Bleeding Through the System: A Teenager’s Battle Against Pharmaceutical Psychiatry
Come together, and we will fight the second pill.
My reflection shows a thousand-fold.
Look at us. We’re stuck. It’s what the crowd of teenagers say in the mirror. Highs turn to lows. Ecstatic smiles turn to helpless frowns.
Surrounded by pill bottles, mirrors, and walls, the only solace is the bleeding skin. The mirror talks to me, and it used to drive me insane.
But no. Teenagers. Together. Strong.
Slap. Look at me. Slap. Who are you. Slap. You…you don’t know, do you?
I know who I am. From the disappointed look on a father’s face to the determined, eerily calm look on a doctor’s face, peering through his glasses, let me shout: YOU WILL KNOW.
Note that this is from my knowledge and experience. It doesn’t have to be seen as medical advice. Many allopathic medications have quite literally saved lives. If you are taking them as a life-line, or a valid method to cut self-harm, and to live a better life, by all means please keep taking them. But as teenagers, we must not get addicted to them.
I lay on the ground. My legs spazzed out, and I couldn’t move. It was then that my battle against the second addiction began.
I know something is missing. Drugs are leading to more drugs. Crack is leading to Xanax. Cocaine is leading to Adderall. We are stuck on a drowning ship. 5 years of experience on those waters have shown me what I now know to be the truth. And the journey started with one word.
Stigma. Everything today comes down to stigma. A quiet, often looked over agent of falsity, I see it in the mirror. I see it in the walls. I see it in the cut-up skin of teenagers just trying to survive in a country where meds are shipped around like pennies.
That feeling creeps up again. The helplessness. The feeling that teenagers truly can’t control their lives.
Our legs have been severed, so we crawl on the ground, slaves to the feeling that we can’t do this.
We must come together.
GABA rising drugs have brought me to the ground. I am addicted to them, and it is hard not to take the meds. Some nights, I look at the pill bottle, as if willing it to disappear. I am done with addiction. So why do I need more?
Wait. We’ve been here before.
Why can’t the world see us for what we are? We are struggling. We have been drowning in a system that is stuck in the deep waters.
And I want it to stop. I really do. That’s where I come in. Five brutal years of speaking to the walls, seeing a stranger in the mirror, and looking at a pencil that has spent its time cutting deep into my skin.
Some people I knew had it tough. They showed me things I knew were happening. And it isn’t fair.
I had this friend in my teenage years, some of the most brutal, most enlightening years of my life. He looked at the drugs as though they would save his life. And he was partly right. See, my teenage years were spent jumping from school to school, getting C grades, and seeing what treatment really is. And to him, the drugs were Jesus sent from the heavens. To him, there was no other way out, no easier way to numb the harrowing pain that struck him every time he looked in the mirror. To him, cocaine and crack were elements of gold. He is trying to fight. To him, this was his sequence of punches.
To the doctors? The only solution was addiction meds. When all access to crack disappeared, his only resort was to abuse these meds.
I watched him stack up the pills, swallowing them frantically as an attempt to feel the same high.
Will we ever give these adolescent kids the life they truly need? Or will we take them in, look at their history, and give them more drugs? More addiction?
Guys, please. It has to stop. I am still on this journey….just fighting…just coming out for air. For me and my teenage friend are stuck in this sea. And all around us, shark-like doctors feed on the fact that we are helpless. Stuck in a system where it goes, “Hey, you like drugs? Well, take some more!”
My psychosis has led to treatment including Ativan. I’ve been taking it for two years, and I experience withdrawal symptoms when away from them. They are pretty severe. One night, I found myself on the ground. Shaking.
And so came along another medication. Depakote. The symptoms when I don’t take these are even worse.
That is what addiction is. That is where teenagers are drowning.
I wake up every day thinking about how we can start swimming again.
The day we teenagers get the treatment we deserve feels like centuries away. Truly, it feels like generations of shifting perspectives and changing the system have to happen. But miles and miles away, some people have found a solution. One that works.
India. That is how things should be. Are we too advanced as a country? Because these developments are setting us back. India has the magic — ‘Ayurveda.’ A naturopathic treatment, these herbs work by nourishing the mind and body.
Brahmi. Gotukola. Guduchi. Haritaki. Senna. These are all the Ayurvedic herbs I am taking. And some help my paranoia, some help my digestion, and some my anxiety. And guess what? NO. ADDICTION.
They have various benefits beyond the scope of teenagers. They have helped so many people.
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The herb has helped me come to grips with reality.
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This herb has helped me remember better.
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This has helped me be be calmer.
(Haritaki)
The gut-brain connection is real. When I defacate better, my mood improves.
Again, these help my gut.
Wow. That is a lot of evidence. Do you believe me now?
They work by balancing energies called ‘doshas’. There are three: pitha (the fire), vatha (air and space) and kafa(water and earth). I visit an Ayurvedic practicioner every week. He identified vata in me, and the herbs he prescribed have worked like magic.
It even works for infertility. No injection, no pain. Just aa handful of herbs.
I have heard stories in India of mothers taking these herbs. They are more effective than the vaccination you get at a hospital here in the States.
In India, people take them for everything. My spiritual guru who goes by the name ‘Nome,’ has been suffering and dealing with a major disorder called “Parkinson’s Disease.” Yeah, it’s rough. These days, after giving a sermon and answering questions, you could see his limbs shaking. He is in real pain. And all he takes are the herbs. No allopathy. And they alone have kept his situation stable.
I visit his temple every Sunday. Looking at him and how strong he his mentally gives me the confidence that I can turn this around. It gives me the willpower to be the example. Every day.
And I am taking them. They have worked wonders for me, and I truly believe they can work wonders for our country. Now, I just might be the only teenager in the entirety of America taking these herbs, and I am not afraid to put the team on my back. If that is what it takes to save people like my teenage friend from the system, it’s worth it.
It takes one convinced mind to create change. And change will happen.
We simply must wake up.
So, guys, this? This is my dream —
Tim woke up in a flurry, pill bottles tucked away in the second drawer of his bedroom. It was another day on the meds, and he trusted them. But, slowly? He relied on them, just like the crack that got him there. He put away the pencil full of his blood and threw a spoon at the mirror. There he lie, a bleeding mess on the floor, another one who succumbed to the system. He saw visions every night of intruders, attackers coming from every direction. Crying, he felt that feeling again — the unknowing.
A strength rose up inside, and he took a second look at the meds. A distrusting one. No. Not this time. No more drugs. And…..slowly…he turned to therapy instead. After a few months, the crying stopped. The blood stopped pouring. The intruders stayed away. And Tim…Tim started healing.
Waking up, I now know that Ayurveda is the answer. We must replace the drugs with naturopathic treatments. And I am an expert, for I have been taking them for the past year. And man, have they helped.
So, Tim. The visions? They will come. The intruders? They will harass your mind. But the drugs? They have to stop.
And with Tim, we will create a ripple effect of teenagers pushing away the second addiction and trusting natural remedies instead.
I pray the journey will not end with the same word it started with.
I started off on the ground. Today, I am fighting. I am standing on my feet.
So get up. Stand with me.
We are strong. We stand together. And we will fight.
