Diagnosed “bipolar” (among other things, but that was what stuck) at 19, managed to make it to grad school in Vancouver, struggling straggler who always manages to pull it off in the end, a cat who has used up at least three lives, studying sociology/anthropology of medicine/psychiatry/”madness”, proud East Van resident, born in Winnipeg, will probably never return, hospitalized in psych ward 5 times within 16 months four or so years back, once because her shrink prescribed her a combination of a meds that caused a grand mal seizure and coma that doctors said she would never recover from (brain damage), recovered fully in weeks by piecing together her memory on the bathroom floor of the I.C.U. with little pieces of toilet paper, realized days before moving to Vancouver she wrote in her journal “I will be in Vancouver to do my M.A. in a few years” during one of these stays at the “Hotel Vic”/”Unit Six”, feels she came to understand her mania after she got off the mind-numbing antipsychotic Clozaril in 2009 and is able to regulate it without psychiatric intervention, depression is another story but happens less and less, always the smart ass and loudmouth, shit-disturber, would rather write articles and books to cover basic living expenses than work for “the academy”, if there was extra money she would spend it all on traveling, has trouble liking the ultra-wealthy to a fault, graduated with the highest average and most absences but least friends from her prep high school for girls, bullied by no one because she was too weird and therefore intimidating, cigarette smoker with no plan to quit, comes from a working-class background, this prep education was paid with her mom’s life insurance policy after a two year battle with cancer, has paid for her post-secondary education without parental help but with endless loans from the government that she plans on getting will get out of repaying somehow, dad cannot afford to lend her ten dollars due to poor investment choices and chasing the American dream despite being an anarchist in the 1960s, hates idolization, idolizes Tori Amos, worships the goddesses, plays on her porch where she planted seeds that bloomed into a magick garden, easily overjoyed, easily frustrated, cannot even attempt to get her mind around why the state of the world is as it is, thinks stigma and discrimination are products of fear and egoism that people should have gotten over during childhood but did no because of socialization in all spheres of life no fault of their own, shares Sylvia Plath’s birthday and Michel Foucault’s year of death was her year of birth, doesn’t think all of these things are coincidental, biggest pet peeves are willful ignorance and presumptuousness, falls in love too easily, rescued kitty cat Phoenix is her one true love, gets “distraught” righteously (although some would say too easily), abused by herself and a few men she convinced herself were lovers and countless bureaucrats, made some “poor choices” in her teens, ambiguous sexuality that cannot be labelled, lifetime goal = to help bring down Big Pharma, dream = for others to be affected – somehow- by the words she writes, woman, survivor, painfully alive, not afraid of death but desperately wants to know how the story ends.
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Hi Scars – not sure where to post this. There is a cool radio show here at 5.30 each afternoon and today's was interesting – it's about how a small community deals with their complete lack of mental health services. Hope you get a chance to listen to it. Mental health is a big issue in Australia right now and with our federal election this weekend, both major parties have been making lavish promises.
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/stories/s29868…
Excellent! Please let me know about any other major developments going on in Australia – I will post this link publicly so all readers have a chance to listen! My interests in mental health have spread away from North America now – the situation in many Eastern European states now that they are independent is fascinating (ex/ in Polish mental institutions, all human rights the Poles have under their equivalent of the "Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms" are rendered null and void…*puke*)
scars xoxo
You NEED to be MEDICATED AND LOCKED UP, so you don't hurt anyone, including yourself. Your blog was a waste of time. I only see deep psychosis in your ideas. Furthermore, I believe you should be shut down. You need help, for the rest of your life. Please stay medicated. Oh, and I could'nt follow most of your posts so I think you are delusional. I hope I never have the displeasure to meet a such a person like you. I actualy feel sorry for you..manipulator. anti-whatever..pfff. please. Stop. You are rediculous…and you have no credibility.
I\’m glad you found my story so profoundly touching, that you would take the time to leave this comment. As said, in rejecting my perspective, you\’re only solidifying its value. I must ask you – why do you spend your time reading things written by people you hate? Rather a strange pasttime…PS. Anyone that uses CAPS to high light locked up and medicated, isn\’t perhaps the mostly highly evolved or sensitive of the species are they now? This comment comes from Jen\’s HOT GAY B/F who is also in the can and LOCKED UP and MEDICATED. We have to laugh at your sorry ass now while we wait for our dinner, yes we have graduated and get plastic forks and knives…..loser!
God – you have some irritating critics/trolls, Scars! Where do these people come from?!
You have one of the boldest, most thought-provoking and compelling mental health blogs out there – how can these twits call you self-indulgent?! Why, because you actually have something to SAY?!
Well, I back you up 100%, with your goals and aspirations. I too hope that someday I'll be able to come off of all medication (I feel the ones I took harmed me as well – especially, yep, Effexor XR!). I hope we get to meet in person someday – you seem super cool! (Also, I like what you do with colour in your photos, in Photoshop I suppose (?) – really beautiful stuff!)
Much love,
-Sarafin (in Toronto)
I have no doubt that we will meet, Sarafin dearest…I wish I had had more $$ when I was visiting a friend (that I met through this site and became super-5 hour phone conversations-with [and i HATE the phone, but we just hit it off – i bet it would be the same if we got on the ringer!) north of Toronto in early January, the "vacation" that my family did not know would end in my return to my home (Vancouver) not theirs, in Winnipeg! Thanks so much about the pics, I use an iPhone app called Hipstamatic for most – I played with it a LOT (annoyed a lot of ppl doing so hehehe) and now have some understanding of how different antique lenses, films, and flashes function…when I get myself sorted out here, I'm going to take a year-long photography degree at Langara college!
Yay! Something that I want to do, to please mySELF, not my family, or a mentor that wants students to make her resumé look better, or a university that wants a department to be producing publications, etc.! I haven't told my doc yet, but hopefully "the system" will pay, at least for a good chunk, since I'll be fresh out of the hospital and all!
~~~ She thinks she is some kind of expert because she got an HONOURS DEGREE (as she capitalises and mentions in many of her posts LOL – she has a whole blog dedicated to slamming me – http://thoughtsfromdaysend@blogspot.com – she told me she took it down, I don't know if she did or not because I don't care to look at it). She dated my ex, who I'll be testifying against sometime in/after April for the charges I layed against him (sexual assault), in addition to the charges THE CROWN placed against him (domestic abuse with a weapon, for chasing me with a huge hammer and then beginning to demolish our apartment with it before realizing the cops were en route and trying to run. AWESOME fellow/future professor(?) She believes that I am lying in some act of vengeance (as I type this, I realize I don't know exactly what for!) and that I accuse every man I break up with of being a sexual abuser (not true…I have been in two sexually abusive relationships including that with him…I've had maybe 6 or 7 "boyfriends"?). Anyhow, she knows more than I do about what happened in the bedroom on two particular nights even though she wasn't there, because I'm THAT crazy, and she knows THAT much about 1) him, his character, etc., 2) my psyche, my many "disorders", my "mental illness", and 3) criminology – that "HONOURS" degree of hers was something to tell the Queen about! 
I avoid her at all costs, but she continues to troll. I'm starting to feel sorry for her – if this is how she spends her time, not even having met me, she must be incredibly bored… "facebook mom" LOL – the hypermodern cultist of domesticity wearing lulu lemon pants even though having three children changed her beautiful figure, and they are no longer flattering (well, I don't think any woman should wear $150 spandex pants, but that's just my humble opinion). She should buy a beautiful dress in the Vancouver equivalent of the Kensington Village and volunteer for Vancouver Rape Relief or something if she does not need to work. I digress.
The trolls are annoying as all hell, indeed! What I find MOST annoying is that they never actually criticise the topic at hand, creating a freaking CONVERSATION rather than trying to instigate a name-calling party. If they just disagreed with something and expressed that, it might make things really interesting, but they're too ignorant to do so, as I've asked them to many, many times. The most annoying is the woman I've called "facebook mom".
On a much more positive note, my little site here is getting more attention, and some of the best conversations that it has instigated have been, unfortunately, over facebook – actually, I should ask you a question about this, as you obviously know a lot about web design. I think that if a comment box (white space + buttons) appeared at the end of each post on the front/index page, but I do not know how to change the html to get this to happen! I've tried quite a few things, but each of these has turned into a session of confusion and frustration and blip in the space/time continuum – six hours are lost and remain locked in some kind of vortex.
Do you mind me asking what meds you are on? I'm interested to know since the docs are completely overhauling mine (I first wrote "mind" – what an appropriate Freudian slip!!) – I think the ultimate goal is to have me on Epival and Remeron (a trycyclic antidepressant I knew nothing about before it appearedd in my little white cup). I am SO impressed that I've gone down on my Effexor by 150 mg already! I never thought this was possible!! I did spend a month in bed, but I am so relieved that no permanent damage seems to hae been done to my brain, and it didn't require being fed…well, actually, I supposed I was fed quite a lot of Seroquel (I was going to say many tranquilizers).
I better run, this note is becoming post-lengthy, but I feel a kinship with you, and really do think we'll meet one day not too far away, depending on how you look at time, relatively. Restraints are EVIL – I want to snap a picture of the four point restraint board in the unit I'm in right now, but I'm worried since last night I tried to videotape, with my iPhone, a man being dragged into the hole and drugged for doing nothing but PAINTING and TALKING TO ME ABOUT THE MENTAL HEALTH ACT. The nurses were in quite a flurry about it, and may be reading my site now, so unfortunately, I have to self-censor a bit while I'm inside, though these passes at the café across the street in "street clothes" are quite lovely!
Hugs!
scars xoxo
Scars ,
Actually, I know little to nothing about site design! I have someone who looks after that part for me – I designed a layout, and he made it function. (And my Blogspot site – http://www.asylumsquadsidestory.blogspot.com – is all push button publishing, so… no coding. I wish I could help you out, but I'm kind of dumb when it comes to any kind of coding.
I'm sorry that some people have nothing better to do than harass you online – based on all I've seen, they're just making themselves look foolish, so I hope you don't worry too much about it. Ryan, a mad friend of mine, was just over here tonight, and he mentioned you (I think he knows you from Facebook), so we chatted a bit about how bad we felt that you're stuck in the hospital, and how we'd like to meet you.
I've been on a lot of psych meds, but miraculously, I am only taking one psych med these days (and one beta blocker, for tachycardia = rapid heart rate). I used to be on the other end of the psych patient spectrum – I LOVED popping pills, loved drugging away any little heartache life presented me with. Then I learned how dangerous these drugs could be (after the suicide of a mental health group peer), and in a panic, I tried dropping all the meds at around the same time. Then I developed a psychotic disorder (that shrinks now say is schizoaffective disorder), and I have had some freakish paranormal experiences (that most doctors like to dismiss as nonsense – but, I still believe in them). I went through a lot of chemical, social, spiritual, and systematic hell – thankfully, through the hell, I somehow became an optimist (I also have a very loving family), and I think that the optimism has gotten me to where I am today. The doctors wanted me on a lot more medication than I was willing to take since the beginnings of my psychotic disorder, but thanks to support from the outside world (while hospitalized), I had help convincing them to leave it at one psych medication. (BTW, my medications are Seroquel XR – 650 mg, and Nadolol – 10 mg.)
Here are the other meds I've been on – Zoloft, Paxil, Prozac, Celexa, Effexor XR, Wellbutrin, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Risperdal, Clopixol DEPOT injections, clonazepam (while inpatient), Topomax (it's a seizure drug, but I took it to curb overeating caused by Zyprexa – UGH!)… I think that's it. Seroquel XR is the "least evil" antipsychotic I've ever been on. It's non-sedating (for me, anyway), and doesn't completely crush my creative ability – there are side effects, but at least I don't feel like a zombie. I can't handle regular Seroquel, but the XR version isn't too terrible. My shrink is going to see how I do on 500 mg. Maybe some day I'll be med free. I get alternative medicine done too, which has also helped.
Heh – I used to fuck with the orderlies when they'd put me in restraints or lock me in "the hole" – I'd say stuff like "Hey big boy! Buy me dinner first!" I HATED locked seclusion – I thought I could handle it, but it really bothered me, it was so degrading. I'd get thrown in there just for crying "too much".
I have to confess – aesthetically, I think restraints are kind of cool, but not in the hospital setting – I hated them while there, in that context. I think the staff are extremely abusive with their use. (LOL – I own my own strait-jacket… sometimes I wear it during Mad Pride. I'd like to make some silk screened shirts that have Mad Pride slogans on them, and one might say something like "Reclaiming the strait-jacket".)
Sad to read you aren't moving to T-Dot, but keep me up to date on your travel plans. I don't get to travel much these days, as I'm a student and a worker – maybe someday! (I loved Vancouver when I went to visit, back in 2006. I felt I could live there.)
-Sarafin
MOVE TO VANCOUVER…as your graduation nears, and there are many, many more opportunities for artists of all sorts here – I know of many who have immigrated because of this!!
I just found your blog and have spent the last hour or so reading it. I could relate to so much of it, it's happened to me as well.
I have read a lot of blogs and found a lot that I could relate to, understand. But with you, I really really get it because we are so similar, down to the wicca and the kitty,meds, hospitals. I still dream about finishing my education as well- and my brain and career were destroyed from meds and ECT.
It's been a bad time the last few months, let me just say today has been especially bad but I don't feel so alone right now cause of your blog, and I hope it's ok if I add it to my blogroll.
Take care
I'm so happy we've found each other out here in the blogosphere. I adore all comments (aside from nasty "you're a psycho!" spam…which you're probably familiar with, and which I hope you laugh as hard as I do at…um, what part of "a madwoman versus society" did you not comprehend? LOL), but this one hits me hard. I feel a kinship with you here, just reading this, not even having checked out your blog yet, which I will when I'm done writing
, as well as a huge compliment – I questioned whether or not I wanted to continue with this blog about a month ago, fed up with the trolls, not getting paid for my work, etc – You remind me again of what I decided and the reason for it. This site is to stand as a whisper on the Internet, that I hope someday grows to more than that, but even a whisper – to all others who have gone through similar things that I have, who might be just on the threshold of their psychiatrization, basically, ANYONE that can find ANYTHING in here that they can relate to, and feel less alone. Because I know a lot about loneliness – luckily, I've always been able to write it away, and everyone has their own method, but I am lucky that I've saved my own life several times by hammering on the keyboard all night long, or until I've reached whatever point I needed to get to to see that "light of day". You have that too, don't you? 
I would really like to continue this conversation, and if you don't mind my asking, where do you live? I've connected with a couple of others on here who have become my closest friends, and I even jumped a plane (literally…I stole my dad's credit card…he knows all this now…but I stole it and I climbed on a plane to Ontario to see a fellow blogger, in my pocket $300 and a wish…that trip carried me home, to Vancouver, my spiritual and adopted home, the place I have always felt at home…it's funny, when I was a little girl, I used to frustrate the crap out of my mom asking, "Mommy, can we go home now?", even though I was with her at our house…I never had a home that felt right until the year after she died, when I journeyed to the west coast, and then to Japan and back…ever since then (14) I knew I would live my life here) to see one!! I want you to become a member of a little community that has jumped off this website into the beginnings of "reality" <hehe>…so please, if you have facebook, I hope to see you there, as that's how (despite my fundamental hatred of "the book"
we've managed to stay in touch. If not, please e-mail.
I hope you're not creeped out by my excitement…well, I know you're not in my head, but I hope you'll let me know my heart can settle down too!
I look forward to future correspondence, my new friend
All my best,
scars XO
ps – BEST BLOG NAME EVER! As I've said to myself so often over the past little while – THE WAY OUT IS THROUGH!
Hello
Please visit this blog; I think you’ll like it.
http://new-world-for-every-one.blogspot.com/
All the best,
Martin
Im a bh graduate on the exact same page as you. Well done with your open letter.
THANK-YOU! Especially after the hating I got from another former student, assuming you saw it beneath the post? LOL The one where I'm accused of being "one of those girls that hates everything"? Interesting (and good in my eyes
that some do share my opinion. A lot of NON former students liked it.
All my best,
scars XO