IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD –
April 24, 2021 – I felt fortunate that I had the means to see a psychiatrist when I was 17. After my psychiatrist tapered me rapidly off Klonopin in approximately a week, my perceived luck had quickly transformed into complete and utter despair. I spent the next 15 years trying to find answers for the life-altering and persistent symptoms that I continue to experience to this present day. The theologian Ivan Illich put iatrogenesis at the centerpiece of his ideology. He described clinical iatrogenesis as the injury done to patients by ineffective, toxic, and unsafe treatments. He described the need for evidence-based medicine two decades before the term was coined.
I could have never anticipated the life that I was about to be thrown into. When a person starts to drown, there are desperate attempts to maintain their survival and offer first aid. There are protocols including life rafts, rescue maneuvers, and CPR. All I could do was try to keep my head barely above water.
