Artist Tamara Staples on the discussion panel “The Making of an Epidemic: Polypharmacy in the Treatment of Mental Health ” at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art. The panel discussion was the culmination of her installation exhibit “Side Effects May Include”.
Before my sister’s untimely death from an overdose of pharmaceuticals, I didn’t think much about pharmaceuticals in any meaningful way. I’ve never dealt with serious illness. My sister was eccentric from an early age and no one thought much of it. Of course, the labeling of mental illness had not yet come into play at that time.
We were adopted from separate families and when she met her birth family, she discovered that her father was bi-polar. He was taking Lexipro at the time, so she found a doctor who would prescribe the same.
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