Living with the Pharmakon: A Call for Futurity

This perspectives piece explores the tensions between the toxicity of psychoactive medications and lack of access to quality treatment and specialist nephrology care for people with, what has been defined by the medical community as, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. What becomes of livability if the system of medicine creates harm in supposed remedy while refusing remedy and creating harm? This essay calls out the limits this contradiction places on the possibilities for life, and it is concerned with what kinds of futures materialize in living with the pharmakon.