medications Quotes

“Therapists had nothing to do with our everyday lives. ‘Don’t talk about the hospital,’ my therapist said if I complained about Daisy or a stupid nurse. ‘We’re not here to talk about the hospital.’ They couldn’t grant or rescind privileges, help us get rid of smelly roommates, stop aides from pestering us. The only power they had was the power to dope us up. Thorazine, Stelazine, Mellaril, Librium, Valium, the therapists’ friends. Once we were on it, it was hard to get off. A bit like heroin, except it was the staff who got addicted to our taking it. ‘You’re doing so well,’ they would say. That was because those things knocked the heart out of us.”

“We get comfortable with our misery, as we find ways to medicate ourselves, delude ourselves, disassociate our feelings, or get enough distance from the problem that it does not touch us directly.”

“Whenever I start to doubt if I’m worth the eternal trouble of medication and therapy, I remember those people who let the fog win. And I push myself to stay healthy. I remind myself that I’m not fighting against me … I’m fighting against a chemical imbalance.”

“I’m just broken. But in a way that makes me … me. My drugs don’t define me. I’m not psychotic. I’m not dangerous. The drugs I take are just a pinch of salt. A little seasoning in life, if you will.”

“Lots of people think that they’re a failure if their first or eighth cure for depression or anxiety doesn’t work the way they wanted. But an illness is an illness. It’s not your fault if the medication or therapy you’re given to treat your mental illness doesn’t work perfectly, or it worked for a while but then stopped working. You aren’t a math problem. You’re a person.”

“I can’t think of another type of illness where the sufferer is made to feel guilty and question their self-care when their medications need to be changed.”