Some stuf for psych

[undergroundpanther]

http://www.mindfreedom.org/

http://www.unknownnews.net/040712a-upits.html


MindFreedom News - 3 November 2004
http://wwww.MindFreedom.org - please forward

NEWS RELEASE

Today's Re-Election of President Bush
May Mean More Psychiatric Coercion,
Advocates Warn

MindFreedom Announces New
MindFreedom Shield Program

"All for One and One for All!"

With today's re-election of President Bush,
advocates for the human rights of people
affected by the mental health system are
preparing for the worst.

Today, MindFreedom International, an
independent non-profit coalition of 100
grassroots groups, is launching the
MindFreedom Shield Program to defend members
from an expected increase in coerced and
forced psychiatric procedures.

President Bush has endorsed a drug company
plan to screen every American for mental
health problems. A Bush appointee to a key
federal committee, psychiatrist Sally Satel,
has openly called for more "coercive,"
"intrusive, highly paternalistic" and
"involuntary care" in mental health.

MindFreedom International has an
established track record of taking
constructive, nonviolent action when a
person is being subjected to coerced or
forced psychiatric procedures. In order
to better utilize its very limited
resources, MindFreedom International
announces the official beginning of the
MindFreedom Shield Program.

MindFreedom Shield is a coordinated
registration system and solidarity
network composed by and for people who
want to have as much protection as
possible from being subjected to
coerced or forced psychiatric
"treatment."

"I hope this program lets people know
that they not only have choice A, B, or
C but that they are free to choose,
'NONE OF THE ABOVE!'" explains
advocate Pat Risser, one of a group of
psychiatric survivors who envisioned
and initiated the concept that has
become the MindFreedom Shield.
"This is a way to 'just say no' to
oppression."

MindFreedom Shield is designed to
support a person's choice to be
free from coerced or forced
psychiatric "treatment" by backing this
personal choice up with the MindFreedom
Solidarity Network -- a network of
people ready to take constructive,
nonviolent action if someone's choice
to be free from coerced or forced
psychiatric "treatment" is not being
respected or upheld.

As the current mental health system
continues to globalize and rely more
and more on coercion and outright
force, many people's rights to have
their previously expressed and even
properly documented wishes carried out
are being ignored. The recent
recommendations of the President's New
Freedom Commission to begin universal
mental health screening, currently
being implemented in several states, is
only one example of the increasing use
of such pressure.

In order to best implement this
program, MindFreedom is collaborating
closely with sponsor group The Law
Project for Psychiatric Rights
(PsychRights.org). "Through this
mechanism people saddled with
psychiatric labels can unite and offer
effective resistance to psychiatric abuses,"
said attorney Jim Gottstein, director
of PsychRights. "The MindFreedom Shield
Program fits PsychRights' mission of
defending people facing the horrors of
forced psychiatric drugging and other
forced psychiatric procedures
administered against their will
perfectly."

All for One and One for All

MindFreedom board member and psychologist
Al Galves, PhD said, "The MindFreedom Shield
is a quick, cost-effective defense against
people being railroaded into using such
methods as medication and electroshock
to alleviate normal responses to life
issues that can more effectively,
economically and safely be addressed
through interpersonal emotional support
and creative action."

"We can't guarantee the results,"
cautions MindFreedom director David
Oaks, "But it has been our experience,
including testing the MindFreedom
Shield Program to help free a member
from a Canadian psychiatric facility,
that public awareness and people
engaging in specific, nonviolent action
can often reduce or even end coerced or
forced psychiatric 'treatment.'"

MindFreedom Shield is not meant to take
the place of legal documents expressing
a person's medical and psychiatric care
preferences, such as an "Advance Directive."
MindFreedom Shield is intended to provide
the people power clout it sometimes takes
to enforce a member's wishes, including
members with Advance Directives. "Our
recommendation is that a member have
both a MindFreedom Shield and an
Advance Directive in place." said Krista
Erickson, chair of the MindFreedom Shield
committee.

Any current member of MindFreedom may
register a MindFreedom Shield for free.
Detailed information about the program,
as well as a registration form, can be
found online at:

http://www.mindfreedom.intenex.net/shield

Any MindFreedom member who does not
have access to the Internet may write
to the MindFreedom office to obtain
information about the program.

MindFreedom Support Coalition
International is a grassroots human
rights non-profit uniting over 100
sponsor groups in 15 countries working
for human rights and alternatives in
mental health. The organization is
the only group of its kind with
Non Governmental Organization
accreditation by the United Nations
(ECOSOC Consultative Roster Status).

Sometimes called the "Amnesty
International of mental health,"
MindFreedom is independent from any
government, mental health provider,
drug company or religion.

To join or renew membership in
MindFreedom go to:

http://www.mindfreedom.org/join.shtml

Or write to:

MindFreedom
PO Box 11284
Eugene, OR 9744-3484 USA

For more information on the nationwide
screening program approved by President
Bush, along with his appointee psychiatrist
Sally Satel, see:

http://mindfreedom.org/mindfreedom/bush_psychiatry.shtml

For information about MindFreedom see:

http://www.MindFreedom.org

- end -

Please forward to all appropriate
places on and off Internet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TO UNSUBSCRIBE:
e-mail to [e-mail] with the word REMOVE in the subject line.

[nofurylike]

1. thanks for posting this. Patch Adams said he will test * first. :) n/t

[Cowboy Joe2k]

26. Kick this to everyone as fast as you can.

Kick this. This is all we hoped for this is what the world needs tied up in a bow. For the holiday this is what the world needs now. entire world Peace. Kick this if you ever thought you were free. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...2&mesg_id=79652

Kick this every chance you get least you wine up kicking the damn thing for ever. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...2&mesg_id=79652

Kick this. this is the one little bit of information that can save the world.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...2&mesg_id=79652

I may have bargained a solid argument to avoid getting stuck in this damn contraption.

[masshole1979]

2. who funds this mindfreedom group?

I can't imagine a true group of people with mental illness would be so stridently anti-medication, beating that one drum to the exclusion of anything else. At least, that's the impression their homepage gives.

[Banazir]

3. Pro-choice and anti-force

They're pro-choice on medication, and anti-force, both of which are stated in several of those links on the front page. They're not $cientologists, and not funded by the government, the mental health industry, or drug companies. For further funding sources beyond membership dues you could probably ask them and get much straighter an answer than you'd get out of, for instance, NAMI.

The history of the opposition of the psych survivor movement specifically and only to biological psychiatry is a long one that seems to involve an old alliance with psychoanalysts. I think it's a mistake and that they would do better fighting psychiatric oppression than fighting a specific psychiatric theory that has some elements of both truth and falsity to it. However, the movement has exposed some of the excesses and false claims of biopsychiatry: I just wish it would do the same for the rest of psychiatry, and stop focusing on a theory as a culprit rather than the power structures.

You might find the history of the psychiatric survivor movement instructive, though, including on why "mentally ill" isn't how the people on the site would be most likely to describe themselves. One good thing that's come out of that movement has been a more critical look than most people are willing to give at the fundamental assumptions of mainstream psychiatry. Unfortunately, outside of that they tend to accept too many things just because they're not mainstream psychiatry, even if they're just as bad.

[masshole1979]

10. again, I ask, who funds them?

I know that the psych. survivors movement is real and important. But you can't trust every book because it has a nice cover. A lot of supposed psych. survivors groups are really fronts for Scientology or other wack-job groups, along with people whose understanding of mental health treatment is limited to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and science fiction. Also, this anti-medication stuff is popular with "by the boot-strap" conservative thinkers who would like to dismantle disability protection for mental health issues.

The site in question made me suspicious because

1) It labels psych. medication as inherently and universally bad, rather than making more specific arguments--sounding more like extremists than real survivors who would have met dozens of people whose lives had been saved by these medications, along with people whose rights were violated.

2) The page doesn't have the same welcoming feel that other groups based on mental health issues generally do. After all, it's a very personal issue.

[Banazir]

19. It's a political group, not a support group.

As far as psych medication as inherently and universally bad, it's clear that you can't have done more than skim the articles. Nearly all of them state explicitly that some members take medication and that it's a pro-choice group when it comes to medication. The fact that they are critical of some claims, and may even go overboard to a certain extent (which is amply explained by the psych survivor movement's unfortunate ties to psychodynamic psychotherapists without having to invoke $cientology -- and I think that's what's happening here) does not mean that they would try to keep people from being on medication.

As far as who funds them, as I said, look it up or ask them or both. I honestly don't know. All I know is that its founder is a genuine psych survivor who is totally open about where he was locked up and when (so you can check out his story if you want), and that my local group which is a member of the umbrella group is also made up entirely of people who have genuinely experienced the psych system. Our local group receives no outside funding and has to make do with whatever resources we can scrounge up.

I don't know what "welcoming feel" would have to do with it. It's primarily a political group, not a support group. Thankfully. None of the disability-rights groups I have participated in for long, for any of the categories of disability I belong to, have a touchy-feely "welcoming" support-group feel to them. It doesn't mean they're run by $cientologists any more than women's liberation groups have to be warm and fuzzy and cozy and comfortable to be run by real feminists. My local psych survivor group isn't cozy and welcoming either, but we're all verifiably the genuine article (and one of us keeps getting locked up over and over).

[Oak2004]

8. If you believe that truly mentally ill people would want to be medicated

then, logically, you must also believe that there is no reason to force it on persons who don't want it. After all, if they don't want it, by your reasoning, they must not be truly mentally ill.

But I don't think you want to draw that conclusion, however rational, do you?

[masshole1979]

11. I'm sorry, your statement makes absolutely no sense...

...you are basing your thinking on some One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest fantasy in which people who are no danger to themselves or anyone are held down and given Lithium instead of electroshock. It doesn't happen in this day and age (to adults, at least), at least no more than other abuses in mainstream healthcare, let alone in comparison with the abysmal situation in some nursing homes and long-term care facilities.

It is insulting to anyone with mental illness to suggest they can't make the choice for themselves and that they need to be "rescued" from their own physicians, or should suffer huge inconveniences to get medications, or that doctors should be discouraged from following their own judgement in making prescriptions.

Medication IS a choice for anyone who isn't a danger to themselves or others, you can't legally make anyone take it anymore than you could make them take antibiotics (of course, the case with legal minors is different and troubling, but the same people who are against recognizing mental illness are usually against giving minors rights relative to parents and the state).

Put down One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. If you're so interested in human rights issues in healthcare, do something about nursing homes, or for that matter, all the people who can't get healthcare at all.

[Wordie]

12. Warning labels on anti-depressants for teens, because of increased suicide

risk, might be one thing to keep in mind while evaluating the claims of the psych survivor movement. And the FDA is now considering extending the warning to adults as well.

There are risks with many of the pharmaceuticals, that one is rarely advised of. I say this as one who took Vioxx for 18 months. (Oviously, this is not a psychotropic, but I use it as an example of the folly of blindly trusting ANY drugs). Luckily, I took it intermittantly, so I am not certain that my heart attack stroke risk was necessarily higher. I haven't even asked yet if the risk goes away when you stop taking it, or if it is a permanent risk, once one has taken it for the 18 month period (the research has determined that the risk kicks in after one has taken the drug for 18 months.)

There were people questioning the increased use of pharmaceuticals way back when, before the Scientolgists got involved at all in the issue. And most of those people were liberal, as most of them are now. What happened in the interim, however, was that the medical model completely eclipsed any other approach. Interestingly, there is no scientific basis for the claims that mental illness is a "brain disease."

And, I'm just curious. What is your interest in this issue? You appear to have some strong feelings about it.

[masshole1979]

14. people can still weigh the risks and benefits for themselves

It's bad that the data about the suicide link to antidepressants in youth was not fully disclosed by the drug companies, and it's just as bad that the FDA did not take a more proactive role, leaving it to England to lead the way.

BUT, the drugs still have saved far more young lives than they have taken (and the antidepressant-suicide link is not that firm at all since they're still not sure it wasn't just the usual "rebound" risk of suicide that paradoxically comes during recovery from depression). A massive study has already shown that cognitive-behavioral therapy (basically the style of therapy you'll most likely get now), without medication, does not have significant success with severe depression, certainly not compared with antidepressants + therapy. Doctors should be monitoring depressed teens closer and prescribing therapy for the extreme teen cases that require antidepressants; instead, they'll just be too scared to prescribe antidepressants at all and lives will be lost.

My stake in this is that it kills me to watch so many otherwise intelligent people go berserk when they see people take antidepressants or whatever other mental illness drug. What is the stake of the people who post these ridiculous anti-scientific nonsense about mental healthcare? It's ultimately because people don't take mental illness seriously (whether or not they consciously admit that), that they are so much more against mental health medication than erectile dysfunction or hair-growth or heart medication.

[Wordie]

20. Just an observation: I've dealt with these issues for a great many years

and my observation is that it is rare for a person to be expressing the sorts of things that you are without some sort of perceived stake in the matter. Most people are just blissfully unaware of the issues entirely, as they don't get a lot of press.

So, I'm still wondering where the intensity is coming from. For you to be making claims that the other people with whom you disagree are posting things that are "ridiculous" and "anti-scientific" seems odd to me. You seem to be trying to speak with an authority that you then claim that you don't have. Are you a member of some organization concerning itself with these issues, perhaps?

[Banazir]

15. There's also the studies showing...

...that neuroleptic drugs cause visible damage to the brain, and that atypical neuroleptics still cause most of the same problems as the old ones and then some. The reprimands for false advertising given to manufacturers of newer neuroleptics are also worth checking out. The neuroleptics are probably the class of drugs most commonly forced upon psychiatric inmates. Some people are trying to get neuroleptic drugs placed into the same category as electroshock and psychosurgery: "treatments" that, at least in theory (and I know too many exceptions to trust solely to laws), a person cannot by law be forced to take.

None of this is wild, far-fetched, $cientology-based nonsense, it's all perfectly valid science. People should know what they are putting into their bodies and be allowed to choose whether something is worth that kind of risk. The same way I am allowed to choose which medications I want to take, and whether they are worth the risk, in relation to my physical disabilities.

[Banazir]

13. It's not one or the other.

All institutions breed this kind of abuse, be they psychiatric institutions, nursing homes, or group homes. It makes no sense to claim that because horrible things happen in nursing homes, then psychiatric wards are okay.

"Danger to self or others" is a poor excuse for taking away someone's right to their own brain chemistry, and even in that case it is very easy to falsify the records.

Perhaps you would like to spend time in the psychiatric ward near my home. Perhaps you would like to meet the people in mental health housing here who get sent to that psychiatric ward -- written up as "danger to self or others" -- every time they disobey the stringent rules there that make absolutely no sense other than as tools of control. And since that is the only housing they can get, they end up in these institutions-away-from-the-ward that get called mental health housing and have to obey exactly what the psychiatrist says. Perhaps you would like to meet the people beaten down by years or decades of psychiatric abuse, afraid to even feel emotion because they have been told it is wrong and "consequenced" for what would in anyone else be perfectly ordinary responses to emotion.

Perhaps you would like to read the actual psychiatric literature over again, the research that says that in any place of this general power structure there will be abuses. Not just a few bad apples (a common justification used by bureaucracies that have engaged in torture). These power structures lean toward creating these abuses every single time. You are absolutely right that these things also happen in nursing homes, that have the same power structure, but you are wrong that they magically do not happen in psychiatric wards.

Do you know how easy it is to falsify records to make someone seem like a danger to themselves or others? I do, as do people I know who have worked in the psychiatric system. I also know that it is very common for staff to begin to restrain inmates and then, when the inmate fights back, use the fighting back to justify the restraint.

Maybe you would like to hang out in the dayroom of the psychiatric ward near where I live. Listen to the screaming. Watch the terrified inmates sit there trying to look as passively compliant as possible. Watch one of them walk up to the nursing station for a drink of water. Watch the nurse force her to beg like a puppydog. The same nurse who previously claimed, "There are no abuses here." Watch the telephone get cut off randomly so that the inmates can't call advocates. Watch visitors be denied access. Watch inmates given drugs they're allergic to, under threat of further violence against them. Watch people who can't talk because their throats are half-swollen from a reaction to the medication. And who are then pronounced incompetent at their trials while they cannot say a word in their own defense -- so they get more forced medication for a longer time, since as a "chronic mental patient" that's what happens to you.

Maybe you would like to be taken to a psychiatric ward as "gravely disabled" just for walking down the street with an obvious developmental disability. As I have been. And given drugs against your will for screaming in fear or pain. As I have been.

Maybe you would like to travel to the other psychiatric wards I have been to, both publicly and privately funded, over a large geographical area, all within the last ten years, and find that there is no difference in the way they are run and the way they handle inmates. Maybe you would like to talk to the people I have known who have worked in them, and lived in them. Unfortunately I can't get you to the ones I know who have died in them (deaths that are rarely properly investigated) but I'm sure they'd have a thing or two to say if they could.

Maybe you would like to talk to the woman who picked me up last time I was in the psychiatric ward here (held against my will after a promise from a police officer that this would not happen). She had been in a state hospital for two years, thirty years prior. Her response to watching things for a few minutes? "Nothing's changed. At all. It's still exactly the same."

Maybe then you would see that abuse in these facilities and anything with a similar power structure is rampant, not just here and there, and that it is just as worthy of fighting as abuse in any other form of facilities. I wonder what gave you the strange idea that because someone fought for rights in the psychiatric system, they would not fight for rights in nursing homes.

Torture is justified by a society that engages in it in the following ways:

1. Denying the torture happened.
2. Minimizing the abuse.
3. Disparage the victims.
4. Justify the treatment on the grounds that it was effective or appropriate under the circumstances.
5. Charge that those who take up the cause of the tortured are aiding the enemies of the state.
6. Say that the torture is no longer occurring, and anyone who raises the issue is therefore "raking up the past".
7. Put the blame on a few bad apples.
8. "The common torturer's defense, presented to me by most of the former torturers I interviewed, that someone else does or has done much worse things."
9. Saying that the victims will get over it.

(John Conroy, Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People)

You've managed to do most of these things in your post, but you haven't managed to answer the real concerns of the poster or of those of us who want to avoid the forced drugging that we have experienced recently and therefore know actually happens.

Some of us take medication and some of us don't, some of us even see psychiatrists. I take medication and have a psychiatrist -- one who, by the way, is far more willing to acknowledge the widespread abuses in the system that he works in every day than you appear to be. He knows that these things are reality because he has witnessed them throughout his fifty years of psychiatric practice and knows that they have not changed appreciably over time. The fact that I have a psychiatrist does not mean that I am going to bury my head in the sand and pretend these abuses aren't so widespread as to vastly outnumber any good things that happen in this system. The fact that my psychiatrist is a psychiatrist does not mean he will bury his head in the sand either.

The fact that I sometimes take medication does not mean that I swallow the psychiatric establishment's party line on why medication is useful, or that I ignore that many people are forced to take medication in exactly the way you describe (only it's usually Haldol or Thorazine or Prolixin or another neuroleptic, not Lithium). In fact in many places, being strapped down and forcibly drugged is the "treatment" for refusing medication. In some places near where I live, people are threatened until they accept electroshock, which is never supposed to be forced under any circumstance. I know a woman who has lost years of her memory and a good deal of neurological function that way (the fact that people are now given muscle relaxants first doesn't change that this happens).

I don't know what is causing you to present your overly rosy view of the psychiatric system, but you're doing a grave disservice to the many people whose lives are destroyed rather than helped by it. You seem to think that anyone who opposes force or tries to help people who don't want to be involved in the system is someone who hasn't really seen this system recently. Believe me, we'd all like for the widespreadness of these abuses to be a long-gone thing of the past, but it isn't, and believing that it is will never make it so.

And then when I think about it, I still wonder why you seem to take it as such a threat that some people don't want forced drugging to happen. It's not like it affects people like you who take things on purpose, but it will vastly improve the lives of those who don't have the luxury you do -- the luxury of choice.

[masshole1979]

16. but the group in the article isn't just protesting abuses in the system...

...they're protesting the system itself. It's like calling for an end to geriatric medicine, Viagra and all, b/c of abuses in nursing homes.

They are protesting the system that everyday quietly saves an untold number of lives of people who don't have to kill themselves or end up locked in an attic, or, yes, in locked mental wards b/c we've had those long, long before there was real psychiatric treatment (read your Fouceault), and in fact, before the psychopharmaceutical revolution, those horrid wards were much fuller than they are now.

But these groups are wrecklessly claiming that all psychiatric medication is "oppression"--read the article! They are telling people to be ashamed of taking psychiatric medication, that they are being oppressed, that though heart disease and ever other disease can be medicated, mental illness can't.

As for not restraining someone who is psychotic--are *you* going to pay the damages to the survivors when that person harms himself or others? Will the freedom-loving gov't? No, it's going to be the doctors or hospitals that get sued. And, wonders of wonders, you can also sue for improper confinement in most states.

[Wordie]

21. Are you a NAMI member?

[Wordie]

23. DISCLAIMER to above question:

I asked this because I have often found that some members of NAMI are quite prone to discount ALL problems with medications. The NAMI members who are intensely strident in this way insist that they know what is best for others and that the best thing is almost invariably drugs. They tend to be unable to understand that the scientific research which NAMI claims proves that mental illness is a brain disease, proves no such thing, and is in fact, BAD science. The research that they quote shows a correlation*, from which they then assume a cause and effect. This is a big no-no in responsible scientific circles.

However, I wish to add that I realize that not all NAMI members are so strident. Many are genuinely well-meaning.

*The research that I'm referring to uses brain imaging to show differences in the brains of mentally ill persons vs. "normals" and then presumes that those differences "prove" that mental illness is a brain disease. What they don't mention is that many of the mentally ill subjects used for these experiments are people who have used dangerous neuroleptic medications for years, and that the differences in the scans are a result of brain damage caused by the medications. For a correlation to suggest a cause and effect sort of relationship, the researcher needs to filter out all other possible reasons that might cause the result. The brain scan studies do not do this.

Also, I wholeheartedly agree that persons ought to be able to choose one way or the other for themselves about taking any sort of medication. But arguments like yours tend to want to silence anyone who is presenting the very information a person needs in order to make an INFORMED choice. And choices without information are not really choices at all, are they?

[Banazir]

24. The "biobiobio" model

(edited for spelling)

When I read official psychiatric literature, I hear a lot about the "biopsychosocial model". It's supposed to take into account the intermeshed and inseparable influences of biology, thought processes, and the surrounding societal circumstances. What I see from NAMI is a very one-sided "biobiobio" model as well as plenty of propaganda depicting psychiatrically-labeled people as dangerous (I found it interesting that "psychotic" was equated automatically with "dangerous" above -- I remember plenty of psychiatric nurses in institutions who confessed all kinds of (to me) bizarre beliefs and perceptual experiences in front of me, it didn't seem to factor into whether they were competent or dangerous at their jobs, and only one of them was (by her own choice) diagnosed and medicated).

The reality is that none of these influences on a person can be easily and neatly separated out. There is no single across-the-board thing that causes the myriad range of experiences, emotions, suffering, and behavior that are classified as mental illness today. Even in a single purported category there can be multiple things that can cause a person to become that way, multiple reactions to being that way, and multiple ways to (if desired) deal with or stop being that way.

And even in something that is clearly primarily biological (such as developmental disabilities), things like emotional state, societal oppression, institutionalization, segregation, ways of thinking about things, and artificially low or high expectations can drastically change how things look or work. I also remember reading something by Irit Shimrat, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia (at some point or another having pegged every single diagnostic criterion), and how she recovered from hallucinating and such much faster when she stayed over with a supportive friend for a few days, than when she had to deal with psychiatric treatment and neuroleptic drugs. She knows plenty of people like her and is sick of being considered an exception (or even not to have experienced what she experienced in the first place) just because people find the forced-neuroleptic model and all the justifications for it more convenient.

This is not to say I necessarily agree with mainstream psychiatric models at all, only to say that they purport to take more of reality into account in theory than they tend to in practice.

NAMI, by the way, has plenty of drug company funding behind it, and is primarily an organization by and for the interests of professionals and family members. While I would never become a member of NAMI, I did support a protest by psychiatrically-labeled NAMI members against E. Fuller Torrey by buying one of their shirts they wore to the protest. It reads, "I am a visible person, not an invisible plague." Even the people I've known who call themselves "consumers" and were willing to join NAMI know that their interests are not well-represented by it.

[Wordie]

25. Yes, NAMI gives a lot of mixed messages on many issues.

One of the things NAMI claims to be working for is the reduction of stigma of the mentally ill. You see it in their brochures and website as one of their primary goals. Yet, I read an editorial by a high up NAMI officer some time ago, regarding the sad case of a mentally ill person who had murdered a family member. This could have been taken as a wonderful (if sad) opportunity to point out how this act was an anomaly, an exception to the norm. And that mentally ill persons are actually far LESS likely to commit violent crimes than the average normal person. It is far MORE likely that they are the VICTIM of violence, than the perpetrator of it. But, this person didn't seize that opportunity, and instead used the news as an opportunity to push for more drugs and easier incarceration.

There are mentally ill people who commit crimes. But then, there are lots of people who commit crimes. When mentally ill people commit crimes it becomes so sensationalized by the media, and then that feeds the stigma, which in turn feeds the sensationalism. By lumping all mentally ill people in the same "dangerous" group, so much damage is done to many people who just aren't in any way any sort of danger to anyone else. This NAMI person's article strengthened the stigma, rather than attempted to combat it. Very sad.

[Sugarbleus]

27. Wow. Hot topic. Don't understand why I didn't see it before...

Wading in here:

I agree with Mass and a couple other posters in that I prefer people have a choice; yet I don't want to see the whole mental health community tarred and feathered and/or tossed out.

Maybe it was Masshole or someone else who said: 'this is all good unless one has NO access to the simplest of mental health treatments. As in the case of the under or non insured individuals'(paraphrased by me). I can't tell you what a battle it has been for some 40 years to get my families mental health needs met. We were just left to suffer until recently. FINALLY, I was able to "talk" to someone; get a wee bit of guidance with choice. Then I was able to see my first "shrink" who helped to find the appropriate medication and combinations of such that suit me.

Tomorrow, my eldest daughter is finally able to see a professional after years of suffering with undiagnosed minor mental health symptoms. Our problems are minor compared to some people's. We were able to function in fits and starts over the years. We've never been institutionalized for mental illness. Nevertheless, our symptoms DID keep us from forming proper relationships, from securing a proper education, from finding lifelong meaningful employment, and kept us from improving our status in life. Hence we are "dependent" on the state for assistance; such as it is.

I cannot possibly know the pain the rest of you suffer or have suffered at the hands of mental health professionals or by medicines that don't work for you. It has to be a very difficult world for you sometimes. I do respect a person's right to "choose". Some psychotropics are pretty strong with hideous side effects. If one is in a position to not have to interact with a world that doesn't understand them..hey, go off the meds.

I DO have to interact with others and need to find a "balance" somehow in order to do this--I can't be pulling my hair out and throwing things about the house or threatening other's when I get enraged. I found balance through the use of anti-depressants and mild psychotropics--as needed.

Whatever side effects (and how serious) there may be and unless they need switching, I chalk it up to "trade offs". Some people taking high blood pressure meds hate their side effects, but they have to take them lest some other life threatening thing come upon them. It's a trade off. So many things in life are trade offs. If I want to get "this" result, I may have to endure a little bit of "that".

No one is forcing me to take anything, heck I had to throw a fit to even be seen! In my area the only people who can access county mental health services are those with much more serious conditions, otherwise you get "kicked" back down to a regular MD. MD's don't know what the hell they're doing with regard to mental health..they don't train for this.

The only thing I was concerned about with this thread is that I worry these types of groups MIGHT make it even more difficult for people like me to get quality mental health treatment. I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water here. Just for the record; I've been given drugs by them saying I should take them this many times a day and then increasing the doses each few months. Ha, I took them for a few weeks then I went back and said NO. I don't like them, they aren't getting the job done. No problem. Period end.

Masshole said something that occurred to me the other day; that is that RW fundamentalist Xtians (perhaps others) have a distinct objection to Psychiatry and/or medications for such. Just to be certain, I wrote to the pastor of the church my "crazy" hubby attends (sometimes). No, they said they do not subscribe to psychiatry as a means to wholeness or well being. ?! I guess it's back to exorcisms for their members?......."the devil made me do it" :scared:

Hubby doesn't "subscribe" to that church anymore either :evilgrin:. We also don't subscribe to psychic surgery or religious miracle healing services or anything along those lines.

We try to be extremely cautious and do the homework around any drugs given for anything. Hubby, for example, is asthmatic. When he has an asthma attack or comes down with a respiratory condition, the docs give him PREDNISONE or some other steroid. HOLY COW!!! That shit makes hubby a complete monster!!!! He becomes a total, violent asshole. His docs have since tried to find something gentler to give him instead of the old fashioned steroidal meds. Thank God.

[zippy890]

4. This stuff pisses me off

If people would put their energy into supporting research for the causes and the development of better treatment of mental illness, the world would be a lot better off.

Yes, there have been abuses in the treatment of people with mental illness throughout history, and yes psychiatry is far from a perfect science.

But this narrowminded attitude espoused by so called 'psych survivors' is self defeating propoganda and does a disservice to those struggling with mental illness.

It reeks of rightwing type mindset to me.

[Banazir]

5. Actually, historically

The left wing has been much more sympathetic to the psychiatric survivor movement and the push for more humane treatment in general of people with psychiatric labels (not all of whom would even qualify as "mentally ill" to those who believed in it). It's the Bush administration and his appointed psychiatrist Sally Satel who has set the movement back as far as it has.

If you have a problem with people involuntarily involved with the psych system wanting a way out of it, you don't have to take part in helping us, but don't sit around talking about us like we're just a few isolated cases -- these bad things have happened within the current psychiatric system worldwide, as a result of the very structure of that system, and they will recur until that system totally changes shape to stop the absolute power of psychiatric professionals that will as always corrupt absolutely. This rescue project is serious for those of us who have gone to the trouble of conceiving and starting it, and if you have a problem with it, you don't have to participate. While there are copious problems with the psych survivor movement (nearly all of which seem to stem from ties too close with certain branches of psychiatry, rather than the other way around), it is by no means a right-wing movement or a useless movement as long as it is helping as many people as possible live our lives in freedom.

I'd suggest reading On Our Own by Judi Chamberlin (who was involved at the national level in our fight for our rights, and much of whose work has been or is about to be dismantled by the Bush administration), or Call Me Crazy by Irit Shimrat, for some historical information. I think you'll find that it's got its flaws but the people are doing something real and for a real reason. We are not exceptions, much as the psychiatric establishment would like people to believe otherwise. And most of us are about as far from the right-wing as you could get, although of course psychiatry can harm indiscriminately and there probably are some right-wingers in the movement somewhere. I just haven't met them yet.

The psychiatric survivor movement, whatever its flaws, is first and foremost similar to the disability rights movement, in that it questions a lot of the medical establishment's view of how our lives should be led. It's pretty much "live and let live" as far as drugs are concerned, and its only concern (at the level of the psychiatric survivors anyway -- I have my doubts about some of the professionals who have managed to tack themselves onto everything, including the fact that Libertarianism has made inroads through Szasz because it happens to conveniently include some ideas that are useful in the short term to psych survivors) tends to be that people have dignity and choice in our lives regardless of whether we're psychiatrized or not. Certainly it has swung too far in certain directions (as I said in my other post, it contests theories where it should be contesting power instead) but over time if it ever develops back into fully being a genuine freedom movement for actual psych survivors it should improve in that regard.

[Oak2004]

7. It is the Right (and left totalitarians) who embrace forced treatment

Moreover I've yet to hear of anyone advocating forced nontreatment -- only the same kind of choice that I have over my own treatment as a physically disabled person.

Finally, isn't there something inherently unreasonable in your insistance that others here should put their time and energy into the very thing they oppose? There are many people who do not wish to turn their basic human rights over to the judgement of psychiatrists and drug companies. They're not going to support what you support, no matter how much you insist that it would be better they divert their energies from what they want to what they don't want any more of. It just ain't going to happen. If the fact that a lot of people don't want for themselves what you want for yourself "pisses you off", you're going to be pissed off for the rest of your life.

[Banazir]

6. So you get a reply from someone actually likely to *use* this program...

I have dreamed of this -- literally had dreams about it -- ever since I was first locked up, strapped to a table, and shot full of Haldol for the sole purpose of controlling my behavior (they made no pretense even that the Haldol was "therapeutic" -- it was given solely to stop me screaming in pain). In my involvement with Mindfreedom I had told them about my dreams, years ago. I wonder if they listened.

I'm signing up for this program the first chance I get. While it is the Department of Developmental Services that normally provides my services, my behavior is unusual enough that it has come to the attention of the psychiatric system from time to time. The psychiatric ward where I live uses drugs almost entirely as a tool of control, ignores drug allergies, does not consider inmates worth consulting about drug issues, bullies people into accepting electroshock, and gratuitously degrades and harms inmates. All ex-inmates of this place know it, and all our stories match up with each other, but our viewpoint is not listened to because of course if we were there we must be "crazy", which apparently means that we can't understand gross abuse of power when we see it.

I'm signing up for this program because if anyone ever locks me up, I want to be able to get out alive. It's that simple. I nearly died in the system. I watched others around me actually die. That's what's meant by the term psychiatric survivor. I want to live long enough to get out and get back to the people who can really help me (and help me recover from the flashbacks that being involved with the system invariably causes), and if this registry will provide more of a chance, I'm signing up without a second thought. I'm the kind of person it's there for.

[masshole1979]

17. That's horrible what happened to you.

Question: were you a minor when that happened? And what state? What time period? The state laws vary a lot; the worst ones should simply adopt the laws of the better ones. Of course, just twenty years ago even the most progressive states were much more abusive than today. Even today, all of them basically say that minors ultimately can't have a say in what goes into their bodies, which is a major loophole for human rights.

In the meantime, though, could you ask the folks at Mindfreedom to change the focus of their website toward abuses in the system rather than railing against the existence of the system? Because for many people, this blanket condemnation discourages them from getting help at all. A more useful tack would be to use our loudest voice for educating people about their rights so they can defend themselves within the system, and advocate for safeguards. Because worse than the psychiatrists, are the people who say it's all your own fault and you should just go stay in the attic, and those people also want to take down the mental health system, and who will benefit from condemnations against it.

"
I have dreamed of this -- literally had dreams about it -- ever since I was first locked up, strapped to a table, and shot full of Haldol for the sole purpose of controlling my behavior (they made no pretense even that the Haldol was "therapeutic" -- it was given solely to stop me screaming in pain). In my involvement with Mindfreedom I had told them about my dreams, years ago. I wonder if they listened."

[fugue]

9. I'm lucky

I got carted around to therapists all the time, but no one ever institutionalized me or drugged me.

Of course, when I lost my job at 37, I was told that if I wanted to qualify for assistance in getting a new job, I would have to take antidepressants, like it or give up the counseling. So I'm takin' 'em. . . .

I wish the government could remember who is living in the bodies in question. How would they feel if I, as an Aspie, said, "Well, you're just not sufficiently logical, so you're now required to take this medication that dampens your emotions and heightens your logical capabilities."

There's a dystopian novel in there somewhere. . . .

[masshole1979]

18. how would they know if you didn't take it?

If I have a problem with a medication, I do my own dose modification. If you really don't want to take this pill, yet you have to for benefits, just don't take it. Not ideal, I realize, and gaulling that you would be put in this position, but in the meantime if it's bad for you...don't take it. Or are the MF's blood-testing you?

[undergroundpanther]

22. Pills VS no pills

Umm I need to say something here..

If you take pills and you like the effects than you take the pills and don't be defensive over your OWN rightful choices.
There is no reason why anti-pill people should be selling you the idea of not taking medicine or trying to"ease you into the idea of quitting it because They don't take any.
BUT LIKEWISE,
If you don't like taking pills ,don't take them,and don't be defensive over your OWN rightful choices.
There is no reason why pro pill people should be selling the idea of medicine or trying to"ease you into the idea.

As for the more intricate issues..

I have spent my entire young adult life from around age 14 to 28 involved in the MH system in one form or another.

And I was abused,mind fucked,treated like a monster,drugged up,beaten up,spent 9 months in a little room.I have been put in restraints,against my will,stripped,sheet packed,and put on dehumanizing"behavior modification programs"..I also was given a "drug" called Anectine. I had no clue what it was but it was injected into me whether I knew what it was for or what it was or not They just wanted control and they almost killed me for it. That incident has left me with trauma,An issue with suffocation with a fear of sleep,because the drug basically paralyzes you and you are conscious and totally unable to blink,swallow,and soon your lungs stop working.And you feel every minute of it,it is like being alive in a dead body.Nothing in my life has been that terrifying yet.Years laster for giggles n shits I looked up Anectine on line. I found out:

Anectine is a torture drug,used for brainwashing and behavior modification in prisons and POW camps.They probably use it at Abu Gharib and Guantanamo.
It is a derivative of cuare.

Why would staff give me a drug that could very well KILL ME?
This happened in a fancy wealthy hospital,a private hospital with a big reputation in the 80's.
I think I was given that drug because Staff had their own control issues,I was a threat to their power, I saw staff had conduct disorders and wanted to have complete domination of the unit and I saw they were so sick they had to control all the people on it .Submission to them meant'healthy'.
The staff can really be crazy, even when by every appearance by outsiders they look so sane.Sometimes they are not and you will not know until you are in their absolute totalitarian stronghold"unit" as a "patient".

To this day I am very wary of "medicines".I take a very slow cautious approach.I listen to my body first.
I took lexapro pretty recently and now I got permanent hemorrhoids.I never had hemorrhoids until Lexapro gave me burning lava shits.I wonder if it damaged my colon.I have no insurance so I guess I'll have to wonder until I get SSI.

I really think medicine needs alot more safety regulations,new psych drugs are not tested as much anymore.I trust older medicines more because they have been tested more been around longer(and they are cheaper too).Nowadays drugs are rubber stamped by the FDA more often than not.This began to get bad in the Reagan Era and it has been downhill since..Drug companies are not in business to do anything but sell drugs,they put the drug out, advertise it and make money .Than they wait until the lawsuits come in.They wait until a certain amount of folks die or suffer injuries before they withdraw it from the market.(Vioxx or Phen Phen for instance)

The cost of a few lawsuits are a drop in the bucket for these companies compared to the massive profits they made selling the drugs for a few years. (For instance did you know the acid reflux drug prilosec costs more per pound that GOLD?)
I myself advocate any person considering taking medicine LEARN all they can about a particular medicine they are interested in and try it out,in a trial basis for two weeks at least.If you don't like the effects or it makes you sick stop the drug. If your doc can ease you off it all the better But ,do not be coerced by anyone to take a drug or not take drugs..If you think it helps take it.
Only you are capable of deciding what works for you.

Also another way to look at it is,some psych drugs inhibit your symptoms and keep you in a stasis that may not be healing,it might just be numb.I think sometimes if you dare to feel what you feel fully and brave the anxiety or fear or sadness ,let yourself be 'difficult'and despite the pain,dig deep inside look at all the nasty parts unflinchingly,look at the message and the meaning of what you are feeling. So what if I feel bad or crazy awhile.Who does my difficult time harm really,it just makes other people uncomfortable.And sometimes it is GOOD for others to feel a little discomfited at the state of things too..I find sometimes if you seek inside you might discover part of the reason why you feel so miserable and when you understand yourself more you can reconfigure your own self or you can admit ,yes things don't make sense,or no that isn't true,than you may find the symptoms go away because you have faced or at least acknowledged the problem causing them that was previously unconscious.Not all mental illness is cognitive and it's not all biology based alone.It's very difficult to see where damage from emotional stress ends and biological dysfunction begins.

Traumas like war and child abuse do literally leave scars in the brain..in the temporal lobes.Dissociation can cause physical changes that are measurable in a person as they switch alters.Even changes in eye colors.
But sometimes trauma heals by using talk therapy and facing what happened and changing yourself on the inside,or changing your relationships to others in your environment(I.E getting away from abusers). Sometimes symptom suppression is not as useful as symptom engagement. If symptoms get too rough than by all means suppress it and work more slowly.But only you know when you go too fast.There are plenty of people eager to tell you how to live and tell you you are sick..and will control you.

I never met a doctor who could tell me exactly what sanity is yet.