Professional Mental Health Leaders: Experts in Humanity or in Marketing?

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The mental health professionals who make it as experts in mental health in mainstream media typically seem like kind, empathic, wise, insightful, good people.  The kind of people who seem as though they might be able to really help you, and offer good life guidance.  They sometimes encourage people to get “help” when they are experiencing difficulties in life.  This, in my experience, is deceptive advertising.  It’s the kind of promotion that can easily lure an unsuspecting public into an industry that has actually done and continues to do a lot of harm to some people.  What was done to me by the mental health industry entailed human rights abuses and flat out torture.  I am well aware that I am not the only one.

There is the potential for reward for the “mentally ill” who speak to the marketing agendas of the industry.  We must accept our inferior status, and praise, rather than criticize “treatments.”  You can become a low-wage peer counselor.  You can bring the authenticity of your experience to your professional mental health work, as Kay Redfield Jamison and Elyn Saks have done.  You can work for NAMI.

Professional mental health groups often co-opt the lives, stories, and perspectives of people who have come into contact with the mental health industry in order to serve their various agendas.  I once watched a video, sponsored by Johnson & Johnson, of a woman who had been psychotic and did some things she shouldn’t have done.  She was rescued from jail by psychiatry and psychiatric drugs.  She was firmly convinced of all the benefits of the mental health industry, so much so that she wanted to start a mental health business.  I believe her video had over a million views.

While I appreciate that some people find mental health interventions helpful, the picture of a happy mentally ill person taking psychiatric drugs and getting loving, kind therapy doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story.  There is no room for critical voices within the industry.  When I started seeing a student psychologist and a psychiatrist who prescribed Zoloft for my “depression” in 2002, I felt the industry was helping, despite what it actually did to me.  This is how effective advertising campaigns have been.  While mental health professionals don’t take criticism, the “mentally ill” do virtually nothing but take criticism from our mental health “caregivers.”

Anyone can cite anyone’s published work to support their marketing purposes.  I discovered that one of my articles had been cited by this website.  It seems to be a counseling center based in the UK.  At first, I was very happy that they found my work worthy of citation.  My general knowledge of non-psychiatric mental health practitioners in the UK is that they are distancing themselves from psychiatry, psychiatric drugs, and the DSM.  So, I was still happy.  But then I became suspicious.  My experiences with the US mental health industry have been so horrific, and I’ve never had a good therapist, and I so disagree with the fundamental premise of the US mental health industry that I don’t generally trust it or anyone who works in it.  Is my impression that mental health care in the UK is generally a lot better than it is here accurate, or just a very successful advertising campaign, like it mostly is in the US?  Does the average therapist in the UK help, rather than hurt people?  Have I been co-opted by an industry I despise?

Anyone can cite any published work, but you can choose who you publish with.  I would never write for the drug-funded NAMI that insists that some people are mentally ill, while others are normal, according to the standards of the US mental health industry.  I cannot see myself ever again agreeing with their point of view, or mission.  I plan on remaining an independent voice.

My current psychiatrist has been helping me come off psychiatric drugs.  When I told him who I was writing for and what I was writing about, he practically accused me of being delusional, because I don’t buy into all that the mental health industry requires of patients, and he refused to further reduce my antipsychotic at that time.  He strongly encouraged me to become heavily involved with NAMI, and to write for them.  I guess doing so would prove my relative sanity, as much as a mentally ill person can claim to have.

It has been my experience that once you have experienced extreme states of mind, have come into contact with the mental health industry, been labeled with serious mental illness, and have been heavily medicated with psychiatric drugs, the industry never wants to let you go.  It’s an excellent business paradigm.  But if mental health services actually helped people, would you need to be forever dependent on them?  Sins can be forgiven, but too often, both in the eyes of the industry and the public, mental illness can never be forgiven.  It is a label that you are bound to for life.  How does this lead to the personal growth and self-direction that the industry says we lack?

Pretty much anyone could benefit from a little love and attention sometimes in order to deal with their problems.  This is the essential promise of the mental health industry.  At least in my own experience, this was a deeply empty and deceitful promise.  Once I am through with psychiatric drugs, I hope to permanently cut all ties to the industry as a patient, unless I am legally, forcibly made to do otherwise.  I much prefer the role of independent critic and analyst.  It is an industry that desperately needs such people.  Who is analyzing the analysts, after all?  It is an industry that is essentially self-regulating and holds enormous power.  When they occasionally lose civil suits after having completely destroyed one or more lives, they consider that the cost of doing business.  As long as they continue making so much more money than they lose, they will continue with their paradigm of “care.”

Psychiatry is today generally considered a noble field of medicine in the US.  They care for the very worst of humanity—people no one else would touch.  This is an image that they have carefully cultivated over the years.  They have both propped themselves up with bad science and seeming compassion, and torn down people they have marginalized as mentally ill.  Patients have no right to a good reputation.  We can all be lumped in together as criminals, idiots, a drain on a good society.  If we weren’t already such people, psychiatric drugs and “treatments” may make it so.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, nearly one in five adults living in the US suffers from a mental illness.  While still a minority of people who can be effectively marginalized and discredited, it’s a huge potential pool of new and long-term customers.  Who hasn’t ever felt like they needed “help”?  This is what the mental health industry, politicians, and other believers in the system say that it offers.  Help is quite the opposite of what I received.  “Normal” people who find someone in distress may casually refer her to mental health services, thinking that it can’t but help someone who seems distressing.

The dehumanization of the “mentally ill” serves a lot of socioeconomic and political agendas.  It works sort of like racism.  Poor White people can be more easily exploited and manipulated if they feel they are superior to, and blame Black people for all of their problems.  In the same way, “normals” may not actually be being well-served by current socioeconomic and political structures, or even by the way they are living their lives, but at least they aren’t crazy.  They can rest assured knowing that they are safe, comfortable, good, superior, and that the mentally ill are being dealt with by authorities.  This satisfies the “normals,” but if it weren’t for this, they might realize that their lives have even more potential.  If we all recognized our common humanity, rather than scapegoating certain people and groups, we might create a world that better serves everyone’s well-being.

I find that I have to negotiate with my current clinic, and it’s a lot harder than negotiating a new contract with Verizon.  I have to consistently prove to them that I am essentially sane and good, and not defend myself against their dehumanizing presumptions about me too much.  It’s the only way I can ever hope that they will continue helping me off psychiatric drugs.  If there is something that is deeply troubling to me about myself, I save it for confession or prayer.  The mental health industry has trained me to intensely scrutinize myself for any fault or failing, even to the point of creating new inner faults and needing constant reassurance that I am not a bad person.  My hope is that once I am disentangled from the industry, my own sense of self will be fully restored.  Every breath, even your dreams, are suspect under the gaze of the mental health industry that I have experienced.

In order to deal with them mentally, I totally reject them in my mind, while being nice to them.  It’s like how one person, when dealing with an armed home invader, “ordered pizza” for him when dialing 911.  I save my criticisms for another time and place in order to deal with the significant problem of the fundamental hostility that the mental health industry that I have experienced has towards its patients, the “mentally ill.”

Unlike what the public has been led to believe, forced mental health care has virtually nothing to do with helping that person.  It is a criminal and/or social judgment against that person.  You thought or behaved strangely or badly, so you need to be reformed.  Why not call it what it is, rather than pretending it’s “help”?  It is punishment for socially unacceptable thoughts and/or behavior.  I actually took my incarceration and forced drugging in a mental hospital as a sign that I did indeed need to better myself and my life however I could.  This wasn’t the result of any therapeutic intervention, but being locked up and tortured that made me know that I never wanted to go there again.  It was my rock bottom.  Going to jail for a few weeks would have had the same effect on me.

Just as being an ex-con may follow you forever, so too might being labeled mentally ill.  More than others, you need to prove yourself and that you have value.  Somehow, you have to do something to earn a better reputation, if such a thing is possible for the “mentally ill.”  You almost need to become a saint.  While I would be very happy to be a saint, that’s a lot of pressure in light of the human failings that can afflict anyone.

That psychiatric drugs and therapy can fix all of humanity’s problems is a message that people want to hear.  A lot of people, perhaps especially Americans, like a quick fix.  It’s so much easier for the public at large to think that everything from homelessness and suicide to violence and crime can easily be resolved with early enough psychiatric intervention.  And when you’re actually in a position of needing help, no one wants to help you but the mental health industry–for a good profit, of course.  Unfortunately, for those of us who get their “help,” the results can be disastrous.

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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.

71 COMMENTS

      • Just be nice, and leave ‘them’ with a kind word I read the other day in my Book Caroline. Key being “leave them”.

        ” “Normal” people who find someone in distress may casually refer her to mental health services, thinking that it can’t but help someone who seems distressing.”

        I had a conversation with someone a couple of days ago about my situation regarding being tortured (and my situation falls into the category of ‘hard’ torture as a result of the actual physical assault of the ‘spiking’, unlike the ‘soft’ psychological tortures of ‘coercive’ methods) and the claim was (and has been by some who have sighted the documents I have) that my wife was “afraid” of me.

        Of course my wife stated to me that she said “no such thing” to the person who arranged for police to kidnap me, which I believed to be true now that the dust has settled and I realise he needed to create a “risk” to make his kidnapping appear lawful.

        But when did it become the case that if I am afraid of another that a bus driver gets to prescribe stupefying intoxicating drugs without knowledge? And what if those drugs are administered without knowledge and the consequences disastrous? For example the man who claims he was ‘spiked’ and then set his children on fire as a result of the ‘spiking’, something he would never have done ‘unmedicated’? Was someone who was “afraid” of him enabled by police to ‘spike’ him without the authority to do so? And then the truth used to slander his character (paranoid delusional?)?

        It is the case that if someone wishes to maintain their silence, then that should be their right, right? Not, we will ‘spike’ them with benzos, cause an “acute stress reaction” by having police rough em up, and then force them to talk to us ‘good mental health professionals’. That meets the standard of torture under the Convention against the use of Torture (Article 1). And that was the reason the hospital could not provide the documents to my legal representative, despite having a duty to and allow them to protect my (and others) human rights.

        So, my State wishes to torture (and is prepared to commit acts of fraud and slander the victims [and even take that a step further, though in a ‘hands off’ kind of way] to conceal their human rights abuses) and I don’t wish to live in a State where they torture people and call it medicine. We all know the truth, the facts, but they can not have it that they are torturing people, and so have a need to fuking destroy citizens who make complaints.

        “We” don’t torture, “They” do. And whatever needs to be manufactured to make that the truth will be done. This requires a total rejection of virtually ALL of the Articles of the Convention. Superior authority, no emergency provisions, no refoulment of victim or witnesses, no avenue for complaint, denial of a right to legal representation, ….. and on. How these people can maintain the false belief that they are ‘good people’ caught in a bad situation I will never understand. The evil in their hearts exposed for all to see by the fact they try and conceal their evil deeds.

        And then of course there is the release of my medical records without my consent to be used to utter fraud by the authorities, and the associated slanderous hate speech that goes with it. An Attorney general who considers questions of law (was this act of ‘spiking’ lawful? Does the acquiescence of the Community Nurse regarding that ‘spiking’ criminal conduct and an act of torture) to be questions for doctors to resolve. Like asking a murderer for an interpretation of “thou shalt not kill” and being surprised to find out there is a loophole (ie they had the status of “patient” and thus police have no authority to bring charges).

        The use of ‘medicine’ to conceal criminal conduct by public officers will have grave and serious consequences for the ‘industry’. And my State is finding the passing of their public sector misconduct over to mental health services as a mechanism to cover up awfully convenient.

        Imagine, (and please feel free to contest anything i say here because I have the proof, it’s simply the people here with a duty to act have found negligence an effective tool to ensure outcomes) I was tortured and kidnapped and all they needed to do was to make me into a ‘mental patient’ post hoc, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. In fact, they can now have the people who tortured and kidnap me make the claim they are the people who can repair the damage.

        Police services are used in much the same way the Saudi Consulate ensnared Jamal Kashoggi. I attend a police station with documented proof of the misconduct, only to find I am ‘flagged’ for referral for “hallucinating” to the people who tortured and kidnapped me in the first instance. How many chances to they get to kill me before they succeed? There are a number of witnesses to the first attempt, and police simply call up the ‘whack squad’ if I turn up in their “embassy”? I don’t want you to believe me, but please check. Because the initial first failure to do so resulted in how many more people being “unintentionally negatively outcomed” before they realised I still had the documented proof of the offences, and torture? Silence the truth with killings? Great work guys. And i’ve no doubt the Sargent who wouldn’t even touch the documents knew what was going on when he claimed he couldn’t find the copy of the Criminal Code. They are that aware that people are being murdered by mental health for the convenience of the State?

        And oh how I hope they aren’t ‘leaving’ these types of matters for investigation by the likes of AHPRA. They have demonstrated a level of incompetence to me that goes beyond belief. Not even aware of who has the right to prescribe the class of drugs known as ‘date rape drugs’ without knowledge? They are the people who licence practitioners and yet are quite happy for the Community Nurse who has no prescribing rights to ‘spike’ people, and assist in the concealment of acts of torture.

        Keep this in mind Caroline, that at any time in the future police services can be used to persecute you should any doctor ever wish to have you ‘helped’. Not only is there a need to extract yourself from mental health services, but all the other organisations they have poisoned against you in helping you.

        I need access to only one piece of information (which I already know the answer to as a result of logic). Who ‘flagged’ me on the police system for ‘automatic referral’? That person is a criminal, and they are doing serious harm to people with the assistance of others acting thinking they are performing their duty, when they are engaged in acts of altruistic evil. But do you think police are going to admit they were ‘stooged’ into assisting with torture and kidnapping, and well then assisted to retrieve the documents while the criminal had a little accident with me in his hospital?

        There is of course hope. Say a prayer for me next time please Caroline. I’d like to live somewhere that these people are dealt with before they manage to do so much damage that we can’t expose their crimes for fear of the damage it does to OUR reputation and exposes OUR negligence. The system on paper should have worked, but with a few evil people getting together and plotting to make kidnapping and torture look like medicine, a lot of people have been harmed. Yes, they can take the private and confidential information ‘leaked’ from the private clinic by a psychologist and use that to fuking destroy me (and my family. And I might add, information that was court sealed to protect me from the very abuses they are now using it to perpetrate against me. And that was as a result of a good psychiatrist I might add. He does the right thing, they take his work and use it to harm people. Credit where credit is due). And then they can try and complain when it is done to them, and there will be no one listening when they are being tortured either.

        Once these ‘leeches’ attach themselves to you, your going to need a transfusion until you can burn them off with a hot coal. And as a Christian you would understand that form of ‘treatment’ that awaits them 🙂

        Take care and good writing.

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        • Hi boans,

          Thank you so much for your comment.

          The main reason why I stay with them at all is because, from all of the research that I have done, I know that stopping the drugs abruptly after taking them at high doses long-term can potentially cause disastrous withdrawal effects, including withdrawal psychosis. What if I stopped abruptly, experienced withdrawal psychosis, and stole a loaf of bread and yelled at someone? I might end up institutionalized for life as irredeemably “mentally ill.”

          It’s sort of like leaving a spouse who beats you three times a week, but is the sole breadwinner. Do you leave immediately, live on the street and lose custody of your children? Maybe you come up with an escape plan. In the US, there are groups that (very minimally) help women and children escape abusive husbands.

          Because torture and other human rights abuses against the “mentally ill” are viewed as legitimate treatments by mainstream society, there is no one to help you escape the system. You have to improvise. You have to work with abusive people.

          It is my honor to pray for you, and I have. I have prayed for justice for you.

          You are right that I have a little more freedom to publicly complain in the US. There is also a teeny bit of bravery. But I know that as powerful as the mental health industry is in the US, they have weaknesses too. Psychiatrists are afraid of malpractice lawsuits that could ruin them financially. They also have psychological weaknesses. They are bullies, and bullies are just cowards. Take away their profit, power, and prestige, and they will change their behavior. To some extent, they are paper tigers. If you can manage to escape them, all they can do is call you names.

          If by some miracle, my writing about the mental health industry became popular enough that the industry attacked me, I would consider that a badge of honor. I want them to stop ruining and killing people with their “treatments.”

          I feel that even though you cannot come out publicly, you do a great service in educating people about your experiences in the mental “health” industry in Australia.

          You take care too.

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  1. Antidepressants increase suicide by 250%. Veterans without a mental illness who get psychiatric “care” have 50% higher suicide rates compared to Veterens with a mental illness who don’t get psychiatric care. Antipsychotics increase psychosis by 300% and triple disability. Let that sink in.
    The mental health industry does more harm than all mental illnesses combined. They cause more suicides, deaths, and suffering.

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      • https://www.madinamerica.com/2019/11/screening-drug-treatment-increase-veteran-suicides/

        I’ll give you a warning Pro-psychiatry people are in a constant state of denial. I’ve had multiple people respond with a variation of “mentally ill people commit more suicide”. They don’t ever actually read any research they just make up lies about how the research is wrong and they are right. This wouldn’t work very well but corporations and psychiatrists making money off the drugs easily produce fraudulent research.

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        • You’d have to be in denial to take up the sword for psychiatry. The “mentally ill people commit more suicide” trope is easily debunked, because most every trial ever done removes suicidal people from the pool before starting the trials. So there should actually be FEWER suicidal people in the trial than the general population, and an increase in suicide rates is even MORE condemning of the drugs. Besides, that’s the whole point of the control group. They are “mentally ill” too, and commit suicide at a lower rate. That’s all you need to know, except if you don’t WANT to know.

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  2. I must agree with your approach to getting weaned from the psych drugs. Tell your psychiatrist how wonderful your life is, don’t complain about how ungodly sick the drugs make you, and sweetly and politely just keep encouraging him to wean you from the neurotoxins. But, of course, don’t call his “wonder drugs” that to his face.

    Best wishes escaping the “system,” Caroline. And do be forewarned that withdrawal from the neuroleptics can result in a drug withdrawal induced super sensitivity manic psychosis. Which will get misdiagnosed as a “return of the disease” if you are unable to avoid a hospital. God bless, and you can do it.

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    • Hi Someone Else,

      Thank you for your support for my gradual escape plan, and your advice. I am aware of the possibility of withdrawal psychosis. A few years ago, I was on 6 mg risperidone and some dose of Abilify. I no longer take Abilify, and am now down to taking 1 mg. risperidone. My thinking, creativity, imagination, and writing have improved. Although I am nervous about the final steps, I am hopeful too.

      As I see it, I can either try to come of psychiatric drugs and maybe things will improve for me, or stay on them for life, and pretty much be definitely doomed. Once I realized that was my choice, I knew I wanted to try to come off them.

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      • I did it, Caroline, so you can too. Keep in mind, even the psychiatrists want to feel they “cured” a patient occasionally. So stroke your psychiatrist’s ego, with his ability to “cure” you, while slowly weaning you from the drugs.

        I, too, was weaned from the drugs very slowly, over years, so you are likely doing it the best way possible. But I’m glad you’re at least aware of the possibility of a withdrawal induced psychosis, since I had not been forewarned. God bless.

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        • Hi Someone Else,

          Thanks for the tip about how they like to feel that they have cured someone. I will try to use that in my dealings with them.

          Certainly, none of my psychiatric or other mental health “care” providers ever warned me about any possible withdrawal effects of any drug. Neither did they warn me about any of the horrific possible adverse effects of starting or taking these drugs.

          My first psychiatrist, who started me on SSRI antidepressants, warned me about the possibility of a little diarrhea in the beginning when I asked her about potential side effects. Since I had been convinced that I had a biochemical imbalance in my brain that caused my “depression,” I felt that was a risk worth taking.

          I learned about adverse effects of psychiatric drugs and possible withdrawal effects through the work of people like Dr. Peter Breggin and Robert Whitaker. Mental health professionals had kept me totally in the dark about all things. It wasn’t until I started doing my own independent research, along with much reflection on my experiences, that I really started to question things.

          Thank you for the encouragement about getting off drugs. Stories like yours do indeed give me hope.

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          • Yes, Caroline, I remember my psychiatrist claimed the only adverse effect of any of his psych drugs was “increased thirst,” how absurd!

            My journey also started with an antidepressant, albeit given under the guise of a “safe smoking cessation med.” No, not “safe,” and it didn’t help me quit smoking.

            But the PCP who prescribed it, did so to cover up her husband’s “bad fix” on a broken ankle of mine, I eventually learned from medical records. She was apparently paranoid of a non-existent, but legit, malpractice suit.

            She and her husband were kicked out of their medical practice, once the nurses and other doctors finally realized what was going on.

            One of those nurses was even kind enough to follow my children and I to two new PCPs. And that nurse did all she could to protect us. Including shredding documents from my drug withdrawal induced hospitalization, that were shipped to that PCP years later, without my permission, and without HIPPA papers signed.

            But that hospital psychiatrist was a complete criminal, just like her partner in crime, who was eventually convicted by the FBI for Medicare/Medicaid fraud. And because he was medically unnecessarily harming many patients for profit.

            I guess my point is, have a good support system set up, a few low dose antipsychotics on hand, so you can avoid a hospitalization. In the case you do indeed run into a drug withdrawal induced super sensitivity manic psychosis.

            And know a withdrawal induced manic psychosis can happen long after the psychiatrists claim is possible. Stay strong, you can do it. You have a lot more accurate information than I did when I escaped.

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          • Hi Someone Else,

            I had a friend a long time ago who was prescribed wellbutrin as a smoking cessation intervention. It certainly didn’t make him quit smoking. He probably thought it was a nicotine replacement or something. Fortunately, he got off, but said that it still affected his head for some time.

            I’m glad that your bad doctors were kicked out of practice, and your criminal psychiatrist was convicted.

            I have a pretty good support system with a few close family and friends who are totally on my side.

            Thanks for the tip about keeping a few low dose antipsychotics on hand, just in case. And thank you for your encouragement!

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  3. Hi Caroline and thank you for writing. I hope you get disentangled real soon. You don’t have to “prove” yourself, because you never will. They just get bored with you. If breaking you does not work, they move onto the next victim.

    “experts” is not even CLOSE to what they are, except in their snowing ability. Even their gaslighting tactics suck. Their gaslighting works on some who are too nice to see it, but the tactics are badd.

    Their very small minded DSM is not just for the homeless, or those who “behave” differently. THAT IS EXACTLY what psychiatry likes us to repeat, since in the general population we love to hear that the guy over there is the weird one.
    No, shrinks finds mental illness in anyone and everyone that they do not like. So people kiss butt to get them to like them. Shrinks are suspicious of this. It’s a rare thing that a shrink does not give you a branding, but most people thought they were like priests of days gone by. When priests were discovered not to hold the keys to heaven, psychiatry took over. To watch over their flock.
    I can tell you that they have HUGE problems and do in fact need subjects. It is how they hide what is going on inside of them, or might we think that they hold the key and example to something akin to “normal”.

    If indeed anyone is “sick”, it’s psychiatry. It’s going away. It’s just not that lucrative for the tax payers to pay such high prices to sheisters.

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    • Hi sam,

      Thank you so much for your comment, and insight. You are right in pointing out that psychiatrists will go after anyone they can. I guess I was trying to say that politicians and people who haven’t been ruined by the mental health industry blame all of society’s problems on “mental illness.” Even some people who think of themselves as mentally ill have been trained to believe that the mental health industry has all the answers. It is a huge scam.

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  4. Heh, there’s a wonderful site https://www.mygoodhabits.com/ and its helped me.
    He would let you join without paying anything, have you no money, or just for $29.95 for three months, or $14.95 for one. That’s American dollars. He has a section called Emotional Healing where he shares a technique, and also has people who have followed the technique or he helps to follow it. It helped me incredibly finding out how I was disassociating from feelings that I never had been allowed to express in my youth, and those feelings were trying to give me guidance. You know, just a different way than the norm. But the discomfort when the feelings would reemerge when I needed them, when everything came into play, in how to deal with this “society,” with how to actually say anything in it (which you have gone into quite fully regarding knowing how to deal with what you describe). It might be like whatever you went to the psychiatrist for just needed a bit more space to NOT fit into society, or what another part of the mind controlled by fear thought was how things should be.

    We become scared of stuff that would help us, because of how it had been accepted, and the electric shock to our system when the whole arena of memories kicks in can be quite severe.

    I really don’t think you’re going to go into another psychosis, you seem too grounded for that, I think you will find that quiet inner voice, and even though it seems like there’s some great loss to stop responding to everything that’s what we’re supposed to believe life is about, it wouldn’t at all be a loss, and the peace there is resonant gentle and soothing instead of it being a loss or that it’s scary.

    I kept on getting “psychotic” when I drank too much coffee, realized that, but then somehow had a switch that I would start with too much coffee again (also because the “psychosis,” was expressing something of what I was trying to push away, and that needed to be expressed). That was when I really needed to just stop disassociating from feelings I had a reflex to push to the side, because they never had been accepted, it was like there was suddenly a blank space. I just hadn’t learned to trust those feelings, to let go like that. And it really is like what Jesus taught, because you just let go to something more gentle. And THAT was what balanced me out, NOT just trying to discipline myself to not drink coffee, because it wasn’t really about that, it was about seeing that there was something else, that I didn’t have to push those thoughts away.

    And so, it could just be that when you allow those feelings, even letting go of thinking you need to respond to the psychiatrist etc. that that’s what it’s about, not whether you need the drugs to not have whatever it’s called because of the withdrawal.

    And it sounds like the psychiatrist might be gaslighting you. There also are pill splitters, would you want to reduce your dose, and he wouldn’t find out. There would be nothing wrong with not telling him, even lying would he ask. It might be much more just a stage of relaxing to get off of the drugs than what you’re scared of. But above everything I would suggest you give yourself the time for some peace of your own, whatever calms you down. Without any guilt. When you get really upset don’t feel like you have to respond to the system at all, they only use that against you anyhow.

    Does this help to think that really the fear of getting off the drugs has to do with how it might bring up feelings you’re used to pushing away, and it’s more about accepting those feelings, to just feel them (whether they are good or bad), and then you can process them, and also let go of them? Everyone has this from their past, whether it’s family or society, that they weren’t allowed to express certain things, and so push those feeling to the side. And it could just be allowing yourself the space to just go into a space where you’re not trying to rationalize, but just not push the involuntary part that feelings move through away, like mindfulness or meditation. But it’s maybe more a conscious way of responding to reflexes at the moment…..

    I’m writing quite hurried right now, and will look back with more “time.” Or at least when I don’t feel so rushed with a number of things going on…..

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    • I’m sorry, this: “We become scared of stuff that would help us, because of how it had been accepted, and the electric shock to our system when the whole arena of memories kicks in can be quite severe.”

      I meant to say we become scared of stuff that would help us, because of how it had NOT been accepted in our environment, whether socially or family or institutional of whatever. Stuff we tried to express and was met with weird discrimination. And it causes a lot of anxiety when those feelings come back, the electricity behind all the memories even. But you can learn to actually feel those feelings and feel safe in your own space, who you are, not how you’re supposed to respond.

      And it’s really hard when you just try to communicate something, and get the strange response from others that don’t want to accept the simplest thing. Caroline, you seem really positive, and it sounds like you wanted to simply share that you had found a place you feel at home at, this to the psychiatrist, but his response was truly bizarre, and truly paranoid and psychotic. And then psychotic becomes a strange word, because those who are labeled “psychotic,” actually really have been dis-inhibited from continuing to fit into a programming that doesn’t really work for them (or work for someone to be true to their humanity), but those labeling them are the ones that really would show the symptoms they are seeing in another. Fundamentalism is the real problem regarding anything that’s not reality based. It just makes no sense to deny what really statistically has lead to healing, the rest is all indoctrination, brainwashing. He’s the one that has a riff with reality, he needs to perhaps be deprogrammed. Getting rewards from the economic system doesn’t mean that your beliefs are reality based. But don’t you compromise the rest of your life trying to say things to him he would discriminate against, how you said you deal with it is great.

      But psychotic becomes a strange word, I don’t see it myself as something that has the properties of how it’s defined by the mental health system. And how they define it shows mostly more signs of what they call an illness than is the case in who they are diagnosing. And so I don’t really like to call them psychotic (the one’s doing the diagnosing) as non reality based as their thinking might be, because psychosis is something more sensitive, and reaches out into someone’s soul; the brainwashing that’s non reality based doesn’t do that, doesn’t have such sensitivity and doesn’t reach into someone’s soul, and it doesn’t give emotional wounds legroom to express themselves, neither does it give alternative insights that are necessary such legroom. It’s all backwards.

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      • Thank you so much for your very thoughtful reflections and advice. Yes, it is quite interesting how mental health professionals have made themselves the ultimate arbiters of truth and reality–to the point that they can call other people detached from reality.

        Thank you for thinking that I am too grounded to become “psychotic” from withdrawal. I hope you are right. However, I am aware that people who have never been considered mentally ill can become psychotic from drugs like LSD, etc. Psychiatric drugs are powerful too, so that is why I am so nervous.

        As far as pill cutters go, the pills are simply too small for me to accurately cut in halves and quarters. This is why I am hoping that my psychiatrist will actually help me off the drugs. Otherwise, I would definitely do it myself regardless of what any psychiatrist said.

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        • Is it possible to crush the pills, and then take half or whatever of the powder? With a mortar and pestle?

          This has got to be the most ridiculous situation. Where to do something that’s healthy you have to go against…..

          There isn’t another psychiatrist that you could see? I think the site or other places might have a list of those that are more understanding.

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          • This was absolutely, positively the best clinic that I could find in my insurance network. My previous clinic totally refused to help me off the drugs, despite my giving them a list of all of my adverse effects, and begging them to help me. One of the psychiatrists at the previous clinic referred to the drugs as, “The medications that are keeping you stable.” When I got the web address for providers and called all around, this was the only one, when I asked, “Do you help people off psychiatric medication?”

            They said, “We should be able to help you with that.” I thought they would let me have more of a say in the decision process.

            When I first met him, the psychiatrist asked if I had any questions for him. I asked, “Have you ever helped anyone off psychiatric medication?”

            He said, “Many people,” then added, “Usually more active than you.” The antipsychotics had basically turned me into a zombie. I am more active now, but nowhere near pre-antipsychotic levels.

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        • “As far as pill cutters go, the pills are simply too small for me to accurately cut in halves and quarters.”

          Is this done, the size of the pill, to stop ‘consumers’ cutting them down? Another means of ensuring that once ON the drugs, that you are limited in the options available to be OFF the drugs? Knowing that if you should cease, then you will need to be put back on them once the withdrawal symptoms set in?

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  5. So much of your insightful article resonates with me!! I have personally found that it is absolutely true that “Unlike what the public has been led to believe, forced mental health care has virtually nothing to do with helping that person. It is a criminal and/or social judgment against that person.” Like you, I am attempting to be an “independent critic and analyst.” In my case, I am deeply concerned that people–especially youngsters–will suffer as my son and I did. For that reason, I wrote “Broken: How the Broken Mental Health Care System Leads to Broken Hearts and Broken Lives.” It is available on Amazon and part of the proceeds go to COPE, a bereaved parents’ support group.

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    • “Forced” and “help” in the case of mental/emotional issues are contradictory. The presence of force belies any purported intention to “help.” At best, you are stopping someone from doing something that you don’t think they should do. But many other and worse things happen as soon as you decide that you get to decide what “help” another person should get. There is no such thing as “involuntary treatment.”

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      • “There is no such thing as ‘involuntary treatment.’” I usually see eye to eye with you, Steve. But as one who was “treated” against my will, by a now FBI convicted doctor, who illegally had my signature forged on voluntary commitment forms, according to expunged court documents.

        Are you claiming that there is no such thing as “involuntary treatment,” because when doctors voluntarily choose to “treat” people who don’t want “treatment,” that is “voluntary treatment,” merely because a doctor says so? And therefore there is no such thing as “involuntary treatment?”

        Pardon me for not following your logic, Steve, I still believe “involuntary treatment” occurs. What did you mean when you said, “There is no such thing as ‘involuntary treatment?’”

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          • In other words, they CLAIM they are providing “involuntary treatment,” but in fact, they are imprisoning people and forcing them to comply with the psychiatrists’ authority, and there is nothing “therapeutic” about it in either intent or in effect.

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          • I’ve just been copying some documents for distribution, one of them a prescription for benzodiazepines administered to a person who has never taken them, was given them by a bus driver without their knowledge, and then the prescription written for them 20 hours AFTER the person was subjected to interrogation by police and a Community Nurse, thrown into a police van and kidnapped to get them to a doctor who could make it all right by signing off on the torture.

            Can these people do this? Sign prescriptions for drugs administered before they even met the “referred person” (not even a “patient”?). Not a psychiatrist mind you but a Senior Medical Officer.

            I mean what if he wanted to sign a prescription for the local nite club rapist? Is that all good too? Maybe one of his colleagues as an Ordained Minister might find the use of ‘spikings’ a means of reducing trauma in some of their victims?

            Personally I would have thought a doctor signing off on ‘spikings’ of citizens (and he knew I wasn’t a “patient” as he was examining me BEFORE the psychiatrist examined me, and thus I was a “referred person” by status).

            Basically do the spiking before police interrogate (and of course they have the ‘soft tortures’ [psychological] available here) and this doctor will sign a prescription for police to conceal the drugging without knowledge which ‘enhances’ the effect of the torture. Highly effective let me tell you. I’m still suffering from the trauma of it 9 years later.

            But is it lawful?

            Forced? I guess like the victim of the rapist, I really didn’t have the ability to consent as a result of the spiking. And it’s a great way to enable the release of confidential documents that were court sealed. That’s where the doctor who diagnosed me with mental illnesses after three minutes got his diagnosis from, not from his hard work of examining me. All he asked me was if I lived with my wife, and where I went to college, slam dunk three major mental illnesses all received from confidential files as a result of me being spiked (and a ‘chemical restraint’ authorised to silence the victim of torture and kidnapping by police and his Community Nurse), and therefore not in a position to consent to the release of my personal information. I would have thought the commission of a criminal offence would make such conduct unlawful, but not when the people concerned can have police assist in having you killed apparently.

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    • Thank you, Linda. I read and appreciated your article as well. I am so sorry for the tragic loss of your son.

      I am rooting for you as an independent critic and analyst of the industry. If the industry can’t be convinced of the many harms done in the name of good mental health, maybe the public can.

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  6. I was hooked on the “caring”, “empathy”, and “validation” that I got from therapists, off and on, for more than 50 years. I thought that I would get “well” and then could be an OK person, that my not functioning well socially was, of course, my fault or that of my “issues”. And I certainly wanted to do better!

    My mental health problems weren’t those for which drugs were deemed necessary, although antidepressants were recommended sometimes and I used them on several different occasions, without much improvement. So I got off and didn’t have anybody insisting that I take them.

    But getting hooked on the idea that therapy would help did its own kind of damage to my life.

    So, I’m with you, Caroline. Thanks for the article. Very well stated.

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    • Mhmm, that can happen. It’s ironically all about thinking that the feelings or reactions are a state of sickness. It’s kind of hard to get a discussion around addictions when it comes to “MI”.
      How many will see a therapist because of Covid? Because the feelings they might have are discussed as being “sick”. But that is old, it started way back as wondering whether one had sinned and suffered guilt, then proceeded to confess.

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  7. “Good question, boans! I cannot think of any other medical decisions that people are not allowed to make for themselves.”

    That is because it is not medicine, nor medical.
    In fact a lot of docs are becoming fed up with the real medical field. It is going astray also. Correction, it has gone astray. We thought it was “good medicine”, we really had no clue what goes on in labs or people’s minds on how to make a buck.

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    • That’s an excellent point, sam. It really isn’t true medicine, in the sense that there isn’t any disease and psychiatrists don’t actually help people. I guess when I used the term “medical,” I meant it in the broadest sense in that you need a doctor’s prescription, even just to withdraw from these drugs the best way you know how. It’s “medical” also in the sense that it can cause great iatrogenic harm to people.

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      • I sometimes consider a cardiologist having police snatch a citizen off the street because they have “potential” for a heart attack, having them held down on a table while they ‘open up’ their chest, and then start doing an ‘assessment’ by asking a whole bunch of irrelevant questions regarding their investment portfolio, and how much money they have in the bank.

        Realising that the heart is good, they then hand the citizen a sewing needle and some thread and tell them to ‘fix it’ themselves.

        Consider the Community Nurse asking my wife to remain silent regarding the ‘spiking’. Is that not a request to conspire to torture by a public officer? Shame she is being threatened by the State to remain silent really.

        And she was also aware of what the State does to people who don’t do what they are told. She was the one who lead me by a ‘leash’ into the Emergency Dept right up until Doctor ‘I’m the Boss around here’ was ready to finish me off. She is getting pretty good at these situational ‘set ups’ with doctors huh?

        Keep your mouth shut Dear. They will unintentionally negatively outcome you otherwise.

        Imagine the State being able to force you to act against your own interests (partner) to enable them to be tortured and kidnapped, and then force you to remain silent on the matter for fear of being killed.

        I found myself wondering about any biblical references to such a story, and of course it is the oldest one in the Book. Get him to eat this Missy. At least I am now aware of who it is I am dealing with.

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        • I don’t know what the rules are in the US about heart surgery. When I fainted a number of years ago, which was probably caused by psychiatric drugs, the hospital and doctors ran a bunch of tests, bu found no reason for it. They never even suspected the psychiatric drugs. They did find some kind of abnormality inside my abdomen, but probably because of the psychiatric drugs that I was taking, they wrote, “could be psychological.”

          “I found myself wondering about any biblical references to such a story, and of course it is the oldest one in the Book. Get him to eat this Missy. At least I am now aware of who it is I am dealing with.” The devil roams the world looking for souls to devour. I see this, ultimately, as a call not to seek the destruction of anyone, but to fight evil. Maybe criminal doctors and State actors belong in jail, and victims should be compensated. Maybe the whole medical field needs a reexamination. I think, but am not sure, that doctors in the US are sworn to “First, do no harm.” As easily as they pass out drugs, they are certainly not living according to that rule. Some doctors do actually do good, though.

          As far as breaking up families, it isn’t just the State here. It has been my experience and observation that this is a common goal among mental health practitioners. I always thought it was because of the American “ideals” of individualism and self-sufficiency as proof of good mental health. But doesn’t this just lead to loneliness? If they actually knew what they were doing, and wanted to help people, wouldn’t they help people to cultivate better relationships?

          ,

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          • “could be psychlogical”.
            That is the final word in Canada, and it is NOT only when they are perplexed by symptoms.
            In my case, they “pretended” to be perplexed, and it works like a diagnosis. In canada, there is no need to go to a shrink, you can get all you want at one stop.
            We are progressive, open 24 hours a day, holidays too, and we enter all information into databases which we smear with innuendos.
            And the doctors wonder why they are so grumpy and unhappy with their positions.
            I can tell them why. They are not even close to living up to their full potential and that is not satisfying.

            Bottom line is, one can never diagnose “psychlogical”, because then you are saying that, everything is known and what is not known is a “mental illness”

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          • I guess there is something in the cardiology analogy.

            If you were collapsed on the street and could not speak for yourself, and the only way to ‘save’ you was to conduct urgent heart surgery, then should it be allowed? Well, I believe yes, with strict conditions applied (and of course this does restrict doctors coming forward to ‘help’).

            What’s the situation with ‘mental health’ though?

            In my situation they ‘spiked’ me with drugs to enable certain provisions to be used, and to cause me a serious detriment. Point being that the drugs (treatments) actually enable the situation where you can be abused. And some people take them willingly. Me, they knew I wouldn’t take drugs OR speak to these ‘verballers’, thus the need to torture to enable the fraud to justify the kidnapping.

            Imagine being allowed to drug someone with a blood thinning agent to cause them to collapse to be able to perform ’emergency’ heart surgery on them and then do damage which could not be actionable as a result of not being able to prove intent. And minus being able to prove intent is the precise reason the area of psychiatry is full of abusers.

            This was something I noticed when I identified the fraudulent documents. They removed any evidence of the torture and kidnapping, and thus why would my death even warrant investigation? They did their best to ‘help’ me, and I died as a result. No one benefited from my death and it was all just a tragic accident.

            Truth is that the psychologist (and her husband) were extremely concerned about the conspiring to torture and kidnap (and the release of my medical records from an exclusive private clinic that does legal medico reports for our courts), and made arrangements with the hospital (also concerned about their conduct) to have me unintentionally negatively outcomed, and someone noticed.

            They must be doing this quite regularly, given the ease with which it can be done (and the negligence of authorities in ‘picking it up’). And with the ability to commit acts of fraud to conceal your misconduct, and authorities prepared to neglect their duty (see AHPRA, OCP, etc) because the public simply don’t understand how difficult it is to be a doctor, and that if we were to hold them to account, our prisons would be full of them rather than the people stealing packets of pencils from Walmart.

            The Hypocratic oath, to “first, do no harm” seems to have received the rewriting treatment, and they have concealed the second part which says “unless of course it gets in the way of making money” lol. Fair enough, caveat emptor. Trust in haste, regret at leisure.

            “I see this, ultimately, as a call not to seek the destruction of anyone, but to fight evil.” I’d agree, though there are times when it needs to be contained and not given a free pass every time it is stopped in it’s tracks with truth.

            There is a warning repeated a number of times in my Book, which is basically that “they will take their oaths as a cover”. Seriously consider that warning when it comes to the area of medicine. How is that trust to be tested?

            I know in my instance the only way to see if they truly had ‘evil’ in their hearts was to see if they would go through with the killing. And then snatch them away at the last moment. Not unlike the young police Constable who had his pepper spray cable tied to his belt by his colleagues lol. Didn’t he look silly when he started pulling at it and it wouldn’t come loose. Lucky I didn’t have a weapon Constable (though I do hope they ensured his pistol wasn’t loaded too). Yes, he will do as he is told, even if he knows it is criminal (no one’s watching right? Obviously not a believer).

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          • That is a good analogy, boans, about what they did to you being like a doctor doing something that would cause a heart attack, and then “curing” him. It’s also sort of like arsonists who are also firefighters. They have some kind of a bizarre hero complex. Maybe psychiatrists have this complex as well.

            Although I totally agree that you were especially brutalized by psychiatry, people who “consent” to psychiatric drugs have usually been totally, thoroughly deceived into taking them. That was the case with me. If my psychiatrist had told me that there was a 1 in 1,000 or 10,000 chance that antidepressants can make you totally lose your mind, I definitely never would have started taking them. If she had even told me that antidepressants can make you more depressed, give you anxiety, and perhaps become suicidal, I wouldn’t have taken them in that case either. Why would you take a drug that is supposed to fix a chemical imbalance in your brain that is causing your depression that could very possibly worsen your mental health condition?

            ‘“I see this, ultimately, as a call not to seek the destruction of anyone, but to fight evil.” I’d agree, though there are times when it needs to be contained and not given a free pass every time it is stopped in it’s tracks with truth.’ I agree that intervention is sometimes needed to stop human rights violations and abuse.

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          • You’re balancing on a very thin line when you say the “doctors,” don’t spike someone with blood thinners. There are enough medications that aren’t good for your heart, and then there’s the neglect towards issues like diet, exercise, enough rest, true emotional health, giving someone the strength to feel they can get out of uncomfortable situations rather than “cope” and get sick or fight and get stressed out and sick.

            The present pandemic, which is all over the planet, and the whole political change of scenery; there are a whole list of things that presently kill more people than viruses, yet there’s nothing in comparison done about it. The first month of the pandemic more people died (in developed countries at least) because of the effects of sugar than the whole total so far of the pandemic, or something like that; and then you have the ALSO completely preventable problems in the developing country like food shortages etc..

            And we will never, as far as I know, have herd immunity to sugar, or to starvation.

            It’s more $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ in ways than it’s truly caring about your health.

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          • “people who “consent” to psychiatric drugs have usually been totally, thoroughly deceived into taking them.”

            I look back to the ‘assessment’ by the psychiatrist for the report for the courts and I made it very clear to him that I had read Szasz and that I was an anti psychiatrist. Honorable man who respected my right to an opinion, and who had a job to do, provide a report on his opinion about how much of the damage that had been done to me was due to the workplace incident. He did that and ensured that even I didn’t know what the ‘diagnosis’ was for past traumas I had suffered (see above re workplace not totally to blame for all damage). This was to ‘protect’ me from myself in my opinion. If I did’t know what his diagnosis was, then I could not release that slanderous label to others who could then ‘weaponise’ it. Of course his good work was undone by the psychologist he employed but ….. his intention was good.

            I made it clear tot his psychiatrist that if I were to be taking any ‘medication’ that I entered into that with an ‘exit strategy’. I was not going to be taking these drugs forever. He also respected that aspect of our relationship, and explained his views on the possible effects of stopping taking these drugs after a period of time. I might add that the description he gave was NOT what I hear many people here being told about these drugs. Perhaps he was being a little more careful with someone who had read Szasz? I don’t know tbh.

            re the intervention to stop human rights violations and abuse I have been surprised by the response of many of my ‘brothers’ to what continues to be done to me (refoulment), and have posed the following question regarding ‘sunnah’ (following in the path of the Prophet).

            What did the Muslims do when they found out about what was being done to Bilal ibn Rabah? Dis they tell him they would make dua (personal prayers) for him and that his life would be better in Jennah (heaven)? Or did they remove the boulder from his chest and take him away from the people who were doing him harm?

            Personally I believe to follow in the steps of the Prophet involves actually doing things to help, not standing back and saying “if God wanted it done, He would do it Himself” (something I have quoted before as being a means of knowing who the ‘unbelievers’ are). This said knowing that sometimes there is nothing the individual can do (for example I can not ‘do’ anything about cancer). But when the means are at your disposal and you do nothing, the test has been applied and the individual has failed. I feel that leaving me to be refouled by the State has been a failure of not only those in authority (I get it they don’t want the public knowing they are torturing and killing complainants) but my whole community who should ensure that these acts do not go unpunished. Mens rea is demonstrable on the part of a number of actors, and they have profited from their evil deeds.

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          • Imagine driving past someone on the way to church and you come across a road accident, and a person asking if you would help them by taking them to the hospital some miles down the road. You think about it and say, “Sorry, but I’m on my way to Church which God wants me to do, but when I get there I will say a prayer for you” lol

            Now don’t misunderstand me that I don’t believe in the power of prayer, but sometimes I just think it can be an easy ‘out’. Something I have at times pointed the finger at others for doing, and of which I have been guilty of myself.

            Maybe a detour on the way to church is exactly what He had planned for me?

            Maybe this ‘detour’ in my life will stop a whole bunch of other people from being hurt? I hope so, coz I can think of no better way of serving. I feel saddened by the continued concealment of the truth by the State though. Still what could I expect, enabling torture and killing the victims is not a good look when your trying to get elected lol. Or is the claim that this was ‘accidental’ torture, that just got out of hand? You don’t ‘accidentally’ torture someone.

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          • “Imagine driving past someone on the way to church and you come across a road accident, and a person asking if you would help them by taking them to the hospital some miles down the road. You think about it and say, “Sorry, but I’m on my way to Church which God wants me to do, but when I get there I will say a prayer for you” lol”

            There is actually a parable about that very kind of situation in the New Testament. It’s called the parable of the Good Samaritan. There was a man on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho who was beaten, robbed, and left for dead on the side of the road. A priest/rabbi saw him and walk by on the other side of the road. So too a Levite. Both were considered good religious people. But then a Samaritan, who was a part of what was viewed as an inferior religion, saw the man, had compassion on him, poured oil on his wounds, took him to an inn, and paid the innkeeper to look after him. He promised to pay the innkeeper any additional amount, should the man need more care.

            So, the lesson from this parable that Christians are supposed to take away is that it is more valuable to be merciful, rather than “religious.” Not that there is anything wrong with religion, but that other things can sometimes be more important.

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          • Yes, I have met people who I consider to be like the Samarian, one of them a psychiatrist.

            But what about the robbers? Should someone not be tasked with ensuring that they do not continue to harm others? Or do we simply rely on the good will of the Samarians to continue to fix up those they damage? Thou shalt not steal, but if you do we will fix it up for you with no consequences. Not unlike the damage that is being done by psychiatry lol

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          • I totally agree about the necessity of stopping people who are harming people, and even potential consequences. In Catholicism, there is either a teaching or a notion that though someone may be forgiven his or her sins by God, there are still sometimes temporal punishments/consequences that one has to endure.

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          • Let the punishment fit the crime.

            Of course we see the ten commandments scattered all throughout our Criminal Code, though the inability of police to find their copy might explain the inequality of opportunity/outcomes experienced by our indigenous population. And then one might consider this as being punishment/consequences for their sin? Quite clever when you think about it, they pay for our negligence.

            I know that I have suffered greatly as a result of the fraud committed not against me, but my whole community. This bearing of false witness and the corruption of our system of justice is disgraceful, though the ease with which it is being done, makes me realise that it is time for me to leave. Like Lut I am not in a position to change where this community is going, and can only do my best to follow the path I believe I am being guided on by my God.

            And that isn’t a community where people are being tortured and killed because someone doesn’t like the truth, and prefers a falsehood fabricated with lies and deceit.

            I find it interesting that the doctor who decided he had the right to conceal my torture session by writing a prescription for the ‘spiking’ post hoc was an ordained Minister. Is he used to forgiving the sins of others with a wave of his hand I wonder? Has he become delusional in that he now believes he IS god? I understand that he may have been mislead by the Community Nurse into a false belief that I was a wife beater, and he the defender of all that is pure.

            Personally I think the Community Nurse who tricked police into the false belief that I was a “patient” to obtain a referral (and create the illusion for his colleagues that what he was doing was lawful), ‘verballed’ both me and my wife (with his poisonous wife beater slander), and who then appears to have gotten this Minister on side with his slander knowing how he would react to the documented slander that I had no knowledge of (at the time). I couldn’t believe how this doctor was behaving towards me as I had done nothing to him that warranted his rudeness (and one should see what he wrote about me). He simply copied verbatim the lies of the Community Nurse to justify a ‘chemical restraint’ that I am told would have made me very ill).

            I like this Community Nurse in the end. He is as good as many of the ‘con men’ I met when I was hustling pool lol. Torture, kidnappings, and when he gets caught he has hospital administrators commit acts of fraud and arrange a killing to ‘cool out the Mark’ as Goffman puts it.

            The street con requires poise, the white collar criminal relies on position. Top marks Mr Community Nurse, your an absolute cancer in our system and you’ve managed to do a whole bunch of damage that is being denied by the body corporate with their dereliction of duty. Go forth and train others in your methods lol. We can count the cost 40 years down the track when most of your victims will be ‘outcomed’.

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          • If you are on good terms with family members the Mental System will try to create division quite often. Happened to me and others.

            They only wanted me to date other “consumers” and discouraged socializing with non-consumers. Not sure what the motives were. But cutting you off from friends is what cults do.

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          • ” I always thought it was because of the American “ideals” of individualism and self-sufficiency as proof of good mental health. But doesn’t this just lead to loneliness? If they actually knew what they were doing, and wanted to help people, wouldn’t they help people to cultivate better relationships?”

            This is actually very interesting. I suppose the grass is always greener on the other side. In my country’s culture, joint families are still fairly common. And I’d say, having close-knit relationships with too many people (and those people with each other) also comes at a cost.

            There’s plenty of territorial aggression, some people’s dreams getting passed over for someone else’s upliftment or benefit, fights over property distribution, individual ways of thinking and preferences conflicting with others’, back-bit**ing, eavesdropping, scheming, jealousy and what not.

            It’s a never-ending discussion. Personally, to a large extent, I prefer the self-sufficient route (but NOT because shrinks say it). At least it gives me control and ownership of my life (or perhaps just the feeling of it?). Does it also produce some loneliness? Yes. Is that loneliness superior in nature to the problems of relationships? Depends on the person.

            It’s also very interesting that we as human beings long for affection. Just take the fact that so many people love dogs and find comfort in their love. However, dogs are basic creatures. Other than maybe bite you, they can’t do the things that humans can do to each other. A dog has far less control on his human ( and it’s a very simple type of control) as compared to what a person might have over another person, which makes people feel secure. They can’t harm or hurt you much.

            Having a good relationship with people around you is almost always predicated on that relationship being mutually beneficial in some way (or at least not getting in someone else’s way). Once that condition isn’t satisfied anymore, problems begin to emerge.

            I think individualism and self-sufficiency rather than being proof of good mental health are simply proof of the fact that you are able to mind your own business and not be a nuisance to others around you (even if that’s justified sometimes), which automatically gives you a reputation of “good mental health”.

            But that being said, yes, without human interaction and people you feel secure around, people who really like you and guide you, life becomes exceedingly difficult, if not impossible.

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          • One of the things that IS pretty pernicious about the whole shrink system is, they aren’t people who grew up with you, aren’t people who know you much except a small, fairly impersonal listening and talking session that people have with them. They are someone else’s children, parents, friends etc. Not yours. To you, it’s just some guy who did a psychiatry degree, who’s simply fulfilling an occupational position. It’s a very different thing if you have a dental problem or an infection. Doesn’t have much to do with social stuff.

            How much and in what way can such people truly help you? Would you as someone who cares for someone else label them with life-ruining labels, make files on them and turn them into revolving door individuals?

            It’s a very strange situation.

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          • I really don’t think that Jesus parable was about making sure the robbers get punished, in fact it was about the opposite.

            Punishment in reality is nothing more than a means of mind control, and the very reason you have a psychiatrical institution playing game theory with gain and loss, along with perceived punishment or loss when not going along with the program, and thus you have a bunch of people who don’t know what they are doing at all.

            Truth simply speaks for itself, and remains separate from needing such means to make it out to be the truth. You can’t punish someone to see the truth, that’s mind control, the truth speaks for itself, and has to otherwise it isn’t the truth. And if our whole society would be concerned about helping people who have been wounded, rather than getting points for it, or deciding for some reason they are undesirables, we’d have a different society, that understands trauma.

            There’s really no difference in logic for the robber or the people that are supposed to punish the robber, in that they both think that violence is a means to an end, only the robber might sooner find out it doesn’t work, since he or she doesn’t have societal backing for their behavior; and so might sooner question it. And then there’s the whole lack in society that caused the abandonment of people who become robbers, which is economic as well as the simple ideology society has about how you control a populace, which involves justified violence, and wars, and the rest of it: nurtured fear, discrimination,stereotyping and prejudice which then leaves a person unable to see how they might find what truly might otherwise be there for them, including thought.

            Instead of deciding who is supposed to help you, you might find that you don’t need an insurance to pay for the right helper, and you don’t need a
            “church” making you feel you are founded in your process, or any other institution, and that simply being human is enough. Rather than “they” are supposed to do it, so if they don’t everything is in a disarray.

            Or was the person that got hurt supposed to decide that the pharisees should help him, and then punish the robber, rather than seeing there’s something else that helps, which represents a whole other way of thinking?

            And when you show what works, you’re showing what the truth is, to say that needs defense through punishing those that don’t see that really means you’re trying to defend something else, something that isn’t the truth anymore, but an excuse for wanting to control others.

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          • registeredforthissite,

            I don’t have any problem with anyone being “self-sufficient,” though I feel such a notion is a lie. People simply are interconnected. Even Jeff Bezos depends on being able to manipulate people with money in order to be “self-sufficient.” If no one was willing to work for him, he wouldn’t have a company.

            One of the real problems that I see with America’s radical individualism, rather than a desire to cooperate, is that the stakes are so high. People literally die of treatable diseases simply because they are one of those who hasn’t become “self-sufficient.” People go hungry in the US, because people are unwilling to be considerate of others.

            I am certainly not against individuals fully becoming and living fully becoming and living out their true unique lives. But as we can see with psychiatry some people are prepared to exploit, oppress and violate the human rights of others in order to satisfy their own self-serving wants and needs. This isn’t just true of people in the mental health industry. There is a lot of exploitation and abuse of power that goes on. So, this is the kind of extreme individualism and “self-sufficiency” that I am against.

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          • Nijinsky,

            I agree that that wasn’t the point of the parable. But I still do not see anything wrong with someone experiencing some sort of consequence for their serious violation of another person. For example, I do thing it is fair if a rapist or murderer is punished in some way, and yes, in order to control them. If someone’s behavior becomes highly destructive, and greatly harms someone else, it is appropriate to try to stop them, in my opinion. The same applies, in my opinion to abusive, exploitative psychiatrists and war criminals. We should all be kind and loving with one another. The problems within psychiatry and the current legal system, wherein it is merely the powerless, rather than people who are doing terrible harm who are punished is a whole different issue altogether. Perhaps we just see things differently on these issues.

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          • Caroline: There isn’t a penal system on the planet that doesn’t disregard collateral damage, putting innocent people in jail, or as in the United Stated executing innocent people such as Troy Davis. I don’t think that’s a working system, and what Jesus truly taught is something different, which his parable was part of sharing. And that is a working system. It also deals with the cause rather than perpetuating the philosophy that causes the problem: the idea that violence is necessary to control people, and trauma or deterrent is a valid mind control method. A society that doesn’t breed such ideology won’t have what it’s trying to prevent excusing violence as if it’s a moral tool. That violence is a means to an end is then instead seen to be something to discard both for the “perpetrator” and the “means of defense.”

            Further more, when I share (in another blog, which you responded to Caroline) the fact that perhaps Jesus was homosexual and relates to me free to express it, or that his life would have been different had he something such as that to surrender to, such intimacy, you mention that the “Pope,” a man who perpetuates the erroneous pretentious idea that homosexuals are sinners (but you should love them), that he tells me that Jesus is madly in love with me. Oh. Really!?

            And then Jesus parable about the Good Samaritan gets turned into a discussion promoting the penal system rather than what it’s about, this in a blog about marketing. The Catholic Church – which in contrast to the DSM not anymore saying homosexuals have something wrong with them, still perpetuating such nonsense – and the penal system which arrests someone for walking around non violent but naked are excused and marketed then?

            The truth isn’t something that you can defend with violence, with excuses for punishing those that don’t follow it, because then it’s not truth anymore, it’s mind control. I already stated that. As moral as you think you are being about what you believe is necessary with violence, you can’t be defending the truth, and so you are not dealing with the real situation. You aren’t communicating to humanity, to any other human. You haven’t looked at what’s really going on. You haven’t addressed the causes. And you’re perpetuating – with a double edged sword – what causes the problem. You’re not relating to the person, and you’re not relating to the whole matrix that causes the problem. And you’re perpetuating it.

            And nothing can destroy the truth. Jesus wasn’t crucified, he was resurrected. And I REALLY don’t think he’s going back to saying we need the very institutions that put a death warrant on his teachings. For what? So we can “understand” his parable by warping it out of context?

            And as I said already, investing in the very system that allows people to be arrested, taken to the the asylum, and force treated, isn’t going to change what’s going on, but showing there’s another way yourself: that will. And letting go of what is in collusion with what doesn’t work will show you there’s another way. Saying that your life is in disarray because of that-system, and then promoting the very tools that keep it in place, doesn’t work.

            Trying to control other people using punishment is what fascist systems do, and criminals, and people that are offended that what works is robbing them of the idea that when they try to control another using punishment they are good, and just and better.

            I’m going to bow out of this discussion now and spend time with my “invisible” friend thanking him for being there. Someone who was able to direct me away from what doesn’t work to what does, and have even physical healing take place, although that’s not what it’s about, since that could be anything to show there’s another way.

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          • The idea of constantly turning the other cheek contains a problem, that should be fairly obvious to anyone who thinks it through. And thus I don’t think the quote attributed to Jesus is always presented in a manner consistent with him being a great thinker.

            You strike me, I will forgive the infringement, and turn the other cheek. But this is not an invitation to continually harm me.

            I also consider that it best (as was noted by Nietzsche in Geneology of Morals) that when the law is broken, it is best that the punishment for the breach be taken out of the hands of the person who was wronged. I assume the reasons for this are also fairly obvious.

            Take for example, though shalt not kill as a law. With no one to punish for the breach of that law, what’s the point of even having it?

            And the ‘truth’ is arrived at in our courts through a process of logic and reasoning, burdens of proof. However, as a result of our Chief Psychiatrist removing the “reasonable grounds” burden from the law that allows the kidnapping and torture of individuals to be labelled medicine in my State, he has effectively denied anyone access to our courts to resolve any issues of criminal conduct. This is the ‘man of lawlessness’ spoken about in 2 Thessolonians.

            The corruption of our legal system has serious consequences, and breaches of that system should be punished harshly (and is reflected in our laws, though they are not much good at protecting the system when those charged with the duty of enforcing them don’t know what they are [or at least pretend they don’t to ensure unfair outcomes based on the color of a persons skin]). The person charged with the execution of punishment needs to feel a level of certainty that the person they are punishing is actually guilty of the crime they are punishing them for. Particularly where the State has the power to execute the person (or as is the case with whistleblowers [considered enemies of the State/ traitors], unintentionally negatively outcome them). Personally I consider ot my right (and in fact a duty) to report suspected torture and kidnapping, and my State considers it their right to dispose of anyone who can prove they were tortured and kidnapped as a means of ensuring they can continue to torture and kidnap, and that there will be no accountability for those acts.

            So in that sense I will bid them an eternal adieu. It was they who ratified the Convention against the use of Torture (and other associated human rights agreements) only to use their position of power to refoul anyone who has a valid complaint regarding the use of known torture methods. This was always a problem, and one recognised by those very agreements. Should the State doing the torturing investigate allegations of torture? It did in my instance and then threatened my family and myself and “fuking destroyed” me. Still, with unlimited forgiveness they need not be concerned and can sleep well at night , knowing they will never be held to account.

            I also believe that those who have been wronged should be given the opportunity to see that those who have been proven to have done wrong (mens rea) are punished. They do not have to see, but it is important they are given the opportunity. Leaving them to ‘stew’ and engaging in ‘gaslighting’ of them for their anger is I believe a further abuse on top of what was already done. (i’m thinking of those children whose legal capacity was exploited by certain individuals who then used their positions to threaten the parents into silence after the children they raped sought help. I do not forgive their “character flaws” and consider these offences crimes that require punishment. As I do the current batch of abuses being perpetrated by the ‘mental health industry’. The legal capacity ‘loophole’ being exploited in much the same manner).

            Turning the other cheek is limited in its application. An eye for en eye leaves the whole world blind, so there needs to be a level of balance in the punishment fitting the crime. I’m not certain but I seem to recall that where the punishment is 40 lashes, then there should only be 39 administered, as a means of showing mercy.

            In my State the process is to bait the person who was wronged, and then use the resulting anger as justification for not assisting them. In my instance they have frustrated cause of action for 9 years now, and the claim is that it has been so long, and thus nothing can be done. But it could have if they had not accepted the fraudulent documents in the first instance as a means of denying access to the law (and they consider themselves to be ‘fair and just’ persons? This would not have been the case but for the willful criminal negligence of a lawyer, and the fraudulent documents inserted into the system to deliberately create problems in the resolution of matters (consider your medical records secure? Think again when they need a weapon to fuking destroy you). I did not complicate it, but am to suffer the consequences of these criminals (along with the rest of my community, as it must be recognised that whilst the original assault via ‘spiking’ was against my person, the perversion of justice etc, is a crime against the whole community). It is the loved ones of others who will be harmed as a result of the negligence of authorities charged with detaining and bringing to justice the ‘robbers’.

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          • “If you are on good terms with family members the Mental System will try to create division quite often. Happened to me and others.

            They only wanted me to date other “consumers” and discouraged socializing with non-consumers. Not sure what the motives were. But cutting you off from friends is what cults do.”

            I read this and smile about my reference to the oldest trick in the Book Rachel777. Adam was on good terms with Eve until the apple incident. Then the relationship of trust was broken and …….. well, they could only associate with consumers lol

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          • Nijinsky,

            First of all, I simply do not believe in the death penalty or forced or deceptive psychiatric treatment. Also, like many Catholics, I do not see the LGBT community as “sinners.”

            I agree with the general ideal of turning the other cheek, but like boans indicated, this can lead to further abuse. Sometimes an abuser needs to be stopped, before the abused can be healed.

            What about the Nuremberg trials after the Holocaust? Should they never have happened? Was it no big deal that millions of people were killed? The Catholic Church has actually been criticized for transporting some known Nazi killers to South America, so that they wouldn’t suffer any punishment for what they had done. So, in a sense the Church was turning the other cheek on the behalf of the victims of the Holocaust and their families. Was this the correct thing to do?

            I also agree that the root causes of common crimes should be made known and dealt with. But is using political and legal power to force people to give up their “rights” to be greedy, not share, and not treat others with respect and dignity that much different than using political and legal power to force or control anyone into doing anything? Should we have no government and simply hope for the best?

            There are so many problems with our legal, political and socioeconomic systems. But I feel these problems should be addressed rather than to merely decide that there should be no rule of law. You even seem to indicate that you want some kind of rule of law in that people should share. I quite agree that people should share. In America, some people do share with charities. Some people argue that there should be no government intervention in people’s financial hardships, because it infringes on their rights to do what they want with their money, and that if they feel so inclined to share, that should be their own personal decision. I personally feel that without government rules and regulations and interventions, we will not be able to resolve the great inequalities that exist in this country.

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          • I’m not going to dwell on this, and only briefly looked over responses, after bowing out, which I’m still doing: Bowing out.

            Again to point out what’s “marketed” to be a solution, but might be the opposite. Beyond the Nuremberg trials, it’s in many ways the international court which set Germany up for Hitler to take over before that, given how much debt was piled on them [Germany] after WW1, and Hitler could deceive a desperate people and himself. It’s also now the international court, the IMF etc. along with political behavior, that is what is decimating countries where extremism pops up. Not to mention what is happening to the environment, and already happened to indigenous cultures all over the planet that respected the environment. And we’re to believe that’s promoting a working economic system and the consumer oriented society it’s exploitation offers is “happiness,” or the pursuit of it.

            And what I believe is a rule is that when you stop investing in what causes a problem: that violence is a means to an end, and supposedly stops violence: then you get a different society, which every country that has a more compassionate penal system has shown to be the case.

            I also think it’s a rule that you aren’t separate from the actions that happen in your life, or the time and space “around” you, and that it’s a sad misrepresentation of what the human condition is to make out that there are such boundaries. With what’s called psychosis already, which is an emotional projection of issues a person when allowed to can learn to understand and reach in to a part of themselves that deals with how they respond to life, given memories, beliefs, etc; that changes what can’t be seen as physical yet because it is the future, and so is more objective than physical reality. I think thought is the same, and when you stop thinking you need the right to wield violence and that punishing people is a proper mind control method, then you stop making that part of reality. And then time doesn’t have to repeat itself trying to show you that you are investing in the cause and pushing the solution to the side, and in reality judging yourself; judging yourself as if you’re crazy that thought itself would make a difference, even with what happens physically or plays out in time.

            I don’t see thought or the mind as being so weak that it has to invest in violent control tactics, and looking for morality to justify violence gets in the way of peace rather than it creates it, and doesn’t really solve the problem but puts into ideology exactly what gets corrupted into what you say you are trying to prevent. Both sides believing violence is a means to an end. And the side actually respected as an authority having more the means to put an end to it, by not investing in violence as a means to an end, and not putting such ideology out to get corrupted.

            That there’s another way is what Jesus taught me himself, and it works.

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          • When you think you need “defenses” you also need whatever you believe you need the defenses for in order to excuse that; and then you believe yourself separate from what you’re defending against. You also believe all of the time and space and physical “reality” that consequently gets put into play has to do with needing defenses, rather than not needing defenses you wouldn’t need an excuse for them. Thus we have the whole supposed impasse, and are told that things don’t go away like that, and it’s crazy to believe you have such ability such that by looking at things differently they change, or it’s arrogant to think you have such ability. Would one truly pay attention, you might see how much stress you cause in your life denying this, and what resentments you put on anyone else not taking part in believing that what doesn’t work needs more people to believe in it, as if then it would be working. And then instead failing to allow yourself to gain such perspective, or assimilate what’s really happening that points out such truths. And thus you have to make yourself separate from it otherwise not needing an excuse for defenses the problem would go away along with the excuse you’re defending, which is the real cause not what consequently happens to show you you could have let go of it, could have responded differently, could have seen things differently. You also then limit what you call the physical to being deprived of the “miracles” that would otherwise happen to solve the problem what they would do non violently. And then there’s even fear against, that, because when a thought system is – even non violently – shown to be in error, people might still have to such a degree invested in it that they perceive a great loss. And can fuss endlessly about this, pointing out a myriad of occurrences they refuse or fail to see aren’t truly caused by anything outside of themselves. And you’re doing that, it’s not anything outside of you you need to defend against. That’s why Jesus tried to teach forgiveness. Because it works, it’s what changes direction to alleviate a cause rather than bury it by the effects is elicits that are blamed on something else.

            The whole mental health system is a good example of this. When “medications” turn off “symptoms” for an interim, and the cause isn’t deal with, that’s called healing, and the whole consequent epidemic that comes from it is blamed on the “disease” rather than the lack of perspective, even when people who aren’t “medicated” in general do better beyond the initial interim when symptoms are suppressed and before there’s the eruption of relapsing, paranoia against normal human responses to difficult or unusual situations, more disability, lose of life expectancy, a plethora of side effects. Thus go “defenses” against a “disease.”

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          • The point I was trying to make is how people that support using violence (whether it’s just or criminal, actually) use the same “evidence” that there is a “lessening” of symptoms of the problem in order to deny that in reality in the end there’s more of it, which you see with any system which supports such ideas. Every “government,” fighting the most wars, having the harshest penal system shows what the result is. The same as the mental health system saying they are creating healing by suppressing symptoms, symptoms that when not truly attended to cause more of the problem.

            And Caroline really!? You actually try to put forth that there’s no rule of law, or even that without the ability to wield the right to punish people who don’t follow set laws there’s no “government?” Which in reality you make out only exists then if those rules are enforced by a system allowed to traumatize others when they don’t follow those “rules.” And when you have a system where people are on mass controlled by fear in such a manner than you have “rules of law?” There are natural laws, by the way. When you are kind to someone it changes their metabolism, how their body responds to stimuli, and that promotes healing… compassion,… empathy; and yet there was never need for any enforcing agent to create such an effect when it evolved as part of the human experience and how the body responds. Is that supposed to not exist then, because it’s better to traumatize people into behaving a certain way. And then there are natural laws, no penal system is enforcing those, and without such “enforcement” water still boils at the same temperature; only if that rule is broken that’s called a miracle, but those happen under completely different rules than believing traumatizing a person to be controlled is effective.

            Jesus talked about a Kingdom of Heaven, I don’t think the rules in that kingdom have any need to punish or control people wielding the right to traumatize them when they don’t obey set array of commands or “rules.” In fact they have nothing to do with that other than to show there’s a different way, a way that works.

            And Caroline it really concerns me, because you mention fears about withdrawal induced manic psychosis, but…
            Endeavors, as much as they have become part of your heart, they might be getting you to go along with all sorts of stuff that, when you are that vulnerable, and trying to deal with even the heartbreak of having thought too well of them or if not them others, because going off of “medications” is going to heighten intelligence to see such things and sharpen the memories, there’s going to be stuff you have to let go of, even though it consequently makes you feel like you are nowhere, and then you are offered these “magic” solutions backed up by what seems like the power to make change, and that will make you “manic.” The real solutions don’t involve the stress or the “magic.”

            And I notice I’ve been trying to explain things, things that are extremely difficult to explain, and which one has to experience, or realize you already have and weren’t cognizant of it.

            So, I found this I shared with a healer, which might make what I was trying to say a little clearer, but I really have to bow out now:

            There’s a term called the Atonement, and as Jesus was explaining that I got a visual image, something akin to rays of energy or light, like a blossom or a fountain, but there’s an incredible ability to sort of accelerate and catch something, which was the first thing that expressed itself about it. But then I understood, it’s like it when someone sees something, something akin to catching someone from running into the street when there are cars rushing by, or before they would fall or anything like that. But with the atonement, it’s that it catches us before we would invest in the wrong thing. Because really, when we believe we need to invest in defenses, we actually invest instead in needing something against something else, and actually are demanding a reason for such a defense, which we are making up out of fear of letting go of what in reality is demanding it (the defense) be justified, and thus causes the problem. You can see that is so many places. The police, the military, all places where the right to traumatize others is given and invested in; and were society not worshiping that kind of mind control people never would invest in using trauma for criminal gain. It wouldn’t occur to desperate people having been discarded by society, and having lost faith in anything free of that, like spirit is meant to be.

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