While recovering from the effects of rape and abuse, her psychiatrist told her that her ambitions were 'delusions of grandeur". Meaghan Buisson went on to set a world record in her sport.

An incredibly brave Meaghan Buisson details her path to recovery from the effects of modern psychiatry.

Here are some snippets from a fascinating and extended article.

I was 10 months shy of graduating from veterinary medicine when I slashed my wrist, swallowed every pill I could find and dropped out of school.

This lead to weekly sessions with a man I’d soon come to loathe. He was head of the Department of Psychiatry. I wasn’t sure who I was anymore. Until then, I’d been the diligent daughter. The gifted student. The token girl friend. The coach’s pet. A hollow shell of nothingness, I was everything to everyone, and no one to myself.

A few months earlier, I’d been raped.

But that was never discussed. Nor were six years of preceding sexual abuse, let alone any other details of childhood trauma. Determined to figure out what was wrong with me, no one thought to ask what had happened to me. Flinching at my own shadow, quite literally too scared to speak, nor was I about to volunteer.

Our appointments were warfare, played out over drugs. I took a red pen to my medical file and corrected his spelling He promptly diagnosed me as oppositionally defiant and hid his notes. Shaking his head, he asked “now that you’ve dropped out of a medical program, WHAT do you intend to do with your life?!”

At my response, his pen hanged itself from his fingers then frantically started kicking ink across the page. Tearing one script after another off a thick stack of forms, he thrust them towards me, exclaiming I was clearly psychotic and would require lifelong treatment to control my manic “delusions of grandeur.”

The delusion in question?

I told him I wanted to become a world champion inline speed skater.

[...]

Every time I tried to fight, I was told my refusal to accept my diagnoses was itself proof of mental illness and further indication I needed to be drugged. So that’s what they did.

Under an ever-increasing fog, I tried to gather my life. But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t do it. My doctors said there was nothing fundamentally wrong with me. They refused to sign the paperwork that would have provided temporary medical relief from student loans, insisting my state was a choice and I just “needed to get a job” and “grow up.” My family said the same.

[...] When I came off medication, I didn’t have any support. My psychiatrist and general physician both said it would kill me – not from suicide, simply the toxicity flowing through my veins. “I’d rather be dead,” I replied, “than spend even one more day living like I already am.” So I fired them both and flushed everything down the toilet.

At the time, I was taking Risperdal, Lamictal, Zoloft, Paxil, Effexor, Valproate, Ativan and Prozac. All simultaneously, with three (at doctors’ orders) well beyond what I later learned were maximal recommended dosages. Previously, I’d also been on Lithium and Wellbutrin. I don’t remember most of the year or so that followed. From what I’ve been told, in terms of the psychotic breaks and other withdrawal challenges, it was hell. But if I had to, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Coming off meds was the single best decision I’ve ever made.

That said, it hasn’t been easy.

Meaghan Buisson has since gone on to set a world record in inline speed skating solo-marathon world record. She is a world class champion inline speed skater.