Stop the madness!

From Mad in the Netherlands: Twelve years ago, I became psychotic for the first time after the birth of my third son. It was called a puerperal psychosis. During that period I was admitted to three different hospitals, each time I underwent the same ‘treatment’: I was isolated and restrained. Those experiences were very traumatic. I decided to see a lawyer to see if I could file a complaint against the hospitals where this happened. ‘These are common practices, madam, and you are also a psychiatric patient. People are not going to want to believe you. If you really want to be proven right, write a book.’ And that’s what I did. ‘Short circuit in my head’ was published in 2014 and was an indictment of the Belgian mental health care system. The book received a lot of media attention and in the years that followed, I increasingly emerged as an activist who stood up for patient rights and wanted to break the stigma and taboo surrounding mental disorders. More books followed, conferences at home and abroad and a seat on the Belgian Supreme Health Council where, together with Jim van Os, Stijn Vanheule and other leading minds from mental health care, I formulated advice on how to deal with the DSM5. The response to that advice from the Flemish Psychiatry Association was devastating. It would be insufficiently scientifically substantiated. It showed to me how much mental health care was in the hands of psychiatrists who were often more concerned with their own egos than with their patients. After years of activism, I threw in the towel and returned, now full-time, to my old and never-waned passion for education. I thought I could leave the world of mental health behind for good.

Read the full article here and the English translation here.