Since the COVID-19 virus hit the United States, the mainstream media have regularly covered its psychological impact on the American public. According to these reports and commentaries, the potentially deadly disease is stirring not just fears of illness but also sadness, anger, and loneliness created by the strain of mandatory self-isolation. This anxiety and depression, they say, is to be expected in most people. But for those who already struggle with such feelings, their responses to the pandemic can be seen as a flare-up of their “mental illness symptoms.” So, while the “normal” part of our population is being comforted, those with “disorders” are being told to watch out! And at the same time, media are telling of a new epidemic that may be on the way: an outbreak of mental illness.
Acknowledging Stress & Anxiety
For example, we’ve seen stories such as “7 Reasons It’s Hard to Control Your Coronavirus Anxiety” (STAT News); “Don’t Go Down A Coronavirus Anxiety Spiral: Here’s What You Can Do to Relieve Your Worries, While Still Keeping You and Your Family Safe”(Wired); “How to Stay Resilient and Mentally Healthy During the Coronavirus Outbreak” (“On Point,” WBUR, Boston’s NPR station), and “Psychology Experts Share Their Tips for Safeguarding Your Mental Health During Quarantine,” (CNBC), among others.
Such pieces provided useful tools for understanding our emotions and behaviors, and reassured us that changes in mood, energy, and personal habits are normal reactions to a dangerous situation with many uncertainties.
As reporter Nicole Ellis explained in “5 Ways to Respond to Coronavirus Induced Anxiety” (Washington Post, March 20), the upending of routines and scary news unfolding on our TV screens and newsfeeds create “the perfect storm for feeling powerless and anxious.” Says her guest, “mental health expert” Dr. Jennifer Yip, “When we’re feeling anxious, our fight-or-flight response is being triggered—which is there to protect us. The problem is that some of us focus too much on the things that we can’t control rather than what we actually can control.”
“Healthy” Vs. “Unhealthy” Reactions
At the same time, as a Mad in America study of press coverage between March 8 and March 25 found, we are seeing warnings that for certain people, those hard-wired stress responses to the virus may not be normal, and that we should be alert for signs of “unhealthy” anxiety. Consider this video, promoted in a press release from the University of Florida’s Center for OCD, Anxiety, and Related Disorders:
Here we learn that, according to psychiatrists, you might have “unhealthy” anxiety levels if you “go too far” about preventive measures or avoid your normal passions. For example, constantly washing your hands for longer than the recommended 20 seconds may be a problem. So might not wanting to play baseball after school anymore, what with multiple people touching the same sports equipment. Not mentioned: Both behaviors make sense in the current context.
Like all press releases, this one was designed to steer news coverage during the crisis. In doing so, it was promoting the type of coverage that pathologizes the emotional distress experienced by those with “mental illness.” This was the type of coverage we regularly found in our review of reporting on COVID-19 and mental health. For example, this piece from The Hill, titled “The Mental Health Costs of Containing the Coronavirus Outbreak: A Pandemic Takes a Unique Toll on People with Mental Illnesses,” states that it is normal for the general population to feel anxious: “Everyone is going to feel some level of discomfort and anxiety right now.”
However, the article also warns that “For some, the anxiety can rise to a clinical level during an outbreak,” which requires professional help. In other words, what is normal for some is abnormal for others. According to Krystal Lewis, a clinical psychologist at the National Institute of Mental Health, symptoms that might be “clinical” include “difficulty sleeping, changes in eating patterns, rapid changes in mood, inability to carry out required or necessary tasks, [and] self-medication using alcohol.” The article urges people experiencing such symptoms to review the recommendations and resources provided by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a primary source for the piece.
NAMI has long been known for promoting the idea that mental illnesses are underdiagnosed and undertreated, and this piece is, in essence, telling many readers that their reactions to the pandemic are “abnormal” and they may need help.
ABC News published a report that displayed the same confusion. Headlined “Anxiety and Depression Likely to Spike Among Americans as Coronavirus Pandemic Spreads,” its subtitle told readers that “Stress, Anxiety and Depression Are Normal and Expected Now.” But then the article quotes Yalda Safai, a psychiatry resident, who cautions that “[T]he unique and unprecedented threat of COVID-19 has exacerbated anxiety, depression and potential for hysteria in our most vulnerable – the mentally ill.” Put bluntly, reactions by the “mentally ill” are being depicted as a form of “hysteria.”
Meanwhile, a CBS affiliate segment titled “Health Officials Warn of Increasing Mental Illness Symptoms During COVID-19 Crisis,” went a step further, suggesting that the virus could make previously OK people mentally ill. The piece compared the pandemic to 9/11 and implied that overly strong reactions to such disturbing events could be a sign of a mental disorder. Although a voiceover tells people not to self-diagnose, that message is contradicted by the crawler at the bottom of our screens: “Guarding against mental illness during pandemic.”
Even behaviors appropriate under the circumstances might be pathological, as one therapist told The Washington Post (March 14): “Now all Americans are being told to view their surroundings in a way that seems to mimic OCD.”
All told, the public is left with a confusing message: Becoming more anxious in response to COVID 19 would be normal if you are mentally healthy and a sign of illness if you’re not, although apparently some normal people might experience so much anxiety that they, too, could now be seen as mentally ill. And finally, everyone is now to practice behaviors that in the past would be a sign that they had OCD, but now are considered reasonable…unless one goes “too far.” Perhaps those labeled with OCD had it right along when it came to handwashing?
Destabilizing the “Disordered”
Facing exceptional circumstances, everyone can be expected to feel levels of fear, sadness, and irritability well above their usual baseline. This is especially true for people who, even in more ordinary times, struggle with anxiety and depression. But because of the conventional view of mental illness as an intrinsic, biological defect of individuals, the press is treating these individuals as a separate case.
Headlines blared, “Some with OCD, Other Anxiety Disorders Are Struggling Amid the Coronavirus Epidemic: ‘It’s Tripping the Wire for Many Different People’” (Chicago Tribune), “OCD and Anxiety Disorder Treatment Can Be Complicated by Coronavirus Fears” (Washington Post, March 13), and “Coronavirus Is a ‘Personal Nightmare’ for People with OCD and Anxiety Disorders” (NBC News), to name just a few.
In this schema, if “normals” panic, it’s because of the pandemic; if “mentally ill” people do, it’s because their Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Bipolar Mania, or OCD is flaring up or relapsing. This is shown in how mental health professionals in these pieces talk about the heightened worries they’re seeing in their clients—by definition “patients” in treatment for a disorder/disease.
For example, in NBC News’ piece on OCD, an illustration of people frantically washing their hands is captioned “The wave of anxiety sweeping mental health patients is unlike anything counselors have seen before.” Here, the network reports that “one of [psychologist Reid] Wilson’s OCD clients nearly canceled an appointment because they were concerned they had touched their nose too much and could give the coronavirus to Wilson . . . Another, with generalized anxiety disorder, couldn’t stop worrying about whether their daughter traveling from another country was at risk.”
Yet, given the pandemic, both of these worries seem well-founded. Who wouldn’t be concerned about giving the coronavirus to another, or agonize about a daughter traveling in another country?
In an article titled “Coronavirus Responses Trigger Anxiety, Distress for Vulnerable Oklahomans” Oklahoma Watch describes the anxieties experienced by a Norman Oklahoma woman named Sarah, who “has depression that is brought on by stress”:
Her speech quickens and her heart races as Sarah talks about the spread of COVID-19 and how it could affect her brother, whose medical history makes him more vulnerable to infection . . . According to her journal, she has been anxious and fighting insomnia for weeks—signs that her depression has returned.
The idea that a “disordered” individual’s response to the pandemic can be understood as evidence of pathology can also be seen in comments by leaders in American psychiatry. For example, NIMH Director Joshua Gordon told the Washington Post (March 17), “We’re all a little suspicious of others on the subway, on the street, if they’re coughing or they look sick. Imagine if you had schizophrenia—that concern or suspicion could turn into frank paranoia.”
A piece in Psychiatric Times (“Psychiatrists Beware! The Impact of COVID-19 and Pandemics on Mental Health”) similarly warns that worries about the virus may “further destabilize patients and increase functional impairment” in those with OCD-related “contamination obsessions” and inflame medical “conspiracy theories” among those with “psychotic disorders.”
This is the “pathology” framework that people diagnosed with mental disorders live within: Reactions that are seen as normal in others are seen as pathological in those who live with a diagnosis. In a March 16 piece headlined “This Is Going to Compound Your Problems: Coronavirus Poses New Challenges for Many with Mental Illness,” CBS News tells of Katherine Ponte, who “had been obsessively watching the horrors of the Iraq War on cable news in 2006 when she took a hammer to her TV. She suffers from severe bipolar I disorder with psychosis as well as major depressive disorder, and the images of a war-torn Middle East triggered a manic episode that caused her to be hospitalized. If Ponte isn’t careful, the current coronavirus pandemic could have a similar effect on her.”
Similarly, a story in USA Today (“‘Isolation Is a Big Trigger’: Feelings of Suicide Are Amplified Amid a Pandemic”) quotes “Danielle Sinay, 28 . . . a writer in Brooklyn who has a history of suicidal thoughts. She’s been diagnosed with a panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. While she isn’t entirely isolated—she lives with her husband and four pets—[she says] disruptions to her routine and the proliferation of unknowns have left her vulnerable.”
A Looming Epidemic?
With the pandemic said to be causing a surge in anxiety and an increasing number of people seeking therapy, there has been a wave of stories on therapists scrambling to meet the demand. This spike in emotional distress now described as a “symptom” of a growing “epidemic” in which “normal” people will show signs of “mental illness” and “mentally ill” people will relapse or get worse. This is a problem, it was often stated, because anxiety disorders already affect tens of millions of people.
Some such pieces were straightforward. The New York Times, in “As Coronavirus Takes Emotional Toll, Mental Health Professionals Brace for Spike in Demand,” focuses on mental health professionals struggling to fulfill appointments safely via telehealth sessions for the many clients now fixated on disease. In “Mental Health Professionals Are Preparing for an Epidemic of Anxiety Around the Coronavirus,” Mother Jones shares one therapist’s anecdotal take on the barrage of “extreme symptoms” she’s seeing among patients. The magazine then recounts a rise in ordinary people taking Mental Health America’s online anxiety screening test, which the magazine considers “newly available data.”
These stories were framed around the idea that much more conventional mental health treatment is what’s needed now, as exemplified in Mashable’s “Coronavirus Reveals Everything That’s Wrong with Our Mental Health Care System.”
Other pieces were more sensationalistic, epitomized by a March 24 op-ed in The Guardian, “We Face a Pandemic of Mental Health Disorders. Those Who Do It Hardest Need Our Support” Here, Guardian Australia columnist Paul Daley declares:
Yes, this is a frightening, deadly viral pandemic. But another plague, one we are not hearing nearly enough about from our leaders, will arrive in a wave just behind it.
That is the pandemic of severe depression and anxiety that will sweep over the world as the unemployment rate pushes into previously unseen digits, families who’d prefer to be socially distant are thrust together and young people are denied the certainty and structure of school. . .
As mass desperation, anxiety and depression elevate in line with the lengthening of the . . . queues, civil society will come to depend almost as much on the maintenance of individual mental health as on the availability of testing kits and masks.
The media confusion could be seen in full display: Although becoming anxious could be seen as a normal reaction by normal people to COVID-19, the pandemic nevertheless was stirring an epidemic of “mental illness.”
Separate, Not Equal
While news media warned of an overwhelmed mental health system, they also attempted to provide advice on how to cope on one’s own. Here the tips given to “normal” folks and those to “the mentally ill” were much the same: Maintaining social connections, getting exercise, meditating, maintaining a routine, and practicing cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques such as reframing negative thoughts. But there was one key difference. While the general public was urged to cultivate their inner resources and reach out to colleagues and loved ones, the mentally ill (and people noticing signs of “clinical” level anxiety) were urged to reach out to a professional.
One of the most popular anxiety-busting tips for “healthy” and “unhealthy” folks alike was going on a media diet—avoiding those scary, 24/7 news updates the news media themselves were producing. According to mental health pros interviewed in Wired (above), people should “limit how much information you consume about the coronavirus outbreak. Try to find a balance between being informed enough to make decisions about your life, but not so overloaded with information that it becomes stressful.” This isn’t far from advice offered to those with mental disorders. In “COVID-19 Pandemic Can Take Toll on Mental Health,” the CBS affiliate reports, “Jessica Ryan with Mental Health America . . . says it might be time to take a break [from obsessing over online news]. She says all of the changes happening and constant news coming through, it could be triggering for someone that has been diagnosed with a mental illness.” Same concept, different framing.
Sometimes the same outlet created two separate segments on the same topic. For example, “CBS This Morning” broadcast a video segment, “Minding the Crisis: How to Curb Anxiety During the Pandemic,” featuring psychiatrist Gail Saltz, who offered everyday tips for alleviating stress reactions to the pandemic. She reassured viewers, “Pathologizing, or making yourself feel worse about ‘why am I so freaked out,’ is not helpful and it’s not true. It is normal to be feeling anxious now as there are some dangerous things going on and we have an evolutionary system evolved to alert us to things we should be aware of.” This piece was embedded in the online CBS News piece noted above, in glaring contrast to its coverage of the special risks and needs of the “mentally ill” during the coronavirus crisis.
False Distinctions
By drawing exaggerated distinctions between the heightened emotion and counterproductive behaviors that “normal” people experience and those expressed by people with pre-existing mental illness labels, the news media here are carrying water for the psychiatric enterprise. Indeed, we tend to hear such warnings every time there is a crisis, which ultimately serves to push more people into treatment and, most likely, onto psychiatric drugs. This is the goal of not just NAMI (whose contact info is included in several stories we examined) but also two other major sources for these pieces: Mental Health America and the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. These groups have a vested interest in promoting this narrative, and the pandemic provides an opportunity to do so.
Psychologist Lucy Johnstone makes this point in an op-ed, “Why It’s Healthy to Be Afraid in a Crisis” (The Guardian, March 25):
We’re not facing “a pandemic of severe mental health disorders.” We’re all facing entirely normal fear, anxiety, despair and confusion about a truly terrifying situation that challenges our whole way of life. Never has it been clearer that so-called “mental disorders” make sense in context. . .
The more we label our understandable human reactions as disorders, the greater the temptation to disconnect them from their source and focus on new individual “treatments” instead. The drug companies must be rubbing their hands at the prospect of all these new customers.
Real-World Consequences
While well-meaning, this type of coverage is unhelpful, serving to increase existing anxiety by raising the possibility that a person’s reactions to an international pandemic might mean there is something “wrong” with them. It is also dangerous to suggest that the public-health guidelines we need to follow now, such as self-isolating, might break us—it only serves to make people reconsider the wisdom of social distancing.
Stereotypes of those with mental illness labels, and their perceived neediness or dangerousness, have already had real-world consequences. In the U.K., a mental health law was temporarily changed to lower the bar for involuntarily detaining people deemed mentally ill requiring the approval of one doctor rather than two. The rule also will extend or remove time limits on involuntary commitment.
As a March 19 article from Disability News Service reported, the “National Survivor User Network (NSUN) fears this could lead to both more coercion and more neglect, as well as fewer safeguards.” The story quotes Akiko Hart, NSUN’s chief executive: “Whilst we understand that these are unprecedented times . . . keeping individuals unnecessarily detained beyond their section because of workforce pressures is a violation of their human rights.” She added, “Equally, releasing individuals because of pressures on the workforce or the mental health estate is deeply irresponsible.”
The Fragility Myth
Finally, the coverage emphasizes the fragility and vulnerabilities of people with “mental illness,” rather than the strengths they also possess. Bob Nikkel, Former State Mental Health and Addictions Commissioner for the state of Oregon* observes, “Journalists have the same stereotypes as everyone else.” Recently contacted by a reporter about the impact of coronavirus on services for “the mentally ill,” he tried to convey that “People with mental illness diagnoses have more resources than people realize.”
He told Mad in America, “We don’t need to feel pity, we need to see them as leaders. We need to recognize that they’ve been doing some version of peer support, which reduces isolation, for decades.” Nikkel cited the work of Intentional Peer Support and the National Empowerment Center, reporting that “Dual Diagnosis Anonymous started online ‘12-step plus five’ programs [recently] and saved someone’s life who was suicidal. Even in the coronavirus era, these efforts are especially valuable.”
Indeed, people with psychosocial disabilities might be better able to cope with “healthy” or even “unhealthy” anxiety. They have learned many lessons and tactics from dealing with those challenges for years. Ken Goodman, a therapist on the board of ADAA, told The Washington Post (March 11) that “of the roughly 60 patients he treats each month, just one has expressed a fear of the virus so far.”
Toward the end of a typically ominous article on the mental health risks of coronavirus in the Detroit Free Press, Toni Lupro, a medical student with “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,” noticed that “ the coronavirus pandemic has revealed how far she’s come in therapy.” The story goes on, “Fears of contamination have dominated her life in the past, but the arrival of COVID-19 in Michigan hasn’t caused her to regress.”
Lupro herself is quoted, saying: “It’s kind of good to realize that everybody’s in the same boat. Even people who’ve been physicians for 30 years, we all don’t know necessarily what is going to happen . . . I think that helps me to know [fearing germs is] not necessarily an irrational thing.”
To be sure, many people are currently undergoing immense suffering, and psychiatric patients and people with substance-use issues are more vulnerable to contracting the virus because they tend to be marginalized. Also, research shows that the echoes of this traumatic time will likely linger long after the virus and quarantines have passed. What this means is that all of us will need varying, increased levels of support.
But these stressful events may also prove a great equalizer. As Lucy Johnstone wrote, there is an alternative to an epidemic of phobia and PTSD diagnoses: “We can come out of this crisis in a better state than before by staying connected with our feelings and the urgent threats that have led to them, and taking collective action to deal with the root causes.”
The Press’s Role
That broader perspective is something social scientists who study trauma say journalists should emphasize if they want to be both accurate and helpful during this crisis. Among them is Dr. Roxane Cohen Silver, whose research focuses on the psychosocial effects of widescale disasters and the role of news media in their aftermath. During a recent SciLine-sponsored webinar on she talked about “how we can best ensure population resilience”:
We’ve all been through community traumas before. We’ve weathered mass violence, we’ve weathered natural disasters, and indeed my colleagues and I have studied many such events, including the September 11th terrorist attacks, . . . [and] hurricanes Irma and Harvey. And our research tells us that most will get through these situations.
While the press should acknowledge that the situation is dire and that anxiety is “appropriate” now, Cohen Silver said there is an opportunity for journalists to convey a more constructive message: “If we work together, we can save lives . . . We can encourage positive community outcomes such as altruistic behavior, social cohesion, volunteerism, reaching out to those who are living alone or who are seniors.”
While our collective state of emergency continues, it would be helpful to see the news media cover more such community- and resilience-based approaches to public health instead of providing a platform for psychiatry’s pathologizing narrative.
*Nikkel is also Executive Director of MIA Continuing Education.
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MIA Reports are supported, in part, by a grant from the Open Society Foundations
Hi Miranda and thank you for the blog.
Now I have 20 seconds to wash my hands? The only way to establish time is to count. So here I am at my sink, counting to 20. Ooops, I counted 25 seconds.
“doctor, I washed my hands for 25 seconds”
I hear psychiatrists are isolating, but simply due to the fact that they are a needed commodity.
I am thinking covid-19 is indeed an equalizer.
Covid-19 is new to a population that is used to hobnobbing, to barhopping, to spending our cash living our privileged lives.
We are used to knowing about psychiatric and hospital wards, prisons, homelessness, “nursing homes”. We know, and casually use those words in conversation as they arise, but never imagine a human inside, not one with feelings or abuses being hurled at them, EVEN in their isolation and loneliness.
Now we all get a taste of restrictions. Ohh poor us. Most are still not tying together the similarities but also the great differences.
I don’t think the media needs to go fishing for more victims of psychiatry, unless they are running out.
Psychiatry seems to need media. They should steer far away if they want to be considered authentic. An authentic practice does not need to use subminimal codes.
An authentic practice would NEVER EVER lead to harm or invalidating others, or taking away their credibility.
Not even possible.
Psychiatry has always worn masks, they are most comfortable that way. They are also the most isolated of humans. It comes natural to them. There are not that many of them, as compared to the population.
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Psychiatry helps people by ruining their jobs, relationships, and isolating them. Their treatments consist of branding the unhappy/lonely as hopelessly insane menaces to others. And now they push disabling drugs to keep them from functioning or looking normal for mainstream society. (Adds to the credibility of how inferior the Others are.)
Somehow they think what harms themselves and the “normals” helps the “mentally ill.” 😛
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Yep. The double standard psychiatry promotes.
Black and white thinking as they shove everybody into neat, little boxes. The “healthy normal” people who have the right to feel sad or frightened or lonely. Versus the “mentally ill” whose feelings are only symptoms of the disease they have instead of a personality–according to shrinks.
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There is a certain “amount” of anxiety we are allowed.
If it causes us to miss work, it is then a pathology. Interesting though how that pathology causes me to lose all credibility, NOT because I suffer anxiety, but by the stroke of their pen, the designer label causes me untold hardship for the rest of my life.
What “health” practice ensures that their victims are not stigmatized but rather have their credibility taken away permanently.
It is greatly empowering to not be afraid of those yahoos. Most liberating.
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Thank you for this, Miranda! It has really bothered me how the normal anxiety to the Coronavirus situation has been framed as “triggering mental health issues” for those with a label. You did a great job of showing the disparate and confusing coverage of this, and the intense but unspoken struggle to define what a “normal” reaction to such a situation must be. I’d only add that the fears of a sudden wave of “mental illness” sweeping the country completely puts the lie to the idea that these “mental illnesses” are somehow biologically determined. I also appreciate very much the observation late in the article that many of those already labeled “mentally ill” may actually have a lot to teach the so-called “normal” person about living in isolation or being extra safe or managing anxiety about situations we don’t control.
Glad someone is finally talking about this!
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Great point — if psychiatry wants to continue alleging that mental illnesses are somehow innate, then they are going out on a limb to also say that stressful circumstances can cause people to suffer emotionally and even break down. Which is it?
It saddens me that during this most difficult time, we are not allowed to have emotions, only “symptoms.”
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“I’d only add that the fears of a sudden wave of “mental illness” sweeping the country completely put the lie to the idea that these “mental illnesses” are somehow biologically determined.”
Good pointing this out Steve.
But it is a good ploy to get more “customers”, so the shrinks can be their personal designer label shopper.
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Excellent blog, Miranda. It’s a fascinating dissection of the contradictions of the ‘mental illness’ discourse. My blog, due tomorrow, makes similar points but from a UK perspective. Unfortunately we seem to be experiencing a pandemic of medical model thinking….. there’s no crisis which can’t be used to feed the psychiatric and psychological empire…
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Thanks for this article. As someone with many diagnosed “anxiety disorders,” knowing that everyone is going through this same anxiety spike is actually helpful to me. It suddenly feels less like “I, a ‘mentally ill’ person, am having irrational anxiety because my brain is so messed up” and more like “I, a person, am experiencing very normal anxiety during an unstable time.”
I’ve worked over the past year to “de-pathologize” myself and my emotions, and going through this crisis is further helping me understand that my emotions are not irrational or crazy.
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“….managing anxiety about situations we don’t control…”
A friend of mine said “…people can’t cope with powerlessness…”
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Fantastic piece. Can we circulate this to journalism schools, NAMI, disability rights organizations, and dare I say, mainstream corporate media publications? It would make a great op ed piece in a zillion dailies
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Please be my guest!
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Dental black stone was normal, pandemia as a form of virus mutation is something that we must pay attention to.
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From the article NIMH Director Joshua Gordon ” Imagine if you had schizophrenia—that concern or suspicion could turn into frank paranoia.”
So many people believe schizophrenia is a real disease.
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Seems like paranoia did not fit into the framework of big psychiatry. In this case, it is necessary to create an alternative to psychiatry – paranoiatry. What should have been done long ago. However, do not underestimate the potential of synesthesia.
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Yes, I found that when I had a knife planted on me after being ‘dropped’ with benzos and having the ‘helpful’ people at mental health services lie to police and claim that I was a “patient” (when they knew I wasn’t) most detrimental to my ability to deal with my stress.
In fact, it was after this slander that I found that my complaining about being ‘spiked’ and having a weapon planted on me to police became a ‘symptom’ of the fabricated illness. I am to live with the knowledge that I have been ‘flagged’ on the police records as a mental patient who carries a weapon, and can not have that removed as this would mean that they assisted a public officer in torture and kidnapping a citizen. So I live also with the slanderous conduct of our Minister for Health who can not reveal the truth, and continues to utter with fraudulent records based on the need to conceal what is being done and called ‘medicine’.
What pleases me most is that there are actually people out there who value the truth, and are aware of what has been done and by whom. Not only the criminals but their enablers. It must be difficult for the Minister to be running with all these false narratives, and keep a straight face.
They are going to need to throw the current crop of people who have been damaged by the drugging and ECTs onto the street now they have a new batch coming through. Though I can’t imagine that will be reported accurately by the media. It will just be more mental patient with weapon shot by police. ‘Throw downs’ and ‘verbals’ the weapons of choice, enabled by a corrupt State government who have been using the watchdog as a means to cover up their misconduct. Isn’t the homelessness problem terrible Beryl?
Am I being paranoid by wanting that false accusation used to justify my ‘assessment’ removed form the records? Or must I learn to live with being treated by police like a rabid dog as a result of this nastiness? Perhaps I should seek professional help to resolve the issue. Though I note they tend to not wish to discuss the crimes that were committed to have me ‘referred’, and prefer to not look at the documentation. These ‘good people’ who tell us ‘were all in it together’ seem to not be in it together when it comes to the human rights abuses being enabled in our hospitals and called medicine. In that case, as most ‘patients’ will tell you, your on your own. Particularly when your legal representatives are taking their instructions from the State rather than their client.
I would have thought my wish to not be drugged without my knowledge and have a weapon planted on me for trigger happy police to find, as a means to obtain a ‘referral’ for a Community Nurse would be ‘normal’. Apparently not, business as usual according to the Operations Manager who fuking destroys anyone who complains about being ‘treated’ in such a manner. Its a tough job and you need the stomach for the unintended negative outcoming of any legitimate complainants. I’m sure the destruction of my family, career and loss of everything I ever worked for was a small price to pay to enable a corrupt public official who is kidnapping and torturing citizens. And despite the evidence not being retrieved by police, they ignore the facts and run with the falsehoods. Is this possibly the reason the public has virtually no faith in our court system? Planting items preferred to actual investigations? Any wonder we see people walking from prison after unreliable convictions are repeatedly exposed?
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SCHIZOPHRENIA FRAUD
” Imagine if you had schizophrenia—that concern or suspicion could turn into frank paranoia.”
In my case it’s turned into “frank boredom”.
I was diagnosed as the “worst Schizophrenic in Ireland” – until I stopped taking my ‘medication’.
And after 30 years of complete recovery I caught my GP in London claiming for me as a sick person – even though I hadn’t cost a penny in 30 years!
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Miranda, this is a terrific article! I would like to add a few things.
(1)Even saying lots of people are experiencing “anxiety” and “depression” (whether psychiatrically labeled or not) can impede the path to feeling better. This is because both words are so vague and give little guidance toward how to cope. If anyone tells me they feel either of those, I ask what words they would use if they were NOT going to use those. The answers are far more helpful. What’s called “anxiety” is usually “fear,” and calling it that helps the person identify the fear’s source and set about figuring out how realistic the fear is and how to protect oneself. What’s called “depression” is used in a staggering array of ways, as David Cohen’s and David Jacob’s classic article about tests of “anti-depressants” shows, and it helps if one can recognize that they are feeling loneliness and isolation or helplessness or hopelessness or nostalgia or fearfulness.
(2)I urge EVERYONE to put quotation marks around every term ever used to pathologizes people. It’s a very important form of educating others and reminding ourselves that they have no scientific basis and therefore are usually useless and often VERY harmful.
(3)Since suicidal thoughts were mentioned, I want to say that I addressed this in my MIA webinar last week (which people can sign up to watch, including Bob Whitaker’s brilliant opening webinar and the ones that will follow), and good heavens, what could be more natural than thinking about suicide when death feels close to us (in our death-phobic and death-denying society) than in a long time?
(4)Miranda included this from some media coverage:“difficulty sleeping, changes in eating patterns, rapid changes in mood, inability to carry out required or necessary tasks, [and] self-medication using alcohol.” These were being used to signal “mental illness.” So somebody tell me, do we really want to believe that in the face of this pandemic and all the unknowns about it and the fact that death is its ultimate outcome, we should have NO new difficulties in eating, sleeping, emotions, carrying out tasks, and trying to find ways to help us calm down? So what IS the “normal” way we should all be coping?
Finally, I don’t think the word “grief” was mentioned here, but grief is something so many of us are feeling — grief that we cannot hug loved ones or help them in person, grief that we cannot go to the grocery store for potato chips even WITH a mask and gloves and not feel tense and watchful, grief about so much that is unavailable to us now, and perhaps grief that we are not handling this with as much serenity and resourcefulness as we would have hoped.
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Great comment Paula.
I felt “born again”, when I learned old words to describe new made up words.
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Hi, Paula, sorry for the delay in replying.
I mostly agree with you about putting quotes around psych diagnoses and have done so quite a bit in this article, but I diverge regarding the use of words like “anxiety” and “depression.” These are generic terms for real experiences (moods) that were in common use well before psychiatry co-opted them, added capital letters and billing codes, and turned them into diseases. Like “mad” and “queer,” I think we need to take these words back rather than use them only in the context of a medical construct or not at all.
They’re indeed broad and not very specific, but at times I find them useful to concisely describe my own experience. “Anxiety” covers an overarching sense of dread and hyperarousal, and the word “depression” speaks to an overarching feeling of low mood, dark thoughts, and sluggishness.
Regarding grief, this topic so far has been under-reported in the news media, although as the pandemic drags on I’m starting to see it mentioned more. I can’t speak for anyone else, but grief is the main emotion I am experiencing now. What I think the press needs to im-press upon the public is that people are going to react in a wide variety of ways and the same people will feel and act different on different days. I do better when the sun is out. Yesterday I could barely function, but I wasn’t too concerned because I knew this wasn’t a permanent state…I have enough experience with “mental health problems” and therapy to have faith in my own resilience.
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excellent work, miranda. thank you.
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Thank you for your Blog. It makes absolutely no sense unless you have spend way too much time with healthcare workers and then by their roundabout logic it seems to make complete sense in the fact that they never make sense and have a constant double standard.
What I have learned from having multiple “rare” medical conditions and nearly dying multiple times is the following about all specialities in medicine.
When you visit people in healthcare look happy but not too happy because if you are too happy you are manic. Don’t look sick because that is a clear sign of depression. But do look sick because otherwise you are faking. But don’t. In other words, no matter how you look you are screwed and no matter what, you have a mental illness rather than a legitimate physical illness.
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I can totally relate to this. I don’t know how many times I’ve been passed off as a hypochondriac or ‘mentally ill” when I had physical health issues. I now never ever ever ever say anything about feeling down, never use the “mental illness” terminology, I try not to be too happy, but even being happy at all that means even if not “manic’ you also just flat out can’t be suffering a physical health issue as if you were you’d never smile ever. But oh did I mention if you go in looking down they may find that really you are exaggerating and a hypochondriac because the sick still should have a sense of humor because nothing bothers the doctor more than being around morose suffering people so you also have to have a smile on your face so that they don’t think you believe you are worse off than that guy they saw five years ago who had fifteen fatal illnesses all at once cause if you do that then clearly you are just insensitive and prone to drama so well…So well just stay home already.
I have had to solve some of my health issues by researching on google then two years later they will finally get around to letting me see a specialist and he’ll tell me what I already know. I’m at the point now where I will only go if I need to have a broken bone set, or if I have a problem too complicated to sort out on my own.
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Surely the people who wok in these places get to the point where, as a result of spending time their they just assume that anyone who would go in there of their own volition must be insane. A matter of degree, not kind lol.
And I really get what your saying about researching on google FourLights. I know I would rather die than attend a doctor nowadays. The tax we are paying is for emergency breast enhancements for our Politicians girlfriends, not for elective surgeries like liver transplants or other ailments these disposable people keep coming in with.
Its an old model, Socialise risk and cost, Privatise wealth and profit. Either way the poor pay.
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I was wondering, if every human had the identical hut, and space. How would that affect the unbalance of power?
I think even if people were allowed to keep their billions, their titles, they would not be able to feel superior.
It is having ability to wield their titles or their possessions that props them up.
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boans I really can’t blame you especially about not wanting to see a doctor given what you have shared here. Still stuns me how low they can go….if ethics were a limbo stick they had to vault over to be considered moral they’d be below the floor lol
And that’s a good point about them assuming anyone going in there is insane. Every person I know in my area knows not to go to the local hospital for any reason, it’s that bad. Well unless you like overpriced t-shirts from the gift shop lol.
p.s. EMERGENCY breast implants? What the? Sounds like your health care system is a wee bit, or should that be a lot more progressive than the Canadian system. lol
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“Its an old model, Socialise risk and cost, Privatise wealth and profit. ”
boans this reminds me of something I read a long time ago, forget where:
“The existence of limited liability laws are an overt admission that were corporations held to account financially for all of the damage they do, they’d rapidly wind up out of business”.
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Interesting comment ThereAreFourLights. Mine came from Chomsky I think.
It gets me thinking about the ‘cash splash’ by our Government as a result of the twin pandemics (COVID and Fear of COVID). I assume that “we’re all in this together” will extend to “we’re all going to pay back this money the government is splashing around”. I get the feeling that exemptions will be applied, and the now low cost of fuel will increase to never before seen highs.
Invest in Petroleum and Pharma. I know where the $750 from my government is going, capitalist that I am lol.
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Running out of room to respond here…
“It gets me thinking about the ‘cash splash’ by our Government as a result of the twin pandemics (COVID and Fear of COVID). I assume that “we’re all in this together” will extend to “we’re all going to pay back this money the government is splashing around”. I get the feeling that exemptions will be applied, and the now low cost of fuel will increase to never before seen highs.
Invest in Petroleum and Pharma. I know where the $750 from my government is going, capitalist that I am lol.”
Lots of money being thrown around where I am too and I wonder at how many really are thinking about how much they will like paying back the corporations bailed out with our tax money…We had a huge wad given to the oil industry here, to “clean up orphaned wells”. Some seemed happy but then I noticed they seemed to think the policy was an attempt to “clean up Orson Welles” lol
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It’s like Dire Straits said in the song “You get your money for nothin and your chips for free” lol
In fact there’s a sign in my Bank that says “This Bank is your Friend. We’re all in this Together”. I missed a coupleof loan payments and my ‘friend’ repossessed my car.
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TooStubborn,
You are correct.
“no matter how you look, you are screwed”
I’m so done with being screwed.
Being treated like a child.
It is defies explanation. I mean I can explain it to them, yet they would deny it wouldn’t they.
My explanation is: They have made themselves appear “scientific”, in the face of a great lack of it.
They created a power deferential based on the fact they went to school, but find themselves faced with illness that they cannot do anything about, or cannot find it. They fear manipulation, only because they were taught that any patient who is chronic, is a pain in the azz.
They fear lawsuits, because they lie about meds, treatment and most of all, knowledge.
There is much old age now, much chronic illness, which makes them even more defensive towards anyone new coming to them with ailments.
They seem to want only healthy people or those that have a little owwie.
And above all, their denial about what they do NOT know, has turned every doctor into a shrink. Even the “good ones” whatever that means.
What after all brought up the requests and seeking of a way out? The requests to change laws? Because people are so sick and tired of being spat on and shit on, that anything is preferable.
We can tell that people are looking for “common sense” amid chaos.
They continually pretend to do studies and research, into why healthcare is not working. Why why why. And every research states the obvious, yet is just more time wasted, on ignoring the obvious.
Did you realize that the majority of doctors do not die in hospital? To them it’s obvious that one should or would not.
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Thanks ThereAreFourLights. Yes while I’m kidding about the emergency breast implants, the truth of the matter is that the money is in vanity procedures for the rich, and you get to practice on the poor suckers who walk into the Emergency Dept out of need (or for a police cover up).
There was a legal battle over one child here, and the Family Court was used to conceal the ‘facts of the matter’ though what emerged was that the parents wanted their child suffering from cancer to be at home to die. while doctors had some experimental ideas in mind and they wanted the ‘care’ of the child to be passed to them (as result of the abusive parents who had no idea what was best for the child).
It’s cases like that which should be open to public hearings and yet the State is prepared to ensure that it is not heard by the public. Why might that be?
Perhaps it’s a bit like ECT, change the way it looks, and not the effect of the ‘treatment’? Ugly when you beat someones head in with a hammer, but if we put a sack over their head first it doesn’t look as bad. lol
Seriously though, i’ve no doubt there are good people working in our system, many of whom got out as a result of the new MHA. And the downward spiral as a result of that exodus might actually bring about change. I won’t say it couldn’t get any worse, coz it might. But we are at the point where we are doing what we are complaining about Bashar al Assad doing. They’re using Military hospitals, were using the Public ones.
I feel in some ways like the canary in the coal mine. And I guess as long as cover ups are profitable, then the State will continue with them. In fact the cover up of the cover up has exposed others to further corruption as a result of their actions. The fraudulent documents I had that exposed the real set now being used to slander me, despite me sharing them with an ‘advocate’ (I use this term very loosely) on the condition that they be returned on my request. Yes, yes, sorry can’t find them. The release of that confidential information done solely to damage my reputation, and I attempt to get assistance, and the documents are taken under strict conditions of return, and they turn up where?
I’ve covered these documents in detail elsewhere but basically they took documents that had information provided to a Social Worker who wrote it down in good faith. The Operations Manger who threatened me went through old files and extracted documents that could be misinterpreted and distributed them to others. What was done by the Social Worker with good intent, was weaponised by the Ops Manager in a time of need to conceal their criminal conduct. My family destroyed, but this woman is still prepared to assist the families of others. I’ve given fair warning, any damage she does now is on the heads of others.
Utterers, slanderers and frauds. It states in my Book on a number of occasions about those who “hate the truth and conceal it with falsehoods”. I think at least my brothers know what has been done and can direct their efforts at election time in an appropriate manner. Not that having two choices of slop to eat is really a choice, either way your eating slop lol
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Good people in the system
Someone interrupted the attempt to kill me right? What was done as a result of that I don’t know, I could tell you what was done to me as a result of it. They tried to retrieve the documents I had so that I could be ‘treated’ as a means to cover up their crimes. One has to wonder how much of that is going on, and let me say the people enabling it (the police) have every reason to be afraid. best they do as they’re told along with our politicians. Which is certainly borne out by recent developments in our laws. What doctor wants, doctor is getting.
Of course it may be that i’m totally insane and making this all up right? Which is the position of our current Minister for Health who likes to use slander as a means to conceal. So why is it that people simply refuse to look at these documents I have and then even write a simple letter for me to ask a question r two? Or even assist me in having my property returned? Of course I was approached by someone but ….. I won’t go into that here.
The psychologists claim was that I was not being ‘morally relative’ about it all. That from someone who was arranging killings in our Emergency Dept with her psychiatrist husband? Don’t expect anyone to believe me there either, but I know that others know. Ask my wife, or her doctor friend. Having me be allowed to speak with my wife regarding her conspiring with these corrupt public officers not a possibility of course, hence the need to fuking destroy my family. Imagine victims of these criminals being allowed to get together, what next? Someone paying for that because “What God as put together,…… All athiests here, hence the need to have the stomach for the work with zero accountability.
And of course I believe most people think that the government who have failed in one cover up will now act openly and honestly and do the right thing. Your wrong, and it’s your families you now put at risk as a result of failing to hold them to account. But then again you people still have families right? And will no doubt respond to threats and intimidation.
Yes were all working hard to change the system but some things we need to ignore for now. If Boans government sees fit to kill people to cover up and keep the good reputation of psychiatry in his State, were good with that. I mean they did go to the trouble of slandering him so we can jump on that band wagon and join the choir. My argument has always been this has never been about who or what I am. Was it fair to drug me without my knowledge to plant a knife on me for police and obtain a referral to make what was kidnapping appear lawful? And if so, we will be round to your place to do it to you some time in the near future. I’ve a list of politicians who have no problem with it, though they stop short at denying the torture, given that t would expose their ignorance of the Convention and thus their wholesale breaches of said Convention.
I guess making admissions that they tortured and kidnapped me would mean that the only difference between torture and kidnap, and referral and treatment would be status. That would expose the public to way too much of the truth of the matter, and quite possibly open their eyes to WHY some ‘mental patients’ act in the manner they do. They are being abused behind locked doors on the basis of that status given via the Mental Health Act.
Still, come and cuddle a Koala and run the gauntlet with our mental health services. Just make sure they don’t know you have political beliefs that don’t match with theirs. You might find yourself on the wrong end of a needle and our Police Service doesn’t have a copy of the Criminal Code when it comes to the crimes of ‘medical professionals’. they will in fact retrieve evidence of their crimes to conceal for them, FACT.
Police having the ‘public’ commit their offences for them and then failing to perform their duty is effective, but at some point it will also be noticed. (and take note anyone who has been screwed over by mental health services, this is exactly what they’re doing). Personally after what i’ve seen I simply want out, they’re all in it together and well, thats fine too. Lut waves goodbye to you all, and never will look back. My wife can turn to a pillar of salt for all I care. Save me money on a corrupt divorce lawyer if I can sell her to a Fish and Chip Shop lol
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lol Fish and Chip shop, I have an ex like that too, you can throw him in too free of charge…
“Waiter, where is the pepper? There only seems to be salt in this joint”…lol
Seriously though boans for all you have been through it’s pretty amazing you have the sense of humor you do. Really impressed here. Let us pray you get some justice (and everyone else too.)
Also with regards this statement:
“I guess making admissions that they tortured and kidnapped me would mean that the only difference between torture and kidnap, and referral and treatment would be status. ”
That’s what I keep telling people. If average people with no medical, or in the case of the psych specific stuff, pseudo-medical training did what psychiatrists do usually they’d wind up in jail for life. Instead when doctors do it not only does that not happen even a fair number of their own victims, some of them who even realize they are victims, tell us we must try to help them keep their jobs. You know, re-decorate the office a little, make sure they don’t hurt anyone going forward.
While I’m fine with the idea of trying to make sure they don’t hurt anyone going forward the reality as I see it is that criminals belong in jail. And if we had proper justice they’d be charged with fraud, torture, arbitrary detention etc etc, they’d have to abide by international law, and we’d be given just reparations including sizeable amounts of money such that just paying us alone would put them out of business.
I had akathisia for a long time for that alone I feel I’m owed millions. As is every other person who had it, and other issues, people like yourself, all of the forced treatment crowd, and so on. Of course the likelihood we see that money, especially now with the giant tax drain thanks to this virus, is about nil…It at least won’t be coming from the governments that’s for sure.
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Someone should tell a real story about what happened in a psych ward, but pretend that they are describing a stay in prison, and see how outraged people get. I bet prisoners would get more empathy and concern than “the mentally ill” do.
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“While I’m fine with the idea of trying to make sure they don’t hurt anyone going forward the reality as I see it is that criminals belong in jail.”
My biggest concern is that these people openly demonstrated a willingness to harm someone, and to knowingly break the law. I think about the reasoning of the courts behind not making the punishment for rape (or as we have no such charge here, sexual assault) not too severe, lest they make it worth the rapists while to kill their victims. 20 years for rape, the perpetrator may as well kill thier victim and risk the murder charge, with less likelihood of getting caught.
Now consider the situation where I was concerned. The punishments are mandatory, and the crimes are in brief conspiring to stupefy to commit an indictable offence (20 years) namely kidnapping (20 years) and a list of other offences (eg intoxication by deception, procuring the apprehension or detention of a person not suffering from a mental illness, compound or conceal evidence of a criminal offence, fail to perform duty etc, etc). Then we move into the offences committed by the FOI officer and the Operations Manager who became aware of these offences but did what? Absolutely vile people who would see that a person was a victim of such criminal conduct and psychologically attack them (and the really want to hope that I am never given my wish to have them under my ‘care’ for the 7 hours they had me, because I could use coercive methods that they might find disturbing. Though I understand from Nietzsches Geneology of Morals why punishment should not be left to the victims).
So in this instance we have a list of criminal offences ‘as long as my arm’ as the saying goes, with mandatory prison terms, but police don’t want them to be crimes. And yes one can’t blame the criminals for getting together to find a resolution that involved the killing of not only an innocent man, but one who was also very vulnerable as a result of being tortured and kidnapped already.
I get it that people find themselves digging in deeper and deeper in these situations, but that is precisely the reason that they should be punished, and punished severely, and for all to see. It provides a deterent to others who, on making ‘bad’ decisions to come forward immediately and attempt to rectify wrong. (I do not consider my instance to be a ‘bad’ decision however, this was a psychologist who was presented with an opportunity to harm someone who had views about ECT and psychiatry that she [as the wife of a psychiatrist] did not like. And here was my wife willing to knife me in the back with her assistance? Oh YES PLEASE).
I don’t know, I think about all the ‘work’ being provided to the Dr who tried to overdose me in the ED. I think he might spend his life doing work on peoples bowel cancers or knocking a few inconvenient truths for a doctor of good repute. Not what he went into medicine for, or where he saw his career heading under the guidance of a corrupt psychiatrist [really? I get a Porsche just for killing one ‘patient’?], and now with a huge bill from University to pay he is better to do as he is told rather than have his criminal conduct whispered about in the halls of the hospital. Justice? Perhaps.
And the Police? Maybe after sending me away and threatening to arrest me for having proof of all this they ended up wiping up the blood and vomit in the interview rooms. That’d be fitting for a Senior Constable who really isn’t very good at their job. I mean sending a victim of torture and kidnapping away because they don’t have a copy of the Criminal Code? Is there no end to the damage these people do to their own inflated reputations? The links to organised criminals obvious to any other officer to see with access to even the lowest levels of Police systems.
I’ll take your prayers ThereAreFourLights, because that is a demonstration to me that there is one person out there who would not engage in this type of conduct, and that for me makes me not feel alone (and oh have I felt alone over the last ten years). God will sort them all out in the end, I have that on a promise. Just sometimes I wonder why I have been left in the ‘care’ of people who would torture and kidnap, and then psychologically harm the victim rather than punish the perpetrators.
Not a doubt in my mind who among these people had evil intent, and it should also be obvious to anyone who has investigated and knows I am speaking the truth. Allowing them to run away to other States and set up shop elswhere shouldn’t be an option.
I suppose I am meant to get the hint from the pathetic responses from the police, who after all did actually torture me. I feel sick thinking about that, and then not being allowed my property to leave because…….? I know they have an history of disposing of witnesses once they have manufactured the truth they require for the courts. Hence the odd call for protection for whistleblowers every once on a while when they kill the odd one. And with nowhere that will provide me asylum I guess I just wait for police to come and shoot me, and throw down the same knife that I have a ‘history’ for from their original torture and kidnapping.
As far as the story goes Steve the problem is that prisons are places that breed ‘mental illness’. I was watching some clips from the Ghosts of the Civil Dead last night.
“Now ya put us in a cage, a cage for an animal. Don’t you know that a long period of incarceration without proper medical diet breeds psychosis? You know what psychosis is? It makes one become predatory, compulsive.
Do you know what you’re doing? You are creating a lot of angry men is what you’re doing, and one day those men are going to go out there, and that day, those people out there are going to pay for what you are doing in here. You just remember that.”
It’s a great movie if you ‘have the stomach for it’. The outcome of political pressures when moving the “psychos” into the general prison population resulting in an ‘unintended negative outcome’, or is it?
I find “civiliter mortuus” to be my status as a result of the negligence, fraud and slander of others. The status of “non compos mentis” not fitting due to my ability to reason. And yet I walk among them? An emptied out shell of the good man that used to be in here. And the psychologist concerned has moved on to other families that require her ‘expert services’ in dealing with legal barriers to their wish to have loved ones tortured and kidnapped, and if necessary, killed. Set ups appreciated by both police and mental health services which makes the job so much easier.
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As Peter Breggin points out the reason they treat people that way with inpunity is because they claim to be “healing” them. Even if people could be persuaded it wasn’t “just your illness talking” they would see such bad experiences as a necessary evil in “getting them the treatments they deserve.”
The very word DESERVE speaks volumes. You can say a poor person deserves help. You can also say a horrible person deserves to suffer. We need to ask people making this argument what context of this word they are using.
Help the mainstream gain some insight into their own hearts.
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It goes right back to “beating the Devil out of them.” It is assumed you must DO something to people who are suffering, to toss out the “evil entity” that is possessing them. We have changed from “The Devil” to “Your Disorder” but the rest of the game is exactly the same. And as in the past, all kinds of barbaric activities are justifiable to eliminate the “forces of evil” from the patient/victim.
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Boans, I feel your pain and torment as well and also pray there will be some way for you get justice.
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Aptly put Steve, psychiatry does seem to think it can beat the “disorder” out of patients.
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Thankyou Rosalee. It means a lot. And I guess it would be difficult for the people who have investigated this to truly understand what its like to be tortured and kidnapped. I just hope they are consistent should it ever happen to their daughter in a Nite Club. Because the offence is the same, and the result is also the same, a psychological pain that can not be described. Add the gaslighting to that from those with a duty to act in a manner other than ‘fuking destroying’ the victim and yeah, i’ll live with this pain till the day I die.
I mean I would never consider doing such a thing to someone. I’ve heard of two occasions before this from freinds who were spiked in pubs (one with LSD and the other with Ruffies) and was disgusted with the person who did it on both occassions.
Maybe it’s a fun thing at the Police Station, like zapping each other on the head with tazers. Get some benzos from the corrupt Community Nurse and spike the commanding officer? Why not, its not a crime until they can find the Criminal Code.
I know our Attorney General helped in a couple of instances where wrongful convictions have occurred and police have been a little heavy handed with tazers in the watchouse. I did contact him and explained that police didn’t actually want the evidence I have, and it might someday be important if they wish to know how people are being killed in the ED. He suggested I contact the CCC, but the Prime Minister has stated that this is simply a Kangaroo Court for cover ups of public sector corruption so…… I wrote back and asked the Attorney General what the process is for a complaint about being tortured because there doesn’t seem to be one, despite that being a breach of the Convention. One would expect that he would know what that process is, and could easily inform me. My argument being that there’s no need for a process when they are killing complainants. I am yet to receive a resopnse to my question which after all I believe to be reasonable.
What is the procedure for making a complaint about being tortured by Public Officers? Other than having them drop you at an E.D. for an overdose? Because despite the negligence of police, who were involved in the torture, I have the proof. Though 9 years of burying the truth seems to be a reaon to start saying “it was so long ago”. I made complaint on the day it happened and have not stopped since. Am I responsible for the negligence fraud and slander that is standard procedure for making these things go away? I wasn’t the one who sat on my hands for 14 months before responding to a complaint from lawyers stating that the Manager was away over Christmas (which one I wondered because two had passed).
As I say, as long as they are consistent when it is their family. Of course somehow their pain is different to everyone elses pain.
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@boans I am glad if you feel a little less alone. I have felt alone for more than a decade thanks to what they did to me and others I care about. A man I love was just ruined by psychiatry to the point he could barely remember anything about me the damage to his memory was so severe, and I have had to live for over a decade not even knowing if he’s still alive or not, or back in the system again (very long story as to why.)
And now we just had word here the other day they are holding someone else I’m close to, who literally was taken off the streets and made to disappear. Can barely find out what happened. I’m just so fed up with this it’s just one nightmare after another.
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If there is anything I can do to help ThereAreFourLights please don’t hesitate to ask. I realise i’m an insignificant insect in the scheme of things but …. who knows.
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Thanks for this excellent blog Miranda and all the research, links etc. It is scary to think how psychiatry and their cohorts will use this pandemic for self-serving purposes (even without the media pushing out harmful narratives).
I can’t help but wonder if psychiatrists have any ’emotions’ regarding the horrendous effects of the pandemic or are they just tripping through the tulips without a care in the world. In either case they may have a “disorder” and may deserve a label…… Hopefully the pandemic could be psychiatry’s much needed wake-up call, but that’s probably too hopeful.
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I’ve been using this time to instill distrust of the medical profession in the hearts of people using social media. Nothing blatant or out there. Just subtle little seeds of doubt and skepticism. A lot of people are open to the idea that doctors don’t have our best interests at heart right now.
My years as a psychiatric guinea pig while other doctors watched on smiling in approval, seeing the damage psychiatrists did to me have made me distrust and despise the entire American medical system. Not anti medicine. Anti doctors.
Just because someone is a doctor does not make them honest. All it means is if they decide to harm you they have superior training and smarts to do it without getting caught. And the other doctors cover for the crooked ones so they’re guilty in their own fashion. And of course the shrinks.
What kind of people do this? These doctors must know lithium destroys kidneys, neuroleptics ruin your brain and CNS, and SSRI drugs make your weight double and mess up your heart and gut. But they remain silent. Heaven forbid they save lives at the cost of “meds compliance.” 😛
Dr. Fauci has been caught changing his story. It was a minor lie about face masks not being helpful. To save masks for doctors he explained later.
But this has hurt public trust. Suddenly people are open to the idea that doctors tell lies and have their own agenda rather than the best interest of the public at heart.
I’m teaching some online friends the truth about psychiatrists right now. Many are open to this idea.
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Time well spent and much needed Rachel. It is a public service, a humanitarian service and aid.
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–
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@boans thank you for your very touching offer of help. It brought me to tears. To be honest it would be lovely just to speak with you. It’s been such a hard lonely road for so long…And I value your obvious intelligence and humor. You’re not an insignificant insect, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise…though I take your point that up against the powers that be it’s pretty daunting a struggle we are in here. Maybe we can communicate privately if you’d be interested, pass our emails through Steve perhaps, as I don’t want to put down my full story on the board. Steve willing of course. See if we can be of mutual aid to each other, though I’m not sure what I’m good for at this point.
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More than happy for that to occur ThereAreFourLights.
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Hey boans I sent my email to Steve but not sure it went through, please let me know if I need to resend it.
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I don’t think I got it, but I can pass your email on to Boans if that’s what you’d like. Just let me know here and I can get it from your profile.
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Okay thank you Steve much appreciated–I didn’t think it went through!
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This article by New York Times reporter Benedict Carey, who covers ‘mental health,’ psychiatry, etc., was published today:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/health/coronavirus-mental-health-anxiety.html.
Apparently the predicted spike in acute and chronic ‘mental illness’ promoted in the articles I critiqued has not come to pass. In what seems like a turnabout for his profession, one psychiatrist Carey quotes says the following: “In most disasters, the vast majority of people do well…Very few people understand how resilient they really are until faced with extraordinary circumstances. In fact, one of our first jobs in these situations is to call attention to just that.”
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Interesting article Miranda.
Is psychiatry worried they are missing out on new clients as per this recent article in Psychiatric Times:
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/coronavirus-meets-racial-virus?eKey=cm9zYWxlZTEzQHNoYXcuY2E=
“Given those comparisons and connections, it might be advisable not to bring in federal active-duty troops right now, but rather to bring in the psychiatrists. We very well might have a better understanding of how to deal with our inborn tendencies.”
GAG.
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I notice it does not say, “We might very well have a better understanding how to deal with THEIR inborn tendencies”.
They know how that would sound. Clever as always they are 🙂
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Lol. Yep.
I’m sure shrinks aren’t happy at how Peter Breggin pointed out what the “Violence Initiative” was really about either.
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“Given those comparisons and connections, it might be advisable not to bring in federal active-duty troops right now, but rather to bring in the psychiatrists. We very well might have a better understanding of how to deal with our inborn tendencies”
What about situations where psychiatrists bring in the active duty-troops, like Radovan Karadzic? Quoted as saying to “create an unbearable situation of total insecurity with no hope of further survival of life”. Sound familiar? I quote the Operations Manager who dealt with my complaint regarding the use of known torture methods and kidnapping. “We’ll fuking destroy you”. Perhaps they’re related? Or is it an ‘industry standard’?
I must say I just can’t see the Taliban being frightened by a squad of psychiatrists armed with needles and a copy of the DSM under their arm, though they should be.
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