back from the borderline why psychiatry failed her: laura delano on misdiagnosis, medication, and coming back to life
What is the cost of being a “good patient”? For Laura, it was nearly her life.
Join me as I sit down with Laura Delano, author of the groundbreaking memoir Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance. A former “professional psychiatry patient” turned fierce advocate for psychiatric liberation, Laura brings her unique and deeply courageous voice to one of the most urgent conversations of our time.
At age 14, Laura was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after a single psychiatric appointment. What followed was over a decade of misdiagnoses, institutionalization, and polypharmacy, where at one point she was on 19 different psychiatric drugs. Despite having access to the most elite doctors, hospitals, and treatment centers money could buy (including Harvard-affiliated psychiatrists and the prestigious McLean Hospital) Laura’s condition only worsened. Eventually, she was labeled “treatment-resistant” and attempted suicide. But she survived. And then… she walked away completely.
In this episode, Laura and I explore:
- The psychiatric pipeline: how people in distress are pathologized and medicated
- The trauma of being misdiagnosed with borderline personality disorder
- The dangers of polypharmacy and long-term psychiatric drug use
- Why access to elite psychiatric care often makes things worse and not better
- Her experience inside a “gold standard” BPD treatment program (and why she left it)
- How reading her own psychiatric records exposed a disturbing split between what was said and what was written
- What it means to reclaim your life after being medicalized
- How Laura came to see her “symptoms” as signals pointing to a deeper need for freedom, meaning, and reconnection
Whether you’ve been personally affected by psychiatric diagnoses and medications, or you’re beginning to question the stories we’ve been collectively told about mental health, this conversation will likely feel like a breath of fresh air. It challenges dominant narratives, honors the complexity of emotional pain, and points toward a different kind of path forward.
CONNECT WITH LAURA:
https://www.theinnercompass.org/
If you enjoy this episode, don’t forget to rate, review, and share the show. And for more resources, including my Critical Psychiatry booklist, visit BackFromTheBorderline.com.
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