I added two more details to this story because of a conversation earlier this morning, a few days after I posted this experience on Facebook on September 21, 2023. I woke up at about 2:30 a.m. for no apparent reason, and as I was about to go back to sleep, I heard an alert that I had received a message in Messenger. I decided to check it: A mother was concerned about her adult son, who had also lost his father when he was young. 
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The “cure” was worse than the disease! This story was written on September 21, 2023, and posted on Facebook that day. Although the title is not original to me, it is excellent for this experience!

I was hospitalized in 2008 for bipolar depression and medicated. The medication was powerful, but my doctors assured me I would adapt to it; although they may have to adjust it to determine my required doses for each drug, they assured me I would feel better soon. Foolishly, I trusted the doctors!

A comedian joked about doctors, saying, “Why are doctors only ‘PRACTICING’ medicine? Because they have not yet perfected it, they are still practicing. That is why they call their profession their medical practice or themselves Practitioners of Medicine! Since they are merely practicing medicine, their “cures” keep changing as they learn more!

How do they learn? By trial and error, which means if they don’t kill you, they know something new about treating a patient with your ailment! Occasionally, after receiving complaints from enough patients about the side effects of the drugs, the medical researchers will conduct a new test to see if there is a better way to “cure” diseases! It is worth noting that some people die due to those trials. Still, they accept that risk because they think the person is already suffering, so if they die during the trial, they will no longer be suffering, but if they live, the researchers may have discovered a possible new treatment! To the medical community, it must seem like a win-win result! May HaShem send Mashiach soon to take away all diseases!

As a result of my depression and the medications, I couldn’t work: the side effects of the medicines were too horrible, so my wife convinced me to apply for disability at least until they adjusted the drugs or I adapted to them so I would have some income until I was able to go back to work. That process took about a year or a little longer before I became officially disabled on July 12, 2010.

The doctors kept adjusting my medications, which didn’t work, so they changed me to use different drugs, and there were many side effects and adjustments. The conventional medical thought is: we have medicines to deal with the side effects of your primary medications, and we have drugs to deal with the side effects caused by the treatments we give you to deal with the side effects of your primary drugs. – What the hell?

I often wanted to get off the medications and complained to the doctors because I wasn’t getting better and wanted to return to work. Still, the doctors always insisted that I either needed a higher dose or to add another medication: with the theory, you got depressed without the medicines; some people eventually get better by taking the drugs (or perhaps despite the drugs, the drug scare them so they by placebo get well to get off the drugs!); therefore, you must need a higher dose or add others to get well!

I never expected to be disabled for this long a time. However, I am still currently disabled, though I am preparing to try to return to work again. To shorten this story, about five years ago, about ten years of adjusting and or changing my medications or adding more, I decided I had enough of all the supposed “cures.” I stopped all my medications and waited for the drugs to wear off. It took me three times to figure out how to successfully get off the pills, the fourth and last time!

The first time I stopped my medications, several days later, I was hospitalized for about five days due to withdrawal from those medications. Those medications were so intense that not having them in my system after becoming dependent on them for more than ten years caused me to experience a mental break from reality, and I lost a few days that I don’t remember; I can remember vaguely only the days preceding my reality break and coming to my senses in the psychiatric ward of a hospital a few days after being back on the medications. I wondered, “Why am I here?”

My wife was angry to discover that I had stopped my medications, and she warned me not to stop taking them. However, I was determined to get off the meds, but I waited a long while before I tried to stop taking the medications! 

The second time I stopped, I thought maybe if I drank some or just enough alcohol, that would help me through the withdrawal of the drugs, and I wouldn’t get hospitalized again. I was wrong, had another mental break from reality, and got hospitalized again, this time for about thirty days in a psychiatric ward, and then went to a step-down facility for fourteen days.

My wife warned me again not to stop my medications! However, I was determined to get off those medications. The third time I was hospitalized, about 7 or 9 days after quitting my drugs, she wouldn’t even visit me in the hospital, and when I was released, she wouldn’t come pick me up; she made me ask one of my sisters to bring me home.

The fourth and successful time I quit my medicines, I didn’t have a mental break from reality or get hospitalized. I had learned from the third time that what was causing me to experience the mental holidays was explicitly one of my medications, Lithium, which I had forgotten that it took several months to build up in my system, which meant that it would take a while to get out of my system.

My other primary medication, Seroquel, was to make me sleep. It turns out that the Lithium was preventing me from sleeping, so when I stopped all my medications, I still had the Lithium in my system, but since I didn’t have my sleep medication, I couldn’t sleep, and after 3, 4, or 5 days with insomnia: I would have a mental break from reality and get hospitalized.

I achieved my goal by not taking the Lithium for a couple of weeks, but I continued taking the Seroquel so that I could sleep. Then, week by week, I tapered off the Seroquel until I could sleep without any medications: I think it took about 45 days, maybe a little longer, to get off all the medicines, with the ability to sleep. After almost fifteen years, I was finally off the drugs! Baruch HaShem!

Because of a comment, I am adding this detail: After I was off the medications for about 20 days, I told my wife and sister, and they pressured me to let my doctor know I stopped. My sister and I had a video call with her about my 30th day, and I agreed that she would monitor me for the next 30 days. then she canceled my prescribed medicines and said, “If you have a relapse, please feel free to call me!” She approved my method for stopping the drugs and wished me well!

However, I was still struggling with depression, but at least I was now drug-free and tried to concentrate on overcoming my depression! One of the Chabad rabbis that I regularly attend classes with, and who, on occasion, he conducts seminars which I also attend: In one of his weekly class sessions, he made a blanket statement to everyone in the class about how if we are so inclined to write, we should write about our experiences or perspectives.

I had always wanted to write about my experiences and struggles to overcome many difficulties in my life because I wanted to share with others how I overcame them and as an inspiration to help others who may have similar experiences overcome theirs. If for no other reason, it helps to know that a person is not the only one going through whichever experience someone else has in common with me or perhaps only something similar to what I have been through!

A great rabbi taught people that when people have problems or struggles in life, if they seek to help someone worse off, they will get well sooner than if they don’t. That is what I did, although I wasn’t following his advice for his reason: my motivation wasn’t to help me feel better but to share my experiences to help others, at minimum, know they are not the only ones to go through these challenges, which is comforting, and at best show them how to overcome that problem! I did help some; I know because some people contacted me to thank or encourage me. One said, “Please keep writing; we must read what you share!”

On August 28, 2023, my depression disappeared, and all my good memories of my childhood and my excellent relationship with my father, who died 49 days before I turned seventeen, came back, and I cried! I only remembered his shortcomings for the last forty years because I had forgotten all the good things I now remember! I want to thank that Chabad rabbi who spoke generally to our class about writing our stories and experiences that became my motivation to begin writing to help others, maybe that same day or the next, and as an unintentional consequence, I got healed! Baruch HaShem!

This is another added detail because of a conversation early this morning: My dad and I got into a nasty argument when I was fifteen. I went back to California to live with my mother and sisters, but that falling out messed me up, and I had many difficulties. When I was seventeen, my mother decided I needed to go back and live with my father: he died a couple of days before I was supposed to get on the airplane! He died before we could resolve our argument! That unresolved anger messed me up!

Because of my past traumas, grief, and anger at losing my dad, I had misinterpreted some experiences with him as evil. It is fascinating how facts can add to different conclusions based on how you feel when you are (mis)interpreting them, especially when you are grieving a loss or suppressing emotions for a long time! Baruch HaShem!

Another added detail: I don’t remember how long it was, maybe 10 years ago: I had a dream that my dad was still alive, and I talked to him. In my dream, we made peace, and I forgave myself for being angry at a dead man!

Now begins the long process of developing new marketable skills for employment or relearning old ones that I haven’t used for a long time or that have become outdated because of technological advances. Still, HaShem has brought me to this point in my life, and I have been healed for a purpose. All I need to do is figure out the next step in my mission to accomplish His reason for creating me and healing me at this time!

Toda HaShem (thank you) for healing me and letting me remember how much my dad and I loved each other!