Dear medical model,

At first I felt understood by you. You gave me words for who I am. You told me I am not bad, I am sick. You told me you can fix me like you fix a broken arm.

Now, you abandon me. You tell me you won’t walk the journey with me. You tell me I am “well” and our time together ends here. You tell me you feel useless when you are not experimenting on people with pills. You can’t see how important relationships are, how talking with my case worker and knowing he is there for me through both the good and bad is actually what heals. You are smug and paternalistic. You tell me you know what’s best for me. I question whether you really knew me at all.

Sometimes I find comfort in taking my medication, for it is something you taught me. It is a connection to you and your people who saw me through so much, like the way the sun’s warmth still lingers on the land after it has gone down. It is a way of keeping you inside of me. Other times, I lower the dose of the medication you insist I need and I take amphetamines because I know you don’t want me taking those. You thought they made me manic and psychotic. Well fuck you. I will do what I like now.

I keep your appointment cards. One day when you are gone I will come across them and want to cry as they remind me of you. I will hang onto them like a child and her blanket. Or maybe I will burn them, and try to forget we ever met. There is something seriously perverted when the people who are meant to look after you end up damaging you the most.