Raza Griffiths, 30, media skills training officer
I was on my way to a relapse a few months ago but I was a good boy and took the tablets as the psychiatrist told me. Only the drugs made me feel suicidal; I had uncontrollable thoughts about slitting my wrists. When I told the psychiatrist he told me it was psychosomatic. It's very hard to argue with an expert, but I did my research and found that in some people the medicine produced suicidal urges - it was even listed on the packet.
I'm angry that someone in a position of trust should lie to me in this way. Some of the psychiatric establishments are very blinkered - they believe in a certain medical model but if it doesn't work they won't listen to the contrary view of the patient. In the end I came off the medication and I haven't had a single suicidal thought since.
I had a similar reaction when I was first admitted to hospital in 1997. I was in an old psychiatric ward with bars on the windows and within hours of being given medication I felt the air was being sucked out of the room and I was desperately trying to push my head through the bars to feel the air and breathe again.
I was diagnosed with bi-polar manic depression following a period of going through intense highs and lows. I'd go from being so depressed I couldn't get out of bed in the morning to being so excited that I couldn't stop running around doing things. Eventually I burnt myself out. I had all these grandiose ideas and a heightened awareness that I was very intelligent.
I was studying at the time which didn't help because academic work is so isolating. I was meant to be writing a PhD on comparative linguistics but instead I wrote a 200,000 word diary documenting the build-up of the breakdown through to the recovery. Writing was a safety valve.
There were problems of course going way back into my childhood. I felt depressed throughout my teenage years and on one occasion I slit my wrists - though not deeply. It was a cry for help rather than a serious attempt. There was also an unresolved relationship with a step-father and then coming out as gay in my twenties. These were things I couldn't cope with because I had no one to talk to. Recovery for me has not been through conventional psychiatry but through the support of some wonderful friends and family members.
FACT: In a recent survey by Mind, spending time talking to friends and family was the most popular everyday activity that helped people with mental health problems to stay well. (Mind, 2001)
|
