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Demonic Interventions
Demonic intervention number one.
In 1991, my psychiatrist at the time, a gentle and good man, made a terrible mistake. He told me that people who are schizophrenic often recover fully around age forty. Seeing that I had a rewarding job, a partner and a nice home, he felt I should go off my medications. Because I was taking haldol, he feared the radical side effect of tardive dyskenesia, which is nerve damage.
Because I am bipolar, and not schizophrenic, his decision to take away my anti-psychotic meds would be catastrophic. I immediately lost my teaching job for strange shenanigans in the classroom. I ran up incredible bills with credit cards. I drove all my housemates away from our rented house, including my partner, leaving me to singlehandedly pay a huge rent. Fortunately, in another example of Divine intervention, my landlord, who was in Ireland, told me to stay put in the house until she returned in September. I would have a roof over my head as I wrestled with mania for the upcoming precarious months in 1992.
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