Antipsychotics

Reposted stripped of its authorship by request of the author. Used with permission.

A parable:
Two men and two women with amnesia are admitted into a medical facility for an experiment. They are each given a pill and then placed in a room. The administrator then tells them, one of you has schizophrenia and was given an anti-psychotic medication, one of you has schizophrenia and was given a placebo, one of you is neurotypical and have been given datura and one of you is neurotypical and have been given a placebo. Your task is to determine which of you have been given what. You are not allowed to leave this room. Your first instinct may be to declare the ones who’s experiences seems to match up might be the pointer to a solution…that is unless it’s folie à deux.


I accept for the sake of this incarnation the presuppositions required to manage existence here. However, I recognize the constant possibility they could be wrong, or change at a moment’s notice and that I have no way of reliably distinguishing them from psychosis beyond their apparent consistency. As Philip K Dick once said “Reality is that which when you stop believing in it doesn’t go away.” Pychosis and reality are indistinguishable by the observer.

But that’s where modern medicine swoops in to save the day.

Antipsychotics are a modern marvel. The weight they lift can’t be properly expressed in words. If you’ve never experienced disordered thoughts you can’t truly comprehend just what they do for a person. It seems almost miraculous. Throughout human history psychosis was just a tragedy. Now it can be treated. That’s way more a big deal than it is recognized as. It’s a way more important invention than is ever appreciated except by those taking them.

For that matter, psych meds in general mean so much for the people who are on them because they can dramatically change one’s quality of life. Yet the general public will never be truly aware of what that means because it’s kinda a taboo topic given the social stigma. Beyond that also the relevant symptoms that they treat are largely invisible because they just seem “normal”. To those who have never experienced what it’s like to not do that it’s hard for them to fathom just what it means for a person and their state of mind.

-Anonymous