I am taking a CRPD (Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) course offered by Tina Minkowitz. There is so much to learn in becoming an effective advocate. Tina’s knowledge and initiatives are helping validate my own trauma and giving me tools for empowerment. Last week we discussed absolute prohibition of forced treatment and learned the value and disadvantages of framing coercive interventions as torture. The following are my reflections through the lens of firsthand experience.
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You cannot stitch a wound without first taking a look at it in all its gore. Making an honest, in-depth analysis of a trauma this grave will cause uneasiness. Just as you would never hide an injury to protect the nurse from feeling her own human sensitivity, this must not be hidden either. The bind surrounding those under coercive treatment is intentionally well-manicured and outwardly sterile in order to soothe the public and those in control. Those directly affected are in agony while being invalidated with a collective delusion that there is nothing to agonize over. In living through psychiatric treatment, I couldn’t escape the wound festering underneath the system-wide denial. Using the word “torture” helps rip the covers off the repulsive reality of the violations taking place in psychiatry to this day.
If we do not call torture by its real name, will we be motivated to fix it? I went to a government-provided mental health clinic for help with the side effects of the trauma I had suffered during hospitalization. The psychiatric nurse stopped me mid-sentence, explaining, “It is not trauma, it’s treatment!” She added torture to medication side effects and nutrition on the list of things I wasn’t allowed to talk about in therapy. Society as a whole has given themselves permission to stop listening to cries for help by nullifying people with assumptions like “lack of insight,” but a whitewashed prison is still a prison. The bigger issue may be that we are not seeing patients as people, allowing for immunity from violations to the usual rules of human decency.
In psychiatric hospitals we have set up the same environment as the Stanford Prison Experiment, but without a professor watching who has the authority to shut it down when things go horribly wrong. As a patient, there wasn’t any protection from the inescapable abuse of limitless power. In a battle between patient and staff the staff will always win. My voice was disqualified before I ever said a word. I watched public takedowns of others and was scolded to set an example. I learned quickly what would happen if I didn’t comply. Why would “life saving treatment” need to be escaped from or result in furious and terrified survivors?
After turning my back on medical treatment, I was hired by Alberta Health Services. One part of my job was to expose problems and inconsistencies at treatment team meetings. Turns out that most staff didn’t really want to know how it felt to be on the receiving end of coercion. After the first meeting, management met with me to review ways for me to share only the positives in the treatment they were providing. I couldn’t agree to be one more set of seeing eyes who intentionally turned away to protect my paycheck at the expense of the vulnerable. We couldn’t come to a compromise, so I quit to save my life.
As I wrote the words above describing “care,” my skin crawled. Words like “receiving” and “providing” wrongly imply gifts. Generous is the opposite of how treatment felt. The psychiatric system is set up intentionally to protect the staff. I sometimes reflect on the hundreds of people who benefited financially from my torture while placing me in poverty. This year I was approached by seven different paid supports from my past who knew of mistreatment but felt their hands were tied. It hurts to feel sacrificed in order to protect someone else’s standard of living.
The disadvantages of ripping off a bandage so honestly is the risk of losing the audience of those with the power to make immediate changes. Pride and potential loss of earnings seem to make people sensitive to feedback. If I am not respected enough to be a voice in my own treatment, why would they respect me enough to be a force for system change? Still, I have to try.
There is another, more personal risk to bravely calling “torture” on the psychiatric system. As the Mental Health Act now stands in Alberta, I can be forced into treatment with nothing but a signature and a little future foretelling on the part of a doctor.
As a society we have given a loaded gun with the safety off to medical professionals. They have proven that they are not qualified to handle this power appropriately without causing harm. Someone has to take the gun away, and an absolute prohibition on force would do that. Torture is torture. Any other vulnerable sector of the population would be extricated from such an abusive situation. An absolute prohibition of coercive treatment would also immediately allow for the billions of dollars allocated there to be redirected into alternatives.
Weeping about the torture I suffered has been met with fear mongering and a reminder that psychiatry had the power to do much worse than they did. The abuse was for my own good, I was told, and I should be thankful the treatment team was merciful. After all, they didn’t use the Community Treatment Order that they threatened. It is proving difficult to feel gracious. My Mental Health Aide took credit for the person I am today, stating that the mistreatment was intentional to motivate change. In a twisted way she is absolutely right. Terror has forever changed me.
The torturers will be tortured themselves one day.
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Well a 50 % chance at least, which is pretty good odds. Proof here “The percentages of antipsychotic-treated older adults with long-term use were 53.7% (70–74 years), 49.2% (75–79 years), and 46.2% (80–84 years). ” http://www.psychiatrist.com/jcp/article/Pages/2015/v76n10/v76n1021.aspx
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As an ‘elder’ that does NOT MAKE ME FEEL better!
What are the chances of being ‘tortured’ as a younger person and then escaping further torture when I’m a doddering old fool?
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It’s called Medicare.
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Rightio~
As someone mentioned already, about the only way I will seek ‘medical care’ is if I’m bleeding profusely (or a similar scenario).
But as we’ve seen on these pages before, even Advance Directives can be overruled by the medicos.
Just give me the black pill, and I’ll take care if it myself.
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For myself, I take a perverse satisfaction in the knowledge that I won’t likely see 60, thanks to all the “safe treatment” I received.
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Good essay, Ronda. Thanks for your integrity and ‘insights’ (hah – little joke)…
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Thank you for your essay. I agree totally with the torture definition, having been subjected to coerced drugging and electroshock for almost 4 years as a teenager back in the 1960s. I have long seen the way the doctors “treated” me as torture, except, I always felt like in a “typical” torture scenario (television, not reality) the torturers are trying to extract information (WWII resistance fighters tortured by the Gestapo to reveal names, etc. etc.). But in my case I was only 17 when they started. I would have done anything they asked me to do if only they would have stopped the electroshock, but they did not see things that way, and never told me how I should behave or what information I was supposed to reveal to them that would make them stop — hence, I felt like I was being tortured and the reason for the torture was being withheld. The closest literary analogy I have found was in Orwell’s 1984. There was no “talk therapy” of any kind offered by the man who shocked me and nothing of that kind at the hospital. From the nurses’ notes I acquired 30 years later I was able to see that the doctors wanted me to “socialize” with the other inmates, play games, etc. Complaining about the treatments only resulted in your being shocked an extra time, or more medication. The doctor duped my parents into cooperating with him, and they did not listen to me when I told them it was harming me, so I had to shut up and hold on. They finally stopped when I turned 21 and made a comment that they could no longer do this to me on the strength of my signatures (coerced) at age 17 and 18. 21 was the legal age in that state at that time.
At one point the psychiatrist who “treated” me asked me if I understood why I had been abducted from the airport (by my parents — because I called home from college crying!) and placed in a mental hospital against my will. He said I should have known that this would happen. I knew no such thing, but I knew enough to lie to him, since I had intuitively figured out (underneath all the drugs and shocks I had received for 5 weeks in the mental hospital) that I had to lie and say I should have known. Of course this did not help me during the next 3 years of coerced outpatient treatments.
As I grow old, my fear of mistreatment increases, since I know that elderly women are still “targeted” for electroshock. I have had many PTSD symptoms ever since the first summer I was subjected to electroshock, the summer of 1965. Over the years the symptoms have decreased, but some are still present, and others surface now and again in times of stress. I am lucky to be alive at all, and even more lucky to have had something of a career, and a long marriage with a good man. I think often of others who were not so lucky.
Thank you for your essay.
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Thanks for telling some of your story, Welton. What was done to you was absolutely horrible, so I’m not thanking you because I enjoyed it. It’s because it helps when more people know about what is done to people. There can’t be anything worse than being a child or teenager whose parents buy into it. There goes that primal sense of parent as protector. As for very old age? The first state that bans forced psychiatry will see a mass immigration of people in their 70s.
Pro tip: once you’re in California’s system in one of their many protective programs, anyone who drives you to another state is guilty of abduction. You’re not only not allowed to refuse “treatment,” you can’t even leave the state to escape it. Terrifying.
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BetterLife are you referring to the Kaiser system?
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In many antebellum states helping a slave escape made you a thief legally. The California law reminds me of that legislation. These laws further dehumanized the people who needed help escaping. A black person can’t choose freedom on his own and plan an escape because he lacks the intelligence or even desire to rise above his “natural condition.”
A “crazy” person can’t know what’s good for them cause they’re insane. Confinement, poisons, and high volts of electricity destroying healthy brain cells are good for ’em! Only a crazy person would dislike that treatment after all.
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Thank you for this interesting, and about torture anyway, truthful post.
Torture = traumatic maltreatment, which the institutions supply in deuces. The further question is, once in the system, how do we “cure” people of, “recover” people from, the system. The mental health treatment system being the domain of the institution extended invisibly into the community at large.
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Yeah it is twisted all right, the way the take credit for it. You deserve all the credit, too, for knowing it is torture, for calling them out, and for standing your ground.
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Jesus, I think we’re sort of missing the boat, here. To me, the situation is this: Mad people are the stop-gap on our society’s exalted, but egregious “values”: conditional love, “vulture” capitalism, eugenics, human expendability, and die-hard uniformity/conformity. The current social order leaves NO room for ANYONE to have a halfway decent life, outside of those strictures. According to psychiatry, it must cram Mad people into “treatment”, so that it may “provide” us with “safe” and reasonably “happy” lives. But they know, before we do, that society’s status hierarchy is very much jeopardized by safe and happy Mad people. In that life, we’ll reflect on our psychiatrization, only to resist and, ultimately, reject it. (What TAC/NAMI so brazenly refer to as, “I’m feeling well, so I don’t need medication anymore.”.) Most of us know someone who feels they’ve been a “success story” of mainstream psychiatry (or some component of it). And, yet, even those people will easily and openly credit their success to numerous other lifestyle factors – a good marriage, a job they enjoy, abstinence from the most torturous forms of “treatment”, etc. That’s why psychiatry quickly shuts its patients up, soon after it requests their “perspective” on their “treatment”. Even if that “treatment” spanned years or decades, psychiatry still evades an extended and *public* dialogue with its current or former patients. Healthy(ier) patients are inevitably the ones whose lives weren’t “consumed” by psychiatry, and that deplorable “basket” of pseudoscience WILL NOT quit stealing the credit for those health gains. Psychiatry MUST minimize the serious risk of being outed as a fraud of medicine, and low patient improvement rates are its best chance possible for “making it quack”. Therefore, the majority of Mad people must be miserable and very, very sick, for as long as they’re “compliant” or noncompliant with psychiatric “treatment”. Quacks much prefer the Amy Bleuels to the Ronda Richardsons. Apart from rigidly segregating the Mad “throwaways”, there is nothing else to be “gained” by psychologically or physically coercing us into psychiatric “treatment”.
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Who’s Amy Bleuel? The replacement poster child for Pharmapsychiatry now that Patty Duke is gone?
The weird thing is, despite chronic misery and physical sickness, most of the Grateful Consumers imagine they are being helped. They embrace their segregation, because no one but the MI staff and other “consumers” understand them. They need their “meds” because Dr. Quackenbush told them they did. He knows everything cause he’s practically God. Just ask him.
I almost had an argument with a Grateful Consumer once. The woman was deeply unhappy most of the time. She couldn’t see her grandchildren due to the bigotry of her son-in-law. Rather than blame the people who labeled her as crazy and dangerous, this woman thought it was all due to the “stigma” of the young man’s “ignorance.” She was overweight like all of us, and struggled with chronic diabetes like 2/3 of us. She seemed zoned out, couldn’t think straight, sleep more than a few hours a night. Had to be hospitalized twice a year. And was dirt poor, couldn’t drive or afford basic repairs on the mobile home where she lived.
One day she triumphantly announced in one of our weekly Infantile Thinking classes that she had helped one of the few friends she still had. How? By telling her she was “mentally ill” and needed to get “treatment” at the center with the rest of us.
I had to bite back the words to keep from shouting out loud. “Why Casey? Is your life so much better from coming here and getting ‘help?’ Are you joyful, are your relationships good, is your life meaningful? Are you overflowing with health and vitality from all the drugs you regularly take? No! So why cajole your friend into coming??”
I guess misery does love company.
I was still “compliant” and attending meetings. My heart wasn’t in it, because I could see what we were doing wasn’t working. We were not getting better. All the drugs we took, all the meetings and groups we attended were pointless busywork for us–though the case workers got a small paycheck from the nonsense.
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You’re right. Misery not only loved company, it NEEDED company. Psychiatry was killing her, and sister think, by then, she knew it. I guess she didn’t want to die alone, and she was willing to kill another person, in order to avoid that dismal fate. Humanity dies every day, at the hands of mainstream and pro-force psychiatry.
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Mostly it was a type of denial–I think. “Casey” needed to believe that her “treatment” was helping. In order to reinforce this delusion she had to try to actively recruit.
Needless to say, all the staff (but not all the psych victims) praised her for trying to win converts. It was like being in a cult.
At least if you want to leave a cult after joining, your family and everyone else in the world won’t force you back into it. They’ll congratulate you for leaving!
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Great article. Thanks for having courage to post your thoughts about your own treatment and about professionals here. Hope you will write more on this topic.
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Cannot stitch a wound? There is never any healing when one lives in an unjust world. Making you believe that the only problem is your own wounds, is just another layer of abuse.
Its like making a slave wrong for wanting to be free.
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Hi — a few thoughts:
In psychiatric hospitals we have set up the same environment as the Stanford Prison Experiment, but without a professor watching who has the authority to shut it down
Good point. But what’s with the “we”? — YOU didn’t have anything to do with setting up this system, did you? It’s good to not subconsciously identify with the enemy, it’s disempowering.
This year I was approached by seven different paid supports from my past who knew of mistreatment but felt their hands were tied.
Or in other words the paycheck superseded their morals. Pathetic.
An absolute prohibition of coercive treatment would also immediately allow for the billions of dollars allocated there to be redirected into alternatives.
Why do you need an “alternative” to torture? Do people seek an “alternative” to racism? How about just no torture and no racism, and learning from experience to never set foot near another “mental health” facility?
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Perhaps she had no choice, Oldhead. In Canada, like the USA, force is the order of the day. The very fact that force is required proves it’s not legitimate medicine.
Do they imprison heart patients for refusing glycerin or bypass surgeries? Do they use cancer as a metaphor to trick patients with no abnormal growths into having numerous rounds of chemo?
“An illness like any other” is a load of bovine excrement. No one really believes it. Not the high quacks of psyching. Not even the stupid NAMI mommies and the Grateful Brain Dead.
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Here in Australia people have been charged with offences for refusing recommended life prolonging, but painful and invasive treatment to terminally ill children!
Heavens above….the doctors can force appallingly distressing treatments on kids to give them an extra few weeks of living hell, and their decision can overrule that of the parents. WTF? That’s torture too.
As an unwilling recipient of psychiatry’s torture which has left me with some deep emotional scars, I can only but agree that until psychiatry is wiped off the face of the earth and, in fact, ANY other forced medical treatment is totally outlawed, every person is at risk from doctors. They have far too much power.
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We have similar laws for children with cancer in America. I realize there are occasionally creepy parents out there who actually would deny their kids cancer treatments so they would die because they’re tired of being parents–horrible as that sounds. It’s a pity the law is so inflexible in these cases.
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Do they use cancer as a metaphor to trick patients with no abnormal growths into having numerous rounds of chemo?
Well, yes, depending on how you define abnormal, i.e. cancer seems like a normal response to toxicity. Instead of trying to eliminate the toxicity they bombard the immune system with the most destructive weapons possible, radiation and chemo, to destroy the body’s last ditch immune response, the tumor.
I realize this is straying from your main point though.
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Ha ha. Yes. My own metaphor which I don’t intend for literal interpretation.
I’m very angry at the MI establishment including the Judas organization called NAMI. They lied to me, telling me the drugs corrected a fictitious chemical imbalance in the brain. That is inexcusable!
I also am angry at myself. I asked workers in the system several times why they never did spinal taps to analyze our brain chemistry in order to medicate us properly. That way we would suffer less and it would save us all a lot of time. The workers would say, “That’s not possible.”
When I asked why not, they would smile and refuse to answer. They probably were ignorant.
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It’s also possible to understand and maybe predict reactions to brain-changing drugs by taking a look at liver enzymes. Yolande Lucire is an expert. I’ve heard that investgating liver enzymes is not all it’s cracked up to be in general, but I haven’t heard anything bad about Dr. Lucire. She knows all about akathisia and violence, a topic few in medicine seem to know or care about.
http://www.drlucire.com/
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Exquisitely written, powerful. Thank you.
I am considering signing up for the class.
And I feel inspired to write a blog about my own torture as a 16 year young person locked in a psych ward. If enough of us shine the light on the sugar coated torture the prison guards might think twice about the pain they are inflicting. We get to use our battle scars as teachers.
And we get to lift those whose eyes are still blinded – or blurry – as you have lifted me
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Yes, it is very well written. I see the Psychiatric system as a bit of a Cash Transfer System (funded by the person in the street). The pharmaceutical model has established a type of financial control or “lock down” and every body else with authority obeys – because if they step out of line they can be excluded and their position can be taken by someone else.
During the Holocaust of the 1930s Jewish people were treated as subhuman, Untermensch – and this excused the horrific treatment doled out to them, and it’s the same today with the psychiatric patients:- (literally) anything goes!
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Until I saw this article I hadn’t even realized the class had started. I had asked Tina about the class and she said something about the “second round” and said she would be back in touch. I have been waiting to hear back. She assured me it would be mostly survivors, which is a relief to me. Finally we are honored as experts, not those haughty know-it-alls in offices who in fact, ruined so many people’s lives.
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Ronda, I honor you. It was your own resilience and inner strength–your human spirit that led to your recovery. IN SPITE OF all the torture you received in the guise of treatment.
To quote the movie, “The Addams Family”:
“The human spirit is a tough thing to kill. Even with a chainsaw.”
(Or numerous rounds of electroshock or years of exposure to toxic drugs.) 😀
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Some staff in the nuthouse told me my hair looked like Cousin It. “Why don’t you get it away from your face so we can see you in group? All we see are those glasses…” But I was ashamed of the Lithium pimples, so……..
Probably the Addams Family members all knew better than Staff anyway.
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Sounds like something helpful an MI staff member might say. Good way to encourage someone already suffering emotionally. 😛
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Torture, yes. Why not?
Hurted? Checks.
………………….
Quote from the article:
“and a reminder that psychiatry had the power to do much worse than they did.”
re: Yes, i was told the same (in other words). They had no problem to say that: “if they wanted to… they could do this and that (frankly hugely degrading at all parts of the world)”. Shure… they will never say that kind of thing to a journalist.
………………….
1) Torture can lead to suicide. Checks (at psychiatric hospitals).
2) Some groups are the “target” of the torture, others (“the professionals of torture” profit. Checks.
3) Trougth the times torture was justified with: GOD/ state/ The king/ community… best interests. Checks.
4) The Torquemadas (psychiatrists/nurses), …. that apply the tortures/ punishments… say was not their faults, they get no pleasure with that… those were the orders (from above). Checks.
5) Torture changes perceptions… forever. People that suffered the “cocacola torture”, cannot… for the rest of their life… return to: “think like before”.
There is “before”… and there is: “after”.
………………….
Now… and this is not specific of Ronda Richardson (likely applies most of the regular article makers here at MIA)… where are the “counter-measures”?
This site (MIA), could be re-labed like this: “all-dressed-up-and-nowhere-to-go” (ADUNTG).
………………….
So, the sheep are tortured/ handicaped/ killed?
Says A: the sheep should talk.
Says B: if the sheep had guts/courage… the sheep talks.
Says C: i am a sheep and i am so happy i have talked.
Oui?
So Proud Sheep, may you answer a question?
When will be the year that all that “talking” will finally produce results?
Will be the year 2018?
Will be the year 2050?
Will be the year 3017?
Behehe 🙂
(european sheep talking)
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I wish we could totally dismantle psychiatry–at least the coercive kind. Since psychiatry’s fangs are lies and brute force, the cobra would lose its venom. (Since cobras don’t take kindly to having teeth pulled, killing it might be easier.)
I don’t see that happening soon. In the meantime, I want to provide an underground network to help people escape the system. I have a plan. It will take a few years to implement. And I will have to risk institutionalization–perhaps permanently.
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I definitely see building an underground network of people out to assist people at escaping forced and harmful treatment (state sanctioned violence) as a very real need that is likely to increase with time. If there’s anything I can do to help you make this venture a successful reality, please, let me know, and I will do what I can to do so.
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What I happen to be doing, RIGHT NOW, pretty much because I don’t know anything else to do, is to tell my story many times (I do not reblog, I write original posts afresh, just about daily) and just let that stand for itself. People get curious. At first, nothing happened. That I know of, folks expected me to fail. They expected me to return to psychiatry. I did not. They have been waiting. I believe they got tired of waiting and have realized that it’s fruitless and it’s not going to happen. Sometimes people follow blogs hoping the blogger will die, because readers love the sensationalism. People love the riskiness. So they follow anorexia blogs and want to read about what the person weighs, etc. Yeah it is dumb but that happens. They want skinny pics, too.
I got followers back around 2010 for that raason, but I didn’t post pics and I didn’t want people following a disease. I pissed them off when I started saying I am not mentally ill, a few years later. Lots of my followers said, “Oh yes you are!” and I suppose sensationalist followers want miserable failure. They didn’t get that.
I just keep going. Some still get pissed. I learned in writing school that when you get a reaction like that, it’s probably a good sign. If I didn’t, then I’m not really saying much.
My object is to tell folks maybe there’s another way. there are so many dimensions, unexplored ways to see the story. I can say I have the right to change my mind. I changed my mind about many things. I am thrilled that I have the capacity and ability to remember and write down tons of that story, too. Not only that, I find it enjoyable, and my duty to continue to do so.
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Thank you Frank. Ironically–considering the above comment about sheep–my given name means “Lamb of God.” My biggest character weaknesses are cowardice and an unhealthily excessive desire for approval btw. Ha ha.
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Oh yeah, Desire for Approval Disorder, that’s definitely a product of either the System, or a product of being in academia too long, which is yet another System, the school system. Remember who designed public schools. The government, who knows better than its constituents, that divides us according to whom it decides is okay, and who among us is not. Psychiatry has been a useful tool for a century now, to scour off the scum of society, and eliminate it, imprison it, delete it, send it into exile, torture it, experiment on it, or correct its sinful ways. Shall we continue to seek approval from such leaders who are in the business of segregating, dividing, and killing? Or shall we approve and embrace ourselves, right now?
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Being the daughter of a clergy member also can lead to an unhealthy desire for approval. I was an unusual kid. Mom was obsessed on appearing “normal” and not “acting weird!” Unfortunately, the more I focused on not being weird the weirder I got!
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What still surprises me about anti-psychiatry movement is its absolute, total, unwavering pacifism and legalism. Had anyone ever thought about forceful and combative – and illegal – resistance to atrocious legal violence of psychiatrists? Say, about creating armed groups that will prevent taking people into mental asylums against their will, or attack these asylums and release imprisoned people? Since, as for now, all anti-psychiatrists do is a combination of symbolic protest, alternative education and creation of communities parrallel to the system. These are good deeds, no doubt, but they do not change the fact that countless people are tortured, RIGHT NOW, and all their alleged advocates and protectors can do is to beg the system to change itself (a very unlikely perspective in a foreseeable future).
Not a single thought like that? Ever? Yet, you know, with all the fast change of society we are facing – the fall of current establishment and so on – we can soon face a genuine revolutionary situation. Would we use it or miss it? This is the question.
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I think we need to do a grassroots nonviolent method, but this has to be unified and well-organized. We can be extremely passionate about what we do without using violence. Art, music, writing, and poetry are extremely dangerous to them, yet these are nonviolent means. Freedom of speech scares the heck out of them. Our pens are incredibly dangerous. Our stories are so powerful. I’d say far more powerful, telling the truth of our experience, than any physically violent means out there. The truth will unlock the doors. The truth can be understood by all, it is simple, it is the elephant in the room
No one should be locked up simply for asking for help. Is that enough?
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I have my own idea on fighting “stigma” against folks like us.
The real stigma makers, the Stigma Kings who directly profit from causing mainstream people to hate and fear us are the psychiatrists right?
What we need is to use stigma ourselves–to twist the stigma back to where it belongs. On the psychiatrists themselves!
We need to attack their integrity, their character, and their bungling ignorance.
It’s hard to convince people we’re not clones of Norman Bates. But it’s easier to convince them shrinks are a bunch of lying quacks. Once people quit listening to shrinks, having them accept us will come easier.
It is, after all, the shrinks who go around maligning our characters, telling people we’re all cold blooded killers. Cause only They can understand “sick” people like us.
Two can play at that game!
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But, Julie, though our pens may be powerful they are rarely if ever seen by the broader public. The mainstream publication feature article after article about this or that new drug, how wonderful the `new’ ECT is, how tragic mental illness can be, the wonder of psychiatric research etc etc etc. But Robert Whitaker’s books are not found in the popular bookshops when Jeff Biederman’s and Allan Frances’ are. Our art is seen in `exhibitions by mental patients’ and if someone has a mainstream gallery gig, they are advised not to advertise their `mental illness’ though bipolar might get a mention at a pinch, Van Gogh and all that. Where, other than MIA will you see an article like this, Time Magazine, Washington Post, New York Times, London Times? You will see exposes on prison conditions, orphanages and slums. Occasionally, usually during a `Mental Health Week’ there will be a program about psych wards. The voices will be the psychiatrist, the nurses and a couple of carefully coached patients who aren’t drugged rigid and drooling (they’re hidden behind locked doors), who are so dazed and compliant they look as if they’ve just had ECT. The public nods and says `see, it’s all under control.’ And it is, psychiatry has the ear of government, the press and the people.
Two days ago I had a medical emergency and had to go the the ER. The only room they has was a cell with a chair in it. It was run down with peeling paint , a TV high on the wall, a fresh gouge in the edge of the door. I must have looked wary or something because the nurse apologised and said, as if that excused it, because it was the `psych room’. When I said that it was a shame that a `psych room’ was so like a cell and it might be a good idea to put a picture or some colour on the wall. He said `that might be too stimulating.’ I did remark that if I was disturbed enough to be here this room would increase my distress, but that was carefully ignored. After a short while they came to take me to a medical CUBICLE divided from the rest of the ward only by a curtain, not a locked door, and said, `we’ll take you somewhere better now.’
My point is that it was okay to put someone with `a medical illness like any other’ in a cell and a door locking them away from the rest of the ward. The action and attitude was that NO, `mental illness’ is NOT `an illness like any other’, and may not partake of `normal’ treatment in a `normal’ milieu, it must be separated and locked in a cell.
It was depressing to know that in 2017, nothing has got better than it was in the days of the old loony bin where I worked in the 1970s, separate, different and shameful. Indeed it’s worse now because the separation happens in the middle of normality, emphasising the difference and shame.
Maybe it IS time for physical action but that will also be seen as the actions of the sick and unlike other protests, ALL the protesters will be locked up. That’s why, Vortex, there is no violent action and probably never will be.
I’ve taken a break from writing against psychiatry lately, I’m discouraged because protest just disappears into the ether. Psychiatry can buy space in newspapers, in bookstores and on TV, psychiatrists can bribe the government, an MD, DPsych and money will always overcome truth.
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Dee, passion is free. I think we need to focus on what won’t take money since of course the Establishment has so much more! Yeah, the paid ads, and those that do the testimonials….ugh, yeah and they’re even doing “training sessions” for patients, telling them how to present themselves for the media.
I can only say to that, “Hey, I think my 34 years as prisoner was enough, I need no more training.” I recall a recent response to that was, “Well we want a unified voice.” This sure sounds like a red flag right there.
I applied to blog for an organization but they turned me down, saying “we know you are telling the truth, but we hire you, young people will decide against going to treatment.”
I guess they put their feet right into their mouths there.
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Here’s a great idea for stigma reduction. All these “sane” folks who patronize us could self identify as mentally ill.
Let the psychiatric professionals fight stigma by wearing t-shirts with mental illness diagnoses.
Sure you don’t actually have “bipolar 2” inscribed on your records as a life sentence. But even you, Nurse Rached, can help in stigma reduction by claiming you do. Just like in the movie Spartacus.
Wait! Where are you going? Don’t you want to fight stigma?
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You say: “Maybe it IS time for physical action but that will also be seen as the actions of the sick and unlike other protests, ALL the protesters will be locked up. That’s why, Vortex, there is no violent action and probably never will be.”
I never said that psychiatric patients should fight back alone. They should, via the antipsychiatry movement, ally themselves with other liberatory movements, organisations and communities – including anarchist ones, that, being ready to face the authorities in a combat, may (help to) form self-defense groups for the psychiatric patients, and actively participate in them, demonstating that not only people who are labelled “mentally ill” can forcibly resist the legal offensive violence of psychiatrists.
What I wanted to achieve here, by this initial comment of mine, is to show the dead end in which antipsychiatric movement is stuck for now – and propose an alternative which may be especially useful in the light of the general social unrest and upheaval that appear to be coming because of the recent “fall of the establishment”. When society becomes highly volatile and turbulent, it is the time for the liberatory movements like our to rise up and strike at the opressive authorities, psychiatric ones included.
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Vortex — Though it’s not your intent, this sort of talk on MIA plays into the hands of the system, and could jeopardize the site and people on it.
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I believe that if we examine other groups that were extremely effective, we see that they used nonviolent means to get what they wanted. They were persistent, and consistent with their message. Being well-organized is also important. I think one of the things we need to do on the ideological side is to simplify the backbone argument so that it is easily explained. We shouldn’t have to get out charts and graphs and academic textbooks. We should be able to explain this to taxpayers, laypeople, and even those who have had no exposure to the system. Why should the layperson (person with no prior exposure) care deeply about this issue?
Secondly, we need to make very specific and practical demands. These, I believe, and each demand could even be locally focused. The demands would be backed by our clear and simple and self-evident ideology. Then, I think we would increase in numbers, so many the structure and powers that currently exist would lose money, lose power, lose all public and taxpayer support, and be forced to give in.
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Julie — important question — who would you make those demands TO?
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Oldhead, Let’s look at a demand that was narrowed down well enough and worked well.
The problem was segregation. Well this was the idea. The idea is clear and simple. Easy to understand why it is something to object to. But how to tackle it?
Segregation had to be dismantled, but couldn’t be dismantled in one blow. So it was taken down as a house might be taken down beam by beam. “We object to segregation on the bus.” This was then narrowed down to “Segregation on the bus system in Montgomery, Alabama.” This was now a focused effort. A set number of people could now do this, organize, and plan a strike in Montgomery.
Furthermore, at this time, the SCLC was set up, and amazingly fast, too. The organization was ready-made. Amazing that the churches were already there, already organized, already had trained leaders, too. A church community is a perfect number of people, so the number of people were subdivided to ensure the numbers were not too large so as to be unmanageable.
To get folks motivated, within each church community, this, too, was a ready-made situation. The churches had their passion already within the gospel, which….and is relevant to us all…this had been the music of the slaves. Directly passed on and passed on through the genrations, now motivating folks to fight segregation and fight for human rights.
So can we use this motivation, this passion we had within us when we were slaves, locked up in nuthouses years ago, to fight right now what we rightfully deserve?
We were slaves…We cannot let this go on. May no more be locked up as we were. We know that locking people up is wrong. Can we do this? Can we end this imprisonment once and for all?
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We can make a damn good try but it requires a disciplined and long range strategy.
Do you have a relatively secure email or other way to contact you?
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Oldhead I have a contact me page on my blog which is at juliemadblogger dot com. I have been blogging almost daily for about 13 years.
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Julie, below you mention the stuggle of the blacks for their freedom from the legal segregation and discrimination. This struggle was far from being peaceful: beside the relatively pacifist types like MLK (I call his pacifism “relative” because he, in fact, preferrred to have armed bodyguards nearby him), there were many combative, militant people and groups, such as Malcolm X, Black Liberation Army, Black Panthers and so on. The role of their armed struggle cannot and should not be underestimated – it is the horror of the massive violent uprising that made authorities to give up and accept demands of peaceful wing of Black Liberation movement (represented by people like MLK).
No matter how unpleasant it would be for some to hear, it is a hard historical fact: never, not for a single time in history, liberation was achieved by peaceful methods only; the liberatory efforts always included violent resistance – a defensive violence that is necessary to counteract the offensive violence of the opressors. Without it, the words of the peaceful protesters would continue to be ignored by the authorities. Powerful ones can only notice others, and talk to them seriously, when faced with a threat of active forceful resistance, not just a passive symbolic protest.
Of course, pure violence not accompanied by peaceful methods is as ineffective as a total pacifism. Only a diversity of tactis – a combination of peaceful protest and militant resistance – can be fruitful.
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Yes, Vortex. There are limits to our Second Amendment rights. Talking about breaking certain laws (civil disobedience) is usually legal. Breaking them is not.
Advocating a peaceful overthrow of the American Government is legal. The hippies often did this.
Advocating a violent overthrow is a crime! It counts as treason. Please remember this. I don’t want you to get arrested and it won’t help our cause either.
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FeelinDiscouraged, I, being an anarchist, has visited countless anarchist sites that openly advocated armed struggle against the state and violent overthrow of the goverment. Many of these sites practiced such advocacy for many, many, many years, and yet neither their owners nor the authors of pro-militancy texts were persecuted by authorities.
One should understand that state and goverment, despite its apparent power, is, in fact, ridiculously weak. Its laws are just empty proclamations, still having any effect only because a notable part of the population is still blindly “law-abiding” and thus allows itself to be exploited by the power elite. The day it will dawn on them that the “law” is just an expression of the powerful ones’ interests falsely presented as a “universal norm”, that they have been cynically used by their rulers, they will give up on “respectable citizenship” and rise up against the authorities en masse. It will be the last day of the goverment.
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I consider myself law-abiding even when I choose to break human laws that are unjust and wrong.
I firmly believe there are Higher Laws than those Washington issues. I obey those when Washington chooses to override decrees issued by my true Authority. Otherwise I obey the laws of the land.
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You were expecting us to propose overthrowing the government? If so, easier said than done.
I personally don’t think anti-psychiatry restricted by legalism. After all, “insanity” itself has been legislated a legal designation. There has been some talk on this site about civil disobedience and ‘underground railroading’, and these are certainly not matters that would keep all our activities open, above ground, and circumscribed by any unjust law, and legal system.
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Psych isn’t even legal…I don’t see them doing things legally really. Inconsistencies everywhere they just don’t talk about.
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Frank have you checked your email? It’s important.
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Just checked, OldHead, and sent off a reply. Eager to hear more. Thanks.
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FeelinDiscouraged, Vortex,
Is good to have a plan. That the plan takes years to follow is okay.
“Underground” has its place. “Play normal” & go public at times has it place too.
All that can help. Some people can do the “Plan A”. Some believe more at “Plan B”. Some are lost. And some just follow the trends.
Anyway, Vortex raised a good point: why are the “sheep so sheepish” (passive/ willing to go to the inevitable slaughterhouse (follow the rules/ laws/ other sheep)?
The answer to that is likely complicated, and i do not pretend to have that answer… yet.
…………………
We… the sheep, are divided. That is a problem… the dificulty to unite us. And the dificulty to keep us united. There are reasons for that. And of course… the Wolves (pharma/ APA/ psychiatrists/ nurses/ and the big group of the remaining parasites… know that simple and important rule: “divide to conquer”.
Yet… some sheep think that are “very smart”, that they need zero plans, that “talk is the way to go”. Like the music: “Dont worry… be happy”.
Even when someone has the courage figth the wolves… the sheep dont care, do not help that person.
Some even say… no leader is needed.
…………………
Some even say: the sheep should no target the individual “wolf”.
No?!
But the wolves did… and DO… target the sheep!
Wolves like:
Emil Kraepelin (1856–1926), Germany.
Eugen Bleuler (1857–1940), Switzerland.
Edwin Fuller Torrey (born 1937- ), USA.
Nancy Coover Andreasen (born 1938- ), USA.
Allen Frances (born 1942- ), USA.
Jeffrey Alan Lieberman (born 1948- ), USA.
Joseph Biederman; USA (hides the the born time, “the angel”. Is the well know bipolar drugs pusher).
Are those Wolves genious? No!
Now, what works in real life?
Who has the power? The wolves do.
Sorry if this seems hard to read… but many sheep seem: “lobotomized”.
Those sheep: cannot think, cannot make good decisions, cannot see their own mistakes.
Seems harsh? Sorry.
Who cares?
Is the R-E-A-L-I-T-Y, Mr. Sheep & Mrs Sheep.
Why we are so many… and yet… we the sheep have done so little?
…………………
Some sheep are so stupid that say: “force does not solve anything”.
Well… wolves say: “force has solved more problems during history than anything else”.
“Force” is a dirty word? “Power” is a dirty word? “Action” is a dirty word?
Some sheep like those nice words:
a) “HOPE”.
b) “PITY”.
c) “COMPLAIN”.
d) “ACCEPT”.
e) “FORGET”.
f) “GIVE UP.
g) “happy pills/ weed/ beer/ facebook/ chat/ LCD tv screens/ the Simpsons/ Trump tweets”.
…………………
All persons can help. Just dont be sheep and dont expect it will be easy.
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We have experienced repeated abuse we were powerless against.
That does encourage passive, helpless behavior.
Ever heard of the “slave mentality”? This is sometimes perceived as a slam on blacks. But it’s actually a term for a social phenomenon.
Keep a group of people powerless and dependent on you alone. Claim sovereignty over them. Mind, body, and soul.
Abuse them every way possible, but tell them you’re their only friend cause no one else likes them. And they’re zeroes without you–helpless to care for themselves.
Even when the people break free by some miracle they’ll still consider themselves slaves. The final frontier for freedom is our own minds–ironically.
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The metaphor, illustrated in literature is the caged bird who is freed, then flies back into the cage. Is it habit? Is it a feeling of safety or familiarity? Or the only world the bird knows? Is it where the food and water are? Is it where the bird feels nurtured? Does he call the cage home?
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Sounds like my pet cockatiel. He perceives his cage as his nest.
Sometimes he’s had opportunities to escape, but never takes advantage of them. I’m glad, because I’d miss the little guy.
After his avian vet told me he should spend at least 2 hours per day outside his cage I tried to follow her orders. Sometimes it’s a struggle convincing him to come out.
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So, force does not work… ?
https://qz.com/948440/violence-against-journalists-shut-down-el-norte-de-ciudad-juarez-newspaper-in-mexico/
Title: “ADIÓS; Reporting is so dangerous in Mexico that a 27-year-old newspaper is shutting down”. By Ana Campoy.
Quote: “Violence against journalists in Mexico put a newspaper in the border city of Juárez out of print.
The owner of Norte de Ciudad Juárez, a regional daily with circulation numbers of about 30,000, wrote in an April 2 editorial (link in Spanish) that he’s unwilling to sacrifice the lives of any more of his staff, or his own, to keep the paper running. Neither the guarantees, nor the security to do critical journalism that acts as a counterweight exist,” wrote Oscar Cantú.”
………….
Killing a few journalists “worked”. I have mentioned this before, at MIA.
Mexico is near enough of the USA, folks?
Juárez (the city of the closed newspaper), is at the USA border.
Distance is: about 5 Km of Fort Bliss (USA), and distance is: about 3km of Socorro (USA)
Take note: i am not advocating going that far.
But… was brute force needed to end Hitler days?
At those days there were also “european sheep”, like: Neville Chamberlain.
link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain
Quote: “Chamberlain, in common with most Allied officials and generals, felt the war could be won relatively quickly by keeping economic pressure on Germany”.
That idiot (Neville Chamberlain), saw Hitler making his moves… but did not saw the World War II coming. There is the consensus that Neville Chamberlain “talking & hoping for the best” almost made the whole Europe speak german.
“Talk to Hitler”. “Make settlements with Hitler”… Oh yeah 🙂
The luck of Europe was Winston Churchill… that saved the day.
Hated by many… Churchill did…. what he had to do.
Neville Chamberlain… talked.
Winston Churchill… showed service.
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I don’t think it’s necessary to identify oneself as a torture-endurer to advocate for better treatment of the human race by psychiatric enforcers. I think it’s better not to. You’re dealing with brainwashees who have not left the field despite knowing all about its wrongs. I’d go so far as to say they are enthusiasts, if they’ve stayed with it more than a month or so. They don’t believe it’s possible for a former victim to recover from the fictitious “brain disease” whose name that was attached to them at some point and put them in harm’s way in the first place. They’ll humor you to a degree but they will not regard you as an expert nor consider your descriptions of your experiences as anything other than unfortunate rare events to be heard and forgotten, or more typically, confabulations or lies.
Status as a former focus of psychiatric attention can open doors, but entering the system as a patient advocate who is not and never has been subject to the abuses of the system affords an equal footing with other personnel, and means they have to offer reasons for rejecting your suggestions and failing to answer your questions.
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BetterLIfe, It seems like it completely depends on the individual situation. In general undoubtedly the position of “advocate” had best stay silent. However, there is a clear difference between “advocate” and “activist.” An advocate can range from “access to treatment” folks, or “patient advocates” such as folks who help you choose the “right” doctor. An activist in the antipsychiatry realm focuses on human rights, and might speak out against force. . You might be working with attorneys, or making a lot of calls to your legislators. Then, identifying as past patient won’t ruin your credibility.
You might be both, too, but there can be conflicts between roles. It would present many difficulties.
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That said, Stephen is so brave to be doing what he is doing, and I am amazed…I love hearing the reports. You are so strong. I can’t imagine how you do it.
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People are free to make their own decisions about publicly revealing their personal status, however whether people are “out” or not, it’s important to have a movement which is DIRECTED by those who have faced the system’s wrath 1st hand. This should NOT be focused on systematized roles such as “patient advocate,”
which is basically advocating that people see themselves as “patients.” If this addresses anything you’re getting at.
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Looking back on history, people who assisted people in escaping the Nazis were called Holocaust Rescuers. They were breaking the law (the Nazi law) and risking their lives and safety. They were later thought of as heroes. Many later wrote books on their experiences. I remember one I read. This was written by a woman who stated that she did this out of common sense, feeling that she had to do what she knew was right. This speaks to the fact that human rights are self-evident.
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Julie,
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/30/europe/joseph-goebbels-secretary-dies/index.html
Quote 1: “Brunhilde Pomsel worked as Goebbels’ secretary from 1942 until the end of the war, when she was captured by Soviet forces.”
Quote 2: “Last year, Pomsel spoke publicly for the first time about her experiences working for the Nazi regime and her three years as Goebbels’ secretary. Her story was turned into the critically acclaimed film, “A German Life.”
In the film, she expressed no remorse for her actions. “I wouldn’t see myself as being guilty,” she said. “Unless you end up blaming the entire German population for ultimately enabling that government to take control. That was all of us. Including me.”
(note:
that news is from this year: January 30, 2017)
So… she had the time (died at 106 years old). She the highest grade contact with the Nazi murderers of the time… until the very end.
Clearly… she should had been made a very nice hanged example at Nuremberg.
Not a nice person… but likely would passed the DSM-5 test and… “considered normal”.
Hope the Devil had a nice eternity with her.
Just imagine… how many psychiatrists do the same… profit/ profit/ profit.
One day they will get caugth. Then… thin excuses. Nothing more.
Who is more human? The hard evil type of Brunhilde Pomsel?
Or some dumb SZ that never hurted anybody?
———-
As for people with hopes that the HUMAN RIGTHS people, do help the SZ (and alikes)… that is theory. Seems intuitive, such nice people (the HUMAN RIGTHS people). Whe have similar goals, yes?
In practice (not mine, as i have yet to go to that path), in practice… i had reports it went the other way… instead of helping us… the HUMAN RIGTHS people, did nothing. Or WORSE. Yes. Worse.
Anyway… i can back it with the author of that information, if anybody asks. Will have to search a bit, but if it wasnt deleted from the net…
So, if anybody thinks the folks linked to generical “human rigths” can help… nice. Try yourself. And say how it went. Just dont have high hopes… And is better to do nothing than give them more weapons to hurt us.
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AntiP anyone can call themselves “Human Rights.” Who is paying them? Whom do they work for? On behalf of whom? Whose rights are they really protecting? If they claim to be protecting rights, look into whose rights, or the rights of whose money, and then, you’ll see if they are protecting your rights or working in your interest, or not.
If you want someone truly interested in human rights then look to an outside source or one who is not paid to remain partial or biased. Unfortunately these folks are hard to find.
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The Underground Railroad was run largely by a pacifistic religious group. The Quakers.
Their services were all pro bono. Fugitive slaves don’t have deep pockets.
Forget government certification. What they were doing was illegal. But very moral.
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Well, Julie…
to know for sure… sometimes can take decades, and sometimes can only be declared: not classified anymore (available for public/ certain clearances groups/ persons… or partial disclosure),… sometimes after 50 years, or after all people involved had died.
And you and me will died before another 50 years.
And during 50 years when something very dirty becomes public, and all the witness had died, all traces covered… who will know if the reality wasnt even darker? Envolving more people, higher ranked people, several governments, several countries, for several years/ decades?
I think at the USA “national security” umbrella is wide enough to cover all the truths if used early enough.
I think Nixon also wanted the things linked to watergate to become “secret of the sate”, and forbid any news about that, and get into prison to the funny honest people that did not agreed.
And again for Nixon… recently Robert Redford (from the movie about the watergate: men of the president), said the dear president DDT (aka trump), was worse than Nixon.
Where i live, we dont have much to choose. And to look (and find), who payed €€€ to Mrs. X… is a white burocrate crime… that gives the basic human rigth to go to… prison.
Enemy of the state 🙂
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A lot of people would side with us if we could convince them that the “treatments” are dangerous and ineffective. And that they reduce the odds of recovering from madness from 70% to say 15%.
If you went to a doctor for cancer treatments and he said, “I could leave you alone or refer you to a chiropractor so your odds of recovery would be 70%. Because the pain you have isn’t caused by bone cancer after all.
“But because your insurance will pay me more, I believe I’ll treat your ailments with interminable chemo sessions and some prolonged radiation therapy for good measure. You have a 15% chance of recovery this way, though you will be permanently disabled, disfigured, and die 25 years prematurely.”
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Ever notice in the corporate “cancer care center ads” how it seems most of the people who claim to be “cancer free” had their “treatment” less than 5 years ago?
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What point are you making about cancer recovery centers, Oldhead? I am curious.
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FeelinDiscouraged,
I think oldhead was “hinting” that those sel-proclaimed/ self-advertised/ center-advertised (as in to: sell something… books, interviews, or vanity or deny their iminent mortality), that are said “cancer-free”…
Thery arent.
I suppose each country has its owns statitics about cancer (Sweden cancer treatments are not the same as Nigeria cancer treatments.
What i think oldhead was pointing:
a) people who had cancer die earlier than the general population of the same age that never had cancer.
b) some people have cancer. Then then say:
1) “I am cancer-free”.
2) “I am a cancer survivor”. Then they get cancer a second time… (thus a lie, since that possibility was known from the start).
c) There is the “honeymoon phase” after cancer treatments. At that time may seem… all is well and merry.
Again, it depends with the: country/ type of cancer/ kind of treatment/ age of the person & his/her basic health prior to cancer/ how wise was the person was during/after the cancer treatment.
……………
As for well know “cancer survivors”, several had/will publish books… and died/ will die a few years after. And the books continued to sell to this day. One example:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anticancer-New-Life-David-Servan-Schreiber/dp/0718156846/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Title: “Anticancer: A New Way of Life”
Author: David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D, is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
See? No shame. No mention the psychiatry dude died of cancer at the Amazon publicity (at the UK or the USA site).
……………
Now, lets look at the wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Servan-Schreiber
David Servan-Schreiber (April 21, 1961 – July 24, 2011)
There is no doubt: he died of brain cancer.
He died with 50 years & 3 months.
He wrote the book “Anticancer” at 2007. Died at 2011.
Survivor?!
No, but he did made money, as a psychiatry and then promoting cures. And “his cure” did not worked for him.
The shame is this: he was not exposed as the fraud he was and is.
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AntiP,
As one who has unfortunately recently received the “C” diagnosis, I greatly appreciate this post. Even though I normally have good BS radar detectors, I still know I need to be extremely cautious during an extremely vulnerable time.
So I thank you for writing this and I thank Oldhead for his post about the cancer care center ads.
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I’ll bear this stuff in mind in case I ever get the “C word” like many consumers/psych survivors do.
I actually read a book or article by a reputable doctor that said 50% of cancers go into spontaneous remission even without any treatment. This statistic would not apply to the metastisized kind.
Although I personally know a woman who had that kind; a fast-spreading variety. She totally recovered despite her terminally ill status. She had treatments but they were only supposed to buy her time. I think our prayers saved her.
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Thanks FD.
I find your statement about many psych survivors getting cancer interesting. I will never be able to prove anything but I feel being on psych meds long caused mysterious sleep issues that never gave me a feeling of restorative sleep. That couldn’t have helped my immune system. So I do feel there was an indirect correlation but again, who knows?
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AA — While I would NEVER suggest how you deal with your situation, which would make me a quack, I suggest two alternate perspectives for you to check out. One is a book written by an “intuitive healer,” Andreas Moritz, titled “Cancer Is Not A Disease, It’s a Survival Mechanism.” (He recently died, but not from cancer.) The other is a website called “The Doctor Within.” His politics suck, which is concerning I agree, but here’s the link to the cancer section: http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/cancer/to-the-cancer-patient/
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Unfortunately, I am unable to read books for various reasons but I did go to the doctorwithin website and found it very interesting. So thanks for mentioning it.
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Here’s a short summary by the author on You Tube shortly before his death:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U34qlN6LVk
Again this for informational purposes, I’m not pushing any particular school of thought on this. But it should be understood that anyone who has ever come up with helpful cancer treatments that did not involve big pharma have been relentlessly persecuted by the AMA and its tentacles as quacks.
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Thanks, I will take a look.
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Ronda said… “My Mental Health Aide took credit for the person I am today, stating that the mistreatment was intentional to motivate change. In a twisted way she is absolutely right. Terror has forever changed me.”
I read this piece a few days ago, and this particular bit has stayed with me. It resonates with my own experience in the 1990s. I was one of those ECT ‘miracle cure’ patients – jolted out of a severe manic ‘psychosis’ (soul emergency) back into my what passes for my right mind. From the outside, it looked like a triumph for psychiatry, but to me it felt like I was ‘cured’ by threat, brutality, coercion and punishment. As Ronda says, in a twisted way I really did experience a ‘miracle cure’ – Terror was the cure… it kept me the hell away from psychiatrists ever since, that’s for certain.
Just recently I came across this quote by Benjamin Rush, one of the founders of American Psychiatry… “Terror acts powerfully upon the body, through the medium of the mind, and should be employed in the cure of madness.”
And I thought – Yes, that’s it! That’s how they ‘cured’ me. Terror works, punishment works. I find it interesting that the early psychiatrists understood this so clearly and had no qualms about telling it like it is. If only they were half as honest in this day and age…
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Hey, Auntie, I wish I had been terrified much, much sooner. I was finally scared sh*tless after decades of their “safe and effective treatment,” straight out of the USA. Funny, my exodus away from them, and my tossing out of the lies they had taught me ended up curing me.
However, that is often how it works, I have since learned.
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On the “terror cure” — Note that the “cure” for “drapetomania” (the compulsion of slaves to escape) was a severe beating.
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The terror for me came as I watched my sister deteriorate in the system.
Then when my own diagnosis came, I swore oath to NEVER let them have me. I complied – but I did everything in my power to stay out of the Institution. To control my own treatment.
I suspect that the price she paid – and my terror – are contributors to my good condition now.
I’m sorry Julie, that you complied as long as you did.
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Well the cool thing is, JanCarol, while I did indeed comply, and in fact I was known for being excellent at my compliance, I also now have a huge library in my memory that I can use any time I want. I have an endless supply of writing material. Oh they hate that!!! They hate that i keep coming up with more stories from the nuthouse……..
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Good onya Julie for turning a nightmare into a weapon!
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You also pose a threat to the Psych System because you don’t fit their stereotypical trope that they love to trot out at NAMI meetings and similar cultish assembles.
You know. The “Typical Consumer With Agnosognosia.” Who wakes up one bright sunny morning just a few months after hospital discharge and now feels like a kid on Christmas Day every morning because of all those wonderful “medicines” they’re taking. (Ha ha!!!)
Despite how this consumer’s life is now magically coming together again, this wrong-headed fool says, “Gee. Because I now feel so wonderful ALL THE TIME and no longer have ANY PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER I guess I no longer need my medications!”
Under the crazy delusion that the pills do not have magical properties and his kind, wise psychiatrist is not God Almighty the misguided consumer takes to hiding the safe and effective medicine in the silverware drawer. Gasp! Clutch pearls!! Swoon!!! Of course things can only go downhill from there….
(They always hide it in a drawer for some reason. Stupid if you ask me. Flushing it down the toilet or burying it under several layers in your garbage makes it harder to find and prove how “naughty” you were.)
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AA,
http://www.nasmhpd.org/sites/default/files/Mortality%20and%20Morbidity%20Final%20Report%208.18.08.pdf
This PDF is from 2006, but discriminates between the % of diseases of persons with mental problems (that affected the USA folks). So… even than 10 years passed, you get a idea of what are the probabilities of the disease… that in the end… will kill you.
………………………….
As for having cancer, is not the end of the world. Sure… it shakes your life, sometimes changes deeply a person priorities.
Over the years i seen several people had different types of cancer.
From what i seen: most people consider the cancer:
a) their enemy;
b) something to cut out/ put x-ray over it, or use heavy chemoterapy;
c) sometimes a disease something to hide from others (shame);
d) sometimes a person with cancer hangs to the hope to live… beyond any good sense.
………………………….
Disclaimer (not for any respect about: doctors/ FDA/ fear of giving medical advice), but because in the end of the day… the choices/ responsabilities are yours.
That said… cancer is a part of you, growed from your cells. Something caused it. Try to find what. If you feel that cancer part lost all its natural “good humor”, maybe is time to say good bye to them.
And when you have recovered enough (some terapies, even some vitamins, are not allowed during the convencional medical treatment),… you may want to change your way of: thinking, eating, living… and your goals in life.
………………………….
And in the sligth chance… you are willing to “think out of the box”… i would say, consider:
1) “to improve your immunity”;
2) “to reduce foods/ emotions/ things (in general) that weaken your immunity power.
Number 2) has a lot of info available, i think.
………………………….
As for number 1)… is maybe possible some supplements improve your immunity. To look for info about it… there is a good site (if money is no obstacle… they sell the state of art book about supplements). Part of the info is free… you get a idea of what to expect.
Link:
https://examine.com
………………………….
Look at figure 3 (page 5), of this PDF:
http://www.klaipedosmedus.com/uploads/2/0/5/9/20595306/am_j_clin_nutr-1973-sanchez-1180-4.pdf
Think!
Then ask your doctor if there is anything available to improve your immunity?
You will at the PDF… that certains “so-said-healthy-foods”… weaken your immunity. And fasting for 36 hours improves it. I doubt you will find someting more effective (if you health allows it).
On the other hand, as you may already know… after beeing treated for cancer… you may have reduced immunity (a little reduced, or a lot reduced… depends), for the rest of your life. Think.
Again… meee-noooo-doctorrrr, you have ALL the power.
………………………….
(lack of sleep is tricky… the sleep pills are only to be used for 3 weeks (or so). Pills are not the answer for “sleep” (unless you want to suicide). Good luck.)
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Yep, a lot of my friends who survived cancer are now facing “unexplained” auto-immune problems, or fibro, which as far as I’m concerned means “the doctor doesn’t know or is lazy or doesn’t care, so he’s calling it that just to make you happy you have a diagnosis.”
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I have to add: a lot of my friends who survived psych drugs are now facing unexplained anti-immune and metabolic problems.
They claim there is a diagnostic test for fibro being developed here in Queensland – however – the treatments always seem to be the same: amitryptaline, Lyrica, or Neurontin. So what good is a diagnosis?
Even “adrenal fatigue” is a more specific moniker than “chronic fatigue,” but doctors don’t like that one.
In fact, I would call autoimmune disorders “epidemic.” We must be doing something wrong if so many people have these symptoms. Probably toxic load from industry, factory farming, “food” that isn’t food, and pills for everything.
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People who have used psych drugs long term also have these issues. I had some for a while from withdrawal.
Better now after going off nearly all that crappy cocktail. Still weak physically and tired more than healthy people.
I have had a recurring problem with really deep cysts requiring surgery. Seems common with “bipolar” label. My guess is it’s related to Abilify or some other drug. Waiting to see if the cysts come back now.
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Thanks AntiP,
Regarding sleep, it is not an issue of not sleeping. I have mysterious narcoleptic like sleep issues that I have been unable to resolve in spite of trying everything under the sun. Seeing a sleep doc out of my area in a few weeks who hopefully can help.
I feel like I am not getting any type of restorative sleep on my bipap machine. I feel this is a crucial part of the problem that needs to be resolved because without good sleep, healing can’t take place.
I am working on eliminating all sugar. I still have a weakness for low fat hot chocolate but use coconut oil in it to maintain some type of ketogenic effect. Otherwise, I don’t eat any carbs.
Thanks for the examine.com site as that is very informative.
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Yeah AA, a lot of us ended up with narcolepsy from the drugs. Long term use leads to inability to sleep. And none of the pat answers help. Please be very careful that the doc doesn’t just send you back to a psych. I tried to get in wiht a doc but I had a feeling he was going to default to a sleep apnea diagnosis, and then put me on a machine I know I don’t need. So I canceled the appointment. I want to try to get directly to a sleep specialist but seems you cannot. You can’t seem to bypass the shrink.
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I have delayed trying marijuana because I am afraid it will rekindle the binge eating aspect of my eating disorder. I am considering various other things still. I find yoga tedious and meaningless and it actually reminds me too much of therapy abuse. Even vigorous exercise does not seem to improve my sleep, although I enjoy running very much. I run both outdoors and on a treadmill and I love pretending to be competitive.
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One thing that DOES help is sleeping with my dog. Anyone else find that this helps? My friend obliterated her nightmares that way. I laugh and tell myself if I ever had a sleep study, my dog’s snoring would get picked up on the monitor and i’d get diagnosed with apnea. Then, who would go on the machine, me or her? Or would i use the machine for a coat hanger or sell it for a price on ebay?
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My precious cat Allie (who departed this realm on Christmas Eve, from which I’m still slowly recovering) always seemed attuned to my health and emotions, maybe because her survival depended on mine, maybe purely out of love. Anyway sometimes when I would try to relax and bring down my pulse/BP I would sort of surrender to the sound of her lying next to me purring, which would put me in touch with her breathing rhythm and help me calm down.
That sleep apnea thing stirs my own bs detector. I think learning about diaphragmatic breathing (via yoga or otherwise) would help many people with this.
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Hey Oldhead (ran out of reply buttons) – I too wonder what it is about modern humans that by the time we are 60, 1/3 of us have to be hooked up to a breathing machine in order to sleep.
My own research points to a couple of things. The apnea is caused by a collapsing of the airways. Collagen is one factor, sleep paralysis is another. I’m not sure how to boos the collagen, but sleep paralysis is aided by optimizing Hormone D (it’s not a vitamin).
The yoga exercises for sleep apnea are ujayyi (snake – hissing) breath combined with alternate nostril breathing. This strengthens the muscles around the esophagus and affords better control. Also – any exercise that strengthens the muscles of the neck would help. I just had this discussion with a friend about why weight makes apnea. It’s the weight of the fat. Developing supporting musculature would help.
Diaphragmatic breathing is essential for good health – but the apneas seems to be about the neck.
As with all proper healing – it’s not just “do one thing” and it eliminates the problem. It seems to be a management issue. (I sleep next to a CPAP machine – my husband had a stroke in his sleep due to apnea – so it is a serious problem!)
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I heard the machine is ADDICTING, and once you start using it you become dependent, so dependent you cannot live without it. Anyway I am skinny so I highly doubt I have sleep apnea. Besides, back in 2013 those abusive 1:1 people would have complained if I had snored (if I even slept while they sat there next to me breathing down my neck….) i don’t wake up out of breath, I am not gasping, etc. Definitely not! That would be a sign of it. I don’t gasp. I run 5k regularly and I have no lung problems, so……At 59, I should be darned proud of myself.
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Julie, this is true. There are few or no stories of people who lost the weight and came off their CPAP. There are people who “quit treatment” because they couldn’t tolerate the mask – but for people who were getting good sleep on them, once you adjust to them, you need it.
Like a drug, it can (and will) “poop out” and need the pressure adjusted – ever higher and higher. Like a p-doc with drug doses, they never bring the pressure down.
Hubby struggles with this – he resists all upward pressure changes – but when I am hearing his apneas in the night, I insist on an increase. I hate it – but – it’s better than another stroke (and he won’t do the yoga). He is now doing his own adjustments – like AA – instead of paying to ask for help and getting new studies all the time. But – that machine will likely be there “for life.”
There’s something wrong with this model, but I don’t see a way out of it for him. And he totally isn’t even looking for it – his sleep is good – he feels good, so will continue treatment. And I sleep next to a freight train.
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Oldhead, let me offer my condolences on the loss of Allie. From one cat lover to another.:(
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janCarol, I believe you. My friend ended up with the same thing, she had a stroke out of the blue. However, I don’t have sleep apnea, and I don’t want people who have never met me diagnosing me online. I dont’ know why people do these online scare tactics, I seriously resent it. Sometimes I think people waste energy wishing and hoping complete strangers get deathly sick when in fact they know nothing about their state of health. It is projecting. I don’t know why people do that online.
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Hey Julie – I am not “diagnosing.”
Just indicating that it can be serious. And that it’s better to know than not.
I know that a lot of people in the “survivor” category often refuse to go to doctors of any type. I understand this – it’s like having tea with your perp.
But I like to believe we are stronger now, and can advocate for ourselves through the maze that is “treatment.”
No, I would never submit to psychiatry again. I will definitely ask a lot of questions and seek 2nd and 3rd opinions if I’m ever up for surgery again. And it is harder work – to parse out what is treatment and what is profit, in the current medical model.
But I do find the diagnostics of the docs useful, even if I ignore their recommendations. (ironic note – because I skipped a year of mammograms, the doctor now has me down as “radiophobic.” EGADS.)
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I never once said to stop using the machine, JanCarol. In fact, what I did say was that the machine is addictive and once you start it you have to stay on it. I’m very aware of this. I never would tell a person to stop using it, nor did I say that, nor did I tell your friend to stop, nor am I responsible for your friend’s death. I know in my heart that it is overdiagnosed, that many of us are drug damaged and do not have need for a machine, nor have breathing problems and we’re on this site due to damage from chemicals, not from breathing problems, though of course crossover is possible. Again, not once did I encourage anyone to stop using the machine. I just said apnea is overdiagnosed. There is a difference. Don’t blame ME for your friend’s death. I’m sorry it happened but please don’t take it out on me. I didn’t cause it.
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Whoa Julie, I didn’t come after you at all.
I think you’re talking to AA.
I agree that it is an industry, but it is worse for me when hubby doesn’t use his noisy CPAP, when I lie awake listening to see if he’s breathing.
I also agree about the addiction thing – once you start treatment, like anything, homeostasis seems to set in and the only way to keep it working is to adjust it up, just like a benzo. I don’t know ANYone who – once treated successfully on them – has gotten off.
I do, however, know that many people with apneas can be treated with Vitamin D – as it affects the sleep paralysis balance of sleeping. See Stasha Gominek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF24xmJQK1k
Sorry you felt attacked.
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Yes there is a connection between psych drugs and fractures also. Risperdal causes raised prolactin which ends up lowering estrogen. So that’s another one for your physical therapist. And I broke my leg due to Risperdal. I also had a sprain from Trileptal. This is due to a common side effect (this I blogged about in 2011) which is ankle and wrist weakening. It’s called Ataxia. This is one of the most common side effects. Many drugs cause ataxia and it’ll make you sway on your feet and make you seem to have lousy balance and you might fall. Of course my shrink denied it. This is what your phys therapist is seeing. No surprise there. Double vision? That too. Seizures. Yep. Oh wait, let’s not forget enlarged heart chambers, unwanted weight gain and early death. What do you get when you go to a shrink?
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Actually Julie, I do sleep but at the wrong times and it ends up very fragmented. My sleeping pattern resembles irregular sleep wake disorder although it isn’t quite the same thing.
Instead of one block of sleep time, I have several. The hours of sleep are normal but the patterns are definitely not.
Can you tell me more about your sleep issues? I am very curious.
Hmm, I have never had any problem getting a direct appointment with a sleep doc. Unfortunately, the ones I have seen haven’t been helpful but that is another discussion.
How do you encounter a shrink when trying to make an appointment with sleep specialist? Again, I am curious.
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Yeah I can’t really talk about it but I have tried making calls. Most sleep centers ONLY treat apnea. This is because most severe cases are apnea. They say people have it and don’t realize it. They’re very closed-minded and will hear nothing else. I am positive I do not have it. Also, they’ll insist if you keep telling them you don’t sleep, they’ll say it is “paradoxical.” Many do have that, but that’s easy to tell with a sleep tracker. I tried that, used several, and found I really was not sleeping. Barely at all, nor during the day except nodding off into mini-sleeps, only momentarily, not actual sleep, but for a few seconds here and there. I now control the mini-sleeps with caffeine but I found other things such as cacao (plain, not chocolate) work better. This concentrates it all so you’ll only sleep at night. So now I actually get projects done. Now I can read!!! I can read a book and not fall asleep while reading. I can enjoy a bus ride and not nod off on the bus, and to me, after five years of very bad zombie-like suffering, I am overjoyed. I loved studying and taking classes and not being able to read stopped all that, and now I have that back and love reading again. Plus not nodding off is really a blessing.
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Oldhead,
As someone with sleep apnea, I have to respectfully disagree that sleep apnea is a bogus diagnosis. See this link:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sleep-apnea/basics/tests-diagnosis/con-20020286
The only thing they are wrong about is your O2 level doesn’t have to seriously drop to have sleep apnea.
And you do know that many people who turn out to have sleep apnea are misdiagnosed with the depression, right? If you stop breathing several times when you are sleeping, your quality of sleep is going to suck leading to being depressed.
Untreated apnea can also cause many other conditions like vehicle motor accidents. Would you want your loved one or you to be the victim of a driver with untreated apnea?
The skepticism you and Julie have is understandable though regarding many sleep doctors caring more about making a quick buck vs. helping their patients adjust to pap therapy. It doesn’t mean the diagnosis isn’t legitimate but the practices are pretty disgraceful.
Many people have found help on the apnea boards optimizing their therapy and no longer rely on their doctors. I am sure that doesn’t surprise you.
Finally, just you know, I have had a home study and two full-scale ones and they all came up with the diagnosis of moderate apnea. Pretty good odds this isn’t bogus.
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I don’t know really, it is just a hunch. Or it may be possibly overdiagnosed. One of my close relatives uses one of those machines at night so if I did the test they might say the same thing about me. My orientation is that the body wants to live and that maybe the problem is connected to some sort of psychological factor, like unconsciously holding one’s breath as part of some inner conflict or trauma. I just feel that if I stopped breathing in the middle of the night because of some unprocessed issue I would probably eventually surrender to the universe and allow my breath in again. Famous last words? 🙂
I guess that’s pretty shrinky-sounding for me, but I never denied the mind-body connection, just how it’s tortured and exploited to come up with notions such as “mental illness.”
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AA I do believe you. I just KNOW I do not have it. I am so afraid of going to this lung doctor knowing I don’t have sleep apnea, and getting yet one more incorrect dx. I am so frustrated being unable to get a direct appointment with a sleep doc. I recall at McLean, the entire sleep clinic was run by incompetent shrinks. 1999. Now that was a total joke. I went there once but didn’t need to. I had insomnia caused by a drug, Effexor, and they never figured it out and claimed it was “bad sleep hygiene.” They made me so messed up I ended up inpatient. Then I got out, fired my doc and the next doc figured out the drug caused it all.
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Actually, Oldhead, most people who really do have sleep apnea can’t breathe at night because fat in their necks blocks the airway. Or because of the neck position. Neck position causes snoring, which only partially blocks the airway. I notice that with Puzzle. If I change her neck position, she stops snoring. Simple remedies like changing your pillow can change everything. IF it’s that. Or losing weight. I hate the way 99% of doctors out there have a haughty attitude toward women. And I hate walking in there hiding my dirty little secret that I am a malpractice victim that NEVER even got justice. I can’t stand waiting rooms, I can’t stand looking at the suckers in there and I can’t stand seeing them literally worshiping the MD like the MD is god almighty. Makes me sick. Makes me think “Why don’t you think for yourself. Or can’t you? Why don’t you do your own research. Get a life.” I feel like walking out. And I never want to give the doc my money.
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We’re talking about two separate conditions here. Yes the CPAP has to be continued once it is started. Glasses actually may not. Later in life some people find their eyes improve. Or they get contacts. Going without them is a nuisance, but I’m not going to choke, lose oxygen, or have a stroke. I usually paw around and try to find where I put them!!
As for the sleep issues, these are two separate issues, drug damage is just not the same although you can have apnea but drug damage isn’t apnea. These are like apples and oranges. I’ve concluded that if you were on a gigantic cocktail and don’t have any evidence whatsoever of apnea it’s going to be a huge waste to go to a sleep clinic. i have phoned them, many, in several states. They set you up with a LUNG doctor, not a sleep specialist. They want to rule out apnea. And during the very first sleep study they even put a mask on you. And if you tell them you can’t sleep they give you drugs to make you sleep. So if you stop breathing ON DRUGS they claim you have apnea. This is their logic, their criteria. I couldn’t find ONE that set you up with a sleep specialist right off the bat except the local psych hospital. I’m not going there, of course. No psych.
My next course of action is to call a sleep center (no where near where I live) at random, and ask about a sleep study for DRUG DAMAGE (I will say it’s a friend) ans see if they’ve even heard of it. Is this really that hidden from the public if this many are affected? Dear FDA….Who is responsible? The drug companies or the irresponsible prescribers who put us on cocktails years ago? Where do we go with this? The media?
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Julie,
It is actually a myth that only overweight people have sleep apnea. I am thin and have it. You may very well not have it based on what you are saying but please don’t think that being thin prevents you from being a candidate for sleep apnea. It doesn’t and I would hate to discourage thin people on this board from getting an evaluation for sleep apnea if they thought they needed one.
As far as the machine being addicting, hmm, is wearing glasses addictive? What about wearing hearing aids?
Ah, “bad sleep hygiene”, the boilerplate response for blaming the patient for their sleep issues. On a related note, a former sleep doctor thought that sleep restriction therapy was the answer to my problems.
I responded by asking how that was going to happen if I fell asleep standing up against a wall trying to stay awake. She had no response.
I hear your frustrations in dealing with sleep docs and the lung docs and am sorry you are experiencing that.
JanCarol,
Where are you getting the information that people need higher pressures the longer they are on pap therapy? Many people on the apnea boards have slept with one continuous pressure through the years and haven’t had to change anything.
To make sure your husband’s therapy is completely optimized, he might want to download sleepyhead software which is free.
https://sleep.tnet.com/resources/sleepyhead
Hopefully, he has a machine that is compatible with it.
If you have any questions, there are software experts on these boards that can help:
http://www.cpaptalk.com
http://www.apneaboard.com
By the way, I would be very careful about raising the pressure without looking at data as that could cause central sleep apneas which you definitely don’t want.
What is wrong with this model if it is improving his life? Just because it is a conventional medical treatment doesn’t mean it is evil particularly since it doesn’t involve a drug.
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Too right, AA. Hubby was not overweight when he had his stroke – his doctor was completely flabbergasted – healthy 56 yo man. It was out of the blue (and it was sleep apnea).
Thanks for the resources.
What is wrong with needing a machine in order to sleep? Just that – there is a dependence there. What happens when the grid goes down? I do sleep better with the freight train than I did laying awake listening to him breathe, wondering when he will breathe next.
Seriously, Julie – hubby had a stroke due to sleep apnea. It’s worth getting over fear of doctors to find out – at least you will know how severe it is. You can always refuse treatment (most people do).
Additionally, if my Occupational Therapist and I are correct, and psych drugs strip us of collagen, it’s not unlikely that someone who has been on psych drugs could develop weakness in the throat muscles & connective tissue.
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JC,
As I mentioned before, would you consider being dependent on eyeglasses and hearing aids bad? What about someone who needs a wheelchair? Why would using a cpap machine be different?
You might want to google batteries and pap therapy in case the electricity goes out.
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My sister has never been fat. As a child she was slightly underweight. She developed apnea at age 4 after surgery for her cleft pallet. She suddenly could talk normally and quit speech therapy because they had nothing to teach her. 🙂
She never used or needed a C-pap. Her apnea got better over the years too. She still snores a bit as an adult though–slender as she is.
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Julie,
Regarding your situation, it sounded definitely like you don’t have sleep apnea. But you keep making the claims it is due to weight and when someone does that, I have to correct the person even if someone may think that is too overbearing.
Also, if someone has an anatomical throat structure that contributes to their sleep apnea, changing the pillow position is not going to solve the problem. And just because someone doesn’t snore does not mean they don’t have sleep apnea.
I haven’t seen the statistics but many people who lose weight still have sleep apnea probably due to their anatomical structure. So obviously, losing weight is a good thing but don’t expect it to cure your apnea.
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We have a forum going for those who do NOT have sleep apnea (it’s really obvious you guys) and whose sleep problems are definitely from drug damage. Go to the forums and then, go to psychiatric drugs. We have a long thread under Zyprexa but some of us took other cocktail shit. Also I am making a wordpress site for it, just to see how many exactly there are. I suspect thousands, but out of those, very few dare to admit it, or are even able to. I suspect of those affected, many have already committed suicide. So many people simply see no way out.
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And I’m wondering why the research, which undoubtedly has been done, has been so cleverly hidden.
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Hey Julie – actually there could be a connection between drugs and apnea. My occupational therapist and I were looking at why so many people on the psych drugs came up with tendon injuries. The occ therapist reckoned it was collagen. Other problems from collagen would include prolapses, apneas, and aging.
If you think about what the drugs do to digestion and endocrine, this actually makes sense (though I can’t prove it).
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Vortex,
Despite fears of some that your message would put MIA owners/site at risk…
What you just posted seems to point that in the USA (before TRUMP, knock on wood)
that is not likely…
Well… if we dont mess with the RIAA 🙂
Which migth be the case… if we start to post MP3 audio files of the young Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, saying things like: Prozac does not cause suicide hehe =)
………..
Anyway, my question:
Those sites (anarchist or related), worked? In the sense that they made something “they wanted/ figthed”… to happen? Things that lasted/ were worthy?
If so Vortex, do you think the tactics that worked (anarchist or related) can be used by the victims od DSM?
If yes… can you point a couple of links of those “effective” sites.
I dont know about other MIA posters… but i do want to know/see waht worked. And see if i can use it to help the victims of DSM, or to prevent further damages.
So, Vortex, when you can, do your part. Post the links.
Then i can have some fun 🙂
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I didn’t know you were here to “have fun,” I thought you wanted to end psychiatry.
NO revolutionary tactic or program has yet been proven to be “effective” in a permanent way. So I generally consider most of this kind of talk to be revolutionary romanticism. At any rate, for the sake of all of us, people who wish to engage in such discussions should not be doing it on MIA.
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Oldhead,
It is not overdiagnosed because there is data recorded under strict criteria for every time you have an apnea or a hypopnea. The reason why you may think it is overdiagnosed is that most people who are sent to a sleep center to be tested for sleep apnea do end up with the diagnosis. But again, there is recorded data that provides proof.
No, apnea is not a psychological issue although as I mentioned before, it can turn into one if not treated such as causing depression. It can also cause anxiety because if you are gasping for breath with, of course, you are going to be anxious. But once treated, that usually goes away.
Your right, the body does want to live and will start breathing again. But constantly doing that will destroy a person’s quality of sleep.
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Believe it or not I’m wondering what Alex might think about some of these “disease” conversations. 🙂
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LOL!
All jokes aside, I would hope that he would know when to suggest to clients that they need to see doctors for certain issues.
Several years ago, a former co-worker had great success with a chiropractor for back issues. But this professional knew her limits and told her she needed to see a doctor to get a knee evaluated. My co-worker had surgery on it and had a complete recovery.
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Sounds like a chiropractor with limited capacities. A decent one will run circles around his/her allopathic counterparts, especially when it comes to spinal and connective tissue injuries.
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Oldhead, that is an insane comment. The co-worker was not getting better which was due to having torn meniscus.
Too bad someone else I know whose ankle was permanently damaged by a chiropractor didn’t have the same judgment. Thank to her going to this quack, she now has to take “evil meds” for pain.
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OK now you’re talking about advanced first aid for an injury, physicians are pretty adept at that. But with most stuff, including discs & tears, a good chiropractor — with the emphasis on good — would always be my recommendation and I would defer to his/her judgement first.
I also had one exception who fucked me up, which is how I met the current guy, who got me over that then got me healthier than I’d been to start. He rarely even uses “cracking” type adjustments.
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There is an interesting perspective that is ever-growing in the collective consciousness on the planet right now. Used to be considered “crazy” and still is by some. At the same time, it’s catching on quickly because it takes us beyond the glass ceilings and into alignment with our innate creativity, freeing us from the oppressively double binding beliefs with which we’ve all been programmed and which have caused a lot of chronic suffering.
Tons and tons of information about ascension and DNA expansion all over the internet, including on YouTube. There’s a lot of garbage and a lot of truth, like with a lot of things, so one has to be intuitive and discerning. This is pioneering work, no one has all the answers, it is exploration and discovery of a new reality, communities coming together over this exploration.
This perspective seriously challenges mainstream beliefs on every single level, so this information can be polarizing in some communities–it either resonates, which tends to bring some excitement for folks because it is new ground which to explore, and it gets pretty fascinating as this exploration unfolds; or it is completely disregarded, invalidated, belittled, and ultimately, stigmatized. Seems to be no in between. I imagine on here, that could easily be the case.
Still, I think it’s all so interesting to consider, as far as truly a paradigm shift is concerned, on all levels of life experience, including how we process, heal, and manifest. This is long, about 90 minutes, but within the first 10 minutes I think the paradigm shift about which she’s detailing throughout the video, is evident. Radical change is happening, it is well underway…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRaPAbk1vLo
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Yeah sometimes it really isn’t your attitude, but the attitude of all the assholes around you. I sure found that out fast. This is why a lot of people are finding out that the relocation method does indeed work. Plain and simple, if you’re not seen as nuts, you aren’t. i can’t believe the number of people I have met since my “escape” who likewise also escaped, and succeeded at it. it does not always work the first time, but it works amazingly well.
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Thank you Alex for the video. I’m looking for/at/with so many dancing on the lines of madness and brightness, and I’m hoping this talk will bring some of those voices to light.
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oldhead, hi 🙂
Well i am very sure it will be fun. Calling it:
a) “fun”;
b) having very happy moments when “things” move towards helping people with SZ… is fun/ happy moments. And then its time to move forward. More “fun” is near.
Sure i understand MIA has its priorities (you pointed it to me, i listened, i checked… and was/is true). Thanks.
Is because of that i wont describe what “fun” is.
I am no helpless SZ with no goals. Surely i am not romantic, i do like reality 🙂
And thus want to change things during my lifetime.
Beacause of that i ask questions, and i search other people with experience and willing to help. We dont have to agree that the Pope is virgin… or that Trump will make America great again.
Sure… i did read so many books/ articles/ seem so many things at life/ or figthed agains the system like many users here. I dont pretend i did.
But… i am not advocating this or that. I would like know the rigth people, and find the rigth information. If most of the users at MIA prefer to talk/ chat/ complain… and after all the years MIA exists… the results are (not saying).
Well is our life, our choices.
I think you have a hint that a few writers (article writers) here at MIA, are weak (in the sense that all little, or even add to the confusion/ division). I seen that and is their problem and the MIA owners site option.
Now, i been posting here for a few months. Help/ info/ sharing is not coming.
Is better to look for sites that want changes/can make cahnges (with SZ or with no SZ).
You may see me as romantic, but i tryed to help SZ users for many months. And by try/fail i am finding what works.
So let info/ help come to my way. Is fun (and is a lot of work too).
Tahnks.
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Hi AntiP —
Don’t get too hung up on the “fun” thing, it was a top-of-the-head cautionary reply. Of course fighting the system should be fun, no one said we had to be Puritans. I do disagree with those who minimize the risk to themselves and others of indulging in these sorts of conversations in the midst of those who have no choice in the matter. Nothing ever happens until it does. My main thoughts were not directed at you, and I’m not putting anyone down in any case. Don’t really want to continue with this “debate” though…
Anyway I appreciated your cancer comments, was surprised to find that you or anyone here really “got” what I was trying to allude to.
I’ll be contacting you soon btw.
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Hi Ronda, Marci Webber wanted me to ask you to contact her. Here is her story on MIA: madinamerica.com/2016/12/mothers-worst-nightmare/. She is currently at Chicago Read Mental Health Center and is preparing for a discharge hearing, as well as trying to find an attorney who will file a lawsuit on her behalf about her mistreatment while in custody. Her current contact phone numbers are 1-773-794-4036 and 1-773-794-4049. She has only very recently been given very sporadic access to email at [email protected]. Thanks for whatever you can do.
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Julie, please be very careful about discouraging people from getting tested for sleep apnea. I had drug damage from long-term use of the meds and still have sleep apnea.
A long term friend who was on antipsychotics for years tragically died on Sunday. She also had sleep apnea and apparently didn’t always use her machine. Of course, there could have been many causes of her death but I am sure not using the machine didn’t help.
Yes, the sleep medicine industry is big business but the testing is legitimate. A sleep center found to be falsely scoring apneas/hypopneas would be quickly exposed and put out of business quickly. Unlike with psychiatry diagnosis’s, the sleep apnea diagnosis is made on objective data that has been established according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine
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Wow Julie, I never said you were responsible for my friend’s death. My point was that just because you have been poisoned by psych drugs doesn’t mean you can’t have sleep apnea. I was using her as a dramatic example.
How is the cpap machine more addictive than wearing glasses?
And where is your proof that apnea is over diagnosed since it can only be done through objective scoring measures? It is not like being diagnosed by a psychiatrist who uses BS criteria to diagnose a fake illness.
It is true that some people on psych meds do develop apnea that goes away once they are off the drugs. But that needs to be confirmed by a sleep study.
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Jan Carol,
I am not sure where you are getting the information that pressures need to be constantly adjusted upward on the pap machine. Many people have been on the same settings for years with a well controlled AHI.
Regarding Stasha Gominak and vitamin D and sleep apnea, I found her videos very interesting. But she acknowledged she had not done any clinical trials to prove her theories that the right levels will cure it.
Obviously, everyone’s level should be as optimized as possible. But don’t depend on it curing sleep apnea for now.
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