is like an epiphany moment. A moment of
realization that a long awaited prayer has been
answered. My usage of these drugs led to the
surrender of any control I had of my life. This
occurrence was years before this phone conversation
I am engaged in. Taking back control returned my
life to me but sometimes I felt isolated without a
social support system that understood the real
dangers and inner havoc these drugs inflict. My
present husband offers some solace because his first
wife died as a result of medications inappropriately
prescribed. Blood clots formed in t he heart,
leading to a massive heart attack and stroke,
blasting friable brain tissue to irreversible
damage. During the time of this first conversation,
my daughter is drugged against my will and I feel
helpless, like a mother whale in the ocean watching
my child flip flop in a puddle of water . The drugs
are inflicting harm and I know it. I can see it as
the poisonous effects give a pasty, pale color to
the skin, hair falls out in larger than normal
amounts, short term memory is impaired leading to
increase difficulty in school, a dazed look without
any sparkle in the eyes and aimlessly wandering. I
can hear it in the frequent mutterings about wishing
for death.( Later she tells me during that time she
had forgotten what it felt like to feel happy.) A
letter to Dr. Peter Breggin ( Author of Toxic
Psychiatry) returns a letter from Ginger Breggin
with words of hope and a suggestion to contact SJPC.
The above call and response I receive gives me
the courage to give Dr. Popper a tour of my past. I
talk and he listens . In my memories I wander - a
bad first marriage , psychiatric hospitalizations,
drug reactions, a brush with death from sleep
deprivation, Choral Hydrate and alcohol, the death
of a best friend,( Renee was killed when she fell
into a deep construction trench and a mound of dirty
toppled over her) and molestation as a young girl.
Then insidiously as dreams help surface a small
portion of my memory bank, as if held in a clutched
hand, a deeply repressed childhood memory gradually
and in pieces comes into the light, gang rape by
teenage neighbors. In the nearly 3 years of using
psychiatric medications and being under so called
psychiatric care, that clutched hand never even got
close to opening up. Dr. Popper asks me why I never
told anyone. At that point it is easy t o be honest
with him. “ In order to talk about something like
that, one first has to admit it happened to them .”
In the midst of my own mind travels a window of
opportunity opens as my daughter agrees to try the
day program at SPJC. She's off the psychiatric
medications and is back swimming in the ocean called
life. SJPC maybe SPC now and have a different
executive director but Dr. Popper does honor to the
legacy started by Dr. McCready. And for me it feels
good to be able to really trust a Dr. again.
Truely, Judith Gooding, RN
|
|
