The Problem Lies in the Term ‘Mental Illness’

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Recent events in the US, such as blaming ‘mental illness’ when really bad things happen, brought upon a very important but also quite challenging debate.

President Trump, following the mass shooting in Texas and Ohio, made a remark using the term ‘mental illness’ that many people suffering from what we refer to as ‘mental illness’ found distressing, untrue, and damaging for them.

“These are really people that are very, very seriously mentally ill,” President Trump said.

The words caused an outrage and even led to a campaign on Twitter, with the hashtag ‘#IAmNotDangerous’, with many people who identify themselves as ‘mentally ill’ sharing their frustration with blaming ‘mental illness’ for something which is truly incomprehensible and evil. We could read the following statements: “People with mental illness are statistically much more likely to be VICTIMS of violent crime. Mental illness is not the problem, guns are. I will not be your scapegoat, #IAmNotDangerous” or as was shared by Cara Lisette, who started the campaign: “Hi, I’m Cara. I have bipolar disorder and anorexia. Never once have I considered a mass shooting. These incidents we are seeing time and time again in America are not as a result of mental illness. They are a product of male entitlement and white supremacy. #IAmNotDangerous”

Articles in the press appeared, with Mad in America also taking part in this very important debate, with an article by Robert Whitaker saying that blaming the ‘mentally ill’ is hate speech.

Exchanges between psychiatrists also took place. No, they all say, mental illness shouldn’t be blamed. Mentally ill people are indeed more likely be the victims of crime, rather than committing one. Statistics indicate that. Mental illness is, well, just an illness.

Having followed the debate with my diagnosis of ‘bipolar disorder’, inflicted on me by a couple of psychiatrists some years ago due to the fact that I have the tendency to come and seek help in a psychiatric hospital when I go too far into the parallel reality, I started to experience a real fear that all this debate is going in the wrong direction.

I was thinking that maybe this would be a perfect opportunity for all those people diagnosed with ‘mental illness’ to stand up and say loud and clear: “It isn’t mental and it isn’t an illness.” It is malaise, distress, spiritual seeking, anything but the damaging words that the term ‘mental illness’ contains.

I was thinking that maybe people who suffered at the hands of the psychiatrists (like I did) would finally look at the definition itself — what is behind ‘mental illness’? Look at what created stigma in the first place, and not continue fighting stigma with absolute and total cacophony. Shouting out “I am mentally ill and I am not dangerous” creates the same incomprehension as blaming ‘mental illness’ in the first place. But which ‘mental illness’ are we talking about? This is a question I always ask myself when I see the term, as I don’t believe in ‘mental illness’ and I find that it is the term itself which is extremely damaging. The word ‘mental’ is still mostly used by our society in relation to someone acting out of his mind. The Urban Dictionary puts this meaning as the first denotation of the term: “when something is absolutely insane, or just down right gnar.” Its additional meaning of matters related to the mind, acquires this sense only when it is used in a syntagm, such as in ‘mental process’, ‘mental calculation’ or ‘mental function’. While the term ‘illness’ refers to diseases and sickness. But what if there is no disease in the first place? There is ‘illness’ when scans show some brain damage, there is ‘illness’ when there are medical tests which show one, there is ‘illness’ when it is all grounded in precise rigorous medical evaluation and not based on words and the ‘opinion’ of a consultant psychiatrist.

As it stands now, however, ‘mental illness’ is a creation of psychiatry in its own imaginary and delusional thinking. Unless there is a test that shows some irregularity in the brain, in the majority of cases the diagnosis of ‘mental illness’ is delivered based on observation and exchange of words, if the patient is lucky. Usually, there is not even an exchange of words, but a quick decision of one single psychiatrist to inflict the verdict (such as ‘bipolar’ or ‘schizo’), put the person on pills, and release the highly sedated patient back into the community, to create more space for the upcomers. Beds are a problem (at least here in the UK), and the debate that maybe we should ease up on medication and psycho-drugs happens for now, well, only on Twitter.

The campaign as it stands now, even if created from the heart, by using the same language as psychiatry and recycling the term ‘mental illness’ again and again, benefits psychiatry, and not those people who come onto its radar — people who might start thinking at some point that maybe it isn’t an illness, and that maybe they can recover after all. But the psychiatrists clap their hands at this moment, because no one challenges the definition of ‘mental illness’ anymore, when it’s exactly what we should be doing. If we look at the DSM, psychiatry’s bible, it does list the disorders that can be considered as violent, dangerous and antisocial. We can also find several passages where it becomes clear that these diagnoses are based solely on one’s behaviour, and not in proper medical illness. This goes hand and in hand with real cases of distress and malaise, which continue to provide psychiatry its legitimacy. People do feel very bad sometimes, and they do seek help.

With my diagnosis of bipolar disorder, I am supposed to accept it as ‘mental illness’ and even look at it as like ‘any other physical illness’. If I look at the definition of it, as provided by psychiatry, it is a very severe illness, it is chronic and I am supposed to live with it shorter than the rest of the population.

However, as it stands now, I lead an active, mostly happy, and very fulfilled life. I work full-time, I write, I socialize, I take care of my son and my cat. I do take Seroquel, but at a dose that I came to by myself, a dose they sometimes prescribe to treat insomnia. It gives me safety that I don’t go too far in my exploration of the other reality. Psychiatrists didn’t help me in this choice. They have nothing to do with how I live my life with ‘bipolar disorder’, where I obtained a PhD, learned four languages, lived in four different countries, created a family, and enjoy seeing the occasional glimpses of the parallel reality. If I left it to the psychiatrists, I would be dead by now.

After my first ‘psychosis’, another damaging term that I use here only so that others can understand, I was put on a massive dose of Risperidone, which led to inability to enjoy any aspect of my life, and very serious suicidal thoughts. I stopped it, and had two years of tranquility, but still feeling scared. Apparently the state in which I came to the hospital, a state where I finally felt liberated from my childhood drama, and which healed me from a permanent gastritis, a state in which I saw angels, white doves, and met magic and the beauty of finally knowing that the parallel reality is true and real, was bad, shameful, and an ‘illness’. That state returned, and in panic I sought ‘help’, because I was told it was ‘an illness’. I was put back on a killing dose of antipsychotics, told again that I was ‘mental’, and released back into the community as an invalid. In subsequent years, I learned, all by myself, that it was insomnia I had to take care of, and my state of ‘psychosis’, a beautiful entrance into the spiritual domain, could be controlled by myself, if I wanted to continue enjoying my life, which I do.

All of this (my active life) has been a massive effort on my part, achieved only when I realised that I am not ill, it isn’t chronic, and that there is meaning in what they call ‘psychosis’. I don’t believe in the diagnoses, and I don’t believe in ‘mental illness’. If I did, I would probably be very miserable, on a massive dose of antipsychotics, unable to work or do anything else. I’ve seen what they do to people who believe in their ‘mental illness’, and it isn’t a nice place to be.

Therefore, I think it is important to start looking at the term of ‘mental illness’, rather than at how it has been used. Because if we decipher it, open it, analyse and study, we will come to something much more profound than: “I suffer from ‘mental illness’ and #IAmNotDangerous.”

I have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder from which I recovered, I am not ‘mentally ill’, and I am not dangerous.

But those who commit mass shooting or any other hideous crime, do suffer from a sick mind.

We shouldn’t blame Trump for reflecting how the society judges ‘mental illness’. We should blame psychiatry for inflicting this damaging term on those who have no ‘mental illness’ in the first place.

***

Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

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208 COMMENTS

  1. Ekaterina, great article. Thank you. You are exactly right that the problem lies in the term “mental illness.” The problem is psychiatry itself.

    Congratulations on your great accomplishments as well. Which languages do you speak? Which countries have you lived in?

    Also, what do you think of Thomas Szasz’s book “The Myth of Mental Illness”?

    Thanks.

    • Hello ‘Slaying the Dragon of Psychiatry’.
      I speak Russian (native), English, French and Dutch. I lived in Russia, Belgium, The Netherlands, again in Belgium, and then the UK. But you can find more about me on http://www.russianpatient.com, where I write about my own ‘madness’ (apologies if anyone finds the term offensive).
      Szasz was the first to debuke the construction of ‘mental illness’ and ‘mental diagnoses’, and therefore, his book (and articles) are extremely valuable.
      But so were Foucault and Laing, extremely valuable.
      More recent works try to bring the debate back (in ‘Mad Studies’), but it’s all very challenging due to the prominence of biomedical discourse, and thus, sometimes even impossible. One of the recent examples of great writings are ‘Madness Contested’, and ‘Mad Matters’ (edited by Brenda Lefrancois), but also works by Bonnie Burstow, Peter Beresford, and some others.

          • When you refer to yourself as “mad” you are accepting the system’s definitions. That’s nothing to be “proud” about. So “Mad Studies” affirms the psychiatric narrative of us as “different” or “other” (some even say superior, but this is the same mentality in reverse).

          • Your lexicon must be growing awfully thin these days with all those excised words and expressions, OldHead. Keep going, and before long, we should be as good, or bad as the case may be, as tongueless.

            “Different” or “other” some of us are, and proud of it to boot!

          • I differ from you Ekaterina in that I don’t consider myself mad anymore. It never was a lifelong condition–with a few exceptions–till psychiatry came along.

            Read hagiographies like that of Francis of Assisi. Or King Lear. Or MacBeth where Lady MacBeth was not born mad but experienced extreme guilt. Or the novel The Last Man by Mary Shelley where a main character “loses” it but is nursed back to health by his loving friends (bad diet) and is recognized as sane enough to be elected to Parliament.

            Psychiatry ensured these bizarre emotional states would become lifelong. First by locking people away in a hostile environment. Later by the drugs they punish you for having a bad reaction to.

          • @Frank B If we’re *all* “mad” though what meaning does the term even have then? (In a sense the same linguistic dance just starts all over with those who have been “caught” as you put it versus those who haven’t).

  4. I do not like the idea or term “sick mind” as it implies a medical problem that a doctor might attempt a remedy.

    People can’t say the word “evil”, can’t say people chose to be evil, they have to be “sick”.

    It can’t be a choice to do Evil, that’s not possible. Everyone is good!

    • I don’t think that you’re intending to imply that people in distress are evil, but that seems to be the connotation here, nonetheless. Notions of good and evil are largely based in religion and superstition and are generally harmful. The Bible considers suicide to be a major sin because it deprives “God” of the right to give and take life, so therefore it is “evil”. But this is just another way to target those who are legitimately distressed by intolerable circumstances.

      A different cohort believes that mindfulness is the correct path out of distress, with notions of radical acceptance and non-judgment. Your pain is not driven by external circumstances beyond your control but instead by your refusal to accept things as they are. A suicidal domestic violence victim is therefore expected to radically accept the situation and remain calm and solution-focused despite ongoing gaslighting, violence, control, and isolation. Victims of other traumas and problems of modern living are treated as similarly lacking this ability to radically accept hostile environments.

      A third cohort believes these distress signals and behaviors are a result of biological and genetic diseases only “triggered” by environmental conditions but that were otherwise lurking, waiting to strike the afflicted. Biological determinism, in other words.

      All of these belief systems fail to address the root causes of distress.

      I prefer not to dehumanize my abusers with terms like “evil” as well. My parents are/were deeply damaged people and also worthy of love. The intimate partners who have harmed me do not exist in the bucket of evil but rather had their own struggles that they, for various reasons, were not able to address. I do not need to accept my ex-husband’s violent alcoholism, nor do I need to think of him as an evil person unworthy of his own care and help out of his distress.

      The inability to see the nuance under all of the issues afflicting humans is one reason why people choose easy answers such as taking (or prescribing) psychiatric drugs in response to distress that would be better addressed in more humanistic ways.

        • Well, psych drugs certainly don’t help people make wise, kind or caring choices. And the self-shame that comes with diagnosis can make people give up on being good, make them believe they are fundamentally flawed, actually encourages fatalistic thinking, a la biological determinism.

          In recovering from the effects of psychiatry, there may well be a place for twelve step type thinking and action in terms of setting to rights the ill effects of behaviors displayed while drugged, even if they were unintentional – the concept of taking a fearless moral inventory, admitting wrongs done, making amends. One needn’t embrace any of the religious aspects to become accountable once one feels recovered from the damage enough to face such. It seems like a better approach than claiming one is diseased and unable to control oneself, which surely would only beg for more control over the supposedly “sick” individual.

      • I am sorry for the misunderstanding . No I did not mean that people in distress are evil. I was looking at the end of your writing when you wrote

        “those who commit mass shooting or any other hideous crime, do suffer from a sick mind. ”

        The ability to leave a relationship or location would relieve the distress in many people. Most are bound by lack of money/income.

    • Painful emotions perhaps?

      I used to struggle with the concept of “mental illness” when I believed it. Here’s why.

      There are real brain diseases. Traumatic brain injury, dementia, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, tumors, etc. These cause problems thinking and/or physical problems since the brain controls bodily functions.

      But take someone like Ted Bundie. He was clever and resourceful at the crimes he committed. Not cognitive problems but moral.

      Many shrinks say he must have been “bipolar” just like your eccentric, sweet Aunt Betty, or your mom who happened to have a really bad SSRI reaction that almost killed her thereby “unmasking” her “disease” (Can’t pill shame so it must be her fault.) According to many shrinks these law abiding women are exactly like the notorious serial killer and deserve to be treated like criminals.

      There is also the etymological trouble in the oxymoron “mental illness” itself….

    • you wrote a beautiful poem.
      Everything is offensive for survivors, unless there is some message of hope.
      Otherwise, it is often inflicted from the position of arrogance, and we had enough of it.
      Distress, spiritual seeking, enlightenment, feeling lost, hopeless, whatever you feel comfortable on your specific journey at any moment of time.
      And there are those who accept some ‘illness’, I was there too, and it is a process, sometimes a long one.
      I don’t anymore, but I respect those who do, because it is an impossible task often, especially when one is ruined by their ‘drugs’. Some also find it helpful, and this should be respected too.

    • Little turtle, I call my distress exactly what it is – distress. Fear and panic, feeling discouraged, guilty or ashamed, I am so familiar with these. (Aren’t we all, really?) I have a few special people in my life who swarm me with LOVE and validation and reassurance when I need it. Psychiatry made me worse, made me feel damaged, broken, diseased, unlovable. Indeed, my family discarded me as such. If your family doesn’t love you in your darkest moments, who will?

      As the Beatles once sang, I get by with a little help from my friends. There are no drugs that can deliver the healing balm that a few caring words or a warm embrace do for the psyche in moments of distress. Doctors and drugs are no substitute for community and human connection.

  7. Thanks for this great blog Ekaterina.

    Yes, psych labels are hastily assigned to a person based on the “word” or ‘feelings’ of a single psychiatrist. The so-called ‘opinion’ of a biased psychiatrist is simply a psychiatrist’s ‘feelings’ formed with little context and without knowing the person well – but presented as indisputable fact that can never be changed. That bizarre issue alone is the catalyst for all the harm that follows.

    So glad you survived the suffering psychiatry inflicts on so many and through your own wisdom and intuition found peace and enjoyment in life.

  8. The mental health system and the recovery movement try to make you personalize things. Shouldn’t ever say “I am not mentally ill”.

    Rather,

    “There is no such thing as mental illness. The idea was always just a way of delegitimating people. And I believe that it is better to find non-violent solutions to conflicts. But that does not mean that I am a pacifist. Revolutionary struggles do often prove necessary.”

  9. I agree with you, Thomas Szasz, and Thomas Insel, all the DSM “mental illnesses” are scientifically “invalid.” It’s all “bullshit,” as Allen Francis finally confessed, after millions of children and adults were misdiagnosed as “bipolar.”

    https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/directors/thomas-insel/blog/2013/transforming-diagnosis.shtml
    https://www.wired.com/2010/12/ff_dsmv/
    https://www.alternet.org/2010/04/are_prozac_and_other_psychiatric_drugs_causing_the_astonishing_rise_of_mental_illness_in_america/

    “We should blame psychiatry for inflicting this damaging term on those who have no ‘mental illness’ in the first place.” And all those who continue to believe in the DSM “bible,” which includes many mainstream doctors, psychologists, counselors, social workers, media personalities, politicians, religious leaders, and many others. Pretty much everyone who profits from psychiatry’s, outside the law, destruction and marginalization of innocent people.

    The DSM needs to be flushed, since all the DSM “mental illnesses” are “bullshit.” But once again, shame on psychiatry, and ‘noch ein anderes’ psychiatric holocaust.

    https://www.naturalnews.com/049860_psych_drugs_medical_holocaust_Big_Pharma.html

    The truth is psychiatry should be abolished, because that industry doesn’t learn from history. And they repeat the worst of history, over, and over, and over again.

  10. There aren’t “mental” illnesses, but plenty of physical ones that induce “mental” symptoms. Naturally, psych drugs are definitely not “treatments of choice” for them, nor are psychiatrists preferred consultants, knowing little about physical diseases and conditions.

    • Truer words bcharris.

      The DSM has been repeatedly exposed but not yet tried in a court of law as Junk Science.

      Both new and old science are very clear that disease is caused by inflammation that is triggered both by stress (so this does dismiss of social trauma theory but lends it credibility) and diet.

      The false dichotomy invented to sell mental health has quite remarkably managed to con-vince people that there are 2 separate kinds of health in one human being; one for the head another for the body. Its great for business, but bad for humanity.

      There is a list of over 200 bona fide diseases (primarily autoimmune) called “medical mimics” & (psychiatric pretenders-Brogan) as well as some 200 drugs whose normal sequalea, symptoms are misdiagnosed as “MI”

      We know that improper diet is killing people and increasing see evidence that vegetarian/vegan diets cause numerous health conditions. Food is highly politicized & propagandized and the easiest way to control people’s health- hence mass intentional poverty. Food is life & health – period.

      The fact that people are being conned, labelled as mental patients, drugged & trapped in this toxic system- many for life, because they are suffering from vitamin deficiencies, inflammation from improper diet and chronic stress so an industry can earn a living off their ignorance is a “medical” tragedy and a crime against humanity.

      DIET & MENTAL HEALTH
      @19 “depression” is stress …change diet & suicide dissolves
      23 Ppl DIE stopping benzo’s
      26 NOT SEROTONIN-INFLAMMATION
      42 Psychiatric is autoimmune caused by plants
      43 Jordon Peterson cured w all meat diet but still pushes serotonin lie
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4133&v=rihRvnqIP7U

  11. While i know i dont really have an illness as such i have a condition. I react a certain way under extreme stress. Yes this could give me a chemical imbalance just like new mothers react post partum psychosis to the extreme stress of childbirth.

    I dont believe my psychosis is spiritual. I think the content of my psychosis reflects my lifestyle and generally how i perceive the world at the time which is distorted. i think if you kill in psychosis you have to be predisposed to it. Each personality is different the majority of people simply arent killers. The majority of people like me are vulnerable.

    We need support. Most families dont know how to deal with someone having this condition and there isnt the support out there.

    Sanctuary is most important. stigma surrounding people who have these conditions will take further generations to change.

    Can you do something yourself? Well i suffered feelings of flatness and then decided to go onto a vegan diet. This has helped tremendously. Even with withdrawals because im having the meds reduced.

    Do medications help? Yes they do for a lot of people.

    Is Trump right when he says shooters are severely mentally ill?. No! They could be suffering psychosis though and just have a predisposition to kill. They could be experiencing severe stress. We shouldnt all be labelled the same! The majority of people are basically good hearted.

    • Hello Bippione,

      people get unwell sometimes, and it is true. Now, whether it is a ‘condition’, it is a topic of debate.
      The theory of ‘chemical imbalance’ has no scientific argument.
      I agree with you that in exceptional cases, ‘medication’ can help, but it is all appropriated by the psychiatry, and it is misused very often.
      For instance, some examples: 1. distressed people who exhibit what they call ‘psychotic symptoms’ (in reality, no one knows what is going on, and each ‘psychosis’ is totally different for everyone. I am sorry I use this term. I use it because my experience was called ‘psychosis’, while it was a spiritual liberation and still is. I was prescribed killing dosage of risperidone and almost died, because I couldn’t see the aim of life after the hospital, where the most beautiful thing I ever experienced was called an ‘illness’.
      It took me years to process and come to the understanding that it isn’t an ‘illness’, and psychiatry almost ruined me. Well, almost, I am addicted to small dosages of seroquel now, and terrified to try to reduce (even if I take only 50 ml a night) while I am raising my son, because the psychiatric experiment brought me insomnia.
      The dosages they inflict in the hospital start from 300 ml – it is a nightmare, and sedates the patient to the total absence of any desire to enjoy life any further.

      The anti-depressants, their ‘miracle’ cases lead often to inability to stop them and to massive problems with withdraw, when even deeper depression follows. For privacy issues I can’t provide a name, but a close person to me, a former GP (!!!) can’t stop them now, had to leave his job, and I do fear for his future where anti-depressants don’t work anymore, make him unable to enjoy his life, but where he can’t stop them either. It is hard to watch.

      So, yes, medication works, just take it away from the psychiatrists. Because under their ‘care’, it isn’t medication, it is psychiatric, harmful drugs.

      Sanctuary is often necessary, but sanctuary doesn’t exist in a psychiatric hospital. As it stands now, it is a huge laboratory of human experiment, where patients are degraded, forced medication they don’t want, and released back, with inability to function as before. I don’t know a single patient who is happy after the ordeal in a psychiatric hospital, and till now, I met many, really many.

      • Thank you Ekitarina for that response. Yes agree one glove shouldnt fit all and there should be Advance Directives that are adhered to when made by a person who is sound.

        Last year i became drug free and went psychotic not because i was withdrawing but because i was under extreme stress and i had myself admitted voluntary and was forced drugs again. There should be options if a person isnt totally aggressive which last year in my psychotic episode i wasnt but police were involved and they insist i am treated so i feel the doctors had no choice. The psychosis lasted about a couple of hours and i wasnt aggressive but i was delusional for over a week. I needed sanctuary and was grateful to be there in the end but like i say the OT department was lacking except there was a nice walk when i was allowed.

        When i was first admitted in the early 70s doors on the wards werent locked until evening and you were free to go and come as you pleased. Things have changed so much because the OT departments were huge.

        With psychiatrists they tend not to recognize just when a person has well being or not and they prolong treatment when its obvious its not working.

        Psychosis is not always a bad experience for people. There should be a conversation about the nature of what goes on in your head at the time as it can reflect so much. That never happens. Also patients should be advised about addiction. It should always be a personal choice whether to continue with meds and always with informed consent. Thank you for a great article.

        my psychotic episodes although in the past have been of a religious nature i feel arent spiritual in any way but i dont dispute yours in fact are.

        • Medication definitely works. It is a chemical that scrambles chemicals. Sometimes it changes a person’s personality, perhaps always. But in what way? There is NOTHING ‘ordered’ going on within the brain as these chemicals simply scramble a vast territory….akin to a nuclear bomb disturbing atoms. They, the shrinks have no clue at all about what is going on. There is a great pill for lobotomies. It just takes years to get to the point where your brain doesn’t know that your pants fell down, and it takes the brain 10 minutes to try and comprehend that the pants are off, then another 10 minutes of fumbling with the pants.

  12. So I would suggest never going along with any ~mental health~ or ~Autism/Asperger’s/neurodiversity~. If they have made you feel that you need to deny that it applies to you, then they have already got you.

    And likewise, knowing when to use violence, and knowing how to use it, is just part of life. No reason you or I should be pressed to disavow it.

  13. Actually i believe i have a condition wherby i produce extra dopermine than other people when under stress. i ask to be admitted then refuse medication which is forced on me which further increases my stress levels then dopermine.

    The thing is there needs to be more studies with people suffering psychosis because its my experience mine doesnt last. Naturally. It has done in the past though and lasted for weeks.

    As for being labelled schizophrenic? I am glad my condition is recognized but society has to change not so much the wording. It will take generations to come just like it took people’s attitude towards HIV and Aids.

    I doubt very much exercise would have helped my first episode of psychosis. The right kind of therapy would have helped though if someone had explained to me and my family just what was happening to me.

    • Hello Bippyone,
      I just saw now your comment on ‘schizophrenia’.
      The wording is precisely what it is, and it is what it is called here in the West.
      It is labelled as an ‘illness’. And that’s why there is stigma. It won’t go anywhere while it’s called ‘mental illness’. Trump just proved it.
      It is not an illness.
      It is the experience of being able to access the other reality, sometimes it can be terrifying, sometimes not.
      I was labelled with this first, but they removed it and put ‘bipolar’, as I do too well for their diagnosis of ‘schizophrenia’, while it is exactly what i have (according to their labels), and it is not an illness.
      Here, they ruin it. They ruin it by words (if someone from authority, a ‘doctor’ says you are ill, it is very, very difficult to look at it differently), and then they force very damaging ‘medication’ on you, which actually ruins the whole experience and does make you ill. it doesn’t remove the other reality though, and thus, you start thinking that, that’s it, it’s chronic.
      Psychiatrists have no clue what it is, and they don’t want to admit it, because they don’t want to loose their power of regulating the society of undesired, challenging, clever ‘elements’. They want everyone the same, complacent.
      In other countries, they look at it as shamanic call, or spiritual awakening and work with you on it.
      But I know now, I am not a shaman. I am a holy fool, something I found in Russian culture, and which immediately shed a light for me on my experience. I see churches in my dreams, I talk with angels.
      Both experiences are valid and should be honored (shamanism or another dimension). I work with both.

      Once they ruined you, yes, you are more vulnerable to stress. You do need to be extra-careful. Sleep patterns, regulating stress levels, etc, healthy food, walk in nature, etc, very important.
      Take good care of yourself.

      • like i said Ekaterina i had this condition long before i consulted a psychiatrist. Am grateful to doctors and to know what i suffer from. Do not feel it is at all spiritual. There is strong scientific evidence there is a deficiency in my neurotransmitters and i am very happy to believe this. i am vegan and have little glutamate in my diet and i dont smoke drink or take supplements. when i have my medication reduced right down ill consider getting more exercise.

        Good luck to you!

        • Bippyone, there are people that “support” people who want to try psychedelics and/for integration. I’ve got an idea, since psychedelics produce trips, which the person sits through with the user, how would it be if you used these same sitters/therapists to sit with you through upheavals in your life? But without the psychedelic use? I recently contacted one therapist in Vancouver, and the reason I did was because of her stance on our being human and not a label or ill. When I looked up “Psychedelic support”, I looked at the person’s bio, their training (wanting to make sure they did not formerly work in a psych or hospital situation) their foundational belief, their way of working with people. I bet they would work with someone not into psychedelics, but would know a heck of a lot more about what it is like to trip a bit, than any shrink.

  14. Actually one thing that has always bugged me why are people like me given regular weekly or monthly medications? Wouldn’t it be better to just give people the treatment when they have an attack.

    It seems the worst most of us do is act silly. Except I was known to abscond and disappear to another part of the country and I also could have got on a plane and left the country altogether. This is something I dread my son doing because I wouldn’t be able to help him and luckily so far he has helped himself when extremely ill.

    My husband had medication for 17 years and was okay and got his life together again. It wasn’t until he came off it he had a manic attack and was in hospital.

    Seems it is the old adage “Prevention is better then cure!”

    • Bippione,

      your husband had withdrawal reaction not ‘manic episode’.

      These drugs are addictive, and to stop them, you need to reduce them very gradually, very carefully.

      I agree with you about giving something when something happens, not to give it all the time. Because then you believe it is chronic and believe in ‘illness’, then you actually become ‘ill’. It acts as a curse. The only way out is to undo it, really. Stop believing in it. And if you become unwell, well, it is just temporary and will pass.

      in my case I know now for sure: they should never ever drug me when I ended up ‘in their care’. I would be able to process it, and come out happy and enlightened.
      I did eventually, but with the delay of 15 years, and only when I left the mental health narrative for good.

    • Bippyone I would not advise you or your loved ones to just quit taking your pills cold turkey. Especially SSRI drugs or benzoes. Took me over a year to get off Effexor.

      I can think more clearly and socialize with ease I never possessed before as an adult. But I still developed a couple autoimmune disorders that may clear up in another year or two.

      • i did it because my psychiatrist at the time refused to help me. now i have a very forward thinking doctor and am doing it slowly but although i could i dont want to come off it completely. just have it reduced. Dr Richard Bentall sent me the scientific evidence once people like me produce excess dopermine under stress. when i tell people this is what i suffer from they understand and treat me with respect.

    • Bippyone

      Problem with PNR is it could exasperate W/D as it is well documented that starting, stopping, increasing, decreasing, adding or removing another p-drug or Allopathic toxin can increase likelihood of an adverse drug event. Given this, as Breggin states, the best choice is to never take these drugs to begin with.

      The entire medical model of labeling symptoms as attacks of “MI” diseases is deeply unethical & problematic on so many levels, specifically because defaulting to such silliness, fails to discover the root cause of the “attack”, experience, response, reaction etc. Or to ask and answer, what is causing this in the first place.

      Sillier still is that its illegal medical malpractice & insurance fraud to misdiagnose and mistreat people.

      The literature is overwhelmingly clear that vitamin deficiencies and a HOST of other common occurrences including exposure to toxins, prolonged dis/stress triggers inflammation that causes disease. It is those symptoms (which are the normal sequalea of bona fide disease, deficiencies or reactions to other stimulus) that are stupidly labeled “MI” that trap Med Mal victim in the system to be experimented on at whim.

      The only thing that could be more disgusting than targeting SYMPTOMS exhibited by anyone with a pulse, is if the MH system openly admitted that they were openly targeting Jews, Poles, Ukrainians, Soviet Slavs, POWs, Romani, PWD, Gays & Lesbians Political dissents,Leftists and Enemy nationals.
      The slight of hand with which they conduct the current genocides is so much more covert and deceiving.

      Run Bambi, run….

  16. Ekaterina (never noticed the “a” in there before), here is the original comment I posted, don’t know if you saw it:

    Keep in mind — the problem is also with any other term which means or is substituted for “mental illness.” (This includes “psychosis.”) And with any school of thought which claims there is an “it” which can be categorized and defined.

    I also included a more personal note I can relay via email (if I still have your email).

    • Hello Oldhead,
      yes, we had this conversation before about the term ‘psychosis’. Yes, it is extremely offensive.
      I use it for a very specific reason, as I do want to study it as an academic, and there is no other way, but to use the term, I do write a book about it (not academic work), and it is the term so much used now, that I simply want to challenge its core. I blog about it too.
      What is it??? What? psychiatrists use it as if it conveys something, as if they understand anything, annihilating the other reality. But the other reality is there, and I want to challenge it. The whole look at it.
      So, again, I am sorry if some of you are offended by it, yet again, really sorry. I have a reason for it.
      Oldhead, if you go to my site http://www.russianpatient.com, click contact and send me an email if you don’t have my original email.

        • Bippyone,

          ah, where did you find such ‘medical’ definition to describe ‘psychosis’? This interpretation (true and valid) comes from looking at it as manifestations of the spiritual world.
          The common definition of it, as provided by the psychiatry is: ‘a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.’

          The most important thing is that you feel that you are getting the support that you need. I totally agree that not all psychiatrists are bad, some of them are quite nice people. Some of them even disagree with the psychiatry after discovering that it can harm people, but are unable to speak out or leave, as it means the immediate loss of the job.
          And one single psychiatrist, one single stay in the hospital can ruin one’s life, and it is putting people’s lives at stake, coming from a field which often doesn’t understand what it is doing, and sometimes does, when it is in cooperation with big pharma, and people’s lives don’t matter anymore but profit and one’s ‘career’ advance do.
          But you do need to think of yourself, and do what you find helpful, to enjoy your life.

          • The Number One reason that should enlighten people to the sham of psychiatry is that involvement even in a minor manner has the ability to ruin you as part of society, as far as jobs, and if in a position as a parent, you could lose your kids if you had a nasty spouse. It can literally taint you for life. How could anyone possibly believe there is “help” out there, a safety net. Psychiatry is a crime, there is no nice psychiatry. The only thing psychiatry makes sure of is that you won’t harm yourself. You could literally ask a family member to lock you in a room without access to anything. At least this way, there is no record.

      • What is it??? What? psychiatrists use it as if it conveys something

        There is no “it.” As Dragon Slayer has pointed out (one of his better insights) asking what “mental illness,” “psychosis” etc. “really’ are is like asking what the Easter Bunny “really” is.

        P.S. It’s not a matter of whether something is “offensive”; that’s just ego stuff. What’s important is whether or not it is correct. (If you want to get into why shrinks use the term that’s a separate discussion.)

  17. Actually my husband was depressed and manic long before he was ever given medication and i started to be ill at age 17 and didnt see a psychiatrist until i was 23.

    We had a condition or illness whatever you care to call it. My husband went out manic during the night on his motor bike and almost died and ended up in intensive care. Never having been given medication before actually medication made him well. I watched him become manic when not on medication for years just like my son and like all of these conditions they are dangerous.

    Some people who are treatment resistant should be assisted to become drug free. And more research needs to go into this and more training by doctors and nurses.

    I hate being in psychosis. I hate being depressed, hearing voices, being manic and having delusions and paranoia. I see so many people suffering. Im glad to sleep through these episodes which is kind. i appreciate doctors and nurses working through the night and making it their life’s work to come to my aid. Although better training could be given. Here in the UK doctors and nurses dont make billions of dollars they are dedicated.

    • Bippyone,
      I am based in the UK too.
      Yes, you are right, everything changed in the past couple of years or so. That’s because of the government and their slogan ‘mental illness is like any other illness’. It is terrifying where it is going. It is going into privitization and big pharma (what do you think will happen after Brexit?).
      You are right that here, most people in MH services really are there because they think they do something good. But they have no clue what they are doing. But yes, they are mostly nice people, they just don’t know what they are doing.
      I escaped all that in the past in the UK, the ordeal of it because of nice, pleasant experience, where after my terrifying ordeal in Amsterdam, I just checked in into the hospital (in the UK) because I was again afraid that I was becoming ‘ill’, had a nice pleasant stay, nice chat with the ‘psychiatrist (she had to find out though ‘quietipine’/ seroquel in her book when I mentioned it for my sleep, agreed on my dose, laughed with me about my ‘voices’ and was in fact slightly ‘crazy herself), pleasant escapes to the nearest pub from the premises, great walks, baths, etc.

      And then they built a wall, it is all secure. The psychiatrists now have no clue, no understanding of the individual. They see ‘bipolar’ in the notes, and argue for lithium because you are supposed to have mood swings (which I don’t), nurses are no longer nice because they have to spend their time on writing notes on computer instead of taking the patient on a walk (which they want, but can’t), there is no choice but to be drugged to be released, you are degraded by some staff members (employed via private agencies, not the NHS ones, which are all nice and compassionate people), and I finally saw, two years ago, what it is (the psychiatry), and what people here were talking about.
      It almost ruined my life, my last psychiatric experience.
      Never again. I keep seroquel precisely for this reason. If I feel I am vulnerable, I will sort myself out.

      But yes, you are vulnerable, because you can access ‘that other reality’, and you are always vulnerable when you are fully there.

      • yeah i agree the service has got worse. lack of training and bank nurses employed. OT minimal. There are good snd bad nurses though. good and bad doctors.

        my last stay at Filindre hospital South Wales excellent. i am happy for me to go there again and my son. not sll hospitals are going private. the most modern ones near me are NHS.

  19. Thank you for your thoughtful piece. I too prefer the term madness to mental illness and follow Szasz in thinking that mental illness is a misnomer. I appreciated the sentiment behind #IAmNotDangerous–the idea that someone diagnosed with say, bipolar disorder (as I am), is not dangerous–and tweeted something to that effect. But I also found it troublesome that the term mental illness was accepted without question.

    • Hello George,
      yes, the sentiment was probably good to start with, but then it went out or proportion, with some of these ‘advocates’ promoting drugs they take.
      As if being ”mentally ill’ is something glamorous. Without looking at the term itself anymore, which is a big problem.
      It is not ‘glamorous’, and when you promote it as ‘sickness’, it becomes incomprehensible.
      Terrible and really frustrating.
      It comes as well from the charities which are funded by the government to advance their ‘mental illness is like any other illness’, to deal with all malaise with the help of drugs, and forget about the individual and individual approach.

    • Hi George! As long as we have media that sensstionalizes murder by people psychotic then we will have the stigma.

      i live in a small rural town and things i did in the past while ill are remembered but since my husband died i am building up a good reputation for myself.

      also media coverage is becoming more positive. Trump didnt really help by not sdding that the majority of people do no harm and here in the UK 2% of crime is committed by people like me who experience psychosis and delusions.

      which i think thst makes us extremely special individuals!

      the words “mental illness” and labels dont matter what matters is how the media cover it. That goes for literature, tv, large screen and social media. Social media is good overall.

      like i say i dont believe my psychosis or delusions paranioa voices mania or depression has ever been spiritual although sometimes were of a religious nature!

  20. Psychosis is a SYMPTOM NOT a disease
    some of many causes:
    1. dehydration
    2. being on ventilator or in hospital esp 4 elderly
    3. lack sleep
    4. vitamin deficiencies
    5. 500+ Allopathic & street drugs
    6. symptoms of bona fide diseases (IE: Myexademic madness thyroid disease)

    • i dont really care what label you give it a certain amount of celebrities including prince harry here in the uk are lime lighting mental illness. we still have those who kill and that is broadcast but generally i think the tide is changing. when i explain to people what happens to me under stress and those that know me treat me with respect. there is one guy in the shame department and is a jehovahs witness. other than that people treat me with the utmost respect.

      • The partial list of agents above, well documented to cause the experience called psychosis, are real human reactions to adverse effects on the human body (that happens to come part and parcel with a brain) and has nothing to do with “labels” so I’m not sure where you’re going with that, assuming your responding to me.

        I agree, like any elitist person or group (influencer) pushing MH propaganda, the Royal families campaigns are seriously problematic. Privilege often, but not always protects them from the death, disability and discrimination that the average test subject is at risk of.

        Respectfully, what’s harmful about your “perspective, belief” whatever you want to label it, is that medical malpractice and fraud, remains medical malpractice and fraud no matter how comfortable the so labeled person happens to be with the deception. And although pervasive, pseudo-science has no ethical place is so called health care.

        Unlike yourself, a great many others really do care what you label it, (them) because we personally don’t enjoy being conned, coerced, forced, harassed, drugged, injured, tortured and humiliated by false & historically discriminatory labels (no matter what guise it masquerades as, for any reason)

        • I think you hit the key point – people can label themselves whatever they want, and more power to them. But when credentialed doctors who have the trust of their patients and the general public start promoting “theories” they know to be wrong or speculative as if they are certain and settled science, they are being extremely unethical. And when their clients are concretely harmed by such deception, they have moved from unethical to criminal behavior.

          • I’m not in the least surprised that you can share this example of you helping someone to recover their life and being a major source of help, support and encouragement. As you have hinted previously, you’re the kind of person that struggles with turning your back on people and isn’t averse to getting your hands dirty. You would self-sacrifice without need for trumpet-blowing, social boasting, vested interest, monetary compensation, and so on. You do it because you are at heart a kind person that finds personal meaning in helping others.

            However, you weren’t all in with the guy as an antipsychiatrist. And you assume from personal bias that he’s always going to be better off abstaining from antipsychotics, when in fact, for some people, the enforced goal of abstention is an unnecessary cruelty that rides roughshod over their needs in order to make a fantasy triumphal gallop into the sunset of ideology.

            What I have come to understand is that for people suffering severe and enduring difficulties, formalised systems of care and support best work in alliances with those in close, caring and supportive relationships with the sufferers. What I think we’re lacking in the West is the encouragement and support and promotion of befriending/adoption kinds of relationships, in which people who have no-one in their life willing or able to stand in and take on responsibility for them, are not denied, cast out, failed, but helped by those that profess to know better, that demand more humanity, that scream loudly about how they were once hard done by, and that these people, once they have attained a state of forgiveness, can work in alliance with professionals, so that others can acheive what they feel was once denied to them.

            I believe lots of people are standing idle on this, and have got themselves trapped in echo chambers in which they are all waiting for someone else to make a move. When really all it takes is one person of conviction to be open to one other person that is suffering. In other words, just one person at a time. It’s not like there aren’t enough people available to do this. There is in fact a massive surplus, and large numbers of antipsychiatrists (and others with less redical views) with spare rooms, sofas, and sufficient resources to get by, maybe scrape by, but surely the focus is on human needs and human kindness?

          • Steve. It is exactly the social harm it causes that shows psychiatry to be exactly what it is. Worse in practice than any religion ever was, and it is the same religion on a global scale. First religion where members actually all agree and spread their hatred of humans. Call it what you want, some ride the fence and give shrinks benefit of doubt. They are a very dark entity, if not, there would be no repercussions to personal lives. It is the ONLY practice that results in massive damage. How can anyone support this garbage?

    • Depression also can be a symptom of anemia, low thyroid levels, and digestive problems. None of these need psychiatry. Especially the last which the “go to cure” of quackery will only make ten fold worse.

      I know a woman with stomach problems who had so much trouble eating she got weak and lay in bed. Her doctor told her it was all a chemical imbalance in her brain and put her on an SSRI which messes the stomach up even more. Filthy liar. Or incompetent idiot at best. Some really are that “uninformed” to use Pies’s term.

  22. The term Mental Illness has no basis in reality. It is hate speech, designed to promote segregation and create a class division. Of course, the diagnoses are also hate speech, with the exception of “depression” so long as it is used to describe a stock market or weather event. Or mood. We used to say “depressed” which meant sad, down in the dumps, or just having a bad day. Wish it stayed that way instead of becoming one more fake disease.

    • This is ground zero of the pandemic.
      The problem is that very few people/organizations are willing to stop using the bogus terms mental health/illness, depression etc; even when they admit they are fallacy’s.
      As such, they inadvertently support the propaganda and fraud that has almost completely brain washed the public, begging for more money to support mental health on parity with health care – also a misnomer.
      Sick care is killing us and anyone who missed that, is asleep or in a coma.
      Its difficult to un-drink the cool-aid.
      I have attempted to discuss this with several lawyers – otherwise intelligent, typically highly skeptical people, trained to seek evidence before opining on something so fundamental life altering as slapping a stigmatizing, stereotypical, discriminatory, historically damaging & potentially deadly words on living breathing human beings. Yet they are, as a group, willfully blind in their ignorance & complicity and whole heartily joined the ever growing one world failed theory to add their voices to the collective begging to be included as “invisibly disabled” professional, with yup — chemically imbalanced brains suffering from mental diseases.
      Do lawyers have a duty of care to discover, know and tell the truth and to use that evidence to protect the healthy and safety of humanity? Apparently not anymore than lying drs’ do. They’re too busy protecting the massive systemic risk to the medical/legal system that literally revolves around and profits from the use of DSM junk science to justify labeling millions, medically kidnapping kids, imprisoning the masses …while strategically choosing who will/will not be held accountable because some crimes (rape, violence) are socially sanctioned because they play a vital social role in keeping women impoverished and yep… mentally ill because someone else chose to harm them.
      The world is unjust by design and that alone is a crime against humanity. Words are the primary tools we use to shape shift reality to do our bidding, regardless of and in the absence of the truth. And in between the stages of learning and knowing fact from fiction, no one, no one should ever be held accountable to suffer the costs, losses and hardships inherent in being falsely, fraudulently labeled as a mental patient without medical/legal evidence proving the same. Doing so is against every universal and man-made law claimed to protect us from the very situation we find ourselves victims- yes victims of. No one, no one should ever be held accountable to the specious pseudo-science smearing people in any kind of crisis, as if they were mentally deranged without proof, most especially NOT in a court of law.
      The terms MH/MI are as discriminatory and abusive as any derogatory slur ever uttered – even if and even when they claim not to be intended to do so, perceptively because intention is NOT a required to be guilty of discrimination- only the affect on the discriminated party matters.
      There is no cut off valve between the body and the head. There is but ONE being and but ONE health – human health.
      Stop the lies, tell the truth, change the world.
      Its as simple as saying… “the symptoms diagnosed or labeled as mental illness.”
      If you don’t or won’t, its only a matter of time before people who know better will start wondering why you won’t and more so, what benefits you gain from refusing to do so.
      I for one wonder.

  23. Ekaterina,

    I’m honestly not sure why I NEVER saw my wife as ‘crazy’ or ‘mad’ or ‘ill.’ I don’t like any of those terms, and I really don’t even care for the attempts to take back ‘mad’ and turn it into some kind of badge of honor or ‘in your face’ retort.

    I see my wife as traumatized, no more or less than someone who suffered a severe body trauma like my brother-in-law who fell 30 feet in a hurricane and crushed one side of his body and spent years in rehab and surgeries and still struggles with issues caused from that. My sister and he still have to deal with those issues, but no one looks at him like something is wrong with him because of his injuries. The entire family accepts his struggles and limitations. My sisters tells about the period where she had to ‘wipe’ him after he’d go to the restroom because he couldn’t do it himself. They are ‘in it’ together just like my wife and I are in her issues together, and yet I’m told ‘something is wrong’ with my wife because of her struggles, and they wonder why I don’t feel like being around them much…sigh.

    I’ve often wondered about the various reactions of people to other’s struggles, but I typically assume it tells me more about them than the person struggling.
    Sam

    • Dear Sam,

      your wife is lucky that she has you!

      Yes, I understand why many people find also the term ‘madness’ very offensive, because of its very negative denotation nowadays.
      I find the term interesting as a researcher (its evolution, its interpretation, etc), and also as a linguist (different terms in different languages, which appear not as offensive, with different terms for different ‘madness’), and because I am Russian. We have the concept of ‘holy fool’, which personally I found very helpful, and therefore, I am interested in the trajectory of how we look at ‘madness’, etc, also in different cultures, and how it is looked upon as unusual, and sometimes also divine experience.
      This runs in parallel with my own experience of psychiatry and lived experience, which is slightly different but also is now my topic of interest. I am an academic, a writer, and now I also see myself as an activist, and as a survivor but it’s all a process, and sometimes a long one. The amount of knowledge I learned from this site though, and how it helped me in my personal journey, is really very valuable.

      • I actually prefer the term “madness.”

        1. It’s perceived as a emotional state. Not an inherited moral inferiority.
        2. Classical writers saw it as temporary.
        3. It lacks the pseudo scientific pretensions of modern psychiatry.

        Many of us are life long cripples and we owe it all to the quackery of psychiatry. Like severing someone’s spinal cord to cure restless leg syndrome. 🙁

        • I actually prefer the term “madness.”

          You’re missing the whole point Rachel. There is no “madness” any more than there is “mental illness.” We are not talking about what label to use, but about the entire notion that any mental or emotional state can be categorized and/or labeled. This is why it’s important to have survivor-only study groups, otherwise we just end up with more of the same but with different labels.

          • There is no ‘folly’. No, can’t say that. There is no ‘irrationality’. No, can’t say that.

            As for survivor-only study groups, survivors of what? Tsunamis, the holocaust, rape, domestic violence, etc.?

            It helps to be specific, OldHead, and not to speak in tongues.

          • Sorrow, happiness, fear and anger could be called labels or categories. Words to describe these things have been around as long as humanity.

            What psychiatry–wrongly–does is try to quantify the unquantifiable. Like trying to put love under a microscope. Or assign numerical values to the Seven Deadly Sins in order to use them in mathematical equations.

          • That’s one characteristic out of thousands. I’d say the essence of psychiatry is to mystify people as to the social/political origins of their misery and lead them to internalize their rage. In a nutshell.

            Sorrow, anger and fear are emotions, they are not “categories” in any comparable sense to such neologisms as “mental illness.” Calling someone sad is not hate speech.

        • Rachel,

          I don’t like those terms (and I would include psychosis with them) because had I perceived my wife in any of those ways, it would have absolved me from any need (and more correctly, any ability) to understand what she was experiencing…and it was only once I really understood things from her perspective that I was able to help her heal and move forward and be a good healing companion. Once I understood what she was experiencing during panic attacks and flashbacks, her going catatonic, etc, I was able to help her thru them and permanently heal the underlying causes such that she hasn’t experienced that stuff in years at this point.
          Sam

          • I think this is awesome. Social caring support when a person is having difficulty that is stressful for them and often to those around them. Not blaming, naming, or shaming.

        • @Rachel — that sounds vaguely hostile. I’m simply asking you to clarify what you mean with your abstract philosophical statements.

          Frank’s “tongues” comment was prompted my reference to survivor study groups; since you obviously know what I mean by “survivor” (i.e. anti-psychiatry survivor) it’s also unclear why you think his comment has relevance here or reflects your own thoughts. I’m the one who has asking for “specificity.”

    • there is something wrong with both your brother in law and your wife both have been traumatized. To say they have nothing wrong is belittling them as human beings with extrordinary life threatening conditions. Both need complete care. Both suffer. Whether you call one a paraplegic or one a schizophrenic what they suffer from is equally devastating. In my experience most medical staff i have encountered appreciate this.

      • Hello Bippyone,

        I do understand what you are saying and absolutely agree with your statement, but I think my use of ‘wrong’ had a different intention.

        Today’s biochemical model of mental health posits that some people are fundamentally flawed, in their dna, and they are ‘broken’ without any hope of ‘repair.’ Whereas the paradigm I use is the trauma model. I believe that what is ‘wrong’ with my wife is the result of trauma, and with love, help, and strong attachments she can heal.

        Restated: the biochemical model says there is a category of people broken, ill and fundamentally flawed. The trauma model just believes the mental distress and other issues like my wife’s d.i.d. are not ‘inherent’ in the person but the natural cause of pain and fear from life’s traumas and those CAN be healed.

        So the best I can tell you is we are using the same words but they have radically different meanings.
        I hope that helps!
        Sam

        • Hi Sam Ruck, while I so hear what you are saying would it was so easy as to give our loved ones all the love we could muster and they would be cured with kindness and affection. I and my husband loved one another deeply and we loved our son and our parents certainly loved us but unfortunately it did not stop there and we became, and i know of no other word to describe it, ‘ill’.

          When we were children both my brothers, my sister and I were traumatized but only two of us became ill. There is no other word in the English dictionary to describe it except insane, mad or crazy and I prefer the words mentally ill.

          The theory is unlike others we produce extra dopermine in our neurotransmitters which affects our synoptic clefts in our neurons because of the trauma which makes us vulnerable to psychosis and the other symptoms. It isn’t just a case of cheering a sad person up, it isn’t just a case of giving the person all the love and affection in the world, if they are
          under stress they will become ill and it will make no difference.

          One thing you could do for your wife is to make sure she is no longer under stress but this is hard to avoid as life has its ups and downs.

          My husband stayed well for 17 years even under stress because he was medicated before he died and in his words he had a good life. I hope your wife makes a full recovery and has a good life too!

          • Hi Bippyone,
            you are correct that it takes a lot more than a nebulous ‘loving someone’ to help them thru extreme forms of mental distress and trauma, and I’m sorry if I watered down my reply to the point that it looked simplistic to you. I wish there was time and space here to tell you all the ways I have systematically and intentionally helped my wife heal thru some of the worst ‘extreme states’ you could imagine, but my doing so required no medication and though I would have been happy for additional help, as her primary attachment figure, the majority of responsibility was always going to be on me anyway, though our son was a huge help in the beginning.
            Sam

      • Bippyone, I am not sure why you are overwriting Sam Ruck’s narrative? Basically telling him that his family needs “professional help”. He is telling us his narrative, I refuse to overwrite it with mine. Why would my narrative have a more factual meaning for HIS life. Shrinks overwrite

  25. You had me until the end. I wholeheartedly agree with you that “mental illness” is not illness and this is the crux of the problem. The term and all the diagnoses reify human struggles and imply they are diseases that make people do things (e.g., “bipolar causes mania”). But at the end of your essay, you said those who perpetrate the mass shootings suffer from “a sick mind.” Minds cannot be sick. And though we might use “sick” metaphorically here, we can also use “mental illness” metaphorically. But, that is the heart of the problem. Those figurative phrases are taken literally by most people. Sick minds do not cause mass shootings. Using that phrase allows us to overlook the very real factors involved in violence. It is no different than saying “the devil made me do it.”

    • i agree chuck ruby it is a fact that people naturally suffer psychosis and whichever way you look at it people who have it lose touch with reality and its like being in a sleep state while being awake. then there are delusions and everybodies delusions are different. delusions are scary psychosis is even scarier.

      if you are a killer then you will kill when deluded or you will become violent. the whole majority never are violent. i dont believe the medications can make you do this. Unlike Dr Breggin although i firmly believe he is a remarkably compassionate doctor.

  26. Hello Chuck,

    yes, you are right.
    I used it metaphorically.

    Still, there is a huge difference between ‘mental illness’ which is used as an umbrella term for all cases of human malaise, distress, unusual experience, or just a natural reaction to life events, and the expression ‘suffer from a sick mind’. Bit it might get medicalized too. It is actually getting there already, with the hashtag ‘sick not weak’, makes me shatter every time I see it.

    But the acts of brutality are that they are. There is no justification for them, none.

    • Ekaterina, I haven’t experienced brutality in the 45 years I have been an in and out patient. Yes, I have been pinned down and injected but I couldn’t just stop taking medication. I couldn’t and have done and it has been even worse. I’m afraid it was for my own good. I have a friend who is an artist though and she was manacled and put in restraints because she became mute. This should never have happened and was abuse. I am not saying it doesn’t go on and we have residential homes for the disabled where abuse carries on. Some of these have been exposed and closed down. I personally have never been abused that is all. I suppose I am lucky, but my husband and son haven’t been either.

  27. There is stigma with the term ‘mental illness’ i get exposed to it all the time. I got to thinking about words in general. How the word ‘racist’ describes someone who hates people from another country. How the word ‘homophobic’ describes someone who hates gay people. I cant think of a word that describes someone who hates the mentally ill.

    Would appreciate someone on here letting me know if there is such a word?

  28. RE: #IAmNotDangerous

    Lots of solid research in psychology which demonstrates why pushing a negative has the opposite consequence. So you say to someone, “Do not think about an elephant.” And then all they can think about is an elephant.

    Likewise with pushing the above hashtag. All it achieves is people thinking about dangerousness, way more than they previously were likely to.

    And humans are a dangerous species. We are given to all kinds of violence, in all kinds of ways, most of which is subtle and concealed.

    So to claim non-dangerousness is quite a claim. I’d like to see some qualifying evidence from someone making this claim. Of course, they won’t be able to supply any evidence to substantiate the claim. And if I demanded it they’d resort to some form of subtle violence. That’s pretty much guaranteed.

    An additional dilemma: do dangerous people always know that they are dangerous, and how likely are they to self-identify to others as dangerous?

    Surely a dangerous person would be more likely to self-identify as non-dangerous than an actual non-dangerous person?

    In a very rudimentary social psychology sense, identifying oneself to the group as non-dangerous is likely to instill suspicion in the group. It may also act as a driver of bias, effectively ensuring that the group perceives dangerousness in the person claiming to be non-dangerous.

    All humans are potentially dangerous. All relationships and social settings are fraught with danger.

    You are potentially dangerous. I am potentially dangerous. Let’s trust Life and take some risks!

  29. Pushing the negative does indeed have the opposite consequence.

    The “mentally ill” have already been identified as dangerous by men claiming to be experts on millions they have never even met.

    I prefer “Innocent until proven guilty” myself. And I don’t call myself “mentally ill.

    According to Expert Shrinks “bipolar” and “schizophrenic” are synonymous with violent murderous monster. Why identify as “violent murderous monster”? That’s Torrey’s slanderous accusation. He doesn’t know any of us from Adam.

    And funny how no one asks shrinks to prove they are not dangerous.

  30. Rachel777 i have never heard a psychiatrist say that people they diagnose are dangerous. Never heard one ever say that.

    i am quite happy to believe that myself i have a condition whereby i produce more dopermine under extreme stress rather than believe i just cant hack it.

    i feel better for believing this.

    i find sometimes medication works for me. saying that it should always be a personal choice whether someone decides to use it or not with informed consent.

    • So you haven’t heard of Tim Murphy, Fuller Torrey, or countless others who have written articles and gone on national television demonizing the “severely mentally ill”?

      Many who willingly take psych pills are upset about being called killers. But maybe it’s different over the pond.

      I refer you to RW’s most recent article.

      • The people who most demonize the severely mentally ill, moreso than anyone else, are the severely mentally ill who commit monstrous crimes. These are the people from whom all stigma spews forth.

        The problem then is one of predictive accuracy. Who else amongst this group is going to be the next to commit horrific acts of crime against the innocent?

        It the the public, by and large, who pressure their elected members, and their police forces, and their systems of Law, to “do something about it.”

        And so, to win votes, to be seen to be serving the public, and for justice to be seen to done, it is psychiatrists and mental health systems that are the last in line of pass the buck. Families generally pass the buck on to them too. Lovers, husbands, wives, daughters, friends, colleagues, neighbours… everyone passes the buck over to psychiatrists and the mental health system.

        Because when push come to shove, hardly anyone is willing or equipped to take on the challenge of the severely mentally ill. It is a significant, life-changing, restrictive, challenging and potentially dangerous choice to make, to help someone severely mentally ill, without the resources and legal protections of a governmentally-sanctioned system.

        So the buck is passed until finally it’s a psychiatri team. And our severely mentally ill person in front of them. And there’s maybe a history of violence. Delusions involving threats or plans of violence. And a clock that just won’t stop ticking. The very clock that everyone passed along with the buck.

        Now, you sort that out. Break free of whining in the text box and get out into the real world and sort that out.

        • What do you propose “Outside the text box”?

          Like many survivors I’m frequently housebound from iatrogenic damage. And the draconian laws in America make it unwise to “come out” as a psychiatric survivor.

          I have my plans. But I prefer not to discuss them here.

          • What I propose is to take up the gauntlet thrown by PacificDawn.

            I think you should do what everyone on here should do. Put your money where your mouth is, and take on a person society has deemed severely mentally ill. Kind of adopt them. Bring them into your life and apply your insights. Relinquish them. Free them. No calling the cops. No calling them nasty names. No labelling them with derogatory terms. No violence. No mindgames. No reacting to provocations. No turning your back. Stick by them. Guide them. Tolerate them. Demonstrate in the real world why there is no need for psychiatry, for mental health laws, for commitment, for hospitals, for drugs, for risk assessments, for disability status.

            Demonstrate in action why a severely mentally ill person (ie on here, a fiction) is better off with you than existing systems of support and/or curtailment.

            No institutionalising. So no Soteria. No team-work, no shift work. So no professionalising. No drugging. So no violence. No compulsion. No safeguarding. So no taboo about harm to self and others. Including you.

            Then, after say, 12 months. Tell the world how it went.

            For every hour spent tapping repetitive condemntations of existing systems is an hour wasted in helping someone in the real world and putting your convictions into action.

            Just to add I’ve witnessed big talkers attempting to do this, a number of times. Each and every one of them behaved like despots as soon as things got tough. But not you. Not anyone here. You are different. You know better. I know this, because most days you’re telling the world that you know better.

            So demonstrate it. If anyone here did this just once, I’d be more inclined to consider them sincere. Which is only fair of me, all told.

            Because the biggest problem lies in the expectation that people have that those in peril and disarray will be helped by others. That they are sympathetic to the plight of the mentally ill but only in abstraction, as an idea, always many ways removed from the actual person. That is must always be someone elses’ problem. And that they know better but never so well as to become intimately involved themselves. The problem of the critic is that they are non-creative. They don’t wish to get their hands dirty. But they know an awful lot about how others should go about getting their hands dirty. What we’re talking about here are human beings, that need other human beings. That need help and recognition. And that if mental illness doesn’t exist, then perhaps the bigger problem is that basic human care and self-sacrifice to others is itself diminishing. Wishing mental illness away doesn’t help anyone. It’s not the best metaphor ever conceived but so far it’s the only one that actually brings support and sympathy to people.

            Where is the support and sympathy happening amongst the people here?

            Who is actually caring and self-sacrificing and demonstrating that their claims have any validity outside of text and talking?

            A minority, from what I can gather. And no-one so far as I can see you’d deem antipsychiatry seems to be doing much for the severely mentally ill at all. Unless I am wrong?

          • I have done this, actually. Just heard back from the guy today. He’s doing a lot, a lot better than when I started, but it’s taken years. He was in and out of “hospitalization” and on lots of drugs, now has worked for a year plus in construction, is studying, is able to communicate effectively with others, not using, has made amends to a number of people he’s hurt… still on a very low dose of “antipsychotics” to stave off withdrawal, but tapering gradually. I had no professional relationships with this guy. He was a friend of my oldest son, but everyone had disconnected from him and I was the only one who believed in him.

            So yeah, it happened.

          • RR,
            I’ve done this for the last 11 years with my wife, and I’ve publicly shared the journey and what I/we’ve learned on my blog. You are welcome to come and see what you think. I welcome dialogue and even debate on it.

            But our experience is so completely different than what I read on this website that we aren’t even in the same universe when I read experiences, understandings and solutions on here. And so I’ve had to realize I will always be an outsider here and seen skeptically rather than embraced as someone able to point the way to the very things this website seems to desire…
            Sam

        • rasselas.redux,

          “It is a significant, life-changing, restrictive, challenging and potentially dangerous choice to make, to help someone severely mentally ill, without the resources and legal protections of a governmentally-sanctioned system.”

          It can be done, but I agree there are few out there doing it, and I find it extremely sad that no one on any side of the debate seems to care about our perspective and what we’ve had to learn and do to make it thru this journey with our loved ones.
          Sam

          • Hello Sam,
            actually most readers here do look for other perspectives and views!
            So, please, don’t feel as we aren’t listening, we are.
            Lots of us, survivors, are so broken by the system, that it sounds like invalidating, while, for many, it is actually the only space to express themselves, and validate their experiences, and it sometimes gets heated etc, but usually the motifs behind are good. With the exception when someone wants you to believe in ‘mental illness’ and embrace it as a valid choice. Equally those, in their journey, who do survive solely in the mental health system, also shouldn’t be chastised. We are all humans, and we all decide how to live, and sometimes, the ideology of psychiatry is so strong, that many don’t see alternatives outside it. I was there as well, briefly, but I was.
            i also personally don’t like the chastising of those who do work in the system as peer support workers, or in any capacity out of the heart, and trying to help those who need help the most, coming from compassionate and kind heart.
            As it stands at the moment, the revolution in mental health system, its radical change can only come from within and from outside together, including medical profession, psychologists, survivors, and peer workers. For instance, the stance of the Ministry of Health in Belgium in rejecting the system of diagnoses, is a step in this direction, in some countries, in some places.
            The rest is just lost in academic arguments, in debate, while this is too important to just talk about when real people struggle because of what the psychiatry does to them.

          • I agree it can be done and it is done, the world over. Only we don’t get to hear much from these people doing it.

            Also, to clarify, I don’t personally think it is possible or even sensible to propose or attempt to help anyone with severe mental illness and not have legal protections, and input from professionals of all colours and approaches, as part of a network of care and support and perspectives and in some cases, safeguarding. Maybe it is possible for some people, and if it is, for some people to be helped entirely without input from conventional systems… but I think when supportive systems are available,a nd working well, person and needs focused, that is the best way, centrainly for those people considered to be the most complex and the most in need.

          • “Working well” is the key phrase here. The vast majority of conventional systems do not “work well” for the majority of those exposed to them. The WHO cross-cultural studies bear this out. A person who hears voices is far better off (in terms of effective help) living in Brazil or Nigeria than in the USA or Great Britain.

        • Connecting “severe mental illness” with “monstrous crimes” is not only stigmatizing but factually incorrect. And you wonder why nobody wants to “adopt” us.

          The biggest barrier to these kinds of projects is funding, not lack of desire to help people. When the majority of Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency, how are you expecting people to do much more than cheerlead? The majority are suffering – by design of a system that prioritizes self sufficiency over cooperation.

          I have had a desire for some time to establish an intentional community for psych survivors, but doing anything outside of the system takes funds that most survivors don’t have, including me, since of course, household wealth is not the same as personal wealth.

  31. Hi Sam Ruck, although i understood my husbands behavior totally there was nothing in my power i could do to help him when he became manic although on one attack i nursed him at home but i think although i tried he had to be admotted in the end for hos own safety.

    He literally went into orbit and out of reach. i couldnt deal with him at all and had to have him admitted.

    Also the last time my son was delusional he terrified me and the cats. What was i suppose to do under those circumstances? I had to call for help.

    • Hi Bippyone,
      hmm….written responses are so difficult to convey meaning…and none of what I say is meant to criticize what you did…so I just want to say that up front…

      But when I talk about understanding what was going on with my wife, I kind of meant it in a more technical way, though still in laymen’s terms. For example, when my wife went catatonic, I had to learn that what actually happened was one personality left executive control, but no one else came out to take control… so the “lights were on, but (literally) no one was home’ or out front. Once I figured that out, it just became a matter of me calling or pulling another girl out, and the catatonic issues were largely resolved.

      When my wife suffered ‘mini-seizures’, well that was a different issue. That was more like a computer program that had glitched while changing programs…and my wife had ‘glitched’ when switching from one girl to the next. And so I learned to ‘help’ her thru the switching and the seizures ended.

      The flashbacks and panic attacks were another issue. That was caused by the overlapping of past, dissociated, traumatic memories that were controlled by one girl breaking thru to another girl who was in executive control on the outside. And so I had a number of ways, mostly based on attachment theory’s understanding of safe haven and affect regulation, to calm her and help her integrate those new memories in the ‘overall narrative.’

      I also had to learn that some part of my wife was ALWAYS accessible, even when it appeared otherwise on the outside. And so even if she didn’t respond, I would still speak to her, using my attachment points to remind her she was no longer alone, she was safe now, etc, etc, etc… And so I learned to effect healing even when she didn’t appear to respond to me.

      So it was a matter of becoming able to diagnosis what was going on internally with her, and tailoring my response to her current reality…and little by little as I provided her that safe haven, affect regulation and proximity maintenance, the trauma memories no longer overwhelmed her because she had the additional support of my presence, and so she could slowly integrate those memories into her overall narrative…and thus they were no longer able to overwhelm her from a dissociated area previously inaccessible to her.

      Clearly, I can’t tell you what was going on with your husband or son, or make any judgments about you or them, but by walking this journey WITH my wife and learning to listen and become ‘in tune’ with her, I was able to facilitate some pretty dramatic healing to the point that most of the ‘extreme stuff’ is a distant memory and we are only dealing with tearing down the vestiges of the dissociation between the various girls, and that requires another, different approach based on attachment theory’s understanding of the inner working model.
      Sam

  33. “All head honcho shrinks know it’s safe to scapegoat us for every bizarre crime that happens. They know we aren’t dangerous. So they keep doing it.”

    Rachel777, I agree with you. This was why I so objected to the apologetic and appeasing stance taken by some trying to oppose the Tim Murphy Bill.

    Need to make people see that they are not by nature defective, they have been in situations where they were being used.

  35. Ekaterina Netchitailova wrote: “[…]radical change can only come from within and from outside together, including medical profession, psychologists, survivors, and peer workers. For instance, the stance of the Ministry of Health in Belgium in rejecting the system of diagnoses, is a step in this direction, in some countries, in some places.”

    Belgium aren’t proposing to reject the DSM system of diagnoses. What they are reforming is the over-reliance on formal diagnosis, and also thus overdiagnosing, and moving from the old way of doing things (categorical diagnoses) to dimensional approaches (biopsychosocial psychiatry). So instead of symptoms, it’s rating scales. And the plotting of those scales over time. So, in some ways, more numbers and less words.

    Most NHS mental health systems in the UK have been incorporating dimensional approaches too, for some time. For instance, formulation is now a common approach to people’s assessments. Instead of focusing on symptoms, and presentations, it’s about taking a more broad view of someone;s life history and current and potential future problems, and plotting a biopsychosocial path to recovery. So at the heart of most peoples care planning will be a recovery-focused package of care, rather than something entirely symptom-focused.

    This to avoid overdiagnosis, stigma, pessimism, and wasted resources that don’t help people recover. But they will go on with diagnosing the core group of severely mentally ill, just as before. Only those with milder symptoms will not fall foul of labeling, if only because categorical approaches pretty much demand diagnoses in order to provide care, and dimensional approaches don’t.

    I agree that this is a good development across European healthcare. It will mean a lot of people avoiding stimga from unnecessary diagnosing. And better use of resources. But it will not spell the end of diagnosing DSM illnesses in Belgium.

  36. Generally, I think its peoples’ treatment, usually a drug taking regimen, that they don’t end up recovering so well from.

    All diagnosis is over diagnosis where non-existent diseases are concerned. The treatment leads to iatrogenic damage, which coupled with habit, leads to more treatment.

    You’ve got your alternative services and your bio-psychiatric services in competition, but the result is the same thing, an increased patient population, more and more medicalization. Mental health itself is basically medicalization, that is, the provision of medical treatment for non-medical problems.

    Given the absurdity of such a situation via such a system, I can only advise people to get out of it.

  37. hi Frank Blankenship, you do agree though whatever the cause people suffer from conditions. And you recognize this? Whatever you call it it has to be recognized. What do you do if there arent nurses and doctors involved and available where do people go for help. You do recognize people need sanctuary? What would your alternative be to medical care?

    • When people suffer distress, why does it need a label and meds? Why? What fact within medical circles supports this practice? The more abnormal you label people, the more it becomes prophesy. People all around the globe are now diagnosing themselves and it causes them distress. They are exposed to the belief in deviation from the norm and read articles that tell them they are ‘mentally ill’, and of course since they already feel distress, they go into the doors of those who are more than willing to ‘help’. The huge problem is, there are NO facts supporting that the help being provided helps. If indeed it worked we would NOT have the epidemic of ‘mental health’/’mental illness’. If it worked, we would all be fine.

      • Amen. My mom told me the other night she always knew there was Something Wrong with me.

        My IQ was “too high” and I was “too imaginative.” Abnormally so.

        If not for the Procrustean bed of pharma psychiatry who knows where i might have wound up? Hmm.

        Friends and family…financial solvency…career…functional intestines…thank goodness my quack saved me from such horrible things!

        🙁

  38. Hi! Rachel 777 i do not believe in lock up wards and for many years when being an in patient the wards werent locked. You were free to come and go.

    i remember my husband took me to meet his family from the ward and we caught a bus.

    it was much easier to discharge yourself

    the OT workers had a Variety Sunshine Bus that took us on days out.

    the wards were locked after 11pm

  39. I remember being in the ER a few years back, with my illness and the ER doc held my hand and I was so glad that she understood. She then informed me that I had a panic disorder and here is your prescription. She also kindly offered me to speak with a psych nurse. I really did not want to since I have been anti labeling etc etc for a long time, but I was so very desperate to be mentally ill instead of physically, because after all, I could work on the mental stuff. So I agreed he could come and chat with me and it was the usual 5 question crap? How is your appetite, sleep, joy, yadayada. And to boot he used that cute little shaming line which is, “mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of”. I looked deep into him, to see if there was a chance I could ‘convert’ him to my side, but I could see the blank slate I was dealing with. I think psychiatrists are a lucky bunch to be dealing with folks that have nothing wrong with them, keeps them safer.

  40. Hi Sam Plover, i dont believe all those trying to help and understand the mentally ill are charlatans i just believe it is common medical practice to prescribe medication for people because believe it or not sometimes medication works for some.

    i wouldnt say psychiatrists deal with people that have nothing much wrong with them either but deal with people who have major issues. I think medical practice doesnt always work right and it is a case of training and speciality and there are good and bad doctors and good and bad nurses.

    At present i am happy with both.

    • The case here was me being in ER with a not so minor physical disease. It is bad enough to label distress in the non physically ill, but to dirty medical charts with lies and innuendos in the face of serious disease is deadly. What I have found amazing is that few people want to address the issue and the medical community is quite aware of the public being brainwashed. If I was not in Canada, I could sue. I will give up my rant, at the moment just looking for letting go of what transpired so I can hopefully gain some ‘peace’ before I go.

      • I am in Canada and sued Sam
        Breggin was my expert
        They made sure I never got a fair trial or was even able to bring him in
        The irony of this is that Medical Malpractice suits are fought by experts
        In fact, you can NOT move past the first stages of a law suit, let alone conduct a MM trial WITHOUT an expert
        Despite this legal fact, which is only waived IF the issue is so plain and obvious that a jury could understand what happened without an expert explaining it , (IE: the dr cut off the wrong leg)
        1. I was forced under extreme duress,
        2. as a brain injury survivor,
        3. found incompetent by the top capacity assessor and the court to try my case without access to a lawyer- or my expert witness’s
        4. against every rule of court and I lost my case in 13 minutes for refusing to participate without counsel.

        That part of my case made the paper, was written about by legal professors and presented to the UN SR during her most recent visit to Canada
        No one assisted me with an appeal (the most important thing that can happen in the law) and I was in fact scammed out of my right to appeal by a Public Interest lawyer
        The system is broken beyond repair and exists to serve pharma and the “MH” industry
        Lawyers require a endless stream of victims to earn a living off of, which is why they rarely address or win anything that would actually change let alone challenge the status quo. It is failure by design, which med mal lawyers and academics have admitted to

        The medical/legal system works in sync to reinforce the lies that uphold medical fraud and ensure that nothing changes that would interfere with the systems ability to keep control of the One World (failed theory) Group Think.
        Our entire lives are medicalized for profit and evidence of that fact is overwhelming
        If the legal system was doing its job, the DSM would be litigated via a Junk Science law suit to assess its validity and it would fail
        Failing this happening, anyone and everyone can be accused of being “mentally ill” without a shred of credible evidence and harmed in innumerable ways to benefit the system at the risk of the health and safety of the public. No one is lifting a finger to challenge it as such and that -as a criminal lawyer would say- is suspicious:)
        Those who have drank the cool-aid are drunk and unable to think with any level of logic or clarity
        Attempting to communicate with the indoctrinated is a painful waste of energy that dredges up a lot of pain for victims, that they don’t possess the capacity to acknowledge, let alone care about

        If you r on twitter, I would like to find you
        I wish you the peace you are searching for

        • Hi judi I am sam plover @SP_1234567

          Had an awful time getting into twitter, firstly because I am not twitter saavy, and second I barely use it (just like reddit) and forgot my username and password. It magically let me into my profile, so either twitter got tired of resending password links or I did the right thing…..makes me think that it was the first of the two lol.

          It makes me so angry what transpired for you Judi. I try to wrap my mind around what living that lie is like for them. We are small in numbers because no one understands until you’re there, so at any given point in time, it is a handful of people talking about their frustrations. Recently a nurse made a comment about her grandfathers lack of care and she was hauled in by the nurses union, pronto. She is NOT allowed to speak to outsiders, she has to live that lie, or else loses her jobs, and forever is looked upon as “that nurse”

          If we google medical lawsuits in Canada, all the hits basically tell you not to bother. We who not only pay for ‘healthcare’, but also the “college of physicians and surgeons”, PLUS their high profile legal team. They know how powerful they are and of late have very cleverly added “advocacy people” or teams. I searched out a private advocate, just to spend thousands on those two yahoos, who then continued to sit on that fence, between patient and the system. I was then by a high profile law prof recommended to hire a ‘nice’ lawyer, for mediation purposes, in my city who I paid a few more grand to. She managed to make it worse, each email was me defending myself to my lawyer. A doctor then went and spread the word that I SUED a certain doctor, when in fact this never occurred. All it ever was, was an attempt to mediate between team and patient. There was no suit. I’m losing but winning at the same time. I access the MAYO, costing me thousands to disprove their lies. Here I thought I would make a dent for others, for future treatment, but it seems likely it won’t happen. I can only think to make a video and release it after my death, but they will still blame me. I found it interesting that my calls countrywide mostly went unheard, even by a prominent person on here.

        • Judi,
          I am in Canada and yes the system is totally rigged here! No matter how much solid, irrefutable evidence you produce the College of Physicians ignores all evidence and dismisses complaints with illogical, ridiculous conclusions. At one point we were told there was enough evidence to go to a ‘Hearing Tribunal’ but shortly after for undisclosed reasons they reversed that and chose to dismiss the complaint again. Requesting a Review from the OIPC or Ombudsman is a joke as they simply go along with the ruling of the College. These gov’t funded organizations are as the saying goes “all in bed together”. I battled for a few years on my own and then hired a lawyer for help to get more evidence. He has since retired but I hope to see another lawyer to keep battling this corruption. The really corrupt thing is that doctors have access to free legal help from the CMPA which is government funded on taxpayer’s money and therefore has massively deep pockets to defend the doctors indefinitely. From the first letter of complaint I sent to the psychiatrist her reply back to me was stamped “Not for third party release”. She had immediately lawyered up with her tax payer funded lawyer.

          Have you seen these clips? They describe how bad things are in Canada.

          https://www.ctvnews.ca/ctv-national-news/video?clipId=1729326

          https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/hospital-bills-woman-1-100-for-dead-father-s-medical-records-1.4510302

          • The system we have has zero to do with the patient. It is why you can be mistreated, lied about and our files are open to anyone and everyone, so we can never get unbiased opinion because they indeed sleep together. The lawyer I hired works in a huge highrise. I was shocked when I went to another lawyer regarding my will and was told he could not do it because of conflict of interest. I never sued anyone, a suit was never even mentioned. I tried with ombudsman, but after the first few minutes I realized that no one I would talk to, was with me, or ever would be. I am glad I never worked for such a system. They are a pac, they created their own judicial system, funded by us. I reached a point where I don’t even like discussing my experience with the person down the street, since so many are brainwashed into believing in the system that the insult of someone not hearing me is just too upsetting. Obviously healthcare systems in any country are not good.

          • Thanks for this Rosalee
            And for your response as well Sam
            I am very familiar… and would very much like to discuss this privately
            All Canadians interested in discussing what is happening, we need to connect with each other outside this forum.
            Best

          • Ex police investigator, Donald Best, exposed judges & lawyers who set him up and won a civil liberties prize for doing so.
            He’s currently working with 2 lawyers fighting the Law Society’s mass conflict of interest against the public whereby they protect their cohorts by “investigating” their wrong-doing against us and are rarely found guilty.
            There are lay people working on this as well. They have some political support and they do not plan to stop there.
            Its a start to unraveling the corruption/collusion between sick care and the legal system (the medical/legal cartel) we are all victims of.

            I’ll try to figure out how to get on the MIA forums.
            There are other things happening as well.
            We need absolutely need to find each other.

            Steve has my permission to give anyone my email as well.
            Thank you

  41. I’m glad you are happy Bippyone.

    My health, reputation, and finances are wrecked thanks to psychiatry. Poverty/alienation/autoimmune diseases/messed up gut did NOT help my happiness.

    All thanks to an SSRI allergy my shrink blamed me for. Always the consumer’s fault.

  42. Hi Rachel777, i agree people can have adverse reactions to medication that goes without saying because that happens with all medication. All of it has that potential. Vaccinations have that potential but save so many childrens lives and stop children from being crippled.

    Im sorry you are one of the unlucky ones but would you stop medication helping others? Would you?

    i have taken psychiatric medication all different kinds over 45 years and never suffered permanent damage. I am on something i think will work. Would you say i should be denied this? As for your plight i think you should be compensated financially for your loss but would this change your quality of life?

    Doctors have to weigh up the pros and cons and what works for the majority of their patients if they didnt do that theyd all be quacks.

    • Yes it would! Money could save me from homelessness.
      Homelessness is poor quality life.

      SSI does not cover rent. Even in my state. Living in a garage with no running water now.

      My sister is allergic to penicillin but no doctor forces her to take it. That’s because she doesn’t deal with shrinks.

      My shrinks never listened to anything negative. Just what they wanted to hear. And blamed my crazy, drug-induced thinking on me–or my “illness.”

      A life on disability in a ghetto for the SMI is “what works” as far as shrinks are concerned. And dying in our early fifties. Read RW’s Mad in America and Anatomy of an Epidemic as far as viewing the majority of outcomes.

      Would you want the rest of us forced to take what was killing us? That’s what this site is about.
      Not about forcing happy consumers like you to quit.

    • Bippyone, you should take as many and different meds you like. It is really simple, you are being given a pill for your “symptoms”, NOT your label. There is absolutely no reason for a label, except if you value money more than truth. And yes, psychiatry itself lives a huge lie, despite you believing in their meds. Please don’t minimize the harm of theory quack labeling with meds. I believe my stance is, I should have a CHOICE of a diagnosis or a fancy label. A shrink should ask you if you would like to tote that label for the rest of your life. We are not talking about a detectable heart murmur. So if the label is theory, if meds are theory, I should have the choice, yet there is none. As soon as you step NOT only into a shrinks office, but even a regular ER doc can leave a nasty trail in files.

  43. Nope have nothing wrong with me! i’m afraid to disappoint you but have no thyroid trouble. no diabetes, no pancreas trouble and blood pressure fine. my lungs are okay. my heart is sound. my brain is in tact. The only thing i suffer from is swollen ankles and a bit of wear n tear because i dont go to bed to sleep and sleep in my recliner. I have vivid dreaming but i dont mind that. I need more exercise which i am having lately after all i am almost 70 years old. i expect things to go wrong a bit but honestly cant complain. Everything in the sex department is fine and yes thats still on the agenda hehe. i really have nothing wronf wirh me that exercise wouldnt put right.

    • Hi Julie Greene thank you so much for your concern but my bloods were taken in June and my kidneys are functioning fine.

      My ankles are swollen because i have rhuematism in my knees which i think was caused because years ago i used to clean my bathroom floor down on my knees which i wouldnt advise anyone to do.

      Im afraid i have no ill affects from neuroleptics and have just taken one drug at a time and my doctors gave me that option.

      I am so sorry people have had adverse reactions to psychiatric meds and do empathize but like is said everyone is different. From what i gather and i dont know for certain the majority dont suffer adverse reactions here in the UK. It could be with something to do with the quality of the drugs themselves. It is quite tragic something given to treat a patient causes more trouble for them.

  45. Hi Julie Greene, it is 6am here in the UK at present and i just called my 24/7 medical helpline and a practitioner will call me back before 11am. In the meantime i will be calling my GPs surgery early and speak to another practitioner who has my details and will find out if my kidneys have been tested. My swollen ankles are probably because i sit a lot and i have a touch of rheumatism in my knee joints and legs. This is what my doctors call wear n tear and apparently i only have it mild and Ibuprofen seems to do the trick.

    But because i know i need maintenance and have been having an MOT lately then i would take up your advice.

    Thank you!

    • Bippy, you need them to tell you the numbers. Ask what your creatinine level is. If they insist it is “fine,” then you need to demand that they give you the number. “Fine” might mean fine by mental patient standards. The test here in the US is called a Basic Metabolic Panel. I suspect that it might be called something different in the UK. That panel tells you electrolyte levels also. I would suggest cutting way down on salt to help the swelling. There are herbs you can take for it, too.

  46. Hi Everyone, I have read and re-read everyone’s comments and my heart goes out to you especially you Rachel 777 and what psychiatry has done to you. At the age of 24 I was diagnosed with schizophrenia although when i attempted my life at the age of 17 i had every reason to be paranoid because of what one person i knew from school was doing to me and what she continued to do and was hell bent on destroying me.

    But that was paranoia as far the psychiatrist was concerned and in fact i think he already had his mind made up before he actually diagnosed me. Then because i revealed this and my diagnosis to a work colleague i got sacked while off sick from a top secretarial job in the city. From then on the label destroyed my chances of decent work and i took on the role of housewife and mother but we lived on the bread line for many years. It has been a long long road. I stuck with my home and was never homeless except for one night when my marriage was breaking up. I live comfortably now on benefits and rent free. That doesn’t follow for a lot of people diagnosed mentally ill here in the UK. Most are on the minimum benefits and do not live in nice accommodation. Some are homeless. Psychiatry tends to fuck up your life. I do agree with you. Not only does it impair you physically and mentally it just destroys what chances you have of fitting into society. The labels are destructive on human nature and benefit nobody but the psychiatrists.

    I have been attempting to be drug free for ten years and am still on a high dose of Haldol I just simply am lucky that’s all that i have got away with having no permanent damage. Except i feel my sleeping architecture is messed up and i would have permanent bouts of insomnia without taking the drug. I get vivid dreaming which makes nightmares a problem.

    I have witnessed so much and years ago watched the old timers in the old Victorian hospital shuffle in a queue to get their drinks of tea when they were working in occupational therapy which products the hospital sold for a profit and never gave to the patients who made them and they most of them had Tardive Disconesea. The psychiatrists believed in dosing their patients with high doses of medication then.

    I was married to my husband for 33 years and the last 17 he was symptom free except his side affect was he sacrificed his sex life. There never was and never has been discussions about sex with any psychiatrist. I actually took the book The Vagina Bible by Dr Jen Gunter along to my appointment with my new psychiatrist and he really didn’t know what to make of me. hehe I am a feminist and have read many books on just how women have been affected by psychiatry. How years ago if a husband wanted rid of his wife he would have her committed and those women spent the rest of their lives locked up in institutions. Also women who had children out of wedlock were locked away for life having their babies taken from them.

    If you ask me do i believe my medication is working for me then i would say “No!” “No way!”. The Haldol injection doesn’t work for me. I just take it because i couldn’t sleep without it.

    We haven’t got diseases of the brain and psychiatrists don’t know what is wrong with us they only presume to know. Our brains are intricate and complicated and scientists don’t know fully how they work. Psychiatrists just mess about with the delicate membranes of these vital organs that once destroyed affect every part of our bodies. To take away our livelihoods, our position in society and our health and to damage our brains and bodies which is a continuation of what psychiatry has been doing these past 100 years and it is a crime against humanity and is in my opinion “The Silent Holocaust”.

    I have watched a person die in hospital in front of me having an adverse affect to an injection. Her relatives if they cared simply lost her like so many lives have been lost. Like so many have lost their fight for their sanity. From Insulin Therapy to Freezing Baths to Shock Treatment psychiatry has literally got away with murder.

    I would like to see change and huge change at that. I will never be free of it neither will my son and i have that to live with. My son was damaged by Seroquel and has suffered mania because of that ever since. He has bouts of it which he says comes round in cycles every 18 months to 2 years of his life. The police also here in the UK are corrupt and broke my son’s arm once when he was ill and sexually harassed and gaslighted me. Psychiatrists and MHT work closely with the police here in the UK. When should there be a law passed that entitles a doctor to incarcerate you? It is barbaric!

    They are no better than Nazis! I am an old woman now and probably only have a decade maybe two to live but my son is 39 and has the rest of his life in front of him. I have to watch in despair and only pray that the recent break he has had in going to train as a counselor comes about and he hasn’t been homeless yet for a long time. I have to pray somehow he will be okay without me when he gets manic but i have trouble believing this. I like he does too take it a day at a time. That is all that is left to do. The power that psychiatry has over people maybe one day will fade but it will take other dynasties and other times for this to come about.

  47. Bippyone the world is not well.

    Everyone knows this. They need scapegoats badly to project their own darkness onto.

    One reason psychiatry is so popular with the mainstream. By blaming all crimes on “mental illness” not only can they make the public feel secure from violent crimes but from the fact that they too have shadows that Dr. Quackenbush is ill equipped to save anyone from. He himself is overpowered by his own shadow.

    Sorry about your son. I guess it’s good I never had kids. They would have been taken by the state and viewed as “bipolar” at birth most likely by virtue of being mine. 🙁

  48. Hi Rachel 777, it’s so true doctors are placed on a pedestal yet a psychiatric nurse once told me they do bury their mistakes. It seems that there are no records kept of all those that die in psychiatric hospitals here in the UK. You just can’t access them if there are. They are swept under the carpet.

    When these doctors have it on good authority we are a risk to ourselves it seems it is appropriate for them to take over and make us become a risk to them but of course it is for our own good.

    If it hadn’t been for my husband and my sister in law my son would probably have been taken from me and I decided years ago that the best option for my son was to stay put in my marriage. I couldn’t look after him myself and i knew the risk of him becoming anxious and suffering from other emotional distress was a probability when he grew up. It was a struggle bringing him up drugged on medication and on the outskirts of society but we felt we had no choice as social services would have been down on us.

    It seems all those vulnerable in society are victims and drug inducement makes them valuable commodities because those benefiting namely the rich basically don’t care about them or the animals their drug companies experiment on. Psychiatrists enjoy the position and power they have over people and simply diagnose which takes no expertise at all and anyone can scribble out a prescription.

    Like you say Rachel777 it is a messed up world. At least we know what is happening and thousands go blindly along not knowing. It is those who watch on as their loved ones suffer which is hard to face. It is the loss of life which is the most painful.

    As it was we did the best we possibly could for our son and now he just gets by which is all i can hope for.

    It was my own childhood trauma and my father that led me to break down at the age of 17 and attempt my own life and i actually believed i could have a good life when i gave birth to my son but it was the biggest mistake i ever made because he has been involved in psychiatry all of his life and psychiatry has almost destroyed him. Those executives of drug companies and the ones that profit from psychiatry have all been involved but these men don’t even know he exists. He is just way down on the chain but they will say he was born that way and because of that assumption it gave them licence to destroy his life. Psychiatrists literally have no idea just how their medications and treatments destroy people. They literally have licence to destroy people and the ones who benefit from the sale of drugs live in luxury oblivious to the victims of their companies.

    This is part of life in the 21st century and it is a male dominated world. It is also men that will destroy the world completely and women and children who will suffer. My son is one of psychiatry’s many victims. I have to sit back powerless and unable to change this and watch what happens to him when he becomes overwhelmed with mania and is at the mercy of doctors and police and there is absolutely nothing i can do about it.

  49. Great article and thank you!!!

    These words that you wrote, I would like to touch on for a minute

    “Unless there is a test that shows some irregularity in the brain, in the majority of cases the diagnosis of ‘mental illness’ is delivered based on observation…..”

    We really don’t want psychiatry to invent any kind of tests that prove anything. The labels and judgments would still be there. Besides the tests would only be evident to psychiatry. They would virtually not show anything. Psychiatry will point to a dot and call it “bi polar”

    Although I would like to see an MRI of a psychiatrist. I doubt the insight or empathy spots light up when he sees pictures of his patients being forced, or sees their lives destroyed.

    • Why do they need legitimate tests when their fake ones bolster their credibility so nicely?

      If they did find bio markers they would conceal them. Why? It would show how counter productive their brain destroying “treatments” are–doing the exact opposite of what their test subjects needed. Like bleeding cholera victims.

      And then they could no longer tout their quack remedies. The whole field would be swallowed up by the real brain specialists–the neurologists.

      Hence anything that doesn’t support the efficacy of their “treatments” (AKA any legitimate study) will be suppressed. Or spun beyond recognition to support their preconceived notions.

  50. Sam Plover : What an excellent observation you made.

    It’s so true a psychiatrist makes diagnosis based on observation and in giving that observation labels his patient. I ask the question what do you do when you find yourself becoming a person who does have psychosis etc? Where is the help in dealing with your issues and where do you and your loved ones turn when things get dire? You need recognition of your suffering at the same time you don’t need a powerful social authority making laws that are based on a doctor’s assumptions and observations about you when you find you are in a position in your life where you yourself loose touch with reality.

    People with psychosis cannot always be helped by family members and where do we turn in our society when it comes to finding answers because not everyone knows about Mad In America and the situation as regards health care is different in Europe anyway.

    In Britain we live in a nanny state and almost everyone nowadays are given mental illness labels but the whole institution which is the NHS and what has been free health care here in the UK for everyone for decades is now in turmoil. There are rumors it is going to become like the American healthcare system and be privatized and what has been free for generations of people from the cradle to the grave is transitioning which will include psychiatry.

    In the UK and with our elderly and young social needs are not being met and i doubt if they ever have been and people are living in times of austerity unable to feed their children or heat up their homes. There are millions struggling. There are of course also the better off and many rich people live here but so many turn to the church for leadership and people turn to mental health issues for every normal emotional crisis they encounter in life.

    So I agree Sam we don’t want psychiatry inventing a test which once used can prove a diagnosis it is in fact safer for an observation to be involved by a doctor rather than some fool proof test which would like you say not point out a single thing but a symptom of a disease and have nothing to do with what is happening to a person whether psychotic or otherwise and those people who are being convinced they have a mental illness and it is almost everyone you meet these days here in the UK who are being convinced their normal emotions are symptoms then as every psychiatrist knows those observations can still be disputed.

    However what goes on behind the closed doors of the consulting room and what is observed by others in their mental health teams is not only based on observation but is a very socially involved crisis for a person too. There is so much more then just a diagnosis it is a whole system with laws behind it strictly created to make money for the drug industry. Saying that there are people with real issues in their mental health like psychosis and hearing voices and where do they go when their lives are in crisis and it becomes critical?

    It will take whole dynasties to fall and crumble before ordinary people who suffer from psychotic episodes who find themselves vulnerable at the hands of doctors and who are taught can give solutions to their pain before change comes about. In actual fact it will take future generations and won’t happen in my lifetime or for that matter as far as i can see it won’t happen in my son’s lifetime either.

    I ask myself with Xmas time looming and around the corner when will it become a symptom of bad mental health because a child believes in Father Christmas? Because it is becoming apparent to me that everyone is beginning to believe that about themselves and their children. Saying that there are so many kids who have real issues with psychosis because of current lifestyles and parenting and people don’t question a health care system that they are brought up to believe is looking out for them.

    As long as psychiatry has the law behind it people will fall victim and as an eminent doctor told me here in the UK the Mental Health Act which has been in force for one hundred years almost cannot be changed over night and can only be reviewed from time to time. Every psychiatrist has the law behind them until laws are changed then vulnerable people will suffer and become slaves to drug addiction without even knowing it.

    Its good to come here on this website and read people’s comments because it is a place to air free speech which now is becoming a rarity as far as critical psychiatry is concerned here in the UK and there are no platforms online to be found where people can find out exactly what is what and so many don’t know what exactly is happening to them. Most people suffering psychologically have only one place to turn along with their families and friends and don’t know about the law and how they stand legally until family members find they have in fact lost a loved one. They fall foul to the addiction of medication and are told it is safe and believe that.

    Saying this my behavior when i am overwhelmed and become manic, psychotic, obsessive etc because what i suffer from in my own personal emotional crisis needs to be recognized and when i am vulnerable and acting in a strange way and my family members become frightened of me and so do others then there needs to be on every street corner places of sanctuary. What has come about people are sent where the beds are available far from where they live and families are not kept in touch while they are incarcerated. Families are separated from their loved ones here in the UK and people are left victim to hospitals where there is no longer any adequate care.

    R. D. Laing here in the UK during the 70s who brought about Kingsley Hall was just the exception and things have evolved and moved on since then and psychiatry because it has the power now is what can only be describes is social engineering.

    Time is continually changing but madness has remained the same for thousands of years madness doesn’t change and really exists and is not experienced by everyone. How we interpret this decides the fate of people who suffer from it but in these decades because its considered to be an illness then it will take extreme changes to alter these beliefs and i ask myself just what will madness and the way people describe it become in future generations?.

  51. Bippyone,
    I will act as a psychiatrist would and venture to guess that their personalities are the greatest disorder. My guess is that they do not have room to see life on a continuum or for flexibility. They most likely had a sheltered existence, or formed biases early on, where their minds figured that the way they were, was the way humans were ‘meant’ to be.
    And that personality of theirs would be okay, if their belief systems did not infiltrate all of society, leaving damage and deaths behind. In no way shape or form can even a psychiatrist rationally defend their practice and beliefs.
    The insight they want us to have is really their lack of insight they have.
    If you were a provider and saw a 6 year old with behaviours that are disruptive or just different, what sanity is there to give that child a label and medicate and put him back into the same environment?
    But then I also have a problem with trying to get a child changed with therapy.

    It is impossible that psychiatry is actually that dense to not realize that what they invented is looking very suspicious. For them To bow out gracefully, would be acceptable. But too stubborn, too scared. It is like gangsters, even though they know their power is not a positive thing, within the group it is difficult to stand up against it, for fear of losing their livelihood and belonging.
    Yet they take the belonging and livelihood from millions, and leave them with a ‘criminal record’ to boot.
    Are they ashamed? I believe many are and take it out on the people who come to them.
    There are many that simply act out an anger.

  52. Hi Sam, I so agree with what you have said because it is my total experience with these doctors over the years. The whole set up they have devised and system has no real value whatsoever to people suffering from emotional issues. They just don’t have this in their training whatsoever. It seems and i have witnessed while i was an in patient in hospital that it is appropriate for nursing staff working on a ward to take time in the office on their computer to do a training scheme while being on duty.

    I question their credibility every day as nurses and doctors. Also once i was refusing to be admitted when i was ill and the police came and smashed down my front door and carried me out of the house. My neighbors witnessed this. There were times i have been up against a mountain and only to slide way back down again. My main concern is my son and now i am growing old and it upsets me to think that he will be alone one day without me and he doesn’t see what i see and won’t unless he lives to be my age and makes it himself to be an old man.

    He relates very much to American people and has a friend who lives in New York who he hopes to visit next year some time.

    In the meantime he has found a counseling course at the local library where he is going to classes training to become a counselor and so far he has been motivating himself to go. Like i have told him if anyone knows about mental health it is him having had two parents with mental illness and being involved with the psychiatric system since he was a tiny baby.

    Well, i came up with the idea because i was recently told by a MHT nurse that i should put something in writing so i thought i would write a letter to my psychiatrist and ask him as my consultant did he in his professional opinion believe without a shadow of a doubt my continuing treatment and dosage of Haldol injection would definitely stop any attacks of psychosis i would have in future? Like somebody who has diabetes when a doctor knows categorically insulin injections are what is needed?

    I haven’t got around to composing the letter yet and posting it off to him. I will get out later today though and he should receive it Tuesday. I asked for a reply in writing also and i will make a copy of it. hehe

    So love coming on here and reading all the comments.