My name is William Hardt Barbary from Butler, PA and this is my pharmaceutical nightmare recovery story.

After marriage separation in October of 2018, my spiral began. I began drinking alcohol more than usual which led to odd behavior and poor decisions and I lost custody of my daughter. This caused more emotional stress, drinking, and odd behaviour which led to a Bipolar diagnosis, but I refused medication. After 20 years of alcohol abuse, I quit drinking in April of 2019 and fell into a deep depression and committed myself to the psych ward and began medication.

I took numerous combinations of different medications but nothing worked for an extended period of time. The medications I was prescribed included Ativan, Abilify, Lamictal, Seroquel, Risperidone, Buspar, Tegretol, Propranolol, Zyprexa, and Trazadone. Some were stopped and added with little to no tapers throughout the process by a psychiatrist.

The first few cocktails caused severe brain fog, anxiety, and exhaustion, leading me to quit my job as a union bricklayer. I also stopped working out, eating poorly, and gained weight. This led to more depression with delusional thinking and I was given different combinations of medications. I started losing my balance, shaking uncontrollably at times, having severe muscle tension and spasms, sometimes my throat would close for no reason, extreme negative and delusional thinking which lead to suicidal thoughts and attempts. At one point, I didn’t leave my house for 40 days and didn’t shower or change my clothes for 21 days. I had sheets over the windows in my basement to keep it dark and tried to avoid everyone.

After months of living like this, In April of 2020, I quit Seroquel and 2 other medications cold turkey. I began to hallucinate and hear voices which led to even worse delusional thoughts. This led to a withdrawal psychosis where I attacked and exposed myself to my sister and niece, who were living with me at the time. I fought with the police, got tased and was taken to the hospital before jail.

I was handcuffed to my bed the whole time by the opposite wrist and ankle for 10 days with only 15 minutes to shower and stretch a day. Every hour they would switch the handcuffs from one ankle and wrist to the other, even while sleeping. I was put on 5 meds and shipped to jail for 8 months. My mother died while I was incarcerated and I had no emotion to this.

After I was released I was accepted into the behavioural health court program due to having no prior record. I eventually got my daughter back and started my own business. After having disagreements with a few of the social workers involved and family about medications and other things, I unwillingly was forced to go back to the psych ward, even though the crisis counsellor thought it was unnecessary. This led to an increase in medication, losing custody of my daughter, supervised visitation, lost jobs, pill counts, blood draws, house arrest, anxiety, and so much more stress.

I bought Dr. Amen’s “The End of Mental Illness” and this led me to further research the harms of these medications. I tried to wean off a few of the meds again in July of 2022. This led to another withdrawal psychosis that ended up with me being chased by the police and didn’t pull over until my truck ran out of gas. I went under my truck and played dead. They pulled me out and couldn’t register a heart beat so they hit me with Narcan. They found my medication in the truck and thought they were opiates and I was charge with a DUI and taken to jail and put on withdrawal medication, and put in a 100% restraint chair with a see through mask for hours. What happened this day and leading up to it could fill a book.

I was then put in the padded cell for what I thought was a few days but was 3 weeks. At one point, I thought they were trying to kill me and I began fighting with the correction officers and I was tasered numerous times with no effect and put back in the restraints for days. I did 3 months for the DUI charge due to being on parole from the first incident and was forced to get back on meds. I was released in September 2022 and put on house arrest. I again tried to ween off the medication in Novembber 2022 and had another psychosis were I left my house while on house arrest and was delusional and went back to jail for another 3 months, but remained off the medication.

I was released in April 2023 and put back on house arrest until November of 2023. I lost my driver’s license for a year from the DUI charge, which was dropped, because I refused a blood draw when they first took me to jail, which I don’t remember. September 11, 2023 my psychiatrist believed that I was misdiagnosed and removed the Bipolar diagnosis after showing no signs or symptoms after dealing with all this and being off medication for this time. She never heard the whole story that led to the original diagnosis and events afterwards.

Overall, from 2019-2023, while on medication and tapering too quickly, I had 5 psych ward visits, 14 months in jail, 1 ½ years of house arrest, $20,000 in fines and expenses for house arrest and monitored child supervision, lost numerous friends that were like family, fractured relationship with my in-laws due to my ignorance during withdrawal, on top of the stigma of all the criminal charges. The thing that hurts the most is the 4 years of quality time I lost with my daughter.

After over 20 months off all medications, I am physically, emotionally, and spiritually in the best shape of my life at 45. I now have partial custody of my daughter and the masonry business is flourishing. My family and I are closer than ever. The thing I give all the credit to, is my faith and reading the Bible daily. This belief system completely rewired my thought process, which took my anxiety, fear, anger, resentment, and blame of others away on top of numerous other positive changes such as forgiveness, patience, humbleness, and gratitude which I had very little of before.

Last year I started the Million Minds Medicated Movement group on Facebook to raise awareness of the harms of psychiatric medication and the need for slow tapers and It now has over 1,500 members. I hope to be more involved in this community in the future and hope we can all one day combine into a more powerful organized influential group that can truly bring change to the way mental health is treated and viewed. It is not a diseased brain, but emotional sickness due to past trauma, stress, and a toxic culture & environment.