Psych med withdrawal tips
1x2m digital print on silk, produced for Found Festival, Testing Grounds, Melbourne, 2015
PSYCH MED WITHDRAWAL TIPS
Research the risks and process of withdrawal before you begin
Change is hard! Make a plan, take it slow, and be kind to yourself
Surround yourself with supportive friends
Act normal around those with prejudicial opinions
In my years as a psychiatric patient, my experience with medications did not match the usual medical narrative, but my own narratives were routinely interpreted as evidence of further illness, not as evidence of a differing need.
Even in more open mental health communities, I often felt pressures to minimise and caveat the stories I told about myself - to reassure people, "don't worry, I know that my experience is my own problem." I think one intention with social practices such as these is to make sure no-one feels alienated, but I find that when I perform these repetitive speech acts in order to talk about areas of my life in which I am already routinely alienated by most of my society, then I just end up alienating myself.
In this work, I aimed to present psychiatric alternatives without caveat or context. The banner presents no theories, describes no social contexts, and offers no ameliorating statements regarding medication or the medical model of mental illness. It simply expresses a possibility for people to try for themselves, investigate further, reject outright, or ignore altogether.