As a young woman, I believed the story I was told and internalized the language of the psychiatric system. The story it told, the song it sang, was that I was broken, that I had a disease, and that I had no other choice besides medication if I wanted to survive in the world I lived in—the white, patriarchal, imperialist, and commodity-obsessed culture I existed in. But the truth is that this story—a deceptive lullaby—put me so deep into the numbness of sleep, it nearly killed me.

These days, I find myself wondering what particular details of this story made it such a destructive force in my life? Some find this story helpful, even healing. So what made psychiatry’s attempt to “save me,” the language they used, very nearly destroy me instead?

Why did this story become the only thing standing between me and healing?