A few weeks after our first son was born, Kim began to struggle with a fierce bout of OCD. She had had OCD since she was in her teens, in a relatively mild and manageable form, but after the birth of our child, it got worse.

Unfortunately, Kim went to a psychiatrist who prescribed Klonopin  to treat her anxiety. This is a classic case of treating the symptom and not the disease. The end result was she became seriously addicted to Klonopin, and her OCD got much worse. Complicating matters, whenever an antipsychotic was added on to the Klonopin, it left poor Kim in a state of confusion, agitation, and completely unable to resist her powerful urges to count time, keep lists, and repeat things over an over.  Further, the doctors then said she had other mental illnesses including psychosis and schizophrenia, which she had never exhibited any traces of in the previous 38 years.

After two hospitalizations and more than two years of suffering a literal barrage of medications, (appx 30 different prescriptions in a 2 year period) she is now attempting to withdraw from all the medications. It has been devastating to me and my family.

One thing I have learned, for sure, is that a combination of higher doses of Klonopin and Antipsychotics added on was a very bad thing for Kim. Her OCD worsened considerably, and she is now unable to sleep. Furthermore, once the Klonopin got out of her system, her mental processes returned to normal, despite the fact she is suffering dearly from the withdrawal.

I intend to write much more on this page in the coming weeks. It has been a terrible wreckage of the family, leaving my son Ryan practically without a mother for the last 18 months.