“….I was horrified to see how I deteriorated intellectually, morally, emotionally from day to day. My interest in political problems quickly disappeared, then my interest in scientific problems and then my interest in my wife and children…. I was prescribed haloperidol (Haldol) in small doses.” — From a press conference – in 1975! – by the Russian dissident Leonid Plyushch, quoted in Toxic Psychiatry Peter Breggin M.D.
“Neuroleptics are the drugs known as anti-psychotics. They are used extensively in psychiatric institutions and are the kind of drug most commonly used against a person’s will. Researcher David Cohen documents that they have the same effects on human being or animal, a profound dampening of the central nervous system as well as many associated uncomfortabel physical and mental sensations.” — Tina Minkowitz, World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry
I believe if the public really knew and understood the reason why we who have survived medically-induced harm, and who do not have the human right to — with real evidence — legally expose this, they would support psychiatric survivors and help us to put an end to what has been called ‘the tyranny of good will.’
Today, if I go to visit any doctor and I am examined, I could be diagnosed as having any serious medical condition. This could be true or untrue. Following this, I would have the choice to avail myself of any medical procedures modern medicine has in its toolkit. Even if the doctor was not helpful, or I make a bad choice, I am a free agent. The final result of this visit could even be that I die much younger. So; indirectly I could be responsible for my own demise. If this were to happen it would not be viewed as self-induced harm.
Also today, if I visit a doctor—even for a physical medical condition—and he/she diagnoses me with a psychiatric diagnosis, this cannot be ‘true’ because there is no test to prove that any of these ‘conditions’ actually exist. However, often after just a very short conversation, he/she can diagnose me with a psychiatric diagnosis, and the consequence of this can be disastrous! If I end up with a psychiatric diagnosis (and there is every likelihood that I could) I will no longer be free to make important decisions and choices for myself. My family, too, if they agree with me and I want support, would not be able to help me.
Psychiatric diagnoses therefore strip people of their human rights, their human right to act as free agents. Survivor of psychiatry Hebriana, quoted in Deprived of our Humanity by Lars Marensson MD, puts it this way;
“I feel I am a survivor. It is impossible to find space or the opportunity to tell other people about these experiences. I am not allowed to share them, because they are beyond what people want to know. This is not fun at all to live with. People do not want to see the truth. I could just a well be dead.”
Unlike other survivors of abuse, she says,
“Neuroleptic survivors get the opposite of understanding and acceptance. They get denial. Such denial is a cause of sorrow and hopelessness. I feel a sorrow that I cannot share. Such denial can be lethal. I could just as well be dead. Such denial is a continuing crime.“
There is no evidence that what is accepted every second of every day by society — so-called ‘mental illness’ — exists. Yet those who get these pseudo-diagnoses have not got the legal right to decide for themselves. As Hebriana said, more than 30 years ago, “we might as well be dead”!
Without any medical evidence, and yet reinforced with the strong arm of legal fiction, we continue to be deprived of our humanity. As the late and great professor Thomas Szasz said,
“Classifying persons as mental patients and creating legal fictions involving human beings leads to the same results: The person, concealed behind a mask, is rendered less than fully human or even completely non human.”
When black people were legally classified as possessions, as non persons, they were treated as slaves who were also very necessary for the economy to thrive and prosper, for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. Thankfully this group of people are no longer in this position. Today, however, those who have the power to diagnose others with psychiatric, non-scientific diagnoses do treat their subjects as slaves because under the law they are viewed as non-persons with broken brains. This ever-increasing group of people is also necessary to keep our economies booming; especially the pharmaceutical industry, which is one of the richest industries worldwide. Maybe the most pervasive illusion today is that those in power ever want the poor to get richer and rich get poorer!
I encountered the hard hand of psychiatry in 1976. It was because I received medically-induced harm while having my first baby that I received my initial psychiatric ‘diagnosis,’ and soon after was force-treated with electroshock, Haloperidol and many other neuroleptic drugs. Having recently received my medical notes; the final time I took the neuroleptic Thorozine (Largactil) in 1999 was, as always, out of fear. Then, at the very end of the year 2000, having reduced much too quickly (on the advice of yet another psychiatrist) I took a final dose of the very toxic, mind-altering substance Lithium. I am a very fortunate woman that I managed to survive their poisonous effects, with their combined withdrawal effects, cleverly disguised by psychiatrists as ‘discontinuation syndromes.’ Yet, because of the DSM psychiatric labelling I, along with all my fellow survivors, still are subject to discrimination by international ‘mental health’ laws. This is why I will continue to campaign for all human rights and especially for our basic human right to BE human.
In Peter Lehmann and Peter Stasny’s Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry activist and fellow survivor Kate Millet, in her excellent chapter ‘The Illusion of Mental Illness” writes passionately about survivors of psychiatry:
“We are also survivors of one of the meanest systems of oppression ever developed, as its victims and critics. We are the ones to tell the truth, to say that mental illness is an illusion, intellectually and scientifically, but also a system of social control of unprecedented thoroughness and pervasiveness. It is our role to expose this illusion and to free us all – for we are all constrained, oppressed, limited, intimidated by this phantom of mental illness. We stand with reason against error and superstition, with imagination against conformity and oppression. What good fortune to be part of such a struggle for freedom and human rights.”
David Oaks, another fellow survivor, and formerly long-term driving force of MindFreedom International has this to say in the same book:
“The mind is one of the most complex topics humanity has ever studied. The psychiatric industry is one of the most profitable in the history of the planet. While science has never found a chemical imbalance in our brains, our movement has discovered an imbalance – an enormous power imbalance in society itself. A focus on human rights activism is one way those who are oppressed can unify against this overwhelming tyranny. Because, ‘of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. (C.S.Lewis)'”
In her beautiful poem ‘Remembering what it means to be human’ human rights activist and survivor Laura Delano challenges psychiatry, and we with a united voice sing in harmony with her:
It’s happening, Psychiatry,
and it’s for your own good.”
We re-echo the voices of those who did not survive, such as my good lifelong friend Helena King who said
“I have been assaulted by male and female nurses for injection into the bum scores of times over 36 years. This is painful and humiliating, I have been paralyzed in hospital by drugs. I have Parkinson’s, shaking constantly for a couple of months at a time. The doctors treated me as a receptacle for drugs, no listening or reasoning, no soul. This was abuse.”
Speaking about her departed brother Edmond, human rights activist Patrice Campion says that
“… the harm and devastation caused by the bio-medical model is far more outreaching because the pain and loss continues to reverberate forever through the family and friends of the loved ones killed by these drugs.”
Every day that passes, more and more survivors of psychiatry and those in solidarity with their cause are becoming more vocal. We know our day will come because we can and we will! It cannot come too soon! You can help us out by becoming more aware and joining us in our campaign to achieve freedom, truth, equality, justice, love, peace, understanding, and HUMAN RIGHTS!
I feel like borrowing from that thing Anonymous says after reading this,
We are survivors
We are legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Psychiatry, Expect us.
This is a great quote from Anonymous.
I’d add to it my favorite quote from Bane in the Dark Knight rises, which I’ve actually said to a few psychiatrists who found my website, in this adapted form:
“People like me are your reckoning, here to end the borrowed time your theories have been living on.”
Here I’m referring to theories that diagnoses like Borderline PD are valid, reliable lifelong brain illnesses with genetic or biological causes. What a bunch of shit!
Thank you for putting this powerful essay together representing those among us who have been hurt by the lies, fraud and oppression in so-called mental health services. My hope is for transparency and truth. Our voices together are getting stronger and more organized. We will not be silenced.
I want truth as well. And accountability. Expose the corruption. Expose the lies.
Biederman. Wilens. Paxil 329. Steven Brill. Gynecomastia. Whitaker. Everyone should know and learn the history in order to change the future.
Hi Mary,
Thanks for the great article.
“…..with a psychiatric diagnosis, this cannot be ‘true’ because there is no test to prove that any of these ‘conditions’ actually exist…” I certainly don’t believe in these diagnosis – what they are is gimics.
Your slavery comparison is very pertinent as well, as the system needs human fodder to survive.
Thanks so much for your encouraging replies! You continue to warm my heart and feed my soul! Thanks also to all those who shared and liked this article on Facebook. Thanks to Mad in America for giving me the opportunity to share my voice with many people – to become stronger and more courageous. We are the change we want to see in the world while love makes the world go around!
“When to power of love overcomes the love of power then we will have peace.”
Thank you for this article which so well expresses experiences similar to my own and lifts me to higher dreams and hopefully to more effective actions in step with my brothers and sisters .
Thanks so much Fred!
When we continue to speak with a resounding, united voice, while we refuse to remain silent in spite of our long history of medical harm and non scientific ‘diagnoses’ we will find our basic human right to be and act as human beings!
” The salvation of the world lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” Martin L. King
THANK-YOU, Mary!….
This is how I like to word it:
So-called “mental illnesses” are exactly as “real” as presents from Santa Claus, but not more real. When I was a little kid, I got lots of presents from Santa Claus, under the family Christmas tree. Pretty wrapping paper, bows and ribbons, and a tag that says “To: Bradford, From Santa Claus”. I don’t get presents from Santa Claus anymore, and I don’t believe the lies of the pseudo-science of psychiatry. Psychiatry should be thrown on the scrap-heap of history, along with the great fraud, Freud, and phrenology…..
Yes, *sometimes*, *some* folks do *seem* to do better for a while, on *some* drugs….
Ask any young heroin addict…..
In my own life, and many close friends – some who died far too soon – the LIE of psychiatry has done far more harm than good.
The Federal “Community Mental Health Center Act” has done more damage to the American people than 9/11…..
And yes, it was Bayer which gave the world Heroin, as a brand-name consumer product in the 1880’s….
Thank you Bradford! “In my own life, and many close friends – some who died far too soon – the LIE of psychiatry has done far more harm than good.” Like you I have seen so much damage done by the BIG LIE also.
Your point about heroin is unfortunately so true. When I was a young woman while I was living in Dublin many young people were addicted to illegal drugs. I had the good sense then not to get hooked but little did I know that I would be a victim of much more lethal drugs prescribed by doctors!!
I think if we can educate the public to realized that all mind altering drugs can be addictive and very dangerous then at least they will be informed. However, while forceful help is so much part of our society, even when people know the truth we are all in danger of being spellbound.
As Audrey Lorde said, “Your silence will not protect you”….
Keep speaking out. One day …you are right….there will be some dire history books about the dark days, the tragic deaths of innocents, harmed in so many ways by psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry.
Thank you ebl!
I hope soon people will wake up to the oppressive force lurking in our midst as our salvation and that one day these dark days will pass sooner than we think into history so that when people are in distress it will be accepted as part of humanity and there will always be someone there to lend a helping hand – someone who knows they are human and experiences distress also!
Fantastic article Mary Maddock.
A solution I think of is a (mandatory) lawyer for every psychiatric patient. The “patient” does not have to request one. The doctors would have to admit the hospital they work in is really a jail (for people to get lawyers), so I don’t think that is going to happen.
The “patient” must be undrugged, the lawyer must be educated to use all forms of communication to be able to talk with his/her client. Written, vocal, sign language, foreign language recognition.
The patient-prisoner must be given a chance to escape ( from what crime? a brain chemical imbalance?) a chance to prove they are “sane” , as in their actions are based on reasons.
Thanks so much Mark!
Unfortunately the law is not on our side. While psychiatric labels are viewed as’ scientific medical diagnoses’, when they clearly are not, it is very difficult to find legal rights. While all the systems that hold clout in society are on the same side it is even more difficult but there are many people who are working for change now so hopefully we will find a way to end psychiatric slavery just as other oppressed people did in the past. If we want it then we will find it!
In the meantime even in the midst of oppression we can ‘Dare To Live’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Lu2mB54b7I&feature=share
Dear Mary,
Thank you for sharing your difficult experience, so that others may benefit. Your work is hugely important to your community, both near and far. You have always helped lift the voices of those who have suffered, and continue to suffer through your voice of reason and compassion. I believe the more your work educates others about the potential harm that results from the biomedical model, the less harm and devastation will occur. Thank you for always being courageous and noble in your tirelessness and wanting to help others.
Sadly, the harm and destruction that has resulted from these treatments is already incalculable and exponential; and must be redressed. It’s going to take enormous political will from leaders who cannot be bought.
Thanks so much Patrice!
Ever since our paths crossed you value and inspire me. You are not afraid to speak from your heart and you have such a good sense of humour too!! You help me to appreciate the funny side of life and I loved the hours we have spent together when we found a way to meet up. It is good that the north and south of Ireland are not too far apart today!
We are the change we want to see in the world and while people like you are part of the revolution we hope will take place then it will happen! Better still it is happening!!
I feel as if it’s too late for me dear Mary. I’m forced to take drugs that are destroying me slowly, with cruelty. I wrote to Dr Breggin to ask for an independant expertise that l would be willing to pay for. That was months ago, l have had no reply…No one it seems is able or willing to enable me to come slowly off the chemicals l am forced to take in a place where l and others would be safe. I am playing the ‘trouble-fête ‘ here because for countless people like me nothing is changing.