Photo ID Cards for “Mental Patients” Now a Reality

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In Butte County, California, Law Enforcement and NAMI have recently partnered to provide identification cards for people in the mental health system. The cards reveal the person’s psychiatric diagnosis and current medication prescriptions. The voluntary photo ID cards are called ‘White Cards.’

The goal is to help law enforcement have on-the-spot psychiatric information, about someone they are questioning. The local NAMI president explained the ID cards also include a person’s triggers, like . . . “If you get too close, I get violent.”

This White Card project may be well-intentioned, but it makes me very uncomfortable. I believe it is a form of psychiatric profiling that could  be adopted by law enforcement around the United States, with the powerful political backing of NAMI, and the tacit if not public support of psychiatry.
The operative stigmatizing equation appears to be “mental patient” = unacceptable danger to others. Will police believe that “good,” compliant and NAMI-aligned “mental patients,” who will be able to show the police a White Card with their diagnosis and prescribed medications, make up a lower risk group, than people without a White Card, who reject being identified by a diagnosis, and may not be taking meds?
Will people without White Cards be seen as potentially more dangerous by the police?

And won’t the police eventually want a data base of all White Card holders to cross check against when someone hands them a White Card, creating a kind of watch list?

I can imagine staff at psychiatric hospitals pressuring confined people, to sign up for a White Card as a new and added criterion for their discharge.

I can imagine staff at mental health clinics urging people who are court-ordered to receive forced treatment in the community to also get a White Card.

The cards can be obtained at a NAMI office, or at the Police station.

Supplying people with “mental patient” identification cards, conveys the implication that something is proven, that predicts a person’s behavior about potential violence, whereas the state of the scientific research, cannot support such an ID card project aimed at violence prevention. It ends up being psychiatric profiling – a whole class of people becomes the socially identified scapegoat, based on the fears and projections of others. Once again we see the psychiatric diagnosis process serving as a public degradation ceremony, that effectively strips personal identity away, to legitimize the enforcement of the regulation of deviance in our communities.

This White Card project is happening against the backdrop of over 40 states oppressing people with forced, in home treatment laws.

Draconian measures imprisoning and forcibly medicating and giving ECT to people, are challenged now by the UN, which equates forced psychiatric treatment with torture, as Tina Minkowitz has so well documented here on Madinamerica.

This joint Law Enforcement/NAMI White Card project looks to be another ominous development to me.

Your thoughts?

White Cards Aim to Ease law Enforcement Interaction With Mentally Ill in Butte County

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115 COMMENTS

  1. This is pretty scary, all right. It’s obviously a step on the way to implants or tattoos, so that anyone who’s ever been locked up can be kept in line forever.

    Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Michael.

    If our movement continues to be just part of the mental illness system, we are going to see more and more of this. What are people waiting for?

    We have to disown the people who have turned us into SAMHSA. Otherwise, where does this end? With the police breaking down our doors and hauling us away?

    Report comment

    • Ted, you have suffered and survived horrific psychiatric human rights abuses, that no child or adult should ever be forced to experienced. I hope everyone reads your gut-wrenching blog essays here on MIA, and takes your warnings about the possibly even worse days ahead seriously.
      Thank you, Michael

      Report comment

    • You asked “What are people waiting for?”.
      Psychiatry is organized and claims to be science (fixes unbalanced brain chemicals FALSE).
      People are individuals and don’t think psychiatry will come for them, because “I am not mentally ill”.

      “First they came for the communists,
      and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.”

      Criminals belong in jail. Drugging people semi-unconscious outside of jail to prevent crime and then calling it medicine does not make it medicine.

      Report comment

  2. I got a notice in the mail yesterday from state senator Toni Boucher informing me of the option to apply for a Select ID card: “People who show a historical record of proven original identity documents will get a gold star on the license or ID card. In 2017, Federal officials will look for this gold star at airports and federal buildings.”

    Basically, if you’re a good person – you’re allowed to exist “freely”. If there is reason to think you’re bad, no good, sick, criminal, a problem or a liability you’ll be a registered, managed case (instead of a human being, with Human and Civil Rights).

    Seems like perfect people, with their flawless records, are being more than welcomed into the future.

    Two worlds and a great separation. The weeding out of the good from the bad, the sheep from the wolves.

    Report comment

  3. Dr. Cornwall, I’ll take my chances without a card on me, in the case of this law coming to be more widespread here. Americans exist with almost no political consciousness for how issues connect individuals and lives to each other and what this and Power mean to those who seek and maintain their own access to wealth and the resources of power.

    With ID constraints and measures (for the benefit of psychiatrists, not patients) like with most problems that arise within or get spawned under the umbrella of the official system, refusing to comply becomes the only definite form of action that will serve as the means for the individual to empower himself or herself.

    We need the topic in our conversations, and our conversations themselves might even need the topic if it were not becoming a reality. As you say, the push illustrates the relentless momentum in favor of grouping, markinr, and arranging people as various grades of insider and outsider with unequal liberties.

    Report comment

    • Thank you travailler-vous- yes, the devil’s bargain behind oppression is always, comply with abusive authority and be temporarily safer, or defy abusive authority and you keep your personal freedom, but you will be punished.
      Over-throwing abusive authority is the path to lasting freedom.
      Michael

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  4. Nice post.

    For the time being, the white-card holders are going to experience the majority of the discrimination. For example, if they are in an accident, their medical care might be more poor than if they did not have a white-card. This is the same discrimination that people experience if it is known that they have a psychiatric diagnosis. This just makes it more likely that other people will know this.

    If or when there is a black-card database of people with diagnoses but not holding white-cards, then those people will experience most of the discrimination. I rue the day that this happens.

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  5. This is outrageous. Why would anyone voluntary get an ID card identifiying them as a mental patient (unless their NAMI parent or a clinician pressured them to do so)? Explain to me how this is not like the Nazis requiring Jews to sew a star of David on their clothing?

    There are so many consitutional and HIPAA-related issues here, I don’t see how this can be legal. One hopes that public interest lawyers will take this up!

    Report comment

    • Star of David. My sentiments exactly. And why would anybody voluntarily wear a tee-shirt that says “bipolar?”
      I hope those “well intentioned” NAMI parents are not going to be too shocked by the real evils that may befall their relatives once the system gets hold of them.

      Report comment

      • Thank you for this comment Rossa. I am still amazed that many NAMI parents don’t connect the dots and see that the system itself is often injuring their loved ones. But since NAMI parents have chosen to believe the psychiatric brain disease dogma, it seems they are locked into defending the very medical model practices, that can often trap and hurt their loved ones for a lifetime.
        Michael

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    • Q “Why would anyone voluntary get an ID card identifiying them as a mental patient.”
      How do you as a mental patient pay the rent and pay for food? You have to voluntarily carry the card or you don’t get Government money for your incurable illness.

      Report comment

      • I look at this way.

        It isn’t the taxpayers or even the government paying ANYTHING for me. It is MY FAMILY who pays, indirectly. Both my father and my mother’s sides of the family include professional people. Collectively (between all my aunts, uncles and cousins) whatever they pay in taxes covers *ME* – and the price tag on my head is a whopping $20,000 per year. I guarantee that my entire family pays more than that, yearly, in taxes. THEY pay for my basic needs but very, very indirectly. And I won’t ever budge on that perspective.

        Report comment

  6. In a state where I lived last year, a group of consumer/survivors pooled their money to buy rubber bracelets with the crisis number written on it. The idea was, the police would see the bracelet and call the crisis line to get the person’s crisis plan. It felt a lot like these white cards–except it was their idea! We desperately need more ways and more opportunities to help people think differently about “help” and “safety.”

    Report comment

    • Such a card or bracelet is only a safety tool as long as there is respect (lack of discrimination) on the part of the police or medical professionals that see it. I have become increasingly cynical about the motivations and bigotries involved, and I do not believe that the wearer’s purpose would be respected.

      For example, people with drug allergies or serious medical conditions often wear bracelets. Similar medical concerns about unwanted drug interactions caused me to consider wearing just such a bracelet. The decision comes down to which is the greater risk? Is it that one might be forcibly detained and medicated? Or is it that in case of a physical medical emergency a doctor might unwittingly administer a contraindicated drug? Having become increasingly cynical, I believe that bigotry and forced medication are the greater risk.

      Understanding the concerns of our fellow consumers might be a window into finding alternatives and convincing them to stand with us against the introduction of such cards.

      Report comment

    • Sounds like this group of folks internalized their oppression really well! Ann, I agree completely that people need more opportunities to think differently about their own sense of safety.

      Even after reading about about this card program, I don’t understand how a white card is supposed to protect anyone if the police shoot them without getting close enough to read their card.

      Report comment

  7. This is super creepy. What I see in the future is that it becomes a condition of being released from involuntary detention – the equivalent of the yellow stars worn by the Jews in Europe during the Nazi occupation. It shows where NAMI is coming from, too, if we needed more evidence. So much for “person-centered care” and “recovery-based services.” If you are identified by your diagnosis and medication, it sure doesn’t sound like recovery is envisioned ever in your future.

    —- Steve

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  8. it all stands on the idea that mental distress is a medical problem treatable by drugs.

    Someone with a mental illness could do something stupid and dangerous and need someone to make them safe and make sure they take their drugs.

    It does not stand on the idea that people are very distressed because they have been treated appallingly.

    It’s worse than victim blaming, it’s saying, “Watch out, this person is a potential danger to themselves and other and there is no rhyme or reason to it – beware.”

    storm the reality asylum – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ9pLUUS5sw

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    • Thank you for saying this John. The explicit message is that someone is a potential danger to the community because of their medically, DSM defined brain disease.
      Once again, legal authority, backed by law and the courts, and embodied by our police, bow to the clinical arbiters of psychiatry.
      Michael

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  9. :/

    “The cards can be obtained at a NAMI office, or at the Police station.”

    In a period of pressured acquiescence during which I identified myself as having bipolar disorder, I went to renew my driver’s license and when the clerk asked me if I had a mental condition, or some such language, I said, “Well, yes, I have bipolar disorder.”

    The clerk looked at me for a minute and then said, “You’re not going to want to have that on your record. Let’s leave it off.”

    At the time, I didn’t know what to think.

    I don’t know what the clerk thought the implications might be, but they were not good.

    I can see the reasoning behind this – and find it unfortunate. I can imagine how this idea was formulated. Some person thinking about worst case scenarios and people not knowing where they are or not being able to communicate their needs under whatever circumstances might be.

    There is a fellow here who is houseless and has severe Tourette’s, and he does react violently if people get too close to him. I know a person with PTSD (several actually) who react combatively in interactions with anyone in a uniform – because they’d been previously assaulted by police. So, I can see where it might be good to have a card that says, “Hey, I have this issue and you need to respect that and treat me accordingly…”

    However, diagnosis and medications? Like Tom, I can see where having one’s medications written down would be good, per the potential for drug allergies or dangerous interactions…but, really, to have all this tied to a diagnosis of mental illness and psychiatric treatment regimen is disgusting.

    Shouldn’t police – as “public safety officers” – be able to handle a situation where someone isn’t able (for whatever reason) to self-advocate or explain what is going on with them?

    I know a person who is so over-medicated that they do not know which meds they take and when and, most days, can barely communicate.

    …it’s foul, what this plan communicates…which is that anyone with a diagnosis is liable to not be able to communicate, that they cannot advocate for themselves, that they may be likely to have run-ins with the police.

    What is the difference in the way that police interact with people who will show White Cards? What is the training around them? What’s the protocol and how does it differ from “crisis intervention” in which people do not hold White Cards?

    “White” cards? That’s an interesting play on color and suggestion…

    There are a lot of cultural factors that determine who’s going to have these cards, and who will get them voluntarily and who will be forced to…

    Thanks for posting about this, Michael…very unsettling.

    Report comment

    • Thank you Faith, for your as usual, very thoughtful sharing. I feel unsettled too, about what this white card program portends. I felt a strange urgency about getting the word out about it. I think that comes from being afraid that the general public will not see anything wrong with it, just as they don’t about forced community treatment.
      Best of wishes,
      Michael

      Report comment

    • “”Shouldn’t police – as “public safety officers” – be able to handle a situation where someone isn’t able (for whatever reason) to self-advocate or explain what is going on with them””

      Exactly Faith. Unfortunately, there seems to be a philosophy with many police officers (not all) to shoot first or taser someone and ask questions later. So perhaps NAMI was looking at the situation from the point of view that it is better to deal with the negatives of having a “white card” instead of having a dead relative.

      By the way, I not defending this practice as like many of you, I find it very horrifying with all the ramifications. I am just trying to look at the situation from their possible perspective.

      Report comment

  10. First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out–Because I was not a Socialist.

    Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out–Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
    Because I was not a Jew.

    Then they came for me–and there was no one left to speak for me. Martin Niemöller

    Is there a cure for the card? OMG

    Report comment

    • I have to admit warmac, that this white card program feels to me like a kind of smiling, friendly fascist social engineering expression, of the broader state sanctioned psychiatric project of deviance control, that says to it’s casualties- “Please understand, we are doing this to you for your own good, and the greater good and safety of society.”
      Thank you for your comment, and Niemoller’s haunting quote.
      Michael

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  11. Law Enforcement and NAMI have recently partnered…

    Ya, ya 1984 and the thought police, sounds like real fun !

    NAMI is a PHARMA front group, wake up people !

    http://www.google.com/search?q=NAMI+pharmaceutical

    Pick any page and read about it. Read them all. Make copies and new ones.

    Check this, NAMI dearest !

    “Today, my fellow NamiDearests, we call for a National Mental Health Offender Registry, referred to from herein as the “MHOR“. The MHOR would be modeled upon the already existing National Sex Offender Registry, but it would not be limited to those who’ve been convicted of criminal offenses. A serious mental health offense exists by application of any diagnosis by a mental health clinician, and anyone so diagnosed would be included in the registry and monitored for compliance with a psychiatric treatment regimen. This is all about prevention! ”

    http://www.namidearest.com/

    I love that site.

    Report comment

  14. Thank you Michael and all these thoughtful comments. We are clearly facing perilous times
    Each of us needs to push back against these reactive forces of fear in the best way we can.
    Please know we do all we can do given our circumstances. In fact we do
    enough that we ourselves are targeted by reactive forces. We need to reduce the fear that
    parents face that their son or daughter will not respond to a police order and be
    shot. I agree that white cards of diagnosis are misguided, but we need to work with
    Police such as training them in emotionalCPR. so they can communicate with
    anyone who is upset, labeled or not.
    I

    Report comment

  15. next step in the police state. of course it is voluntary, for now. people will be made to fear that if they don’t have such a card they will get shot. but if a cop is going to shoot you i doubt that he (she?) will ask you for your card first. it will surely end up as a database and will be an easy (for the cops & mh system) automatic ticket to commitment and forced drugging.

    thanks for informing us, michael.

    Report comment

    • “Next step in police state” is right, Tina.

      I don’t understand why this is so hard for these NAMI folks to understand!

      What is it about *freedom* that they can’t seem to get their heads around? I just don’t get it!

      “I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

      Duane

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      • I have a friend in her 20s and she got a dumb red light camera ticket. She had no idea about ‘due process’ , didn’t know a thing about the bill of rights cause I said ‘how do you confront your accuser when its a camera’ and she was clueless about why I said that.

        The younger generation especially is dumbed down about what the hell freedom is.

        I seriously don’t know exactly why this country has gotten so police state like compared to before, it sucks. My best guess is its the old ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ effect.

        NAMI is good at playing the ‘good intention’ card, that’s for sure.

        I guess the first thing to do is to get the word out to mental health consumers that NAMI the ‘alliance’ is not allied with there interests, tramples there rights, opposed things like the black box warnings, the list is long… NAMI is simply not the ‘consumers’ friend.

        I read the mental health forums and ‘big pharma’ is already a dirty word. Next step make NAMI a known dirty word. Its the same thing anyway.

        Report comment

  16. p.s. I think the worst thing about it actually, is that it legitimizes police violence against anyone who isn’t self-identifying as mentally ill. it makes human contact and connection by the police a “special privilege” that is only granted at the expense of having to demonstrate that you already under the control of another system.

    It might be that having a card is easier for people than having to initiate a conversation about what you need if you are in a public space and experiencing crisis or distress, but it should not be framed in medical terms or give up power to police or to the mh system.

    Report comment

  17. I think the “recovery movement” leaders ought to offer more than vague generalities about what they propose to do about this. Will you get a SAMHSA grant to train “peers” to do outreach to our people so that they too will have ID cards? If this development progresses to implanted RFID chips, such as are used with dogs so they won’t get lost, what will your response be? A grant for a program to train “peers” in how to do the implants? It will give them a nice fancy title, maybe “professional implanters.”

    All this is happening because our movement has stopped talking to the general public and only relates to the mental illness system. That’s fine for the tiny group of people who benefit from that, but a disaster for the rest of us.

    Report comment

  18. We need to keep telling the general public about NAMI.

    NAMI bashing and pointing out there funding and ties to pharma may be considered by some to be amateur activism, but the public has to woken up and see them for what they are, big pharma’s marketing dept.

    Someone please show me a case of NAMI biting the hand that feeds it (pharma) even just a little and actually sticking up for the ‘mentally ill’, A case may exist but I can’t find it.

    Report comment

  19. That’s a difficult twist in the facts to respond to, Ted. When I consider ways that people interact in everyday situations beyond the segregation centers for mh treatment, one main point is how to tackle the prejudice that keeps people believing that clinics and clinicians and official social systems overall can be at worst misguided and that detrimental effects as such aren’t ones that can leave any marks on a patient.

    Harm isn’t done, pain isn’t ignored. I must be misunderstanding my own frustrations if I think otherwise.

    Also, I might have suffered an embarassment or criticism, but not deliberate inattention or aggressive coercion, they will believe. Or I needed controlled somehow, and the actual services rendered to this effect just appeared a little hasty or forceful, but not with purposeful hostility or an intention to demean.

    This might relate to only a fraction of the time really spent in a managed care setting, but the nature of the existing paradigm guarantees that neglect and abusiveness will repeatedly happen, and that virtues of the system will gain notice that dangers and misguided efforts won’t.

    So if the White Cards project reflects a problem in the scope of the attempt to inform and reform or in the direction of protest that excludes the general public too often, a whole new problem of public perception, we have to see how it matters as an indication that mainstream psychiatry is off-track.

    For instance, it is obvious that something is wrong with family and the public believing that they are appropriate middlemen for obtaining the clientele that these doctors need. But exactly this process of acquiring customers is operating. This is the other side to the horrors of psychiatric profiling, that the accountability of doctors remains detached and removed from the facts of their salaries and authority to demand subjects for their “services”.

    It’s just so glaringly obnoxious and still too complicated for Joe the Plumber.

    Report comment

  20. very intense article, Michael. Scary stuff. Thanks for sharing this. And I particularly liked Tina’s comments. I remember once interviewing Joanne Greenberg and she said that after she was released from the mental hospital for the final time in the early 1950s they stamped “MP” on her Maryland driver’s license — for “Mental Patient.” I asked her how she got it off her license, and she said, “I moved to Colorado.”

    Wishing you the best—
    Daniel

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    • Thanks Daniel-
      I wonder now how anyone can not be in a national data base that law enforcement can access, once they have received a psychiatric diagnosis, since gun violence is being portrayed as being almost synonymous with having a psychiatric diagnosis.

      There is enormous political pressure on every level of the mental health system, to be able to prevent more mass shootings via early identification of supposed dangerous, diagnosed people.

      One in four women in America are now on psych meds, and one in five of the total population are on psych meds.

      Every psych med prescription requires a DSM diagnosis, that is logged into the computer data base of the public or private insurance provider in order to document the criteria for reimbursement.

      Moving to Colorado isn’t a way anymore to get out of the data base, that I hope hasn’t already turned into a ‘mental patient’ watch list.
      Best wishes Daniel!
      Michael

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      • Yes it was far easier back in the day, to recover and leave the psychiatric system behind. Now it’s far harder to escape and disentangle oneself from.

        The psychiatric drug cocktails tie us in. The psychiatric labels pin us down. Stigma and discrimination are alive and kicking. Human rights abuse is still around.

        Report comment

  21. Brother Michael,

    NAMI never ceases to amaze me.

    They seem to have no direction; no compass that guides them; nothing that seems to indicate a true understanding and appreciation for people who are in the midst of emotional distress, searching for more peace in their lives.

    Alice Carroll could have been writing about NAMI in this piece:

    “Alice came to a fork in the road. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked.
    ‘Where do you want to go?’ responded the Cheshire Cat.
    ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered.
    ‘Then,’ said the Cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.”
    ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

    Thank you, Michael for being part of this group!

    Duane

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  22. Wow this is shocking! And dispicable. I have been discussing here in Denmark the tendancys for fear mongering because the way I see it, as the knowledge that lies at the heart of psychiatry crumbles so the need to find alternative ways for still carrying on as usual needs to be developed. What better way than fear mongering? If the general public is led to believe that the ‘mad’ are going to harm them then human rights becomes human rights abuses and it no longer matters that psychiatry has no science behind it, their role becomes a protective one, protecting the public from the ‘mad’ by any means possible.
    Fe Fi Fo fum I smell the whiff of the Eugenics Drum…

    Report comment

    • Thank you Olga!
      I believe you are so right- psychiatry will not give up power as it becomes more and more discredited, and is willing to use fear to insure it’s monolithic institutional survival.

      The new head of the APA, Dr. Jeffery Lieberman, was shrilly fear mongering, when he recently painted activists like us in the Scientific American as- “Misguided and misleading ideologues and self-promoters who are spreading scientific anarchy.”

      Best wishes,
      Michael

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    • Can I put this on my psychiatric ID white card ?

      “I refuse contact with and treatment by any psychiatrist, psychologist or other mental health practitioner as these practices, according to my philosophic and/or religious convictions, do not adequately or properly diagnose and such diagnoses can constitute a false accusation about my behavior and/or beliefs and practices, and are stigmatizing and therefore a threat to one’s reputation and physical and mental well-being. Any of their treatments, given against my expressed wish, are an intrusion upon and thus an assault on my body and constitute, in my view, criminal assault. Any involuntary hospitalization or commitment is a violation of my right to liberty and would therefore constitute a false imprisonment by all those advocating and authorizing such action, against my consent and wishes. If in the future, I am accused of a crime, then I direct that I be subject to due process accorded to the criminally accused and not subjected to psychiatric or psychological assessment, processing, profile, confinement or treatments.”

      Report comment

  23. I never used the label “mental illness” to characterize anyone.

    There are mental anomalies and deviations, no doubt. Dut anomaly or deviation is not necessarily bad; this is just a difference. It may be even a productive difference, like an amazing talent for maths or music (this is also a deviation from the “normal”, after all.

    There are mental distress and mental problems, sometimes quite severe ones, for sure. But such distress and such problems are not a disease like a flu. They may have some relationship with the body (as a proponent of the integral biopsychosocial approach, I think body, mind and conssciousness form a system of mutual interactions), but their primary cause lies not in the brain, but in the psyche, society and culture.

    However, today I want to make a special exception for the NAMI activists. Their proposal is indeed an “insane” one, belonging to the minds of the “mentally ill” persons. But it is not the baseless psychiatric labels they carry that make them “ill”; it is their own wish to present themselves as such. One deserves the respect for one’s self-identification; so, if one wants to be “ill” so intensely, I can respect his or her choise.

    So, I think that I can call NAMI activists “mentally ill”. They are eager to accept the name themselves, aren’t they?

    But they don’t have a right to push others to accept this empty label.

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  24. There are so many things to be concerned with issuing a diagnostic card. The first that comes to mind is it re-enforces a label that may, in reality, not even be accurate by psychiatric standards. My experience has been that Dx change depending on who is giving the Dx and also their are just medical conditions that can mimic the ‘symptoms’ of psychiatric labels. I was on high blood pressure medicine for years before a simple test revealed I did not have HBP, but instead have White Coat Syndrome. I have read that taking unwarranted bp meds can render one psychotic. I know I also experienced ‘grief’ after the loss of loved ones and had my Dx suddenly changed because some doctor did not recognize ‘depression’ and labeled me with something far more serious and now that is a matter of record in medical history because …well, because, obviously we think these physicians are above normal human error. This mindset is very frightening and impedes recovery. We are heading down a wrong path in this country and I believe Pharma and politics may be the root cause. I manage my own depression today because I no longer trust the system–they don’t apologize for errors or even cruelties like normal people it seems. Politics via focusing on mental health has created a boogeyman so they can claim to save the “rest” of us from such people. These are lies and pray you never fall victim to their list of “such people” because mental health is something that we all have on a circumstantially fluctuating continuum when facing everyday tragedies of humanity. Ohio

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  25. Picking up on Daniel’s comment about Joanne Greenberg’s experience with her driver’s license, I would love to see an indepth article here at MIA on discriminatory practices around driver’s licenses and mental health labels. My son, who is 29, was just learning to drive when he fell into his crisis. He never got his license, and now, I would hate to think that should he decide to get one, he will be considered ineligible. This is an important issue, and of course, much depends on the jurisdiction.

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  26. I want a card.

    I want one that says I have Authoritarian Aversion Syndrome. My triggers are Authority Figures such as the police invading my personal space.

    It results in extreme panic.

    The best treatment is the authority figures swiftly withdrawing followed by a trusted allie administering an emergency dose of smoked salmon and champagne.

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  27. I think the idea behind this white card is being misrepresented and that your first impressions of this project, while justifiable, are incorrect. As someone who has been working closely with members of this project team, I can attest that this is NOT meant to be a “database system” or a tool to stigmatize the local mental health population. Its intent is quite to the contrary. This product was requested by mental health consumers as a way to open dialogue with local law enforcement if there ever were to be a conflict. Since law enforcement officers are often the first responders to volatile mental health situations, having an instantly identifiable resource such as the White Card can help diffuse the situation. Our local officers are trained using the Crisis Intervention Training method pioneered in Florida and utilized throughout the country. A large amount of our local law enforcement agencies have CIT officers readily available and the presentation of a White Card would be an instant deescalation tactic especially when the consumer has specific triggers or is acting peculiarly when confronted.

    On the issue of government intrusion and as one comment colorfully put it: “a path to implants or tattoos,” it is not even close to being the dystopian vision your article presents it as. There are NO databases collected. None. A consumer can request a completely blank card. That means no photo ID, no name, no diagnosis, and no personal information whatsoever. As stated before, this is a communication tool. It is for law enforcement to identify when more care is needed or when CIT should be utilized. It does not create more stigma. In fact, consumer responses to the program have indicated this is less stigmatizing and it makes consumers more confident that they will be treated normally, especially since logos of all the local law enforcement departments are on the backs of these cards. These logos bring legitimacy and that’s what the consumers wanted. Is this solution perfect? Of course not, but it is an attempt to help bridge the communication gap during a consumer/law enforcement encounter. There is no requirement to have a White Card, it can be thought of as a prop, and it is completely voluntary. Just keep in mind that this was something born by mental health patients themselves.

    If you would like to ask me any questions about the program I am open to answering them as long as they are polite.

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    • “Since law enforcement officers are often the first responders to volatile mental health situations,”

      Mental HEALTH situations? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say “since law enforcement officers are often the first responders to volatile mental illness situations”?

      This is for anyone to respond to:

      Which is it, mental illness or mental health? These are two VERY different things.

      Brainwash and mind control is where I’m at.

      Report comment

      • I do understand the dismay between the usage of “mental illness” and “mental health.” It is not semantics because I have been making an effort to use them in their correct contexts (plus many organizations insist on us using the correct language). You are correct in assessing it as a “volatile mental illness situation” because that deals with individuals exhibiting diagnosable mental illness (oftentimes they have already been diagnosed).

        I would consider shifting your paradigm when it comes to understanding the definition of mental health however. In my context, it is simply bringing an individual affected by mental illness to a mental state where they can function socially and mentally on their own. In what way do you consider the difference between mental illness or mental health as equivalents to brainwashing and mind control?

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        • “In what way do you consider the difference between mental illness or mental health as equivalents to brainwashing and mind control?”

          I call psychiatry this planet’s antichrist…

          and that is just the start of an endless discussion about what constitutes brainwash and mind control.

          —

          Ever hear the story of a man who went to a doctor, explained his situation, and left the doctor’s office with a prescription for his wife / son / boss?

          I think it isn’t too much of a joke. It communicates something.

          I wonder if anybody has ever detailed what sort of suffering, struggling challenges and issues people with MENTAL HEALTH face in this world and what suffering, struggling challenges and issues people with MENTAL ILLNESS face in this world.

          “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti

          What exactly is he communicating in that message?

          Is he not suggesting that the seeming, so-called mentally ill of the world might actually be mentally healthy in a very sick world?

          Does anyone ever see a person in crisis and recognize mental HEALTH in that person or is it always believed that crisis = mental illness?

          So who knows, maybe you were correct to begin with: “Since law enforcement officers are often the first responders to volatile mental health situations,”

          And what if such a person IS mentally HEALTHY and nobody recognizes it and they keep calling health… illness?

          See my reasons for questioning? I think MENTAL HEALTH / MENTAL ILLNESS one great big screwy BRAINWASH & MIND CONTROL system (and causing a lot of Hell for a lot of people).

          What is the diagnosis for somebody who has both mental health AND mental illness at the same time?! That ISN’T a joke, not in the least bit.

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      • Of course! I am associated with the Butte County Department of Behavioral Health and one of the programs I help oversee is the CIT program. I work with several of the program coordinators and directors, so I am “plugged in” so to speak. They are all very involved in the community and have made tremendous strides in turning around the program over the past 5 years.

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    • Rich42,

      Thanks for your replies and thank you for making yourself available for questions regarding the “White Cards.” Before I pose some to you, I would like to briefly address a few issues you touched on in your initial post, so that these issues will be less likely to muddle the dialogue.

      Specifically, you spoke to the intent behind the implementation of the White Card program and you also said that “your first impressions of this project, while justifiable, are incorrect.” I am assuming that this was directed at Michael Cornwall, the author of the above article. I would just like to point out that some of what Michael has written (and some of what other commenters have written) is speculation on the future effects of the White Card measure. As such, these concerns cannot be “incorrect” (unless someone has a time machine). I share these concerns. As far as the intent behind the program’s implementation, Michael himself wrote, “this White Card project may be well-intentioned.” Finally, you’ve pointed out more than once how the White Card program was requested by “mental health patients themselves.” Leaving aside whether or not anyone wants to be referred to as a “mental health patient” (I do not, and I doubt that many people do), I feel the need to point out that NAMI does not represent me – not at all.

      So, regarding the White Cards, as the program stands now in Butte County:

      1. Why was NAMI given a monopoly on printing the Cards and on instructing people on how to show them to police? Is that solely as a result of NAMI having generated the idea for the Cards?

      2. Who will ultimately determine whether the program is a success or a failure? How will that be determined? Is the Butte County Dept of Behavioral Health responsible for it?

      3. In what ways have “tremendous strides” been made in “turning around the program over the past 5 years”?

      4. What are the differences in police procedure (from the point of view of someone in the community) between police officers who are using their Crisis Intervention Training and officers who are not? What differences in treatment by the police can a White Card holder expect vs. someone without a White Card?

      5. Is there any means of tracing a “blank” White Card to the individual to whom it was issued (a magnetic strip, serial number, etc.)?

      6. Why is CIT not given to every officer and applied to everyone with whom they come into contact? Why are de-escalation techniques not used in every situation already? (It seems to me that most police/community interactions are the result – or result in – a crisis of one sort or another.)

      Thanks again.

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  28. “This joint Law Enforcement/NAMI White Card project looks to be another ominous development to me.

    Your thoughts?”

    Just remember the NSA database in Utah is recording your written thoughts.
    No matter how bad you think it is , it is worse and going to get worse.
    That should help.

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  29. Within the last ten years I read an article in the Coos Bay World about an elderly couple that phoned the North Bend police dept. and requested them to help get their son in his early 40’s to a mental hospital where he could get help because he had stopped taking his meds. They said he was in the attic of their house and wouldn’t come out . Six police officers arrived at the house. They yelled into attic for the man to come out. He did not. They then decided to pepper spray into the attic. The man came out .The police tasered him. He pulled the taser probes out of his chest and ran to the garage. He stood at one end of the garage with his hands down at his side a knife in one hand an ax in the other. Six police officers in the garage pistols drawn and pointed at the man. They told him to drop his knife and axe . He did not .They all fired on him. He was hit 28 times and dead. The paper said the parents were distraught and that there was supposed to be an inquiry.

    Being a psychiatric survivor I thought had I been involved the man would still be alive today. l called the reporter who wrote the article. He was a 25 year old family man. I said I have one main question to ask him .” Why even if they were afraid of the man didn’t the police, considering there were 6 of them didn’t they shoot him in the leg “? The reporter said, “I wondered the exact same thing but you don’t ask the police questions like that.” I asked ” why not.” He said ,” I have a wife and child ,If I asked that question the police would no longer talk to me in the future and the newspaper would no longer employ me if I lost access to the police.”

    I decided to go talk to the North Bend police. I was trying to get them to call me any time of day or night if they had to go out on a call to take someone to a psych hospital.I told them I wouldn’t charge them and I could communicate with people that had mental emotional problems. The dispatcher took my name and phone number.Meanwhile a nearby police officer over hearing me voice my concerns with her hands on her hips near her gun yelled out at me “You weren’t there you don’t know what happened.” I yelled back at her as I moved toward the door “I know one thing ,if I were there the man would still be alive.” They never called me.

    A year ago I tried to call the paper to get a copy of the original story and to find out about what happened with the inquiry. No record was found at the paper and nothing on the internet could I find about this event. I live on the oregon coast 30 miles away.

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    • “considering there were 6 of them didn’t they shoot him in the leg”
      Every police force that I know about has standing orders to shoot to kill in that situation.
      Reason: Google “21 foot rule”
      ..
      I know this is a variation on the 21 foot rule as the officers already have their guns drawn. And there are situations where it doesn’t apply when the suspect is trapped or contained in which going in shooting without extended negotiation is an aggressive act. In such cases it does depend on being there and making a risk assessment.
      If they leave the guy there and just lounge around without guns trained on all possible exits if he decides to attack family or police force outside he can cover maximum 21 feet before anyone can respond draw and fire with unknown results – a garage doesn’t sound like a “contained” environment.

      This is a common situation and the public has asked this question many times before. Many police departments have openly answered it saying they simply do no want to risk the lives of their officers and thus give these standing orders – there is no conspiracy or reason to fear asking this question.
      …
      There is some example video out from Mexico I think, a man armed with knife kills 3 or 4 officers from a group of officers all surrounding him with guns drawn. This is an example of why the shoot to kill, not shoot to disable order is given in these situations.
      ..
      For all six to fire simultaneously at the legs might work but that would require previous training and co-ordination of all six and if this action messes up (such at the target starts running toward the officers) someone gets an ax in the head.
      I’m not sure what the best answer was, there probably was a better one but however else the situation could have been resolved “shoot in the leg” was not not likely to be one of them.

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  30. Hi skybluesight, Thanks for the clarification. The police are even more chicken shit then I even imagined. How could they in their sadistic minds decide pepper spraying someone already scared hiding in an attic was a reasonable course of action ? Are they just plain stupid ? Or is it just field day on those with psychiatric labels ?

    Hi Michael, I greatly admire the work you are doing. Had I gone to the pioneering retreat you were a part of in Big Sur when I had a spiritual emergency I’m sure I would have come to equilibrium in a short amount of time instead of the 40 years of psychiatric oppression I actually had to go through. I’m so sorry that these retreats are not available for the millions that need them and that there is no clear path to overthrowing the psychiatric pharmaceutical Tyranny.

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          • Fred was calm and not angry. It was after someone yelled at him that the person got the same response in return,

            “I decided to go talk to the North Bend police. I was trying to get them to call me any time of day or night if they had to go out on a call to take someone to a psych hospital.I told them I wouldn’t charge them and I could communicate with people that had mental emotional problems. The dispatcher took my name and phone number.Meanwhile a nearby police officer over hearing me voice my concerns with her hands on her hips near her gun yelled out at me “You weren’t there you don’t know what happened.” I yelled back at her as I moved toward the door “I know one thing ,if I were there the man would still be alive.” They never called me.”

            Report comment

          • “There is enough real injustice in the world without the need to manufacture more with one’s projections and transfers from one’s personal past.”

            He only asked asked to accompany and assist, skybluesight. I don’t see how that is a projection.

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          • “He only asked asked to accompany and assist, skybluesight. I don’t see how that is a projection. – mjk”
            …

            So the guy walked into a cop shop said he could do their job better than they could , offered as qualifications he was an ex-psychiatric patient and angrily yelled at them -walking out avoided their response.
            He got his name and address logged in their complaint database which they can refer to if there is any future trouble with him.

            ……
            So what is it you don’t see mjk?

            Report comment

          • So the guy walked into a cop shop said he could do their job better than they could , offered as qualifications he was an ex-psychiatric patient and angrily yelled at them -walking out avoided their response.

            I don’t like how you twisted what Fred communicated and turned it into something it’s not.

            That is what I see.

            Report comment

          • Anger: is it possible that what you see, or think you see, in others is actually what is true in yourself?

            Do you have a knack for picking out anger in people? If so, how is that helpful?

            I remember you did this with me, too. We were discussing evil where you denied it’s existence and then “charged” me with “anger” for insisting that evil is a matter of fact and does truly exist.

            I believe Fred’s sincerity in having offered to accompany and assist the police on their “mental case” calls. I believe Fred when he says that he was met with scolding hostility in having made his offer.

            I believe Fred is being scolded by you, reprimanded?, and I don’t understand what about Fred is provoking you the way that it is.

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          • skybluesight,

            ” This is not about “Fred”, it is about you,”

            I will speak for myself.

            For me, this is about the way you responded to Fred. As an observer who is familiar with your style, I simply did not appreciate the way you responded to Fred.

            This is what did not sit well with me:

            ““Just looking for justice” heh the “injustice” appears entirely to be in you pre-existing anger. So you scoured the newspapers for stories about the police , found one and harassed the police (whoever answered the phone it seems) with verbal abuse.”

            As I said, you did the same thing with me (picking out your “diagnosis” of my “anger”). You were off base with me and I see it again in your comments to Fred.

            And I really just don’t like it.

            Report comment

          • p.s.

            “Well perhaps it will lead to less social destructiveness such as your condemnation of a five year old as irreparably evil ”

            What the frig are you talking about?

            There has been no discussion anywhere around here about a five year old or the condemnation of one.

            O.o

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          • I resume.

            skybluesight on December 29, 2013 at 11:45 pm said:

            I made a final post in that thread to your “Evil Hypothesis” which you made not have read. If you want to continue to discuss that – please go back to that thread and if you have anything further to say you can post it there.

            skybluesight on December 30, 2013 at 3:46 am said:
            …
            As I said I replied to you on the other thread where you inferred Adam Lanza as a child was “evil” and could not be transformed. If you wish to clarify or retract that please do on the “Sandy Hook” thread.

            I happen to have come across the Sandy Hook page tonight. Twice you’ve directed the conversation, telling me where to go. But I’ll be having this conversation right here, even if it means that I’m having it by myself.

            I made two comments and neither of them had anything to do with Adam Lanza.

            http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/11/response-sandy-hook-report-2/

            According to you, I “inferred Adam Lanza as a child was “evil” and could not be transformed.”

            I said no such thing. In fact, I said absolutely nothing whatsoever about Adam Lanza, at all.

            —

            You said “evil … is something created by humans”, which prompted my response: ” … I’m focusing STRICTLY on the fact of the matter, which is that evil exists and is real.” Those were my final words.

            You went on to say,

            So what you are saying is the 4 year old Adam is condemned by some supernatural thing called “evil” and incapable of emotional change and was ordained to be a mass murderer at age 20?
            So that means the 4 year old being just as evil as the 20 year old must be exterminated or incarcerated in maximum security?
            Or eternally punished? Whipped daily?

            Now here’s my response:

            “So what you’re saying is that 4 year old Adam is condemned… ”

            NO! YOU said that. Not me, YOU.

            I did not “inferred Adam Lanza as a child was “evil” and could not be transformed.”

            THOSE ARE *YOUR* THOUGHTS and you are trying to attribute them to ME.

            But they’re not mine, they’re YOURS.

            So, like I said. You twisted what Fred communicated and tried doing the same thing with me.

            This isn’t a charge of wrong-doing (which would be an obstruction and is counter-productive). It isn’t a conviction. It isn’t judgement and it isn’t even diagnosing. I’m clarifying and making no mistake.

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  31. skybluesight wrote,

    “That’s not how I read it, for someone to yell he must have provoked them , and the ludicrous “offer” itself was a provocation and an act of anger. And I read his whole narrative as he was and is angry even before he read the article.”

    This is Fred’s entire original comment:

    Fred Abbe on December 27, 2013 at 12:18 am said:

    Within the last ten years I read an article in the Coos Bay World about an elderly couple that phoned the North Bend police dept. and requested them to help get their son in his early 40′s to a mental hospital where he could get help because he had stopped taking his meds. They said he was in the attic of their house and wouldn’t come out . Six police officers arrived at the house. They yelled into attic for the man to come out. He did not. They then decided to pepper spray into the attic. The man came out .The police tasered him. He pulled the taser probes out of his chest and ran to the garage. He stood at one end of the garage with his hands down at his side a knife in one hand an ax in the other. Six police officers in the garage pistols drawn and pointed at the man. They told him to drop his knife and axe . He did not .They all fired on him. He was hit 28 times and dead. The paper said the parents were distraught and that there was supposed to be an inquiry.

    Being a psychiatric survivor I thought had I been involved the man would still be alive today. l called the reporter who wrote the article. He was a 25 year old family man. I said I have one main question to ask him .” Why even if they were afraid of the man didn’t the police, considering there were 6 of them didn’t they shoot him in the leg “? The reporter said, “I wondered the exact same thing but you don’t ask the police questions like that.” I asked ” why not.” He said ,” I have a wife and child ,If I asked that question the police would no longer talk to me in the future and the newspaper would no longer employ me if I lost access to the police.”

    I decided to go talk to the North Bend police. I was trying to get them to call me any time of day or night if they had to go out on a call to take someone to a psych hospital.I told them I wouldn’t charge them and I could communicate with people that had mental emotional problems. The dispatcher took my name and phone number.Meanwhile a nearby police officer over hearing me voice my concerns with her hands on her hips near her gun yelled out at me “You weren’t there you don’t know what happened.” I yelled back at her as I moved toward the door “I know one thing ,if I were there the man would still be alive.” They never called me.

    A year ago I tried to call the paper to get a copy of the original story and to find out about what happened with the inquiry. No record was found at the paper and nothing on the internet could I find about this event. I live on the oregon coast 30 miles away.

    —

    skybluesight, you keep picking out the anger of Fred but I think the only angry (and provoked one) is yourself.

    And again, you actually DID twist what Fred communicated.

    Fred: “Meanwhile a nearby police officer over hearing me voice my concerns with her hands on her hips near her gun yelled out at me “You weren’t there you don’t know what happened.” I yelled back at her as I moved toward the door “I know one thing ,if I were there the man would still be alive.” They never called me.””.

    skybluesight: “So the guy walked into a cop shop said he could do their job better than they could , offered as qualifications he was an ex-psychiatric patient and angrily yelled at them -walking out avoided their response.”

    Fred never said he “could do their job better than they could”. Those are YOUR words.

    Fred did not “angrily yell at them – walking out avoided their response”.

    Fred was yelled at FIRST. He “yelled back at her as I moved toward the door “I know one thing ,if I were there the man would still be alive.” They never called me.”

    He did not “avoid their response”, as YOU say.

    You twisted what he said, skybluesight. And please stop trying to mind read me, thinking you know what when you just don’t.

    ~ mjk

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    • skybluesight on December 30, 2013 at 3:46 am said:

      ” This is not about “Fred”, it is about you,”

      I will speak for myself. -mjk”

      Yes, but you are still using “Fred to channel it. I have a same kind of opinion about him as to you in some way. Oh the Horror!
      And therefore if it is similar in any way it has to be invalid or discounted

      I would say I was very much “on base” otherwise why would you be so angry? Why would you even care?

      “And please stop trying to mind read me, thinking you know what when you just don’t.”
      …
      I haven’t got a clue what that means except that probably is a result of my being accurate in my opinions.
      A have a good solution for you – if you think someone is trying to guess about you (whatever it is you are talking about) , just tell them openly and then no one needs to “mind read” you.
      I am all in favour of anyone “mind reading” me , I encourage it to maximize communication – if they are wrong I will let them know my disagreement.

      ================================
      In your last post you didn’t copy the posts where that author showed his obvious anger with derogatory words etc.
      …
      Yes, I used my own words, if someone tells me a narrative I am free to make my own sense out of it – what a person says is not “truth” , it is only what they say is “truth” – my “twisted” is the same “twisted” as your narrative or Fred’s “twisted” narrative. People are free to choose which “twisted” narrative they understand best.

      Also – (as part of the trivial spurious arguments here) – if someone walks out yelling something, it is different than standing one’ ground with eye contact while yelling something.
      etc etc – the rest of this argument is just as trivial and spurious to which I mean it is as if an angry person is looking around for a club or a weapon to attack someone.
      ….
      —————————
      “What the frig are you talking about?

      There has been no discussion anywhere around here about a five year old or the condemnation of one. MJK”

      “Frig” huh? Your motivational color is showing . A big QED on that.
      …
      As I said I replied to you on the other thread where you inferred Adam Lanza as a child was “evil” and could not be transformed. If you wish to clarify or retract that please do on the “Sandy Hook” thread.

      …
      If you want to understand my view of transformative growth processes you can read my blog.

      http://skybluelue.blogspot.com/

      ..
      So what I thought from the very first was correct – you were scalp hunting – it’s not like I (wearily) haven’t seen it before.
      And the more one scratches or responses in any way the more anger and persecutory attacks occur.

      My seventh opinion is the same as my sixth which is the same as my first. On both this and the subject of Evil. You can hate it, dislike it , try to proclaim it as invalid , or twisted, or discount it or say it is off base, argue irrationally and persecutorily about trivia, hold your breath until you turn blue, scream and lie on the floor and pound it but my opinion remains the same.
      ..
      Maybe someday you can just accept it and calmly agree to disagree, and then you might get used to it and then maybe you might even get some benefit from it.
      Who knows? One can dream.
      ..
      The horse is more than dead now , it is dismembered. You have successfully wasted my time on absolutely nothing except to give you and outlet for your emotional distress. I’m sorry I can’t waste any more of my time on these unproductive things.

      skybluesight,

      Truly, you know nothing about what I think of Adam Lanza. Please STOP putting words in people’s mouths, twisting things they say and thinking you know what when you DON’T.

      I will say it again: I don’t like the way you responded to Fred. While you’re trying to make this exchange between us about me, in reality, this is about only one thing: YOU.

      Here is one of your comments from July and it is *YOU* who has anger issues. You consistently pick out this “anger” in others. And I’m asking you to STOP DOING THAT to people.

      http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/07/the-blame-game/#comment-27074

      Nobody has invited to you dissect them, examine them, analyze them, diagnose them. Please knock it off.

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