Love’s loss: my therapist’s battle with bipolar disorder

 

IMG_1110
Pamela Glassman, my therapist at the John Bradshaw Center, took her own life after battling Bipolar Disorder. Her mother, Joan Childs, also my former therapist, penned this book about Pam’s struggles with mental illness and the health care system that let her down.

Continue reading “Love’s loss: my therapist’s battle with bipolar disorder”

My schizophrenic psych ward guardian angel

betterangelOn Wednesday, September 5, 1990, I was forced into the locked unit of a psychiatric hospital in Miami even though I was not, and had never been, a danger to myself or others. I write about what happened to me and how I ended up a patient at Charter Hospital of Miami in my previous blog post: Psych ward: fraud, greed, and a life interrupted. But the question still lingers, nearly 30 years after the event, Why did this happen?  
Continue reading “My schizophrenic psych ward guardian angel”

Psych ward: fraud, greed and a life interrupted

Furrow Fear Woman Crack Scratches Notch Threat
Psych ward: fraud, greed and a life interrupted

Today is September 5th.

Exactly 27 years ago today I had a 2 p.m. appointment with a Miami psychiatrist to explore the possibility of starting on antidepressants. It was 1990 and Prozac had been on the market for just three years. Before Prozac, antidepressants had a bad reputation for causing uncomfortable and sometimes serious side effects. Prozac promised relief with little or no discomfort.  Continue reading “Psych ward: fraud, greed and a life interrupted”

Racism and antisemitism as triggers.

I am traveling back to Florida from Nevada, so have been away from my laptop. But the real reason I haven’t posted here, on my fb page, or worked on my memoir is I am so disheartened by the events of the last few days in Charlottesville that I can’t focus on writing. I guess racism, anti Semitism, and neo Nazism are anxiety and depression triggers for me. And you can throw shame in there. I am so ashamed of the president. Continue reading “Racism and antisemitism as triggers.”

I don’t have an inner child.

The therapy I engaged in at the John Bradshaw Center for five-to-six hours a day, seven days a week, for eight weeks focused almost exclusively on remembering and healing childhood trauma. The idea was that we all come from dysfunctional families that caused us pain. If we don’t remember and relive these traumas in a safe setting we will continue to be in emotional pain and, perhaps worse, risk passing all this dysfunction to the next generation, becoming part of the “poisonous pedagogy.” Aphorisms like, “if you don’t work it out you will act it out” and “the only way out is through” were bantered about like gospel.  Continue reading “I don’t have an inner child.”