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
like their experiences are being erased. Although I appreciate this sentiment, I find that when I perform these repetitive speech acts in order to talk
about areas of my life which are already erased by most of my society, then I act as my own eraser.
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.
Perhaps I am not as bold now as I was then, because I apparently felt it necessary to provide the viewer with this context after all.