Sarah Fay, MFA

Had six diagnoses, including major depressive disorder and bipolar, was chronically suicidal, repeatedly hospitalized, and unable to live independently; fully recovered ; currently is a widely published author who teaches creative writing at Northwestern University. She is taking medications because she has “a low side-effect profile” and has developed dependency so that “the withdrawal was just too severe.” She accepts the idea that she had mental illness, but rejects her diagnoses, and all psychiatric diagnoses, as unscientific and invalid (see her book Pathological). She thinks that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is at the “root of the problem” with the current mental health system, causing “corruption and confusion and misrepresentation and suffering” (Pathological, p. 254). She also criticizes the withdrawal community for “pill-shaming” those who can’t, or choose not to, stop their psychiatric medications (Pathological, pp. 244-245).