the taloned grip

the taloned grip the psychiatric system has on my daughter is entrenched in and based upon a theory of helping people get well with mental illness, yet is based on medications only, in a system that holds few and far between actual facilities to carry forward that paradigm.

this is what i am up against, on behalf of my daughter.
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the medication based paradigm is all there is, and there are basically 2 inpatient facilities people go to here. it really is that simple. you either get well in those places or you don't. well, once you are in the system, you have to fly low under the radar to get out of it and remain out of it.
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this young woman is well-read and researched the diagnosis and the medications and at age 17, in 2005 she fired her psychiatrist who would not support her wanting to go off of Zyprexa. She demanded answers, to questions that were beyond her years with intellect. at least beyond what the doctor was used to hearing from a patient.

she found another psychiatrist who did support her, and she embarked on a medication removal journey with doctor paying close attention to monitoring. it was 3 drugs in 3 months, and as careful as she was, she was also anxious to get it over with. she felt the grips of withdrawals and charted it on a calendar in her room. she knew, from experiencing it, that with each titration there was going to be increased agitation and restlessness, even raging anger surfaced. she never gave up.
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by august of 2005

she was off of 3 medications and felt great. she had gone to the movies with a friend, was going to the library on her own, and anticipating her senior year in high school very much. after all, it was to be the first year in school since 6th grade and the wrong bipolar diagnosis, and medications gone bad (raging, weight gain, loss of friends) that she was going to be medication free.
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the 10th day after the last 2.5mg Zyprexa

she was screaming as loud as anyone could, in agony, ripping her hair out of her head, yelling at me to call the doctor and "get me to a hospital now!". i encouraged her to stay in contact with the doctor (speaker phone that day) and the titration was too fast--doc said to go back on the 2.5mg of zyprexa, she tried to ride it out. i encouraged her (no i begged her) not to go to a hospital, i knew what would happen. i called the psychiatrist and asked him if the hospital would allow her to come there and be safe (per her request) and not drug her. "not going to happen", he said. i knew it anyway.
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my daughter was brainwashed

might sound harsh, but she was addicted to that private hospital. it became a place she would want to go when she was feeling bad on the meds, because there were other teens there and a staff that just stood around and listened to music on headsets. she had become, i must say, on her way to being institutionalized in her mind and she packed her own tote bag and would have called a taxi to get there if i didn't take her. she knew what she was doing---but there was the taloned grip i witnessed---because she was a lifer. a life time patient, a victim of the childhood bipolar child over-diagnoses explosion gone bad.
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over those years the ex-psychiatrist convinced her, not just me--that she needed those pills or she would die by age 18. her psychiatrist used wording that i only recently have found in the buried internal documents of Eli Lilly's Zyprexa documents--"5 at 5" slogan.
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the last 2 weeks have been a virtual hell for me

i felt my emotions unravel into a deep-rooted fear, a deep-rooted panic and a deep-rooted blame of the care of my daughter. all of the last decade i asked, i questioned and my daughter had succumbed to the pharmaceutical based campaign, the Dr. Joseph Biederman 4000% diagnosis explosion, the CABF, the Bipolar Child book---it was , sadly my daughter who listened to them the most.

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many people blame the parents

they forget that teenagers listen to these people too, after all they are the patient. the psychiatric paradigm gone bad, the one's who have the grips of taloned predators in their flesh. they are the innocent victims of a profit based medical model of mental illness treatment.

my daughter is a crime victim.
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today she ate the fruit salad and sorted playing cards, while there was a feeling of evil in the air. after winning in court you do not expect the red carpet to be rolled out as a visitor, in fact i am now walking a gauntlet each time i walk out of that elevator to see her this next week. i was able to secure 8 days for her.

"what do you want me to bring you tomorrow?", i asked her. she is speaking less, small words, little sentences, they got what they wanted, back to a nearly silent and mute compliant patient. except for sunday, when she burst out from across the room a rant of emotions---and the staff directed me to leave because if i didn't "we will have to put her in seclusion". they refuse to allow emotions there. show em or express them loudly and you'll be shut up alright. reluctantly, sunday my friend and i left for her benefit, because i knew if she got any louder they would drug her up and do what they said, place her in a seclusion room.

"cherry coke and spaghetti", she answered.
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i gave her a hug and told her i will see her tomorrow.
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angels have wings.