Sherri

Brooke Siem was among the first generation of minors to be prescribed antidepressants. Initially diagnosed and treated in the wake of her father’s sudden death, this psychiatric intervention sent a message that something was pathologically wrong with her and that the only “fix” was medication. As a teenager, she stepped into the hazy world of antidepressants just at the time when she was forming the foundation of her identity. For the following fifteen years, every situation she faced was seen through the lens of brokenness.

When a trusted physician tells Renée Schuls-Jacobson that he has the solution for her chronic insomnia - a “tried and true medication without any side effects", she believes him. For seven years, she takes her clonazepam exactly as prescribed until, one day, she learns that her doctor is wrong: Long-term benzodiazepine use causes all kinds of problems including profound changes in brain function. While healing from an iatrogenic brain injury that is not widely recognized by doctors, Renée leaves everything familiar behind and goes on a journey.