The thing about identity is, it is one's thoughts, feelings, and experiences, plus the biology that goes with it. It is not merely a psychiatric disorder like bipolar, ptsd, did, or what have you. It is not merely a job or a gender. It is not merely a political leaning or ideology. It's not just your religion or the foods you like. It's not just who you know or your IQ. It's the spark within... the soul. 

    Agreeing on everything or submitting to a group identity is not life. Life is expressing yourself through all that you say and do. Every word and every action is a part of who someone is. Ideological or chemical conformity and love or loyalty are not the same thing. Taking a medication or conforming to a label is not the same as loving or living. Clozaril did not make me who I was nor does the lack of it make me who I am. Clozaril did not make me happy or "normal". Clozaril merely suppressed my emotions or "numbed me out". It did not change the reality of the past or the present.

    Hospitals are meant to heal people, not manufacture drones or drug away personality. 

    What my family doesn't understand and perhaps never will, is that drugging people does not make you love them. Rather the opposite. People have free will for a reason. 

    It's very small minded to lock a person into a specific label or a medication. In common language we call that stereotyping. The brain has a natural need to categorize. Good, bad, pretty, ugly, sane, crazy. But categories are a matter of perspective. My backstabbing family prefers control. They see compliance as love. I am either the repentant and loving bipolar son or I am a hateful man. I do not see it that way. "Trauma" is also a matter of perspective. Some people see a family repeatedly lying about you behind your back, spreading hateful and malicious gossip and force medicating as traumatic. Others do not. Some see having trouble trusting family who acts in such a manner as legit trust issues. Others see it as paranoia. As long as I am the psychotic one, my family can do virtually anything and I'm just crazy or lying when I object. It's when the psychosis thing and the lies no longer hold together that life becomes challenging for my family. 

    Now they want me to "relax" while they continue to do as they do, lying and maintaining narratives and backstabbing and manipulating and oh it's all fine Robert's just crazy. Just another day in paradise. They'll never quit. It even comes down to little things like insisting on calling me by my full name angrily, being enraged when I do not use Apple products, not liking the same food... the smallest expression of independent thought is an offense to be remarked upon. Some of them have this overpowering need to be right about every little thing. The smallest detail. 

    I can't even go to the ER for a heart issue or a bad reaction to a prescription med without them full throttle taking over every last detail of my life, from where I live, to where I spend my time, to what job I have, to what I think, what diagnosis I have, and what medication I take.

    I'm the crazy one? Of course they'll deny it, that's part of their M.O. It's how they keep it going. Plausible deniability. I thought it was the hospital. No, they were the pawns. I signed that release. They talked to my family. I'll relax when they give me reason to. Until then, walls up.

    I'm trying to find some serenity here. I find that in this work and writing these stories. You know, when I was little, having medical professionals in the family seemed like a plus. The problem is, they dissect you and analyze you on a microscopic level. And the hospital will listen to medical people before they listen to a patient. But oh right! I'm psychotic again... gosh me... there I go again... every time I try to have an independent thought... I can't help but go psychotic.