US Considering Policies That Will Lead to Mass Death Of Psychiatric Patients

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The first death from the coronavirus (COVID-19) in South Korea was a psychiatric patient in a locked ward.

Six other psychiatric patients, also locked up, died within days.

Like much about this pandemic, who the disease hits hardest is not entirely clear. But the first death in South Korea is consistent with what we know about the death toll worldwide: it is the elderly and people with preexisting health conditions and compromised immune systems who appear to be most vulnerable. To be clear, even the healthy young are getting severely sick and dying, but overall, the death toll is highest among those who are more fragile.

Psychiatric patients have much higher rates of diabetes, smoking/vaping, high blood pressure, obesity, and other health conditions that increase vulnerability to the virus. Ongoing stress, isolation, living under stigma and without relationship and social networks all contribute to weakened immunity. Confinement in psychiatric wards or crowding into the community asylum system of supported housing, group homes, and “board and cares” is also certain to worsen the risk of falling ill, and people with psychiatric diagnosis are overrepresented in the prison system, foster care, the homeless, and those living in poverty—where greater rates of illness and lower life expectancy are the norm.

Being a psychiatric patient likely puts you at much greater risk for illness or dying from COVID-19.

While most of the talk about “mental health in the time of the pandemic” focuses on mindfulness, ways to relieve your stress, and the accessibility to psychiatrists during social distancing, this reality of COVID-19 and mental health is being overlooked.

So we should be clear: when you hear the phrases the “most vulnerable,” the “fragile,” “those at highest risk,” and “the elderly” as being who are dying and will die from COVID-19, that language clearly also includes psychiatric patients and people with mental health diagnoses. Pandemic response policy is therefore also mental health policy: how we treat people with psychiatric diagnosis.

We know what works and saves lives. We know what will protect the vulnerable, including psychiatric patients. Successful responses to the pandemic have slowed the disease and protected the health system from overwhelm in China, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and elsewhere. It is absolutely clear there is a straightforward set of policies proven to protect people from disease and defend hospitals and medical professionals from being so overwhelmed they can’t care for people, as is happening in Italy and Spain. These policies are social distancing and lockdown, contact tracing, containment, and widespread testing. We are fortunate to have very good data from these countries showing what works to save more of the “fragile and vulnerable” which we know includes psychiatric patients who would otherwise die.

Our moral imperative is therefore right in front of us.

Of course there is a cost to the economy of these disruptive measures. That’s the nature of this pandemic, it is hitting our economies hard. It’s going to cost our economy. But there’s just no argument: economies come back: dead people don’t. Implemented globally an effective pandemic response will save tens or hundreds of millions of lives; in the US, it is estimated that effective measures could reduce the death toll by a million people or more.

However, right now the political leadership of the US is openly talking about abandoning effective policies and going in a different direction that could needlessly kill many more people—perhaps millions—and including killing hundreds of thousands or more of mental health patients. Right now the US President, advisors, politicians, state and local leaders, and commentators are discussing lifting the social distancing, lockdown, and containment that are slowing the spread of disease.

Why? The idea—which is far from certain—is that getting back to work and getting back to business will improve the bottom line and keep the economy more profitable, avoiding recession or depression that would need more massive government intervention to address. In this view the “economic cost”—that is, lost profits and social disruption and the cost of government measures—is more important than saving lives. More “elderly” people should be allowed to die than need to die, in order to keep business profits in the economy going.

That’s right, in the name of protecting business as usual, there is now a calculation that says it’s ok to let the virus spread more quickly, to help the stock market and boost the revenue stream of private companies. By speeding up the spread of the virus, and increasing the load on our hospital system, these policies being considered are almost sure to lead to the mass death of many more “vulnerable” people. (And remember that social distancing isn’t just to protect you—it’s to slow the spread to others. People in situations where they can’t social distance or are prevented from social distancing, such as institutions or group homes, would still be left at greater risk for infection if we change these policies because the virus will be more widespread and infect confined and institutionalized people more quickly, as well as leave hospitals more likely to be overwhelmed and not be able to help if they do get sick.)

And so we should be clear what this means: our leaders, faced with choices of what to do in the pandemic, faced with the facts of what will save lives, right now explicitly, intentionally, and knowingly are considering choosing policies that will almost certainly result in the mass death of psychiatric patients who do not need to die. That’s right: leaders are seriously considering abandoning policies that save lives on a mass scale in order to save money. Money. Not lives. Money. And lives that could number in the hundreds of thousands, a million or more.

The fact that this is even being discussed—that is considered thinkable and acceptable – is a moral indictment of the cruelty of our society. We need to stop just euphemistically talking about “the elderly” and “those with compromised immune systems.” We need to add psychiatric patients and understand who is being talked about so we are entirely clear about who is going to die. We need to make the moral imperative stark and unambiguous.

This idea of abandoning effective pandemic containment would be unthinkable if the rich and powerful were not more protected from getting sick and dying than you and I. They are not looking at policies that are just as likely to end up killing themselves or their family members as they are to kill you and me. The rich, celebrities and the 1% have been getting easier access to testing and good treatment because of a privatized medical system where the richer you are the better care you get. Given this inequality, it is the most vulnerable and excluded, including psychiatric patients, who are expendable. Saving money is seen as more important than saving lives. More deaths is considered an acceptable price to pay—because it’s other people who will die.

This is not a shared national sacrifice being proposed. The additional deaths will not be to protect an economy that benefits everyone. People will die for the sake of an economy that has enriched a smaller and smaller number of people as part of the greatest wealth and income inequality in human history. An economy that fueled the private health care for profit that directly led to the pandemic crisis in the first place. An economy that privatized health care and left us completely unprepared for a pandemic we knew was coming.

We live in a world where the war crimes of the past are considered unthinkable today. Tragically those same crimes so often return dressed in different language, a more civilized, sanitized language of euphemism and jargon. What is seen as normal, when we take a closer look, turns out to be immoral and wrong. By considering abandoning the social distancing, lockdown, and containment measures we know work, leaders are now discussing policies that would directly result in killing mass numbers of psychiatric patients among the vulnerable. All because our lives are considered expendable in order to keep stock prices high and business as usual going. All in the name of “the economy.”

The first deaths in South Korea should be sounding an alarm for all of us. We are teetering at the edge of a moral abyss.

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Editor’s Note: See the author’s update in the comments on 5/22/24.

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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.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

51 COMMENTS

  1. The powers that be would be a lot less eager to turn the coronavirus loose on the public if they knew that schizophrenics, despite their elevated death rate compared to straight people, are less likely to contract viral illnesses than those individuals who aren’t schizophrenic. They can die of many things, but viruses aren’t one of them, making them one up on their detractors in this respect.

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      • I know, but if I used a better term, like “metabolic dysperception”, you’d likely become confused. Then I’d have to further confuse you with terms like heavy metal poisoning, vitamin dependencies, cerebral allergies and such.

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        • I say we reclaim the psych labels as our own. Make them a badge of honor for survival. A rebellion against silence. Words are only as powerful as the meaning we attach to them. Spin the spin in our favour instead of silencing each other with language policing. I, personally, have been scolded enough for one lifetime.

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          • I can see the problem with that sentence too. I am sorry. I’ve also been refused needed medical treatment because of assumptions based on the psych labels in my chart. I was not talking about the way professionals use labels against us. That is abuse.

            Bringing it home… Every survivor has a different set of engagement rules I’m expected to know. I’ve been yelled at more in the survivor movement than I ever was in institutions. I’m beginning to sincerely wonder if antipschiatry isn’t just the other side of the psychiatry coin. I’m not willing to post under my real name anymore.

            We are so busy raging against the machine we forget to check ourselves. I agree with all of you and some days I agree with psychiatry too. At least when I was a self-righteous antipsych activist I could rage acceptably. Label or don’t. I don’t care anymore. The hard work needed to escape is well beyond the impossible realm of words.

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          • I can treat some schizophrenia related conditions better than our local shrinks, so I keep a low profile to avoid arrest and don’t advertise. My “mental” health background had plenty of crisis intervention in it, making my function in treatment (if I decide to do it) resemble that of the medic in a forward military unit. (You’ll survive the trip to the rear, but the rest is up to you).

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          • Here’s an entertaining bit for you, OH. Back in the 1990’s, I worked as an RA in a halfway house for substance abusers. One night I was called in by the residents(!?), as a new hire had run a resident to the ER (he’d deliberately sliced one of this wrists) without taking care of the rest of them. The next day at work, I was fretting about a similar incident happening on my time, which would involve packing everybody up for a hospital trip (I worked evenings), possibly twice, if the hospital said the patient was ready to go’ leaving the day staff with a group of sleepyheads liable to be punished if they fell asleep during daytime “therapeutic” activities, under the guise of discipline.
            While I was fretting, I had a last audio (“you don’t have to put up with this,” it said). Minutes later another resident walked up to me, asking-“do you think I’m schizophrenic?” Although I couldn’t answer, I chanced to have my HOD test with me, which I gave him (he was in the test’s “schizophrenic range”). I encouraged him to read the volume *How to Live with Schizophrenia* and said I’d monitor his niacinamide for him if he wanted, which gave me an entry to do the same for his self-harming fellow.
            Both of them graduated from the program while on B3, whereupon I was called before the Director and the Clinical Supervisor. My “patients” were supposed to become treatment failures and the poobahs were going to can me because they weren’t, but they wanted to know how I caused them to graduate. Alas, my finances were too decrepit to miss my unemployment, so I didn’t want them to know anything (my unemployment was at stake) that would threaten my getting it (I wasn’t going to give them a proper cause for canning me).

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  3. Well, nobody seems to know where the psychiatric patients are in the first place! A much bigger problem is they don’t know where any of them are placed! Psychiatric patients are invisible to the world!

    Try a bench at a park or something! My guess is the worst off are in nursing homes or outside on the streets.

    Nobody knows what is wrong with these patients anyway! It is more likely they are in an overdose mode of treatment. It couldn’t be more true that their immune systems are on overload and their death won’t necessarily be accounted for properly due to any virus!

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  4. My son has been locked up for the past two and a half months in a psych ward. No fresh air, no sunlight, no opportunity for exercise. I am very worried about him contracting Covid 19. I have asked the psychiatrist to give him Vitamin D but he refused. Makes me very sad.

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    • madincanada,

      No vitamin D? So who is “mentally ill” here, your son or his shrink? We should all be so lucky as to have a shrink to deny us the supplements that “health Canada” tells us we need.
      I have become aware of the fact that we do not have something called “mentally ill”, we have batshit crazy.
      And those who are crazy, never know that they are.
      That shrink of his and his little nurses are just batshit crazy. Welcome to Canada.

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    • Very sad to hear that when my son came out same length of time and had his d level tested it was so low it was undetectable in his blood. Psychiatrist probably wrote some Bs about you asking him in the record. Some label ‘mum is neurotic hypochondriac ‘ or similar. It took 8months high dose oral therapy to get his reading back up, that doesn’t help u tho all I can do is add u to my loving kindness meditation tonight. Sorry and love from Australiaxxxxxx

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    • This is a good example of the double-edged sword involved with the current pandemic handlings. This man is in quarantine, basically, which should contribute to saving his life and the lives of others, if he got infected. Yet he gets “no fresh air, no sunlight, no opportunity for exercise.” That’s the perfect formula for making a person sick! This man should at least be getting nutritional support for his immune system. His psychiatrist, as a doctor, should be aware of this. But most aren’t. It is very sad, but madincanada should be working to get her son out of there so he can get some real help.
      What I see happening more broadly is an attempt to turn us all into captives, like this man really is. Maybe the stay-at-home strategy is working. But I wouldn’t count on it. Per all the articles I’ve read, you can’t expect to develop really good immunity to a virus until you’ve been infected by it. So the handling is to strengthen our immune systems so that when we finally do get infected, we have the best chance possible to survive. A lot of bad things kill people. We can be cautious, but we can’t stop living. That’s the same thing as agreeing to die, isn’t it?

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      • Yes, but that would likely mean using a lot of supplemental Vitamin C, which would indicate the presence of some long-standing neurotic desire that would have to be medicated out of existence, in order to make you a safe zombie.

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    • madincanada,

      Perhaps seek out a journalist? Tell the shrink you will be forced to do so, not as a threat, but perhaps to give him a chance to smarten up?
      And please don’t let the shrink tell you or in the case of you going public, that Vit D will interfere with “treatment”. Because they will literally try anything to get the public to buy their “expertise”.
      If they laid claims to “supplements” interfering with their chemicals, then they would have to prove that this happens. Besides, we have natural D in abundance, so obviously if we are low, then we need the supplements.
      It exposes the shrink for the charlatan he is. If he had concerns for your son’s health, he would not only be interested in his brain. Being locked up is not good for the brain or the body.
      But every shrink is basically like a spoiled and angry child who does not like opposition, so it is like talking to a wall. One can only try to seek help elsewhere, perhaps your GP or a lawyer can advise.

      Once someone is in “hospital”, a minimum level of care is to be expected. To make sure someone has the minimum of life sustenance, D being one of them. Psych likes to call their prisons, a “hospital.”
      Their chemicals, “medicine”. Their ruling authority, “doctor”.

      I do hope your son gains insight enough to be able to not receive a shrink’s awesome expertise of doctorcare. Over time, if not for a shrink’s expertise, most come to some insight with the right guidance, the right experiences.

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  5. I can’t see any change as long as there are still nest eggs to protect. Humans don’t change when comfortable, do they? Total collapse and rebuild seems the only possible positive. I hate how hard it all is, this planet. Hate how asking for change feels like a bad dream running and running but never getting anywhere even one on one, let alone globally. This is our wake up call. I know institutionalization and you’re right about vulnerability. No one cares. We will probably once again be used for testing the cures needed by the rich, deserving of life. Hard to not give up.

    Plus a psychiatrist is the first person who called to make sure I was alright. We can conspiracy theory that all we want, but it doesn’t change the fact. It isn’t right, the crowded conditions, but in poverty and crisis in a cold country… i hope it all falls apart completely. Then those who know survival and isolation and making due will have the real power.

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  6. The native Americans said that they didn’t like the white people because they looked needy all the time and they treated each other badly and that they thought the white people were MAD. The Native Americans also said that nobody could OWN the land – they couldn’t.

    The situation now is that one group of people believe they should own everything, even when there is more than ENOUGH for everyone, especially with the advances in the TECHNOLOGY of Supply and Production.

    There is NOW no shortage whatsoever, in Resources.

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    • “The situation now is that one group of people believe they should own everything,” isn’t that the truth. A psychologist/likely bailout taking banker’s son/artist recently attempted to steal all profits from my work, my work, my story, with the goal of eventually stealing all my family’s money with a BS “art manager” contract.

      Apparently my work was “too truthful” and “prophetic” for him and his pastor. After I called him out, and told him I wouldn’t sign his thievery contract. He tried to rationalize his attempted thievery by claiming “some bankers want to get all the money in the hands of just a few.”

      One would think that a psychologist would know that getting all the money in the hands of just a few is a really dumb idea. Especially since those globalist bankers, who are trying to consolidate all the money in the hands of just a few, are doing such via an un-Constitutional Ponzi scheme of a Federal Reserve system, a scientific fraud based medical/pharmaceutical industrial complex, never ending wars, with bad laws, bought out judges, and out right thievery.

      https://boingboing.net/2013/08/12/unsealed-court-settlement-docu.html

      You know we live in a completely lawless society when the psychologists are not even afraid of handing over a blatant thievery contract. And all the police do is take a report, then congratulate you for not falling for the psy op. And maybe call the psychologist and tell him to leave you alone.

      “We live in a world where the war crimes of the past are considered unthinkable today.” The Nazi psychiatrists killed 6 million Jews. Today the psychiatrists are killing 8 million people EVERY year, with their “invalid” DSM disorders, and their neurotoxic psychiatric drugs.

      https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/directors/thomas-insel/blog/2015/mortality-and-mental-disorders.shtml
      https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/directors/thomas-insel/blog/2013/transforming-diagnosis.shtml

      The psychiatrists have been systemically repeating the worst of history on a massive societal scale for decades. And their antipsychotics can create both the negative and positive symptoms of “schizophrenia,” via neuroleptic induced deficit syndrome and anticholinergic toxidrome.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroleptic-induced_deficit_syndrome
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxidrome

      Both “schizophrenia” and “bipolar” are iatrogenic, not “genetic,” illnesses, created with the psychiatric drugs.

      https://www.alternet.org/2010/04/are_prozac_and_other_psychiatric_drugs_causing_the_astonishing_rise_of_mental_illness_in_america/

      In Allen France’s words, “It’s bullshit.”

      https://www.wired.com/2010/12/ff_dsmv/

      Gosh, and I was called crazy by child abuse covering up “mental health” workers, just after 9/11/2001, because I knew back then that the wrong people were in charge.

      That same attempted thieving psychologist, when I told him that I was also attacked by a lunatic school social worker because my child had healed from the child abuse, and got 100% on his state standardized tests. Said that of course the social workers want to get their hands on the best and brightest American children, because their job is to maintain the status quo.

      I’m quite certain the “mental health” industries, which are so hell bent on maintaining the current unsustainable status quo, that they would want to harm the best and brightest children in our country, should be consider traitors to America. Bailout needing, never ending war mongering and profiteering, thieving banksters should not rule the world.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfEBupAeo4

      Neither should their scientific fraud based psychiatrists and psychologists.

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  7. Thanks Will,

    It needs to be said that this Epidemic could result in a culling of vulnerable people. Those Labelled “mentally Ill”are generally in poorer health (as people at the most discriminated level generally are) plus the fact that they are likely to get the poorest standard medical treatment.

    [Even though I’ve been well for the past 30 years; in the last few years I have come across some diabolical “attempted taking advantage of”; which I have been prepared to challenge].

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  8. We do not need permission from government to stay home. The planet is begging us to STOP in so many ways. JUST STOP. Stop everything!!!! It’s not a big ask for those with a warm bed and wifi. JUST STOP. I lived in a nursing home during a flu epidemic. Believe me, those most alone are already on lockdown. There is so much we can learn from this adversity. It gives me pause to reevaluate what is really important. Why do we put off change until we are forced? Why? How many brought their vulnerable home under the same roof for protection during this storm? I myself am thankful to be with family. And it is mindblowing how fast things can change if the stimulus is strong enough. Please don’t waste this opportunity for change.

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  9. Oh…one more comment…

    Where are ALL the millions upon millions of psychiatric patients???

    Geez…they are at home in their OWN BEDS!

    Categorize that!

    One explanation for that: INSURANCE COMPANIES!

    P.S. Tell Trump! (Huh…my ass! He has to ask “What’s a virus?)

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  11. Thank you Will for once again saying what needs to be said to prevent more harm than has already been done.
    Still wondering how we can start right here, at MIA, to lead an effort to protect ourselves and others from the harm of misconduct at our own conferences and in our groups.

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  12. Sounds like eugenics is alive and well.

    The current System is based on a pyramid model where all the money and power gets funneled to a few at the top.
    The status quo is power, profit, and control.
    The economic system puts profit before people and planet.
    What’s going on is business as usual.

    The System, status quo, and economy don’t care about human life.
    The System, and a large number of corporations and governments within that System, and the people who run them, are psychopathic. They feel little to no empathy, guilt, or remorse.

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  14. Thank you Will for this excellent blog. It is chilling to watch from over here the callousness of the White House and some of those who stand to profit. I feel very privileged to live in a country (Denmark) who has gone all out to save people and has willingly put the economy on standby. As you write economies come back dead people don’t. My thoughts are with you all in America as you brace yourselves for the worst to come.

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  15. I saw Trump in a speech last night and he ran his mouth about “mental illness”, in regards to the virus.
    Simply deflecting. He is in power for a reason, and those who voted him in, I play card games with online, and there you see ultimate crazy.
    The “mentally ill”, are indeed not crazy, it is the rest who are.
    In hierarchy, we have crazy, crazy who never admit they are. Many of them know they are. They know they are just playing a game and could care less about others.
    It is historical. And in history, it never had meaning or some cosmic plan, it is just the way humans are.
    Trumps crazy, uncoherent speech is not even recognized for what it is, by the other crazies.

    “what will the outcome be of covid”?
    “ohh, much terrible mental illness, terrible mental illness, terrible anxiety that causes disease”

    Yeah, it’s a pretty shitty world where crazies are at the helm and psychiatry is about as crazy and nonsensical as one can get. It has always been the real problem when people simply have no concept of their crazy. And we have to be a little crazy to buy into psychiatry. Once we realize that hell was a lie, we can see how cults are formed.
    Psychiatry tells people that they are there to help keep others from hell, and drags them right into it. It is nothing but drama, which people have always loved, since it diverts them from theirs. The funniest show to observe is when a crazy person tells others that they are “mentally ill”

    Their hope is that vulnerable people die, to ease the drain on government. The nurses would deny this, many would deny this. Many would say it’s a sad outcome.
    The only thing sad is that the crazy ones live.
    The crazy shrink in Canada who won’t let his victim take vitamin D while in ward.

    The crazy governments who won’t ease patient’s deaths, who keep them suffering a cruel death, yet kill them slowly.
    There exists less and less sanity and it has absolutely ZERO to do with anyone labeled. All it ever was, was a diversion.

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  16. In theory, a person who is already in a hospital, or under supervision of a doctor, should have a better chance of surviving this thing. Yet the first deaths are in a psych ward. That just means that these “doctors” aren’t really doing their jobs! I don’t need to see Medicine go public (like in the UK). It might help a bit, or even a lot, but the point is to make Medicine more effective. And to provide effective alternatives to Medicine where it obviously isn’t indicated. Psychiatry should not even involve Medicine. If your body is sick, you should go to a doctor or similar body health specialist. Why would you go to a doctor if just your mind was “sick?” They’ve been running this line on us that mental health is just a form of body health. And we bought it! Of course we need our bodies healthy. A lot of “mental health” problems would end more or less completely if those affected were physically healthy. But other such problems wouldn’t. So I think it should be clear that this appeal is being made because psychiatry is incompetent, not because mental patients are naturally more susceptible to disease. You can be very physically healthy and still have mental issues. But it is true that under current conditions, those patients are much more vulnerable. For most of us, though, I think it would improve our mental health to get back to work.

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    • Of course, a lot of the “treatments” adversely affect their “patients'” physical health, making them more vulnerable. Not to mention the impact of being given the idea that your brain is permanently broken. It has been shown that having hope and purpose improves health and resistance, too, though this is pretty much common sense. Though it appears not so common in the world of “mental health treatment.”

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  19. O.O.
    You said nothing “wrong”. We say things out of frustration with a system, not with anyone specific.
    As far as people disagreeing, it happens more often in psychiatry I’m sure than in anti-psychiatry 🙂
    and to hit a nerve, well it’s absolutely the most normal thing in life.
    So I’m sorry I responded in a way that hit a nerve, but despite,
    I believe we are all on the same page, and I for one certainly feel more kinship
    with anyone other than the system that tries to “other” people under a guise of “medicine”

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    • I do feel we are on the same page. I remember when Matt Stevenson died. I only knew him through this comment section. I wrote over and over to his private email too little too late to apologize. To tell him how much we needed him and that I understood why he chose to bow out. We’re all just broken edges rubbing against each other. The global lock down at least gives us space to miss each other.

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  20. The #1 immediate Covid-19 risk factor for people diagnosed with “serious mental illness” is confinement in psych hospitals. The #2 immediate risk factor is antipsychotic medication. Period. This is true whether you think the diagnoses mean something, or regard them as a fraud.

    Sometimes we assume that people locked up in institutions, even if oppressed in many ways, are at least “in quarantine” and therefore pretty safe in an epidemic. NOT TRUE. In fact, they are usually in much MORE danger due to being held in crowded quarters with others, dependent on staff who go from person to person all day. (Think of the young soldiers cooped up in army camps during the 1918 flu epidemic! They were far more likely to die than their civilian comrades.)

    Today the virus is spreading with scary speed through jails and prisons. Family members and civil rights activists nationwide are demanding that all but the most high-risk detainees be released – now. It’s an urgent public-health issue. We should make the same demand.

    People in psych hospitals may be in even more danger than prisoners. They tend to mingle more, and few have their own room or cell. Hospitals run by for-profit chains like Acadia and UHS account for an ever-growing share of “behavioral health” beds – and may be the riskiest of all. Patient-on-patient harassment, violence and even sexual assault are common. Under-trained and underpaid staff are too often part of the problem. “Social distancing” and strict cleanliness are pretty much impossible. Yet these places are notorious for packing in well-insured patients who don’t even remotely need to be there – and holding people against their will for as long as possible. These are potential virus hotspots. Non-profit and state-run hospitals are not much better.

    As for anti-psychotic meds, I’ll refer people to the excellent RxISK post featured on MiA this week. These drugs depress respiration, and their extrapyramidal effects can even lead to breathing problems that mimic asthma. The higher the dose, the greater the risk. Use of mega-doses for short-term behavioral control needs to stop NOW – and urgent consideration given to either discontinuing the drugs or dialing down the doses whenever possible.

    Reporters from ProPublica to BuzzFeed to the Dallas Morning News have focused on the scandals in our psych hospitals, including rampant over-drugging of troubled teens. Now is the time to make the connections and demand that Acadia, UHS and all the rest Let Our People Go.

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    • I agree Johanna.
      Yet the thing psychiatry will not tell the public or admit to, is the fact that the chemicals used in hospital cause “mental” and physical suffering while on them, and can cause even death or extreme reactions that to the public looks like what they think “mental illness” looks like… when abruptly halted. Whereas those deaths,reactions would have never happened if the chemicals had not been started.
      So there psychiatry sits, with a bunch of people on chemicals who should never have been put on them to begin with.
      Now they are chemical prisoners, forcefully exposed to chemicals and Covid-19.

      I wonder if shrinks are taking precautions for themselves and yet letting the lower ranking staff take the brunt of exposure.

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  21. Why are shrinks and their helpers even more bat shit crazy then ever ? Or as my really competent, experienced, and positive result getting (certainly for me that is true ) naturopathic doctor asks in a handout. WHY ARE PEOPLE ACTING SO TENSE ? What to do about Fatigue, Dementia, Mood Disorders, and Sleep Disturbance ? To copy much ( for the sake of our survival) and paraphrase some ___Most are probably already aware of the alarming rise in radical ,violent nonsensical behavior in our society, schools, all walks of our daily life. Police shooting unarmed women,crazy reactions to the mildest frustrations in all walks of life . Even our leaders are doing more bickering than governing! Many sources are calling for more laws, more surveillance, even modifying first amendment free speech! There is a specific demonstrable cause and explanation for the appalling aberrant behavior increasing in our lives. There has been a dramatic increase in pollutant levels of toxic metals : mercury, cadmium,lead and carbon waste in the last 20 years. We are all breathing this worldwide air pollution constantly now and in daily increasing levels. The presence of micro amounts of toxic metals being in the blood causes deposition of these metals in sensitive body tissues. The brain and central nervous system are the primary recipients of the metallic burden. All people have decreasing mental stability and function as toxic metal deposition increases.
    The other dramatic increase in the last 20 years is RF or radio frequency emissions from the rapidly expanding network of satellites and cell phone technology. By using toxic metal deposits in our brains as micro antennas, these radio frequencies are affecting our brains and neurologic tissues constantly day and night.The radio waves are now intense enough that they are causing behavior and cognitive disturbance on levels we are only beginning to understand. Children and adults unsure of their thoughts and choices are only the mildest sign of this disruption .
    So if our brains are being affected by RF waves agitating the metals being deposited in our brains,WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT ? We sure aren’t going to reduce the amount of radio frequency transmissions anytime soon!! There is an economical way to test AND remove metals from our brain and tissues . A hair sample test that within 3 weeks gives a reliable report on a person’s exposure and risk of toxic metal contamination. The most effective treatment today is simple oral chelation performed at home with supervision. A simple oral chelation performed for 3 days most weeks for several months will be expected to improve your mental clarity and emotional stability . ALL the cells in our bodies must have normal mineral function to work properly. NOW a days it is even more important that we be sure those minerals are able to be working well.
    Pollution protection—–Worldwide air pollution has reached such levels that the old adage, “sleep with the bedroom window open when possible” is no longer valid. In order to protect from the risks from air based metal pollution , now is the time to CLOSE all your bedroom windows when you go to bed. Invest in a $100-$300 room air filter with UV ultraviolet and ionizer and run it all night. If you need to crack the bedroom door for a pet, that’s ok. The point is to try and get 7-8 hours a day when we are breathing clean air.
    Myself I’ve got the air filters but haven’t done the rest yet . I intend to when I can. I do have more to post here soon. This natural doctor got me breathing normally within 2 days after a hospital full of bat shit crazy regular doctors including an extremely bat shit crazy psychiatrist said for over 2 months (I got busted up in a no fault of mine car accident) that it was in my mind forced poisons on me and painted me as bat shit crazy without treating a breathing problem I had thought because of their incompetence I might die right in their hospital or later in their “rehab facility”. Only some excellent nurses aides and a handful of nurses from that facility kept me alive and my own knowledge of natural healing including energy healing long enough to finally get to a highly skilled naturopath.
    The reason psychiatrists don’t ever have to travel to hell is that they create hell wherever they are constantly and consistently. There are so few exceptions that practically speaking their effect is drowned out by the mainstream bullshit artist’s pharma financed juggernaut. Yeah we are among the convenient scapegoats .Anti psychiatry might be the way to fight back against overwhelming odds . Ultimately we just can’t give up our human rights to anyone. To those that want to take em away , go F–K YOURSELF.

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  22. Hi everyone, so I wanted to make a special note looking back at this blog post, and offer some self-reflection. I regret that I was unable to view the dominant narrative around Covid more critically. I made a very strong claim that lockdowns and other policies were the best strategy, and did not give for example give proper consideration to the divisions among scientists and public health researchers around focused protection and other alternative measures. In general I didn’t anticipate the financial opportunism in the politics of lockdowns, and the dramatic transfer of wealth upwards; I didn’t give enough consideration to the civil liberties and labor issues involved, including the freedom of worship and assembly; I wasn’t vigilant about the authoritarianism and corruption taking place; I wasn’t skeptical enough of how public policy dissenters were being vilified; I didn’t think critically enough about the role played by the disability community; and I was in general too reliant on compromised mainstream media sources for my overall understanding. While I made a sound effort to point out that people with mental health diagnosis are also among the most vulnerable to public health crisis, the issue deserved deeper and more critical thinking that I failed to offer. Sorry about that. It was a very strange, fear-driven time: I will try to do better.

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