Psychosocial Disability and Legal Capacity: Don’t Bargain with Human Rights

Hi Maria,

thank you for this article! It seems so sad that America, my home, which touts itself as the home of the ‘free and the brave’ willingly strips the freedom of so many citizens without due process or anything! I wish you the best and hope that our politicians, somehow, will do the right thing in spite of the pressure from other corners..
Sam

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My understanding is that the APA formally dropped the use of Roman numerals in the DSM-5. So there’s no such thing as the “DSM-V”. Hey, correct me if I’m wrong. It’s a small but important detail. Also, in the linked video, we still see “MHE” using the deceptive and fraudulent euphemism “meds”/”medications”, when it’s far more correct, and less confusing to just say DRUGS. Drugs are drugs are drugs are drugs drugs, and “meds” are a fantasy. I’d like to see “MHE” address those 2 points. Also, I have to wonder what, if any, connection there might be, between MHE, and “Mental Health America”? The names are similar enough, and it would be confusing if there is no official connection between the 2. “Mental Health America” is a largely drug company funded propaganda group, which is as problematic, and anti-human rights as NAMI….

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I was tortured in my country mental institutions , so *your* CPRD wasn’t a *matter* for me. Like in USA, torture and murder is all what represents MH System in EU.

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Thank you for this important post, and for your vital advocacy for Human Rights for those disenfranchised by psychiatry.

Once any person enters the world of psychiatry with its unparalleled powers of “arrest”, incarceration and forced drugging, they not only loose their Human Rights during the period of detention, but effectively their Rights are compromised in perpetuity.
They are vulnerable to injury, abuse and degradation in these institutions.
They may be subject to further enforced drugging in the community after eventual release.

Survivors report adverse physical, emotional and psychological experiences.
They may have suffered irreversible psychological, social, emotional, economic, relationship, and physical injury in the absence of their Human Rights.

Self esteem is unlikely to survive or re-emerge after exposure to brutality and misdiagnosis.

Maria – I believe that you have to fight for two categories of those who suffer this denial of Human Rights.

There are those who are in these institutions following experience of profound emotional and/or psychological distress and suffering.

A second, overlooked and virtually abandoned group are those who never, ever had any “condition” which might be considered a “mental health disorder”.

Such is the ignorance of adverse drug reactions, and the diagnostic fallibility of some prescribers of SSRIs/SNRIs (and other AKATHISIA inducing psychotropic drugs) – that they cannot differentiate
“functional psychosis”
from the intense agitation–>akathisia–>toxic delusion/toxic psychosis progression caused by acute chemical brain injury resulting from prescription medications.
The latter is an acute medical emergency. It is not a psychiatric emergency.

Failure to diagnose this life threatening and life terminating toxicity-progression is the result of two decades of falsification of clinical trial data by pharmaceutical companies and a decade or more of failure on behalf of drug regulators. Hence the hidden reality of SSRI induced suicide across all ages. (Tobin v GSK 2017)

Both prescribers and patients have been deceived and coerced.

Many patients pay with their lives, or with extended, even permanent exile from society, employment, relationship, community – some denied child bearing/rearing, and all other joys of their independent,
fulfilling lives before iatrogenic akathisia was misdiagnosed as “first episode psychosis”.
Many will have been coerced into taking these prescription “medications” for normal human adverse experiences such as “exam stress” – “college stress”.
A consultation based on basic supportive psychological understanding would have been truly therapeutic
and non-toxic.

Compulsory detention in a psychiatric “hospital” for acute neurotoxicity is an individual human catastrophe.
They will be forced to take more of the very drug class which caused a completely healthy person to become akathisic, and their enforced prescription drug toxicity will be profoundly exacerbated by compulsory antipsychotics.
Generalised psychotropic malignant syndrome, tardive dyskinesia, multifocal brain injury, cardio-toxicity, endocrine and integumentary toxicity may follow swiftly, and be denied by prescribers.
Antipsychotic induced pseudo-acne and post-SSRI sexual disfunction further disfigure and isolate respectively.

Then follows the cascade of falsified labels: – “psychotic depression”- “bipolar disorder”- “borderline personality disorder” – “schizoaffective disorder”, – each leading to abrupt cessation of the last cluster of psychotropics and the resulting withdrawal syndromes are misdiagnosed as exacerbation of Serious Mental Illness (SMI).
Next – inappropriate entry onto the SMI Register further stigmatises, humiliates and soul-destroys.
Repeated, reinforced messages of “lifelong irreversible brain disorder” add to the destruction of hope.

So, there are those whose appalling withdrawal of Human Rights results entirely via iatrogenesis.
They suffer exile from society alongside those suffering the same inhumanity for non-iatrogenic “mental health disorders”.

Those who may achieve some degree of recovery from injury, perhaps after some five to ten years off psychotropic drugs, may experience gradual insight into, and awareness of what has been done to them,
and what has been stolen from them.

They live in justifiable terror of being re-captured by psychiatry and forcibly re-intoxicated. This is not paranoia.
When they become ill physically, they no longer can access genuine medical help as all trust in all medical men and women has been destroyed by psychiatry, even though one or two psychiatrists may have helped to organise taper withdrawal.

The work of Mental Health Europe affords some hope. May you succeed.

TRM 123. Retired Physician.

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Speaking of rights and who deserves them… It saddens me that the worst thing you can say about another person is that they’re crazy. Not that they’re hateful or racist or mean or violent, but that they’re unhinged. Suggest that someone thinks differently and you’ve instantly got a leg up on them.

I’ll admit to being crazy. I’m crazy for thinking that domestic violence victims should be protected instead of given antidepressants, I’m crazy for thinking that children should have the right to live in a harmonious home, I’m crazy for thinking that minorities should have the right to walk the streets without fear, I’m definitely crazy for thinking that poor people should have the right to nourishing food and electricity and healthcare, and certainly crazy to think that everyone should have the right to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. I’m crazy for not worshipping the almighty dollar and capitalism, and I’m crazy for not wearing my patriotism on my sleeve. I’ll admit to being crazy for holding these ‘radical’ beliefs. What I’m not is mentally ill. Wanting to be treated with love and kindness and reacting poorly when I’m not makes me crazy but not ill because it is not a sign of illness to be sad at mistreatment. It’s the most normal thing in the world!

The worst thing we can say about someone is not that they molest children or beat their wife or they’re a violent drunk – the worst thing we can say is that they’re crazy. This allows us to restrict their rights. They don’t think like ‘us’ (whoever ‘us’ is – not me) so the natural reaction is fear… And isolation and restriction.

To be honest. I prefer the company of my fellow crazies. We understand each other better than the sociopaths running the world. I’ll happily sit in the crazy corner and watch the DAPL folks poison the groundwater, and the Goldman Sachs folks destroy our economy, I’ll watch the Trumps and Clintons (and Alitos and Ginsbergs) fake fight as if they aren’t all friends when the media isn’t looking. But I’ll never come back to the mentally ill table. And I’ll never allow those in power to ostracize me again. The only way we will get our rights back is organizing and fighting back and sticking up for those who are still being harmed by this incredibly destructive system.

I’m crazy for sure – just not mentally ill. The UN Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is great in theory but it’s up to us to save each other. The Hague is not coming to your rescue. Speak up for each other. We are all we have.

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Thanks for sharing the European paper, I look forward to reading it and linking to my world.

I am beginning to try to understand what the Law Reform Commission of Ontario has been working on over the last 4 years– reform around capacity and how to approach.

They are taking an incremental, stage by stage systems approach – though this will apply to all citizens and their contexts in Ontario.

A whole population approach is interesting to me rather than a specific population/group, although the context and history around psychiatric care for sure informs in part. I see a whole population approach to capacity having greater potential for actual system and Social Change when we consider an individual’s life time journey.

Here is the link: http://www.lco-cdo.org/en/our-current-projects/legal-capacity-decision-making-and-guardianship/

Here is a cut and paste from their page and general reform direction of the report.

“Key Areas for Reform

The Final Report’s 58 recommendations include proposals in six broad areas:

Improving access to the law, in particular by greatly streamlining court-based mechanisms under the Substitute Decisions Act and promoting greater use of tribunals to reduce cost, complexity and time to resolve issues

Promoting understanding of the law among family members, substitute decision-makers, professionals and service providers, and those whose rights are most immediately impacted by a legal finding or proceeding;

Strengthening the rights protected under the Health Care Consent Act by improving the quality of capacity assessments and expanding the provision of rights information to those found incapable;

Reducing inappropriate intervention by providing more options to persons who cannot make decisions independently, and creating more flexible and limited types of substitute decision-making appointments;

Increasing accountability and transparency for personal appointments, so as to address widespread concerns regarding abuse and misuse use of powers of attorney and elder abuse; and,

Enabling greater choice of substitute decision-makers, in response to the needs of the growing number of individuals who prefer families of choice, or who do not have family or close friends who are willing and able to take on this important role.”

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I am from Slovenia, Rachel. And what my country mental health *employers* did to me? I was restrained, because I bother staff in the dungeon, that I *feel* horrible pain in my stomach. I was restrained for 6 hours and with accute appendix! 6 hours past, until they send me to near hospital. And another few hours were *lost* there, prior they finnaly *figured* what really is wrong with me.

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There’s one sticking point that I don’t see mentioned here. There ARE persons whose disabilities are so severe, that they truly ARE unable to think, act, care, or decide for themselves. Often, they are also victims of poly-pharmacy, usually benzos for “behavior control”, and neuroleptics, or “major tranquilizers” for God-knows-what. Depakote is a common drug used, also. So these persons, who often require 24-hour care, and a payee, and “supported living”, are also subject to the same human rights abuses as we so-called “mental patients”. Subject to the same horrific “medication” abuses and so-called “side-effects”. Just as with us, too often serious and potentially life-threatening “side effects” are summarily dismissed as the “disease”/”mental illness”/etc….
I have friends who work as DSP’s,- Direct Support Professionals, and I even know some of the “clients”. One guy suffered severe brain injury/trauma in a car crash. After the initial recovery, he has only limited use of his right hand, is virtually unable to speak, and requires a wheelchair and 24-hour care. We’re talking a MINIMUM of $100,000. – $1Million/year for the CARE of these folks. Another guy I know was debilitated by meningitis as a young boy. He can “feed” himself, if the food is placed in front of him. There’s very little he can do independently, and again, requires 24-hour care and monitoring. Neither the local City, County, or State Gov’ts are really doing the BEST for these unfortunate folks. Public “agencies”, and private, for-profit “agencies” also only do the bare minimum.
I think we ALL need to remember that it’s not just we VICTIMS of the pseudoscience LIES of the drug racket and means of social control known as “psychiatry”. Oddly, society expects psychiatry to ALSO “treat” these severely physically disabled folks…. So psychiatry OVER-DRUGS them, and when they act out due to akathisia, or drug toxicity, etc., well,…. Sometimes, it’s no comfort to know that we are not alone in our suffering….
~B./

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Taking away someone’s legal capacity is dangerous because everyone is selfish. The people charged with acting in others’ “best interests” too often act in their own interests, and very often “guardians” get corrupted by things such as kickbacks from institutions and pharmaceutical companies.

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