The fluorescent lights emitted a low-pitched hum as I paced the hallway of a locked inpatient psychiatric unit in northern Massachusetts. The faces of many other patients reflected the same all-consuming, dreadful emptiness I felt. It was the end of December, and Christmas was fast approaching; some patients reveled in the yuletide celebration while others reacted bitterly, probably because of traumatic experiences of the holiday. The crisp air, kept at the state-mandated minimum of sixty-eight degrees, felt cold against my bare arms.
Colder still was the social worker, Sandra, who had told me hours earlier to lower my expectations for success in life because of my diagnosis.

She spoke to me for no more than two hours over four weeks, but she quickly concluded that it was her place to undercut what remained of my drive in life. As a self-taught software engineer with an engineering degree, I didn’t think my dream of owning my own startup technology business was grandiose or unreasonable. Sandra had told me that “her borderlines” tended to go in and out of the hospital and that I should accept this as a limit on my potential for success. She did not consider that I might recover or become stable in the long term. Instead, she framed inpatient hospitalization as a necessary implication of having a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, a condition characterized in part by extremely rapid and drastic mood swings and a tendency toward self-harm.
Years later, I learned that both she and the treating psychiatrist had mischaracterized the trauma responses and institutional anxiety I had acquired over years of witnessing and experiencing abuses at the hands of carceral psychiatry. Perhaps out of instinctual defiance, I resolved at that very moment to prove her wrong and succeed. In the years that followed, I doubled my efforts to recover by tapering off psychiatric medications under medical supervision, and I voluntarily admitted myself to a residential treatment program in Canterbury, New Hampshire, spending four months away from my spouse. Having now completed my first year of law school, I can proudly and confidently say that I have far exceeded Sandra’s low expectations.
I often wonder how that social worker, who likely considered herself an empath, could reach such a conclusion based on such limited observations of me while I was at my lowest. After years of working with another therapist following discharge from the hospital, they explicitly ruled out borderline personality disorder in favor of a diagnosis of complex post-traumatic stress disorder. However, why would that social worker feel so comfortable making such a statement to any patient, regardless of whether they had been assigned a diagnosis according to the industry-defined criteria?
I believe the answer lies in media portrayals that present ‘mental illness’ as an all-encompassing description of one’s character. When we see characters with mental illness in TV shows and movies, the ‘illness’ takes center stage rather than the person living with it. Too often, these portrayals are extreme and unrepresentative of how most cases manifest. Many would argue that the stigma of mental illness has begun to lift in our society, but I believe that it has simply taken the form of low expectations rather than overt stigma. The judgments about a person’s abilities remain.
A few weeks ago, I was watching an episode of The Pitt on HBO. The episode centers on a patient named Jackson Davis, a law student in his mid-twenties who is experiencing symptoms of psychosis and paranoia. Jackson first appears in the back of an ambulance; he has been restrained following a confrontation with campus security. When Jackson arrives at the emergency department, he yells out nonsensical references to various sections of United States law. In keeping with this stereotype, the show depicts Jackson flailing and yelling. The show tells us that Jackson had thrown a chair at a security officer and struck him during a confrontation in the library, and we are shown two Taser barbs on the back of Jackson’s neck. The show depicts Jackson as agitated and loud, pulling off medical leads as the staff attempt to evaluate him. The staff ultimately sedate him, even though he is mechanically restrained and unable to physically harm anyone. In summary, the show spends considerable time framing Jackson as a threat.
Following a psychiatric evaluation, clinicians place Jackson on an involuntary hold for observation, and naturally, his family is confused about why they cannot take him home. To quell their concerns and explain the process, a peer support worker named Nicole sits down with the family and recounts a personal story. She tells Jackson’s family that she has a daughter who experienced similar symptoms while studying architecture at Georgetown University and had to drop out of school because of them. She underscores that the family will need to start viewing Jackson in a different way now that these symptoms have manifested. Nicole also tells the family that her daughter is now working in a grocery store but is nonetheless doing well.
Although framed as kindness and inclusivity, this implication is dangerous to the public’s perception of mental illness. The message conveyed between the lines is that a mental health diagnosis is fatal to the hopes and dreams of a highly capable person, such as Jackson. The show chooses to frame mental illness as a total bar to such a prestigious career and, not so subtly, tells the viewer that they should treat any friend or family member with a mental illness with kid gloves.
In modern media, serious mental illnesses are often portrayed as synonymous with overt danger, despite the fact that only a small fraction of crimes are committed by people who have received a mental health diagnosis. ‘Mentally ill’ characters in movies and shows often display exaggerated symptoms. Given that the inner workings of psychiatry are largely opaque to outsiders, the public understandably knows little about how the system operates. Media portrayals sometimes provide the public’s only view of the psychiatric system. Consequently, these extreme portrayals have a lasting impact on public perception of mental illness.
The strong association of mental illness with dangerousness relies on exhausted tropes like command hallucinations instructing a character to commit murder, erratic and violent behavior warranting restraints, catatonia, and other extreme presentations that occur in only a minority of cases. Worse yet, these portrayals carry an undertone of paternalism by depicting patients as unable to care for themselves or achieve much at all. These extreme portrayals damage the public’s perception of what people with mental health struggles can achieve.
Attorney James B. Gottstein recounts his experience with this system in his book The Zyprexa Papers. Gottstein, a graduate of Harvard Law School and seasoned attorney, found himself staring down the barrel of inpatient psychiatry. When he told the staff at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute of his credentials and achievements, they either did not believe him or told him that he would likely not be able to continue his career. He was, in fact, telling the truth, and he would go on to successfully litigate several impactful cases, among other achievements. The hospital held Gottstein for a month and administered psychotropic drugs to him. Gottstein’s story demonstrates that the perceived association between mental illness and low expectations has become so strong that mental health professionals, perhaps unconsciously, make such associations during diagnosis and treatment.
As it turned out, Gottstein’s symptoms arose from sleeplessness associated with his profession rather than from a long-dormant psychiatric condition as the hospital had asserted. He went on to establish an advocacy organization, The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights, and currently serves as its president. The Alaska-based organization provides legal services to those facing the involuntary administration of extraordinary treatments, such as antipsychotic medication or electroconvulsive therapy. He is a real-life example of a highly capable person who, despite the system’s low expectations, escaped its jaws and went on to find great success.
As I write this, I am serving as a summer intern at an agency that provides indigent clients with legal representation and advice as they navigate the paternalistic system of inpatient psychiatry. As I sit across the table from clients, I often see reflections of myself from years ago, when I, too, was trapped in the revolving door of inpatient psychiatry and the mental haze of psychiatric polypharmacy.
I frequently hear clients describe the system as unfair. I observe court hearings in which judges give substantial deference to the ‘expert’ testimony of the treating psychiatrist or nurse practitioner, and seem more inclined toward allowing civil commitments and forced medication than toward the underlying liberty interests. When patients disagree with assertions that they have a mental illness, counsel for the hospital frequently cites legal precedent holding that a refusal to acknowledge one’s mental illness is tantamount to incompetence to give informed consent to treatment. This often results in the court-sanctioned administration of antipsychotic medications, sometimes through the use of physical force and restraints if the patient does not voluntarily take them.
In one such hearing, while cross-examining the patient, the hospital attorney used the elevated tone one might expect from a parent talking to a toddler or perhaps to a dog. This observation left me with a lasting impression that the hospital viewed itself as a parent and its patients as childlike and incapable of rational thought, undoubtedly a product of society’s generally paternalistic view of mental illness.
In 2000, Michael Gerson, speechwriter for President George W. Bush, coined the phrase “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” In a speech delivered to the NAACP, President Bush proposed the idea that bigotry and discrimination are not always explicit; they are sometimes framed as kindness and inclusivity. Although he was speaking specifically about how lower educational standards worsen outcomes, the same idea applies to mental health. When we lower our expectations of what a person with a psychiatric diagnosis can achieve, we do a great disservice that can accurately be described as disability-based bigotry. People who experience mental health struggles are capable of impressive things; lowering the bar under the guise of being supportive only serves to demotivate those who, like me and countless others, can flourish when provided with support and encouragement to be the best they can be.
I, for one, only began to flourish when I left pharmaceutical solutions behind and embraced the community-centered approach to recovery. With the assistance of a village full of supportive people — including an understanding therapist, a loving family, and many supportive friends — I have been able to achieve much more than what was expected of me while subject to the whims of carceral psychiatry.
Seven years removed from the prognostications of a psychiatric social worker, I see that I was one of the lucky ones who escaped the revolving door. I was able to do so because of my intellect and determination to taper my medications, with the assistance of a great team of outpatient providers. In my case, incredible ability was sitting just beneath the surface of my symptoms. I believe that this is also the case for many people who are currently trapped in the system. I am convinced that nearly every patient caught in the revolving door of inpatient psychiatry is capable of making immense changes in their lives, but such changes cannot occur unless society’s perception of mental illness changes.
How many other highly capable people is society losing to this system? How many people like Jim Gottstein are currently being told that their legitimate accomplishments are delusions or that their sincerely held worldviews are evidence of paranoia? How many physicians, attorneys, teachers, scientists, business owners, writers, artists, mothers, and fathers are lost to a system that champions mediocrity as a necessary implication of mental illness?
Unfortunately, we cannot know the answers to these questions until society stops treating criticism of this system as heterodoxy. Although today’s system is certainly an improvement compared to the heyday of the state mental asylums, it must refocus on serving patients in a way that enables them to be all they can be rather than imposing low expectations on them under the guise of kindness. As President Bush said in his speech, we must not tolerate a system that gives up on people.













My inpatient discharge summaries included “Prognosis is guarded given the patient’s history”. When I later graduated with a masters from a prestigious university, I was seriously tempted to mail them a photocopy with a choice message.
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Problem is, who would receive your valid and valuable update? Most of those who open the email would be new people, treating your words as barely relevant.
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It seems from reading this thread, that those who have gone on to succeed per se, were young, and had family and other reliable supports.
Your success is not purely and soley your own. There are people who genuinely and authentically helped you.
For those who don’t have a competitive streak, maybe the stars align differently.
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Mrs. Martin,
abuselegalgroup.com is “right up your alley” you well spoken, well thought out person of incredible interest.
Inspiring to say to you I hope you reach out to dlc-ma.org and Jordan Goldstein ext 127#. Also mhlac.org as intake for me vs. Taunton State Hospital and the punishment received for venting the deliberate mishandling of my hearing aids leading to no outdoors at all until next Monday being kept on unit for everything.
The treatment team and some not all mhw behave as you experienced.
As a musicologist I too been trapped in the octopuses revolving door of drugs and involuntary commitment this time as judge segal said it’s complicated giving political undertones from bridgewater state hospital to a step up into a less humane situation here in Cain 4 East.
Broken shoulder broken elbow, glued skin where twenty plus more stitches would be over my eyesocket, a celebration of my ex wife’s death by a innocent me2 movement spring 2025 and 3 visits from the secret service while I was paid less than $12/week as a librarian worker doing my civic duty cleaning Carter one and landscape maintenance freely while enduring said injuries at bsh – recovery solutions. Due to stigma my immediate family such as father and brothers were silent a vast majority of time. Others were given a threat of being fired as recovery solutions employees rta and tst alike for contemplation of standing by me for superiors infractions.
I’m mad in America
William Mahler
mahlers.net
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To note, yes, I wish you the best in emerging from the net – but the net is reinforced by families. Our culture keeps relying on group consensus, when this method so often generates a paralysis where members have varied ideas of what was involved or at stake, all they agree on is to combat anger or loudness, but instead of doing that in measured direct confrontation, they sit in silence, as if that preserves the peace, and all just agree that you are insane, and that meds make you appear complacent and agreeable. For a while.
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Family, relatives, friends, neighbours, can all be as dangerous if not more so, than the psych. drugs and treatments and prescribers. Their versions of events are relayed without regard or concern for the person they are so freely and willingly talking about, without that person being present and included.
If in crisis situations doctors, nurses, practitioners, registrars, and qualified mental psych. doctors are relying on someone else’s input to guide their decision-making, that is a very scary scenario. Unless it is about accurate medical history – such as diabetes, thyroid, kidney failure, known allergies, recent physical illness, and the like.
From a basic understanding point of view, there is no reason to seek any input, other than what can be observed in the here and now that presents right there in front of them. Also from a basic understanding point of view, a thoughtfully calibrated dose of a carefully chosen benzodiazepine (plenty of precedence and research available) as an initial course of action and treatment seems to be something that “works”.
Outsider (any) inputs lead treatments astray.
Often in crisis situations, fully qualified psych. doctors are not present and are not available. If a psych. Registrar is called to the scene (public hospital setting), they may or may not come up with the best available option – it will depend on their training, their supervisor, and who the senior psychiatrist is on call.
A bit of benzo. would help with a lack of sleep, that turned into an admission and psych. treatments that needn’t have been.
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Ok, give it a go. (expect no answers below). Defend me.
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I’ve included a mention at my domain wkmahler.com
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Great blog – but I really love your bio – kudos to you, Alexandra. We need more lawyers with wisdom, based upon experience, to “fight the good fight” … freedom for all.
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W. K. Mahler, Mahlers.Net
[email protected]
Wednesday, August 26, 2026
Are you staying out of trouble or is trouble staying out of you?
Are you out of your mind or in your sanity?
Good Morning! How ya doing? Are you awake yet?
-William K. Mahler
Advanced Lunatic 4093:
The 40-Minute War of Flight 93
How Air Superiority In The Age Of Chaos and Weapons Of Mass Protection two white papers preceded The 40 Minute War all by Janet & Chris Morris with assistance from Deputy Director of the CIA Ray Cline came to pass. Their book about 19 Iranian Islamic Jihadists hijacking a passenger jet and detonating a briefcase nuclear weapon over Washington DC was personally handed to Osama Bin Laden during the second Clinton and Gore administration by Janet and Chris. Doing so while in the capital of Saudi Arabia during a clandestine CIA backed family vacation paid for by inheritance money left from Cecil Freeman, head of Massachusetts Civil Defense for my then wife Leonda and her mothers sister, aunt Janet.
Starting circa 1971 and to my coming of age at 16 years old during the summer, July 6, 1984 to two weeks notice, my song August 29, 2001 – Prelude To September 11, 2001 – I Am Coming Home is the audio blueprint of the ugliest day in U.S. future history. Within the Usenet Binaries there is photographic evidence as to the online whereabouts of all 20 terrorists the 10th throughout the 11th of September 2001 – within the IRC, internet relay chat and my private chat room, photographed by a frienemy Shane William Kelly, the 11th, dawn. By September 19, 2001 the musical blueprint for the Freedom tower was freely performed and known worldwide as Freedom by Audrey Lee Randall – Kelly and I in our hometown of Cape Cod, Hyannis, Massachusetts USA.
W. K. Mahler music featuring live and studio a cappella and harmonica performances for your consideration including: Children Of The Downeaster, Native Independent National America, Nowhere to Go originally by Melissa Etheridge, A Good Hard Rain, Under the Willow Tree, To Ma Da Blues, Raven Blue Eyes, Monica, Rip It, Rags, Excuse Me, Waiting for the Sun originally by Chantal Kreviazuk, What Do You Know, Citizen Indie American, Excuse Me, Diaries And Martinis, Soul, Got Me World Wide, Merry Christmas To You and more at Mahlers.Net and or WKMahler.Net
Please support financially any children worldwide by donating to:
Mind Freedom International and or UNICEF.Org
Expect new releases by Christmas 2026, plus a forthcoming electronic and physical book.
4093.Info In memory of Janet – employer, friend, mentor, and former in-law – 1946-2024. A true warrior, a nun with a shotgun. Her business M2 Technologies Inc. and her widow Christopher of Centerville, Massachusetts, their Perseid Press.
The continuing relevance of the current US vs. Iran war has led second term President Donald J. Trump to utilize me on day one via Instagram while I was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and eventually in Massachusetts incarcerated and investigating the inner workings of private health care company Wellpath known now as Recovery Solutions. While in Milwaukee, the good Congresswoman of Seminole, Florida, Anna Paulina Luna, requested via x.com my testimonies regarding M2 Technologies Inc. and our private think tank role regarding September 11, 2001.
Modern day satellite technology combined with HDTV, internet meant solely for employees segregated from inpatients with tablets and intranet, FM radio, monitored outbound landline communications and USPS mail along with old school human interaction presented a psychological test of endurance for both patients and staff. From the intermediate role between Israel and their doppelgänger of family friend Richard Alan Brown, RIP, Hamas and I, the first release of a hostage, spring 2025 resulted in yet again a doppelganger of childhood friend Carl Bucella of whom was incarcerated in his mid fifties along with me. During said brokered token of peace, my brother Thomas was nominated for consideration as the National Security Agencies newest chief, public via CNN and by pseudonym with a live appearance, doppelgänger at the least and best. Many a news correspondent come and go along with dozens of inpatients won as friends, honor amongst thieves.
During my inpatient at Bridgewater State Hospital, the Department of Homeland Security and then Secretary Kristi Noem while in El Salvador amidst the Central American militaresque prison, Bridgewater three times was visited by Secret Service chosen by President Donald J. Trump. If not for the continued support and quiet listening presence via phone of Daniel Emmerich my former father in law, his wife and two children known in Recovery Solutions as Mackenna and Mitch, my former drill Sergeant Valme, cousins Jayme and Lori, Ruiz mother of my son Mike, his sister and TST Peyton, America, Charlene, Morgan, Kayla, family friend Craig RIP his daughter my step niece Khali, Katelyn, Phaedra, DanielSarah, Jodaline, Jaylene and nurse practitioner Erin Regan of whom known me since childhood, my survival would not have been so believable to my sense of realism. Although the decrepit conditions of the state facility within its rehabilitation will require relocating and building anew, BSH might last another five years best.
Let this be said, years ago, pre COVID-19, a barefoot eight month pregnant RTA was the sole staff member amongst 23 well behaved inpatients as ten of us watched television for several hours as she slept only to be woken to lock us in our cells. In hindsight so called Dr. Christopher Myers a long time psychiatrist would not spend time with any one patient out of sight from guards nor would Dr. Christopher Myers be the equivalent of a Massachusetts National Guardsman and spend one weekends month and two weeks a year in any one unit living with patients. He is not living up to human empathetic values and is unbecoming of his license to practice as a health care provider in any capacity. He is responsible for the innocence of the ME2 movement to be tarnished, fooled into believing and celebrating hospital wide the life and death of my former wife and life long friend Leonda Pacheco. If not for her next door neighbor whom Leonda to this day babysits for, immediate family members Danny, Sandy, Robert, Lauren and Marco would know differently. Quoting Danny “we are pissed.” Through my broken elbow, separated shoulder and skin glued over my eye socket for rebelling and allegedly being antisocial, having to be treated by so called men whom bragged about my friend Leonda being raped and ridiculed whip we were married, it was worth poking a 375 pound TST male rapist eye almost out in front of a disability advocate from the Disability Law Center of Massachusetts. Leonda, luv you girl.
Thank you CNN for the live interactive experience the day Pope Leo was chosen, there is a God.
Usenet Archives of Google Groups
From as far back as 1998 including passages to the CIA and FBI pre – September 11, 2001, mental health support groups and all while I was recruiting into the CIA hundreds of performing artists and fans including Extreme most recently the Six full length release, Melissa Etheridge, U2 and the RED campaign, 46664 of Nelson Mandela and Queen, Bruce Springsteen, KISS, Van Halen, Journey, Whitesnake and hundreds of cultural groups including the origins of the discovery of HIV circa World War II.
Guitars 101
RIP Dolly Parton & Frank Beard
Forever free live concert music, classic rock and roll unless you seek the whip cream and cherries, then faster downloads via 3rd party.
On Mental Health:
How the Moral Panic on Psychiatric Bed Shortages is Fueling a Competency Crisis in the U.S.. The number of people referred to state hospitals as Incompetent to stand trial IST has surged over the last decade. In response, states are refurbishing or rebuilding their state hospitals even as their own experts say this will only make the crisis worse. Why? (MAD In America). Where I spent the past year and a half with family, friends, and a special FBI Pentagon 9/11 survivor, the walking dead of the USMC Top Jimmy spring 2025. Remember the volatile controversial selective service for the U.S. armed services during the Vietnam War, that is the catalyst for Select Psych Service and is my new Musicologist web domain currently forwarded to a story of select alleged criminals turned inpatients culled by immoral judgements of grandiose delusional civil and or criminal court officials and mental health staff whom can dole out debilitating drugs while using pseudonyms for names further cementing long term civil commitments all the while fostering a non educational existence and staff reluctance to teach illness management recovery and competence mandatorily to all persons entering Bridgewater State Hospital and similar facilities statewide. As Psychiatric survivor Alexandra R. Martin currently a student at law stated in her essay entitled The Soft Bigotry Of Low Expectations: Psychiatries Low Expectations Of The Highly Capable, in full within site MADInAmerica.
To my brothers Thomas of the Massachusetts State Police and NSA Chief nominee, brother David original coding author of David and family room of Windows XP and Silverlight to Edge browser man himself SilverEdge at then age 16 and to brother Ryan home construction expert of countless hopes and dreams and to brother Troy in Heaven with Uncle Ted, Ma and husband David, Trust right on you!
Dad you are my medicine.
To my children Vanessa, Trey, Michael and Peyton, sunshine luv.
Stay tuned,
With gratitude,
William Keith Mahler
August 26, 2026
Taunton, Massachusetts USA.
Legal inquiries contact: Tyler Tyack, Esquire of Cohen Cleary, Attorneys
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(People can be patronizing with their platitudes.)
excerpt from: Sociology of Mental Health and Illness — Anne Rogers; David Pilgrim 2nd Edition — pg. 14
“Those emphasizing labelling do not concur as to who are the significant labellers. For Scheff (1966) it is psychiatrists; for Goffman (1961) it is the family plus professionals plus the total institution. However, there is an agreement that, once labelled, this significantly alters the person‘s social status. Once a person is seen to have lost their reason, then they will never be quite the same again in the eyes of others (Garfinkel 1956). They are stripped of their old identity and a new one takes its place in what Goffman calls a ‘status degradation ceremony‘. Part of such a process then leads to the labelled person internalizing the new identity ascribed to them.
Thus, according to the societal reaction position, the psychiatric patient’s role is then maintained by a new set of role expectations. The person in the patient role plays at being a patient and those looking on construe all of the person‘s conduct in terms of the patient role. The pseudo-patients in Rosenhan‘s study logged their ward experiences, and the clinical notes on them recorded that they indulged in ‘excessive writing behaviour’: a mutually reinforcing process then keeps the person locked into their deviant role. However, this can be disrupted by new contingencies emerging – hence the findings alluded to in Chapter 2 when discussing social causation about the improvements of patients who can gain employment.”
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Heaven forbid, but if landed in a psych. setting, don’t, do not take on the label/the diagnosis/the role. At a guess, you have arrived per se at a public run facility. Don’t worry about what the notes say.
Focus on staying well. Work out what went pear-shaped, and stay away from those ingredients.
Get the necessary treatment, become as well as possible, and get out of the system.
One can assume that all you clever people have supports and financial resources – so use your intelligences and monies discerningly and wisely.
Private facilities might take emergency and crisis presentations. Do some homework. Be in the know.
Some mental services have better reputations than others – ask to be taken to a better place (if there is one).
It is understandable that you defied the given narratives, as demonstrated with your success, but this came about because you were already in favourable positions.
Many are not so fortunate.
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Talk about the “Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations” … the psych industries incorrectly assume those who got in the top 99.95% of their math SATs to be “w/o work, content, and talent” – prior to getting to know anything about them.
“Judge not, lest ye be judged,” psych industry lunatics.
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Psychiatry feeds on low expectations like no other profession.
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Parts of your story resonate with my own experiences. After a life time of put downs, dismissals etc because of subtle and occasionally not so subtle psychological differences from what is considered normal (I hear voices and have visual experiences etc) a psychologist told me, only about four years ago that “I didn’t need fixing because I was not broken”.
For me that one sentence was life transforming. Being a little bit different to so called normal is not a justification for persistent putdowns and criticisms but unfortunately some people, probably trying to cover up their own low self esteem, just don’t seem to be able to help themselves. A good many mental health professionals seem to fit into this category. They are probably attracted to this industry by the plentiful opportunities to elevate their own fragile self esteem and egos by putting others who may be struggling at the time down.
In doing so they become an integral part of a huge industry that creates mental illness rather than cures it.
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The custom of labeling the refusal to be drugged as evidence of mental illness is almost usual. I am sifting through hard copy of a hearing. The plaintiff is a psychiatrist. He did not examine the accused. He copied the words of a GP who marketed himself as an expert in psychoactive substances. Then he claimed that the refusal to accept these drugs was actually the evidence that she was mentally ill. That and weight loss of two pounds per week were the only evidence. This patient was miss-tapering a Benzodiazepine under the misguidance of the telephoning physician. The rate was 10.0Mg of Diazepam per month and by pill-splitting. Then there is the page with that accused patient’s name printed. She did not sign. The line remained blank. That missing signature is witnessed. Now I have no current proof, but: Does this hospital maintain a stack of pre-witnessed documents?
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When Will It EVER End! Criminals are treated better. We Need Comprehensive Psychiatric Reform So Badly!
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The title conveys a certain economy aligned with psychiatry! Though how does the author or Mad in America staff convey the bias, if not prejudice emerging from other professions towards the citizens? And who has the expertise of trying to create an economy from the working knowledge, the playful knowledge by which one discoveres their unique sense of self becomes just that, with value and values to convey what can be in the truthfulness of self becoming fully self?
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I was a dental assistant x-ray technician for 30 years than I am when I was married I stopped for a while I was doing a farm they didn’t believe that and I have all the degrees I feel like giving some choices messages to some people to especially if the woman is being abused and they think it is in her head when she’s being mentally and emotionally abused and financially abused by her husband who was divorcing her at the time and it was rich and powerful so under the circumstances once they write something they can write whatever they want and it stays in your medical records forever even if it’s totally true that you are a dental assistant/X-ray tech! Once they get you in your clutches they try to break your spirit and if you don’t agree with her made a diagnosis you’re like are you kidding me you guys went up to my farm to take me off my farm because my husband that I was divorcing that I had a problem and you believe him for what I never understood it but then to tell me that my profession was not my profession and that’s just in my head I was like I got my license in my pocketbook do you need to see it they didn’t want to look at it because it proves that I was what I was saying I was A dental assistant and right now I’m farming at the time I was telling the truth but they didn’t like the truth so they said that I made it up I’m like I got my x-ray license in my pocketbook they didn’t want to see it! An ex spouse can turn your life miserable with their lies about you and so can I hospital inpatient then because they gotta say something to prove that you’re right so the right whatever they feel like because most of them are on ego trips I feel like they can throw around their weight and you’ll just do what I say they’re control freaks
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In the U.S. the entries in medical records can be withheld from the patient too. The assumption is that mean people don’t make a career out of working in human services fields.
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It may be your intellect that saved you, although it alone is not the truest answer.
Primarily, the solution to mental health and a return from mental unwellness, is the unfailing, caring, ever present support.
As for social workers’ and other experts’ predictions (whether they come true or not), they are a form of abuse, with presenting traits of the dark tetrad.
There idea of cruelty under the guise of false kindness, would also qualify for personality traits borderline-ing on personality disorders.
We have to stop letting other people (any others) put words into our mouths and minds, and run the narrative show.
Unfortunately, once captured and detained and incarcerated, it is a matter of survival to become submissive and compliant. Only those with the right strong supports will come through without being detrimentally changed. Hopefully.
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