“Mindfulness, the capacity to be here, to witness deeply everything that happens in the present moment, is the beginning of enlightenment.” –Thich Nhat Hanh

“You must make the unjust visible.” –Gandhi

The Un-drugging of Annie Part One

It is a large, square, clear plastic Rubbermaid container with a blue-rimmed lid, and it is full of pills. Red pills, brown pills, white pills. Capsules and packed powder. Round and oval. Large, medium and small. Gray pills, yellow pills, blue pills. Half a gallon of pills.

I take it to Dr. Ghaly, the psychiatrist and acupuncturist, and he looks aghast. “What is this?” he cries. “What is this?”

I recently made a joint decision with my marriage counselor & dr. to get off antidepressants. My dr. informed me I could stop "cold turkey" & just switch over to an anti-anxiety drug called clorazepate. Had I known what I was going to experience, I wld have checked into a psych ward to "ride it out" but instead spent days of "hell" trying to get the helicopter noise in my brain from driving me crazy! I had no tolerance for light or noise and cried for days. This was how I started the new year!

I was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown in 2000. I was given the diagnosis of schizophrenia. I have to admit I was quite affected by the medication I was on. In a lot of ways it did make me less mentally functional. Anyway, I did gradually get my medication dosage lowered to PRN which means, "as needed." Under PRN dosage administration, you take a pill when you begin to feel unwell to snap you back into health. That's not necessarily a bad arrangement. Anyway, from there I researched the natural alternatives to taking medications. So far, I've been just fine without taking any medication at all. Here is what I learned:

I almost wasn't going to speak today. I was just going to come and listen. But when I got here I found a bunch of my friends standing around looking sad. The event before ours was a memorial service for a young gay man named Leonardo. He killed himself. And when I found that out, I knew I had to tell my story, because I could be him, all too easily.

I came out as a lesbian when I was 15 (I'm 29) in my small suburban town in upstate New York. It's not a town that welcomes difference. I have a friend who was fined for letting her lawn grow too high and wild. That pretty much sums up my town.

Freedom Center founding member and organizer David Burns discusses the early days of Freedom Center, when he worked as a "secret agent" on the streets and in a Northampton mental health residence, collecting information on psychiatric abuse for Freedom Center's human rights activist campaign. Dave also describes his life and experiences labeled "obsessive-compulsive disorder" from a spiritual and creative viewpoint, including the "inner work" he does.