Rise of Involuntary Mental Health: What is Your Resistance Strategy?

I am taking the sidelines , thanks. There is no way of stopping their idiocy. Drugging people stupid then blaming them for being stupid, then continuing the drugging. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=c0swAAAAIBAJ&sjid=bagFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6205%2C1412744

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Elyn Saks’ position makes me think of the street dealer who says “The first one’s on the house!” Only the person getting the first one usually asks for it. If you lock someone up and forcibly drug them long enough they can become addicts and then they will likely come back for more. Or they could show gratitude through developing Stockholm Syndrome. Whatever works. Ends justify the means is always the name of the game when tyrants are in charge.

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MindFreedom served a valuable function during the period when the movement had been destroyed via cooptation, and that should be commended. However we need to progress “back to the future” and resurrect the original movement, which was ANTI-psychiatry. Those who call for “reforms” at this point are merely propping up the system. SAMHSA has always been our enemy and those who hold their tongues and refuse to speak the truth because they fear losing their SAMHSA blood money should not be surprised when they/we get screwed and worse.

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_ Make thorough inquiries into the legality of questionable procedures,
_ attack institutions in court,
_ have them pay overwhelming compensation.

If a person complains about the violation of their rights, investigate by calling the psychiatrists and nurses of the facility and record the conversation clandestinely. Talk to them in a friendly way, trying to get them to confess offenses. Call several people several times to compile as many offenses as possible, and waste their time. Never dismiss your “kindness”: find evidence by all legal means.

Do administrative procedures. Ask for administrative documents that they are obliged to transmit to you, ask for procedures they are obliged to do, write to them and phone them again and again for the most complex and time-consuming procedures. The more complex is the procedure and the more time the administration wastes, the more likely it is to commit a procedural error, which may justify even more procedures. All the time and money lost in procedure can not be used in forced treatment.

Make solid and reliable investigation files. Use them agains institutions, psychiatrists, nurses, etc. Ruin their reputation by publicly denouncing them, or attack them in court. By all legal means, ensure that forced treatment is associed with bad advertisement, procedures and trials as costly as possible.

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Thanks very much for this very informative article, Mr. Oaks. I would like to respond in the spirit that you requested we do.

I have been working recently on a new article for MIA which contained a section which, unfortunately, it was best to cut simply because the piece was a little too long as it was and, even though the ideas were important, it wasn’t directly connected to the main thrust of the piece. However, the part that was cut bears on a subject which I feel is extremely important, and which I have been trying to draw attention to for some time now, and which I had thought I might devote an entire article to. However, if Mind Freedom is actually looking for these sorts of initiatives, you might be more successful in gaining some traction for it than I have been. This issue is our use of medicalized language.

In this article of yours, for instance, you used the expression “mental health system.” I’m sure that you’re more than aware of the idea that “mental illness,” so-called, is a contradiction in terms and that no such creature ever has or ever will exist — that it is nothing more than a metaphor at best, yet it is a very dangerous and perilous metaphor for us to allow people to believe in. One of the ways that we allow it to continue is by allowing others to use such terms as “disorder” and “disease” (as opposed to difficulties) “mental health” (as opposed to state of mind or experiences or alternative realities), “medication” (as opposed to drugs or chemicals), and so on ad nauseam. Even worse is when we adopt this misleading and damaging language ourselves and in so doing perpetuate their system by allowing it to remain the dominant paradigm in both our language and in the public’s conception of what we are experiencing. As I say, I’m sure that you’re fully aware of this, and in fact MIA itself uses a default medicalized language, probably for lack of anything else, and though I have approached Mr. Whitaker about it, he seems to be unable at this time to be able to see what would be a solution to that problem at this time. So this is not just you, this is many of us.

But it’s a major problem. The continued success and power of the psychiatric establishment and their cohorts (the pharmaceutical industry and the prison industry/Jim Crow system that is disguised as psychiatric hospitals and as AOT, for instance) are only able to maintain their power by maintaining control of how people perceive what is going on. As long as I have a “mental illness” which can only be “medicated” because it is an inherent “disorder” and would otherwise be “uncontrolled,” then it is perfectly justifiable for society to take over my “health care” and also protect itself from my potentially dangerous “delusional behavior.” And if that were in fact the case, I would probably agree. And that is how the public perceives the situation, a situation that is created by the power of psychiatrists to move in lockstep with each other on a rhetorical basis by speaking a unified language which everyone thinks they understand, even though we (and they, most of them) are fully aware that it is false. This rhetorical unity and universal understanding then gives them the power to enlist the media, which promotes their ideas, and to publish articles and talk to people on the street and publish ads that then go to perpetuate this rhetorical hold on public discourse and public power. And until that hold is broken, we will never succeed.

We have no unity. One person calls it extreme experiences, another calls it alternate realities, another calls it spiritual emergence, while others default to psychiatry’s own language. We fail to break down their power structure even when not actively supporting it by default. It is imperative to change this situation and for us all to get on the same page so that we can shift the course of this public conversation into the path that we need for it to go and into which we know it must go in order to save lives. It’s that simple. As the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states, the structure of my language is the structure of my world. Until we set up the right structure, one that accurately reflects our shared reality (even though composed of many different perspectives), we will get nowhere. It’s really that simple. The first thing to do is clean up how we talk and get on the same page with each other and start talking in unison so that we can finally change the whole conversation. Until then, no one will ever understand what we’re talking about. The word will never spread.

Just as one for instance, I myself do not care for or ever use the expression “extreme experiences.” For one thing, my experiences are not at all “extreme” — for me they are perfectly normal and routine, even if they might be odd to an outsider. Yet I am being branded with that outsider’s perception. Likewise, I do not ever use the expression “mental distress.” I am not at all distressed. I am “schizophrenic” as hell, all day long, every day, but I am not distressed. Maybe some people are, and maybe outsiders are, but I am not, and the term is not up to being a catch-all for every form of mental oddity or individual experience out there. Some manic people are quite delighted with what they’re going through, after all, and so am I.

So let’s have a conversation. I believe that a conference of some kind, or some other kind of organized communication, and some sort of organized body, such as Mind Freedom might be capable of organizing, should be brought together in order to sort through the various language paradigms, where everyone can say their piece and we can all have some debate and discussion and maybe even some disagreement with each other for a while (in a polite and respectful forum, of course) so that we can finally come to agreement with each other on what you might call “a party line.” This could very well be a virtual conference, one that even meets periodically in order to have new reports and an evolving discussion instead of trying to get it all done in one single shot. There could even be little subcommittees that put reports together. Who knows what such a diverse group of extremely creative people could do?

For instance, I use the term “alternate reality” myself because 1) I believe that what I am experiencing, no matter how strange it might seem to you, is quite real, and that it’s time for people to open their minds to that possibility and have it acknowledged, and 2) because it’s actually quite inclusive. There are, after all, many, many, many different realities that people like us talk about, and I see absolutely no reason at all that every single one of them isn’t legitimate and important. You don’t have to buy what I say, but what I say needs to be respected in exactly the same way as what the next person says, and it’s time that that was acknowledged. In this way, we could replace the term “psychosis” and “delusion” with a simple term: people who are experiencing another reality. It’s really that simple. Yet I am sure that my own term might not reflect everything that others might think is important to express in our new language that we’re creating, so I think it’s absolutely crucial that there be a forum in which all viewpoints are heard, discussed, and if possible a consensus reached so that we can finally, finally, finally make some progress. We are losing this fight. Badly. And until we begin to move like an army, with a common language and set of goals, we will never get where we want to be. That’s what psychiatry and the whole “mental health establishment” and the pharmaceutical industry does. And that’s why they’re winning. And probably only an organization like Mind Freedom could pull something like this off. I’ve tried on my own, and gotten nowhere. Maybe you would be more successful.

Bear this one thing in mind: No political party that ever let itself be controlled by the terms that its opposition created the way that we are controlled by their terms would ever be successful. You have to take control of the conversation, or you will never be heard, and you will never succeed. This is not a fight against psychiatry, because they will never concede. This is a fight for public opinion, and with that on our side we can do anything.

Thanks for your efforts. And good luck with that new chair!

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I think we need to counterbalance the “mental health” propaganda financed by the drug industry.

So I created 12 “no forced treatment” memes to be shared freely, under creative commons licence, in english and in french.

http://depsychiatriser.blogspot.fr/2017/08/les-memes-internet-de-jules-malleus.html

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Wondering, given political loses, about whether there will be an Alternatives 2018, and what direction the movement will take in the future.

It has been my feeling that fighting for human rights, and against forced treatment, makes more sense than promoting “mental illness” industry expansion through alternative “mental health” treatment modality development. This being the case, I would prefer to see more direct political action, demonstrations, civil disobedience, guerrilla theater, satire (public education) and the like.

Yes, some things work and some things don’t, while the powers that be disregard what works completely. No treatment whatsoever is better than that treatment which causes harm, and much harm at that. Among options, rejection of treatment entirely should an option. Fighting for the mental patient role, no, I can’t see doing that. I’m more partial to dispensing with the mental patient role entirely. I think that something worth fighting for is what we used to call mental patients’ liberation, that is, complete independence from the “mental health” system and similar forms of governmental social control and intrusion.

I’d also like to point out that Harriet Tubman has her own park and museum in Maryland. We need our own underground railroad, and we need operators to help get people free of unwanted mistreatment. I don’t know that we will ever achieve what they did before emancipation from slavery, but we need our own functioning underground railroad to break people out of involuntary treatment and those prisons that deceptively call themselves hospitals.

We also have to move beyond doing the predictable. Protesting APA conventions is fine and dandy, but there is the TAC, too, and NAMI, and pharmaceutical companies as well, not to mention shock docs galore. I see a danger when one’s actions become too predictable to one’s adversaries, and that’s the point at which a surprise attack is long overdue.

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As for “positive” suggestions, I think it is incumbent upon us to thoroughly expose Torrey as the renegade hustler he is. This could be done on many levels, and there would no doubt be those in “the field” who resent Torrey’s lying and manipulative tactics and would cooperate. It shouldn’t be that hard to pull together what we know about this clown and organize it into something the public can grasp.

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I am sorry to hear from your suffering and want to say thank you for your hard work and dedication.
From a german perspective the issue doesnt look that grim, but the loss of human rights remains if one doesnt have the funds to let someone else fight for your rights.
The stand of the UN on our concerns has changed and hardened just recently and the time for a legal revolution seems to draw nearer.
Unfortunately i do not have any money to spend.
But i am collecting evidence for a psychogenic affliction model (coming from souls) and against the biomedical model in order to scientifically rediscover the soul as discernible entity and seat of consciousness. Originally, i just wanted to enforce and edit of the wikipedia article on schizophrenia, but had to discover that pubmed and virtually all scientific aviability of data had been nerfed. So i had the idea to go back in time not forward and considered writing a review article on the duality/polyidity of the mind. But now the chance seems to have opened up to do a documentary or even more than one.
The existence of soul or spirit is ancient knowledge but has invaded all religions, even if only experientially provable. It is not strictly natural science to go that way, but could establish a strong baseline for argumentation against the pseudo sciences and criminalisation and victimisation of behavior differing from an imagined norm. I get great reactions on this project from spiritual people that have experienced the psychiatric system and would be happy if anyone from this great website would like to participate in any way.
Naturally, i would like to participate in any other movement, too.
I am this guy on facebook:
https://web.facebook.com/christian.mayer.750983

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Maybe a dictionary of terms? It could be self published and it would create interest. I would suggest contacting all and every movement whether it is in total agreement or not and create a safe space to work together discuss, dialogue, and disagree. I am thinking of the King James Bible framework here. It became a literary work of art. There were several main translators and all had their own issues but it worked more than well.

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We have Community Treatment Orders in the UK, where if people do not take their – antipsychotic – drugs they can be removed by force to a psych hospital for forced drugging. That happens and people have killed themselves to get out of the abuse.

latest Rickard’s (CIA advisor) on N Korea

https://twitter.com/JamesGRickards/status/914868240245026816

https://twitter.com/JamesGRickards/status/914869978729459714

Be interesting to find out if this latest Vegas shooter was on psych drugs.

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This article both empowers and frightens me. It’s nice to know that there are people out there resisting, but the more I learn about how Psychiatry serves as Legislature, Judge, Jury, and Executioner, the more hopeless I feel.

My mother is a district court judge. She has regularly presided over the mental health calendar over about twenty years, a function I’m sure many of you are familiar with. A few months prior to my first psychosis, when I was home for winter break, she came into my room with a file and said something along the lines of: “I’m afraid if you keep doing those drugs, you’re going to end up like this.”

What she gave me was an actual confidential case file of someone who was facing court-ordered indefinite detention in a psychiatric hospital, and more importantly court-ordered drugging. This file had in it an evaluation composed by the overseeing psychiatrist. I don’t remember every detail, especially since at the time I thought it was a joke to scare me straight. When I read it, I thought it was ridiculous. The most salient points were that the man was homeless, believed he was a greek god, and admitted to taking several hallucinogens. At the time I didn’t quite grasp the gravity of what I had seen

How can believing you’re a greek god be used against you in a court of law? More importantly, how did the psychiatrist reach this damning conclusion? Did the man just blurt out “I’m a greek god!”, was he asked “Are you a greek god?” and answered “yes”?! In his hearing, was he put on the stand to swear over the bible and answer yes or no to that question? It is clear to me now that psychiatrists will not only use everything you say or do against you, but actively editorialize and decide what is an permissible thought or idea or a delusion.

Can admitting to using hallucinogens to a psychiatrist serve as basis for indefinite detention and drugging? The fact that it appeared in that file makes me believe that it can and commonly is.

Can you be detained indefinitely and drugged for being homeless? The fact that it was present in the file suggests to me that it can and commonly is.

I don’t know the result of that man’s hearing, but I can only expect it ended with the psychiatrists getting what they wanted.

A few months after I read this file, I experienced my first psychosis. A few months after that, my first forced hospitalization. I’ve been on anti-psychotics ever since. I’ve tried quitting them twice, but only ended up forced back into the hospital and getting defeated and just resuming “treatment”. Coincidence or random chance? You be the judge.

I can handle the abuse from the psychiatrists, the police, the justice system. But the fact that my own mother is in on the joke haunts me to my core.

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Many people think people with mental illness are violent and dangerous. This is not the case, with help from Heavenly Father and support of love ones this can be managed. Media is partly to be blamed whenever a person commits crime and they found out the person has mental illness, they automatically put it down to his mental state which gives bad reputation to people with this condition. Myself I have never committed a crime nor am I violent . I am genuinely a kind guy with a heart of gold who just wants to have a voice . I never was given the opportunity to go back to school due to raymond west wind school division and there choices. I am smart , I have inherited gifts and abilities from god. I am not going to let the system dictate me! I am a leader and I am child of god with Divine potential .

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OK since this seems to be a free-for-all at the moment let me add this latest from Peter Breggin to the mix in you haven't seen it:

Alert 18 : Las Vegas Shooter on Valium!

Peter R. Breggin, MD

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Tried to tell my dad the Las Vegas shooter was on Valium. He argued there was no proof of that. He also argued that Kirsty Alley said psych drugs were behind shootings. Since she is a Scientologist it must be a lie. Scientologists also believe racism is wrong. He doesn’t advocate joining the Alt-Right movement.

Sometimes my dad uses critical thinking skills and holds his own in a debate. Not on this issue.

Pretty stupid how a Blaze article said “mental illness” was the motivation behind the killing. Even assuming “mental illness” to be a thing, how could that be a motivation? “His real motivation was the fact that he was black”! That stupid statement would get them in trouble. So they pick on the one group it’s okay to hate.

Glad I no longer self identify as bipolar!

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So what we need to do is fight back. But this is impossible to do the way that MindFreedom tries.

First of all they seek pity. Their main concern is in convincing people not to oppose the ‘mentally ill’. MindFreedom goes along with the concept of mental illness, that there are people who cannot be trusted to use good judgement. So in stead of following every other group fighting for social justice, MindFreedom expects its members to accept a serious stigma.

And remember, primarily this is about creating an economically stratified society. The claim is that the mentally ill somehow lack what it takes to live in this world. So when you pledge non-violence, you are supporting this kind of psuedo science eugenics attack.

Mostly those who have been such rejected, were rejected by the middle-class family. This may or may not have involved doctors. More often than not, it does. Being the family scapegoat makes one far more likely to end up in the hands of white coats.

And then everytime talk is make of therapy, recovery, or healing, this is turning it back on the survivor. MindFreedom goes along with this.

Study history, learn how people have defined themselves in order to resist oppression.

Learn from history:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rih3EYj-pYY

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Need to always have a response to forced treatment, like with this guy:

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/23/opinion-if-counties-invested-more-in-treating-mental-illness-public-safety-would-improve/

Need to respond anytime a survivor is being abused by someone telling them they need therapy, recovery, or healing.

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We should have people on the ground, working to block the election of the above guy!

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David, what your organization does is argue for Recovery, as opposed to Psychiatry. This is wrong, its being an Uncle Tom, its asking for pity.

We should be Resisting, by arguing in public against anyone who promotes Therapy, Recovery, Healing, Motivationalism, or Religion. Instead we call upon survivors to reject all of these things. We call for an end to licensed Psychiatry and Psychotherapy and an end to their drugs. We also call for prosecution of anyone doing anything therapy like on a minor when that minor is not currently being represented by an attorney in court.

And then as most of these cases do start as familial stigmatizing, the US needs to go where other industrialized countries already are, prohibiting disinheritance.

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We have to get people to accept that all Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and Recovery Programs are abuse. And then mobilize at the street level. Picket, for example in front of county hospitals, in front of UC Irvine’s gates over this new ‘Integrative Psychiatry’ building, and in front of the offices of individual psychotherapists.

Make people understand that it is all abuse, even if voluntary. Promote law suits, one patient, one plaintiff.

And we must track all mental health and recovery program workers.

Make people understand that the Mental Health and Recovery system is Crime Against Humanity, and it is the modern version of the bogus sciences of Social Darwinism and Eugenics.

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No time for the sidelines, indeed!!

Thank you for this piece, David. I feel so refreshed when I hear people seriously use the word “revolution” in this context.

My first thought in reading what you’ve put together: might it be a good idea to hire/ask for help from some “grassroots” experts on activism in other, more “mainstream” areas? I think of the animal-rights campaigns I have participated in via Mercy for Animals and The Humane League, and the way a daily/weekly email schedule with one or two tasks each (call a congressman/business, tweet back, among others), and how these created public media storms & private disruptions in business that have accomplished quite a bit. Maybe a few people well-versed in this kind of coordination can help MFI, MIA, or any of us willing to sign up behind a central source of direction, to create public campaigns that are cohesive & direct? Having a consistent presence in the public discourse, however small, I think is a necessary foundation in the new millenium.

I think also that dissident psychiatrists (as people “above” the marginalized status of “patient”) directly speaking out together can make more of the waves that bring the movement into the public discourse. We humble readers tend not to be well-connected, but maybe you or someone in your circle could convene these folks? (Naturally it can pose a risk to them, I know.)

Another idea, and this is my favorite, pitching an exposé-style documentary on Mr. Torrey to Netflix, which seems to be a company willing to make a few waves in general, given not only the anti-authoritarian media they’ve distributed to date, but also the sprinklings of anti-pharma (even anti-psychiatry… yes!) media they’ve profited off of showcasing. I can see Dr Breggin and Mr Whitaker giving their two cents as accomplished professionals – documentary watchers like me love that stuff, and having those names go more public to the younger generation is also good news in my opinion.

Also, I have been doing some volunteer freelance-style advocacy for people currently under psychiatric coercion – showing a very watchful eye to physicians, BEFORE people become incarcerated or incapacitated, can be enough in many cases to shake the system off of a person’s back before the claws are too deep. I believe that organizing some standard messages to send to psychiatrists, (re: “harmed by their care,” “possibilities of pursuing legal action,” general “ahem I’m watching” ‘s) at their “patients’ ” request, wouldnt be too hard. Anyone can act as a patient advocate, so these documents or templates could act as resources for people to send on behalf of friends, siblings, parents, you name it. MFI already has a good program for rallying behind those whose voices are stolen, so I think that this written/digital version could help in the same efforts 🙂

Thank you for being clear Mr. Oaks. I’m digging the standing chair ♥️

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