Comments by Alex

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  • Being dehumanized by individuals to whom one has given their power through trust (or programming) while vulnerable with gaping psychological wounds and poly-drugged out of one’s nature (and mind), as their crazy-ass version of healing from trauma and finding one’s true path in life, would probably be one reason people would consider killing themselves, and often do. That is pure suffering on every level, makes no sense to any reasonable and rational part of ourselves.

    And then to have a society, culture, and legal system allow it, that would nail it. No one to turn to at that point. Some call this “dark night of the soul,” and indeed it is. It’s also a “sick society.”

    Of course “they,” of the current establishment, are looking for other reasons outside of the human being factor without considering that, perhaps, life is simply over the top stressful, and especially for many people who find themselves particularly vulnerable. Without effective ways to relieve this stress and move through hard times, the pressure will build and the stress will appear everywhere, it will become chronic leading to sleep deprivation more than likely, for one thing, and that can lead to all kinds of issues in life and health which can be like a Gordian knot. If there’s no one around with a bit of patience and empathy, that is trouble for the soul.

    So many people kill themselves for all kinds of reasons, a perfect storm leading to being profoundly dispirited and disillusioned with life, people, ourselves, in chronic terror and lack of safety, etc., all which lead to a choir of negative beliefs and voices along with chronic physical pain.

    I felt this way twice in my life–going on the drugs at age 21, and then as I was withdrawing from them 19 years later. Been 20 years since my withdrawal, so I can look back on this with quite a bit of clarity at this point, I’m no longer that person, I was never, ever suicidal outside of this, I’ve always loved life and it’s challenges. This was too much, though, and I had no idea who I was, which is why I was reaching out for assistance, but unfortunately, to the wrong people.

    That was one factor, the chemical shifting, first from my nature to something artificial which would cut me off from my emotions so that I could feed into the system, like everyone else; and then back from artificial to natural, breaking that addiction in my body, very painful and absolutely no one around me understood it, least of all my psychiatrist at the time. My personal symptoms did not fit the studies, so he figured I was making this up. And he told me so, kept calling me a liar, what I was saying was a falsehood, etc., as I am just starting the throes of withdrawing from a lot of drugs that were eroding me from the inside.

    Everything I said was suspect, as though I were lying on purpose. He was LOOKING FOR IT! That would not inspire trust nor anything healing, obviously. 2020 hindsight…

    I was confused, disoriented, brain jumbled, (which I knew, no one had to tell me, didn’t know what to expect would happen from there), in the worst pain of my life and scared to death. I was in mid-life and it was right after grad school, which is where this disaster started. I’d have no reason to lie, and I was in fact speaking a lot of truth raw, had no filter, which would be reasonable under the circumstances.

    I was trying to get back on track with life as I was healing and have medical support in my withdrawal. I was in a profound chemical daze and taking responsibility for my life. That was a huge fail, trusting this guy, and a specific group of therapists who threw me under the bus, and tragic irony to me. I know better now, it’s the system.

    Which leads to the other factor which lead to my utter despair and hopelessness—i.e., the profound lack of competence, insight, and just plain old-fashioned humanity and loving kindness by the professionals around me at that time, these were just nowhere to be found. These were mean, cold, rather robotic people, totally full of themselves, and they were in complete alliance with each other, loyalty to the system at the *extreme* expense of the client.

    If anything, consider that the “mental health” industry is injurious to the point of people wanting to kill themselves. That’s good research fodder, I think.

    I’m not trying to be sarcastic or grand stand, but I am angry about this. It’s hard to express adequately and with some kind of neutrality, this triggers me every time I think about it. But this article inspired me.

    I am so sick of NOT directing the responsibility where it should be, and I’m fed up with the lies that are confusing everyone. It’s driving everyone crazy at this point. So I’d like to officially give it back: Liars.

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  • Thank you for sharing your story and the important insights which you gained from this experience which led to your healing. This is an awakening.

    I feel as you do, that this is more common than not. Healing from gaslighting and narcissistic abuse is the order of the day, and it’s a complex healing to unravel systemic lying, many layers of “reality” become vague and corrupt in this dynamic. This needs to be brought to light and disentangled, as you so skillfully have done, in order to relieve the extreme stress that builds up from chronic confusion, disorientation and paranoia. New truths can then reveal themselves through newfound clarity, a much, much better feeling.

    I believe this is where social transformation will occur, with this particular healing. The issue is rampant. Brilliant work, kudos!

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  • I don’t think previous generations actually dealt “better” with issues, they created scapegoats and scapegoating systems, like psychiatry. That’s how we’re in the mess we’re in today. Scapegoaters need to stop scapegoating and scapegoats need to stand up for themselves and take back their power. We can all improve a bit, however we are tipped on that particular scale. In a dysfunctional system, everyone is playing a role, and everyone has the power to stop playing it. That’ll break it up but good.

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  • “why people wrongly think they’re helpless, and why parents believe their kids can’t learn.”

    To feel helpless is to feel powerless, and this is not only excruciating stress, it is what is most vulnerable making. Of course we can learn, that is a big part of being human and it’s why we’re in this life! The ability to learn is innately and naturally empowering, then we are not helpless.

    Were children to be born into a safe, loving, nurturing environment which understood the individual nature of our beings and creative expression, then their natural power would be honored rather than disrupted and denied, and that would be an exciting life unfolding.

    Seems to be less and less the case, most unfortunately. I believe that this is the damage which needs to be undone. We’ve grown up with a lot of false beliefs–about ourselves, especially–which are beginning to unravel. That is change in the making, from within.

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  • If one considers that “stigma” is the by-product of fear of differences within humanity and the act of social shaming based on these differences (bigotry), and that these, in turn, inevitably cause flash rage and violence within that very same humanity, then perhaps the commitment to “a deeper sense of compassionate understanding among human beings for the purpose of peace in the world” would be an appropriate, and hopefully more fruitful, “campaign”–for anyone at all. Personally, I consider it a lifestyle worthy of pursuit.

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  • Thanks, KS. I wonder how these work for people? I see there’s one in my own town, perhaps I can stop by and check it out, I’d be curious to know.

    Personally, I prefer my privacy on a day to day basis, but we’ve opened our doors plenty of times to offer food and support, even to make music with others. Just this morning I delivered a batch of mint chocolate chip cookies to my favorite shopkeepers, which I also shared with my next door neighbor yesterday over coffee. We live in a neighborly town!

    Moving to a small rural town surrounded by nature and offering plenty of alternative living along with families and retirees, was more healing to, both, my partner and me, than I can say after leaving San Francisco, where neighbors would barely look each other in the eye passing each other on the sidewalk, much less offer good cheer spontaneously. Urban living has simply become unhealthful, imo.

    I’d like to see it occur organically, giving and receving love, just because it feels good. And may it spread like an ocean of light into a new healing version of planet Earth…

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  • Absolutely, Steve, it has to be created for it to even exist. So consider what I say as a vision, from which all things created begin, which I’m certain I share with others, at least many people whom I know. It’s not an original idea in the slightest, but even with all the chatter about it over the generations, it has mysteriously (well, sort of, and less and less so as time goes by, just hard to know what to do about it) remained elusive, and it has become a chronic frustration for people, I have noticed, to the point of tragedy.

    I believe it would start in the home, our first community. Eventually, we do have to individuate, but we have to be aware of what we’ve internalized from that first community which is not in alignment with our true nature. We each have one and it is not duplicated, we are unique in that sense, purely.

    But these days, that’s a lot of sorting and sifting and soul searching, can be confusing for a while until new clarity is reached. That’s a journey to take, evolving self-awareness. For most of us, this seems to have been the case, that our natural experssion is stifled early on because it is not aligned with some unacknowledged yet practiced expectation to serve the community at one’s sacrifice, or it is invalidated. That’s a terrible double bind, and I believe it’s an abusive expectation. Doesn’t have to be, in an inclusively supportive system, but it has been.

    Adults in families more often control their children rather than respect their individuality from the get-go, if it is too far away from the “family norm,” and an innocent baby behaving according to its nature (and often in unconscious protest to evnironmental stress) can be blamed for upsetting the balance in the family, that is not uncommon. That’s where the problem begins, it’s oppressive right away. Psychiatry only follows suit and takes that example. They all came from families, too, or at least what can be called “first environment.” We all did, and that is something from which to individuate, which in no way means to abandon, it means to distinguish oneself from the community at large, which is vital if one wants to live freely creative and find the role which suits them best.

    To me, that would translate to personal fulfillment, at no one’s expense because everyone would be free to follow their path to fulfillment without fearing sabotage from others, no cut-throat competition which most often overshadows a sense of humanity and moral compass. That’s where it gets incredibly messy, but that’s what it is right now.

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  • As long as it’s a peace-loving, fair-minded, just, safe, grounded, ever-evolving and functional community, equally respectful of all of its individual members, where no one is deprived of their freedom of expression and creativity, then sure, that sounds great. I imagine it would be very healing to anyone looking for it. Do you know of any?

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  • Truth all over the place here, thank you Rebel. We are, indeed, self-sovereign, by nature. We’ve been lied to, manipulated, and frightened out of this–in essence, out of our natural power and freedom, along with our innate sense of abundance and belongingness.

    Getting back to our authentic natural selves (that is a process of healing and waking up to a few things, new truths) is to be in harmony with ourselves. Then we can shine our light for others in support, encouragement, whatever, if we can feel our own light, that sense of freedom which deep down inside is there, allowing that natural interdependence to occur, based on how we have the natural capacity to operate from compassion if we allow ourselves to, starting with self and extending out to others. This would be natural, and would be for our own well being and for that of others–win/win individual and collective, everyone growing and evolving together, from their own perspectives and realities.

    I’d call that a functional society, and safe because it is based on integrity. When not, it should be called out immediately to avoid enabling. It’s everyone’s responsibility to stop abuse in its tracks, espeically if it is coming directly at us, and that is very tricky in a toxic/abusive/dysfunctional family/social/professional system. We live and learn about this, I don’t know any other way. It is a courageous path, I’ll say that. Thank you, Megan, for the light you are constantly shining on this issue.

    Tons of great quotes here, Rebel, I especially like this one–

    “each one of us must realize the only way to be successful as one body is when each part of the body sees how valuable it individual effort and contribution is. To deny the individualism of each human being on earth and try to make a collective is just wrong, just plain wrong.”

    I’d certainly call it self-defeating, happens all the time! If we try too hard to control others by demeaning them, shaming, scaring, lying to others–aka gaslighting, the usual tricks–to throw them off kilter and deny their personal truth, it eventually comes back in a humbling way. Respect for others should come back in a mutually respectful way. If not, I say get out, and don’t look back.

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  • Fascinating interview, thank you.

    “philosophising may well itself lead to madness, in its highbrow intellectual academic form, as well as in all other forms that are expressed in socially less acceptable and clumsy ways.”

    Such a powerful statement! “Socially less acceptable and clumsy” is the bulk of humanity, which to me would would translate to real and authentic, our humanness, which allows us to walk the fine line of madness (which I would at this time define as a state of dormant creativity trying to break free and come to light) and wisdom with grace, one way or another, expressed uniquely through each of us.

    “Highbrow intellectual academic” tends to leave people cold because it is in academic jargon and detached from the heart and practical nature of a most diverse humanity which inherently makes up the whole. Too many false projections occur here, blurring truth repeatedly via reflex stigma. I can understand how it can lead to endless loops of the same undesirable reality if one is pontificating a truth and not living by it.

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  • “once the workings of our mind — including our perceptions, thoughts and emotions — are seen as being “caused” by the neural networks which channel them, it’s a short leap to the conclusion that “bad” thoughts and feelings are the product of defective brains.”

    Not necessarily. What we feel in our hearts also matters. In our guts, too. They all interconnect to create a wide variety of life experiences. We have choices on what to focus and how to interpret things, which can evolve over the years. Many things interact inside of us to create our personal reality and life experience.

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  • I am not a brain scientist nor do I have proof of what I say outside of my own perspective from my experience of living and healing, but this exploration is so relevant I think, that I want to add my voice to it from what I’ve learned so far, been thinking about this very thing.

    At this point, I’ve reached the conclusion that the mind actually creates the body, and the brain runs it (also part of the “body creation,” obviously, like a “manager”). I believe the mind creates everything, it is from where our vision begins, and pre-natal, it would be the mind of the mother which influences most, until a child becomes aware of their own vision, as their reality comes into clearer focus.

    What fuels a vision is the power of the emotion behind it, and together these become a projected reality, not just a vision, but the feeling of that reality as well. That begins inside us, if we can visualize that which we desire and feel it, by imagining it with the mind. The brain can command the body to register these feelings through our nervous system, and that leads to feelings in the body, to be determined by how we feel about that which we are imagining, dreaming and visualizing–with the mind.

    The mind is consciousness, of what we are aware, and that is expansive as we take in more life experience and the wisdom from it. The brain depends on what the mind takes in, neural pathways develop in response to the environment, and how the mind is perceiving it, simply as reflex. This is malleable, as environments change, so can neurons. We can also shift neurons by shifting how we perceive anything, literally “changing our minds,” that is, what information we are including in our assessment leading to a feeling response. When we desire change, we have the choice to change our environment or to shift our thinking about it, or both.

    However, if the mind remains in the past, it will not perceive the update because the brain is still thinking in past time, the neural pathways have not shifted, causing dissonance. Alignment is bringing the body into present time, which means the mind has to perceive present time, which isn’t always the case, especially when we’re trying to work out trauma.

    I think it’s most helpful to know the difference, and then we can make better choices in the moment. “Am I in past or present time with this thought?” is a question I ask myself in reflection. That guides me to the next step of awareness, and whether or not action is appropriate, based on that.

    When we sleep, the brain continues to tell the body to breathe, we don’t have to do this consciously, it is natural survival instinct, programmed in our being, so to speak, the breath of life. Our minds can be quite active separate from our “normal” reality, these are our dreams. We can dream asleep or we can dream awake, have fantasies about anything we want, and this will affect our feelings in that moment, we can actually drive our emotions this way. That is the unlimited creative nature of our minds.

    If our brains are not burdened with overcomplicated, stressful thinking (which would be habits from chronically high stress living, which I believe to be a universal condition on Earth right now), then the freedom of our naturally expansive minds will influence the body in an uplifting way, and it will feel good, or better than before at least, a bit more relaxed.

    The problem now is that we constantly talk our way out of feeling uplifted. What the real mystery is to me is why good feelings, happiness, and positivity are constantly being judged, denied, invalidated, shamed, and ridiculed. I know that is a hot topic here and I somewhat get how this can happen, and why. So I guess the mystery is how to remedy this because honestly, I believe that this is, in reality, the endless loop which keeps suffering and oppression alive and well within humanity.

    Changing our own minds in an expansive way and using them to generate relief from chronic stress rather than adding to it, would allow the brain to relax, which would make our bodies feel a whole lot better, just from allowing happiness to exist on the planet, in peace, and without judgment or negative speculation. I believe solutions would occur with more ease in thought, and less dissonance between mind and body, and I’m including “brain” with body; I see the mind as more than just “the body,” not separate from it, but greater than.

    Who knows for sure, right? But that’s my vision, so far, from what I’ve learned in my healing process.

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  • “defeating psychiatry…will not happen as the result of good vibes”

    In large part I think it would be helpful in a powerful way because a world society where “good vibes” (kindness, integrity, respectful compassion, etc.) outweigh the opposite of this– which would in essence be a world filled with the vibes of resentment and fear/terror, at best chronic confusion–would more than likely result in less and less business for psychiatry until it is absolutely no longer needed.

    But that depends on whether or not the world transforms into a decent place to live, without oppression, suffering, and the risk of being shamed and blamed for things that are neither one’s fault nor in one’s control–the scapegoating phenomenon on which psychiatry relies and further perpetuates.

    To my mind, where good vibes dominate would make for a more generally creative, fulfilling, and living free life experience because it feels a lot safer, and we are freer to be and create without feeling vulnerable to saboatage, gaslighting, being ridiculted and demeaned to the point of feeling voiceless and powerless, etc. (Why people hesitate speaking out, and why it’s called “courage”).

    A lot of internalized suffering would disappear in a kinder, safer, more supportive world, so fewer and fewer people would be running to those who would be looking to exploit the vulnerability of others. Whether intentional or not, we know that the institution of psychiatry operates exactly like this, exploiting others for their own gain, without regard for truth, ethics, or the overwhleming evidence in the world, and documented all over the place, of their incompetence and misguided philosophy of humanity, leading to tragedy in many ways. That it not at all kind, nor is integrity present here, but we, as individuals, can do better, and that would improve things for the entire world.

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  • This is exactly why and how I feel the mh industry has it all wrong–the drugs cut off connection to feelings and psychotherapy overthinks everything. Constant analyzing and thinking also distracts us from feeling in the moment, which is our truth in that moment.

    Clarity is when our thoughts and feelings align in present time, and that is a practice, we go in and out of that state of being, that is human. No one is always aligned, there would be no contrast then from which to feel the necessary tension of life, to create forward. To notice and discern when we are in alignment vs. out of alignment is what has value to us, because from this awareness we can make wiser choices in the moment, aligned with our true intentions.

    No way in hell this can happen with emotion-numbing drugs and constant rumination about the past. No clarity there, ever. Aligning thoughts with feelings in present time is where the power of manifesting lies.

    True and authentic healing takes us there, into present time alignment, then we feel our freedom to move forward as we choose, intuitively, with new awareness to help guide forward. The rest in unknown, to be explored, discovered, and co-created. When we enter the field of the unknown without biases, in pure present time, that is the ultimate power of manifesting, from the heart, so it will reflect in our lives. That’s been my experience, at least.

    Although I will admit that releasing biases from day to day and starting with a clean slate is not easy. We are, after all, human beings with the capacity to hold grudges and pass judgment, including infliciting it on ourselves. That tends to feel terrible, so it’s something to work on, I believe, to our individual and collective advantage. I’d call that “the unknown.”

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  • “Trauma is not a mental illness; it is an emotional and physical reaction that can be healed.”

    I’d say this is the elusive truth, although I’d condense it to “trauma is an emotional and physical reaction that can be healed.” Something about including the phrase “is not a mental illness” throws it off a bit and brings ambiguity to this statement, but the truth about healing from the effects of early childhood trauma is powerful in and of itself.

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  • I think that’s true, Steve, that our judgments are what undermine any sense of peace, inside or out. We are human so judgments won’t always fall by the wayside, we do exist in a highly judgmental world. We can work to influence more compassion and less duality in the world, but right now, it is what it is.

    And by the same token, we have ample opportunities daily to become aware of and own what our habitual judgments are and whether or not perhaps it’s time to update a belief and get a new perspective on things, exactly as you are exemplifying in your above post. That’s always an option which personally I, too, have found to be extermely beneficial in all ways, moves things right along from wherever we are at that moment, toward new expansion.

    When we work though our own judgments to find compassion instead, then we have healed something significant which will ripple outward. It is a relief to drop a judgment, helps one and all, leads to new clarity. Ultimately, it is freeing.

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  • Right now, I don’t consider anything we’d call “mainstream” to be terribly safe. We have to find our own innate sense of safety these day. There is so much anxiety in the collective at large, of course, which would be understandable at this time.

    I consider psychiatry to be highly detrimental to society. However, I recognize that it is part of many peoples’ belief system, and that it creates dependence, as it once had with me. I had to get out from under a lot of rubble, look at my own dynamics, and shift my thinking quite a bit about myself in order to banish it from my own life. Biggest gift I ever gave myself, and I got better.

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  • “we can’t allow such people to decide what is “helpful” for the people they truly don’t give a crap about!”

    I had to come to that conclusion for myself and then I had to finally make the leap and choose a better healing path, which amounted to learning how to find my own answers instead of relying on others. This is when the internet was just firing up, not really a resource at that time, so this took a lot of hard knocks for me to get to this self-agency. I had no notion of this, and had not realized the extent to which I had surrendered this to people about whom I can very honestly and assuredly say did not know what they were doing, not one bit.

    Eventually, after years of consulting one kind of counselor or another for guidance out of chronic anxiety, I learned to be my own counselor and guide at every turn, having learned to tune into and absolutely honor my own intution and impulses, which of course had been rendered dormant under psych drugs and multiple social programming influences (family, academia, “the system,” etc).

    I might have helpful conversations along the way with insightful people, but at the end of the day, I am the one sorting through the information and making my own decisions, so at least if I make an error in judgment, it is my doing and I can’t blame anyone else. That makes it actually possible to correct.

    I had all kinds of healers and teachers after leaving behind the mh world to help me straighten out all of that nonsense programming I had taken on, along with the post traumatic stress from it all, a lot of stuck negative energy, as we say in the healing world. That was such better and relevant information–the authentic healing work–and it got me moving forward in a new way, once and for all as my brain and other ograns were healing along with my spirit, learning to hear and trust my own inner voice over those of others, first and foremost.

    But I can’t say they all cared too terribly much about me, although I felt seen and understood because these were smart and competent healers, they’d been through their journey and were paying forward from their experience, based on energy work and perspective, and knew how to teach tools and alignment. I moved on from that more whole and with a new paradigm in tow.

    Took a few years to integrate all of this, and even longer to heal from the harm that psychiatry had done to me, as is all-too-common of course; which, more than healing, it actually is transformation because I had to adapt to new ways of doing things based on new information along all that awakening.

    But that is coupled with an entirely new perspective, and together–new actions and new perspectives–these create a new life experience, new unfolding of reality, core change. So it would be the point of it all. Hard journey at first, but then it becomes interesting and then clarifying and relieving, and then amazing in all sorts of ways, and it gets easier, change is always happening. That’s how it worked for me.

    I offer new perspectives and help people who are ready to make that transition to self-healer, that’s my contribution, to heal the program of having to depend on others, if that is what people are ready for. Some are not, which is natural, we’re all at different stages and have different needs at different times.

    Either way, fighting others only brings it all back, can’t do that anymore. We have to find a space of inner peace in order for our self-healing to work, which would be supported by a harmonious and nourishing environment. Energy moves fluidly like this, which is how healing occurs naturally, through co-creation. This is the kind of stuff I learned over the years after I abandoned psychiatry, and all of the system in general.

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  • Yep, also disqualifies their “expertise,” given that people are the experts only of their own experience. As you say, they’re tossing the most vital evidence of all! Which explains the mess of it all, I think. That particular piece of evidence is exactly where the ever elusive truth of the matter resides. And it’s many truths and voices of experience in the world, not just one.

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  • How can psychiatry be “evidence based” when it blatantly ignores, dismisses, or contradicts people’s truth about themselves, as well as with their experience of psychiatry? There is an enourmous amount of very obvious evidence that psychiatry has done profound harm to countless people and continues to do so, yet it will continue to deny the evidence in order to continue business as usual, based on judgments and personal opinions rather than anything even remotely scientific.

    Psychiatry is not at all evidence based, but rather it is *fear* based. Fear is what makes people vulnerable to being controlled.

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  • You are truly a survivor and thriver! You were born into trauma and you have now overcome the cycles and are obviously healing by leaps and bounds while using your voice and life experience to help others whose voices are not being heard when they need to be. You are saving lives. Congratulations on your many accomplishments, so far!

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  • Thank you for sharing your harrowing experience, my adrenaline was pumping just from reading it. I love your clarity and conviction, very inspiring!

    I was struck by the title of your book, Strengthening Your Identity While the Shadow Is in Front of You. I think that’s a really clever and powerful way to heal, grow, and gain inner strength. We often don’t have much a choice!

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  • We are born with knowing what feels good to us (like being fed) and what feels bad (when our needs as a pre-verbal infant are not met and we experience what can eventually be articulated as “deprivation”). So we have innate wisdom from birth to somehow communicate what we need. As an infant, whether or not what we need to survive and thrive comes to us as we ask for it, one way or another, depends entirely on the adults around us. And that is a crap shoot, big time.

    Somewhere along the line, we are taught to ignore these feelings–these natural responses in our bodies called “emotions”–and go by some other criteria, a social expectation. If not, stigma is immediately projected as a knee jerk response, I’d call it a “program,”–which is based on systemic abuse because that is based expressly on a person *not* meeting those social expecations, and everyone in an abusive and oppressive system will agree on that and try to somehow punish or ostracize that person. A lot of lies are perpetuated at this point, a web of deceipt. So it’s either you join up, or you suck and we will let you know it and make sure you feel it.

    That is pure double-binding, strong-arming oppression, and will always be false. Not being a joiner in order to stand in one’s truth is a good thing and that is humbling courage, not at all an easy feat but it is based on truth, nothing else, no mal intent. It is based on one’s true values, from the heart.

    To be belittled or maligned for it, as is what occurs in abusive systems–and which is exactly what makes it so–is to deprive a person of their individuality and personal truth, which I consider to be insidious, powerful, and potentially far-reaching abuse, and it is rampant in our society right now. It hurts everyone because valuable resources within humanity remain dormant, whereas right now we need as much creative thinking, as well as individual talent and skills, as possible.

    We seriously need to at least tolerate differences within humanity–all kinds of differences–until we can actually embrace them. Right now, differences seem to cause more fear than anything, and that is what makes me feel very sad, that people fear each other to this degree. That’s a recipe for violence, unfortunately, if we fear enough.

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  • Healing from family dysfunction/abuse in addition to abuse from a closed and hostile system is so complex and humbling, as well as clarifying. It changes one’s vision, self-perception, and how we experience ourselves emotionally, so that we are not chronically stressing ourselves out, which is what leads to deterioration in health.

    Healing from abuse shifts one’s entire life course and changes reality for the better, based on an individual’s expanded awareness along with a new set of beliefs and actions based on those new beliefs. This attracts new people, different kinds of personalities with whom we can harmonize and co-create fluidly, rather than repetition of what one is wanting to reject entirely, the old familiar. That is transformational change, from discord to harmony, and new things ripple from that, there is ease in the process, rather than perpetual conflict which will undermine the goal and create feelings of resentment.

    I believe the only way to change a culture is to change ourselves (individuals make up the culture), and that is our true nature. It is an exercise in humility which leads to confidence and trust in ourselves, from where we find our power. I sincerely believe that change starts from within, and that we be the change we want to experience in the world. We teach and learn by example, not by shaming, guilting, bullying, or strong-arming, which is one or more kinds of abuse and never effective in bringing change because it is exactly this which we want to stop in its tracks. Forcing change is to perpetuate “force,” while the “change” is merely illusory. Therein lies the mass deceit of false promises, over and over again.

    Resisting change is what leads to abusive situations because we are not allowing nature to take its course and are trying to control everything, which is impossible. Resistance to the natural flow of energy–nature–creates the experience of oppression, from which suffering is inevitable. End oppression by standing in our truth and self-regard, heal from abuse, and the world will thrive because individually we will be a bit kinder to ourselves and others from the empathy which develops out of healing. It’s a tall order and it will take a while, but it has to start somewhere, from the only place really where we have control–that is, within ourselves.

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  • Hi psmama, I can certainly understand why your son thinks you are amazing, you truly are! Leaving an abusive marriage while drugged and pregnant is incredibly courageous, and then fighting this particular system for the well-being and safety of your unborn son–my utter respect to you. He is a very lucky young man.

    Of course I had reactions all the way reading your story which make me heartsick and angry. You are describing all the ways in which this entire paradigm has seriously failed us all. From a sane perspective, it is truly insane. Congratulations for leaving it in the dust!

    It IS impossible to be around mainstream thinking once we’ve been through this, and it’s irreconcilable when we know what we know. The good news at this point, I’d say, is that more and more of us are recognizing this, just at the time when anything mainstream is looking seriously suspect, society is in dismal shape and we are ripe for change. I don’t measure healing by necessarily being able to do what we could do before, at least not in the exact same way, but more so by how we can transform creatively, maybe get back some skills but also discover new ones, from a new consciousness that comes with all that healing.

    As per one thing I’ve learned over the years, I call us “expansive beings,” in that we’re never done, we just keep going and growing. When we are open to it, we can gain clarity daily. More than “healing’ at this point, I’d call it straight on transformation, and from there we can move forward with more of a feeling of control, from this wider consciousness. New things come along, synchronicity happens, and we become aware of a shift which keeps us moving forward with encouragement. That feeling alone generates a feeling of light and the power to manifest. As does the love shared between you and your son ♥

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  • Everything you say here I agree with, Rebel. I think this entire industry is bad news, and I think these psych drugs are products of an ill-conceived society and indeed they cause damage, part of my story, too. I am aware that many people rely on them, or feel they do, and whatever choices a person makes to alleviate their suffering is something I would never judge, nor would I tell a person they are “wrong” about their choice, if it is part of their path and somehow, someway, it makes them feel better in the moment.

    Yes, these should come with full disclosure, at the very least, if not eventually phased out of existence. But people have to discover their own truth, one cannot impose their truth on another, that is purely a projection and I think it’s counterproductive to change, only creates resistance to it. I’ve certainly made mistakes in this regard, try to learn as I go. We are all products of brainwashing and propaganda, one of the things we’re trying to clear up altogether, I believe. This is what can get complicated, but there is a lot of truth which comes from cracking these codes and seeing past the illusions we’ve been fed. When belief systems get challenged, change is imminent.

    Although if I am in dialogue with someone who feels they need healing and they do not want to go this route, I will let them know there are other options which support real and true healing, which the pills of course do nothing of the kind. We have a nature, and that’s what we need to get back to, is my belief about all of this. Personally, I think learning how self-healing applies is a good education in life. Self-healing is guided by our nature, individual choice, and self-sovereignty, and it’s free.

    There are always new things to discover as we go along in life. I’d have never thought it possible to heal from any of this, neither from the drugs nor what took me to seek help in the first place, and 20 years ago I was scared to death that this was the case, based on what I was believing and being told at that time. The messages from the mh industry–top to bottom–were far more negative and discouraging than what actually turned out to be the truth, and the impact of this was severe, until I learned better.

    Once I came off the pills, I began a trajectory of learning which I’d never even conceived before this, had never been part of my life or psychic landscape–and most assuredly not part of my family or cultural upbringing, nor early education–and for the most part I hadn’t before heard or experienced what I eventually stumbled upon in my desperation to heal, after falling way down the psychiatric rabbit hole in mid-life, and get on with my life.

    Personally, I believe in all possibiilties, until we’re done. And of course, that *is* an individual thing, we all believe what we believe, based on our life experience so far. Keep going, is all I say. New things come along every day, if we are paying attention. That’s it.

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  • Hi KS, thanks for the feedback. I remember we had this disucssion a while back, regarding healing and offering hope which may be false hope for some, and I took it to heart, don’t believe I’ve said this since in such a general way. I do maintain my personal philosophy on healing, but I’m not out to impose that where it feels like judgment. So, my apologies for that. I have a lot of respect for your perspective and I know that it is well-founded, it very often rings true to me.

    Here, I am specifically speaking about the topic in this thread, the idea that the longer one takes psych drugs, the less likely that the brain damage caused by these can be repaired once they are off of them. This is a fear-causing statement which is not logical, simply not true, and it serves to dampen hope, which is what I feel is harmful. That is my objection here.

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  • My comment is regarding the projection of fear with inaccurate, or at the very least, speculative and vague information. One should NEVER lose hope and I feel the need to at least make an attempt to unplant these seeds of false and damning beliefs. Out of respect for those us of who have taken this journey first hand, please do not perpetuate them. End of discussion for me.

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  • Steve, that is simply false logic. At any time from which the toxin is removed, healing can begin. And perhaps a transformative healing, because there has been interference with nature and we might not know or be able to predict how that repair will take shape and look like on the other side, but full repair of damage done by these things is always an attainable possibility, and perhaps there may be other conditions or factors to consider individually.

    However, length of time on these things, or how many, makes little or no difference in the intention of healing. The brain is very healable from this. I was on tons for a long time until it became clear I could no longer tolerate them, tapered off over a period of time and had the horrendous withdrawal, with no known precedent or informed resource. My brain was definitely damaged, couldn’t balance a checkbook suddenly, and I’d been a bookkeeper, math is easy for me.

    That was 19 years ago, I’ve been as long off of them now as I’d been on them at that time, when I ditched them. It took a while and I did soooo much to heal naturally from different avenues and sources, and together all of it worked. I’m back to being a math whiz and creative channels have opened, mind is clear and relaxed for the most part unless I’m focusing on something. I’m sure I’m not an exception.

    People need hope and inspiration for this not doom and gloom based on vague speculation, with all due respect. I know you want to see this all change, too, but as a psychiatric survivor who healed brain damage after 19 years of these brain toxins, the actual truth of the matter is way more encouraging than what you say here, and I felt strongly compelled to offer this rebuttal.

    The malpractice and betrayal are, indeed, more far reaching. These are the issues which have yet to find resolution. And they are crimes, damaging to society on the whole, and they’re still at it. THAT’S the problem to solve.

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  • I think we can help each other as we all self-heal together. We are all healing from generations of social inequities, elitism, and abuse and betrayal of at least one kind or another, and we are all healers by nature. Problem is we’ve been separated from our nature by fear propaganda, exactly what Someone Else says below.

    When we are truly in compassion, our hearts are open and we can feel the energy of LOVE (as opposed to fear and judgment) because the heart knows we are all connected. I honestly believe that we are designed by nature to give and receive without even thinking about it, it’s intuitive, but when we are not aligned with our true nature (which is LOVE), then those giving and receiving channels get blocked energetically, causing fear and negative thought patterns, usually negative self-talk. In that moment, love is not being felt, only resistance to it, which is actually a lot of effort to resist love, because love is natural and powerful. Takes work to dam that up and keep it from flowing, and that is what ultimately drains us of energy and doesn’t allow well-being, our own resistance to love. It’s really much easier to allow love, since it is our nature, and then healing can occur with relative ease, step by step and layer by layer. The difference between feeling love and not feeling it is the same difference as the light being on and the light being off.

    Healing would be for the sake of unblocking those channels so the energy of giving/receiving flows naturally, allowing us to feel light in our bodies. When that happens, it is an incredible feeling of flow, like a robust river of uplifting emotion, what to me feels like LOVE, and it affects everything. That is the healing energy, no blocks, pure flow, like nature.

    In the spiritual community, this is what is referred to as “aligned with one’s nature,” and is considered a healthy state of being because it feels good, supports our goals and desires, and we can shine our light for others as well, expanding the light. It’s also a state of empowerment. It is in our nature to be aligned with ourselves in a way that we are giving and receiving love without effort, simply from the reflex of gratitude. Then the world will be filled with more light for everyone to benefit.

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  • Yes, I agree, this is a crossing point in human evolution, where light meets resistance to light, is how I’d put it. And it can be a rough battle to get to the other side of that, the resistance can, indeed, be relentless and boundariless. And yes, it can be draining and dangerous and certainly it is not healthful for anyone concerned. We all have our paths and free will and evolve however we’re intended to, of course. Still, obviously collective consciousness needs to keep raising, which I believe is happening. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem fast enough, but I think we’re on track one way or another, keeping the faith.

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  • To this, I’d just say that indeed I believe it starts with family and eariliest environments. As the article says, love goes missing. That is a HUGE problem and oh how it bleeds into society, creating social systems which fail, and which fail everyone on Earth, other than those prospering from the suffering of others. Outside of our own healing, which we do individually, where to begin?

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  • I also completely agree with you, l_e_cox, word for word, especially this, so on point and exactly where a struggle seems to come in when striving for systemic change or even toward a new way of life based on integrity, self-sovereignty, and true compassion–

    “If we can understand that societal systems are composed of individuals, and that through the action of individuals systems can be changed (such as the outlawing of slavery), this gives us a path to change that starts with individuals and goes towards new agreements about what is acceptable and valuable in a society.”

    Yes, this would reverse the “scapegoat” identity to one of community leader, by example. The change would have to be internal, first, to release the impact from having carried that identity from the experience of one’s life, starting with family dysfunction leading to creating this situation for purposes of control, that story with which we’ve become all-too-familiar.

    “Scapegoats” are somehow cleverly and systematically robbed of their credibillity (stigma rears it’s ugly head yet again). Why? Because they know and are willing to speak a very challenging truth which threatens the very core of an abusive and corrupt system, “the truth that dares not be spoken” in such a system. And I’d say it’s of great value, if we are seeking radical change, to suddenly hear this voice ring true, to get past the false illusions created by the system in order to keep the truth at bay because it would kill the system. Well, that’s the goal!

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  • I do understand that and it’s a critical issue. Cannot one individual begin a trend of abandoning the system successfully and finding freedom, and others take the example? It would be different considerations of course based on who we are as individuals but the collective message and intention would be the same, that’s the connector–to say an adamant and firm “no thanks” to the system once and for all, whether social, professional, or political, and break free of it to live with one’s individual set of values and desires in life, to really trust that path and letting it be one’s true guidance through life and personal evolution while respecting others doing the same, rather than to live always by trying to conform to what others want and expect, and also not putting that expectation on others. These are hard internalized habits to break, we learn them from the time we are born practically, but we certainly have the capacity to break habits when we want to and put our minds to it.

    More often than not, life moves us around without our trying, so when we work on ourselves, we affect the collective one way or another, always. We may not see how in the moment, but how could we not? The connection is there whether we’re conscious of it or not.

    Most often we conform and expect others to conform on an unconscious level in order to avoid the pain, thanks to stigma and the multiple road blocks this creates for people, of going against the grain and being different. Takes courage, trust, AND self-love, because others will try to shame or guilt you, or cause you fear, for “abandonding” their corrupt bullying marginalizing dysfuncational system (and there are ways to not take this on, with consciousness), but it’s a start, and change has to start somewhere, based on one individual’s vision, positive self-beliefs, and follow through.

    Accomodating a toxic system in any way may bring the illusion of momentary safety but it will never bring change, only more of the same. Not accomodating it will piss off a lot of people in that system, perhaps all of them. If that’s the case, then the system is rattled and there is great potential for positive systemic change, if people can muster up the courage to buck the system, one by one, and trust that they will be ok. It HAS to be individual choice, this cannot be coerced. That’s the hard part, for many reasons, but that’s why they call it “courage,” trusting the unknown, outside of one’s familiar (“the system”).

    Lots of great personal growth potential here, outside the oppressive and double-binding system to which we’re unfortunately accustomed. Pretty much unlimited, I’d say. But we have to get there. I do believe the energy of LOVE has everything to do with this, but even that word has become corrupt to some degree. It’s a puzzle. To me, the energy of love offers unlimited potential because it is not based on fear, which is what limits us. Toxic systems will inflict fear in order to control people.

    Overall, though, I’d say that we simply cannot make people be who we want them to be, that’s expecting conformity from others and if it goes against their nature, this will be problematic in all kinds of ways. But we can become the people whom we most desire to become (which is usually who we want others to be for us), if we believe in ourselves and trust the process of our own individual evolution. Then we have a free system or we are systems free, or however you want to put it. Change IS breaking up the old system, inherently, because our beliefs are being challenged daily now. New beliefs brings new perspectives which inspire different choices and actions, all of which foster a new society, aka “reality.”

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  • “We shouldn’t be so surprised at the enormous levels of “mental illness” at large in society; we need only consider how bad we collectively are at love, how poor we are lending sympathy, at listening, at offering reassurance, at feeling compassion, and at forgiving—and, conversely, how good we are at hating, shaming, and neglecting. We consider ourselves civilised but display levels of love that would shock a den of thieves.”

    Sad, frightening, and true. We do it to ourselves, too, which is especially effective because it is our internalized-from-childhood voice of self-hatred and self-shaming. We could all make a bit of a conscious effort to love ourselves more and simply not be so hard on ourselves and others for whatever reason, and then I think it would be a more natural reflex to have compassion for, patience with, and understanding of others. IF we can be that way with ourselves, first.

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  • l_e_cox, your comments regarding Spirit are always inspiring and truthful to me, I like how you present your perspective on this and so much of it speaks to me.

    For me, here in this realm of music and healing, on the most basic simiplified level it amounts to this for me–music moves Spirit through our bodies without disruption, it is a seamless flow of what many of us would call “divine energy,” from the spirit of that word. It is indescribable, as Amy says, but a lot of people do know this feeling, it’s why people do whatever they do, to catch that buzz, to enjoy profoundly what they are doing, whatever it is. Some things lend themselves better to this, I think, but for everyone it will be different. Musicians will all tell you how performing makes them high, how could it not? I was indimidated doing this, but at the same time, I called performing “an addiction,” in a good way of course, it’s a natural high. There is no thought, judgment or analysis, that would disrupt the flow of divine spirit energy (music) running through the body. Sounds so cold and technical to describe, but the feeling is the most powerful feeling. You’ll lose the audience if you start thinking about what you’re doing instead of just doing it, trusting that level of vulnerability to Spirit.

    I could be wracked with life issues which left me sleepless at night and walking around with chronic anxiety and all this negative thinking and self-talk, but when it came to allowing Spirit to move through me in order to perform because I had made a commitment or, at one time, it was a job that paid me, I could, somehow, pull it off, trusting Spirit. I was over 40, never had done anything like this, had been incredibly ill from the psych drugs and withdrawal, plus negative voices galore, and an option presented itself out of the blue thanks to some volunteering I was doing, and the universe took it from there, I just showed up, trusting Spirit.

    Afterwards, I’d feel better than I’d ever felt, the buzz of it all, but I’d also collapse because it took all the faith, trust and focus I had to overpower all the crap which was going on with me and even just in my own energy from it all. It really is “letting go and letting God.” That kind of trust is what allowed me to overcome whatever life issues came my way, and it was only healing for me in every way, including changing my life when I thought at one point I was kinda doomed, that’s what I felt and the messages from which I had to run and then heal from the experinece of all that stigma and negative projection via label, etc. I was just done with it.

    That is way far behind me now, don’t even recognize that person. When Spirit and body intersect with no disruption, it’s a space of transformation. After that, it’s good human maintenance, that’s how I’d put it. Like bathing, eating, etc.

    The point of my personal story is clear and direct, and aligned with the entire purpose of my being here–psych drugs separated me from my spirit (they were de-spiriting), as do many things in life, like being personally analyzed to death for years and years. I could work at a supermarket and even be a manager while on these things, I did that for 17 years, but I’d never have even thought of singing, dancing, and acting on stage, and definitely not for pay! That was post psych drugs, an entirely covered up me, had no clue of this, although I always enjoyed theater and music a great deal. But I never dreamed of being on the stage. I had other dreams.

    When I stopped the drugs, even though I was sick with anxiety and from a bit of brain damage as I sought my healing from it all, moving music through me made all the difference, and I could do it in any state of being, which during one show I was in deep crisis, determined not to go back on the drugs, and I did not, I stayed in the show even though at one point I thought I was going to quit, which did not sit well with the director and she talked me into staying, did well in it, my entire run was flawless (total friggin miracle) and eventually recovered my nerves, feeling really accomplished but exhausted, from which I recovered with rest, assimilated the experience, and moved on.

    This was more important than anything to me because I was healing from so much, including financial devastation. I said yes to the first part offered to me by a director with whom I was taking a class, because it paid. I was not seeking this so had there not been a paycheck involved when I really needed it, I would not have done it at all, I’d have let the fear and doubt of actually memorizing a script (would my brain co-operate? was a huge question for me) and then facing utter stage fright on top of that, was not appealing to me. Plus I did not want to drag down the cast, I was afraid of this. Instead, they uplifted me and supported me, knew I was scared to death and why I was doing this, they respected me for it. It was just 4 of us, and a kids show, it was light and playful, there was no competition, plus they were awesome actors and I respected them to learn from them, I could not have been more humble and grateful to them.

    They supported me more than I can say, and it worked on all fronts personal and professional. We did a revival the following year, came full circle, and that was such a blast because it was the familiar and by then I’d done 2 huge shows and was kind of becoming established a bit, so much to my surprise and shock. Spirit can take us beyond what we can imagine, if we can trust it. New creation from this, my life is an example. Music is the hugest part of my life now, currently writing a musical with a couple of friends.

    It is amazing what we can accomplish when we allow Spirit to move through us. It is why I made it a point to give this series a huge thumbs up. I do this kind of work, creating through healing, transformation of energy, spirit to body truth, etc., that’s my schtick, not thought about highly around here, I know. But it’s what I do and where my life path has led me during these unprecedented times.

    I don’t comment much any longer on here and most of what I read is too familiar by now, but this very beautiful series got my attention enough to want to bring my voice to it. I obviously have a lot to say about music and healing and overall well-being from my experience going from psych patient to psych survivor, and then some, as personal evolution sprung directly from this. Amy, I hope you are ok with my having taken this opportunity, I was really inspired and felt validated, myself. I want to keep it relevant to your very meaningful work, and also to the bigger picture of healing from the psychiatric world in the most powerful way. Music was precisely the bridge to my new self.

    l_e_cox, thank you for what you expressed because it is exactly my point and I think it’s relevant to the day and completely on point.

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  • Oh yes, I totally resonate with this, which is how I associate it with healing, because it does foster that deep connection, it’s a greater reality which is beyond thought, has to be felt, an energy passing through the body immediately before it manifests into music, nothing in between. It’s mystical, I think, in that realm.

    It can be witnessed, too, and experienced from that perspective. I get hooked watching performers who are in it. Mahalia Jackson is a perfect example. She WAS the music when she performed, seamlessly. Beyond joy or sorrow, even, it’s grace to my mind, from the soul, and it opens the heart with that feeling.

    I’m no biologist but I would imagine that when we are channeling music through our bodies by playing an instrument or singing and, as you say, there is no thought at all, just purely focused spirit to body connection without thought disruption, our cells are harmonizing as we feel the music passing through us to the instrument. Who needs thinking when we are in perfect harmony with ourselves? That is an awesome state of being, and it can be practiced, as we do. At that point, we’re simply creative beings. I feel as you do, that without this, life feels incomplete. Personally, I cannot feel whole without knowing this feeling. I discovered this in the second half of my life and it has driven it since.

    Light is vital in our lives, and I’d call music a language of light, soul nourishment. God, do we need this now more than ever! All extremely inspiring and totally relevant, I believe, thank you again Amy! Blessings to you.

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  • I’ve enjoyed this series very much, thank you Amy. This piece is particularly epic, delightful and rich.

    Music had everything to do with my healing. As I recovered from withdrawal from polypharm and also fighting a legal battle in the system, I started a singing/performance class in which I began to face all my anxieties on a body level, learned so much about myself and grew spiritually more than I ever knew possible. This eventually led me into musical theater which I did for years as I healed. I didn’t know I had it in me, and only when I ditched psych drugs and walked away completely from all that (mh system) was I able to fluorish this way and channel such creativity. I finally felt free in all ways.

    That was a while ago and now I play the piano just about every day. Nothing puts me in my light more directly, into “the zone,” and I can play for hours, channeling one song after another. Music is profoundly healing, uplifting, and reaches out in all directions into humanity. It’s really wonderful to see this inpsiring work in the world at this time! We do need it.

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  • Getting out of abusive situations is incredibly complex and takes a great deal of fortitude, trust, tenacity, a bit of cleverness, and very hopefully, empathic support to help in the transition. We don’t want to repeat it, so there is healing to do. That’s a process subject to a person’s individual nature, to be discovered along the healing.

    Abuse has been generational and social, and the entire world is reeling at this time. We’re all affected by it and I believe each of us has some kind of responsibility in it, however we choose to take that on. I wouldn’t judge any of it. I’m just hoping that sooner than later we can start do better than what is currently failing from profound divisiveness, which is society on the whole, unfortunately.

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  • To me, this is at the heart of things right now. I thought that paragraph said it perfectly and simply, to the point, and yet, in reality, it can be murky and seriously rugged and even potentially dangerous, because of what you say. It becomes an abuser-turned-victim situation, victim becomes abuser, sides are taken, lies are perpetuated, heart and truth are lost in the shuffle, chaos ensues, and on and on, back and forth. Nothing to gain from this and that “system” will utlimately destroy itself, so I totally agree, divorce is a wise option, to heal and create positive life changes.

    Yet, I think it’s the norm right now, and it’s playing out in the world visibly. I think that, as a society, it is what we need to evolve out of, to a new normal, NOT based on all this. What would that look like, a fair and just well-balanced system/community/world filled with people who know how to respectfully support one another, despite personal beliefs, so that we don’t have to rely on corrupt systems of mind control?

    I think it’s best to know our own truth and live by it, and these are changing times, so I’d say that living our truth from moment to moment is a practice which requires flexibility at this point. There are many competing realities at play right now. Who knows what truth is for someone else? We can only know this for ourselves.

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  • Making it a point to “figure out other people” is most often at the expense of one’s own self-awareness.

    At the time of my training, which was over 20 years ago, I was buying into this stuff hook, line, and sinker before going through my own experience and discovering it as a huge fail to humanity. It was a rough awakening because of the dual role I was playing. I was suddenly questioning everything I thought I knew and finding my way through these paradoxes to clarity took many years of learning a variety of different perspectives of healing and personal growth, spiritual issues and evolving consciousness, how energy works, etc., and applying these to my own life situation and experience to make shifts in consciousness I needed to make in order to once and for all heal and get back to creating my life with a sense of ownership and self-agency, and being in the flow of it freely, as I desire to be.

    But looking back, my graduate psych program may as well have been “Stigma 101, Advanced Stigmatizing, How to Scapegoat Others” (as in, “othering”), etc. That was about the extent of it, to what it always boils down. I discovered first from the education, and then from my personal experience on the receiving end, that this is exactly what this entire field is based on, inherently creating this social division more and more by “assigning” (projecting) labels, false traits, powerlessness, whatever, onto clients. Lots of ways to create a scapegoating dynamic, and this is a perfect set up for it. It is the nature of the beast, it cannot be helped. The self-protecting denial factor is over the top, as this article perfectly illustrates.

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  • Thanks for the amendment, Diana, and yes, I agree that embodying the soul would be to live our spirit truth. These are feelings that drive us as guidance along our own path of evolution, rather than as emotional reaction to others filtered through our ego. I think it’s how we interpret our emotional responses that distinguishes between ego-driven vs. soul-inspired. This is how I’ve worked with it, in any event.

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  • Feeling in despair from powerlessness, family scapegoating, relenteless systemic bullying, all kinds of reasons people would want to give up on life. These things do mess with the mind and it is heartbreaking. Perhaps a bit more kindness, along with the ability to hear and listen with compassion when someone is suffering, would go a long way in helping people to not feel so hopeless and alone during hard times. Common sense if one is attuned to human nature, no research needed.

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  • I support your perspective wholeheartedly, exactly my experience, word for word. I spent 19 years living with diagnoses and psych drugs, and it’s been that same amount of time now, 19 years, with no drugs, away from diagnoses or anything of the kind, that is totally irrelevant at this point, and having nothing to do with “mental health” anything, other than to support radical change. I had a string of teachers for a while to help me heal from all that on a mind/body/spirit level while learning self-healing and all kinds of new perspectives, but I’m on my own now, having integrated and applied what I’ve been learning, with wonderful (indeed, miraculous) results, living by my own truth exclusively, my life, my space, my rules, my intuition, and creative freedom which I can own despite anything.

    For me it’s a totally new paradigm of living from 19 years of systematic healing and personal growth work, a new lifestyle now. Doing exactly what you say, practicing soul awareness and feeilng my own inner radiance, which I call, collectively, our light, spiritual voice, inner guidance, etc. Our soul is our guide, healer, teacher, and best friend. When we know our soul, there is no need to depend on others, that would be only by choice, not need. It’s how I took my power back.

    Your work is so authentic, and when I read your blogs I see you as creating your healing. I think that’s what we do, in the end, we create our own healing path, and that is based on who we are. It’s so personal and we’re all so unique, I see it as our signature in life, how we choose to create our paths forward.

    Mainly, I just wanted to echo what you say as reality. At least, it has been mine! We’re all just coming to understand what these things mean in the most practical way (soul growth, inner light, consciously creating) but I see it coming more and more into collective awareness, because we need this information now.

    I very much appreciate what you share, it is fresh and creative and filled with potential for new things, it is fertile new ground. I think we need more and more of this perspective, fully in the light. Finally, new avenues to explore, which means new thoughts, new visions, and new manifestations. We’ve only just begun, but it is the change I’ve envisioned for a while now, and which I practice in my own life. Thank you.

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  • I disagree, I believe that, once awakened to the fact that this is all bullshit, there is something from which to recover (some pretty serious betrayal, for starters) and I also believe one can recover from it, it is entirely possible. This is a trauma, and it can heal. This kind of healing is transformational, creates change from within.

    Identifying with a BS illness for too long creates something to the effect of it, simply from how we’re moving around in our skin with that belief, it drives us. And it creates relationships with others and our entire world based on this, so it accomodates this false reality. Undoing this challenges those around us, inevitably. Everyone’s world is rocked as we go through shifts in consciousness to change our reality and relationship to ourselves, for the better, based on a new self-validating truth, clearer boundaries, etc. I don’t think there’s any way around that, great personal growth here.

    Disidentifying is a start, but there is a lot of work to do, especially if we lived with this for too long, it internalizes. This is not an easy healing, challenges our beliefs. But I do believe it’s the path to well-being and feeling good about ourselves, taking back our power and allowing our true selves to shine through, after going through all of this totally marginalizing and dehumanizing stay-in-the-box bullshit, just like healing from any trauma is possible with focused intention. It’s how we free ourselves.

    I’m reiterating what I feel is the most powerful message here, to drive change from within, because I agree with Ekaterina, it comes down to what we believe about ourselves, this is what creates our life experience more than anything–

    “The main thing is to believe, to believe that you do deserve a good life, and that you can be happy.”

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  • “But there is no illness, and there is no chronic illness as proposed by psychiatry. It is bullshit.
    One can recover from THEIR illness, and one can lead a happy and meaningful life. The main thing is to believe, to believe that you do deserve a good life, and that you can be happy.
    Step out of the system, take control of your own life and your beautiful soul, and step instead into your own radiant space.”

    Well said, absolute truth.

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  • Very well said and clear truth. I’ve worked with two peer agencies and this is exactly what happens. Double standards, blatant discrimination, and the usual fare of gaslighting and double-speak to avoid any challenges to their hierarchical corporate system. Because they can get away with it, because it is the norm.

    Addressing this effectively requires breaking a deeply stubborn and self-protecting toxic system where truth-speaking against the grain is seriously frowned upon and gets one ostracized, regardless of one’s role and position. But it does bring brave hard truth one way or another, and that’s always a good thing, once the dust clears. I’ve been there, and it’s always a blessing in disguise, and I know some kind of change has occured as a result of taking that necessary leap of faith.

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  • Yes, it’s one of the social abuses to which I refer which is prevalent in the mainstream, financial bullying, which is not a nice energy, lacks consciousness. If I pray for anything these days, it is for kindness to find its way back into our collective humanity as a dominant force. Seems to be largely in remission at present.

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  • Thank you for this very beautiful and heartelft offering, Caroline. I feel the grace of your heart from your writing. It is truly inspirational and very moving.

    I’m with you 100%. Being in service is fulfilling in and of itself. To feel spiritual abundance in our hearts, grounded to the Earth, and supporting the uplifting of humanity–especially in these uniquely trying times which affect us all–brings us all we need and want, if we trust the flow of the universe to support us as we go. That is a powerful shift in focus, and in our self-identity, based on our own personal experiences of moving through suffering and toward our true spirit nature, for relief and more toward discovering our wholeness as divine beings having a human experience.

    That was my experience with healing, in any event, the perspective which saved me by putting me in control of my own life journey, taking my power back from where I had given it unwittingly, putting it trustingly into the hands of oppressors and the corruption they practiced and supported, whether they were conscious of it or not. That was the program, what we were raised to believe. Live and learn, eh? Often the hard way, but at least there is a path beyond all of that, thank God! We still deal with all kinds of challenges in life, of course, but when we are in our light, this is our guidance forward, toward our true power of personal life creation.

    For this reason, I appreciate getting on in years and leaving behind my ignorance about the world, which looking back, I can feel the vulnerablity of this, to underestimate the destructive nature and power of social bullying and abuse, and how it wreaks havoc on people in so many ways, not to mention society on the whole.

    If we learn as we go and keep waking up to our spiritual truth, I find that life actually gets easier and invigorating rather than more and more burdensome and exhausting, because we can better maintain our well-being as we go if we know our spirit and clear hearts, moving away from fear and abuse and more toward compassion and faith, which I believe are matters of living with positive self-regard and having clear and self-loving boundaries–despite protests from the outside, which is oppressive.

    Expanding our consciousness beyond the physical world to know our spirit truth in conjuction to our human desires is, to me, THE healing because that is how we align with our truth, walk our talk, and create a positive momentum in our lives, from a completely different perspective than that to which we’re accustomed–as you say, all about money, conforming, “winning,” etc. That has been our downfall, I believe, by creating a cut-throat competetive and conflit-oriented society, which drains us all eventually and bears no fruit whatsoever. We fear not having money (not just because of surival issues but also due to stigma and marginalization), and so we can easily sacrifice our highest values in order to acquire it, coming from that level of fear/terror.

    Having the integrity to live in our spiritual truth will go against the grain in a corrupt society, so indeed our power and strength is to go by our own very personal inner guidance by honoring our emotions, how we feel from moment to moment, rather by the judgments outside of us for not honoring social norms, or whatever others go by. We are unique in how we live our lives, and so when we dare to be different, we embody the change and actually become it. I have found this path to be heart expansive, which has made all the difference in what I’ve created around me. The conneciton is mystical and profound, and very evident to me now. I think it’s pretty awesome, kind of magical. Life is more intertesting and creative for me now that I have found my spiritual voice in addition to my heart’s truth, and how they intersect.

    It takes a lot of courage and faith to evolve and grow past social conventions in order to live in our authentic truth from moment to moment, and to share your evolution along the way for greater understanding within the collective. Hats off to you, and big blessings along the way of your inspiring journey.

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  • “My instinctive answer is that the path follows me when I am in my heart driven self.”

    I love this response, Sinead, it’s right on I believe. When we are in our heart, we are in our true guidance. The heart is what heals.

    And indeed, forgiveness is a practice. We have to exercise that “muscle.” Forgiveness was the cornerstone of my healing. Dropping resentment freed up my energy so I could create forward without repeating the past.

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  • Your courage and transparency are very inspiring. You are helping so many people by sharing your truth with such clarity. I was especially struck by this passage–

    “At the first meeting with the psychiatrist, she reviewed the facts of my case—I was 65, lived alone, had lost a son, and my other son lived 900 miles away. Given these four simple facts, she decided that I was suffering from textbook geriatric depression. She never asked me any questions about my life that might have revealed alternatives. She never learned that I was not suffering from irritability, apathy, withdrawal, or changes in appetite, which are among the most common on the checklist of “geriatric depression” symptoms. Nor did she learn that I’d been working at a job I loved, was in a long-term romantic relationship, and was the organizer of a very active women’s group.”

    This is why I say psychiatry is devoid of humanity, exactly this, which renders it not only useless but also incredibly dangerous. These clinical, academic minds are trained to categorize, project, and “other”–that is, to dehumanize. That is the learned habit from the training and education, it is EXPECTED. And, it is cold, like sub-zero. Heart and spirit and humility have nothing to do with this institution. That is a severe dissociation which is what leads to tragedy over and over again.

    Thank you for sharing the story of your heart and journey of your spirit with the world, where your light can shine, and your wisdom will lead others. That is healing for all concerned, the evolution of humanity through expanded consciousness–true change from the inside. Continued blessings and good healing to you.

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  • “Psychiatrists learn early on not to believe what a mental health patient would say”

    I wish I’d known this a long time ago, would have saved my breath and an awful lot of trouble. I think they call this “casting pearls before swine.”

    And how exactly is this helpful to a person who is suffering, to lose a battle before it even begins? And moreover, when it shouldn’t be a battle in the first place! Suffering upon suffering upon suffering. This rather contradicts the notion of healing altogether, doesn’t it? Talk about creating a neagtive false sense of self! That is off the charts, creates chronic suffering, and indeed, it is the legacy of psychiatry. What a big fat mess this creates for people, families, and for society on the whole.

    Thanks for speaking truth about this. A heads up for many, you’ve been warned. This translates purely as cynical and devoid of compassion and empathy, not to mention bigotry leading to blatant discrimination, loss of human rights and dignity, and all out social abuse, becomes the norm, as we have going on now. So dangerous!

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  • “How many more stories like this do we need to hear before a “professional” telling someone they have a “biochemical imbalance” as an argument for them to ingest neurotoxins is made a criminal offense?”

    Yes, that is my question right now, too. Or at least for the word to spread really fast by this point that this really is potentially murderous malpractice and it has got to stop. Why not voluntarily? Yeah yeah I know, money and power yadayada. As far as I’m concerned, that is played. This is some kind of divisive programming, the “othering” factor, mostly through education and training but also through blatant manipulation, that has run amuck.

    We’ve been telling these stories for years and years and years now, all over the internet and in all kinds of arenas, and they all have some glaring common denominators which lead easily to the conclusion that this is pure crap, and costly in all kinds of ways. Seems neither reason, logic, or example after example in huge numbers of fails leading to personal tragedies are taken at all into consideration, and instead are either dismissed, argued with, avoided, and/or truth twisted. Nothing is ever their fault, these are the biggest scapegoaters ever, and they lie, lie, lie. That’s unconscionable to me, and downright insane. What is the friggin’ deal with this industry?? For the love of God and your fellow human beings, WAKE (the f*ck) UP!!!

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  • I agree with everything you say here, oldhead, especially this–

    “But its important for victims of psychiatry to not be misled into believing that any of this bigotry/”stigma” has anything to do with them as individuals, or their “behavior.” They/we are being oppressed as a stereotype, a class, i.e. the class of people upon which psychiatric labels have been bestowed.”

    –that, indeed, the stigma/bigotry is based on stereotyping and classism, and not on reality, this is not deserved. I’d call it scapegoating, and there are many ways to speculate or call out the motive for this abuse against an individual or class of people which threatens the status quo, one way or another. Not following the herd, thinking independently and critically, is one way to get scapegoated, because that person will not feed the system. And so the gaslighting, stigma projections, and systemic bullying begins, standard procedure.

    I know that in the process, civil crimes are committed but that can be next to impossible to pinpoint and prove when this is the system itself at work. So with no practical legal recourse for being the victim of this particular brand of hate crime and discrimination, there is healing that can be done here, which is one way to exercise our power and create some kind of change, at least on the inside. That’s a start.

    I went through this, very specifically, and got a bit of legal justice initially, but this trend continued as I created my way forward, I could see this was “the norm” all along the system and its tangents.

    I called it out all I could and caused a bit of stir here and there, but the most important thing for me was to heal from having been deliberately lied to and about–repeatedly and relentelssly–in a way that specifically blocked my ability to make a living, all based on the negative stereotypes which drew a picture that was truly the opposite of who I was. With that mass delusion present in society already, it was maddening trying to get my truth out to save my own ass, it only caused more backlash. That’s how this works, and it is literally crazy-making.

    What I internalized from this was some serious doubt about myself and the world, and in order for me to move forward with my own goals, I had to clear my head of all this treachery and general negativity, and also had to shift how I took on these experiences, give it meaning to my life and personal growth and guidance. I was, after all, making choices that led me to and through all of this. That’s the inner work which I talk about, waking up to many things here in the process, about myself mostly and how to move forward in a more aware, and therefore self-empowered, way.

    I knew after a while it wasn’t me causing this, but still, I had to figure out how to best deal with this enormous obstacle (the injustice of stigma/bigotry, and the massive corruption which manifests from this, acting as saboteur to good works and quality of life) so as to meet my own needs and live my life the way I intend, freely.

    I had to figure this out internally, by first feeling a lot of hard emotions generated from being ambushed and betrayed by those I had trusted to do their jobs with integrity and comptenece. Alright, so I woke up and discovered I was naive because apparently this was way too much to expect. Led to a lot of changes for me, based on a new truth. Best I could do, that I could think of! In the end, new perspective led to new reality. Exactly how it worked for me.

    I’ve tried holding hope that others would change to suit me, but in the end, people change when they’re ready, not when I’m wanting them to–duh! I always have the power to work on myself, though. Not at all the same as self-blame, more like self-creating. This is why I focus inward on this issue, it’s an easier place of reference to create meaningful change.

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  • I know those images well, boans, and that’s exactly what I mean. The mirror in real life. It is, indeed, a choice whether to see and acknowledge one’s own misguided actions when it is purely evident, or to remain defensive, rigid, avoidant, and in cold denial. Two different choices, two different paths. One of them is humble, courageous, truthful, and healing, to own our part in anything that is so life betraying, when we allow ourselves to wake up. That, and only that, is really and truly liberating, on all fronts.

    “What gives me hope is that the corruption of our politicians where I live is so open these days that it means we are ready for change.”

    Me too! May the doors blow wide open and all be revealed sooner than later. I think at this point, however, the battle is between those of us who really and truly are ready for change and are doing what we can to create and allow it, and those who resist change because the system works for them corrupt, one way or another.

    We need a few honest to goodness “sinners-turned-repenters” on our side. They’d hold a lot of power in this because that would mean that they actually went through that transformation themselves, so they ARE the change we want to see in the world. When we stop fearing our shadows and face them with humility, along with any grave errors we may have commited along the way–and most of us have a few things we don’t like thinking about ourselves–we can practice radical self-compassion, and self-forgiveness, if it helps to release guilt. People can go through deep shifts in consciousness, but it does take work, along with the desire to make changes.

    Many ways to go once we own our shit, but it’s the only way healing and change can happen. And once people change, the world can’t help but to follow. Can’t be any other way!

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  • I think the issue of stigma is really about the negative psychological effects of being treated like an “other” (marginalized), which can become internalized and that will lead to all kinds of troubles for a person that can be very challenging to overcome. There is no peace of mind in this, just constant rumination and inner struggle, either in despair or fighting to keep it at bay. Very easy to slip into hopelessness when living with stigma, so it can become lethal.

    The act of stigmatizing a human being is a blatantly abusive act because it is detrimental to a person’s well-being, and it is based on the delusion of an entire society, a mass shadow projection. It’s just one big lie that everyone agrees to, and this becomes the social rule. That’s a society ripe for an awakening, and it won’t come easy because it means everyone will be forced to see their own shadow.

    I agree that the burden is on society to do better by its own members, but in addition, it is traumatic to live with stigma. Social stigma is a reflection of what society will not see about itself, and it also deeply harms the individual who is the target of the social abuse. This is not about “hurt feelings.” This is about denying people respectability, rights, and quality of life.

    Overcoming having been stigmatized involves specific healing. Otherwise, living with stigma is like having something draining you constantly, which becomes part of one’s own process. This is an issue of personal well-being and quality of life as well as human rights and social justice. These all go hand in hand and all of it must be addressed if we expect meaningful change to occur.

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  • Congratulations on the work you’ve done on yourself, sounds as though it’s been quite fruitful in your healing journey. Certainly living by our values is our integrity and protecting ourselves in a stigmatizing and discriminating industry and community is understandable. However, I can’t see how it speaks of social change–or “rethinking” anything–because there is no challenge to that prejudice, so it remains status quo.

    There is another perspective to consider when it comes to our relationships with ourselves and with society at large, and also pertaining to our roles in the world, which I think is well articulated in this quote by Marianne Williamson–

    “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

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  • “Toxic psychiatry” and “toxic patriarchy” would seem to be just about the same thing. Sound leadership would be nice, where the greater good is considered over greed, which I define as one person’s ego being satisfied at the sacrifice of others–the essence of injustice, a dysfunctional system, and it leads to oppression and needless suffering. Even with good intentions, it’s hard to strike a social balance–if it is at all possible–when we choose to put issues of money and vanity over and above the quality of human life for absolutely everyone in that community, no exclusion, no exceptions.

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  • Very powerful article and perspective. I struggle with definitions of what is ‘positive’ vs. what is ‘negative,’ and also what is ‘toxic’ vs. what is ‘nourishing.’ They can feel universal in one sense, but there is nuance and individuality here, too, that is, diversity and relativity.

    I use these words, but context and intention do matter and language has so much energy to it. We attach a lot to words, and also personalize them, I think that’s human nature. We also have the free will to choose how we face ourselves and how we relate to the world around us, through language, at any given moment. There’s a lot of creativity in how we express ourselves. I think it’s more of an art than a science, because we actually CREATE from language.

    I believe one thing that is clear is that allowing ALL our emotions is where freedom comes in. And yes, our society is highly restrictive here, no permission to be fully ourselves (or even hardly ourselves!), which not only cuts us off from our nature–which, in turn, is terribly harmful–but also, this is oppression.

    Psychiatry, in particular, slams and penalizes not just emotions, but passion, which is our spirit. Hard to put any kind of positive spin on that, it just sucks, and in the end, it is debilitating if one does not find a way back to oneself from being harmed this way. And yes, it is harmful and abusive to emotionally manipulate others by attaching shame to how someone feels about anything. That can ONLY be a projection because how can it be shameful to feel? That is dehumanizing, and defies all logic to me. As long as we’re ok with ourselves, I don’t think we need anyone else’s permission. The trick is allowing ourselves to be ourselves.

    These are challenging times. All kinds of things are coming forth from the shadows, and into the light, including some very strong emotions that come with awakening. Well, they need to if we are ever to know truth in this era of smoke & mirrors. Gaslighting has become our way of life. Hopefully, this time of “social reset” will bring clarity to all that, and we’ll see what is behind this haze passing over us. And indeed, there will be lots of long held back emotions being expressed in all kinds of ways, from all over the spectrum. To feel is the essence of human nature. No qualifiers on that!

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  • furies, I’ve never paid anything I just watched all the free videos and workshops that I could find and did the work on my own. Had I needed help with the work I’d have paid for one of the more in depth workshops but I know how to do neural shifting and all that, so the validation and info was enough to get me started, opened up a healing path for this.

    But I think many of these are legit, these folks really do want to help others, we know what a challenging issue this is. The comments on these videos really show what a hidden issue this has been, as well, now coming to light in a significant way. This helps the world, the greater good, because it’s a big problem, this is more common than not and causes undue suffering, absolutely no need for this, screws everyone up simply to satisfy ONE person’s ego.

    Trust instincts as always of course but I’m glad to hear this is an awakening for you. This topic took me far, really undid a lot of my confusion and FINALLY the pattern stopped! I can see clearly now, huge relief! Keep going, you’ll be so glad you did.

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  • Yes it’s all I’ve done for the past 10 years. My life is dedicated to helping people get on with their lives and also to circumvent the system if they want real and true healing. I operate in a new paradigm which I learned along the way and it was the game changer for me.

    After walking away from the system, I went back as a public speaker to expose the harms and made a film from within the system which was a platform for each of us to speak our truth about discrimination and harm done by these labels, for starters. We’ve all moved on to fulfill our goals and each one of us is doing things to help others, so it’s rippling which is enormously gratifying.

    I was making headway and doing day long workshops for system clients and staff (all in one room together, biggest group was 45 people) which were popular and controversial and got people to consider different perspectives and actually getting people to wake up, but I was eventually called out as a “radical who went against the system” and not allowed to do anymore, so I walked away and regrouped, started my own thing independently, still at it and growing.

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  • I did an online workshop with Melanie, she’s the one who introduced me to this topic. She is excellent!

    Teal Swan posted a video recently about this called “Gaslighting (What is Gaslighting and How To Heal From It)” which some might find helpful, she covers quite a bit in 23 minutes–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ka_g2tdosg

    Honestly, I think this is the best topic to explore when it comes to our well-being. It’s the hidden beast in our society, what I’d call “a silent killer.” This kind of crazy-making abuse leads to suicide, easily, if we don’t wake up to it and do the healing work to address this.

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  • “What I think we’re talking about here is people who are COMMITTED to negative and destructive behavior, people who genuinely believe that the best way to live is to be selfish and disingenuous and to mess with other people’s success and even their very sanity.”

    Yes, that is exactly what we’re talking about. Nightmare on Earth. How to stop this? would be my question. How do people get away with this, and keep going? How to fight against abuse is a problem in our society, given how we live in an abusive society. Sure is a head scratcher.

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  • I’m talking about a much more sinister behavior, which would be part of a person’s relationship dynamic which they carry forward with everyone. Some people are so conditioned to being around this that they don’t notice it unless they wake up to what has been draining them for so long.

    Anyone can be a jerk, we’ve all been that at times. Especially when fighting and standing up to abuse, it seems natural to try to fight fire with fire, but that is only a downward spiral and lose/lose.

    An energy vampire is relentless in their need for control and overpowering others, and will not leave the scene without making a huge mess for innocent people, first, because they THRIVE on the pain of others, and second it feels powerful to an otherwise relatively powerless-feeling person, despite what they might project outward, like a costume. I’d say this behavior shows a lack of moral compass.

    This can be really bad news if that kind of person is in a position of power and authority, and that seems to be the norm nowadays. Why do we put up with it, continuously? It’s all of society participating in this, one way or another, until we don’t any longer.

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  • Thank you for your transparency and very powerful truth-speaking, Robert. Tons of food for thought here, which I will sit with and process.

    I think the question of such paradigm shifts based on profound social and individual wounding will require what is more than likely beyond our thinking at this time, but it is not beyond our creative capacity. This is one time where the gut and heart will lead, has to be. Social transformation means changing how we experience reality, and that is not a bureaucratic or systemic issue. It is deeply personal and individual. Somehow, it has to work out in the whole, and that will be a matter of copacetic people coming together, first, how energy gathers in a harmonious way. Even 2 people who can work authentically, respectfully, and seamlessly together are more powerful than thousands of people in disarray. That would be a good start, to find that internalized harmony, first, then it can be created outside of ourselves to reflect the inner harmony.

    “Whatever happens, I’d like to avoid doing what people in our world have done for far too long and that is forming a circular firing squad.”

    Well put and great goal. I’ve been working in the capacity of activism and change for years, with regard to the “mental health” industry–which, admittedly, I have disdain for all of it, from my personal experience of it and then adding to that all that I’ve read and heard from others over the years. The big picture is very ugly. I’ve faced many a firing squad not only for my truth-speaking against the system, but even for how I talk about my healing! I’ve been offered alternative realities, people love to change my story to fit their need to stigmatize, judge, and project negatively. Gives you an idea JUST HOW BAD the problem is. Divide and conquer seems to have worked here.

    Fortunately, I got used to it and can now make a choice whether I want to face that or not. When I don’t, I enjoy the peace which my life has become after healing from this mess. That took decades and also, it took its toll, but it’s the contribution to change and transformation I feel best about (and I’ve produced a few other things, as well, over the years to challenge the system), because I rejected the entire field ultimately (I was a clincian as well as client, very dedicated to the field of “psychology”) and found my healing path far and away from that, which is not the same for everyone. Besides, when I have to say “I healed from pts from the mh field,” something is dreadfully wrong, at the very core of this, obviously!

    Our healing paths are unique, based on so many things about us, personally. For me, everything about the field of counseling psychology, including graduate school, was one big crazy abusive competetive mess, and terribly misinformed, at best. I found my path through other means more natural and energetic, healing spirit wounding, issues of betrayal and ambush, as well as physical damage. I did tons of neural shifting and strengthening my nervous system by thinking a bit better of myself than I had been. That was vital, and the opposite of what was happening in the therapist’s office. Somehow, powerlessness and dependence starts to creep into these relationships, especially if one has a label to begin with. It only goes down the rabbit hole from there.

    For me, my healing was deep work which was more an act of living and paying attention to myself, being open, flexible and humble to necessary changes within me, if I wanted to have a good quality of life and attract what I wanted from it.

    In addition, I am part of a group of practicing manifestors, whose intention it is to ground our light and build new things which will be sound, just, creative, and community well-being oriented, to expand light on this currently ailing and darkened planet of ours. That’s not easy because first we have to sort through our own shit in order to not make the same mistakes which were inflicted upon us, including “group think,” which is non-inclusive and non-expansive, poised to become dysfunctional, bullying, and marginalizing one way or another.

    This is not an easy task, but it is a highly creative endeavor to help bring in a new paradigm. So much unknown, so much uncertainty, kinda scary and very exciting. What choice do we have? We know what we don’t want, so we know what we do want. And we’re going for it.

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  • “You now can’t call out narcissism as a moral ethical problem, because it’s been made into a medical personality disorder diagnosis that psychiatrists-psychologists claim only ‘they’ can ‘diagnose’.”

    Indeed, as I was writing my comment, I was aware of this irony but I didn’t bother to caveat. Using such common vernacular that people understand on a gut level can easily get confused with “non-medical medicalizing.” I also use the terms vampire or energy sucker or double binder. I’m sure in time we’ll have other terms before they become overused and co-opted, as the above have already, no doubt. This can certainly become a game of name calling, which makes me shudder. Kind of immature in and of itself, I’d say. I’ve certainly been guilty of this. It’s tough to articulate, but the feeling is powerful.

    None of these terms are very nice, but then again, we’re talking about people who can have a favorable public/social image, but in reality, whose insidious actions are seriously harmful to others. It can be covert and sinister. And even when this gets expressed and called out, it is not only vehemently denied, it is projected onto another and things only get worse from there. Tons of marginalizing happens this way, true injustice leading to chronic suffering.

    I could also say “deeply wounded people,” but that’s a lot of us, until we heal those wounds. And not everyone with deep wounds takes it out on others, but more so, they take it out on themselves while trying to be as nice to others as possible to specifically avoid the repetition, but that tends to backfire because it is not authentic and comes off as people pleasing. The change has to be internal before outer changes occur.

    When we do heal from having endured such a dynamic, which can only be transformative from what I can see, then we have no reason or desire to act that way any longer or to treat anyone at all with such dehumanizing disregard, which would be a HUGE relief to all of humanity! That would be the most crucial point for me.

    Thank you again for all of this, Magdalene, and for bringing this book and other works along this line, to the forefront. To me this is vital and more widespread that people realize (although I think people are starting to get this and wake up to it more and more), so it’s brilliant information right now, we need this awareness. This is my personal offering on the subject–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

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  • If you put “healing from narcissistic abuse” or “healing from narcissistic parents” in the YouTube search engine, pages and pages of videos will pop up with all kinds of different people talking about how they addressed and healed this, from their own experience. It’s not one size fits all, and this presents a variety of perspectives and options, based on how it resonates with different people.

    It can make all the difference to address this in ourselves and change these patterns of thinking based on shadow projection abuse. Our neurons are quite flexible and with focused practice, we can transform our thinking. That’s what changes reality because when we think differently, we notice different things and we also act differently, so as a result, we attract different things into our lives and experience, not repeating the past but instead, creating a new future. That’s how I’ve experienced it working and I’ve heard similar testimonials as the result of healing from this particular brand of abuse. It is literally life-changing, at the core.

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  • Narcissistic abuse is so insidious and can be really hard to pinpoint as such in a society where it is the norm. This was the final stage of my healing, learning about this, and how to undo it. I learned from one source that we end up gaslighting ourselves as a result of being chronically misled, lied to, and reflected back negatively for the purpose of power and control (especially when it is from people who are supposed to be helping and supporting us), which I could relate to when I heard this, causing doubt and fear of consequences to lace just about every action and interaction. It’s really so very horrible! Causes such internal suffering.

    And yes, this is chronic within the “mental health” industry, in fact it is the foundation of it. The DSM is a book of gaslighting. Being labeled IS narcissistic abuse!

    THANK YOU SO MUCH for writing about this! I think it’s extermely relevant now given what is going on in the world. We’re all being gaslighted now, so this healing has tremendous value in present time if we cherish and are to preserve our freedom.

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  • “Many of the you tubers I listen to are optimistic that the truth will prevail, and that this lockdown will aid in that necessary awakening. But I do know the systemic evil of the globalists is staggering and mind blowing. And awakening to the magnitude of their systemic crimes, is not easy. I’ve been researching into, and painting their systemic crimes for decades now, and I’m still appalled. Perhaps due to their lack of repentance.”

    Yep, you said it right, SE, exactly where I am. It’s like an ever-binding loop that needs to be broken. I’m sure it’s a work in progress, it’s being chipped away at by all of us one way or another, that’s what I believe in any event. Too many are awake to this shit now in all corners of life, but it’s a hard one because it can be a dangerous game to bust up abusive systems, it is not a game of surrender.

    I think one reason for the optimism is that issues are in our faces and up front in the light now, more and more coming, so we’re all kind of looking in the mirror at this point. With the systems falling apart, I wonder what can we do to consciously create forward away from what is proving failed, toward something much, much BETTER! A world in which anyone who chooses to can thrive without sabotage based on hate and fear. I believe now would be a good time to assess this, given what we’re learning as we go here. Everyday something new in this unfolding.

    That’s what I mean by this being a highly creative time, what we need most for transforming society into something sound, humane, and functional. It’s becoming more and more obvious that this is exactly what we don’t have (we knew, others are starting to get it), and I believe it’s what we’re craving as a collective (aside from the power-mongers). Keeping the faith, indeed, that we can focus this into being. I appreciate your truth and light energy around this, SE, thank you!

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  • Someone Else, I believe this is the beginning of big changes, from that bigger picture perspective that I know we’ve talked about. There is tons of awakening to happen here. This global event is shaking it all up and it will affect everyone differently. Old systems and beliefs are being seriously challenged. That’s enough to change the world, one step at a time. As creative beings, we can do our part to make it a positive change. This is going to take stretching in thinking, taking us to new creative levels. This is my vision for the new paradigm. I think it’s time for artists to step forward in a big way.

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  • This certainly could be the start of the most creative time for the world, and also supremely healing. Embracing uncertainty, finding calm in the storm (or better yet, BEING the calm in the storm), tuning in to one’s inner voice above and beyond outside chaos, practicing self-resourcefulness, trusting the process of change, etc. All kinds of energy swirling around now, with no clear focus or vision or expected outcome, it remains to be seen. This is transformation time!

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  • All true and I agree, Steve, although I have a few specific people in mind–especially one psychiatrist– who totally took advantage of my vulnerability and trust at the time which led to consequences which I, in turn, had to heal and repair on my own, and which was still costly in many ways. This guy was brutal and looking back from a space of more clarity and without the dependence I’d been feeling at the time, to me it seems he was kinda crazy in a sinisterly narcissistic way. But if I wanted to work–and that was my only goal back then, to get back to work–I had no choice at that time but to see him because I was going through voc rehab.

    And while it’s not my style to wish ill on anyone, I can’t help but to take comfort in the phrase, “Karma’s a bitch.” That’s part of the drain with all this, creates all of this inner conflict. We try to be nice, but some people make that impossible, if we are to not be doormats (or vampire food!). I spoke my truth before ditching him but the consequences of his irresponsible words and insidious actions were far-reaching. I’m not sure they realize the harm they do with these projections. They sabotage quality of life, and in some cases, life itself. And yes, high earners for all this, to boot. It’s why we’ve been calling in change, this is a perfect example of “what is wrong with this picture?”

    “The “mental health” professions, at least at this time in our history, are seeming to be pretty much the opposite of enlightened.”

    I think that’s because there is no education for understanding our humanity other than life and no training for how to relate to others outside of experience. It is the *opposite* of academic and speculative. Life is what we experience as “real.”

    YES on abolition of course. I used to lean more toward reforming and improving things, but after all these years of processing this and learning of others’ experiences on here, and also from these dialogues and how I’ve experienced them, I simply cannot see reform as realistic or feasable at this point, from where I sit. Although how it will all end/transform is anyone’s guess and remains to be seen. Every system is being tested to the limit at this point, they are bursting at the seams.

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  • Yes, the dynamic does repeat and it adds insult to injury, and that all has to be worked out somehow if one expects healing on this level. That’s hard inner work, doable but quite challenging. Shouldn’t have to be this way but right now the harm they do runs deep and until this stops, people can get stuck in the abyss created by this hellish system.

    However, for me there actually was one big difference: my family didn’t rob me blind like these vampires did, taking my money while disabling me with poison and then all out abuse and discrimination as I was trying to heal from the drugs toxicity. Fortunately I found what I needed to heal and get on with things, and I am generally a very forgiving person and I’ve got a pretty big heart, but it turns stone cold when I think about this horrific institution. Call me extreme, but I wholeheartedly believe it’s completely justified in this case, and totally reasonable. My experience with psychiatry–and, in fact, any tangent of the “mental health” inudstry–can be spelled out in one word: sabotage.

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  • “I do hope that outlining my difference in approach will be of some use to those who want to see concrete improvements in culture and practice take place and lead to meaningful and substantial directions to reduce abuse, discrimination, and malpractice in a psychiatric world that is extremely dysfunctional.”

    How about ELIMINATING abuse, discrimination, and malpractice? Technically, it’s illegal but somehow, this industry gets away with it–which makes it systemic–and in fact most of us realize to what extent these provide the cornerstone of psychiatry, in practice. And when an industry is based on abuse and discrimination and dangerous misinformation, then how on Earth would it reform itself? How could it possibly learn to operate from and with integrity? That would take an entirely new paradigm of thinking, starting with extreme humility and self-responsibility.

    Is psychiatry capable of this? I’d venture to guess that it is not, that it is rather severely stuck in one extremely narrow way of thinking which is the core of “dysfunction.”

    So if they practice dysfunction, then this is what is being passed along to clients, how could it not be? Clients are expected to accomodate dysfunction, which only perpetuates not only anxiety and distress in individuals, but also social dysfunction at large. All this complicated and complex bureacracy to help humanity heal from trauma and abuse we’ve all been putting up with for way too long? I think not, that is beyond absurd and only adds to the confusion, overwhelm, and feelings of powerlessness, nothing else.

    Of course, they’d never admit to doing all of this extreme harm despite all kinds of protests of abuse and torture and extreme manipulation adding up to mind control, then they’d be admitting guilt and would owe their clients big time. But they have, and they do, that is truth. No way to get around that.

    Next step in change would be for psychiatrists to admit their wrongdoing and offer reparations. That would be just, honorable, and courageous, and would offer new hope to people. What exactly would the “reformation dialogue” be about, otherwise? Of course, they can keep lying, covering up, and projecting their guilt onto clients and perpetuating abuse, discrimination and malpractice. It’s a choice.

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  • I think the shared distress is mass gaslighting, which would merit a new level of discernment, aka expanded consciousness. Everyone will have their own truth of the matter and is entitled to their own reality by choosing a perspective from which to experience it. Respect and appreciation for the inherent and natural diversity of humanity will put an end to oppression.

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  • Sometimes parents can be so self-absorbed and needy, a kid can grow up believing they are responsible for others at their own sacrifice. Some households can practice toxic, marginalizing dynamics based on all kinds of judgments and prejudices, and become very unsafe for some children, so they grow up in chronic fear and anxiety, feeling as though they don’t belong anywhere, and that can turn into living with chronic terror and dread. How parents respond to life issues, problems and crises is how a child learns by example.

    It’s usually not simply the pattern of communication that is the issue but more so what beliefs are behind negative communication, and how this influences what a child grows up believing about themselves and the world, based on the parents’ influence. If the child is particularly senstive and can pick up energy easily (which many children are like this and grow up to become very intuitive adults), then they will more than likely carry within them any unexpressed or unresolved conflict until it is acknowledged what the root cause of this is or it will persist. In order to solve a problem, it is important to know the root of it and address it as such. Real and true change (aka healing) is made at the core, not topically.

    Last thing someone who is healing needs is denial of how their childhood environment plays a role in shaping their self-image and self-regard. I believe that is universal. Not all parents have a “parental instinct.”

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  • You have really captured it boans, these are the dilemmas and considerations in healing from social abuse, and it’s not an easy picture. Change and transformation are messy, like the eggs breaking to make the omelette. Trusting our own selves and how our process guides us is where we can feel safer as we go. We’re all uncertain of the future, that’s universal.

    “My ‘faith’ has wavered much over the past 9 years, going from absolute to wondering why my God would allow such things to occur. And yet then I realise it is a test of integrity that is being applied to these people,”

    Yep, for all of us, so here’s our opportunity to follow that light and it will be a better path, uplifting and clearer. That’s my belief and vision, in any event, and my experience so far. It helps to connect with what we truly believe and walk that talk, then we’re in synch with ourselves and we move forward with greater ease.

    “and they are failing miserably.”

    Oh yeah, the corruption is a runaway train, let them wrestle with it. They have to hit rock bottom (whatever that is, scary to think about) before waking up and it will be a rude awakening for them. That’s what happens when it is not voluntary. We do have a choice to embrace change or to resist it. The latter choice makes it much, much harder to navigate, of this I’m certain. I’d recommend *allowing* change, that is more ease than not. They’re resisting it, so they will have problems, but that is their awakening, so it’s quite just.

    “What will be the eventual consequence of that failure?”

    At some point, it has to turn on them, as more and more of us “scapegoats” wake up and stop feeding the vampires and claim our personal sovereignty. I believe that is our birthright, but we were born into oppression, so we have to untie that Gordion Knot ourselves. That’s a hard one, albeit doable, this is not new. Although I do believe that IS the point of all this. Walking away from energy drainers such as these is where we begin to connect with our own power–and a bit more inner peace in the process because anxiety lowers from empowerment–and then we can get acquainted with ourselves on much better terms. Makes all the difference what we believe about ourselves.

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  • “They want us to fear THEIR enemies. And their enemies just happen to be US.”

    Ah, yes, got it. Wow, that is keen analysis, boans, and on point. This is what we don’t want to buy into, that’s a terrible and self-sabotaging program.

    “The illnesses being caused by the destruction of the planet by psychotic corporations…”

    Yes, I agree, that is my truth, too. And what community of origin fosters the people who run such corrupt industries that are sabotaging global society? There is a root to every issue.

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  • “I’ve spoken up and no one wishes to listen here. They turned me away because someone went to the trouble of fabricating false records, and no one wishes to check them because they prefer the lies.”

    This really touches me, boans, I have this story, that statement could come from me, too. This applies to the super bureaucratic “mental health/social services” network where I got caught up in what you describe and battled it up and down for years in all kinds of ways legal and creative. And it also applies to at least a couple of members of my family, from whom I need to keep a distance if I want sanity in my life. I do come from a gaslighting family, unfortunately, doesn’t make me happy to say this and I had to heal tons from it as I spoke the hardest truth ever and set the firmest boundaries ever. Those were my choices to make and I followed through. Made me stronger, I felt the clarity, but I also felt sad for a while, then I felt free. Whew, that’s what I was waiting for, and it happened.

    The system did it all over again and I’ve spoken my truth repeatedly. I’ve made impacts here and there, I do know this. After I take my actions, I cannot control what happens after that, other than in what direction I choose to go from there. Everyone has free will, to do good or to be an ass.

    Yes, they’d prefer the lies because the truth is a mirror to them they do not like and will not accept at all cost, it would be too painful for them, too much self-judgment would fall on them. Sadly, that’s their right to resist truth, and we’re only beating our heads against the wall when we argue with deniers and liars.

    When I say trust the path of integrity, what I mean is that we can do better by not being like that, by being straight up, which it seems to me that you totally are.

    As far as “the riches and the freedom” go, well, I’m still on my way, too. But I think the potential to be richer and freer would actually come from being a victim of systemic bullshit than being a perpetrator of it. A perprator is really missing some of their moral compass, and that’s a hard awakening which I do not envy.

    Those of us on the scapegoated end are inherently humble, we’ve been humbled plenty and we feel it, I know that. I think there is power in that, precisely because we are in our integrity. If we can feel that, perhaps we’ll see it reflected outside of us, somehow.

    I don’t know, this IS my practice, I’m very conscious of this as I’ve been dealing with it most of my life, and it got worse as I was an adult, leading to lots of hard awakenings and freeing myself from double-binding toxic relationships. I was raised on this, so I had to do deep, deep deprogramming from what I grew up believing, and disover my own truth, so that I at least had the CHOICE to live by my integrity! That was the hugest shift ever, kinda surreal for a while. It’s a new world when we heal from abuse.

    I’ve been seeing the outer changes in bits and pieces, have had plenty of good evidence over the years. Then things can get wonky again, not sure if things are getting better. Then something happens to bring me back into trust, seeing movement happen. The world is dense, changes can take a while to show up!

    But that’s where I’m at with all this. I’ve gone in and out of doubt a lot, that’s human. But the light does keep showing up and showing up and showing up. And as long as that’s the case, I have hope and even optimism. Sometimes I can even achieve a feeling of certainty! That feels great. Then it can ebb again. It’s a flow of energy.

    As long as I see manifestation along the way and feel better than before, then I know I’m on track. I just keep looking forward, not back. Definitely the key to healing and change. It’s not behind us, it’s right in front of us.

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  • Thank you for the honor, boans, I appreciate your saying this and I’m glad it speaks to you. And of course I do understand the rage, boy do I, that’s a most reasonable response to this crap. But I think as we gain more and more clarity, we have the option to make changes internally, right there, as it seems you are doing, and new light shines on the other side of this. Changes will happen on the outside, too, to reflect the internal changes. It’s a most fascinating process, and powerful in its ability to drive change from the inside.

    Interesting, too, I happened to give a lengthy response this morning to your comment with the Dr. Strangelove quote, you inspired me with that one. It’s still in the moderating queue, I guess is will show up soon. Kind of goes hand in hand with this post, regarding internal changes. Good synchronicity!

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  • That’s an enlightening quote, boans, and a brilliant film! However, most honestly, I’m not out to create fear in anyone, that is never my intention and would go against my values. My work in the world is to help bring clarity and relief to people, not more chaos, although we most often have to move through some chaos in order to find relief and clarity, that would be the unearthing and integrative process of healing.

    Truth can be hard to hear and accept sometimes, but it is necessary if we are to live with any kind of peace in the world. Even recognizing hard truths in ourselves is freeing, although it may be uncomfortable for a moment, but that passes as we integrate our own light and shadow. To me that is the natural healing process. I see that as growth and evolution in consciousness. I believe this is the path toward inner peace, which is the ultimate healing, total relief from stress. Inner peace is the most natural anti-anxiety that exists, and allows all truth to come to light because we do not fear it, if we are in our own personal light and know our peace.

    Truth is light, which is more of an empowering feeling rather than one of fear, because it is clear and unamibiguous, so we can move forward from that. I think what we fear is our own self-judgment, which can be harsh, so we give ourselve permission to feel what we feel and be who we are, no reason to be so damn hard on ourselves! I had to integrate tons of self-judgment in order to heal from chronic anxiety, and feel self-compassion. That is self-soothing, and I become my own best friend as opposed to being my own worst enemy.

    So really, I guess I’d say our enemy is ourselves if we are in fear and self-judgment, whereas we CAN choose to be our most powerful support and self-healer.

    Fear comes from our own interpretation of events and experiences when we feel and perceive ourselves to be powerless. We end up worrying about everything, and that is chronic stress. I’ve also heard “worry” described as “praying for that which you don’t want.” We tend to manifest that on which we most focus, regardless of whether it is from our desire or our fear. I’d prefer a better feeling and to focus on that which I DO want, rather than to dwell on that which makes me feel fear, worry, and resentment. That will only create more of the same, that’s a law of nature, from what I understand.

    Moreover, I think that the impulse to “attack” is already driven by core fears. Mainstream fears shadow, while many of us are accustomed to it. I’d say we have the advantage, because we are in our truth. I own my stuff every day, I’ve made amends for my errors and misjudgments and I continue to as I go along, to stay on a path of integrity, allowing myself to be human while striving to be the best I can be.

    I’ve faced myself in the mirror repeatedly, as I believe many of us on here have. No one is perfect, far from it. Humans aren’t supposed to be perfect, that would go against nature. Life is school, we learn as we go–hopefully!

    Those who attack innocent people have plenty to fear from within their own selves. People change when they feel it is in their best interest, not in the best interest of others. I wish fear on no one, only truth and the empowerment of humility. Being human is inherently humbling, and it’s also incredibly creative. The combo of these is power. Everyone on the planet has the potential to own their personal power and not be afraid of shadow or the unknown. Were everyone to take that level of responsbility for themselves and stop attacking people for their truth, the world would be mightily uplifted and so much of this craziness would cease. That’s my vision, in any event.

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  • “Most DSM “bible” believers are a part of a vast system of bullying, defamation, and neurotoxic poisoning.”

    Exactly right, this is the truth distilled perfectly. The big three, working together doing soooo much harm, obviously, what else would come from these? By now it’s an embedded program, nature of the beast. This cannot go on forever without self-sabotaging consequences.

    To these horribly misguided and toxic systems, psychiatry and its ilk: Please stop hurting people. You are hurting people terribly, repeatedly. We keep telling you, we keep providing evidence of our truth, and you will not listen, you will not believe, you will not acknowledge. Regardless, please stop, stop, STOP! Turn a new leaf, own your mistakes, make amends, and move forward in a new light. However it occurs, it must. We will all be better for it, win/win.

    We’re ALL human and we all make mistakes. There’s a lot of growth and healing in owning and correcting the error of our ways. Everyone goes through it one way or another. It’s called waking up, and growing up. Be brave.

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  • Yeah, I agree, no mincing of words when it comes to truth-speaking about corruption. i know from experience that saying this to their face is useless, only creates retaliation and shuts down communication. When one says this about their peers, however, it has credibility that the victims of corruption are robbed of, as per the stigma of these labels and the social identity they perpetuate. All voices matter, but some are heard above others–or at least responded to above others, or taken more seriously than others, or some such thing. Hard to say what is actually being heard.

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  • You just perfectly illustrated the gaslighting which occurs readily in this industry, as standard practice. That is psychological torture and will do more harm than anything, leaving people confused, disoriented and feeling powerless because there is no truth to this, they are totally shadow projections. I believe this is how the DSM is used as a tool for justifying these projections. It is insidious, oppressive, and supremely toxic, hurts people at the core to have their humanity so blatantly invalidated like that, especially after being provoked.

    These are wounds that cut deep, can really mess a person up until they wake up to the abuse and walk away from it. That can take a while to realize how draining this is, if one is vulnerable to such negative mirroring and feedback.

    Even after all these years of being awake to how this works, it’s still mind-boggling to me that the “mental health” industry causes such profound psychological distress with these common practices of labeling and shaming emotions! The irony is over-the-top tragic. Such damage being done every day with this shit, makes me shudder.

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  • Wow, this is the most direct and powerful condemnation of psychiatry and psychatirsts that I’ve ever seen coming from within the industry. Thank you for your brave and unambiguous truth-speaking, may it ripple far and wide. I’m sure I’ll be sharing this blog.

    One thing–I do feel it is important to give hope for healing, regardless of anything. I was on polypharmacy for 19 years until coming off of them systematically and intuitively, and now I’ve been 19 years off, exact same amount of time. It was often quite rough, scary, extremely painful, and totally uncertain, but in the end, with diligence, trust, and persistence, I found my healing, thank God.

    While I was on the drugs, I wasn’t exactyly a “zombie,” and in fact I worked full time, went to school got 2 degrees, and had a seemingly “normal” (mainstream) life, albeit with symptoms I was always trying to manage, caused by the drugs themselves, it turns out.

    Years later, following various changes in the drugs, I did eventually discover they’d been eroding me from the inside all along. My organs were out of balance and my mind became foggy. This is while I was in grad school, suddenly, things went south, and it had been happening slowly all along. It was quite a dilemma for me because of what I was taught to believe about myself and about the medical profession, including psychiatry. My father was a physician, so I thought any Dr. should be listened to, “for my own good,” that a “professional” would know more about me than I did. That’s the programming, and it’s quite misleading, to the point of danger, obviously, what you are warning us about.

    I chose to break the programming and do what was good and right for me, and that was surprisingly challenging, to discern between my own voice and the stigmatizing voices that came directly from psychiatry and the mh AND social services systems, at large. It’s all part of the systemic bullying, from my experience, like poisonous tentacles to psychiatry. Such an utterly limited perspective of humanity, along with their own double binds, as per funding issues, and where the finanical power is. As long as that rules, we’re in trouble.

    Most fortunately and thanks to good healing, I finally cleared my head of the static and learned to integrate my true nature into my life experience. That’s how I found my real voice, and my freedom, and they are mine to own now, which is incredible to me, a miracle, considering I’d felt totally doomed and hopeless on more than a few occasions, and it was profound, really dark. I kept going, and the light did show up, finally.

    And that is my message to anyone who has been through this, as I have.

    Thank you again, very much appreciated.

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  • I think the “enemy” is fear, and that has the potential to attach itself to anyone at all who has not owned their shadow and instead is in the habit of projecting it outward. Not everyone does this, but many people do.

    Abusers and corruption both depend on others to fear them, and to identify with these projections, that they are powerless, especially if they have no money. Without that, were people to not buy into this, then such a system would not be able to survive, and in fact, I’m sure it would crash. That’s a matter of individual healing and raising awareness around programmed beliefs vs. what is real and true for each of us.

    We have a choice to NOT be fearful and to not take on the shadow projections, but instead, to know our power of truth and to feel that as our sense of self. Completely disempowers abuse, corruption, projections, etc.

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  • BE the change you want to see in the world.

    Double binds are opportunities to expand our awareness and shift perspective to a bigger, more universal picture. Breaking a corrupt system requires truth, otherwise one is FEEDING the corruption. Expect systemic bullying, stigmatizing projections, public shaming, biased censorship, word-twisting, gaslighting, and cutting off your money supply, it’s all part of the arsenal when corruption is threatened. You are not alone.

    And if you are in your truth, you are in your power. If you know that, the money thing is not a problem, it will resolve itself. Hardest program to cut through, but I’ve learned this from experience. I’ve been in this position quite a few times and have leaped forward in all ways each time I have faced it with truth, and particularly toward peace of mind and general well-being. Truth is a healer.

    Speak up or walk away and don’t look back, trust the path of integrity. You’ll sleep better at night because you will be in synch with yourself. Living the truth of our spiritual values carries far more weight than money because it is abundance which cannot be threatened and taken away, and from that we can manifest anything we need or want, from a healed heart, which brings the courage of trust and faith. It is an inherent part of who we are.

    And there are the riches and the freedom, they go hand in hand in expanded consciousness. It is true abundance, from the inside, and it is robust. No double binds or compromise, and you have individuated from corruption, which means–and this is important–that you have weakened it, you have taken away from its power because you are not giving up yours to them, out of fear, which is their fuel. Refuse to be their pawn by knowing where your power is in this situation, and use it. That is being the example of change.

    Break the system. Trust the process. It’s the only way.

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  • johnchristine, I do not believe that Melissa’s gesture falls into this category, she is being inclusive, she makes these cards for everyone. The marginalizer in this story is the nurse at the desk who is not allowing light to get into the psych unit, she is intentionally blocking positive energy from getting to “certain people.”

    I’d call her a gatekeeper to the system, she is protecting and supporting it at the front lines, doing the shaming. It’s covert and where the problem is most obviously visible, especially because it is her job, she gets paid for this and it is supported by her colleagues and work culture. Makes it systemic.

    This is exactly why I think this article is brilliant: it’s an example of sharing love from one’s heart, and exactly how that gets cut off from some people, based purely on prejudice, which leads to dismissiveness, which in turn leads to non-deservedness along with feelings of lack and unworthiness. Obviously, that’s incredibly and profoundly harmful for people! It’s totally dehumanizing and despiriting, the essence of these.

    And I agree that restorative justice is exactly what we seek and should tolerate nothing less. When I talk about forgiveness, I’m talking more on a personal level, heart to heart. When it comes to corrupt institutions and social abuse, “forgiveness” would be on a different scale (like forgiving a debt), and is an option for people. But it won’t be everyone’s choice, and that seems reasonable to me.

    When it is institutional, it is about our society and humanity on the whole, how we are being influenced, by what social model? Obviously, we need repair here–even radical change–but where to begin?

    What this article highlights is a good place to start, to realize and become aware of where truth and light are being blocked, and break through or dissolve those blocks, somehow. Melissa is calling this out, which I applaud because that’s where we begin, the light is now shining on the most visible aspect of the problem, it is unmistakable here.

    These blocks are stubborn because gatekeepers will become irrational and deceitful to protect their turf, but it is where I would put my focus if we want truth to come to light, once and for all. I believe justice would follow, it would certainly be my hope. And it stands to reason that once truth comes to light, justice can be served. When the light shines brightly, it exposes the hidden shadows. Can’t help it, that’s the nature of light.

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  • I just don’t think it’s a comparable situtation. Other than that, not sure what a “correction” would look like in this case. Regardless, as always I appreciate hearing your truth. It’s not the same as mine, and I think that’s ok. I believe we can disagree peaceably and move on from all this, and that is for the greater good because no one’s truth is cast aside. It’s why I love the title of this blog, which, in and of itself, is a powerful truth to live by and practice.

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  • I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to convey to Bonnie in a post once how she influenced me so signficantly, after she wrote in a comment to someone that “we are here to discover what it means to be human.” A light bulb went on and it so directly and unambiguously gave me the broadest perspective possible, I felt it ring through me. Changed the direction of my path and life work, I’ll be forever grateful.

    RIP Bonnie, you have been a supreme example of and to humanity, indeed, with your courageous heart, shining spirit, and exceptionally brilliant mind. Condolences to family and friends, Bonnie is so obviously beloved by many, and for good reason.

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  • I was surprised to see this here but I do hear you and thanks for speaking your truth, Rosalee. In honor of the giving and receiving theme of this blog, I’d say forgiveness is one of the greatest gifts we can offer to ourselves and to other human beings, to humanity in general. I think it’s most practical, too, given that we are trying to bring more loving kindness, support, and safety to the planet, and that is not easy in a rough world, to maintain that.

    No one is perfect and we all have growth potential here that at least will start to provide this planet with a bit more light, which is what we’re all trying to bring in our own way, so people will NOT suffer so readily, the world can become less stressful. Forgiveness is an energy that is one way to bring light and uplift the collective.

    It is not to excuse or allow abuse, not in the slightest and that should be a given as far as I’m concerned, and indeed things do need to change. We’re all part of that process, it’s a collective issue, the whole world is involved in this.

    But forgiveness does acknowledge that we are all human and in a process of healing, growth and evolution. Permission to make mistakes should be allowed if they are corrected and not repeated. How else do we learn and grow?

    I love the title of this blog, Cast Aside No One. I’d love to see that vision manifest in the entire world, if at all possible. Call me crazy, sure wouldn’t be the first time. And if that’s crazy, then I am happy to be. I know I’m not alone, not by a long shot!

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  • Thank you for speaking your truth with your story of healing and soul growth. It’s very inspiring, moving, and elegantly written.

    I had the dubious honor of withdrawing after 19 years on polypharmacy, culimating in 9 during that final year, which almost killed me. This was right after grad school and I was living in a big city, so life was complicated at that moment. I finally said enough of this crap, it had made me so sick, and I finished my tapering from all that 19 years ago, so I’ve now had equal times on the drugs and off of them. The difference is beyond night and day, it is astounding.

    I had no model for this, no one around me had done this or had heard of “coming off meds” and I was surrounded mostly by cynics and naysayers. But I did stand my ground on this, and one way or another I was always shown the next step, it would show up for me and the path would be clear, and I’d walk through one door or another, moving forward.

    I was brain (and other organs) damaged at the time from them, not clear on what I needed, terribly self-conscious, severely insomniac, extremely fearful and in grief that my life and well-being seemed to have been ruined forever, and I was not at all well-connected to my inner voice, not on a conscious level. I was also foggy, nervous, and very shaky, could hardly speak above a whisper and my head was filled with scary junk. My body was rebelling in about every way possible, felt as though it had completely turned against me. But somehow, I managed to find my healing by integrating all kinds of things spiritual and natural, similar to what you describe, to heal on a mind/body/spirit level. Can’t have one without the others.

    Chinese medicine was particularly supportive and effective–acupuncture, herbs, and I practiced Qi Gong as well, joined a group and it was amazing how healing this was for me. Learning who I was as a spirit in a human body is what changed everything, that particular relationship between me and me.

    I did have one healer in particular who pointed me in the exact right direction, starting with grounding, and that led to other things, and overall it was a wild ride where I learned all kinds of things about our human nature which I wish I’d known long before this, would have saved me heaps of trouble had I been raised on truth rather than programming. I really had to wake up, then wake up again, then again and again. Lots of awakening on a healing path, it can be a hard process, but it’s rich with lots of moments of awesomeness. Good support is invaluable during these times.

    I made it fine and it’s all behind me now, I’ve tranformed it all via my healing and live with new energy now, a whole new life and world for me. I know it is possible to get past this all, certainly takes hard work, new perspectives to apply, and a lot of transformation. Also takes flexibilty in thinking and a lot of humility, ascending the ego. I call it “an adventure in healing.” My complex journey led me to be in service to others, I found my life path and soul purpose this way.

    “I pray for a rich life, away from the fear of job insecurity, coercive medicine, and false labels.”

    Freedom is our birthright and natural state of being. Trust your inspiration and it will guide you there. And so it is.

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  • Props, Melissa, I think this was a really valuable discussion, relevant to all of humanity. I work with energy (as per my healing path) and that’s what this is all about–how we exchange energy amongst each other. One way or another, we “relate,” and it is the energy of this “relating” that defines the quality of it, and it is felt and can be subtle and hard to articulate.

    I also believe this is what we’re looking to tweak, right beneath the surface of our actions, and it will make all the difference. It’s good self-exploration for us all and will help us refine our own energy and focus. It’s how we grow.

    I think every voice here was heard and respected and all perspectives have come to light. I’ve certainly done a lot of self-reflecting in addition to having taken action. I like this topic and take it to heart, how we extend our light to others. You’ve shown nothing but grace and humility and openness in the process, in all authenticity, true leadership.

    And your story in this blog is so revealing, you noticed the exact right thing (imo, at least), and your final words from it, “not on my watch,” are very poignant. To me that is your spirit, and it rings very true. You obviously are a visionary.

    Fabulous work here, and I mean that! I look for stuff like this. I’m very moved, and grateful. We teach and learn by example! This will ripple far and wide, as per your truest intention and heart’s desire. I have no doubt.

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  • I don’t want to be all over this blog but just as an aside, I can’t help but to notice that there are interesting issues surfacing here regarding giving and receiving. This is an important aspect of our collective because it is how energy flows between us. Giving is fulfilling to the giver when it comes from the heart. If it’s neither satisfying to or welcome by the receiver, a simple no thank you would communicate that directly and graciously.

    I do understand the dynamic of “giving as charity” in a “do-gooder” and marginalizing way. In Kabbalah, that is called “giving bread of shame,” and it is, sadly, real in this world, and oh yes, it is felt. But aside from that sinister dynamic, I’d say that overall, to give is an act of faith, and to receive is an act of generosity. Both require kindness.

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  • “If we could all let our light shine just a little brighter, imagine the possibilities…”

    This bears repeating, thank you kindredspirit.

    This is not to anyone in particular because it happens often, but my general question here is, when will the absolute truth that “we are all in this together” actually register as the reailty which it is? Bringing light and love to the world should not have to be an act of courage from fear of reproach but I thank GOD for brave people. I know from experience that it is so not fun to open your heart to help and inspire others and then get slammed for it in return, for any reason, that’s about as dispiriting as it gets. Do we want a better, kinder, more generally supportive world or not? EVERYONE is responsible for this!

    Melissa’s work is inspiration, that’s a gift to world, by example, and we need as much of that as we can muster right about now.

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  • Thanks, Melissa, and totally back atcha! Imagine if we each made an intention to do this, say, once a week, or even once or twice a month. Not to force it, but to notice opportunities to make a difference in someone’s life in a small way. I bet the universe would respond happily, and create those opportunities for us. That’s exactly how it felt when the opportunity arose from me, yesterday, as if the universe heard my heart after reading your article. When it is truly our heart’s desire to be giving, I believe the universe will provide us with plenty of opportunities to fulfill ourselves this way. Win/win. Can’t have enough of that these days!!

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  • “the more time I spend loving myself and others, the less time I spend in fear or anxious or despairing. It’s definitely a shift in perspective.”

    That’s it! Thank you, always, kindredspirit, for your encouragement and for your crystal clarity. I know you are a light and a healer as well, I’ve said this often on here.

    This has been some journey to get to this, but this is absolutely the crux of it, from what I’ve been able to gather, THE healing. I so understand it is not easy sometimes, but once we get it, it does get easier I think, because it becomes our new familiar, based on good feelings because we are perceiving the unity of spirit over the illusion of separation (ego, competition, us vs. them, etc). That is love triumphing over fear.

    That’s the self-healing, choosing to focus on that which we love, enjoy, feel moved by– feeling those feelings and practicing them with conscious focus. And indeed, it is our most natural anti-anxiety, we soothe ourselves from the inside, simply from choosing how we focus and practicing it deliberately.

    That’s our power, and really and truly, it is based on love, it’s not abstract when we actually feel it. And indeed, this will elicit new thoughts, new inspiration, and new manifestation. How could it not? And there is core change, right there.

    Were we all to practice this, the world would change with such greater ease because we are changing from the inside, it is organic not forced. Our physical cells respond to these feelings, and it can only ripple outward, that is nature. Giving and receiving love is the path we’re wanting to access, and that will allow energy to flow, which is where we find all the good stuff, including greater ease in life, which I cherish.

    That is exactly mind, body, and spirit synchroncity. Healing and manifesting are rather breezy once we’ve achieved that. There’s always something to master, that’s the fun of life, I think.

    And I learned this to overcome the effects of the psychiatric scapegoating game. I became a scapegoat even among “peers” at one point, when my healing really took off. So I got on everyone’s shit list during this time and got “the treatment,” as I was trying to recover from all this and create my way forward. It was maddening all over again, but practicing unconditional self love saved my life this time, and I was finally able to get out of that loop.

    Now I can love others–and life–unconditionally, although I continue to discern what is good vs. what is not so good for me, which is how I practice self-love. We’re all human, even our perceived “enemies,” (I don’t like that word, but to make a point). Work in progress!

    Relationships are never easy, but they should at least be fulfilling and enriching, and definitely not draining! For me, it’s a co-creatorship, and that can only be based on mutual love & respect to have any value in the world.

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  • Psychiatry made me hate myself and inspired me to fear life as well as to dread my future, so every action I took came from these beliefs, consciously or unconsciously. And, in fact, I could not take much action because these chronic feelings led to spiritual and emotional paralysis. Whatever actions I did manage to take from this perspective, it amounted to self-sabotage.

    To heal the suffering which this was causing, I had to learn to love myself again (which meant calling out abuse in the moment and walking away from it, radical self-care, and trusting my inner voice and intuition over any dissenting opinion of others), which I believe is our natural state of being before it becomes corrupt with negative projections and internalized oppressive self-beliefs (starts early!), and then to embrace life from a new perspective, that of the soul, which, in essence, is everything. That allowed me to shift my beliefs into one more aligned with spiritual awareness, which encompasses the entirety of our existence, rather than merely the physical aspect of it, which is miniscule in the bigger picture. We can choose to see spirit in others, and that is a whole new perspective on humanity, and we can feel this in our hearts because it is where we are universally connected.

    There is so much more to us than meets the eye, and that’s where love is clear, profound, and abundant, and creativity is limitless. Embracing and learning our multi-dimensionality is to gift ourselves with integral awareness, and that is truly powerful, from the heart. Radical shift in perspective would mean radical shift in the world, unfolding into a heart and spirit based reality. This is what gets my vote, and my attention.

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  • If I’m adding to the problem, the universe will reflect this back to me unambiguously. So far, that’s not even nearly the case, evidenced in my own life and relationships, and all the feedback I get with my work with others. I accept constant feedback, to make sure we are on track together and I am not taking anything for granted. Mutual authentic mirroring is vital to core healing.

    I do work every day on myself, change from day to day, to actually embody change. And I am aware of what I put into the collective, that’s my responsbility, to have that awareness, if I am, indeed, sincere in my desire to support radcal change in the world, toward heart and spirit consciousness. That is light.

    And I do walk my talk, it’s kind of my trademark with all that know me well, I make a point of it and I do catch myself when I am in dissonance with myself and work to amend that. Otherwise, I would not know transformational healing, that would be impossible. I’m also human and have my way less than perfect moments, who doesn’t? We all do the best we can and hopefully grow as we go, in all humility. But I believe as we get older, we have many opportunities to refine our focus. So anything we practice for a while, we become better at it, including living life.

    Of course I’ve come to terms with our collective “brokenness,” I went through the system, myself, exhaustively, wearing all kinds of hats and learning different perspectives of this from my experience. I also live consciously in the world, my head is not in the sand. I know more sad, angry, fearful people than not. I know that state of being-ness from within myself at one time, and to me it does have feelings attached to it, and what it feels to me is really bad, terrible in fact, and exhausting. It’s all anxiety, purely.

    Although, I honestly don’t see any individual at all as broken, in fact, simply “in progress,” as are we all. Society is broken because it cannot support its own people, but that’s a question of embedded programs and corrupt norms based on a lot of lies we’ve been fed and blatant manipulation of our psyches.

    The important thing is to define ourselves, though. If someone tells me they are broken and they don’t want any argument about it, then I wouldn’t argue. But I would feel strongly compelled to explore that belief, were this a client. That’s where healing is, to my mind, so if that is objectionable to a person, then they would not be my client. I’d always be at odds with the perception that they are “broken.” I just can’t get myself to see individuals that way. So I guess there is some paradox here, which is good, I’d expect this. Maybe there’s new info on the horizon here, that’s usually what paradox indicates.

    I’ve worked on this, to create a better inner reality for myself, and it has translated outside of myself. I can only hope for those ripples to continue, but it is up to each individual how they address, respond to, and deal with anything. I don’t believe in “right” vs. “wrong” here, it’s a matter of where we are and what choices we can perceive. People walk in their own skin, not that of others. I can only do my part in my own life, intending to be as kind, supportive, self-caring, and authentic as I know how, and to speak my truth as clearly, directly, and transparently as possible.

    I don’t consider the reality of “death” as “being doomed.” What I mean by doomed is asking about whether or not you–or anyone–believe that life can at all become a pleasant, safe, joyful and creative experience as opposed to the toxic mess it is now. I believe in energy transformation, not everyone does or understands this. Been part of my studies and work in the world for over 15 years now, and I apply this every day. I asked it sincerely, although my phrasing may have been cliched so I apologize if I came across as flippant, certainly not my intention.

    However, if the world is divided up between those who have hope and optimism, despite how reality is at present, and those who do not, I would like to know, I think that’s important information, to know that truth about where people stand. I feel no judgment here whatsoever, it’s simply a discernment in beliefs, and I think it matters as far as energy goes. What we believe in our hearts is what drives our thinking, and all of this does make a difference in outcome of reality, I’m sure of this.

    Still, your truth is clear, powerful and strong, and I absolutely respect it and you for speaking it, so I, for one, am glad you are on the planet. Otherwise, this dialogue would not be happening, and I’m enjoying it and learning a lot from it. We’re going deep here and I’m feeling more clarity as we go. Perhaps others are reading and getting some new information for themselves that is helpful to their process.

    You are so right that negativity and positivity ebb and flow, the light and shadow of life and humanity. That’s our wholeness, right there. We cannot create without contrast, it all matters and has value to our evolution. I go into negative states at times, that is human, and I address it head on, as I do, doing inner work and seeing where my thinking is at that moment, and how to change it, and then what actions I might be able to take to improve the situation. For me, that’s vital to my consistent well-being and I want to feel my own power in this, not powerless to society. That creates too much anxiety, and we can overcome this. That would be the whole point of activism, to my mind.

    But overall, indeed, I live in a positive light. That way, I do not feel or perecieve myself to be broken, I would not identify with that state of being, as I once would have, wondering if I’d ever feel differently, fearing I would not ever feel whole again. And at one very dark time in my life, I was convinced I was permamently damaged goods, feeling completely dehumanized and hopelessly damaged by psych drugs and the horrific withdrawal, and I took self-sabotaging action. Having barely survived this gave me hope. I had visions in my near-death experience, information, which I followed up on and it all has served me miraculously well.

    That was 18 years ago, and today I am an entirely different person with a grounded and balanced life, and back to feeling love, and understanding things on such a deeper level now, I can’t even conceive of wanting to die before having lived the best life I possible could, toward fulfillment. I love the challenge now, and figuring out how to get through obstacles and finding new pathways of hope and possibilities. I believe that is never-ending, so much to learn!

    I am the same spirit I’ve been throughout my life, I know my sense of self, but I’m a very different human being now that I am in life with new and simplified neural pathways, a vastly strengthened nervous system, and new light in my physical cells, all due to having learned how to transform energy with our will and heart consciousness.

    I would really enjoy seeing more of this in the world, this kind of transformational healing, but it’s not easy based on how it requires us to be flexible in our beliefs. For me, it was either that or die a broken man, and I spent some time teetering between these two potential outcomes, where one was far more desirable and appealing than what I was most fearing at that time. But the fear was intense, and the shrink’s messages to me were way less than encouraging, more like damning me. Took years to heal from that experience, alone, and to see myself in a much, much better light. No anxiety there, just the pure nature of being human.

    That is the journey of transformation. It’s exactly what I teach, based on how I went from hopelessness to new possibilities to certainty to knowingness to loving my life. I had given up hope at one time that this would ever happen, but thankfully I was 100% wrong and life has changed dramatically for the better thanks to new perspectives, new tools, and a new way of being. And I’m standing my ground firmly on that truth!

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  • P.S.–Melissa, your article inspired me so much, that I actually had the opportunity to take action this morning. After I made this post, I went out to get a cup of coffee, and there was an older gentleman in line in front of me who discovered after ordering that he had forgotten his wallet, so without even thinking I offered to pay for him, and he accepted appreciatively. I told the barista about this artlce I had just read about acts of kindness, and this was the perfect opportunity to pay it forward. Great synchroncity! It felt good to do so, and I imagined making a difference, just with this one little thing. More and more of these in ANY arena would make a huge difference and help to restore people’s faith in humankind, and perhaps they would pay it forward, too, rippling kindness into society through selfless inspired actions. Thank you again, great start to 2020 🙂

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  • Your work with humanity is awesome. Thank you for bringing light to the planet as you do. The woman at the desk at Newport Hospital, and others who work in the system with that same attitude, are what concern me. It’s what I’d call “not allowing in light.”

    These are gatekeepers to the system, protecting and perpetuating its prejudices, injustices, and profound lack of compassion, as well as the social division on which the “mental health” world and system thrive. Thank GOD you are doing what you are doing, this is what we need more of in the world. Indeed, step by step. On *my* Earth, all acts of kindness are welcome, encouraged, meaningful, and healing for all concerned, the greater good. Please keep it up!

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  • “My body doesn’t speak English. She speaks feelings.”

    I love this perfect phrase. The mainstream drugs, ignores, dismisses, judges, and rationalizes feelings, rather than to honor, respect, listen, learn, and be guided by them. Indeed, that is stressful!

    If humanity on the whole were to learn the language of feelings, I believe we’d understand things better, starting with ourselves, because we’d be listening to our bodies over “social norms.” That feels like synchronicity to me, and alignment–not with social expectations, but more so, with who we really are, our true nature. Our feelings tell us who we are, they guide us like an inner light. To cut off from feelings is like being in the dark.

    I believe there is far less stress when we are aligned with our true nature because we are not split between our own desires and preferences vs. what society expects. Social expectations impose on individuals (oppression), they do not support our nature (freedom).

    When we give ourselves permission to be authentic based on how we truly feel at any given moment, then we, in turn, give others this permission, too, by example. That is the emotional, creative, and spiritual freedom which I believe we all crave. Certainly anything less than that is stressful because we simply are not feeling free to be ourselves, and that is maddening. Can we attain this level of freedom in life, and have our bodies feel good about it and be in agreement with it? I would think one would lead to the other, but it seems we have work to do here.

    Always inspiring and so thought provoking, Sarah, I look forward to what’s coming next.

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  • Yes, like Slaying the Dragon and Fiachra say, millions of stories like this going on right now. It is abominable. I was almost a casuality in this same fashion, for the same reason. The abuse is profound, insidious, and thorough–mind, body, and spirit. Surviving meant moving entirely away from it, getting clarity, and seeing the big picture. Psychiatry has no moral compass, is clueless about humanity, and is destroying humankind, that is all too clear.

    RIP Zel.

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  • “Anytime you base your esteem on peer opinion, you are at the mercy of peer opinion.”

    You said a mouthful, JanCarol, I totally agree with this. That’s how we give away our power, when we go by what others think, rather than by our own inner sense of who we are and what we desire. That’s our birthright. What one community might judge and condemn, another one will embrace and celebrate. We are that diverse.

    I would imagine we are born with self-esteem, it is a natural state of being. However, when we are born into a world of fucked up adults, that natural sense of self can become corrupt quickly from lack of awareness on the part of adults of how their actions and attitudes affect those around them, especially impressionable children. That’s one way to control others.

    Social media is a self-esteem killer, in general, with all the social bullying and shaming which occurs, everyone comparing themselves to others, throwing each other shade out of envy, rather than simply focusing on their own path. Everyone’s in each other’s business via social media, all boundaries are lost.

    Kids do, indeed, need better role models. I don’t think they’re terribly happy with how adults have handled things, and I can’t blame them. Some of the younger generation seem more awake. Hopefully, they’ve learned from our mistakes and we can be humble about that.

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  • “Everyone is broken and without soul.”

    To me that implies suffering, that’s the feeling I get from reading this statement. So do you think we’re doomed? Or is there anything at all that can bring hope for making this world a better place in which to live, so that people don’t go around feeling “broken,” but instead, inspired and motivated to create a more appealing, safe, and supportive social and world environment?

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  • RR and KS, responding to you both individually in this one post—

    KS, first, thank you so much for watching Voices That Heal and for this affirming and very encouraging comment. I did make this 9 years ago and wondered if it would still have an impact, so I’m really so grateful to read this. It’s amazing to me that it continues to be relevant, we certainly do need to continue using our voices without apology!

    And indeed, I hear you regarding how deep anger can limit our openness, I think that’s a natural human mechanism. Before I went through my second crisis (which is what guided me to finally ditch the psych drugs and, ultimately, the entire mh industry, in favor of soul work), I’d always been peripherally interested in this stuff, but it wasn’t front and center for me, just something interesting to consider and explore. I was a working stiff, 17 years in retail, taking my “meds” dutifully, and living life on Earth purely. My family is total academia, this is complete bullshit to them, so it was not in the slightest part of my upbringing, and in fact, it was demeaned rather aggressively, having nothing to do with me. It was just their way of thinking, which I happened to not internalize, thank goodness!

    But once I started waking up to the ills brought on by psychiatry and the like, I HAD to find a path to save my life, and little by little this opened up to me. However, even now that I (and also my partner, we integrate this together as we go from day to day) live by this paradigm and have for a while, I can still go through periods of resentment which will just hit me, like a post-traumatic stress response, and even I will start to question this, but it is short-lived.

    Seems that is a part of the process, from what I’ve gathered, it is layers of awakening to different aspects of ourselves, like soul retrieval. I do sometimes look up as though I am speaking to God and ask out loud, “Why do you make life on this planet so f-ing hard???”

    And if I’m particularly reeling from something, I can easily spend 10 or so minutes wondering if I’m dreaming and perhaps I’m wrong about all of this, just more kool-aid or something like that, and all the learning and integrating I’ve done goes flying out the window for that brief period of time, and I am fully in doubt on every level. But for only 10 minutes, mind you, it does pass quickly now, and then I realize what energy had hit me, and why, and to where it was guiding me, to some healing or insight or integrative process. We are such multi-dimensional humans! Not linear in the slightest.

    So I do find it all so very interesting, like a puzzle or crop circle type thing, and that keeps my chin up during those times because I’m so actively engaged with my process of soul evolution.

    And when I get the clarity from the soul perspective, there is no better feeling that I know, because for that moment, everything makes sense and just being in the moment is enough and I am perceiving my abundance on all sides, pure crystal clarity. I try to keep that feeling going for as long as I can, see what unfolds from that. Then, of course, I’ll get knocked off by something again, such is life, and I’ll feel the wounded human all over again, and then comes the next series of healings, integrations, and insights, and it can happen pretty quickly now as the self-healing program kicks in.

    It’s a fabulous process, I think, really game-changing, and I’m certainly open to sharing any info I can with you that would be helpful to you at this time. I think it’s a fascinating exploration and way more practical than people realize. Otherwise, it would just more academic nonsense without any practical application, merely theoretical or wishful thinking.

    The power in this is that it really can be applied on a completely practical down to Earth level, just takes some practice and adjusting to new perspectives. Although the stigma toward spirituality and things like soul growth can certainly impeded this integration. We all awaken in our own time, cannot force that whatsover.

    However, very honestly, I just don’t know any other way forward, I think status quo has run its course. Everything has a low ceiling on it. And it’s getting lower as the old systems crumble before our very eyes, that’s what I’m seeing happen, at least. I think there is new information in these realms from which we’ll all benefit, infinite possibilities to explore here.

    RR, I hear you and I hear this often, totally respect it. You say, “May the people of the woo be free to wish-think their woo as they choose. And may the people of the non-woo remain wholly unwooed,” and I think that’s fair enough (although the phrase “wish-think” is not exactly neutral, but regardless, I’ll take it as “to each their own,” which works for me). I’m certainly not going to argue with you about your beliefs, so I wouldn’t impose mine onto you as I wouldn’t want you or anyone attempting to impose your/their beliefs onto me. We’re all entitled to what we know and how we perceive things, I think that goes without saying. Also to learn and grow at our own pace.

    I do happen to believe in the soul, to me that is everything. I think soul is everywhere, it’s our universal connector. If you don’t, that’s fine, I don’t expect everyone to believe what I do, I’m totally aware of our diversity on this planet.

    I, personally, experience the soul every day of my life now. There are many ways of perceiving it IF AND ONLY IF one is open to it. Reality always begins with imagination, we need that in order to create it, and in turn, to create within it. I think imagination is essential, and our most powerful tool for manifesting.

    I do, however, think that there are always new things to learn, that’s never-ending. So who knows? One day you might remember this dialogue in a new light, or something I say in my response to kindredspirit might spark a new thought. Then again, maybe not, and that would be your path. So agreeing to disagree, respectfully, works for me.

    Merry Christmas and/or Happy Hanukkah to you both, and to all who are reading this! May we find peace in our hearts and minds as we continue to drive these remarkable changes through our human will, to know justice and to thrive in well-being. That is my prayer for this season and the New Year.

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  • I’m surprised that some don’t see the absolute harm that psychotherapy can do in 1 to 1 unsupervised meetings, week after week. In this concocted game of transference/countertransference, the insidious damage done most often does not show up until after such negative projections have been embedded and dependence has been created or at least attempted. I think it’s the same all over this entire industry and causing all of this mayhem–the invisible vampirism that takes place, siphoning clients of all they’ve got, the fuel for the entire “mental health industry.”

    I’d say it’s mostly unconscious because that is the training, education, and the norm. We do need a new normal, however, which implies waking up to how we’ve been programmed and assess how this has turned out. Just look around…

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  • “Psychotherapy is neither medical nor paramedical, it is a purely cultural activity which testifies to the time and the place in which we live.”

    This is an insightfully concise perspective of psychotherapy. I’d also add that any of these approaches are geared toward fitting in and adapting to the norm. Whereas challenging the norm is the ONLY way to create real and true change, at the core, and how we find our own voice, apart and distinct from those of others. And that includes “the therapist voice.”

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  • I agree with you, Boans, that in the end this comes down to individuals who practice this kind of betrayal (whom I would not trust in any capacity whatsoever), but also, they are guided by their education, training, and this “mental health industrial culture,” which is unto itself in how it perceives and “defines” humanity. It is an entirely limited and narrow world view, not at all truth. I believe this is where the problems begin because obviously this industry is misguided at the core, on top of the overall corruption of it. Psychology is more often used as a weapon against people vs. using it as a clarity and truth-seeking tool. That’s rather common, I think.

    You’re also describing first hand the negative alliances I talk about, where the deck is so stacked against the client. To be scapegoated, gaslighted, and stonewalled is a HUGE life stressor, and when a society is doing it to their own people, then it is only sabotaging itself.

    Up to now, the world has been unwittingly supporting corruption because it’s been so covert and information has been distorted in so many ways. Plus, we’ve all been subject to social programming, and for so long we had no idea. But with all the waking up going on, I do believe this is about to change, certainly my deepest hope at this time. Won’t be an easy transition, but it’s so obviously necessary and, I truly believe, inevitable.

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  • When two people come together in dialogue, they either harmonize or not. Harmony is healing for all concerned and leads to positive manifestation. The research is in the experience of feeling, and of living. If one of these two people is getting paid, that can easily throw things off balance, especially if the client is dissatisfied.

    Problem is, complaints against psychotherapists seem to be entirely discounted and the problem will always lie with the client, which of course is pure shadow projection, and that’s where the system is toxic, this “professional alliance” word against a client’s truth. When that happens, psychotherapy becomes a dangerous and harmful endeavor, creating insidious and life-derailing post traumatic stress from feelings of betrayal and utter powerlessness. Takes a lot of healing to clean up that mess. It can be really treacherous.

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  • Any “therpeutic practice” or “modality” is a limited program because it does not take into account unique differences in people in a positive and validating way. That unique difference, so often feared, condemned, and marginalized, is our truth and our power. Client and therapist are mirrors of one another, that’s always a good starting point.

    There is no formula for personal growth and raising awareness. Every human being on the planet has their own process for this, and life brings us opportunities daily to grow in patience, trust, clarity, compassion, and personal power, on our own terms. We all have the capacity to be our own guide, healer, teacher, etc. It’s a matter of tapping into that inner power, owning it outright, and engaging it daily. This is a transformative self-healing practice which empowers one for life and can be paid forward in a variety of ways to create positive social change at the core.

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  • “Psychiatry harms because it pathologizes the “patient” and attempts to correct the “patient” when the malfunction is in the space between people in social relationships.”

    Yes, exactly why I say that psychiatry is based on scapegoating, which is harmful for individuals, obviously, and socially divisive, to the point of creating easy targets for social abuse. I also agree about the problem being in “the space between people and social relationships,” that is perfectly stated.

    So my quesiton is: who or what would be the agent of change to correct that particular malfunction?

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  • “So in conclusion, rather than voting psychiatrists off the island shouldn’t we together honour our different experiences and commit to continuing respectful, mutual learning from each other?”

    I agree that in theory, this would be desirable. However, the irony is that these issues exist exactly because communication between clinicians and clients is so deeply problematic. We’re talking about an industry which repeatedly betrays and fails its clients because instead of helping the client to resolve issues, feel better, and bring clarity, they cause the client to tank in horrible ways because they are simply not hearing their truth, and it becomes a gaslighting bloodbath. There’s a lot of mental abuse which takes place in clinical settings, it’s really insidious and causes terrible problems which are hard to catch until one realizes they’ve been hoodwinked in all sorts of ways. This seems to be more common than not, which is crazy, really. It’s a hard awakening, but it is the truth.

    This goes beyond the drugs, it is about the quality of communication, like two entirely different languages. It’s been almost 20 years since I saw a psychiarist and I used to be a steady customer. I stopped and shifted healing paths because psychiatry almost killed me, and as a result of getting away from this dynamic, I systematically healed over the years, by means having absolutely nothing do to with this. In short, I woke up. I realized, in the end, that I could pretty much count on saying one thing and having it heard completely differently, from within some kind of false construct filter, no questions asked. Where dialogue should occur, dissonance does, instead, or avoidance, abandonment, distraction of focus, etc. I have yet to experience anything differently with a psychiatrist.

    So if that particular collaboration cannot produce successful results in one person’s life, how could that collaboration possibly succeed in resolving social and world issues? That makes no sense, it is illogical. I’d expect the same disastrous results to be duplicated. I’m certainly open to being proven wrong, and would cheer it because to me, that, in and of itself, would be core change. Right now, that’s virtually impossible to imagine in or anywhere near this industry, based what I’ve experienced and witnessed over the years.

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  • Yes, Rachel, exactly what I’m talking about, showing ourselves kindness and self-nurturing. The lack of these over time is what causes us harm in the first place.

    Sadly, we live in a world filled with unkind people who are not going to change without incentive, like feeling the consequence of their own lack of kindness. That’s a hard energy, which is why people project it outward rather than dealing with their own stuff and feeling their own emotions. Still, that’s no justification for being expected to carry the pain of others. This is where change has to occur, to stop this “transferring of suffering” via all kinds of abusive ways.

    In the meantime, indeed, sending ourselves the message that we are deserving of love, good care, and personal boundaries, and then practicing this daily, will inspire neural shifting and all kinds of positive changes, first in our bodies and then around us. We have to believe it ourselves, first, which would illuminate the pathway to reversing the damage of having been treated badly and deprived of loving kindness.

    To me, lack of kindness would be a form of suffering, so I try to remember compassion here, and therefore am expressly NOT carrying the pain of the abuser. Having an open, loving heart does not mean one is a doormat or sponge for others. Boundaries are as much needed in this world as is loving kindness. They go hand in hand, in fact.

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  • That would level the playing field because right now I believe the world in general is in chronic stress, which is why change is in the air, something’s gotta give. In the meantime, we’re still not powerless to create change from within, which would be the first step in alleviating that stress, and that can be many steps depending on one’s situation. That would be the healing process, and it can be wholly transformative. We take in and process information through a variety of channels. It’s always going to start from within, for anyone.

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  • The “injury,” I think, is when people are influenced to have negative self-beliefs, that we are lesser than or unworthy, undeserving, etc. Trauma is more than stress, it is about feeling powerless and perpetually unsafe. Oppression, bullying, dysfunctional systems are all inherently traumatizing because their ability to “function” ( and to exist at all) depends on cutting others off from their power in all kinds of ways overt and subtle.

    And certainly lying is a core feature here, as is manipulating and controlling the flow of information. Projecting and perpetuating blatant stigma is also a key factor in creating the desired illusion of separation, and this is chronically traumatic, to the point where it becomes the familiar and slowly eats away at people mind, body, and spirit.

    That’s how it works and it is totally programmed into the system. Been operating that way for so long it kind of has a life of its own, like a runaway train. That is a painful reality.

    I’d say most if not all of us share these “injuries,” until we wake up and take back our power by knowing it, and using it to create positive change, starting with changing any beliefs of being lesser than or powerless. I can’t think of anything more healing than that. It’s positively transformative.

    I am also quite sure that this is not at all true of anyone at all, how would that be justified? Who on Earth is really and truly qualified to make that kind of harsh and inhumane judgment against another human being? No one I can think of. Let’s not do it to ourselves!

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  • I very much admired Stephen’s strength of character for walking the line he did in his work at the hospital, something I would not be able to do, and this is so needed in the world today. He was, indeed, a warrior, and a truth-speaker, and I believe he was also an empath, possessing a rarely found sensitivty, one of his many gifts.

    He touched many hearts, souls, and minds in his robust life, including mine, embodying true wisdom. No doubt his spirit lives on, he is obviously beloved by so many and will be remembered for a long time for his truth and generosity. May he fly freely now with his well-earned wings!

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  • We are, indeed, One! Although maintaining our sense of individual self fully in our truth, and also a sense of connection within the collective, can be a fine line struggle, no doubt. Personal changes most often challenge relationships because if one person changes, it will challenge the entire system of relationships around that person, and we feel it!

    I’ve come to the conclusion that this is an inevitable part of any healing or growth path. Sooner or later, relationships come into play, and that is so not easy to navigate, kind of a built-in challenge in duality, I think, and where our buttons are most likely to get pushed. We have choices to make right there, how we respond to being triggered by others, and especially by those with whom we are close and feel trust and safety. I think your article illustrates this well, and how it then served as guidance for you, which is transformative. Personally, I think that’s so cool, exactly where our power is. Makes all the difference!

    We resonate in enthsiasm, too, I love the journey of expanded awareness, trying as it can be in today’s world. My dream and desire is for that to shift, and for this to become the new normal and seen for the enormous healing, growth, and creative possibilities which it brings. You’re right about the depth of this being endless. We are forever expansive! Always new things to learn and apply, and to discover about ourselves, our gifts, etc.

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  • This is so well-written. Thank you for the vivid descriptions of psychiatric horror, all that gaslighting and double-binding, I can certainly feel the anxiety and terror simply from reading about it.

    “Apparently, disagreement with a psychiatrist about one’s treatment plan or psychiatric thinking is a delusion or a form of abnormal thought”

    Yes, that’s the toxic double-binding gaslighting rabbit hole, exactly. It certainly is not about reasonable eye-to-eye dialogue for the sake of finding truth and clarity and healing, is it? What you are describing I’m sure are based on projections of their own fears.

    What’s really bad and how this ripples insidiously into society is when unsuspecting clients internalize such projections and carry them forward from there, as a chronic condition. And everyone buys into it because it saves their asses from having to take any responsbility for their own actions, and a “client-for-life” is created–for the good of the industry while at the expense of that individual and society on the whole (they’ll claim it’s the exact opposite, that it’s for the *good* of society, when it’s clearly the other way around). That’s THE problem!

    Modalities and perspectives aside, being able to dialogue fluidly, authentically, and with mutual respect is where clairty and resolutions occur, not by this power-struggle authoritarian bullshit which is status quo. I’ve yet to know of any such place in this industry, and I’ve been scoping this out for a good long while now, in a variety of corners. Communication breakdown is not only the norm, it’s all I’ve ever encountered, from start to finish! Whether in clinical settings or at round tables trying to get some kind clarity and perspective on a situation. It’s just as you describe, one-sided, crazy-making, and futile. Disagreements in perspective are the death nell to these dialogues, whereas I think they should be the starting point to new perspectives and directions. There is a core paradox to ascend here, if any progress is to be made toward meaningful change.

    It’s extremely challenging to be awake while shackled but your truth is powerful and I wholeheartedly believe that absolute truth is the way to unambiguous freedom. It takes a lot of patience and trust, hopefully feeling supported along the way, one way or another. Please keep it up!

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  • I always enjoy and very much appreciate the integration of our spiritual and human aspects in your writing, Lauren. My premise for living is that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. That perspective keeps things in balance for me, and always at least interesting, if not quite amazing. We are guided in so many ways. Thank you for sharing your process of transformational change, it’s beautiful and hard work!

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  • I not only asked to be diagnosed and drugged (I was extremely programmed and believed at the time this was the responsible thing to do, the only option of which I knew at the time, so that I could stabilized my anxiety and go back to work) but I also eventually went into the field. I was REALLY asleep to the truth, believed in all kinds of insitutions from how I was raised.

    It was through a series of encounters in grad school with professors and other students, and in my training with supervisors, and the negative effect I could feel these were having on me, that I learned about “energy suckers” and, eventually, “toxic psychiatry” because by this point, I could tell the drugs were destroying me from the inside. That was my “aha!” and it led to awakening, coming off the drugs and ditching any diagnosis because I could see easily by this point that these are made up and meaningless and it had nothing to do with me or who I was in any way, shape or form, and I went in an entirely different direction in perspective, beliefs, and new practices. Major life transformation happened as a result of this change in perspective.

    I had felt stupid and duped for a long time for believing in all of this and falling prey to it, and wondered if my life had been ruined forever, really angry at these maliciously arrogant and rather mean-spirited quacks (which I discovered when I questioned their perspective about me), as I went on to heal the multiple injuries from this experience, now that I knew what had caused them. I found a good healing path for myself, thankfully.

    Plus this experience did wake me up to what caused my extreme anxiety in the first place, what led me to seek help. The socially divisive and marginalizing mindset reminded me of my family. Yet another, “aha!” Painful awakening, but truth nonetheless. I had to deal with it and grow from this by individuating from toxic communities and seeing myself apart from these, not participating on that level and not allowing myself to be a victim any longer, while owning that I had put myself there in the first place. It was my journey to take.

    Now I am awake and my life is different than I would have imagined. It is not a product of programmed beliefs but instead, it is a reflection of who I am, that’s the idea, and I own it and am now in full control of it once again, as my whole self. No regrets, it is life education. Advanced course!

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  • I believe the paradigm shift is that we are working together, inherently, that is nature. We’re all connected, one person’s energy affects others, and so on, rippling into the collective. Clients and therapists, for example, are mirrors of each other and are easily interchangeable, as far as “playing the role” goes. Each can influence and affect the other in a variety of ways, positive and negative. The titles, degrees, and suits are merely illusions of separation, with a false premise of what is, in reality, true personal power vs. control & manipulation of others. How we present in the world and who we really are can often be a great divide. Being authentic is what I consider to be courageous.

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  • Yup, well said, Steve. The more we live, reflect, and share with and listen to others, the more wisdom comes to light and unfolds naturally. Life educates, trains, and brings opportunities to apply it all, see how we’re doing. And on and on, learning as we go.

    You’re right, it’s not that complicated, and I agree also that the wisdom is found in the feeling of the experience, that’s the gold. Sometimes. however, life just thrusts us into it and we find ourselves feeling the challenges, can no longer avoid it. It’s very often not a conscious choice, life just happens. That’s when the journey of healing and awakening really begins.

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  • Ha! And while I see the logic in this, I’m referring to the fact that these taught ways to view humans and the human experience–the programs which lead to all kinds of “models of being, behavior, thinking,” etc. which are applied in the mh industry and field of pscychology–are simply false and irrational, pure ivory tower. They are illusions which are divisive and which create a false hierarchy of power, while defying logic and disregarding and dismissing all kinds of evidence–and people!–which is why the industry is an unequivocal mess and making more of it in society. This perspective, including the subsets of the overall psychological perspective of being human, should not be the standard. It obviously does not work to bring truth, clarity, healing, or balance to the world! On the contrary, it brings chaos, conflict, chronic issues, and marginalization.

    So, using this phrase in a sentence now as I intend, I would believe that common sense says go by the evidence–I can’t imagine anyone saying it should be otherwise–and yet hard evidence and personal truth are blatantly ignored and vehemently denied, causing stigmatizing labeling to occur instead, that’s the m.o., which is the essence of dehumanizing.

    Common sense also would tell me that this is the trouble here and a huge roadblock to progress, and yet it is perpuated time and time again. Therefore, what I see from this is lack of common sense. But you’re right, and sadly, it’s not so common here. The programming is thick and dense, makes things very challenging. It’s quite a process to go from programmed to truth–the healing journey, in fact, to wake up.

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  • Yes, I agree, and while that might be understandably human on one level, it is also a huge red flag, when you consider why most people go into therapy in the first place. How much of the client and their personal truth will the clinician “not want to see?” Insert projection, judgment, stigma, counter-transference, whatever you want to call it. This is where great harm is done, and it goes unnoticed, which is why I am highlighting it here. This is where the shame gets projected, rather than owned, and it is passed back & forth like a hot potato. I think that’s where things can get stuck.

    Everyone makes mistakes and has had regrets, that’s just part of the human experience, how we learn and accept ourselves on a deeper level. Plus we all come from programming, and healing is about facing our shadows with courage, humility, and self-compassion. That, alone, moves us along in a big way, toward clarity and wholeness. As humans, we ALL have the capacity to forgive ourselves for past mistakes and make amends by waking up and getting our heads out of the sand, to start with. It’s never too late to take that first step, and then we’re on a healing path, things will change and we will grow.

    I am enjoying your truth, sam plover, wonderfully insightful posts!

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  • Sam Ruck, this is typically how clients can feel actually going from shrink to shink–dismissed, not heard, on the outside, and that IS the front lines, right on the line of battle.

    My question is always, why is this a battle? Should be a healing partnership. Although professional boundaries do not allow for the intimacy needed for this kind of healing. This is why that paradigm does not work, it’s always lopsided and is high risk for the client.

    What you describe between you and your spouse is the same way my partner and I have a healing partnership. Over the many years of our evolution in life we’ve supported each other at different times, going through breakdowns and subsequent integration. We’ve both been through our shadow journeys, more than once, then back into clarity after doing the inner work. We’ve been back & forth with the roles of needing the support and being the supportive significant other, so I know of what you speak, and you are a wonderful example of what the world needs more–that is, you recognize your own healing as you support your wife, it is not one-sided healing.

    Indeed, everyone grows in the process, or at least that is what should be happening. Otherwise the same old power struggles continue as well as the scapegoating, and that’s the problem at the core, from what I can gather, keeps all the divisiveness in place, status quo. Love motivates us to go the distance, to be creative, patient and innovative and stretch ourselves. That is the only way I know how healing and personal growth can occur!

    I don’t see how this can truly come from professionals. This needs trickle into humanity at large, in our personal and community relationships. That is where we expect love and support, without a price tag. And it just doesn’t seem to be there enough, and neither is the trust. Society is healing from mass betrayal, it would seem.

    You’ve shared valuable information regarding healing from your own lived experience and I believe it is highly respected and your work is admired. I’m no fan of the diagnoses, but I do believe that everyone’s experience counts. We’re all different and this is about the greater good, so everyone’s perspective needs to be taken into account equally for any movement against injsutice, oppression and marginalization of human beings to be authentic and powerful enough to create change away from these. Change begins with being an example of it. Thank you for the wisdom and experience you bring to the table.

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  • I recently sent a few links from here to former classmates who have been practicing psychotherapists for over 15 years now. They had witnessed my breakdown 20 years ago from years of being on psych drugs, and they also know how I was finally able to heal and transform my life after coming off the drugs, painful and rugged as that withdrawal was. They also know that I turned to other methods of healing outside of the mh industy. They had no idea there was controversy around any of this, much less a movement. At least they’re aware now, but they continue to snub me and this information.

    This is exactly why I condemn this industry. Issues such as lack of communication, lack of trust, lack of staying informed, lack of acknowledging either scientific evidence or personal testimonial, anything against the programming is suspect, denied, and causes anger and ultimately, some kind of stigmatizing projection, can’t seem to get around it.

    What also lacks in this industry is common sense, that’s been overtaken by these false beliefs about people. Disagreements becomes personal and can get rather nasty as all neutrality is lost, and supporters of this industry can become downright mean in the process, casting shame where there is dissent, creating scapegoats. It’s cultish, very scary.

    This is why sitting in a chair opposite a clinician in their office can be so dangerous. Our voices do matter and truth is ultimately more powerful than illusions, but it is indeed a never-ending struggle to get the truth heard in this industry. It functions in denial and resorts to cheap shot projections to keep the light off so that people will stay in the dark. Undue suffering is the result of this.

    Keep going, this industry needs a good hardy awakening which it has been resisting vehemently at all cost. I would love to see that ridiculously low glass ceiling shattered to bits. It is absolutely toxic.

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  • Yes, sam plover, perfect example of what I’m talking about. So, so, so many ways to address trauma–which is not in the slightest uncommon, to the contrary–as part of life, it happens. I believe that as we address this however we choose in order to feel better and/or to meet our life goals (which might simply be to feel better!), we can also gain insight into how to create change so these traumas become less and less the norm, and we, ourselves, don’t repeat them.

    But for sure, if we are scared into these crazy-making programmed beliefs dished out by biased research, ivory tower education, and ultimately, the thoroughly programmed clinician, we are taking on their shit and that will lead to problems, including undue suffering and perhaps self-fulfilling prophecies.

    God yes, they are fatalistic and create these negative prognoses out of, what, ignorance? programming? projections? Whichever, it is totally false! Oh it’s awful and totally unecessary and completely untrue, can really mess with a person’s head to project such negative outcomes without foundation (or crystal ball!). Life is what it is, no sense in catastrophizing. And yeah, they get paid well for this. There’s a lot wrong here!

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  • Someone Else and kindredspirit, I know you both are very much on the path of truth and light and in your hearts, while also grounded in your truth so authentically—-from what I can tell online, at least–as I strive to be. Not easy in our world right now, but I know this is the transformation to occur and I believe that to open the door to others, to even the idea and possibility of this shift, is simply to be the example right now. Respect and gratitude to you both! ♥

    And there are certainly others on here whom I’ve gotten to know through posting over the years of whom I’d say this about, as there is certainly no shortage of “being courageous in one’s truth” around here. But I’ve been aware of this particular thread and have appreciated all the light energy around it, so I wanted to express this here.

    I’d love more than anything else right now to see this trend grow! I happen to think it is, indeed, exactly what we need more of in this world, heart consciousness and awarness of our creative spirits. That’s a lot of power–good power, powerful power! And it’s accessible under any and all circumstances, it is an internal awareness, no one can mess with that if we don’t allow them to.

    Seems that collectively, all of this got buried under a whole lotta rubble and programming of fear and self-doubt. Whoever these “programmers” are, they certaintly did a thorough job, didn’t they? Of course they don’t like people awake, that’s the shift in power, toward the light, which is where we discover unambiguous truth, not all this perpetual confusion and personal conflicts over disagreement about relevant issues. I find that frustratingly distracting from the truth we really need to uncover and allow to come to light, in order to resolve these issues, I think.

    Waking up the heart and bringing it back online is quite the journey of journeys, this I know from experience.There’s quite a bit of reconciliation to do there, that’s the healing. For me, this process led to radical change more than anything else because it IS a radical change, purely, that shift in consciousness. And it certainly is not status quo, that’s the idea. Transition is hard because status quo opposes it aggressively and will let you know one way or another, discrediting, casting doubt or public shame, gaslighting, etc. (we have clear examples of this on the front page news daily now, twitter for one thing seems to be the most salient example of this)–oh, and let’s not forget “diagnosing,” duh, that covers it all!

    Of course those who are hiding crimes to humanity will hate and fear this change, truth is truth, cannot hide in the light. I see it as pure validation, we’re right on track, and growing in numbers 🙂

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  • Great comment, sam plover, I agree with every word of it. We’re all healing, and we heal within ourselves and also with each other, I believe. I heal as I teach, practice, and live my life. We are mirrored daily, one way or another and can follow that thread to more and more clarity and self-awareness. We need space, time, and permission to heal, grow, and manifest our lives.

    “It is when we separate the healed from unhealed, therein continually lies the problem. Shrinks do this.”

    Yes, that’s the problem, the illusion of separation, causes marginalization and all kinds of undue suffering. No one is immune from the craziness of the world. We all contribute to whatever the world is, and can equally contribute to its healing in order for change to occur.

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  • Since dehumanizers/bullies are also liars and do not respond to logic and reason, and fighting them only escalates things and drags the entire collective down, then what are the options? Some are not in position to walk away, for whatever reason. Some can, and fear doing so, for a variety of reasons.

    Somewhere, there has to be some kind of systemic transformation here if social change is going to occur in any way, shape or form. Otherwise, dehumanizing begets dehumanizing begets dehumanizing, aka generational abuse. How can this end? Better to pass along good things to the next generations, not this same ol’ shit.

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  • This excellent 12 minute TEDtalk addresses dehumanizing via gaslighting and offers concrete suggestions for how to deal with a gaslighter–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4P2Qwh1QCU

    Gaslighting is when a person or community makes a person question their own personal reality and therefore, their sanity. Seems to be the very foundation of the mh industry, their reason for being. It’s what they do. It stands to reason that people’s health would deteriorate under such circumstances, as would quality of life. Keeps the negative self-doubting voices not only alive and well, but also strong and in charge.

    I believe this is the root cause of mind/body/spirit instability and lack of wellness, under ANY circumstances. I also think it’s really important to recognize and reject anything or anyone that makes you question your own state of mind and being, and your perception of your own life experience. That’s an unequivocal violation of personal boundaries, negation of self-agency, and pure crazy-making abuse.

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  • “How do we balance the need to heal ourselves and find peace, and the need to stand up and defend ourselves?”

    Thank you for this, I needed to see it and have been reflecting on it. Best question, how to find that balance, indeed.

    One thing I believe is to be kind to ourselves regardless of anything. Being human and imperfect and all, I think self-compassion is good self-care, for starters, and goes a long way in achieving balance and inner peace, to be calm in the storm, at least moving closer to this. It’s a practice which I think is, both, healing and empowering because as we move closer to balance and peace within ourselves, we have more clarity and confidence, see the bigger picture, and feel our inner support as well as know our support around us. Being at peace IS to know our power and inner strength. So standing one’s ground and not taking on bs comes naturally because part of both endeavors–healing and self-defense–is developing strong and well-discerning boundaries, sense of self, etc. Goes hand in hand.

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  • KS, I love your comment, it’s to the point and truthful, and you’ve inspired me to think a bit more deeply about this. Also, I think it’s the other side of the coin which I highlighted. To withhold support in the evolution of our fellow human beings is to not recognize that we are all connected. Life has its cause & effect ripples.

    I believe every human being is at least courageous, simpy for being here. I think we can take pride in however we evolve, and especially if we’ve been through hell. Most people, if not all, seem to have some version of it, and we all have things to learn, refine, adapt, and integrate as we go. But emerging from chaotic, confusing, and chronic darkness into the light, finally, is the most “winning” feeling I know, a gargantuan relief, even though by no means does this mean that life is perfect from that point forward.

    But most certainly, long standing burdens are lifted and new information is integrated, and we can feel that quantum leap big time, and more so as it begins to unfold a new reality. That’s a good time to reach out to others, if they are asking for a leg up. I believe this goes hand in hand, reaching out is part of the evolutionary process. It is how we expand further into ourselves, with great humility. I don’t believe humility and pride are antithetical. In fact, I think that’s a winning human combo, creates harmony and balance, high frequency energy.

    As I was writing out my comment above, I was kind of thinking about Facebook, along with social media in general, which I’d been on years ago but have since deactivated. That website is an exercise in vanity and was MADE to make others envious and jealous, at least back in the day that’s what it appeard to generate, although its purpose seems to have evolved into other things now, but I digress.

    I think the “winning” in our competition-based society is done by *projecting* success, whether it is real or not. So many people “win” at lying, which I think is an interesting factor in social competetiveness. I’ve known people who took *pride* in getting away with lying in order to appear as the winner at something–in other words, “cheating,” but that doesn’t seem to register these days as anything out of the ordinary. My disillusionment in society became profound as I kept hearing amid my grievances against the system, “Everyone lies,” and “everyone cheats.” Even an attorney once responded to me that “perjury is not a strong argument anymore, everyone lies.”

    (Considering that we’re all connected, this will always come back to haunt. It’s why I do my best to stay absolutely truthful when I communicate. If we’re lying to or cheating others, then we’re doing it to ourselves).

    Ok, then, so what happens when one refuses to sink to that level and is the one playing fair and being honest to the best of their ability so that the real truth comes to light, and NOT striving to fabricate things to come across a certain way? This would totally be at their own peril because they are going against “the lying, cheating norm.” In society’s eyes, they would be ostracized and come off as “the loser,” in a projected and highly stigmatized way.

    To me, however, that’s the real winner because that person is in their integrity, and in my experience, it pays off in so many ways, although society may not recognize it for a variety of reasons, but I think mostly because a rigid society simply “cannot be wrong!” Worst illusion ever, leads to marginalization. Truth is healing and leads to clarity; whereas lying is what keeps things vague and out of balance, fertile ground for conflict, illness, and all kinds of disasters.

    We still can take pride in what we know within ourselves to be true. I celebrate any step forward, or just the effort, which I or anyone around me makes. Life is unpredictable and the waters can get rough as we face our challenges. We are so doing the best we can with what we know from moment to moment, as well as rippling it outward best we know how. I think this will become more visible in the world as we move forward–I hope!

    And just btw, you made me realize that my issue with the mh industry is, precisely, that is all vanity.

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  • Really powerful post, Someone Else. I love the distinction you make between “channeling God,” which is universal, and “playing God,” which is the epitome of toxic elitism. I think that is spot on point. Artists especially get this, from channeling their art. To my mind and from my experience, the creative process is always guided by divine inspiration, one way or another. How could it not be?

    And I happen to believe that healing is a purely creative process, and therefore, from that perspective, it is inhererntly divinely inspired and guided, so no need for anyone to *play* God, is there? We can simply channel what is already there, in abundance! It’s real.

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  • From a spiritual perspective, healing happens through the heart. I believe the idea of a higher power is to have a foundational focus of Faith, which can inspire the feeling of love. When we feel love, our hearts are open and expansive, and this creates an entirely different self-perception and experience of life than when our hearts are constricted from chronic fear and hopelessness.

    Spiritual healing approaches the body as energy, which it is, which everything is. Thoughts and emotions are energy, as are the cells and organs of our body. From this perspective, the possibilities are endless because energy is always abundant and infinitely creative.

    Also in the healing communities of which I’m aware, Christ-consciousness, Buddha-consciousness, and messiah-consciousness are in the collective, as are their counterparts. It is in all of us, light and shadow–spiritual beings having a human experience. Again, this is a perspective offered in spiritual communities, not necessarily aligned with “religion,” as we know it.

    What I’m talking about is not at all the same as “old time religion.” It’s about energy, living in heart-consciousness, and aware of our soul evolution as part of our human experience. Overcoming challenges is how we grow in our humanity–how we, both, discover our power and feel our humility. That is the spiritual perspective of healing to which I refer.

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  • Our society is set up to be cut-throat competetive, so the accomplishments of one person can easily be resented by another and lead to sabotage. Jealousy can be toxic and lead to dangerous situations and destruction, the opposite of “benign.” Knowing, owning, and being proud of and pleased with one’s own accomplishments can be enough to satifisy.

    If you are broadcasting your accomplishments, you are taking a risk. It might be courageous or it might be reckless. I think the motive behind disclosing one’s success is relevant, and that can vary. People project all kinds of cynical motives onto those who are speaking about themselves, in any capacity, and that factors in all of this, too. Insecurity vs. confidence can be a tough battle.

    Isn’t the opposite of pride, shame? Although there is a middle ground: it is what it is, to be human. Everyone’s on their own journey.

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  • “anger and violence are not symptoms of any mental illness. Rather, they are normal reactions to a lifetime spent being treated like an outcast, ignored, taken advantage of, disbelieved, bullied and abused.”

    In whatever context this is expressed, it is classic and very obvious programming to discredit and continue to target victims of abuse, to protect a system of abusers and those who enable it–i.e., status quo.

    What playing the role of scapegoat leads to, in actual reality, is clarity about what is abuse and who are the abusers. And hopefully, with good healing and staying focused on the goal of social justice, how to stop it dead in its tracks, rather than to perpatuate it, emulate it, or feed it in any way shape or form. It’s tricky, because at this point the gaslighting is in full swing, but doable if we are alert and self-aware. It’s also necessary to ascend this double-bind (it’s a textbook example of it), if we want change of any kind that is actually meaningful and geared toward truth, well-being, and unequivocal justice.

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  • Thank you Elizabeth! I appreciate your validation and interest, and also the sub, too. I plan to make some more healing and meditation vids soon, so watch for that!

    No plans for films at this time, that takes such intense focus and all my time and energy when I am in that process. Although eventually, when I have an opening, opportunity, and rescources, I will probably do more. I really enjoy it and find it powerful to communicate this way and also fulfilling to create. My BA is actually in film, I’m a total cinephile. The “mental health” stuff sidetracked me, but then it became fodder for my first film, so it was meaningful this way.

    Right now my work is in present time and in person. I’ve integrated my healing work and the arts in my practice, which I call “The Healing Academy for the Arts.” So far the focus has been on performing arts because those of us in the group are all musical performers, but I’m open to all the arts coming together here.

    The group I host currently practices the inner healing work by way of connecting with our deepest authentic truth (it’s amazing how far away we can get from that simply living day to day in this society!), and we also perform together in a band. Our goal is to combine healing and creating, to fully express ourselves as human beings.

    This is the freedom which I feel we all seek, universally, to be full expressions of ourselves. This is where we get cut off in oppression, and the goal of HAFTA is to reverse this, to bring back that level of permission and celebrate our spirits, allowing them to flourish in the community and in the world at large. This is what I call “bringing light to the planet.” My intention is for this to expand into creatiing through all kinds of media, to faciliate healing and personal growth through creativity and community support. This is my current project and vision.

    I’d certainly be interested in your feedback and perspective regarding Voices That Heal, if you feel compelled to comment. And thank you again for your interest, that means a lot to me.

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  • Also, Elizabeth, it occurred to me you might appreciate this film I made 8 years ago. I’ve since moved on and have learned so much more from conversations on here, but I made this with others after I had disengaged from the system, other than to speak my truth about discrimination and abuse in the system, and also to share my personal story of healing from family scapegoating, along with other public speakers who share their stories, many of us relating to the “scapegoat” role.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

    This was my attempt at creating change by bringing our personal truth of the matter to light. I sent it through the system and there were lots of ripples, this I know. The biggest and most relevant changes, however, came for each of us in this film. All of us have moved on, separately, contiuing to live our truth productively and creatively, on our terms as it should be. Truth-speaking is seriously freeing and empowering, and from taking risks such as these, quantum changes can occur.

    I actually have never been part of the film industry. The film I am posting here is the first of two films I have made independently (second one is a short musical documentary I made 5 years later) and is a pretty raw, no-budget, real-time film. I was learning as I went along, something I felt strongly compelled to do, despite the anxiety which this brought up, to go so public with all these personal things, and also having no resources of which to speak, other than our creativity and trust. And it all came together from this intention.

    I believe when something is meant to be, the universe will open doors and bring us what we need. That was certainly true for me in this case. Working with the light can be like magic happening, it’s really quite amazing. Most valuable thing I learned in my healing, bar none.

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  • Hi Elizabeth, thank you for commenting, and my apologies for getting invovled with these dialogues without addressing you or your article, I feel a bit rude for this and will amend this now.

    You have a wonderful story of healing and I so respect all the shifts in perspectives you took on for the good of healing and clarity about your life path. That is really great healing work, how it’s done. Internal shifts will always lead to shifts in the world around us.

    Personally, from my experience also on both sides of the fence, client and service provider, I very honestly and deeply feel there is no “reconstructing” the system, I do not believe it can make good at this point. I feel it is so far off track and in such bad habits of othering and marginalizing, that it can only be divisive in the end. Seems to me this is by design, and it’s become a runaway train in this regard.

    My training as energy healer came as the result of all this, as did my artistic endeavors, and despite the hardships which the mh industry threw so unapologetically into my path repeatedly, I am seriously grateful for where it all led me, as I jumped hurdle after hurdle.

    Healing and creating are two sides of the same coin. When we heal, we are actually manifesting well-being. I don’t believe the mental health industry understands how this works, and that’s way too bad because it would be most beneficial were that industry to get this.

    I did not find anywhere in this industry room for new and creative ideas. Maybe a pretense of it, for appeasement, but nothing from newness would ever come to fruition. This industry seems to have trouble with follow-through.

    Also in this industry, FUNDERS rule, and most often they have no interest nor any idea about “healing.” These are separate and distinct agendas, having to do with investment, tax shelters, power, etc. One word I learned to take with a grain of salt was “non-profit.” Sure it is.

    The resistance to learning new perspectives was over the top when I was trying to integrate the principles of energy healing, and this is exactly what saved me from life catastrophe which THEY caused!

    I’ve been at this for years, pretty much on the verge now of giving up trying. Sure would bring ease into my life to walk away from this altogether. There is no peace in activism, and my personal agenda is world peace. Can’t reconcile these now. If inner landscape translates into outer reality, then inner peace would be my personal pathway to helping manifest world peace. Can’t do it alone, though, that has to be a group effort.

    If I were to create a “movement” it would be a movement toward inner peace because that is what will lead to world peace. We can only truly be responsible for ourselves and serve as examples to others, if we walk our talk. Energy ripples and actions do, indeed, speak louder than words, so this would inspire others.

    I hope you get better results with this industry than I did!

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  • “the dynamic interplay between our bodies and our environment that create and exacerbate poor physical health which often translates into distressed mental states.”

    The converse is also true, that chronic stress will more than likely lead to physical breakdown, not only because our immune system is compromised from stress, but also our judgment can be off, leading to poorer and possibly self-sabotaging choices. With chronic issues, whether it is physical or related to mental/emotional stress, we can easily go in and out of dissociated states for long periods of time without realizing it because it becomes the familiar. Either chronic pain or chronic stress can turn into vicious cycles of repetition, double binds, and eventually a downward spiral, as each one neagitvely impacts the other.

    The third element in the triad is spirit, and one thought quickly gaining popularity in the awakening collective is that this is where true healing begins, and from there, it ripples into the mind and body, making it integral and holistic. That’s one way people do it. Chronic abuse and systemic oppression are, after all, dispiriting, exactly that.

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  • oldhead, I can’t even wrap my head around what you’re saying. Healing is such a personal and individual matter. To me, healing has a beautiful resonance, the word and the concept. It is to find balance and harmony, first within, then outside of ourselves. And it’s not a one time thing, we go in and out of that state all the time, life drives us this way. Hopefully we get better at it as we go.

    In reality, we have things from which to heal on a daily basis, using the word as it is used in healing communities. Life is in and out of balance, and so are we. That’s human. Healing is natural and can be part of a lifestyle and daily practice. That’s how people can stay healthy and in perpetual well-being, by self-healing on a daily basis. That way, we’re never too far away from our center, which is the idea for well-being, balance, and a sense of control in one’s life.

    The planet needs healing, this is common vernacular. I’d venture to guess that most people would profoundly understand this phrase without taking a beat. And indeed, diverse thoughts, ideas, and perspectives can be derived and discussed from this starting point, if anything at all about this basic notion of “healing the planet” can be agreed upon.

    Why tarnish this word, and particularly to the point of suggesting people avoid using it, unless it fits into your very narrow parameters? This seems extremely counterproductive and counterintuitive to me, not to mention completely unrealistic. Issues of healing are incorporated into any core change, it would be impossilbe to not include this, especially if we’re talking about deprogramming from all kinds of brainwashing and gaslighting and all that confusion. Healing is vital for change to occur! Otherwise, things will not come into balance–ever! I don’t believe that’s an option any longer, nature will insist, one way or another. Too many people are awake now, and rightfully demanding balance, clarity, justice, and peace in the world. All of that requires tons of healing work on everyone’s part.

    It also appears to be one of the biggest splits in this community, this issue about “healing,” and the negative associations with this, and frankly, it’s hard to see that changing at this point. These are irreconcilable perspectives, completely at odds with each other. We live by our beliefs, and that’s what creates our personal realities. Different worlds, though.

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  • I do want to make clear that yes, while the validation was welcome and also I felt somewhat vindicated in that truth did win out over lies in this case, and it did allow me to shift gears for a change, I’d be hard pressed to call it justice, even though it was a step in the right direction. I’m grateful for this step, but it was really a small one, in the overall big picture. This only happened because of their absolute and extremely stubborn resistance to simply dialogue! It was over the top, the refusal to meet me in the eye and then all the flagrant avoidance. Easy to oppress me while I’m employed by them but in the end, they weren’t so tough, after all. By the time mediation came around, the CEO and Prez had fled, couldn’t even face their responsibilities. And they were running a social service agency? Ee gads!

    And this continued in every single “support and social services agency” thereafter, one after another after another. I wasn’t dependent on any of them by this time, I was a volunteer until I finally gave up altogether on the local level. That’s pure toxic crap, all the way.

    This agency whom I took to legal task was a voc rehab agency to help people on disability transition to gainful employment, and all they knew how to do is to punish people and power struggle with them. They called themselves “progressive” and they were, in reality, Dickensian. I found this permeated the system.

    These people do not know how to dialogue. They can only fight or flee, no middle ground, no reasonability. Power struggle, threats, punishment, and intimidation were their m.o. And completely ignorant of their clientele and their needs, on top of it all. Total sham.

    I got lucky with an astute attorney who could get it, but that was after many doors closing before getting to her. She heard me, that was good fate, but their were tons of legal limitations, which were telling of how the system is skewed, but I had a good opening through ADA, unambiguously.

    Still, it was hardly justice for what this system robbed me of, as it has done to so many others. Plus, after this, I was blackballed from my own field–which, in the end, turned out to be brilliant because I had no choice but to venture out on my own and find my best life. Takes work, but I’m on it. So far it’s fine.

    This agency eventually closed due to loss of funding, leaving people in a lurch and that did not make me feel good, even though I knew it was corrupt. But corruption is a rock and a hard spot, and will always lead to suffering, until one can get away from it and get perspective.

    Reasonable co-creative and problem-solving dialouge can happen when everyone concerned is open and flexible in their thinking. This was never, ever the case exactly where it should have been MODELED, and instead, they *chose* to go down rather to admit fault with anything at all, so that they could have fixed it! Just one cya lie after another, no integrity in the building, no truth, no fairness, all socially acceptable. Sad and frustrating, but it is what it is. “Karma’s a bitch” is my fallback sometimes.

    Vindication is possible, but justice? I think not. Only when this particularly inept and highly vampiristic corporate conglomerate goes away altogether will justice be served, imo, and then finally, we’ll be going in the right direction of sorely needed core change with one more big network of obstacles out of the way. And that is my absolute truth.

    Re family and the stigma and all those projected lies, furies–you know, my legal win did not convince my family of anything. Neither did coming off psych drugs, nor becoming an actor nor making a film nor changing my life. They attached sinister and untrue caveats to any success I had, literally “demeaning” any forward movement.

    They did not want to wake up to their responsibility in all this, that was so clear to me. When people don’t want to wake up to truth, despite plenty of hard and obvious evidence, they just won’t, and they’ll continue to propogate the lies instead in order to keep the illusion going, because it serves their need for denial.

    I just have to know the truth myself, and my partner and friends do, too. But not so much my family, at least for years this was the case. I’ve had many conversations around this with them, with some degree of success, but as of now, I’ve given up on trying to convince anyone of anything, just living my truth now based on my choices.

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  • I agree with kindredspirit that we need space for healing from abuses. This is a necessary process for change to occur, imo. I also agree with PacificDawn that justice is required here. I believe that is a vital component of healing on a personal and on a social level. Justice brings truth to light.

    I had a legal victory after experiencing and calling out systemic abuse and discrimination, and what that did was that it gave me confidence. Until I finally found a legal aid attorney who had the ability to listen to me wtih focus and intelligence and connect the dots of my experience accurately, all I could elicit with relaying my experience was doubt thrown at me, along with vicious invalidation which amounted to projecting “paranoia” onto me. I wasn’t paranoid, I was telling the exact truth and these “social workers” were totally lying. That was proven in so many ways, including by example, and yes, it felt good in that it was enormously relieving to not have to carry that burden any longer. And moreover, it empowered me to keep going, it was a huge motivator.

    On a more direct and instantaneous level, thanks to the outcome, I was not only able to continue my healing work, but this victory also allowed me to discover new acting and performing skills–and eventually a theater career–because, through classes, I was able to take that particular personal risk and it led to all kinds of healing as well as other rewards.

    In essence, being legally vindicated was exponentially healing, they went hand in hand. I had to remain clear in my truth, however, and humble to this process of healing and unfoldment happening after all that drama which corruption always manifests, while at the same time feeling and trusting the *power* of my truth and perspective of reality, to manifest my personal life experience as I most desired and intended.

    I was finished with the “mental health” industry by then, as anything reliable for support or healing, but I continued with activism voluntarily after that and discovered just how deep the injustices and deceit and covering up ran—sooooo deep, absolutely never-ending.

    The work is far from complete, obviously. More justice will bring more healing, and vice versa. One informs the other, like a double helix. That was my experience, in any case.

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  • Amen, Julie! I believe this is the crux of it. To me, what you are describing is “humanism.”

    “The assumption that we’re somehow not okay in our own skin, that was the biggest insult.”

    It’s also THE pivotal projection which makes all of this so messy and complicated, that false reality which this industry projects onto others, rather than owning their own fears and insecurities.

    “Mostly, it applied to those therapists, not to us.”

    Truth. And the good news is that this makes us more powerful, when we are ok with ALL of ourselves. I believe that once we’ve achieved this level of integral self-affinity, then anything is possible.

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  • “One of the reasons I made this academic analysis observation, is that spiritual mindfulness is recognised by dissenting scholars, to be very different from secularised widely popular forms of mindfulness”

    Not only scholars, but also spiritual healing practitioners and teachers know the difference. “Spiritual mindfulness,” as I would interpret this in the context of what you say, is healing because the intention is to allow energy to shift and transmute, creating change, directly, in the moment, which is where the power to create change resides, in present time.

    Whereas so many popular “mindfulness” practices do not address either emotions or energy, nor present time, in reality, which actually disqualifies it from being called “mindfulness,” by definition, but it’s called that, even if it is a misnomer in these instances. This is often just filler, offered for a variety of ego and/or financial reason; or perhaps this might offer a temporary break from otherwise chronic stress, which isn’t a bad thing. But it’s not healing nor does anything change from these “secular” (I would call it “dissociated from Self”) practices.

    Thank you for highlighting this very important and significant distinction.

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  • I did my healing from all of this 10-15 years ago, during that time frame, based on my life narrative and it guided me to my life’s purpose and work in the world, part of which is speaking my truth to help others awaken to their healing path. Also to shed light on corruption. We all have to find our own way.

    Thank you for sharing your thoughts as well, along with bringing attention to self-guided healing. The more voices to bring light to all of this, the better. One way or another, we’re all working together to move forward.

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  • “I know this is paranoid, but I’m beginning to wonder – when we take on the Corporate Masters – what are we in for?”

    JanCarol, why paranoid? Sorely needed change is what we’re in for–freedom from oppression and tyranny, as covert as these may seem at times. This is the reality to which people have been awakening for a while now and from which we want to ascend, en masse. The power is in the truth, and when we align with that, we are owning our power.

    We know change is unpredictable, but it’s not only needed, it is inevitable at this point, thank God. Embrace the unknown! As we move in present time with moment to moment awareness, we have ample opportunity to create a new future.

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  • “I also shows the possibility (or real probability) of healing that can happen when a human being relinquishes psychiatric drugs and mental-disorder labels and identities.”

    I’d call it a certainty. But it doesn’t stop with ditching the drugs and labels, that’s only step one. There are layers of healing to do, it’s a process, and it’s important to specifically be on a healing path. Healing & change is hard work and it requires flexibility in thinking, letting go of old beliefs and considering new perspectives. This is a big change and some will embrace it while others will be resistant to making that kind of core shift. Different paths, outcomes, and realities happen from this particular variable–allowing vs. resistance.

    What is also certain is that is *impossible* to heal while on psych drugs and identifying with a diagnosis. These only create the illusion of “chronic disorders” and related issues, along with undue suffering, totally and completely needlessly.

    Were people/society/professional industries to stop labeling and drugging and also to stop calling for it as a solution to anything, we’d decrease undue suffering tremendously and go in a much better and way more reasonable direction, where people had a chance to actually grow into who they are and evolve as creative human beings.

    There are all kinds of wise and effective ways to deal with life challenges on all levels, and with total and absolute certainty, this would not include psychiatric practices, which only seem to make matters much, much worse, to the point of tragedy. How much more evidence do we need?? At this point, I believe it’s rather overwhelming in favor of proving what a dangerous and extremely harmful racket this is.

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  • Exactly. It is professional sacrifice to not be complicit one way or another. So be it. It’s called courage and integrity to not enable corruption when one awakens to the fact that they are contributing to it as much as they are complaining about it and blaming others for it. Don’t participate, walk away!

    Or, speak up and out and expect to get fired, and be damn proud of yourself for speaking and living truth, which really does set us free. People get fired all the time and take new avenues which present themselves. It’s called *INSPIRING CHANGE.* Followed by *being the change,* which is the natural and logical progression from inspiration.

    The hope to reform a corrupt system is only upholding corruption. What, suddenly these people will become honest? I think not. It will take a lot of humbling to make that kind of turnaround, if it were to even happen in this lifetime. Making psychiatry obsolete requires abandoning it completely, and ironically, it’s only success has been to make people dependent on it. So there are double binds to face.

    And there’s the divide and conquer at work, the civil war among the pawns in this sinister, immoral, and hopelessly self-serving game of “Hey, who has the power here? And how many people do I have to use, split, and bleed dry in order to prove it!”

    The phrase, “These are not very nice people” comes to mind.

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  • I will guarantee that anyone at all working in this system is wearing two faces. There is no way to be part of any corrupt system in any capacity without compromising oneself in ways one might not even be aware of. They are lying to themselves and to others, and more than likely without awareness. That is the nature of corruption, and it will touch everyone who is connected to the corrupt system, especially if there is a paycheck involved, or any kind of “reward” for going along with the program (like, keeping your job). That skews everything, and absolutely nothing is clear or trustworthy.

    Even if one is feigning loyalty and is, in reality, opposed in principle, they’re still holding up the system by participating day after day. I don’t see how it can be any other way. The truthlessness and irrationality of it all runs so deep, which is seriously dangerous to a society asleep! Waking up is the only way to go, as I see it. Being truthful, and really honest with oneself, is a good place to start, for a change.

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  • These are great and relevant questions, Rossa.

    I think it’s more about how social programming dissociates us from our heart and spirit wisdom so that we are virtually clueless about what to do, what we want, and in what direction to go–other than, perhaps, toward what society would expect and “approve,” which may bring us at least an illusory sense of belonging, but hardly to a sense of who we really are and where we most want to be. As a result, instead of clarity and fulfillment, we run into perpetual dead ends and chronic disappointment, chasing illusion after illusion.

    We at least have to be in touch with and honor our emotions, otherwise we have no way of knowing how something makes us feel, we just go by the programming without checking in with ourselves. That will always lead to trouble of some kind, and eventually, to suffering. Synchronizing body, mind, and spirit is necessary to be connected to our inner guidance/intuition/personal truth, which is wher we can find peace of mind and a sense of personal empowerment, that we are, indeed, in control of our lives and destiny, not to mention, our own minds.

    Living in oppression is confusing and disorienting because it is the norm to lie and confuse and disorient people, all kinds of justifications are made for it. Living in fear distorts reality, and all choices will be made from fear rather than from inspiration. “Common” sense is not necessarily someone’s personal sense of truth in the moment.

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  • I did a search and found this video posted last year called “Lightworkers and the Ascension Process” in which teacher Michael Mirdad explains from his perspective what I’m talking about here.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn5lDimiqig

    This is more common than not now, this is how this is being channeled and taught these days, totally from a person’s lived experience and the truth they gleaned from their deprogramming/healing/awakening, along with multi-cultrual ancient widsom, and its becoming more and more widespread, as a result. These are integrated teachings applied to our times for the expressed purpose of creating core change in the world.

    Not all will accept this information or will be able to hear this, as unfortunately, part of programming from an oppressive system/society is intended for people to resist light, so that they stay in the dark (angry, confused, split off from their nature, feeling overall powerless and dependent), which is why I say it is layered work. It’s program upon program upon program. We awaken when we’re ready. However, this IS the new paradigm. Perhaps it will speak to some people on here, but I imagine not the majority. I’d love to be wrong about that second part!

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  • There are TONS of people who have successfully self-healed and deprogrammed themselves or who are well in the process of it, all over the world! And many of them ARE organized and/or are getting organized, with a strong intention and focus on creating and allowing change to happen, which is happening, little by little, as more and more people heal by leaps and bounds and own their power. That is the new reality. It starts from within to be real and true core change, no two ways about that.

    Begins with healing our hearts, that is transformative. I believe the energy from our hearts (which is our spirit) has more influence on the mind than the brain does. That’s my intuitive hit, not scientific. But it fits my reality.

    These folks are called Lightworkers, and they are healers, teachers, artists, and manifestors who have experienced core transformation (aka “deprogramming”), and who, in return are supporting people who are waking up to all kinds of truths beyond the family and social programs, to pay it forward. That would be the natural ripple effect of energy. No technology needed, just our intention, focus, awareness, and bodies.

    I know many lightworkers who’d been entangled with the system and psych drugs, even hospitalization, etc., and who got off the drugs, stopped therapy–basically rejecting and eschwing all of that–and did it this way, by depgrogramming–exactly this–along with detoxing and realinging in a new way, new grounding and perspective, and who are now teaching and supporting others in their process of healing and awakening in order to shift their reality into something more amenable to who they really are, based on their heart’s desires. I’m one of them, and I’m almost 60. Most former mh clients-turned-lightworkers whom I know are younger, in their 20s and 30s. They are very smart and caught on sooner, God bless them! I follow many of their teachings, they all overlap, not in conflict with each other. After the mh industry, that is entirely refreshing!

    This is a layered process and it is rather unpredictable and it requires focused attention. Out with the old, in with the new. That’s exactly what change is, and all we have to do is allow it at this point because it is well in motion. Even the Earth is shifting, no way human conciousness can avoid shifting now. We’re in an age of expansion.

    You can easily research this on YouTube, search “lightworker” or “lightworker healing” or “planetary ascension” or even “healing from narcissistic abuse”–that’s a powerful deprogramming and probably the most relevant and eye-opening right now, and there are people who’ve accomplished this and who are helping others do the same, guiding them through this complicated and very rich healing. It’s not always easy, but its doable and seriously stress-relieving, to a new level.

    Deprogramming is the most common form of healing these days, and it also causes awakening, that is its natural progression. Neuroplasticity is key, we can change our entire inner landscape this way. It’s powerful stuff! And the path toward freedom.

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  • I call it vampiristic (a virus is, after all, parasitic and depends on a “host” for it to thrive) but either way, yes, it’s insidious, relentless, and dangerous, and certainly behaves as though it has *aversion* to truth and light, whether it’s about healing or justice.

    This is worth repeating–

    “But stop feeding it is a good place to begin.”

    Individuals are, by nature, self-healing and can actively build immunity to viruses so they do not become a host to parasites. The more that do, the more society on the whole becomes immune. Parasites cannot survive without a host, on whom they are completely 100% dependent.

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  • Deprogramming from a cult, deprogramming from bad parenting, deprogramming from false beliefs, deprogramming from self-sabotaging thoughts, deprogramming from group think, deprogramming from toxic psychotherapy, deprogramming from abuse (esp gaslighting abuse)…it’s all a choice, and it doesn’t have to be done by someone to another. We can deprogram ourselves from one set of beliefs (neural pathways/habits) if these beliefs no longer serve us, only taking us in circles making us feel stuck, and we want to shift our experience toward that which is more natural to us, where we are learning, growing, expanding in our thinking and awareness. We discover what this is as we go along, how our process takes us through this. We’re each unique in this regard, we each do it our way.

    It’s really just a matter of noting what our thoughts are, how these thoughts feel to us, deciding whether we want to continue with the beliefs we’ve long held, or are we seeing from another perspective now?

    That’s how change happens, and it’s more natural than not. What is not natural, what is most effort, and what keeps us out of balance and moving further away from our center, is RESISTING CHANGE. That’s going against nature, which is ever-changing. When we allow change to occur, we are deprogramming from old beliefs and allowing new thoughts, vision, and inspiration to come to light. That is simply the nature of evolution. And we need newness now, not more of the same.

    Best I can do at this point. Trusting our intution and allowing ourselves mistakes in the process are vital because this is how we learn to trust ourselves, especially after we’ve been let down and betrayed repeatedly. We’re human, not machines. Life is what we make it to be. Language can be limiting, but the soul knows the truth. Get in touch with your soul, and you will, too!

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  • KS, thank you for saying this. It is the path I took for myself, too, and it was amazingly healing and enlightening, changed everything. And then my partner followed suit, so two of us focused this way is super-powerful. We’re manifesting very well together these days, in synch. The more the merrier!

    This has been very challenging to put into words. Been working on that, and this dialogue unfolded well so that I had another opportunity to put this into context. I’m very happy to hear it is coming across with clarity and that it resonates 🙂

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  • “There are already laws against ‘disorderly conduct.'”

    That’s why I say heart-mind alignment is optimal. Emotional intelligence is a real thing. I call it being “heart smart.” I think it’s part of our human evolution, we learn as we grow. We can be true to ourselves AND stay safe in that scenario.

    I also believe it’s what we’re most missing in our society, which is why things have degenerated so much. When I look at our leaders right now, emotional intelligence is one thing that is not standing out, quite the contrary. More like a bunch of regressed adults acting like angry children looking to express their so-called “power” in any way, shape or form–never mind integrity, fairness, and justice. Apparently, these are just too complicated to apply!

    That’s not true and real power, from where I sit, but more a product of lying and fear-mongering, so it depends on people actually buying the lies and fearing illusions. We don’t have to, if we’re heart smart. And if we don’t, we empower ourselves while disempowering the elites, because we’re not only not buying it any longer, we’re also not living in fear. That’s a program which only serves the elite, at everyone else’s expense.

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  • Great, Steve, I’m glad to hear that because when we deprogram for the lies and illusions we’ve absorbed and discover the truth of our hearts underneath all that bs, that is the ultimate healing and is what creates core change.

    Going from brain-consciousness to heart-consciousness shifts perspective and, therefore, reality. It will become a heart-based reality. That is emotional and creative freedom. No more programs, just living our truth. No need for psychiatry (or any such thing) at that point because we become our own guides and healers.

    A community of heart-based humans, where individuals are aligned with their personal truth, would be the most powerful. And there are such communities in the world, at this point. They are up and coming as more and more people wake up and make that core shift within themselves.

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  • I believe ultimately, we’re looking at DE-programming from all the false information and responses to all the illusions which have been projected at large, for the purpose of control. The result has been separation from who we REALLY are, each of us, our natural tendencies based on how something makes us feel. I think that can be a bit crazy-making.

    Our emotions are essential to how we make choices, they guide us toward or away from things. We’ve been programmed to invalidate or ignore our emotions, and go toward “approval.” Well-being, balance, and self-agency come from paying attention to how we really feel from moment to moment. I believe that is our “natural programming” (our personal nature), and we’re each unique in this regard.

    From our brainwashing society, there’s a lot from which to deprogram, and that is a process which takes time and requires being awake and paying attention to how one feels, rather than what anyone else thinks. Best case scenario is heart-mind synchronicity, then there is no question about the truth of the matter.

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  • “It seems to me that what is wrong with the “mind” most of the time is faulty programming, or perhaps more accurately programming that doesn’t create the desired result from a social perspective. Of course, then we get into the question of who gets to decide what the “desired result” is, which is a whole different question.”

    I believe the “desired result” can only be defined by the individual who is seeking results, it’s really not for anyone else to say. It’s actually no one else’s business, unless a person knows how to be supportive rather than competetive, invalidating, judgmental, etc.

    If one goes by “social perspective,” then one is buying into the social programming. The “faulty programming” is how we were raised/programmed. This is what people are correcting now, one by one.

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  • A compelling read, sadly rings true. Glad you got out of there. Many of us have learned these lessons the hard way.

    “I got my first performance review in more than two years, which was basically a personal attack. A board member had heard and complained about a podcast on which I had been a guest. Or so I was told by the CEO. In the podcast (which I did on non-work time, and never mentioned NAMI by name) I had criticized forced treatment and family-member discrimination. Because of this, I was accused of being ‘anti-family…'”

    These are the examples set nowadays–personal attacks rather than a real evaluation; criticism of the system turns into name calling and pejorative and false labels (as opposed to an adult-to-adult discussion for mutual clarity and understanding, where everyone can move forward from there); and complete disregard for personal experience and opinion thereof, which, in fact, is turned against you. Just awful.

    It also reminds me of 1 on 1 sessions with psychiatrists, also accusatory, projecting, and being way out of bounds with respect to what the goal and objective SHOULD be.

    And I used to work in the system as a voc rehab counselor, very similar experience, which proved to be costly for them because at least I got some legal vindication given that my former employers were so entirely in the wrong and I knew this. But this shit should not be happening in the first place, this is so below par. And sadly, how we do things these days. Very frustrating.

    God, we soooo need better leadership and better examples of how to treat people!!! What you describe here is the road to nowhere because it’s gonna stress the hell out of everyone. Bad strategy for doing business, and for living, as far as I’m concerned.

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  • There’s plenty of evidence of BIG change happening, at the core of society. Mostly, at this point in time, it’s that people are waking up more and more, on a daily basis, to their innate personal power, and learning how to transform themselves out of oppressive situations, toward freedom. Some of us have recounted our experience with this on here, and there are countless stories and testimonials about this on YouTube, for starters. We’re in a new era, it’s unfolding currently.

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  • So to respond to your final statement, there are all kinds of ways to bring truth, light, healing and change using absolutely no money, which can spread far and wide on a physical level, beyond the virtual. I have been creating all kinds of things and helping people for decades, hardly getting back what I put out. I don’t care, as long as it’s helping people. That is really and truly gratifying and fulfilling, which leads to all good things. Ask anyone who does this kind of work, I’m not alone in that. It’s how I know I’m on my path, otherwise it wouldn’t work like this, nor would it feel good to me! I’ve no complaints at all, other than with what is going on in the world, and trying to affect that as positively as I can in a variety of ways, from my vantage point.

    Between no-budget films which were labors of love, and a long-time practice working with individuals, families, communities, etc., and just plain old being there for people without asking for anything in return, I think I’ve impacted quite a few folks and it has rippled, from what I’m aware. There was some exchange of money here and there, always by mutual agreement as per services. But my volunteerism greatly outweighs any of this. I’m hardly a for-profit individual, and I don’t lack for anything and to say I am of modest means is an understatement.

    I had to learn to create my life this way because my money was stolen from me by the vampirism of psychiatry, is how I guess I’d put it bluntly. To me it’s the absolute truth because it was all so fraudulent and harmful to the point of affecting my income in very direct ways, after my savings from having worked for 20 years was zapped. I know I’m not alone here. I’ve accepted it, there is no justice in this system.

    But I wasn’t going to settle for living in lack, so I learned all about the energy of abundance and co-creating with the light—as we’ve discussed often—and I walk my talk, true to my word, and I live the example of this, without question. I’d invite anyone to come to my home and see how this works. It’s impossible to describe in a dialogue such as this and would involve too many personal details which are relevant but which I’m not willing to share here.

    But when it comes to putting my “energy” where my mouth is, I am so prepared to do that. But I don’t know how, other than in 3D reality person, where there is no question about what I am saying, and that I am being true to my word in every respect. My partner would not only corroborate it all, he’s an example of what I’m talking about, as well. We’d illustrate by example and tell you all about how we do this, and how it came about through our adversities, to discover this, and how anyone can apply it, who is willing to learn how energy works. It’s the jewel of our journey, and it totally saved our lives.

    So hey, you put out a challenge? I’m ready to meet it, head on. I’d be more than willing to give a workshop on how to co-create on any scale desired, large or small, without money 🙂 (or, at least, for extremely minimal money, way less than one would think; but still, there is a lot to be created without money, that would be hard for people to fathom due to programming, but I can change that!)

    $$$♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

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  • Wow, seems we are having a huge misunderstanding here. Not sure how to respond in the moment with respect to the issues, that is secondary to me right now.

    What I’m feeling at this point is bad that we have had such a communication glitch. It wasn’t my intention to turn anything around, I was attempting to respond from my own truth, based on where I am in my activism. I thought there was a logic to what I was saying, congruent with and relevant to all we are discussing here. Obviously there are layers of issues and things to process, in light of it all. I’m fine agreeing to disagree. I won’t argue with your truth of the matter, but I do have mine, and I guess they are different, which is fine, why not?

    Thanks for your honesty, Rosalee, as well as for being authentic in your heart and emotions, I always appreciate that very much, it is clarity. Although I must admit that I am disappointed that you feel I am twisting your words, which I can honestly tell you is not the case, at least certainly not intentionally, if that’s how it came across. I do not operate this way, I know that I practice integrity and I consider myself to be straightforward and direct in my communication, best I know how, at least, always my intention.

    I can’t stand mind games–and you’d know why this is–and do not feel they lend themselves to anything good, much less truth, and I’m most sorry that is not evident to you. I am human, after all, and never make any bones about that. I certainly wasn’t intending any of it to be personal!

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  • “If brain-injured, gas-lighted individuals were allowed to have restorative justice, then all of the torture and lying would be unnecessary. The same people who were negligent in the brain injuries and gas-lighting are the ones who insist on no dialogue. Why? Because they were negligent in the first place (and they are still negligent). They simply will not admit that they were at fault.”

    That is the clearest truth I’ve heard yet, and to the point–the crazy-making paradox and dissonance of it all. Thank you, johnchristine, for your perfectly spoken truth. THE heart and spirit of the matter. The ones whom you identify as “negligent” are the stressors, in the first place. That is where I would shine the light, too.

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  • “I want to abolish psychiatry, but it’s not going to topple all at once.”

    I don’t believe that’s necessarily true at this point. I know a lot of people personally and also know of them via internet, who have never been activists nor would know about MiA, etc. (other than with whom I share this info) who already have only negative things to say about psychiatry, and who are aware that it is based on lies, misinformation, and toxic drugs on top of it all. So many people have healed and have gotten their clarity outside of anything having to do with this system and industry, and they are paying it forward successfully.

    I think more people than not get that we’ve all been had in many ways, and the mh and social service systems–all based on psychiatry and its “hierarchy of power”–are at the top of that list. The problem is that no one really knows what to do about it. Corrupt systems have been the norm for so long now, hard to know who and what to trust. Communication breakdown is the norm when there is resistance to change. It’s intentional, to ensure status quo. But that can’t go on forever, so it’s really not a sound strategy for survival, which is why the status quo is in trouble.

    At this point, however, it only takes one domino to fall so as to kick over the rest. The trick is finding that one domino and tapping it over to start the chain reaction, and more than likely, it’ll be an accident, a matter of convergence along with all the truth coming so quickly to light. There’s no foundation in truth here, we all know this is unequivocal truth, at least I am of that opinion quite firmly. So there is no real foundation here, it’s been exposed a million times. Rapid change can happen this way, under these circumstances. I’m not a historian, but I imagine history holds many examples of this. Stands to reason to my mind, in any event.

    And regardless, in this age of information super highway, things happen more quickly than ever. Many previously held in high esteem celebrities of all kinds have seen their careers go down the toilet, along with public respect, in the blink of an eye, thanks to the internet. This can happen to industries and long- established institutions, too. Psychiatry and its ilk are already on shaky ground, I don’t think it’s a secret any longer.

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  • Rosalee, I do know that you are considerate of others this way, I’d never question that. I’m just highlighting the financial disparity within this community, which duplicates the financial disparity in society, and these so called “health systems”–and specifically anything mh related, where I believe this disparity is especially flagrant–which causes such issues of inequality and therefore, marginalization and discrimination. This is social abuse, which, to my mind, is responsible for the ills of society at large, that level of deep division which is crazy-making for people on the wrong end of that.

    I wasn’t equating “solidarity” with money, I meant that these different consciousnesses (lack vs. havingness) are hard-pressed to come together in unity due to power imbalance and different immediate needs. These will create divergent mindsets and realities, and are most likely to be in chronic conflict.

    Mostly, I was responding to this–

    “And there certainly is not money falling from the sky to operate a website of this magnitude.”

    When the fuel is money, then we’re going by the old paradigm and there will be no change. That’s my main point of my response. There are other ways to build and create, without being dependent on money. That would be a truly powerful enterprise, built from new ways of thinking. THAT is change.

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  • Hi Rosalee, you know I have, both, gratitude for MiA and also my criticisms like many do, I’ve been public and transparent about all of it. But I am wondering about asking people, many of whom are on fixed disability incomes and/or living in poverty, to use their very limited financial resources this way. There is a lot of financial disparity in this community alone, and I’m wondering how this is affecting things here.

    These are highly contrasting perspectives–having vs. not having financial resources–and at this point, I am not sure they are reconcilable, so solidarity here is a lot to expect because this represents two unequal levels of power in the current paradigm (key phrase), which MiA can only replicate. Is this really the best we can do?

    And, indeed, Mr. Whitaker, MiA has been of great value to me, despite our tiffs, and I’ve certainly helped to support it in many ways over the years. But we are eluding core change, which, personally, I believe is the only worthwhile goal at this point as anything else is going to be more of the same, and I am wondering if we’re on the same page about that. I’ll see what unfolds from here. Thank you for these unique opportunities to gain clarity on such complicated and controversial issues!

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  • This sounds exactly like my experience in graduate school and MFT training. I also attended an experiential program, which requires expert guidance and boundaries, which the faculty simply did not possess, not even close, making it terribly unsafe and a lot of students felt this. It was a hot topic among us and we tried to address it with faculty in so many ways, only to face this stubborn defensiveness to the point of being surreal. Now, after decades of dealing with this industry, I’m used to it, I get it, and it’s apparently standard procedure in this biz, turns out. But the problem starts in the training and education.

    Indeed, there seems to be little to no interest in the needs or development of the students. Some other agenda entirely going on and it is up for grabs what that would be. But for sure, it was easy to tell that this was not about educating and supporting students on their path. This was all about them, the professors, and they were so competitive not only with each other, but with the students as well! What I witnessed more than anything in grad school is all the different ways one can wield power over others, this is what I saw in action repeatedly, and it is what was taught to and modeled for future psychotherapists. Some serious manipulation and splitting going on there.

    And it’s basically the program, what it amounts to, anyway. I remember distinctly a supervisor telling a group of us interns, “Don’t give your client too much power,” meaning, take their feedback with a grain of salt, they’re just trying to manipulate you. Clients are discredited before they even walk through the door in this total and unambiguous “us vs. them” attitude and mindset.

    We learn by example, so that explains a lot about why clients have issues with the “professionals,” and why this industry is what it is. It’s just one big power struggle based on this ridiculous hierarchy where people take themselves just a bit too seriously, I think, and act like saviours and martyrs, which is always going to be delusional thinking. This can only be draining and fruitless, at the end of it all.

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  • Yes to all of it, Rosalee! MW would be the shot of light and heart-based vision we need, although that would require a shift in consciousness. I’m glad at least she is getting attention, she is learning as she goes. And she’s getting more support than I would have thought she would, she is reaching people because she makes sense, so that’s encouraging. I so admire and respect her courage, given the climate of things around “differences.”

    And yes, by now I’m sure my opinion of anything mh is pretty clear. As I say above, we need something new and different…wayyyy different. Like, honesty, integrity, clear and direct communication, flexibility in thinking, awareness, etc., that kind of different.

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  • Steve, the science of it all was thrown in my face when I was doing my own healing my way, based on faith, trust, and my personal intution. They were wrong and I was right, what can I say? This is so easy to prove.

    These issues are complex and the industry is so misguided and filled with false information, which can be deadly to people and has been, that more than mere science is needed here. We need new vistas and perspectives, and this requires imagination, innovation, and flexible thinking. We are our own scientists and have the capacity to observe the results of our own work.

    The professionals who are getting all the grants and doing all the research have failed us miserably. I’d like to see this community being more open to new possibilities and ways of thinking. The “mainstream academic research science” of it all has become stale, it is sooo played!

    The mh field is stuck in repetition compulsion and as a result, it is in chronic failure, despite whatever perspective du jour it chooses to adopt, until that one is disproved and dead-ended. Then another theory or modality will come along, and take that same path to nothingness. People spend their entire careers gathering money for no-result research (or worse yet, research that is taken as gospel only to be later disproven, after already wrecking peoples’ lives because it was either mistakenly or deceivingly touted as “scientific reserach” and, therefore, “proof”), and living well despite it–and some live quite well, including even a jet-setting, world-traveling lifestyle. Not that everyone wants this, it’s not exactly a noble and fullfiling goal unto itself, but I believe the implication is clear.

    Especially considering that, on the other hand, the research helps no one else to improve the quality of their lives, and people often suffer as a result of believing false research claims, especially when they are desperate and especially vulnerable. I think it’s a travesty of social vampirism, and economics and aggressive class division are at the heart of it.

    This has happened for so long, and from where I sit, I believe it is because these “new and exciting theories” are always missing vital information, due to the general closed-mindedness and inherently divisive, hierarchical, and therefore, stigmatizing nature of this field. This is always reflected in whatever theory or modality, seems to be part of the mix always, which undermines any possible truth to be gleaned from the research. This is a grave disservice to society and the public at large, without a doubt.

    As far as healing goes, the mh industry is a dead end. I haven’t always thought that way, and when I first came to MiA as a commenter, about 7 years ago, to explore these things further and on a deeper level with others who’d shared at least a version of my experience, this wasn’t my set in stone perspective. Although I was starting to wonder. The issues just went deeper and deeper into rabbit holes, like one void after another.

    Overall, however, I was more questioning how to help this field elevate in awareness and do better by its clients. By now, however, I’m deeply convinced that there is no way in hell this will happen. It just stands to reason, at the end of it all, and very easy to intuit at this point in time. I think it’s painfully clear.

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  • Thanks for the link, KS, it’s so interesting how these perspectives shift from one thing to another.

    What I posted about kidney-adrenal balance does apply to exactly how I healed from chronic stress and anxiety, by addressing this at the root of it all. I was guided to this by a medical intuit (with whom I had a 15 minute session for $45), who gave me the protocol to withdraw from the 9 psych drugs I was on at the time, and how to find my balance again (which had been long lost thanks to these pills and all the toxic mh stuff). I followed this to the letter and it worked, I ended up doing her trainings and internships for the next several years, which is how I healed integrally, trained as medical intuit and holistic healer, and became certified to open my own practice.

    Learning to ground and center and to make this practice central to my healing, taking specific herbs to bring balance to kidneys and adrenal glands and also to regenerate other damaged organs (including the brain), along with acupuncture and a variety of energy practices (e.g. Qi Gong) brought all of me back into balance physically and as a result I was finally able to start experiencing the calm of inner peace and a quiet mind again, which had been eluding me for the years that I was on those drugs and yakking with therapists.

    Plus, I did tons of healing with my family and relationships, all of that had to be addressed, regardless of anything, if I wanted to get on a new life track.

    But on a physical level, what had once been called “Panic or Anxiety disorder” along with even “bipolar disorder” all went away when I addressed the kidney-adrenal system along with all the yin/yang balance of my energy, mind/body/spirit. Now my mind is programmed to bring me back to center without effort, it’s automatic. The body will follow that protocol every time. That would be the nature of my holistic healing and personal transformation.

    I no longer require the herbs or any of these practices, other than grounding and cenering, that’s always how I begin and end the day. But the rest was transitional, so I am free from all that now. We can train the body in the direction of self-healing.

    I still believe this is universal, it is tried and true ancient wisdom and when you witness it working, it’s like math, very clear logic. But as we say on here often and I believe it’s important, we all go by what makes us each tick, individually. In general, I find Chinese Medicine to be so much more accessible and simple and it gets to the heart of the matter with ease, which makes healing plausible and likely. That’s my personal experience with it and, therefore, my take on the matter.

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  • What you say, Tom, I recognize as being caused by kidney-adrenal imbalance, as per Chinese Medicine, which is not only rather common, but it is also not at all complicated or hard to correct.

    https://www.empowher.com/holistic-health/content/kidneys-and-adrenals-traditional-chinese-medicine

    The psychological issues are generally created when this is treated as though something is dreadfully wrong (and inconvenient) with the child (or adult) and they are, therefore, taken down the wrong and misguided path, potentially causing all kinds of problems, and quite possibly and probably, from being labeled, stigmatized, and marginalized, causing undue suffering.

    Coming back into balance from triggers is a practice, and absolutely everyone could benefit from that awareness, being human and all.

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  • Yes, you say it perfectly! That is the shift in focus needed, entirely, without question. And that would be a community issue, to not enable it, to not agree with it, and to not fear calling it out.

    If calling out abuse in the moment were to be unequivocally supported and seen as courageous and strong, and worthy of note as a red flag, then that would indicate a sound, just, safe, and balanced community. As it is now, coming forward to call out abuse, injustice, etc., one risks being shamed as whiney, thin-skinned, and fragile, and I guess lately, “snowflake” would be added to the list.

    That’s why they call it courageous, but at the same time, it is the essence of, both, dysfunction and social injustice–one person vs. an entire scapegoating community, all banding together from fear, oppression, and some kind of co-dependent need. That happens when one person’s truth is being highly resisted, to the point of cover up.

    Why, I would wonder? What is so threatening about that one person’s truth, who becomes a scapegoat? Maybe because it IS the truth that no one wants to see because it will create too much of a challenge to change on a core, systemic level? I guess there would be a power shift, and that’s too scary to even think about–well, for those in power, at least!

    I think, perhaps, these are viable reasons for dysfunction/systemic abuse to be so damn stubborn. It’s easier to think up ways to discredit the truth-speaker, with labels and negative gossip, in all kinds of intentionally sigmatizing ways, but it will not lead to anything good to do so, because it is entirely untrue. A community built on outright lies, as many are, we are discovering more and more–the epitome of corruption and injustice–is a house of cards. It’s only a matter of time before truth comes to light, always.

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  • I agree. You simply have to be human to be affected by these.

    And how about instead of suggestive labels like “fragile,” put on those who have been victimized and betrayed (which I know you are not doing here, Steve, I’m saying this in general, it’s unfortunately common to attribute “fragility” to victims of abuse who claim post traumatic stress from abuse), we put the attention on the ones doing the abusing, who are, in reality, the fucked up ones because they are doing harm to others outright, and that’s more than merely a suggestion. It’s a fact.

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  • “there are some superb practitioners, a large group that do decent work, and a small group that are actually toxic.”

    This is a standard statistical curve and is by no means a truism. I would say very frankly and with all confidence that the toxicity level in the field of psychology is much higher than anyone would want to admit. And that is understandable, it’s a hard truth for many. But it’s highly relevant information when we are seeking changes at the core, and it’s exactly what many of us dialogue and debate/argue about on here, a hot topic.

    Personally, my experience is that it permeates the industry, causing it to radiate it into society at large. I can’t even imagine this not being true, after what I and others have been through with this. I’ve been outside of it for a long, long time now and have been able to get clarity from a distance by this point. This goes back to grad school and my own training, followed by a stint through the system and a variety of tangential agencies playing various roles from client to professional to independent trainer to advocate for others, over a period of 20+ years.

    It’s all toxic, through and through, I had to get away to survive, it almost killed me as I was doing all I could to heal and move forward. I’ve been vindicated and now I am thriving when I’d been given up for dead by that industry. I’m sorry and I mean no disrespect, but toxic is the only word I can think of to describe my entire experience from that field, and that is the God’s honest truth.

    I think where the dialogue breaks down is that it seems impossible to separate personal ego issues from the evidence of countless personal testimonials. Boundaries become blurred, defenses go up, projections go out, the gaslights are ignited, and the truth always gets twisted right here, in the never-ending power struggle between the academically programmed clinician vs. a truth-speaking client. This is where things get downright surreal, and potentially crazy-making.

    It’s also where change would be the most potent, because it is also where the stalemate occurs. It’s the communication in this field, which is painfully ironic. I think it’s problematic and seems to inevitably lead to confusion, anger, and frustration, rather than clarity, truth, and real and true progress. Too many illusions–all those programmed beliefs–which only serve to feed and maintain the hierarchy, which is exactly where the toxicity resides, because it is the familiar and it is false, without substance or justification, and entirely lacking in justice. Time for change.

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  • Very good! Yes, trauma causes unnatural shifts in energy, along with energy blocks, and if left unaddressed the energy from the trauma and unexpressed emotions get embedded in our cells and can affect us adversely in a variety of ways–in our bodies, in our relationships, and in the quality of our lives. It can be so subtle and insidious because it is the familiar, which makes it especially tricky and actually requires waking up to it, which can be a hard truth.

    This is where good, heart-based and focused support can be extremely helpful, I believe, and advantageous, because it can be a challenging cross-over. However, leaving these energies and blocks unaddressed at the core causes repetiition and snowballing of the energy because the trauma is trying to work its way out, and until it does, it will only attract more of the same. In the meantime, we feel more and more oppressed by our own bodies.

    There is a way out of that, and I’m so glad your article highlights this! But no, it’s not easy, it’s quite challenging, and uniquely rewarding. I see it as deprogramming from false beliefs, and that involves a network of shifts which take place in the body, including neural pathways, to change thought habits. That shifts our entire energy field and creates new perspectives and realities. That is core change, from the inside out.

    I’ve been through this type of healing, and it’s rather close to miraculous, honestly, and I’ve helped others over the years facilitate such a transformation. It’s quite something to witness, as it is to experience. Takes diligence, dedication to healing, and permission for change to occur, surrending to it.

    When we shift focus, perspective, and beliefs, we create openings for that energy to be corrected and we are easier in our flow of energy and, therefore, in our well-being. That is when our experience will change for the better, because we have released old past time energy that got stuck in the body, so we create new experiences, not repeating the past.

    This is the foundation of energy healing. Our emotions are critical to how we guide ourselves through life. If they get judged, shamed, numbed, or disregarded, we’re in the dark because we’re disconnected from our guidance system. And it is NEVER too late to wake up and turn on the light. Healing the wounds creates fertile ground for healing the body, because it would no longer be working against itself.

    Great article and info, thanks!

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  • Yes to all of it, KS, you’re speaking truth, I believe. I’m just saying that some relationships are worth going through conflict while others, I believe, would be a waste of time and energy. For me, that would depend on how that first conflict plays out. I know there are some things I cannot tolerate right off the bat, despite the role I am playing in the relationship, and these red flags can become apparent quickly in conflict. While the nature of what we are willing or not willing to tolerate is individual, of course, I do believe we all have our need for boundaries here, for the sake of self-caring.

    And at the same time, we do have opportunities to grow here, when we are challenged by conflict, and clients can give therapists the opportunity to do just this. If both parties are healing and growing, then it will not be a power-based relationship, but more of a sound healing contract, and wonderful growth can be expected on both sides. Which to me, is the point of healing through dialogue. It’s never one-sided, realistically speaking.

    But, indeed, when it is this authoritarian power-struggle fyog it’s-you-not-me thing we’ve got going on, that’s purely farce, no one is healing, and it is particularly detrimental to the client, to the point of potentially causing them quite a bit of harm. Unfortunately, this is the mh industry norm.

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  • I’m surprised that you call yourself “agnostic” Steve, I thought you were firmly of the belief of something greater than ourselves, or that which connects us all, higher self, etc. You certainly channel quite a bit of light, I’m sure all would agree about that. I certainly perceive you as spiritually aware and evolved. Would you not own that?

    I think it’s a feeling and it’s personal and individual. “Waking up” implies inherently that one had previously been “asleep.” (From unconscious to conscious). That’s like a light going on, and it is a feeling in our bodies, and it does eventually influence our perspective and perception of things, and eventually, our personal realities.

    It’s an experiential thing, one has to know it by lived experience, we gather our own data as per following the thread of our emotions to whatever awareness it brings us from moment to moment. Absolutely impossible for anyone to know another’s experience in this regard, it’s so personal and involves personal data that is meticulous and entirely individual, like a fingerprint.

    In this case, I’d call it a “soul print.” We each have one, and they are all unique. To me it makes sense, stands to reason, and rings true. More than that, I wouldn’t know how to argue about it, but perhaps some master teacher would. For me, it just works in a practical way, to get this.

    It’s why we don’t want to dull or numb our emotions with these toxic drugs, or anything else. The evidence is in what happens when people go off the drugs and continue onward, creating in their light, finally. We are growing in numbers by leaps and bounds. MiA has been instrumental in this, several of us participate here, so for that I’m grateful to it.

    This has my experience of it and absolutely everyone else whom I know has gone through that particular experience of awakening, whether it involves psychiatry and drugs or not, that’s just one way of doing it. But waking up to our own light is how we bring light to the planet, and everyone has their own path to that, and it begins with a feeling. It’s emotional, that’s vital to awakening. When people have heart openings from awakening, they tend to weep, it’s so profound and loving.

    It may not be in maisnstream science journals or the creed of academia, but it is in tons and tons of highly respected and discussed literature throughout the ages, up to and including today.

    And in fact, it is increasing today–there is so much out there now that is accessible regarding integrating the light with our physical existence and the implication of that–because we need this more than ever now, new ways of thinking, expansive to include the spiritual, which brings light to new possibilities for solutions to all kinds of wicked problems in the world today, which is what Marianne Williamson is trying to do. We’re trying to wake up here…

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  • “real trust isn’t built until you’ve successfully navigated a conflict (or several).”

    That’s a good point, KS. Any relationship is going to inevitably bring some kind of disagreement or clash in values or perspectives. How that is handled is key to the substance and creative power of that relationship.

    I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say “several,” however, I can always tell after one conflict if the relationship is worth it or not. If the conflict leads to a dialogue with the intention of bringing mutual clarity (whether or not new harmony is achieved or agreeing to disagree), then that is a powerful relationship and there is potential for co-creating forward.

    However, if the conflict is based on power struggle and “needing to be right” and “needing to win,” and all that ego stuff, then that usually gets pretty nasty and sabotaging and I’d predict a tumultuous and mutually draining and frustrating relationship from that, no thanks.

    And of course, in my experience, mh clinicians have always fallen into the latter category, which is why I detest the field. It is a waste of time and energy because that particular conflict will NEVER be resolved, and will only repeat and repeat, guaranteed, until there will eventually be “a bad breakup” or abandonment or some such sabotage. In that case, I’d say it is best to wake up, cut one’s losses, take any lessons, and move on to better things.

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  • It’s really impossible to measure such a thing as “an effective therapist” because it is going to be an individual thing, how the client feels about their therapy and how they’ve been able to apply it and feel supported in that process. It is all 100% subjective and involves many moving parts.

    Success in healing is on the part of the client, not the clinician. When a clinician claims “victory” rather than attributing it to the client’s work, that would be supreme arrogance, the essence of it, and basically, stealing the client’s light, which happens quite a bit. Therapists are prone to bragging about how much they help their clients, I heard it all the time during graduate school, and there are countless books to fit this description. To their mind, it’s about them and their “brilliance,” rather than being about the client and their courage, strength, and creativity. It’s why I warn of vampirism in this field.

    The therapists I’ve known do not “countertransfer” as much as they, in fact, initiate the “transference.” Seems to be the state of mind before a client even walks into their office. In their minds, they seemed to want to parent me, which felt, well…gross is really what best describes that feeling.

    I find it to be incredibly unprofessional, unethical and devoid of boundaries, not to mention extremely dangerous in the dependency which this creates. And yet, this is how it is taught in graduate school. This is the program.

    When I was seeing pscyhotherapists, I never, ever considered them to be any kind of authority/parental figure (or even a “best friend” for that matter), but more of a provider of professional services to help me discover the aspects of myself which were causing me trouble in life, so that I could make informed changes. Most of them (all but one of them) were way out of bounds in their projections, and hated to be told they were “wrong.” That would always get turned around into a really bad manipulation and nasty projections.

    I woke up to this after having spent several years in therapy, only to become more and more confused and mind-chatty, eventually down the rabbit hole of chronic rumination and endless thought loops. It was only when I stopped “talk therapy” that my mind was able to finally quiet down and focus on what I was creating in life. It was like having a nervous sytem transplant, everything just calmed down and I felt stillness and light for the first time, and I was able to ground in the present. That is inner peace, which I can’t even imagine any kind of “talk therapy” achieving, quite the contrary. For me, at least, this is the case, some may find this useful. There’s only so much blah blah blah I can take. A calm, quiet mind is a gift and it has to be cultivated and practiced.

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  • You show great self-awareness and courage in your humility. Congratulations on walking your path in service to others. I agree, it is incredibly rewarding and it brings us closer to our true selves, in synch with who we really are. That is where we experience the true abundance of life.

    One sentence from your article stood out to me which gave me pause–

    “I need to accept myself for who I am, but I also need to feel acceptance from those around me.”

    To the first part, I definitely understand that from self-stigma, the first step would be self-acceptance. But even more aligned with who we are would be to celebrate and embrace who we are, beyond mere self-acceptance, to really shine our light. That is when the power of our hearts and spirits come to light in the world, and we can truly make an impact on a grand scale, from example after example influencing and inspiring more and more people to shine their light, rather than to fear it. Most people do fear their own light, given the turbulence which authentic truth can stir up in the midst of corruption, the light showing where all the shadows are lurking. But that’s a good thing, and I stand by that firmly. Speaking truth clealy and directly without fear–or in spite of it, either way–is the essence of change because it inspires action from all that triggering.

    And to the second part of that statement, well, I have a lot to say, I’ve worked with this aspect of myself quite a bit over the years, and it has been profound in how it affected my life experience, so I feel compelled to share my experience and thoughts about this here.

    This phrase about seeking acceptance from others from others brought up for me when I’ve had to traverse environments where I was a treated like an outlier, yet from all the evidence of my life, I knew I had purpose there, this was not random. While no, it does not feel good to be in a community of bashers, stigmatizers, and marginalizers (which to me, is pure bigotry), if we are doing this with purpose (to change the system), then not only is it to be expected, but we also have the opportunity to really own our power and not give a rip what others think. Totally disempowers stigma, as it is no longer relevant. Power is power.

    I know that often one is addressing a core wound of “rejection,” and of course acceptance is a much better feeling, but until we embrace ourselves for who we are and totally release the opinions of others, we’re more applying a band-aid rather than actually healing from rejection, scapegoating, or unnatural separation from our family/community of origin. Usually that’s what drives people to seek approval and acceptance in life, and it’s quite common, unfortunately, because we lose ourselves in that process.

    But we can remedy this within ourselves with deep inner work and expanding our self-awareness to include spiritual aspects of ourselves. That tells the whole story of who we are, rather than just a fragment of it.

    That was the most significant change I went through, because like most people, I was seeking approval, and it wasn’t consciously, it was just programmed into me that this is what I wanted to look for in life, that was my upbringing as well as the messages from society.

    To me, seeking approval is exactly the same as seeking acceptance. I see no difference in this because people will accept you if they “approve” of you, which is, in essence, CONDITIONAL love, which is purely manipulative and double binding, and again, more common than not.

    When I stopped seeking approval from others and stopped fretting over whether or not I am being “accepted” or “approved of” by others, and instead embodied my authentic truth, I grew by leaps and bounds and my entire life changed for the way better, to pure cteative freedom, because that is the real me, and not the product of programming. No emotional shackles from needing approval or acceptance, because I know myself and my place in the world. That is not up for judgment by others, it is mine to know and to own–between me and my God, so to speak.

    And it led me to those with whom I am copacetic, and where I no longer have to fight this particular battle because it is no longer relevent.

    Standing ones ground while facing double-binding opposition, which comes across as irrational, is extermely empowering and leads to all kinds of clarity, truth, and personal growth. That’s an entirely new reality, the essence of transformational healing, which is where “relapse” ceases to be an issue, there is no such thing in that expanded consciousness because we have integrated on the most profound level when we stand in our light of truth despite anything at all. That is tremendous strength and power, above and beyond the ego. In fact, the ego dies here, which is where “transformational” comes from.

    To expect approval from others is to give away one’s power. When we can stand in our light of truth and feel good about that because TRUTH is the light and we can feel it, then we have overcome the need for approval, and we are good with ourselves, no matter what others might say or think. That inherently translates into peace of mind, self love, and profound synchronicity in life.

    Of course an oppressive culture would want you to rely on their approval to keep you out of synch with yourself. That’s how they get you in their control, how we get programmed to appease social norms, rather than to challenge them as they should be challenged during these toxic times.

    The remedy is to have an unwavering sense of self, and to know our own hearts. That’s more powerful than any social program, which relies on undermining people’s sense of self and empowerment, through fear, judgment, marginalizing, etc., and results in such a personal transformation, that there is no relapse after this because we’re functioning in an entirely different paradigm of being, based purely on self-agency and free will, and NOT appeasing cultural norms (aka, seeking approval). That is where change will occur in the biggest way.

    With all that said, you do seem to know your heart and it is about being of service to others, with which I match, I’m purely in service to others, when I am not taking care of my own needs.

    Thank you for being an inspiration to others. That right there raises the energy of the planet and makes the world a better place in which to live. That’s the direction in which I’d like to see the world go, one in which people own their power, embrace new ways of being, and forget this blasted system which divides people up into columns of “approved” vs. “rejected.” No one, but NO ONE should have that power, and they wouldn’t if people did not go by this blatantly false and measure of humanity. That’s exactly what gives power to “stigma.”

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  • It’s not “paranoia” when society actually does persecute groups of people, and it is not discouraged by the law. The fear is justified, and purposeful, and is based on reality, not simply a product of negative imagination. Persecution can be real and it’s a common tool of oppression. It’s also oppressive to call it “paranoid” when, in fact, it is based on reality. That’s actually called “gaslighting,” the essence of it, precisely. Very abusive, and oh-so-common, most unfortunately.

    Paranoia is the product of fear-mongering, which psychiatry projects readily, as does the media. Paranoia is more common than not, people are in fear these days. Everyone is oppressed and it is easy to feel hacked and watched in this day and age of spyware and cameras. Our society is created from fear (classism) and, in turn, this creates paranoia. That’s the truth.

    People who are currently in power and who have committed crimes or who have been lying to make a buck or to control others are the ones whom I imagine are truly having paranoid thoughts right now. Lots of ugly truth coming to light about the elites, so they must be living in fear, because they are being found out and exposed for who they truly are. It’s about time!

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  • Wow, really powerful comment, and succinct in its clarity.

    “There are too many vested interests and there has been too long a history of entrenched oppression. A tradition of not-so-benevolent dictatorship by self righteous and deluded do-gooders. The self-delusion of many “helpers” that they are doing good is their shield against the horror of reality.”

    I’ve used the phrase “delusional do-gooders” myself. This is absolute truth, the whole story in three easy-to-read sentences. Thank you, please write more.

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  • It’s only a matter of time before mainstream “wisdom,” which I find to be woefully academically-based, is replaced by actual truth, which to me is founded on actual human experience–unique to everyone, on the whole. There is a wide and seemingly irreconcilable gap between these two perspectives.

    Long held beliefs are being repeatedly challenged, and it’s causing an un-civil war, so to speak. At some point, hopefully sooner than later, the smoke will clear and more and more truth will come to light for everyone to see. It’s all being fought out in the media, in plain sight at this point. Everyone has their opinion about it, that’s the world in all its diverse glory.

    Truth always comes to light, one way or another, despite the extreme resistance to it by those who are prospering in the current system, based on secrets and lies. So much change happening now, it’s hard to keep up. Thanks for highlighting this extreme split in our society.

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  • “really the problem is they just have too much money and power, not even humility or generosity, and is that what’s making them unhappy in the first place?”

    This is such a powerful statement, and truly beautiful in its insight and wisdom. To be humble and generous IS to be powerful, and it feels really good, rich and buoyant. No fear there, only love. These are healing energies, and they can create really wonderful things in the world–amazing things, supportive to our humanity!–when we allow and consciously practice these.

    Relying on money to be one’s power is foolhardy and based purely on social programs and illusions. Rich one day, poor the next, happens all the time. Then what?

    Lots of potential for personal and spiritual growth there. My personal opinion is that this is the best option, because it leads to meaningful change, new perspectives, and a new lease on life from which to continue, changed and transformed, realizing one’s true abundance, and not only surviving, but thriving and creating as you go.

    That is one potential outcome of losing everything, once a person gets over the shock and fear, which would be natural and human repercussions inititally. But with inner work and examination of one’s beliefs at that moment, which are tested under such circumstances, one can rebuild, and with more wisdom than before. That is inner peace, strength, courage, faith & trust, which are priceless.

    But people react in all kinds of ways when they lose material possessions to which they have become attached, ESPECIALLY money! That can be a rude awakening because it brings to light a dreaded survival fear that one has been carrying around all along, buried underneath all that “wealth” and then, suddenly, they are facing it, because the wealth is gone, no shield from the truth any longer.

    That is a story older than time, countless examples of this throughout history, and happening now. This whole “money & power” thing is way over the top at this point, given what is rapidly coming to light about the elites of this world.

    Humility and generosity are the basis of heart-consciousness, which is where our human and spirit selves align in harmony and synchronicity. Nothing more powerful than this. And it’s from the heart, so it is authentic, and not the product of material wealth and control over others. That’s a whole new paradigm of being.

    Thank you for saying this, Derek. I wouldn’t have expected to glean so much from it in the moment, this all just kind of poured out of me when I started responding. But obviously your statement is very inspiring to me! And to my mind, it’s absolute truth, and worth highlighting because it is key. Associating humility and generosity with power–which to me is a real and true equation–really could make an impact on how we choose to be in the world.

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  • Psychiatry has driven a lot of people into poverty, while getting richer from doing so. The underlying and rather torturous message from clinician to client is often “I have and you lack.”

    Diagnosis: energy vampirism, which is the underlying cause of classism, which is the root of marginalization and social injustice, which inevitably leads to rage, powerlessness, depression, depsondence, hopelessness, violence, and/or suicide. It’s really simple math.

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  • Shifting neural pathways is a matter of changing core beliefs and habits of thinking, aka deprogamming from double binding illusions and social progams, in order to experience our authentic truth, the truth of our heart and spirit. When we attune to that which makes us feel good and hopeful, rather than constantly dwelling on the shadow of life, then we are creating better feeling thoughts and beliefs which are not limiting, but instead, which honor our ability to self-heal and to embody our unlimited creativity. From this, our reality improves a great deal and we are in control of our experience, owning our power. That’s joyous freedom.

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  • This is such an interesting article, and of course very disturbing. Although it seems like a logical progression based on what I experienced almost 20 years ago, when I was caught up in the system, when it was the paper trail which found its way distributed throughout the system, which “defined” the individual, thanks to the oppressive arrogance of psychiatry and their systemic ilk. So now it’s in techno-bytes and logarithms. Hmm, that seems rather soul-less.

    I wrote about this in an article recently published in 3 parts on Mad In Italy. Part 3 just posted this morning, and I think what I describe from my experience is the precursor to what is talked about here, regarding techno-sabotage of a person by having no concept of their humanity, and going by God-knows-what information. That’s all illusion-based reality, and it directly creates marginalization, comes from “mh industry” perspective, so skewed and false, all shadow projection.

    I believe it begins with self-delusions on the part of the clinician. Certainly in my case I know this was truth, no two ways about it. Obviously, based on what is going on with these apps and remote diagnosing, seems as though this is frighteningly common. How scary for the clients.

    Big problem in psychiatry–no regard for a person’s humanity. Where does this bogus information come from? I can only call them projections, because they so often more than not, if ever, have a basis in consensual reality (*consensual* being the keyword here). What happens with clients is that these are realities made up about people (who comprise “the system,”) to favor those who consider themselves “authority” on humanity, ironically enough, while acting as though a person’s humanity does not factor into their being-ness–aka psychiatry, et al. Tragic irony.

    https://mad-in-italy.com/2019/07/larte-dellessere-umani-parte-1/

    https://mad-in-italy.com/2019/08/larte-dellessere-umani-parte-2-sfidare-il-sistema-the-art-of-being-human-part-2-challenging-the-system/

    https://mad-in-italy.com/2019/08/larte-dellessere-umani-parte-3-the-art-of-being-human-part-3/

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  • Marianne Williamson is going in the direction of change. Coming from a heart-based perspective in the political arena is to show courage, faith, and extraordinary strength. She knew she would get ridiculed, didn’t stop her from standing front and center to deliver her truth.

    Truth is not always popular and not always easy to take, and yet we crave it because truth is light, always, regardless of whether or not we can take it in. To allow in light and truth, one must deprogram from false beliefs and detach from social “norms” in favor of living and embodying one’s own unique truth.

    “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”
    Marianne Williamson

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  • “the abuse is built into the foundations of our society.”

    PD, I totally agree with you here and I think this is really important to wake up to. And because it is built into the foundation, it is the norm, which means that it is the familiar, which means that people are used to it and do not recognize it as abuse. All kinds of excuses, justifications, and chronic enabling happen here, holding up the system of abuse.

    Considering that we are all part of the collective, and we have all been programmed one way or another, we can make sure WE are not contributing to this by not allowing ourselves to be abusive toward others. In addition, we can make abuse in our lives unacceptable and have strong and non-negotiable boundaries around this. Abusive people don’t respect boundaries and will tend to wear people down before giving up, so it’s tricky and takes practice. We’ve been programmed to take abuse, enable abuse (look the other way or make excuses for it), or to be abusive, so breaking these programs takes some doing, what I’d call inner work.

    Old habits are hard to break and require neural shifting. Playing any of these roles supports the abusive system. One must evolve out of that dynamic for the system to experience challenging change. That would be a new normal, to break the system by not playing ANY of the roles in it.

    But I agree that it’s the norm and society is set up that way, currently (power-imbalanced), so a new normal (consisting of integrity, kindness, justice–all missing currently from the foundation of society) would be required for anything to change–political, social, economic, etc. That’s not at all easy for people, to move away from the familiar and trust the unknown, but I believe it’s necessary for survival at this point.

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  • A friend sent this to me recently–

    The Rwandan prescription for Depression: Sun, drum, dance, community. “We had a lot of trouble with western mental health workers who came here immediately after the genocide and we had to ask some of them to leave. They came and their practice did not involve being outside in the sun where you begin to feel better, there was no music or drumming to get your blood flowing again, there was no sense that everyone had taken the day off so that the entire community could come together to try to lift you up and bring you back to joy, there was no acknowledgement of the depression as something invasive and external that could actually be cast out again. Instead they would take people one at a time into these dingy little rooms and have them sit around for an hour or so and talk about bad things that had happened to them. We had to ask them to leave.” ~A Rwandan talking to a western writer, Andrew Solomon, about his experience with western mental health and depression.

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  • The one thing I agree with here is that one cannot heal if one is in the midst of abuse. The first step would be to get out of that situation. And yes, that can be really, really hard for a number of reasons. But it’s a must, before anything else.

    From there, many things can happen which can include punishing the abuser as well as starting a healing process from the abuse. Were healing to not occur, that person would more than likely walk right into yet another abusive relationship, happens all the time like that.

    But when a person heals from abuse, then they change whatever it was that attracted them to that abuser to begin with, and why they didn’t hear their intuition and pick up on the signs. And there are always indicators, we just don’t pay attention to them because we are in need of something. This is what people have to change within themselves if they expect to break patterns of abuse. That’s a separate issue from vindication, but it’s necessary in the process for anything at all to change for that person.

    None of this is easy in the slightest, but it’s what it comes to for some people. First step, though, is to get out of the situation one way or another. From there, it’s up to the person how they are best served proceeding, and I don’t believe anyone has the right to tell that person what to do. It is their choice and I feel it should be respected and HONORED.

    I disagree with most of what you say, but I’m not going to argue with you about it. You have a right to think what you want as does anyone. I believe that’s the entire point of this article.

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  • Rosalee, thanks so much for posting these and KS and Rachel, I’m so glad this rings true to you, as well.

    Oldhead, I’m not guilting anyone nor discouraging anyone from fighting, I did a lot of fighting myself, as part 3 of my article on Mad in Italy (to be posted soon) goes into a bit.

    I was also doing tons of healing work simultaneously, because all that resistance takes its toll. I believe there should be a balance, that’s all I’m saying, just attempting to raise awareness a bit around the issue of maintaining personal well-being while fighting the good fight. There is a lot of growth and healing when done together. And I don’t think that’s terribly radical, either, it’s logical.

    However, on this website, I, on the other, have been smeared for talking about healing and for that being part of my professional work in the world. I’ve been thrown guilt for deriving income from helping others, after years and years of struggling, and then all the training I did to learn and apply what I did. I think that’s bullshit, and I’m not going to hear any more garbage about how I’m “contribuing to abuse” by wanting to heal and desiring healing for anyone who desires it for themselves. I’ve done way more work for free than not, but some people can pay me and they do because they find my services to have value. I’ve never, ever turned anyone away for financial reasons, and would not ever consider doing so. I believe I am helping humanity and have been bringing change for a while, because I am an example of change and transformation. I help others in this regard and it improves their quality of life. What, exactly, would be the downside of this?

    I was a victim of all kinds of abuse during my life, and I went very deep and to great lenghts to heal from the effects of this, change my inner landscape to stop repeating that pattern, and at the same time, as part of all that, I also fought the good fight, spoke truth to power, broke up systems, took consequences on the chin, moved on, etc. But the first precedes the rest of it, if you want to be effective. I help clients find their voice and power, and encourage them to use it, when they feel ready and courageous to do so. In the meantime, I help them to discover that courage. It’s up to them what they choose to do, I just help people clear out voices external to their own, so they can hear their own inner voice, guidance, and intution with clarity. That’s what psychiatry has cut us off from, I know this all too well. That’s the healing, and it is powerful.

    Everyone needs healing right now, one way or another. Change will bring up our most shadowy stuff to address, otherwise, change will not occur. That’s why a lot of people resist change, because on some level, they know it means their stuff will come up yet again, all those programs we took on that no longer serve because they are false.

    Many of us on here have an advantage, in that we’re accustomed to hanging out in the shadows, doesn’t scare us at this point, it’s a familiar. I guarantee this is not the case for mainstream types, middle class, etc. They are scared to death of shadow! If we can embrace our light as well as we embrace our shadow, then we are more powerful than the mainstream. But without that “light” part, we have no power. I’m sure of this.

    But some of the rhetoric around here makes healing sound like a dirty word, and that’s what my post is about. I think it’s clear, true and neutral, so I’m not understanding where the “guilt” comes in, except as a projection.

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  • “but our society teaches us from early on how to mute that “little voice” and talk ourselves out of believing what we have legitimately observed.”

    Yes, Steve, you say a mouthful here. Psychiatry completely dissociates us from our intuition/inner voice/inner guidance with drugs, pure and simple. It’s why I was NOT attuned to my radar as I entered the field, followed by going through the system, which is why it took a while to wake up to what had been occurring.

    I believe the psych drugs don’t allow normal neural shifting from lived experience, causing one to get stuck in old patterns because they do not process so there is no growth in awareness or expanding consciousness.

    Once I got off the pills and healed from what they had caused me, my neuroplasticity kicked in (thank GOD!) and my consciousness expanded wildly, which was my healing and then some, like quantum shifting. Finally, my neurons were flexible again. Then I had to learn how to ground all that new awareness. Quite the process, on the exhilirating side.

    What you say is also one of the things I caution about talk therapy–therapists can easily talk a client out of one’s inner voice and intuition, when they impose their own truth and reailty onto the client, filling the client with self-doubt and questioning their own sense of self and personal reality. Challenging a client is one thing, but throwing doubt at them for any reason is abusive because it can only cause confusion, anxiety, and ultimately psychic harm, if they are particularly vulnerable, which is most often the case.

    Personally, I think cutting someone off from their inner truth, intuition, and personal sense of self-guidance is a crime against humanity. That is nothing short of disastrous for a person, to be dissociated from their personal truth, no two ways about it. That is how suffering can become chronic because one cannot find their way out of the dark, if they don’t know their own light!

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  • Part 2 of my article just posted today on Mad in Italy, challenging the system regarding how psychiatry can directly create despair for a client, along with the very powerful illusion of hopelessness. I talk about what led to my desire and attempt to end my life, so I’d like to offer it here, as food for thought on the matter.

    https://mad-in-italy.com/2019/08/larte-dellessere-umani-parte-2-sfidare-il-sistema-the-art-of-being-human-part-2-challenging-the-system/

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  • Wonderful, brave article. Yes, it is time to bring this into focus. There’s a lot to chew on here that merits deep thinking, but my initial reaction was around the issue of “shame.” It’s a terrible feeling and is akin to despair, but let’s put it where it belongs.

    To my mind, there is no shame in struggling with life and even wanting it to end sooner than later. Thanks to deeply embedded social programs and systems of abuse and corruption being the mainstream, life can be disorienting and alienating, for example, from intense feelings of “not measuring up,” leading to feelings of unworthiness. These are based on lies from toxic systems, and I believe this can happen to anyone. It seems natural, considering who are the rich and powerful influencing and controlling our society, setting such public examples, and relentless in their pursuit of power. At least, as filtered through the media. Still, what we witness on the world stage seems consistent with what is happening in the collective right now, which has become, literally, explosive and deadly.

    Now, let’s talk about Jeffrey Epstein…

    Tell me again why poor people or lonely people or confused people should feel shame? There is no shame in being human, none at all. Takes courage to live this life and we must be creative about it.

    But shame on these social predators and piranhas who go after children and even go so far as to create a society of sexual predators. Makes me furious to think about the gaslighting society has taken from these vampires–society’s “elites”– and the suffering and tragedies created for people from this shit. To the victims: THEY are the ones who should feel ashamed, not YOU!!!

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  • I’m not sure I follow your reasoning here, PD. Who is taking abuse lightly? Regardless of vindication efforts, people still need to heal from abuse, and that is a complex healing. Otherwise, it is bound to be repeated and to me, it’s important to stop the cycle of abuse, and there are many players in that dynamic.

    It’s not one or the other, healing and finding justice can go hand in hand. Everyone makes their own choices based on what they feel is right for them, as it should be. No one size fits all in any respect!

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  • I’m going with the fact that we agree that psychotherapy is a huge risk and can cause serious damage, more so than people realize and it is extremely challenging to pinpoint because emotional abuse can be very subtle, albeit very powerful in sabotaging one’s sense of self. This includes different levels of gaslighting, Munchausen by proxy, etc., all standard practices and tools of the trade which keep business alive and flourishing. That’s all I want to convey.

    Agreeing on that merits no qualifiers. That’s the only point I want to drive home because I believe it is an important truth, regardless of the very rare exceptions. Many people do not realize the harm that this causes, and it is what I try to highlight with my activism. I think it’s core to all of this.

    The worst part is that it is based on relationship behaviors which are accepted as the norm. We live in an abusive society, it’s not even noticed or recognized–aka “being well-adjusted to a sick society.” Kinda scary, when you think about it. Hard to know what to believe! Indeed, in a society created by lies, illusions, and power abuse, things are bound to become quite confusing. That’s the whole idea behind corruption.

    But I do know how I FEEL when I am dealing with abusive, double-binding, controlling, manipulative people, like radar. These are also human beings and obviously have their own issues. But it’s a heavy energy which drains and which can undermine well-being, and it warrants caution.

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  • One of the things that really bugs me about this website is when I feel as though I have to be an apologist for healing. Not understanding why this would occur, and with such ferocity, in this venue. That feels terribly counter-productive and counter-intuitive to me, and I don’t get the logic of it toward any fruitful end. This feels like a double-bind to me, can’t move forward, it’s a feedback loop. Needs to be broken through and ascended, imo, for progress of any kind to occur.

    Not recognizing healing for what it is, is not recognizing even the possibility of change. That’s the problem here, and I cannot see in any way, shape, or form, how these difference in perspectives and beliefs could ever reconcile. Were they to, I’d be learning something new, to which I’m always open, because otherwise, I just don’t see it at this point. It is a perfect split, kind of a shit-or-get-off-the pot moment, as it were. It’s all a choice, but eventually, one has to choose to go either one way or another, or they’ll split apart like a wishbone. You just can’t keep weilding a sword and heal at the same time. There is a time for everything, and healing is vital, ESPECIALLY when fighting the hard battles of life.

    But to discount healing is to dismiss well-being and the totality of our humanity, both individual and collective. It’s neither practical nor effective, keeps one in pain and suffering mode, and in the end, only serves to sabotage one’s own efforts. It’s completely self-marginalizing, keeps things status quo. I know this from experience, and I think it stands to reason.

    Doesn’t have to be this way, if we choose to integrate ALL of who we are, and not just the wounded fragments brought on by our life experiences. We are soooo much more than that, and we need to know this if we want to expect anything good to come from these efforts. That would be some serious change happening, in the moment!

    That’s my 2 cents, fwiw.

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  • Brilliant comment, Catnight. All of this is especially powerful and true–

    “The mothers – documented in Louise Erdrich and Toni Morrison novels who had to let their infants die to go on living. That my dear is all things being equal very much not being equal because it NEVER SHOULD have happened. This is the HORROR of our world terrible things happening to both children and adults not because of any inner psychic issue but the complete and utter inequality of the world. The knowledge to avoid most of our tragedies is there just certain folks don’t want to be bothered.”

    Although deep psychic wounding is certainly the RESULT of an unjust and unequal society, as is sheer terror. That is an unsafe world so we suffer from chronic fear, worry, shame, guilt, and doubt–all negativity, and extremely disempowering. And from those wounds, more of the same is created, generationally. As a humanity, we’ve been at this for quite some time, eons. Right now, these energies and emotions run thick throughout the collective. To my mind, they are up for healing, shifting, and transmuting.

    I’m thinking as we address one we address the other, and some will be prone to look at society, first, and see the flagrant injustices which in the end harm everyone, and others will look within, first, to see how to shift perspective and then be in the world in a different way, creating from new beliefs and perceptions, a new interpretation of life seen on a broader big picture level. I believe they complement each other and are inherenntly interconnected, as well as equally vital on which to focus.

    I do feel that healing our deep wounds would raise the energy of the world to new clarity, so that perhaps we can find solutions which will bring humanity into balance, thus creatiing a just society. It will simply be more practical for all concerned.

    Creating inner balance and harmony will create these around us, because we define our boundaries differently as we discern what is nurturing and supportive to us vs what is toxic and draining. Deep wounds can create confusion for the psyche in this regard and cause people to repeat bad dynamics because they are always trying to heal that wound through another, albeit unconsciously.

    Whereas CONSCIOUSLY healing these wounds from within changes our self-perception, sharpens our ability to discern how something makes us feel, and shifts our entire relationship landscape, as we begin to attract that which supports our balance and well-being.

    Thus, reality expands based on what we can achieve internally, with our awareness of self and others. Things change as we grow, and beliefs are tested, causing us to reflect on what we now, in present time, value, as distinguished from that which no longer serves us, so we let it go. That is the nature of change and transformation, which is what we’re after given how dense our world is right now. We are in dire need of light!

    But you’re right, Catnight, some folks “don’t like to be bothered about this.” That’s a problem when those who resist change sabotage the efforts of those who desire it. And many don’t just desire it, they NEED for change to occur because their lives, and quality of life, depend on it. I believe it is reasonable and just, but that doesn’t matter. For the powers that be, it then becomes an emotional issue, and they turn into “victims.” So shamelessly manipulative and false. That’s the sticking point.

    Reiterating this–

    “The knowledge to avoid most of our tragedies is there”

    Yes, this is what wants to come to light, and which is being kept hidden from view by those supporting the corrupt and insane-making status quo. In our status quo, our global “norm,” there is great profit garnered directly from the tragedies of “others.” When we allow this to be seen and known, and stop enabling systems which reap profit from suffering, causing only more suffering, then transformational shift will be in full swing.

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  • The 1:1 clinical model is still very risky for clients, especially if the client is part of the “disability system” and low income and identified as such. Their power is limited, at best, and I think it’s really hard for a clinician to not even unconsciously exploit that, especially if the client is critical of services and files a legitimate grievance.

    This is what parts 2 and 3 of my article explore, as per my example with a particular psychiatrist of what can go very, very wrong, and most often does–all based on client’s word vs. clinician subjective perspective of reality and their personal opinion of/judgment toward the client. The deck is way to stacked and this kind of ongoing clinical relationship lends itself easily to personal harm for client and social injustice, directly.

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  • This is interesting, to consider the freedom to think as we do, and to know that it will be diverse, by nature. Of course attempting to control the thoughts of others, as some people make a habit of doing, is not only high risk, it is a blatant violation of personal boundaries. If one’s boundaries are flimsy, then they are vulnerable. Yet, people seem to be constantly trying to manipulate the thoughts of others. And when they can’t, they can try to manipluate one’s life, to have power over another to this extent. That’s pure oppression, and I think about this when I think about my experience with psychiatry.

    A psychiatrist has the right to think and believe what they do, like anyone else. Yet, what they think and believe freely will most definitely impact their clients, one way or another. And if what they believe about the client is negative–which so often it is (consider even simply a diagnosis)–then the client is in trouble.

    These are irreconcilable differences in thought, beliefs, and perceptions because one is dangerous to the other, given the clinician-client dynamic, where the client is transparent and the clinician is non-disclosing (which, to me, amounts to deceit). That is a recipe for disaster, and it most often has led to that.

    So for me it’s a dilemma: sure we are free to think what we want, but wouldn’t mutual transparency and trust be vital and necessary components of a healthy relationship and social dynamic, rather than one of forced imbalance of power by not sharing one’s honest and authentic truth?

    Bonnie, I invite you to check out part 1 of 3 of an article I wrote which recently was published on Mad in Italy. It’s posted in English and in Italian, and is called “The Art of Being Human,” and deals with just this–how to honor diverse thinking and recognize when beliefs are irreconcilable because of the damage a belief can do to another in certain situations regarding relationship power roles. Parts 2 and 3, to be published soon, detail how one particular psychiatrist’s beliefs about me almost destroyed me and my life, and how I had to address the post traumatic stress of dealing with what I consider to be a treacherous human being to whom I naively surrendered my power for a time, during the most vulnerable time of my life due to being in the throes of withdrawal from a bunch of neurotoxins which I’d taken for years and years. I had no defenses at the time, nor any sense of personal boundaries for myself.

    https://mad-in-italy.com/2019/07/larte-dellessere-umani-parte-1/

    In fact, you have influenced my work from the time that I remember your saying in a comment a couple of years ago that “we are looking at what it means to be a human being.” Something clicked when I read this statement by you, that indeed, this is the bottom line: when we can give *ourselves* permission to be FULLY human, regardless of what some others may think and believe about us, then we are free. That is our power, how we think and what we believe. It matters.

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  • Thanks, Fiachra, I’m glad to hear this speaks to you. Yes, our “systems” do just that, they argue with themselves, helps no one in the end and only causes chaos for everyone, the Great Divide. Starts with the “leaders,” they are the examples. Ultimately, we have to lead ourselves if we have only divisive leadership, which is what creates a society/social system divided.

    It’s what I write about in the article which just got posted on Mad in Italy. Please check it out! Part 1 of 3. My original version is posted in English and Marcello translated it to Italian. It’s nicely laid out I think and I appreciate being published in 2 languages.

    I’d be so interested in your feedback, of course, which I always find to be very heartfelt and meaningful, if you feel compelled to comment so far. It’s a new site, so not much commentary at all for now.

    Who knows? This might lead to a book eventually, so much to write about! That’s a big undertaking, though, and not sure I’m prepared at this time. I’ll see how this flies, first, one step at a time.

    https://mad-in-italy.com/2019/07/larte-dellessere-umani-parte-1/

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  • Rosalee, turns out I will not be publishing the article in this venue, but I do have it and would love your feedback, if you feel inclined to read it. If so, feel free to send me a note through Steve with your email address, and I’ll be happy to share it with you.

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  • Yep, will do, Rosalee, thanks so much for your interest and enthusiasm! 🙂 I sent in a submission last night, so hopefully sooner than later. I’m open to it being cross-posted, if MiA is interested, but I don’t know the behind-the-scenes workings, so that’s up to fate as far as I’m concerned. Stay tuned…

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  • Marcello, knowing that you consider Donald Hume to be a mentor is exactly what I’m taking about. Thank you so much, this is a beautiful response which satisfies what I’ve put forth here because that is a positive, influential, and personally empowered role to play, exactly! From client to teacher–that is transformation which can ripple into the entire dynamic to create systemic change at the core.

    And, it is what I’m talking about as far as knowing where the most valuable information is and giving credit where credit is due. Thank you for your humility and self-awareness here. It is refreshing! Respect, in return.

    Thank you also for inviting me to write about this for Mad in Italy, I’d be honored. Please let me know where to submit.

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  • Hi Marcello, I do understand that but to incur a true shift as is needing to occur here, those with lived experience would be choosing YOU, not the other way around. Either that or you’re looking for a supervisor, which would require having lived experience of escaping all the trappings of the mh system. There is more subtle nuance in that process than I could possibly express in one sitting. That is a journey filled with twists and turns. It’s quite complex but doable, many if us have achieved this.

    Can a clinician be truly humble to the wisdom of lived experience and the person who carries that with them, and allow them to guide the process of transformational change? I’ve yet to see that. And when I do, that would indicate significant core change is happening.

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  • I don’t see anything new in this, it has been claimed repeatedly with absolutely no shift in perspective or power dynamics.

    People with lived experience can “emphasize” themselves and play any role they choose in life. I would not recommend playing a role assigned by mh clinicians in any arena whatsoever because that is inhernently a disempowering and marginalizing role, one way or another, where people tend to get used and sucked dry. There is no need to continue giving away one’s energy and power for the agenda of professionals, unless of course that is a person’s choice and perhaps they don’t see it that way. That is possible, but still, I believe my perspective here is reasonable and well-founded.

    “They” can do what they want and perhaps some good will come for some people who need this support. That’s fine, but I believe it is limited at best without the basic shift in the systemic professional vs. client paradigm–and re “client,” that includes those who are no longer clients but have the lived experience of going through all the crap of psych drugs and withdrawal, along with escaping and healing from systemic abuse and oppression from these very same power dynamics.

    Otherwise, I don’t see how a profesisonal can even begin to match the wisdom or depth of knowledge which one acquires living this, unless of course they have had these very experiences and has processed through them to at least some degree. They are unique kinds of trauma that have to be lived in order to be understood, I’m absolutely certain of this. The truth comes from the FEELING experience of life, not from observing it from the outside. That’s just pure projection. Truth is within, not outside of us, ALWAYS.

    Despite anything, as I said in my original post, this is not a paradigm shift in the slightest, and I don’t see it even as a move in that direction. To me, this is status quo, despite this often stated pledge to “emphasize the role of lived experience.”

    That is not change because the role of the person with “lived experience” still depends on how the clinical team chooses to perceive it. That’s a limiting social program, and not at all the freedom to grow and evolve past the systemic dynamic artificially created and skewed toward the professionals’ interests, at the expense of those with “lived experience.”

    That is a power issue, plain and simple, and is exactly what has been going on and which continues to be problematic in the mh industry.

    The “role” of lived experience is flexible in a community, including the potential for leadership and teacher. That’s where true core change will occur, when lived experience stops being a “role” assigned by a system made up of a group of clinicians, and this community allows people with lived experience to own their wisdom from that experience and create for themselves/ourselves from that very powerful energy, rather than to continue to give their life force away to professional opportunists. That is exactly status quo and where the core problem is as I’ve experienced and seen it over the years.

    So where’s the change here? That’s what I was getting at.

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  • “Our core team members, in alphabetic order, are: Francesca Bagaglia, psychologist; Laura Guerra, pharmacologist; Marcello Maviglia, psychiatrist and specialist in addiction medicine.”

    Not exactly a paradigm shift.

    “I am referring to the huge role played by the social, cultural, economic, ideological, and political contexts in the development and persistence of emotional distress.”

    So am I.

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  • I felt the reality of my past time issues surface all at once when I withdrew. The drugs had not allowed natural shifting to occur so I was repeating the same dynamics in my life rather than evolving away from them. That’s where I had to work on shifting and streamlining my process, so that I could move forward with greater ease, which was life-altering.

    Getting off the drugs alerted me to the inner changes I needed to make so that I could create my life with higher awareness in present time. New reality emerges from this and anxiety subsides because there is no toxic interference with the process. It is natural now and I am clear on what is good for me and what drains me or simply does not speak to me, so I follow this discernment as my life guidance now, rather than based on what is expected of me or will garner me “approval.”

    Feeling badly about oneself for not meeting standards for social approval is what tends to lead many people to psych drugs in the first place. And we all know what Krishnamurti said about being well adjusted to a sick society not being a measure of health and well being. Quite the opposite is true, I believe– that seeking approval from a dysfunctional society makes us be dysfunctional on our own way. If we don’t comply and instead stand our ground and protect our well being and challenge the system, then we won’t fit in. Get used to it. I’d rather be healthy and functional rather than to fit in where it is not a healthy environment. That just means big change is on the horizon, which is a GOOD thing, imo.

    Getting off the drugs allows consciousness and self awareness to expand as we heal from the toxins, which are part of the reason for the anxiety. Big part of healing is detoxing, followed by coming into balance, experiencing relief, and achieving new clarity. That is change and transformation.

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  • I don’t believe that anyone deserves shame or has any reason to feel shame. It’s a fabricated tool of oppression, a program based on social norms–you either meet them or you’re out, and it will not be pretty!

    That’s bullshit, we have more power than that as individuals and are free to evolve outside of any and all boxes, rules, and social programming, to be our true selves. If that is the message from the community, then it is oppressive, pure and simple. Middle class, for one thing…

    Sound social norms would include flexibility and growth-oriented, rather than punishing and marginalizing. People who challenge norms are, one way or another, calling for change, and that should not be dismissed. Probably means that it is time. The more that is resisted, the more conflict will ensue, and shaming becomes part of that because it is a great way to inflict insidious pain and throw someone off their game.

    Free will plus creativity make an extremely powerful combo, and really, the essence of who we are by nature. Both, pills AND shame, cut us off from our nature, so we will not be the fullest expression of who we are. And that is nothing to feel shame about, we’re all healing, growing, evolving at different rates, discovering new aspects of ourselves all the time. We learn as we grow. We also are free to make changes as we go, and it is most natural and common to do so.

    It’s not a contest and there is no reason it should be competetive. Personal growth does not work that way, and it’s where people lose support, when it becomes a competition of who knows more than whom. That’s ego crap, not helpful. We know what we know, and there’s always more to learn. We can help each other this way, rather than to compete and put down when there is a disagreement.

    “I do appreciate a good success story, but let’s not overextend it to telling others what they should do based on our own experience.”

    I think that goes without saying but I’ve never seen anyone go that far. That’s extermely solipsistic. It’s just a matter of speaking our truth and sharing our experience with whatever insights we gained, and people choose what rings true to them and what does not. Anything more would be aggressive and counter-productive, I would imagine.

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  • Yes, it is extremely dangerous, as are any 1-1 clinical meetings with that kind of power disparity–where the subjective “truth” of the clinician is considered gospel and that of the client is always suspect, at the very least. That is obviously a recipe for disaster, and it’s exactly what this paradigm has produced and perpetuates without blinking. Really shows how toxic the situation is for clients. It’s utterly powerless-making and pure human rights denying oppression.

    Worst of all, it is fertile ground for insidious abuse, often covert because it fits the unfortunate “norm,” so it is a program which needs to be challenged. In fact, I believe some kind of abuse–and not necessarily intentional–is inevitable, in this scenario. Nature of the beast.

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  • “Pill-shaming” in and of itself is vague at best to me, which is why I did not use or refer to this specific phrase in my response to Sera.

    What I am agreeing with her about is regarding the idea of imposing one’s personal belief (even if it is gospel truth) on another regarding how they address whatever is going on with them, when they are resisting hearing it. That has the potential to trigger all kinds of very bad feelings, and it can be violating and dehumanizing to a person to be invalidated for their personal choices in life, especially when this is due to a political agenda.

    That’s more akin to status quo than it is to revolutionary change, because it is imposing beliefs on another, which is a kind of force, to my mind, and it can easily bring up shame, directly and indirectly. We have that already, and it’s rugged, not working. Time for change.

    I think when a particular dynamic starts getting labeled as a general behavioral trend, such as the term “pill-shaming,” and it becomes a political tool, then the real issues alluded to and which are directly causing problems–in this case, the feeling of shame and judgments for one’s choices in life–falls by the wayside.

    “Shame” is a destructive, toxic energy. It makes people sick and disoriented, and can lead to utter hopelessness and despair. That is suffering, caused by projections.

    And I was especially agreeing with Sera that to shame a corrupt and relentlessly harmful industry in order to stop it from doing harm to others is not the same as shaming our peers. The first is impersonal and simply giving back what they have dished out–and we do want it obsolete, that’s the idea–while the latter is definitely personal and potentially wounding to someone trying to heal.

    I’ve certainly felt shame projected at me in the past from my peers and that was actually for coming OFF psych drugs! I’ve been called a “pill-shamer” for talking about coming off the drugs, for relaying my experience of healing and coming into wholeness, and I’m not a shamer, that is not in my character. I’m too empathic for that, and it’s been done to me quite a bit, so I know the effort that it can be to get past that in order to stay on course with my life and in my clarity.

    “Shame” is probably the most commonly unconsciously projected feeling, given how painful it is to carry. It makes all the difference to be able to discern it, even when it is subtle and insidious, all based on illusions and projected images.

    I work with people who suffer with shame until I help them to put their experience in the context of their own lives and personal growth, and not go by outside judgment or social programming. That is how a person can take back their power. We know ourselves better than anyone else can know us, but a person has to believe this in order to live it and be free.

    I talk about my experience so people know it is possible if that is what they are thinking about at that time, especially since in my case it was a lot and for a long time that I took these, and I survived the withdrawal and healed my body and fixed my life, back on track and moving forward again, with more ease than before because I learned what I needed to learn, getting far away from psychiatry.

    I do have a before and after story which very strikingly brings to light the harms done by psychiatry and the absolute good it can do to get away from that (like night & day) and I can offer support on many levels, which people do take me up on.

    But it can become disheartening and discouraging to be met with dismissiveness for one’s truth and personal experience because it does not match a political agenda. It’s why I said no to writing a blog here a long time ago.

    I would like to see more sensitivity when people share their personal experiences and their version of truth, and I do believe I walk that talk. It’s always my intention to be respectful of anyone’s personal truth, even when mine is not the same. I believe it ALL matters, no exception, and somehow, it fits together as a whole.

    That would be significant change in and of itself, to lighten up on others in this regard, and I have a feeling it would invite in more truth, clarity, and courage–the cornerstones of revolutionary change.

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  • Been reading along and not sure how to chime in, this was very layered and spoke to me in different ways. But this right here, Sera, what you say in this response, is the crux of it for me, and I like how you distilled it, that is most clear and I completely agree.

    “the two sides are *NOT* equal, and that the ‘shame’ should be reserved for those who have the power and are doing the harm, etc.”

    Yes, the shame belongs there because that is their weapon for causing fear/paranoia, creating disability, dividing and marginalizing people, and for fostering a general overall environment/society of oppression and discrimination. Shame is a tool very commonly used to control vulnerable people, and it is powerful until one is no longer vulnerable to it. I do think that’s possible, but it takes inner work, which is what shifts the power dynamic–first internally and then externally.

    But if the industry and the individuals who have partaken in this feel shame, then it is for the purpose of waking up, so that they do no more harm. That is appropriate, I think, with an industry that will neither speak nor listen to reason, and turn away hard evidence, thousands upon thousands of personal testimonials, and all kinds of obvious truths in order to keep things good and vague and confused. It serves them and their agenda to do so. What else to do but to send that shame back from where it came? We’re against a wall otherwise, perpetually.

    But to shame, judge, or criticize individuals for their life choices in such a complex society with all that goes on for a person that someone on the outside could hardly know, would amount to a blatant projection in my book. What else would it be when we shame others for their life choices, not the same as wanting to shame those who harmed or shamed us and others to begin with, and often as a casual and habitual, unconscious practice–which is REALLY scary.

    But when it is peer to peer, it is harmful and divisive in every way–bad for one and all–and in opposition to creating positive change. It causes people even more suffering, last thing they need.

    Holding a non-judgmental space for someone is the best way to help anyone through anything. They make the choices, and that’s how it should be. Talking it out, considering options, all good stuff. We all get to speak our truth, but in the end, it is that individual’s choice, and breaking the oppressive system would mean actually respecting and honoring that authentically and unconditionally, imo. And if one can’t, then they are no help to that person at all and should mind their own business. Takes courage for all parties concerned. Good thing to exercise, from time to time, I believe. That is healing.

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  • My impression over the years has been that MiA replicates the status quo systemic dynamic rather than challenging it, by example. My experience with the power dynamic here has been an exact replica of what I experienced while going through the system years ago, down the line. My desire is to see and experience change from this, not more of the same. I am very interested to know the response to the feedback given throughout this blog and comment section.

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  • “’This labeling-mania is obviously based on fear, ignorance, and hate’ on the part of the “mental health” workers, who have odd delusions that “all distress is caused by chemical imbalances” in peoples’ brains. I presume that’s what you mean, Alex?”

    That is part of it, SE. Of course “chemical imbalance” is a completely false narrative which has led to mass delusion based on ignorance of humanity and how people function. Add to that the self-delusion that they think–insist, in fact–that they DO understand how things work, and you’ve got a dangerous delusion happening.

    I do think that ignorance breeds fear and arrogance breeds resistance to truth. Put it all together, and you have a group of professionals and an entire industry marginalizing their clients–who tend to speak their heart’s truth, that’s why they are there–which then turns into a negative projection because the clinician has failed to see that the client is a mirror of themselves. We are, after all, all connected.

    However, these labels create the illusion of “us and them,” meaning that we are not connected, but totally separate. That, in and of itself, is a huge mass delusion, and indeed, the “mental health” industry aggressively and blindly perpetuates it, it is their mainstay. Not only for financial gain, which of course is relevant, but also for their very fragile and needy (it always seems) egos.

    Clinicians LOVE to be worshipped, and if they are not, they’ll mask their self-hate by labeling the client (for starters, it can go much deeper and become seriously insidious gaslighting abuse). That’s how I’ve seen it for years, from grad school to going up and down the system. Many of my colleagues in training were some of the most aggressive marginalizers and truly bigoted, snobby, elitist people I’d ever met, all justified by labeling others. Keeps hard truth away from oneself, to fall unjustly and perilously on the unsuspecting. In this industry, that is criminal. There is fraud and malpractice all over this, widespread and systemically.

    I think it applies in general, however, that people tend to project pejorative labels on other people to keep themselves from identifying with their own shadow. “Mental health” inc. legitimizes this, as does academia, as does politics. These mainstream entities actually *set* the example for hate, fear, and division. I believe it is why we have so much suffering, all due to believing these liars and all of the false social narratives that have permeated our culture, and which are so harmful to so many, and to the greater good in general. These have led us down a treacherous path, all based on aggressively projected illusions which serve to divide, separate, and create fear. The truth shall set us free.

    It’s a mind trick, to project one’s shadow, and clients pay for it, obviously. My way of dealing with it was to throw it back to them and let them feel it and deal with that crappy, thick, dense energy. It wasn’t mine to begin with.

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  • What a horror story, to be separated after 6 monhts for “science.” More like mad science. I’d call it “nature-interruptus.”

    How could the psychiatrist who spearheaded this “study” ever dream that this kind of unnatural separation at such an extermely tender and developmental age would cause problems for these kids later in life? It’s only common sense. This made me sick to read–how insanity is created, right in our faces.

    I’d totally blame Dr. Neubauer and whoever else approved and went along with this, for Eddy’s suicide. That’s an easy one. Forget “nature-nurture,” and I don’t care what happened in between the separation and Eddy’s untimely death. It was this mad doctor who blatantly and coldly manipulated these kids’ path, for professional gain. That is going against nature, and completely contrary to anything resembling empathy, insight, intution, and integrity, not to mention a moral compass. BIG CRIMINAL FAIL for these gentlemen, and for humanity on the whole.

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  • Having gone through the mh system in San Francisco, at least this wasn’t an issue. The shrink I was seeing at the time, several of the therapists in “day treatment,” my voc rehab counselor and boss, and the senior staff attorney with whom I worked in legal mediation, were all gay, as were about 50% of the people around me, in all tiers of the system and in general. In SF, that’s the norm.

    Same Earth, different worlds.

    God I wish people would wake up. This labeling-mania is obviously based on fear, ignorance, and hate. That is what is bad for the world and its inhabitants.

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  • “We don’t just live with others but also through them and in them. They place us and ground us into the world. When they see us, they identify us. After all, what is identity but the slow, lifelong accretion of gazes: us looking at ourselves being looked at by others? What we see is, largely, what they see, or what we think they see. And when they turn away, when we become unseen, in a way we cease to be . . .”

    This is a stunning paragraph and I could not disagree more. Us vs. them all over the place. How many times is this division stated outright here? It’s as if an individual has no power unto themselves. This is as about enmeshed co-dependent programming as it can get, as far as believing from where we get our power, grounding, and sense of self. From others?? I think not.

    We live our own lives, not those of others. Life responds to us neutrally and mirrors us honestly, whereas people tend to manipulate and control for their own agenda or sense of power. There is integrity in the world, here and there, but right now I find that hard to come by. Hopefully that will change soon and we’ll see more and more integrity in leadership. For the time being, seems we’re on our own for a while, during this transitional period where people are finally waking up.

    But overall, if we are stuck with needing approval from others in order to BE, then we are rendering ourselves completely powerless. That is not only absurd, but that belief can also lead people into dark places fast and cause undue suffering, just from the cruelty of others. Indeed, people shouldn’t be cruel, but some are, it’s a fact of life, and many are in positions of power where they totally exploit this false belief for the purpose of control. I think it’s common, and one cause of our current chronic unrest.

    We don’t have to be powerless to that, or to sink to that level of high stress and fear. One can disengage from that system altogether, and save themselves from such nonsense such as “you need our approval in order to exist.” Most oppressive and utterly controlling belief I can think of.

    The only approval we need is our own, and when we are self-affirming, regardless of any outside opinion and judgment, then we attract others who resonate with this. That is individuation 101.

    Bullies, abusers and marginalizers–those who “reject” by othering via very cruel, insidious, and damaging social abuse–are the ones living in fear and self-delusion. The rest of us can be free of this if we know our true selves and power. Not this bullshit programming that we “cease to be” if we are disapproved of by our community. That’s actually a position of power, when one can rise above it and keep a strong sense of self and purpose. It can foster change for necessary growth, in the entire community!

    Social rejection comes from fear, and that is on those doing the rejecting, shunning, and marginalizing. These are the folks working “through” and “in” people. It’s called “vampirism,” and it leads to learned helplessness for their “victims.” We can have better boundaries than that, and not allow ANYONE to work or live “through” or “in” any of us, other than ourselves, as it should be. That is entirely freeing.

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  • Really thoughtful article and valuable discussion here.

    “I have called psychiatric diagnosis ‘the first cause of everything bad in the mental health system.'”

    Yes, all the assumptions and cultural prejudices and justifications for marginalization (social abuse) are not only reflected here, they are encouraged, validated and unequivocally supported.

    My question then becomes, “What has led a person to be in this position to begin with?” Something is obviously lacking for a person or someone has been terribly misguided and has faced personal injsutice to wind up face to face with a psychiatrist in the first place. Issues do need to be addressed one way or another, and we all have them. If we lacked guidance and/or nurturing during developmental years–and even worse if we were betrayed by the family system, which is often the case–then this will show up one way or another as we move along in life, sometimes later down the road, but the evidence of this will surface one way or another at some point in life, and it can be quite striking in some, more subtle in others.

    I agree, no need to diagnose this, but there is something to address and shift here. And I believe there is burden on the individual and on the society which surrounds that individual. But where to begin? The past is the past, can’t change that. We’re in present time with our issues at this point, and poised toward creating a new and more enlightened future society. The sooner that future comes, the better!

    Right now, I think this applies to more people than not and increasingly stressful and oppressive times as in the ones we are currently living will bring these issues to light more and more. How we speak and write about it certainly makes a huge difference when trying to raise consciousness. Precision is essential for clarity to translate. I think it’s more effective to communicate in synch with our beliefs, not according to what others believe. That seems totally self-defeating to me, and boarders on appeasement, which of course is what supports status quo and inhibits change.

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  • Great point, Steve. The heart and spirit are not perceived, and that is way problematic because these are generally what need healing when we are in distress. And they will heal in time, if they are seen and validated, rather than only further tortured by neglect, abuse, and betrayal.

    Of course, toxic drugs don’t nourish the heart or spirit, although I guess these are used in lieu of loving kindness and helpful validating insights. Not working too well, is it?

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  • Just saw this, CatNight, I had somehow missed it.

    Based on the above statements, I’m thinking along the lines of fraud and malpractice. To me it fits down the line. The problem is cover up, denial, and lying. It would take tremendous courage for someone from within that industry to break the system. That would need to come from someone–a psychiatrist, namely– who is tired of covering up and ready to challenge their peers legally by supporting the legal cause of those of us harmed specifically by psychiatry and its standard practices, and who recognizes the need for reparations, how that is truly just.

    I know we were harmed by lying Big Pharma, too, but I’m most angry at those who are supposedly trained and dedicated healers and instead turn out to be “snake-oil salesmen and drug-dealers.” That is so betraying to society it’s over the top. I believe it’s most dangerous because the institution sells itself as some sort of standard of being which is absolutely false, fabricated, based on social approval and “fitting in” (making others–the dominant class–comfortable, which is how our power and energy are drained). This is specifically how people become othered, marginalized, disabled, and second-classed, which is treacherous and heartless because it undermines people’s civicl and human rights and causes them to suffer from shame, powerlessness, and poverty, when that does not have to be the case. Makes it toxic, elistist, and exclusionary–aka socially abusive.

    Big Pharma is corporate, diverse, and out for profit. Psychiatrists are supposed to be healers and they are the opposite. It almost destroyed me and my life, all based on what felt like a seriously sadistic psychiatrist who was not in check. I don’t know what was up his butt, but I found myself needing his services to receive other necessary services (or so I thought at the time, programmed as I was), so I got stuck taking a lot of shit from him until I further awoke and finally just walked away in search of real healing. Finally found it, thank God, and nowhere near this so-called “profession.”

    God they can be so awful and abusive, really draining in how they question our reality and self-awareness, in favor of what THEY think or observe or conclude or perceive. What a recipe for disaster, and that’s just what it has been. It’s absurd that this practice of blatant projection and calling it “reality” has been allowed for so long. I just smh about it now, looking back at how much harm this does to people under such false pretenses.

    I saved myself, but as long as this is going on out there, I’m willing to speak my truth in any way at any time where it will make a difference.

    Don’t know if anything else can be done at this point and I’m not really attached to anything in specific. I’m just constantly amazed at how every potential channel and opportunity for some change to occur, it just fizzles. One illusion after another. Like the “dark forces” holding on to the status quo. I still think truth wins out in the end, but the plethora of smokescreens is overwhelming, as I know you know. It’s created a lot of density for the light to penetrate, as we continue to speak our truth of the matter.

    Yep, sure does seem the entire world is functioning from some traumatized place at this point, and certainly in the USA right now. It permeates the collective. I’m sure new things will pop up in response to this. Healing is a huge need right now. The world is changing, and we are transitioning to new paradigms all over the place.

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  • Quitting IS the change. Then, you are not enabling the crappy boss, taking your power back, and changing YOUR reality, trusting the way forward. Takes leaps of faith to get out of bad situations when our survival seems to hang in the balance, but if we don’t take them, we’ll never know our true power because we are giving it away to “crappy people” (which to me means liars, users, abusers, oppressors, etc). Fortunately not everyone is that way, but it can be disheartening trying to find integrity in the world right now.

    People don’t quit bad/abusive/oppressive situations because of fear. When we operate from trust and the knowingness that we deserve better, that is the inner change from fear and self-recrimination to trust and self respect.

    Makes all the difference in our life experience when we learn to let go of that which drags us down, and trust that there is something better in store which is validating and supportive to us, because we deserve it, just for being human–and saying unequivocally NO to abuse, oppression, disrespect, etc., and from the inside, especially. That disempowers depression most of all, to feel our power to create change by making challenging choices. Nothing more creative, engaging, and life-affirming than that, imo.

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  • I do believe justice will be served, on a grand scale, as long as we continue to speak our truths of the matter in order to bring new and personally/collectively freeing perspectives to light. No room for compromise there, as far as I’m concerned. Truth cannot be censored. It will persist relentelsssly until it is righfully acknowledged and allowed to guide the process.

    Right now, as it is, it is the lies and illusions which are guiding the process, which is why things are so damn messy here! All the “covering your ass” shit that goes on when trying to get to the truth of things, rather than humbly stepping forward and owning what is going on behind the scenes, and therefore, allowing appropriate changes to occur, based on truth over individual ego and the need to control things, and, I imagine at this point, also fear and guilt. That would be novel and truly courageous–heroic, in fact.

    I think systemic abuse happens when there is a need to control, at all cost, and mostly, people–for whatever reason, always justified somehow, in a toxic system. That will never be a just situation, ever.

    But allowing truth to guide (for a change) is the most powerful catalyst to change which I can imagine. I’m a big believer in “the truth shall set you free.” All of us.

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  • I thank God for the psychic healers and medical intuit with whom I worked so that I could successfully withdraw and heal from two decades of psych drugs. Being open to new perspectives is how anyone can heal, grow, and move forward in life, past the double-binding matrix of illusions and projected judgments. There are charlatans out there like in any professional vocation, and as always one has to use their intution and discernment where trust is concerned when it comes to healing services.

    But energy healing (all based on subtle energies, and which includes the ancient art of Chinese medicine) doesn’t even begin to compare with the insitution of psychiatry in terms of limiting beliefs, marginalization, and systemic harm and abuse. Chakra, energy, and psychic healing are all based on principles of SELF-healing, so it supports and fosters personal agency, empowerment, and independence.

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  • “I believe that this is due to disability money, that often this is why people go along with it.”

    I believe this is a huge assumption and overgeneralization, while projecting blatant stigma onto people who do identify as disabled because they have a disability which makes having steady employment and income that much more challenging. You never know what is behind a person’s decisions when it comes to their survival, and it’s none of anyone else’s business, anyway.

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  • Indeed, these are worthless agencies. But when one is stuck inside the system and starts waking up and begins going from agency to agency and advocate to advocate and non-profit to non-profit seeking some kind of reasonable support–and there are so many junctures where this would be most relevant and vital, and to be expected as baseline in a *functional* society– one learns the hard way, that it is nowhere to be found.

    And not only that, but in addition to coming up empty handed as you are going through the various stages of healing and integration, you’ll get a good dose of second-classism (new “ism”) and full blown stigma along the way, simply from asking for help from people who haven’t a clue what they are doing, seriously. Either that, or they’ve found a reason to not like you. Then you’re really cooked, don’t expect justice at all, if that’s the case, which to me is the epitome of abuse of power, to make it personal when there are social justice issues at stake. Neutrality is needed here, and that’s really hard to come by in the system. Talk about feeling powerless! That affects a person’s nervous system, for starters. It’s totally mind/body/spirit detrimental, I think it stands to reason.

    And don’t even THINK about getting an honest answer when you ask a question! Or an answer at all. I had to file a grievance once just to have a dialogue with the CEO of a mh-related agency with which I was once affiliated, who refused to talk to me, and who really had no legal right to stonewall me like that. I rightfully protested, and I got my meeting. Then, I had to take her to legal mediation, because she just could not understand outside her small minded perspective. So much drama, rather to have a simple dialogue. No integrity, no ethics, tons of fear, it is truly mind-boggling to awaken to how deep it goes, but it is what it is and I believe, from what I continue to gather, that it’s gotten way worse over the years.

    When a person is recovering from psych drugs and systemic abuse only to encounter more of it from “advocates,” it is like going from one parent to another complaining about abuse, and all they’ve done is to gang up on you. Include sibs and grandparents on that, too, if you like. Don’t rock the boat, AT ALL COST!

    And why not? Because it breaks the system. That can be scary, because it is unfamiliar and EVERYONE has to own their shit, but it’s necessary because one person cannot continue carrying the burden of all of this lying and protecting abusers in any given “system.” That is THE oppression, and falls on a scapegoat, which is where change needs to happen now, and hopefully, that’s exactly what is changing. We can’t keep functioning like this, it’s the downfall of the system.

    The line which I included in Voices That Heal, which to me sums up the entire attitude here and uttered by a therapist to an older member of a group complaining about crime in his housing situation was “take your meds and don’t make waves.” ‘Nuff said. That would be the title of my book about the system, from my first person perspective, were I ever to write one.

    Going through this crap is wildly surreal, and healing from it is profound. Too many illusions in our society to count. We each have to decide for ourselves what is real and what is fake. Lots of FAKE out there! It’s up to each of us to learn to discern.

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  • Thanks for saying this, and for all of your validation regarding how you value my commentary, Rosalee. That is extremely helpful and encouraging to me, always. Honestly, many of the brilliant writers on here have been examples to me. I’ve worked hard over the years to refine because it is all so friggin’ complicated! Aligning words with intention is walking the talk.

    I’m honestly so glad my words bring clarity to the situation, that is *exactly* my intent, so thank you for mirroring this. I’m never quite sure, been putting it together for years now. This is healing for me. I’ve unraveled from this by now, but I remain posting here because I know it still continues, and I want to make whatever contribution I can to stopping this crazy ass abuse and vampirism. It’s over the top and it still pisses me off to no end.

    Lately I have been aware of the resonance among many of us now, in this particular regard of how this systemic abuse plays out, and that is MOST encouraging to me. It is so insidious and really hard to pinpoint, but necessary, I think, and we’re getting it to it here, I believe, so hooray for that! I think it’s at the heart of the matter, to be honest, how rights and freedoms become totally and relentlessly compromised, and that’s a blow to a person’s humanity, truly. That’s my perspective, in any event, and what speaks to me most re “chronic mental distress.” It’s really a pisser, to say the least, and I’m HIGHLY intent on, one way or another, getting this crap to fucking stop already! Something’s gotta give at this point.

    “As if the harm of psychiatry was not bad enough then you find out all the channels you reach out to for resolution or justice are in bed together and/or riding the same gravy train.”

    Yes. And also, I think they just perceive humanity through the same filters, as themselves, and “others.” These are the “otherers.” That’s how they justify hoarding all the wealth, by deceiving the world. I think the lies are catching up with all of them, though, don’t you think? We’re awake, and not backing down from the truth, whatever actions we choose to take or not take, as long as we are true to ourselves at this point. Truth is truth, and it’s out there now. I’m encouraged by this.

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  • “Disability Rights and they told me they are only working on physical accessibility issues right now.”

    This caught my attention, thought it was an interesting response from them. What, exactly, does that mean? Sounds like they are discriminating against certain types of “disability,” or they are clueless how to address SOME disability issues, so they ignore them.

    The Disability Rights agency in Northern CA is really awful and when I was dealing with them years ago, they seemed to only perpetuate discrimination rather than to be the example otherwise. I did reflect this back, quite rationally and from my experience of this, but directly and with all certainty while using the exact examples from our dialogue. It was straight math, so very clear and unambiguous, and unfortunately, completely typical. Once one has been through systemic abuse, it gets really easy to spot, in the moment.

    And of course, the attorney with whom I was communicating at the time got angry, defensive, extremely patronizing (in a gaslighting kinda way), and cut off communication. Gee, big surprise.

    There’s really no end to the web of deceit, illusion, and stonewalling that goes on here. I think it’s a house of cards, though, so it will eventually cave in on itself, as long as we keep waking up and speaking up, and moving forward ourselves. That will ripple and others won’t make the same mistake we did in this regard, to trust this intricately corrupt industry. That is my best hope right now.

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  • Yes, it’s a reality they make up in their heads (as per the way their training has programmed them–and I know this first hand because I had this same training at one point), which serves them personally and professionally, and with steamrolling force and completely disconnected from any sense of real and authentic present time truth, they impose it on the unsuspecting client. I don’t know what to do about it, it is a toxic rabbit hole trying to argue against these blatant negative projections.

    Best I know to do at this point is to continue to crack these codes of social dysfunction and speak my truth best I can–yes, these are either blatant liars or they are doing the best they can while brainwashed by the system. Either way, the client is in danger and can suffer a great deal as a result, all due to these unchecked projections, which is pure lack of self-responsiblity on the part of the clinician. I believe that by now, on the whole, they have earned this reputation. I think that’s as clear as a bell.

    Whatever solution eventually arises from all of this, I believe it has to come from profound creativity based on absolute truth. Not sure that can be defined, but I know that it can be felt.

    As per my own words, I would own this as an extension of my own reality, this experience did come from something within me. Ok, good to know, and to own it brings me back to my own personal power.

    I’ve been working hard over the years to shift that which led me into all of this to begin with, and that not only grows me in my awareness, it changes my entire reality while opening new pathways by which I can move forward. That is how I apply what I have said in this thread, to this situation. It’s complex and layered, but that is my inner work, and to me, it all adds up with good clarity and a new big picture, which serves the greater good, rather than the “elite class,” at everyone else’s expense. From my perspective, in any event, I can feel this.

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  • “Psychiatrists are seen as hard-working, caring, understanding healers, but they’re really snake-oil salesmen, drug-dealers, and master-sedaters. What they do should be illegal. Someday everyone will realize that not only do psychiatrists not heal anything, they’re a major contributor to the recent rise in suicides and overdoses.”

    Lawrence, thank you for writing this, and I completely agree. I admire the fact that you are a psychiatrist and are willing to express this bluntly and directly in a public forum. My experience–along with so many of the testimonials I’ve read over the years on MiA and elsewhere–unequivocally supports these statements. This is my story and the truth which I discovered, too, exactly, as I emerged from the dense and disorienting haze of it all, which took years to get clarity on this mess! So many ways in which that particular insitution wraps its tentacles around a person, it’s not just the psych drugs.

    So we were conned by frauds in an abusive profession and as a result, we got the life sucked out of us (along with quite a bit of money–including “lost wages”) under the pretense of “health care,” and it’s been costly in many ways to millions of individuals and families, and society on the whole, like organized crime.

    You’ve been on the inside for a long time and see this without question, it is your field. And many of us know this from having been the ones taken in by such an extreme and sinister, dangerous scam.

    Your voice has credibility, and this is quite clear, damning, and truthful, what you say here. Is there really no legal recourse for this? We are owed, no doubt about that, and the folks to whom you are referring need to be exposed, held accounatable, and disempowered.

    Obviously, from what you say–and of course we all know this, but I’d like to state it yet again and explicitly right here–psychiatry is extremely detrimental to society and a crime against humanity! How is this *civilized* in any way, shape of form? It’s actually destroying civilization. I believe that is 100% accurate and truthful as are the statements which you make, and they go hand in hand.

    I, for one, would like to see civilization preserved, albeit in a radically new paradigm far and away from this sabotaging matrix we’ve got going and in which we are expected to operate in order to “succeed” in life. These are illusions and outright lies, but psychiatry is obviously a loyal cornerstone of them and continues to foster the illusions, the lies, and this matrix, for the gain of a few at the expense of everyone else. Wondering where to go from here, with this information.

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  • What anyone can most accurately observe are their own feelings, beliefs and judgments, which are about the observer not the observed.

    The one being observed has his or her own reality (feelings, beliefs, judgments), to which they–and all of us–are entitled. If it does not match what is being observed, then the observer would more than likely be missing important information, which they may or may not ever receive. That would completely depend on what the person being observed is willing to share or reveal, or not. Transparency is a choice. Trying to fill in the blanks with speculation (projections) and taking action based on that is what I would consider to be really unfair to a person, and moreover, extremely violating. To me, this is the essence of injustice.

    In a clincial situation, if a client is being projected onto negatively by a clinician, by way of “observation,” in any way shape or form, then they are in trouble until they wake up and get out of there. I’d call that unsafe, a toxic situation, etc.–i.e., dangerous to the client. And sadly, negative projections are the bedrock of mental health, inc.

    Were that to suddenly change, it would be radical, but it’s hard to imagine that it ever will. That would depend entirely on whether or not clinicians are ready, willing, and able to own their own stuff and to stop projecting their shadow feelings and judgments onto the client–to realize that we are all biased observers of others, one way or another. Personal truth is based on our own experience, and on what we feel and believe at any given moment, and definitely NOT what others project onto us.

    Having waded through clinical environments for years and years, it’s really hard to imagine a 180 like this, but I’m open to being wrong about that. That would be terrific. But for some reason, I just cannot see this occuring. It would shake the foundation of the entire industry to realize that “observations” are, in reality, merely projections of self–each and every time.

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  • I don’t believe there is any such thing as an “impartial observer.” Anything we observe is always an extension of an aspect within us, given how we project our personal reality onto everything. I think it’s impossible not to do this, it is the essence of being human. If we judge what we are observing as something outside of ourselves, then we are not owning something within ourselves. I believe that is always true.

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  • If there is one thing that will support mental clarity and ease in moving forward in one’s life, it is running in the other direction from gaslighting. This is the cause of extreme mental distress and confusion, and overall sabotage.

    Trying to explain oneself in this situation only deepens the rabbit hole of gaslighting, and can cause a person to feel drained and insane after such an exchange. I’ve heard it compared to having an eggbeater in one’s brain, after dialoguing with one who is prone to gaslighting. Indeed, it is, and there is healing to do after this. It’s a form of post traumatic stress, if one has been gaslighted for a long period of time. That’s hard to wake up to if it is a familiar, and for a lot of people it is.

    And which, unfortunately, IS something that some people do quite casually these days, when it has always worked for them, to disorient others as a way of feeling “powerful.” I think it becomes a neural pathway, from chronic gaslighting as a life strategy, which I believe is more common than not these days. This is an important awakening if one is on a healing path.

    Gaslighting causes internalized oppression, we bind ourselves up with conflicting thoughts. Life changes when one frees themselves from gaslighting and the pts thereof, a huge dark cloud of anxiety and fear lifts as that eggbeater dissipates and the mind, brain, and nervous system become calm and relaxed, for a change. That’s a complex and extremely valuable healing, if one desires for truth and clarity to come to light, not to mention more ease in living.

    But no, I say do not ever argue with a gaslighter. They will only be aggressively defensive and tell you that any interpretation you give to whatever they are expressing is “wrong,” that’s how it begins–classic double bind–and then they put YOU on the defensive, yet again. It is a complete waste of energy and creates nothing of value to humanity, just more chaos and confusion, frustration, stuckness, rage and despondence. Status quo, and how it is protected as such.

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  • Ok, found him. Wow, interesting guy, looks like he does all sorts of things. I can assure you this is someone else and not me, I can’t ever see myself having this kind of profile. He’s like one big organization! I’m a very humble and kinda self-conscious guy with a simple life.

    I am indeed passionate about creating change toward global well-being, but I had to really work up to putting myself out there like I do, it is not second nature to me and I’m pretty sensitive. So this is a balancing act for me, activism is ineherently triggering. But I have reasons for why I do this, and I do follow my heart, which is totally my guidance, and because of that, I face my fears. Interesting that you noticed similarities in our written communication styles.

    My family emigrated to Argentina from Russia. So I’m actually Russian/Jewish with a Latino twist! I was born in Memphis, TN, first American born in the family. I’m definitely multi-cultural, and it’s my nature, too. So it all works in synch now!

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  • Learning to love oneself is the opposite of feeling suicidal. People take their own lives because they have lost faith in themselves and cannot see past the chronic suffering. People who possess the quality of self-love do not think about suicide, and instead, look for creative solutions to tough problems.

    Sadly, society teaches us to hate and judge ourselves, that we will never measure up. That’s the program delivered to us all, via so many venues. My hope is that people will stop listening to these sabotaging messages and instead, trust their own wise minds, hearts, and intuition.

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  • kumininexile, I’m so floored by your comment! First thing I did after reading this is to look up Rev Luke Shootingstar online and found nothing. Do you have a link you could share? I’m so curious.

    Not sure how to respond. I do speak from my heart always with the intention of being of some use around here. Heart is where truth is, our authentic voice.

    Thanks to going through this crazy journey and surviving it, I am pretty conscious and awake. Been waking up since coming off the drugs going on 18 years now.

    I don’t intend to sermonize, simply to inspire, support, and inform where I can. I guess my passion for truth can get me kinda rambunctious, haha, well that’s just me! It’s also my culture, I’m Latino-Jewish, I don’t exactly come from shy and reserved peoples 🙂

    I do see so much written on MIA that I feel has the potential to instill and/or feed chronic fears and hopelessess, and I try to address these in order to allay these terrible and potentially sabotaging feelings, if I can be heard. That was my goal on this blog, in any evevnt. There is always a way to move forward. Overcoming obstacles leads to everything. Never give up, healing is always possible, change is ever-present, believe in yourself, find your voice, speak your truth, and trust, trust, trust, trust…great things await.

    I do appreciate the compliment and am humbled by it, thank you.

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  • “And how is it possible that supervisors I trust are acting like this is not a terrible and dangerous step in the wrong direction?”

    When you ask this, Catalyzt, I immediately get a picture of “Stepford Supervisors.” They do as they’re programmed to do.

    Keeping records of clients and their personal issues while receiving psychotherapy not only gives me the creeps, it is part of the oppressive and invasive nature of the system. Byzantine is a good word for it, this is Rome. We’re waiting for the fall.

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  • I love all you say here, Rosalee, we stand together on this and that feels soooo encouraging. I, too, see and feel the light on your posts. You are tapped in, and following the truth of your heart.

    What a journey to wake up to all of this! And then proceed to take back our power. It’s surreal at times, but without a doubt, it is healing mind/body/spirit.

    Speaking our truth is VITAL! Even when it gets frustrating because we feel it is either not welcome, not heard, or not taken seriously, we, ourselves hear it, and the universe hears it, so somehow, we make a difference and grow forward. I know this from my own experience. I have experienced the universe responding to me even when people do not appear to be.

    I am with you when you get back in the ring, wishing you all the best in shining the light on evil deeds, as you say. It’s courageous, and, indeed, necessary part of this process. I am grateful for your light, your faith, and your voice of truth.

    I’m happy to hear you like your GP, and that she is supportive of your process and hears and respects your truth. Having trustworthy support whom we know is our ally is vital. As a quick aside which this makes me think of–just yesterday I was talking to my sister who is taking care of our mother who has been having chronic pain for a while. She’s 86 and has had medical issues for a while now, although she’s still totally active, alert, and has a good life.

    She had been prescribed Neurontin, to which I was raising eyebrows and informing about this best I could, but I respected my mother’s decision without giving her resistance, because I know that she is fiercely dedicated to the western mainstream health care system. My father was a physician, and it was our program.

    In addition, she always thought herbal remedies and all that stuff was junk, this was not her way of thinking in the slightest. Even the fact that my healing meant ditching the medical model altogether in favor of the natural healing, and how it made all the difference in my life and well-being, something about this was not seeming to get through to her. It was a block she had because it so went against her beliefs (that’s another story, but in this context, it is quite common for one person’s healing to create all kinds of denial for people around them; it’s a weird phenomenon, and I think kind of a stuckness we can experience, until we move through the need to be heard by others and simply follow the path of our own truth and light, away from being snubbed and marginalized).

    Yesterday I found out that the Neurtontin had been causing worrisome side effects and seeming to do more harm than good (big surprise there–NOT!), so the Dr. is weaning her off, and now they are turning to herbs (e.g. CBD) and acupuncture, my mother is totally agreeable.

    MY mother??? If she can even consider this, then I know things are changing, the light is getting through all of that dense, fear-based programming. Hooray! Between that, and powerful, heartfelt voices like yours, there’s my optimism 🙂

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  • I believe the spiritual issue for those in crisis is how to ascend the dynamics of such a limited society. In that sense, we grow toward our own individual freedom and unlimitedness. That’s what will move society forward and how the paradigm will shift, when the burden and accountailibty go back to those who program people into believing so negatively about themselves, that they are needy, inferior, and “do not belong.” When these terribly false and damning projections are released from the masses, then, we will be free and “recovered.”

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  • Rosalee, ugh it makes me so mad to hear that you were denied services based on your psychiatric history. That is criminal. I do know the feeling of the stigma attached in the face of health care, it is so vulnerable and powerless making, truly maddening. And of course just that alone affects us on a cellular level, really brings us down in every way and makes healing that much harder, creating fear, anxiety, worry, as you say.

    I know this can feel practically impossible for some people and you have shared about your medical issues, so I am aware that you require services, but for me the answer was to ditch the old way of medical care altogether, I became totally natural and energetic in my healing path once I got through all this, because I had absolutely no other choice. For me, the medical community had become a total dead end.

    I know you’ve also talked about receiving natural healing and doing things on that path, too, which is great because there is no stigma there (at least not that I have ever run into), and that makes a big difference in the effectiveness of the healing. It’s all present time, that is all that is addressed in that healing community. In that process, any past time energy is released with ease, those are the blocks.

    In the energy healing world, Chinese Medicine, etc., I have never had the experience of stigma or discrimination–not even close, it’s never been an issue in any way, shape or form. Everything is treated and addressed so neutrally, it’s only about the emotions we are running and releasing blocks so that our energy flows naturally, which is how we achieve self-healing. Herbs help to raise the energetic frequency of our cells, which is how healing occurs. It is a raise in frequency to achieve yin/yang balance. Every cell and organ in our body has its yin/yang consciousness.

    I had envisioned at one point integrating these healing paths, natural energy type healing work with the best of western medicine, but I have found that the health care system is so bad now, that it is completely unsafe. Where I live, it is a sham and primary care physicians have long waiting lists and people can’t get Dr.s and the urgent care centers are HORRIBLE, ER waits can be allll day long, hours and hours, and people tend to walk about before they are called.

    So really, one can get stuck with absolutely NO medical care, and HAS to figure out another way. The system is breaking down so badly, and I believe this is the way of the future.

    In the meantime, I believe we’re in a transitional period, where the system is going to continue to break down–and yes, indeed, I think that failure is mainly driven in their failure with people, this stigma and discrimination from within the system is truly shameful, and where completely unessessary human suffering occurs, caused by other humans in positions of “power.” That is crap, systemic abuse, pure and simple, and it will be the downfall of the system itself, I truly believe.

    In the meantime, thank GOD for those alternatives! I think the more we go in that direction, the more we will release the past, collectively, because we are going in a new direction where the past will be rendered irrelevant. We’ve certainly no need for these corrupt broken down systems any longer, I say let them turn to dust. There are better ways, based on present time and integrity, for crying out loud. How can one call themselves a “healer” of any kind and treat people like shit? That is one helluva paradox!

    So, I believe that as the old continues to crumble and new stuff comes forth to help move us forward (and I do believe this is happening now, we are in that process), then along with this old health care paradigm turning to dust, so will our records, and in that respsect, we will be free of the past. But we each have to be willing to trust that as we move forward, what we need and that which will help us most will appear, I really do believe that is what faith is about, trusting our process. When we apply this, we actually discover more of our control and power to create what we need and want as we go.

    Honestly, I think that’s what this time in history is about. We are purging the past so that we can create an updated new and improved society and world, it is time! It really is a time of awakening, I don’t think we’ve much choice now, from the way things are going. This is a time of great change, so let’s keep going and see what happens. I’m always looking for the light on everything, which is a good focus because it leads to the new.

    I hope that helps in some way.

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  • Thank you for saying this. Not only is it my desire to be an agent of ease in this process, but I think that’s the idea of good support, to bring ease to a healing process, rather than overcomplicating it–which is one of the many places where “standard care” goes way wrong.

    For me personally, this became a sound strategy for living, to keep it simple, but most definitely I learned that the best healing comes from the energy of *ease,* what is often called “the path of least resistance.” We manifest more easily what we need along the way from this prespective, and we are truly following our own process, because there is virtually no effort after we adjust to this. Then, we are in synch with ourselves. That’s the goal! It’s a practice.

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  • Yes, it is truly hard to digest what this is as we awaken to the truth of “mental health care,” many issues converging at once, and suddenly our perspective of life hangs in the balance. I see it as a deconstructing happening in order to allow new consciousness to come forward. We’d been so programmed to believe the lies, that it takes a while to adjust to this fact alone, that is was a program based on illusions which serve an elite, at the expense of clients, and of society on the whole.

    A new and improved reality awaits you, as you emerge from the rubble, as so many of us have. Fortunately, that ground has now been broken, so there is plenty of support and information out there. Wasn’t the case when I came off psych drugs, I knew of no one who had gone through this, so it was mine to discover. And what a journey it was! I learned everything I needed to learn–for now at least. All the best to you as you move along your path of healing.

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  • I’m so glad to hear this, Claire, thank you. I always feel I walked this path to, first, discover certain truths which would have otherwise remained buried under the deceit and illusions of a corrupt society, and then, to help shed light on these by sharing my experience. Many awakenings to go through, which can be a bit trying, but way worth it because, in the end, each one is a gift which brings more light and clarity to whatever situation might have us a bit knotted up in the moment. Each release is heavenly, like weights just dropping off, and we feel freer and freer as we go. Best wishes to you!

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  • Indeed, Michael, updated boundaries and discernment of energies based on what feels desirable and uplifting vs. what is triggering and unsafe would definitely be part of a new present time awareness to which I’m referring. I would call that living in a new consciousness, where we are more aware of how we are in control our experience, by what we allow and do not allow, exactly what you said. Therefore, we can feel powerful as opposed to powerless–a core shift in our sense of self, and that will shift our life experience radically for the better.

    Although life is life and triggering energies are everywhere, hard for anyone to avoid. I think in present time awareness, we can know our process of neutralizing and clearing the triggers and coming back to center, so as to not fall into the downward spiral–a matter of present time grounding and trusting the process. That becomes a new habit, to center and uplift ourselves. We can program our neural pathways with diligent practice, and eventually it becomes second nature.

    I tend to see triggers now as opportunities for shifting consciousness, which is a whole new updated reality, where we feel, think, and act from a more awake state of being. That is a matter of owning the trigger in the moment (each one as they occcur), and then working through it on the spot to release the emotional baggage of it, feel it and identify it as past time, and this creates a new present time clarity, where there is, in reality, no real threat other than our own thoughts, so we can update these consciously to be in synch with present time reality. That will quiet the mind because it is no longer split and struggling between past and present.

    This practice will change our life experience completely, based on our internal changes. That’s always what I try to drive home, that outer changes are contingent upon inner changes, given how we project our reality. Change the lens, change the picture.

    These have been my experiences with healing.

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  • Michael, I’m curious, would you say it is a matter of coming fully into present time? (Funny, I was just writing about this in a reply I just posted, then saw this and it occured to me that it might apply here).

    I know from my experience of healing from and integrating extreme states which occured from feeling mistreated and betrayed by people I had trusted while vulnerable and open, and feeling disoriented and powerless from it, that I had to eventually challenge myself to trust present time, and stop looking at the past. Of course this was after quite a bit of self-examination, healing does happen in layers. Still, would that not lead to integration, naturally, while allowing ourselves to focus more on our goals and life purpose, creatively? I think that would change one’s entire neural map in a way that would allow a person to more comfortably ground in present time, and from there, good movement tends to occur.

    That was my exact experience, in any event, and it has become a good habit for me to always re-focus my awareness into present time before making any decision or drawing conclusions, helped a great deal in terms of clarity and personal power, and seriously *lightening up!* Oy, that was a reilef.

    I think when we keep the past alive too much, we never get rid of it, like shit on our shoe. It actually stays in our cells this way, from what I know. I had to finally stop looking back to feel whole again, which meant breaking a lot of thought habits. Your response made me think of this.

    I love Cathy’s question, thank you for posing it. Challenging a client can be risky but also necessary, I think. It’s always a fork in the road, so they will either withdraw from services, or heal something and move forward. Can’t take it personally, either way.

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  • You speak good truth here, Graciela, glad we both resonate with this. A couple of things on which I wanted to comment, caught my eye and been sitting with these–

    When you talk about “commentators who give authors a hard time,” what that brought up for me immediately is how it makes me very uncomfortable when psych survivors give other psych survivors a hard time, that is my beef on this website, and what I most fail to understand as consistent with the desire to somehow unite for a purpose.

    And while I try to have eye to eye dialogues with established professionals on this site, I can certainly slip into giving some of them a hard time, because to me that is where we are looking for accountability. Maybe I shouldn’t be so discriminating, but I can’t help it. My only point with other surivors is to offer support and of course to dialogue and generate ideas and clarity (even though many have often given me a hard time), but I feel compelled to challenge the professionals, always respectfully, I hope, while also attempting to dialogue for the purpose of clarity and perhaps to manifest something new.

    But to challenge anyone practicing in the field feels totally reasonable, just, and fair to me, considering that we are looking to, AT LEAST, shift the balance of power in the “mental health” industry. To me, that is presicely the issue, and where this industry is most toxic, in the power dynamics. That’s where it is pure crap and totally undermines any potential for healing, imo.

    Problem is, this particular shift would more than likely bring down all of “mental health, inc.,” since it is totally 100% founded and based on power relationships, and I don’t think they can let go of this, which I believe is a recipe for disaster–exactly what we are constantly witnessing and about which we are protesting, most justifiably. I guess we’ll see how that goes.

    Also, I had a reaction when I saw “ex psych patient.” I have no issue or shame about this, in fact, I’m quite relieved that EX is part of this. Still, not sure I’d enjoy going through life with this as my primary identity, I think it carries stigma–in fact, it kind of IS the stigma. Were I to where a T-shirt that said this, I’d be branding myself. This may also give psychiatry legitimacy, this identity, I’m wondering about that, which is why I am bringing it up.

    I’m quite aware that a lot of people feel that things like this inevitably recur and that once “crazy” always “crazy.” For sure, I’m still crazy after all these years, but only the way any of us have our craziness, that is simply our shadow. Knowing who I am now, that’s what saves me from ever going back into such a perpetually ungrounded state, I’d have no excuse at this point, given all that I have learned, including powerful tools for energy maintenance. That’s just part of my daily regimen now, the way I nourish my body with food & water. Our energy needs clearing on a daily basis for us to remain fully in present time. That’s where we have the most power to heal and make change, in the NOW.

    But I’m done with living in fear of “recurrence,” I dropped that long ago. Healing is healing, and at some point, there is no going back, it sticks. We learn eventually how to not get too far away from our center, and always, always, always know how to get back to it. Biggest lesson ever because it heals fear and worry, and that is a huge relief to the body. Life should be fun and adventurous, and I believe taking risks is part of creating the life we most desire. But living in fear of recurrence can block us from doing this, I think, so at some point, it is helpful to address and ascend this, remembering our power of co-creatorship.

    I know, I know, yet another long post, but as always you inspire me! Idk, Graciela, you have a way of connecting me to my deeper information, which is really helpful to me. I hadn’t been able to get quite this clarity before, until I sat with what you had written.

    Not sure what I’d call myself now. Fully human, maybe? That feels good, and truthful! And hopefully, non discriminating. Aren’t we all just this?

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  • It’s the same faith that guided me through my healing, when I and everyone around me had believed it was a lost cause. Sure was looking that way, and the belief which continually came flying at me, and at one point I took action based on that negative belief.

    The destruction of humanity via psychiatry lived inside me, but I was able to exorcise it systematically, heal the aftershocks which reverberated for a while, and transform all of that energy into pure creativity. That’s what I mean by freedom. I followed a certain thread which presented itself, a series of events, all based on the focus of “where is the light on all of this?” I had to create that focus myself, no one could do it for me.

    The light on my journey through psychiatric hell is that it led me to learn not just how sinister and deeply unconsious our society had become (aka awakening to hard truths) which of course is how social ills, wars, etc., prevail, but also how to create away from this (awakening to light truth).

    That was the jewel in all of this, which is something I share freely wherever I can, where it can be heard. I believe as human beings find their peace, so will the world. How could it be any other way? I believe that is the healing path we’re looking to light up, as a collective, for the greater good and for the good of our individual well-being, goes hand in hand.

    In the meantime, people are going to have different life experiences, based on which aspect of reality they/we are focused. We have choices there, and the more we can see the big picture, the more awake we are. The more awake we are, the better chance we have to ascend mass destruction.

    My desire, therefore, is for more people to awaken to the higher aspects of reality, to a more heart based perspective, so that we can heal from that which creates war, poverty, suffering from corruption and injustice, etc.–all that chronic angst we carry around from life’s traumas which we all experience, one way or another.

    It is a matter of awakening to programs, illusions and lies, and learning how to shift focus to create better energy, based on our own truth and not that of others, rather than simply matching and perpetuating that same lower ego-based energy of projecting our reality onto others, and calling it “truth.”

    Transition from ego based to heart based consciousness/reality–that will eliminate war, abuse, all kinds of human exploitation, because it will not be tolerated or enabled in the slightest, as it so obviously is now. But individuals have to make this happen from within, first, to get a society like this, obviously. How can we have an awakened society without individuals first waking up?

    And that’s hard ground to break, because there is tons of stigma and projections which happen to awakened people in an unawakened community–we’re the first to get scapegoated. Fortunately, that is familiar ground for us, so it is relatively easy to navigate from a heart-based perspective. Still we have to be willing to support others in their awakenings, too, without judgment, for society to become safe and sound, once and for all.

    It’s a human collective issue, we all have a hand in this. I think right now, in present time, life is asking us to find where we can be most useful and effective in the healing of the planet and the collective humanity which inhabits it. I know that we all have something of value to bring to the table, if we can get ourselves heard.

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  • Really lovely, heartfelt piece, Michael. Thank you for sharing.

    Paradox sure makes life interesting! Where there is darkness, there is also light. The paradox here is that it is ALL light, because without the dark, we wouldn’t know the light. If darkness is growing, you can bet the light is a few steps ahead and will show itself at the most divinely timed moments. My faith is unshakable here, and of course, I make it a point to see the light on everything, it’s always there.

    I think shadow/light integration is the key here, to ground light to Earth. Then we can create and manifest from that light energy which we all carry somewhere inside of us and to which we can all connect if we are focused on that intention, rather than to continue to create and manifest from our inner darkness, which is how we get caught up in these endless loops with no change, manifesting the same conflicts and issues over and over and over again. I believe we want to ascend that loopiness for new creation. Ascending paradox is a big part of that shift, I believe, to higher states of consciousness, while grounded in our human bodies. Great expansion there, lots of newness to be explored and from which to manifest.

    Allowing ourselves to be fully human, light and shadow, with no judgment or fear about that, would change the world considerably, imo. Way more light in that scenario, not to mention one of my favorite energies: permission! Then, we are free.

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  • Early childhood wounds of abusive neglect can heal in adulthood. Our solid core center doesn’t go away, it just gets obstructed by negative self-beliefs which are the result of early childhood neglect, of being unworthy of love and getting emotional needs met. Low self-esteem will affect one’s choices and judgment a great deal, so it would stand to reason that there would be trouble up ahead and one would more than likely find themselves in an extermely challenging environment and/or situation, and suffering would eventually surface, extreme social anxiety, etc.

    However, there are a lot of healing avenues for this and it does not have to cripple one for life. We can find our center and get to know ourselves in life, while developing the resilience to get back to our core, regardless of anything. There are a lot of practices which grow this aspect of ourselves and connect us to it. It’s really a matter of raising self-awareness and finding self-compassion. Then, we’re on a different track and we will treat ourselves better in life, finding affinity with what we encounter, because the experience of life is quite different between living it while carrying feelings of unworthiness vs. having positive self-regard, where we can feel our value in the world, inherently.

    The problem with psychiatry and why so many suicides are the result of “treatment” is because not only does it not “heal” anything, but on the contrary, it totally repeats that very same trauma which leads people to psychiatry to begin with, supposedly to heal those wounds. And instead, they pour acid into them. Betrayal upon betrayal.

    Whether the childhood wounding is around being marginalized and demeaned or emotional needs neglected and labeled, or shaming judgment around one’s way of being (actually, all three tend to go hand in hand)–psychiatry has something for everyone. Each and all of these can be easily repeated and made even more severe in this industry. The testimonials and feedback from many of us speak for themselves, and they fall on extremely defensive ears which turn it around and blame it on a “personality disorder” or some such truth-deflecting victim blaming nonsense. It is a study in denial and the fear-laden program of “cover your ass!” I think it’s understandable how this can lead to hopelessness and be lethal, if one is not enlightened to any other path to address issues of early childhood wounding.

    I was most fortunate to be pointed eventually to what worked for me on this level, to know my center, grounding, and sense of self. I am solid in my beingness now and know my center well, very strong sense of self, worthiness, and deservedness–just for being a human being. We’re all worthy and deserving, at the core, we are born this way (and then programmed or traumatized out of that). This belief, when fully internalized, eradicates any thought of suicide because it is an expanded state of consciousness, where it is easier to follow the path of life and manifest what you need along the way. There is clarity and ongoing creativity to embrace. That is self-validation for our worthiness, and it is ever-flowing in this expanded awareness. That was exactly my experience of transformation from all that mess, definitely a life-saver, on a daily basis.

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  • I’d very much like to support Graciela here. Her courage and authenticity are palpable, and I believe she is breaking ground with her story and how she is using her voice. This is the brightest and most transparent example of transformation in process I’ve ever seen, word for word and in present time.

    Sharing beliefs is one thing, and has value in how we become familiar with the diversity of humanity. But imposing beliefs on another in a double binding way, expecting everyone to think, believe, and perceive the same way or something is “wrong” with you (or just plain, “you are wrong about you”), is EXACTLY what psychiatry does that is most oppressive and violating, and which does great harm if it is constantly chipping away at our own personal truth and questioning our sense of self. That is maddening. Mimicking this is, to my mind, what would keep psychiatry alive, because it validates their tools for oppression.

    Graciela, thank you for your powerful voice of truth and inspiration, and allowing your humanness to shine along with your light, paradoxes and all. It is refreshing and real. And I’ll go ahead and call it “change.” We are on our way. Blessings to you ♥

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  • Deconstructing how we suffer as the result of economic inequality is interesting and I can see how this relates to our beliefs about ourselves, if we buy into certain social programming. Beyond this financial matrix by which the world seems to be set up, I am more focused on what *belief* would drive a person to suicide. Financial pressure is common, but not everyone succumbs to it, and in fact, most don’t, I imagine. Somehow, we trudge on.

    I tried to end my life at the early stages of psych drugs withdrawal, but it wasn’t because of economic issues (which at the time I was struggling quite a bit financially thanks to my psychiatric debacle). It was purely because of the absolute lack of loving kindness which I encountered from all the clinicians around me during the time–like a black hole–from the mean-spirited and cold, competitive therapists in a day treatment facility to my psychiatrist at the time, who was an absolute arrogant, controlling, demeaning, and stigmatizing asshole. Between the cluster of group therapists and this sadist shrink, I felt bombarded with the most negative projections and prognoses I’d ever received, just at my most vulnerable and painful time of withdrawal.

    I was terribly disabled at the time, my brain scrambled from the toxicity of the drugs I had been prescribed for so long, and was getting treated like shit and made to believe I had no future. At this time, I had a 20 year retail career under my belt, and an undergrad degree in film and a graduate degree in counseling psychology. According to my intention, coming off the drugs was supposed to be a temporary pit stop for me, so that I could get myself back to who I was, grounded, centered and back into balance, since all those years of toxic pills had wreaked havoc on my entire system. I had a vision of recovery and was prepared with all kinds of tools I had lined up for this.

    But the psychiatrist who I was seeing at the time said to me repeatedly, “You lost your dreams,” in a variety of contexts. I was so confused and disoriented from just having come off of 9 psych drugs, I believed him and internalized this belief.

    So I tried to take my life, if that was the best I could do at age 40, after all the work I had put into life and my healing. Came very close, but I found my way back into my body at the last moment, was out of the hospital in a few days, and then went right to voc rehab 3 weeks later to see if I could make something of my life at that point.

    Since coming back to life, I still had to fight my way through systemic abuse, but somehow I did and got out of all that, and I’ve since lived many of my dreams, including making films and having a healing practice.

    I’ve done a lot of sliding scale work and also free, on many occasions, and my films are public service, so I’m still of extremely modest means–and indeed, I see everyday on Yahoo how the rich are gobbling up the world and its resources. But I’m so happy to be away from that stupid system and completely free of all that, that I can’t even fathom wanting to take my own life.

    I love life now–had to learn this, I really hated it at one point, obviously. But I learned to find it fascinating and creative. It is not always fun or easy and I believe challenges are an inherent part of life. But as long as there are moments of joy and I can feel that love and enthusiasm running through me, then I’m good and life goes on regardless of anything, ups and downs all along the way, and always bringing more opportunities to grow and manifest new things.

    The important thing for me was getting away from systems of abuse. Being scapegoated and marginalized is really painful, excruciating in fact. There is no mental stillness in this state, none at all. The anxiety and powerlessness can feel so overwhelming, that it is easy to lose hope, with those kinds of messages being sent.

    Not so much about being poor, but about being powerless. That’s the kicker, I think, because it zaps all joy in life to feel that you have no power, and anyone at all can kick you to the curb and do all kinds of harm to you, and you have no recourse, no civil protection, because the belief is that you must have done something to deserve it. That is where inequality really hits home.

    And that is the message which poor people receive from the rich AND the middle class, which is what I feel is most dispiriting, demoralizing, dehumanizing, and which leads to hopelessness and self-abuse/self-harm.

    I also think it’s a lie, and that no one is powerless. But to access one’s power, one has to believe in oneself way above and beyond those social programs and illusions, created to make people feel badly about themselves, undeserving, and dependent on others.

    Money does not by happiness, that may be trite but it is true. I’m pretty happy most of the time, and it’s certainly not because I’m rich–I am anything but that. But getting away from the “mental health” industry altogether and all other abusive, marginalizing systems sure did allow me to find my health and happiness, and to live my dreams and feel joy in life again. That has absolutely nothing to do with money. That is all about energy and trusting my own process, intuition, inner guidance, and self-resourcefulness. All of these came into being through different stages of healing.

    Personally, I think mental abuse drives people to suicide because it can be so cruel in how it targets a person’s core wounds and zaps all the joy out of living. And it can be very covert and clever. It’s a treacherous weapon against humanity.

    Being poor can be very frustrating, but there is no shame in being poor. The shame lies with abusers and liars who cause others harm and vampire society, exploiting poor and other vulnerable people. That is where the shame belongs.

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  • Julie, obviously everybody needs basic survival skills in life, and needing money to live is a fact of life right now. Not sure what your point would be in reiterating that artists need to make a living, too. Indeed, they/we do.

    One thing we can create is a path to money. Somehow, someway, and hopefully, with integrity. That would be nice, for a change.

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  • PD, I fought like hell for years and years to free myself from all that and I’ll support anyone with that goal in mind, but I cannot fight others’ battles for them, the way no one could fight mine for me. Emancipation happens when we ascend our own obstacles. Support is great but we each have to do our own work.

    For me, moving forward means creating, as I describe above. I’m open to all things creative that will help uplift and nourish humanity out of the pits. That would be my contribution at this point in time. Obstacles don’t intimidate me; they simply make me more determined.

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  • Related to both PacificDawn’s and Julie’s posts, combined, re feeding the world and creating:

    Had I all the money in the world, I’d cook for everybody in the world. Not kidding about that, I’d love that job. I’ve been cooking for 40 years, one of my favorite creative endeavors, and one of my favorite ways to share light & love is to feed people. Makes me so happy to watch others enjoy and be nourished by my cooking, as many have, including my partner who considers himeself very lucky that he married someone who LOVES to create in the kitchen.

    I also love playing the piano, same kind of channeling feeling. I can pick out tunes for hours–standards, pop, all kinds of things. I’m in the zone when I do this.

    So were I to have the funds, I’d open a community kitchen and piano juice and tapas bar for all to enjoy, come and be nourished and relax and have some fun. How’s that for starters?

    It would need to be paid for, somehow, and would need an ongoing list of donors, and ongoing food donations from willing contibutors, but I’d certainly do the hands on work and creating! With helpers, of course–and other creators who want to contribute, from all of the creative arts, integrate all of it. It would be a blast! And a labor of love, and I can’t think of anything more communal that would bring joy, which we so badly need in the world. That would be in response to my original comment on this thread.

    So, anyone interested in co-creating something like this, including of course anyone with spare funds to invest in something useful to the world, which is nourishing and healing and giving and creating, talk to me. As is quite evident around here, I’m an open book.

    (I am aware that I’m walking the edge as far as posting guidelines, but I am justifying this because I feel this kind of endeavor is one of the most powerful weapons against psychiatry, in that it brings people joy so who needs drugs? I’d like to co-create an example of community uplifting, giving back, and positive social creation and manifestation. We have to create it ourselves, it won’t just appear. The more of these kinds of options in the community, the more opportunities people have to enjoy life and not feel such despair and isolation, not to mention, hunger! That’s the goal, like I said, to provide global nourishment. That would make psychiatry obsolete, eventually, to my mind, and other dishonest charlatan so-called “healers”–and a;; others on the whole–who blatantly exploit society’s most vulnerable people for their own personal gain. Feeling joy is personally empowering and socially healing, no doubt about that).

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  • Julie, I’m sure you are speaking for all “starving artists,” and I agree, of course, the arts are vital to the world and have enormous value to humanity. And, it takes great courage and vulnerability to share our art with the world, although a true artist is not terribly concerned with this. For a real artist, creating is compulsive, it is our nature and how we feel alive. I feel stagnant when I am not creating.

    Still, why not be able to thrive financially from it? Many do, and hold extreme wealth thanks to their art. I guess people would have to find our art to have value and put their money where their mouth is. What else?

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  • It is amazing to me how we all serve such a valuable purpose to each other, when we allow our heart felt authentic truth to come forward. I’m actually blown away and so incredibly humbled by your response, Graciela. Blown away by your impeccable honesty and humbled by your mirroring. Getting to know one another is an adventure in and of itself, isn’t it? It’s how we get to know ourselves, too, I think. Our humanity is more diverse than we can imagine, I’m sure.

    Of course who we are is who are and where we are is where we are, all due to our unique set of circumstances in any given moment, along with our unique personality and perspectives. How we come together is an interesting mystery to me, and also why, for what purpose? Again, at any particular moment in time.

    What I created was the result of the only good choices which the universe offered me, as my healing and way forward. I had no resources, this is all raw and from the heart and hip. It’s all I had with which to work, and I believe we all have the power to access what we need, if we understood a bit better our process of co-creating, and how we influence our reality as we go. We are by no means powerless, even though we may perceive ourselves to be. We’re simply not seeing our own big picture in that moment. So much to say about this.

    Thank you for your feedback, very meaningful and I take it to heart.

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  • I do feel very strongly, and have talked about it often on here and wherever I have given presentations, that sharing our stories of these journeys we take, for the purpose of inspiring others to keep going when it gets really, really rough and confusing, is vital. I believe it is also very healing to ourselves when we can share as we do, and hear our own voice of truth above anything else.

    My personal belief is that we are all different aspects of One consciousness, so anything we do to uplift ourselves uplifts the entire collective, one way or another. This is how we break ground and open doors for others. I believe it gives deep meaning to what we have been through, that it has a purpose for us and for our fellow human beings. That is the nature of human evolution, to my mind.

    The comment in your above reply is perfect, I think, exactly matches my intention and vision–

    “What I have gone through has made me realize how resourceful & resilient humans are. There are all these built-in features to being human I discovered out of necessity. When that light you were talking about decides to shine brightly, I wish I could go around life rooting for all humans everywhere who are going through struggles like a cheerleader saying, ‘You’re human, so you got this!'”

    Being human is what we struggle most with, I believe. This combination of our spiritual nature and our human nature is quite a dance we do in life, and once we’re in step, the journey shifts to something more interesting and eventually enjoyable, rather than a constant battle with oneself.

    These battles are the progrmas and negative beliefs we’ve taken on from life’s traumas. Healing, I believe, is where we can see through these programs of stigma and denial and harsh self-judgment of our natural self. When we can embrace our humanness, the journey gets a bit easier because we are not fighting ourselves, but more so, we are supporting, encouraging, and guiding ourselves, as we wish to do with others. In short, to use your words, being our own cheerleader!

    When I discovered this and applied this consciously, it was a game-changer. I know it may sound simplistic in words and indeed this is easier said than done, but this is my concept of how this works, best as I can describe it in words. As you know, life has to be lived first before we can articulate it.

    So, with that said, I will share with you a bit here, without going into a really, really long post, which I do not want to take the attention away from what is important here, which is how we share our voices and inspire one another, as you have done by sharing your story here. Since you have asked a couple of times about my story, I can easily share with you here in a streamlined way.

    While I don’t like to compare stories at all, since, as you wisely say, we are all on a hero’s journey (I think just being born into this lifetime is highly courageous!) I will say up front that your story is way more profound than mine, and I’m actually still self-conscious about sharing what I do, but it seems to make a difference, from the feedback I get, so I will trust that.

    Part of my healing was to share my story, which I did around town for a few years, as part of a speakers’ bureau, so I’ve shared quite a bit. I talk a lot about my family dynamic, which is what led me to “mental health” services to begin with, and where my healing was most core and profound.

    My healing work centered around forgiveness, this is what came up most powerfully for me after I got off all the psych drugs. My personal healing path is centered around “heart consciousness,” that was the big shift for me, working from this perspective. It was a life-changing shift, and I continue this trajectory.

    While in the speakers’ bureau, I made a film documenting our stories, from our presentations, and then I added interviews and a discussion among those of us on this healing journey, speaking about discrimination and stigma from the system, which we had to somehow intergrate into our experience as we went along, a huge awakening for me. This was in San Francisco, so a lot of urban politics come into play.

    So, as per your request, here’s the film, which contains the family part of my story, along with 5 others sharing the most personal aspects of their journey, as well. I think there’s something for everyone, we’re diverse. I hope you find meaning and inspiration from this–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

    And, as a bonus, here’s the follow up film which I made 5 years later, after my life had transformed from the healing I had done. Thanks to speaking my truth as I was doing, the universe rewarded me with new guidance and insights, put me in a profoundly creative place, and a new location.

    I teach about co-creating and manifesting through healing. This is to where my journey led me. My job in life is to ground light to the planet, to make it real and physical, and there are so many ways to do this, it is our innate creativity.

    We need to improve the world to alleviate suffering, however we are moved to do so. This is about sharing love through music, only 28 minutes, a musical documentation–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8epJMOi3cwY

    I hope you enjoy these films and are inspired by them. You have touched my heart in many ways, Graciela. Deep respect and love to you ♥

    And you have a wonderful day, as well! May it be filled with light and inspiration 🙂

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  • No, no, you are a hero to me. I could never even nearly have articulated, as you have so vividly and spirit-filled and humbly, the journey while you are in the midst of it as you are now. That is a serious accomplishment, to my mind, and a testament to your fortitude and faith. Even the story of your persistence and humility to get it published, and trusting that process in your transparency, is noteworthy, I’m so glad you shared that.

    One phrase which caught my attention from your story was “slow and steady,” which, indeed, is key. So much to sort through, and we’re taken on a quite a ride in order to do just that, what I’d call our spiritual journey. We all have our guidance to follow, however it shows up for us at any given time.

    I can tell from your writing and also from your beautiful and extremely gracious responses to commentors, that you are a bright shining light, I’m sure I’m not alone in noticing this. I’m extermely moved by your spirit, truly. You’re making a difference, and will continue to–in a big way, I have no doubt. The honor is mine, truly, and anyone who reads your story.

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  • Thanks for speaking your truth, as always, I really sat with this and thought, why would this come back to me again as such?

    Knowing the extent to which I have called out abuse in my family and in society (not just from “the system,” but the general trends of abuse and oppression of a marginalizing and scapegoating society, and also on very personal relationship levels), and also the extent to which I have identified enablers and challenged that part of the systemic abuse as well (even on a sibling level), when I see you calling me out as an alleged enabler, it gives me great pause and I have to wonder what is the reality here.

    I have, indeed, been around abuse for so long, and quite consciously even (given my life’s work), that I’ve no doubt that I have played all kinds of roles unwittingly from time to time, while trying different strategies in life to deal with all kinds of people. I am human, after all, and far from perfect. And I’ve had to stand up to all kinds of bullying, and especially as an adult all snared up in systemic abuse.

    Many powerful distortions of reality happen when bullying is called out, that’s the strategy–project, project, project, and then lie and gossip. There’s your sysetmic abuse, to cast a hopelessly negative shadow on someone–usually the real truth-speaker. That is dark wanting no light (nor change), despite whatever illusion of change might be being projected. That is false, a cover. To me, that’s the dead end system dragging everyone down, abusive to society on the whole.

    I’ve been part of many social and professional communities all my life, and have had all kinds of personal connections in my 58 years. Thanks to the healing path to which my life led me, I’ve changed so much over the years, and I’m always willing to look inward before calling out a projection.

    Mind-fucking is the most common form of abuse these days, and it is insidious and extremely challenging to awaken to and heal. Calling it out is part of the healing. Not enabling it is vital to systemic healing. The problem is that not everyone can recognize covert abuse, it is so damn tricky and can fool even the smartest people, if they are sensitive and heart-based. It’s become the norm, which is why we (well, I, at least) want a new normal. I’d call that not only a profound awakening, but a core paradigm shift in absolutely every facet of society. This affects EVERYTHING!

    Imagine if oppressors, bullies, steamrollers, gaslighters, shamers, liars, and cheaters were not enabled. There goes their infrastructure! But in reality, who is whom?? I think this is what people are fighting most over and disagreeing about, which I find incredibly interesting, if not frustrating at times.

    (And to stay in step with the article, I’d say I’m viewing life through the lens of “what is systemic dysfunction and how to transform it.” I imagine it would begin with each one of us identifying our habitual roles and deciding if we want to keep playing it or go for something else. We can choose how we respond to any situation, that is by no means universal. In fact, that’s what defines “personal truth,” to my mind, and we all have the right to our own, that is our agency and free will).

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  • Loved reading this, thank you! I came off of Lithium (and several other neurotoxins) after 20 years also. I’ve now been 17 years psych drugs free and have been living by my own power and heart-felt guidance ever since. Life has a way of teaching us and seeing us through, if we are attuned to our nature. It most certainly gets better and I agree with Fiachra, that the best is yet to come. Congratulations on accomplishing such personal growth and finding your voice of truth. Beautiful!

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  • Can we even imagine a world society where people are allowed and encouraged to enjoy life and at least find it interesting and creative–challenges and all–and not get to the point where they are considering not living any longer out of despair? What would it take to create a planet where people can live and create freely, as per their desires, without fear and sabotage? Can society ever be this free of relentlessly oppressive forces, so that everyone can feel their fair share of joy, and there would be no reason to consider ending one’s own life? I do wonder if this is at all attainable.

    Of course that would mean that every person on the planet would have their basic needs met, like food and other types of nourishment necessary for humans to thrive in well-being. If it can in any way be imagined, then at least there is hope.

    I’m sure many would call this a Utopian fantasy. But if it were to be possible, then none of this would be necessary. And what would mostly be obsolete would be psychiatry and its ilk, for starters.

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  • There are as many lenses through which to see life as there are people on the planet. We can group them in so many ways, and I think we mix and match throughout the day. Certainly we can shift lenses and expand our perspective over time, which to me would be the foundation of personal growth.

    Overall, I believe that we can see life through a victim lens or we can see life through a creator lens, depending on how we self-identify by how we interpret our life experiences. I also believe this to be the precursor to our future life experience, based on how we identify in present time and respond to life events. I believe when we expand consciousness to creatorship, we see our best options and do not feel stuck, but more so, envigorated and motivated by our challenges.

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  • My feeling response was the same as yours. For me, absence of truth and light feels icky. This is not only contrived, it’s projecting all sorts of illusions. This is the antithesis of truth, like a black hole. When one is in the sytem, being talked about by clincians is the epitome of unsafe! And all too common.

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  • With all due respect to the authors, I think this is the best example of why so many people feel abused, dehumanized and marginalized by the mental health industry, straight from the mouths of clincians. I can’t detect a grain of truth or light in this piece whatsoever. I find it to be pure self-indulgence and self-aggrandizing, as usual–and this time, squared. This IS the problem. Frustrating.

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  • As I’ve described, I have fought back considerably, and have had some success in doing so. Win some, lose some. We each have to fight our own battles, I like to choose them wisely.

    And I do agree that the answers are within, that’s always my practice.

    We seem to agree on a few things, but differ in perspective in many ways. Regardless, I very much respect your position and I certainly understand from where you are coming.

    I wish you continued strength, courage, and the power to create the change you desire. I have no doubt that these are within all of us, and is a matter of accessing and trusting them. That’s good hardy inner work which can only lead to positive life changes. The former is what most influences the latter.

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  • “Recovery is a way of further mind fucking people.”

    Recovery is something that occurs when people have experienced something traumatic and/or debilitating and they get better eventually. I’m not referring to any movement.

    “And Life Coaching is based upon the scam that the coach knows more than you do about your own life.”

    I think in some cases, it is based on having someone outside of you witness your changes, and that is very generous and heart-based work. No one knows more than another, but support from a kind-hearted and wise-minded person who has had their share of life changing experiences is an asset to humanity, I believe. I’m sure there are scammers, like in any field, but I don’t believe you are characterizing this vocation universally.

    “How many Psychiatrists and Psychotherapists have you put out of business?”

    I have put two mh-related agencies out of business while merely trying to have a dialogue. But instead, they both lost their funding, based on my information and feedback. Not my intention, because I knew that people relied on these services, but I also knew the services were not terribly competent, to say the least, and yes, at times, abusive, and I said so, out loud and in their direction.

    But instead of playing fair and engaging in reasonable dialogue with me, they chose to be hard headed and stubborn and stick to the program, so they went down. One of these was because I wrote a letter (that’s all it took), and the other one because I took legal action and won, and then I made a film where I mention this, and sent it around the system. Their funding stopped after my film circulated.

    In addition, I have helped people to bypass the system and psych drugs altogether.

    “How many has your recovery group and your Life Coach put out of business?”

    I don’t have nor have I ever had “a recovery group,” nor a life coach (and it’s not what I am), so this is n/a.

    I own my life and live it my way, in full health and well-being, and grounded. I am complete with all this, other than to share my experience for the sole purpose of supporting others on their path. And a I know just how rugged this particular post-psychiatric path can be, and how confusing and disorienting these awakenings are.

    Life is tough for everyone, and everyone I know has been conned one way or another. Yes, we want change, and I believe I have done a great deal to instegate it, to its full effect. I continue to do this by the way I live my life. K?

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  • I agree with you about the “mental health” system being of great harm, and that is because it is government related and in bed with the law, so it is a closed and corrupt system. I appreciate recovery, and life coaching is what it is, but I don’t see it as a threat to society on the whole.

    I am curious, though, what do you feel would most benefit human kind at this time, in a loving kindness kind of way? Anything?

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  • I am simply conveying my experience in my own voice. How others interpret it is their story, not mine.

    I have taken my share of hits in life, and I heal as I go. I’ve had successes and victories, too. I think I’m pretty average in this regard, and I imagine I will continue to be. You are free to judge, of course, but I don’t take it on.

    “Real living only starts when you have struck back and scored some victories, that is, taken some scalps.”

    I have done this more than once. Not my favorite thing to do, but it was necessary for me to move forward, It was them or me, and truth was on my side, which gave me the confidence to take action.

    I’m not out for blood, though. My focus is on me and my family at this point, and our well-being. We worked very hard to put our lives back together after my psychiatric debacle, and have since moved into a new phase of life, finally enjoying it.

    As for the community and the world, these require collective actions, but I’m always there for support when called to act in a way which feels good and productive to me.

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  • Pacific Dawn, I am a survivor of psychiatry and I’ve experienced psychotherapy which leaned toward complacency, but I do not believe this is universal. I do counseling work with others for the purpose of helping people to get unstuck when that is what they feel, so they can move forward with their goals and intentions.

    I always encourage speaking one’s truth, which is way more often than not a vital component in the healing process, and especially if it is a particularly challenging situtation (which it usually is, that’s actually often the main sticky issue), then I’m there as support, to help hold and witness the process of healing and personal change. That’s my life’s work, and I feel it has great value right now, given how the world is seeking change, big time.

    What you say is true in a lot of instances, but I do not believe it is across the boards. Some of us do encourage and desire real truth to come to light, even when it is a hard truth, which is always the most powerful catalyst to change. Without that, I don’t see healing happening. And we all need healing, including the planet on the whole.

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  • I’m with Sam in appreciation, this is an enlightened response, Ron.

    There is an inherent connection between what we carry inside of us (beliefs, feelings, thoughts, focus) and the reality outside of us–a back & forth interplay, which, from what I understand and have come to believe, is the basis of how we experience life and our personal reality. Complex, indeed, and totally relevant and practical when it comes to the human experience, imo.

    And, these are flexible, they are not fixed to one point in time. Life is an ever-evolving process (human beings and our environments change constantly), so there’s always room to explore, discover, learn, grow, and refine our processes, for a better life experience than what came before. More ease, clarity, assuredness, etc., along with less fear of the unknown. Why not? Makes life better in all respects, regardless of from where we have come.

    I especially like this and resonate with it–

    “there is the idea that we all have an undamaged “Self” that, if we learn how to bring it forward, can help us heal or unburden the parts of us that have been messed up by trauma.”

    Yes, I agree with this, that we are always whole human beings. Bringing different parts of ourselves into conscious being is called “awakening” and “soul retrieval,” in other healing vernacular.

    Great and very clear truth here, Ron, thank you.

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  • “People lose years of their lives to bad marriages, unsuccessful business attempts, and natural disasters. It’s not like I’m the only one. Knowing this certainly softens the blow.”

    Well, there you go, exactly, Julie. After a while of living, it does become apparent that a lot of people have stories like these to tell. No doubt at different intensities and circumstances, but again, that is because our paths are unique, and relevant to who we are. Sometimes it is natural disasters and sometimes it is relationship disaster. The latter can really take some intense soul searching and introspection, but that’s the idea, we get on that path of raising self-awareness and learning through our next phase of life. And I agree with you always here, that there is so much creative power in this.

    I think each circumstance carries its own awakening and path of wisdom and learning–to pass along so perhaps next generations have it a bit easier, thanks to the wisdom we’ve acquired in this lifetime. Better to have generational learning, rather than generational abuse, needless to say!

    Maybe that’s one way we can help turn things around, and stop abuses right here and now. Haven’t we learned by now, by our own discovery?

    That is one big shift we can make right now to create change, in the moment. Before lashing out, we can take a pause and still speak our truth–I think that’s vital–but with a bit more awareness of what we’re throwing into the collective. We do affect each other, one way or another, that is nature. We each play a part in the feeling of the collective, and we can always raise the energy a bit, which I believe leads to more clarity and also relief on some levels, a bit more ease.

    I know this will ruffle some feathers around here, but really and truly honestly, I like going by “why did this happen for me?” rather than “why did this happen to me?” Been hearing this a lot, lately, and I think it is humbling, empowering, and true. Moves us right along because then, there is purpose to all of our experiences–to enjoy, or to further awaken. Those two can eventually coincide, which would be optimal. Then, life would be so much more fun and enjoyable. I think a good quality of life includes the ability to be light and to have fun.

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  • I think it’s realisitic and human. One thing we can count on in life is that we will make lots and lots of mistakes. So what, who doesn’t? We can still move along, learn as we grow, and have our moments of joy. We certainly don’t have to punish ourselves forever, or even at all. That is self-imposed suffering. I’ve had to forgive myself for a lot of things, and I imagine I will be doing that more during my lifetime, and probably even on my deathbed. Such is life as a human being.

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  • “There is no “Getting Better”, as there was never anything wrong with any of us in the first place.”

    I had chronic and crippling anxiety to address. My error in judgment (and misguided belief) led me to psychiatry, whereas much later in life I learned what was really causing me to feel this way, and I made necessary changes, which alleviated this problem. The bulk of this change came from shifting my self-perception. The solution was far and away from “mental health” anything. That industry only causes people to feel terrible about themselves. So then, there is the issue of healing from the damage done by psychiatry, which to me, was also a matter of “getting better”–from drugs toxicity to criminal and violating systemic abuse.

    “And the goal of life cannot be just “happiness”.

    For some, it might be. Happiness can come when suffering is relieved. Doesn’t always, right away, especially if the suffering was caused by other people, and even more specifically if it caused by people who are supposed to be helping. That’s where the very traumatic and wounding issue of betrayal comes in.

    That’s a fork in the road for many people, we all handle this differently. Not everyone feels vindictive, although I understand why some would, seems natural under many circumstances. There are other routes to take, however, in order to resolve these issues within ourselves. Depends on our beliefs and codes of living, which are personal to each of us.

    In short, there are choices available as to how to respond to being institutionally or socially victimized. I believe most people on the planet have been, one way or another. Our government isn’t exactly “for the people by the people,” as we all know. More like “by the elite for the elite,” and the rest of us are left to fend for ourselves.

    Everyone has their own goals in life, but I think “fulfillment” might be more universally sought, although I certainly can’t speak for others. That’s always my goal, in any endeavor I take on–to feel fulfilled in the process of whatever I’m doing. Otherwise, what would be the point?

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  • Yes, there is a lot of healing and processing to do once one abandons psychiatry, realizing that it has done way more harm than anything and has only added to suffering. We all do that our own way, I believe that is a powerful truth that has been revealed from our personal stories. This is what psychiatry misses altogether, that we are unique individuals.

    I don’t feel rage though, for me that is counter-healing and keeps me emotionally connected to psychiatry in a way that I’d prefer to not be. More than anything, even after all these years away from the “mh industry,” I am relieved to no longer be part of that, and happy to be free. Also incredibly grateful, because it was not easy. To find our freedom is also an awakening which occurs in unique ways, according to the individual, and it’s not at all once, but more so, layer by layer. Lots of post traumatic stress from that experience, which is healable.

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  • I remember sitting in on a meeting in San Francisco, about 7 years ago, where CIT was being discussed because a gentleman who had been receiving services from California Behavioral Health Services (CBHS), and who used a wheelchair, was shot by police in front of the CBHS building because he was weilding a knife from his wheelchair.

    Meeting attendees were the public defender, exec and assistant directors of Mental Health Association SF, an attorney for the defendant, several social workers, and me. I had been contracting with MHA-SF as public speaker and wanted to do more to help bring my lived experience to the table, for that perspective to have a voice in these matters. I was shut down and put on the defensive by those who continuously referred to the defendant as “wheelchair man.”

    The public defender asked the attorney a couple of questions about the incident with the defendant, which he could not answer. The attorney passed around his card, and was more interested in media than anything, knew nothing about the client that had been assigned to him several weeks prior.

    20 minutes into the meeting, someone came in and signaled to the public defender that he had a phone call, and so he got up and left without saying anything to those of us in the room, and never came back, whereas we all did not know what to expect. A vague discussion took place for about another 20 minutes, where everyone was confused, and then we all left. It was truly bizarre.

    The dehumanization process and indifference that goes along with it are thoroughly systemic.

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  • Also, I think that a community/group of those who’ve identified in the scapegoating role would be filled with all kinds of truth, wisdom, and new clarity, although I do feel that it would be necessary for people to somehow detach from this identity, or at least be willing to, for the group to maintain a grounded and real sense of power, away from the norm, and to be practical and effective. I say this because it is so easy to scapegoat, I believe it happens way more often than not–it IS the norm!–and I believe that’s at the core of our social issues and systemic abuse. It happens in community after community, seems the most used option for alleviating collective anxiety. But if it falls on one person, than nothing at all is alleviated, and that system becomes totally stuck in bad familiar patterns. That’s a downward spiral in the works.

    In addition, the one scapegoated is the one NOT going by social programming (or at least attempting to not, and struggling with this) and is more creative and independent in thinking, and therefore is poised to make much needed contributions to society at a time that we need new thinking and expanded creativity. Freeing oneself of this identity will allow a person to embrace their uniquely creative selves, despite how others may project their shallow and truly meaningless judgments (if we give them no credence).

    To my mind, for real change to occur, the idea would be to NOT create a scapegoat–yet again–from within that evolved group, which would merely be repeating social abuse. I suggest that we learn from how that felt (which is quite terrible and dispiriting, to say the least, and is pure oppression embodied), so we have deep empathy for this and can therefore be mindful to not make others feel scapegoated or marginalized when frustrations and conflicts occur, and eveyone has a chance to contribute and feel their value in the collective, to maximize the value and functionability of the entire community. Million $ question: can it be done?

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  • Isn’t that Murray Bowen’s Family Systems Theory? Which I agree with, a scapegoat is created to absolve all other members of the family/community of responsbility for how they are contributing to the collective anxiety. For it to fall on one person is irrational and unrealistic, given that we all affect each other, one way or another. That just cannot be truth, it makes no sense.

    The “scapegoat” is expected to carry the anxiety/blame for everyone, and when that person refuses to do so, things only get worse and the scapegoating becomes more pronounced, often via Munchausen by proxy. Then, the entire system is operating under a stark delusion, and they are spreading the lies, which makes it dangerous for everyone concerned.

    The one who is designated “scapegoat” is the one with the opportunity to make significant core changes to the system, but it is not easy to shift an internalized “scapegoat” identity. Arguing, debating, or trying to use reason and logic with a scapegoating system is exactly like spiiting into the wind, most of us have come to realize this–it just comes right back into our faces. Scapegoating about creating an illusion of power and control over others, that’s the goal. It has nothing to do with reason or fairness or balance or justice. So the shift has to be made individually, and creatively, from the inside, based on reflecting on and being willing to shift our own self-identity and sense of boundaries and what is and is not acceptible to us.

    However, that kind of internal shifting while detaching from the system is what leaves a marginalizing system in the dust and powerless (they have to deal with their own anxiety if there is no one but each other to project it onto), while at the same time, creating a new way of being for the now FORMER scapegoat.

    That would be how systemic transformation would come about, to my mind. Not an easy path, but neither is systemic change, so in that sense, it’s a perfect match. Certainly, neither the abuser/ring leader nor the enablers will step forward, they don’t want change, for fear of feeling their powerlessness. But the “scapegoat” sure would, once they tire of that role!

    I think the “scapegoat” is really the most powerful one in the dynamic, once they choose to relinquish that role. And it takes time to adjust to feeling powerful in one’s own light when coming from a lifetime of feeling powerless, overshadowed, demeaned, and marginalized. That’s an enormous core shift which begins internally, and it will affect absolutely everyone around that person, for starters.

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  • Thanks Rosalee, I appreciate your kind words! Yes we performed a few times including a holiday show where we featured 40s big band songs from their era, fun for us all and the residents were elated from it for about a week, I heard, which was really cool to know. We screened the film for them and they just loved seeing themselves on the “big screen.” Certainly a nice break for me from all this other stuff! Trying to keep it all balanced…

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  • “Fairly new to my awakening of what goes on in psychiatry and am still trying to comprehend how deep and insidious this whole fiasco is.”

    Very well said, Rosalee, exactly how I would put it–a deeply insidious fiasco. Sums it up perfectly.

    I had thought at one time several years ago, when I made the film, that perhaps the clincians needed a broader education, based on our experiences of healing outside of the mh industry, and that a dialogue about new persepctives on well-being and healing would begin, opening new vistas, horizons, and possibilities. Silly me, still not fully awake at that time.

    It is after years of participating on here that my eyes opened wider, and I realized that this would never, ever occur, no way no how.

    No shrink will ever learn anything from me nor from those who went through what we did, by their choosing, other than as token, which is how covert oppression works. And if they were to learn from us, we wouldn’t get credit, they’d co-opt the information, as per the norm. This is the politics, which is that of the status quo. THAT’s how deeply insidious this whole fiasco is. I don’t call it “vampirism” for nothing. Exactly what it is, spot on and a textbook case.

    Psychiatry/psychotherapy/”mental health” counseling are based on dialogue and communication. That and the drugs are the foundation of this industry.

    Dialogue? Are you kidding me? How about stonewalling, avoiding, lying, projecting, stigmatizing, extreme defensiveness, shaming, guilting, playing “victim,” gossiping, backstabbing, sabotaging, blaming, twisting words, etc. It’s all one big insidious collage of mind games and betrayal and cover your ass, and nobody wins because there is no truth in any of it, it’s just one illusion and disillusion after another. That’s been my awakening as of late. It is played!

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  • Regardless of what leads a person into psychiatry, my emphasis is more on healing from the damage done by psychiatry once we have moved away from it. There is psych drugs damage to heal, and there is also programming to shift and old sets of beliefs to reconsider. That is life changing.

    Once we awaken to the corruption which has plagued us personally, there is a lot of shifting to do. That is a holistic process of healing and core transformation. Big changes occurs here, when we heal from internalized oppressive programming.

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  • “Its clear that Laura Delano found a means of coping with the rigours of psychiatric drug withdrawal, and overcame “Severe Mental Illness” as a result of abandoning Psychiatry.”

    Many of us can claim this exact same thing: we can get off the drugs, abandon psychiatry, and that is where healing occurs–as opposed to the calamity which psychiatry seems to inevitably offer. I believe this is where numbers can be significant. That is hard evidence that psychiatry places us on a downward spiral, whereas going elsewhere for healing works.

    I know that we all have different approaches to this which work for us, and a lot is yet to be discovered by people regarding their own personal healing path. I know that you, Fiachra, sing the praises of psychotherapy for your recovery, whereas I had to abandon ANYTHING having to do with the mh industry in order to heal. Here in the USA, I find this field to be utterly useless, and only creates problems and more drama and crises for people. Here in this country, at least, this industry simply does not know what it is doing, in my very firm and well-founded (I believe) opinion.

    And they have no ears for critical feedback, none whatsoever. That’s a huge problem, especially when it comes to “the art of dialogue.”

    Regardless, I believe we, ourselves, have proven with our lived experience and all that is possible once DSM/neurotoxins are abandoned and left in the dust, that diagnoses are bullshit, based on subjective and oppressive cultural norms, and that the psych drugs are extremely damaging in multiple ways to the point of being lethal.

    Many of us have gotten away from all of this, and have managed to stay away for decades now, and have, in turn, healed from this and have found our path in life. And that is not without deep reflection about the atrocities which psychiatry has put so many of us through. I know we’ve acquired profound wisdom taking this journey, how else would it serve?

    There is no ambiguity here for many of us, it is clear as crystal that psychiatry is dangerous and harmful, and getting away can be live-saving. Period.

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  • “Sometimes I wonder if clinician blaming isn’t the exact same dynamic as patient blaming, turned on its head.”

    Absolutely not. What begins as “critical feedback” to clinicians (which is fair and reasonable in any professional situation) turns into a power struggle because clinicians notoriously don’t accept negative feedback, and instead, turn it on its head (to use your phrase) and use it to project their negative feeling from the feedback onto the client, as though it were their “false perception” causing a “trauma trigger,” instead of hearing the feedback with humility, ownership, and an open mind.

    Clinician/client is not a “family relationship;” it should be a professional one. But clinicians cross all sorts of emotional and relationship boundaries while projecting what they don’t like about themselves onto the client. This is common, and was exactly my experience, repeatedly, and it does harm to the psyche until one wakes up to the abuse happening.

    I’ve known clinicians to be very defensive and basically freaked out when a client leaves their practice dissatisfied. They have to rationalize it in all sorts of ways, always ending up on the client. The kind of abuse we’re talking about can be very subtle, yet insidious in its mind-twisting ways. Last thing a client needs, and it is all too often what they receive in the guise of “psychotherapy.”

    Clinicians get paid, while clients are the ones who do the paying, one way or another, and are left drained of resources and any hope of clarity, well-being, and quality of life. How can “patient blaming” be the same dynamic as “clinician blaming?” The clinician has a JOB to do, it’s why they are paid!

    Clients are there for different reasons, I guess, but I know in my case as with countless others, I was there to heal depression, anxiety, and all kinds of confusion, so that I could have a fruitful, productive, and enjoyable life, to live my dreams. Instead, clinicians made things way, way worse, systematically, over the years. And for a long time, I was paying out-of-pocket until I had to turn to the system because my pockets had been drained from all of this messiness, and in turn, directly because of this, my life got way, way messy.

    When I finally switched tracks to real and true healing, thanks to an exceptional teacher and healer whom I had met, and an entirely new group of healers with an entirely different mindset about life and humanity, and how our mind/body/spirit system works, I got 100% better over a period of a few years, and my life healed as well as my mind, body, heart, and spirit. The messiness transformed into new clarity, and from there I could proceed forward with my new life, feeling newfound relief and freedom.

    I was the constant, wanting only to heal, but what varied were the “clinician/healers” to whom I turned. MH clinicians and these practices tanked me; the energy work healed me. It is simple math!

    “I wonder if there is a place for getting outside of the bashing and creating a new and true empowering context for the patients and the clinicians caught up in this truly terrible mess.”

    Clinicians can do anything they want. As KateL says, they can quit, no one is forcing a job on anyone. But clients are either forced to be there, by law, or they are there voluntarily trying to heal. Of course, there are all kinds of ways in the world which exist that do bring healing, and which are not messy as this is. That’s where I would go with all this, for getting out of the messiness.

    It is where I went and it worked, unequivocally. But that gets bashed, too, and invalidated. I don’t care about that, but it does discourage others. I go with what works, and I know what didn’t work and what did work.

    MH anything is THE terrible mess. Lose that, and things get much, much clearer. It’s a matter of taking leaps of faith and trusting one’s process, AND really and truly being open to change, not just “political lip service.” Without these, it’s status quo until status quo itself burns to the ground from its own internalized mechanisms of oppression. How could it possibly survive at this point in time?

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  • World peace is my vision, as well. I believe it begins with inner peace, despite anything going on around us, that we are clear and comfortable with our own truth as we go along discerning and making choices in life, moment by moment, based on what we know about ourselves and our intentions—that is, how we are moved by our spirit to proceed forward from any moment in time.

    We must know our strength to endure and overcome, as well as the power of our heart’s wisdom and guidance. This is what I have thus far learned in my particular life journey.

    Thank you for voicing your truth and vision so unambiguously. There is great power in that level of clarity, I believe.

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  • So true, of course, about the competing agendas–political vs. personal–and that is causing great distress continuously in these endeavors.

    I think all our stories are quite messy and complex, this is not an easily streamlined subject. There is so much at play here, so many factors which motivate and fuel our life experiences, and each of us has our own unique story to tell, which can also morph over time, depending on how flexible we are with our beliefs and perspectives.

    Healing, personal growth, and evolution are messy, in and of themselves. Like birth. It’s natural, but not easy and quite challenging and painful, to the point of stretching us. And exhilarating at the same time, if we are attuned to the new life happening. That is change occurring, in the moment.

    My reason for sharing my story of how I got into such a mess, and then how I got out of it, layer by layer, is first and foremost for my own clarity, to hear my own voice in a self-validating way, and then I can move on from that particular piece of my story, as though I’d retrieved that part of myself and integrated it.

    What others hear or how they interpret what I say and how I say it–or if they simply cannot hear what I am saying, like there is no reference point or schema–is not in my control whatsoever (which is why I stopped seeing “mental health” clinicians a decade ago). I’m always willing to elaborate, when questioned with respect and genuine curiosity, as opposed to being impulsively invalidated for my truth. That clearly indicates a negative projection, and personal agenda over greater good. Perspectives need to stretch and grow for change to occur.

    It’s happened each way over the years–I have been heard sometimes and I have been grossly projected onto–but I don’t respond to invalidating projections any longer, other than to say, “Sorry, you are wrong in that projection.” No reason to explain myself, that’s a rabbit hole, and regressive to childhood; I only hold myself back when I engage with this and give it any credence. At this point, I know myself better than anyone else could possibly know me, and that’s my certainty. I am under no obligation to prove anything to anyone, that is compromising my personal power. I’ve learned that the hard way over the years, and it’s been a most valuable and fruitful lesson when it comes to manifesting positive life experiences, for a change!

    I speak my truth and share my story for my own clarity, first, and how that ripples is always interesting to witness, but my job is done at that point. Hopefully, when I share my story, my voice will reach the right open ears (and hearts and minds), and that’s always great progress when that happens. For now, at least, I am comfortable with my own truth, and that is what brings me peace and grounding in life.

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  • Very moving and inspirational. Thank you for sharing your journey and for the courage and wisdom to trust your process despite the feeling of vulnerability, which is where most people stop dead in their tracks and hide from their own truth, and which, in turn, is the road to nowhere. You are doing the opposite, speaking your authentic truth with transparency and positive self-regard which I respect more than anything. Congratulations on your profound accomplishments!

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  • I don’t think it’s as much approving vs disapproving of certain kinds of behavior as it is naturally self-caring and self-respecting to distance oneself when certain behaviors become exceedingly challenging and have no regard for personal boundaries.

    And what may be challenging for one person is breezy for another, due to familiarity, for one thing, but also because we have diverse sensibilities and varying relationship dynamics, based on from where we come.

    Anger is a human emotion which we all feel at one time or another, and blame is certainly warranted in a corrupt and harming system of oppression and abuse. But chronic hostility and aggression–in whatever form, overt or passive–will definitely push people away, which stands to reason I think.

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  • Dr. Fred, that is MUSIC to my ears, as my own dad would say. Thank you, yes, indeed, I’m a Renaissance kind of person, the world came alive with art, music, theater, a new paradigm of thought and living, out of the Dark Ages. It was a grand transformation.

    When I went to see a medical intuit in 2001 to guide me off of a lot of psych drugs safely (out of dire medical necessity, all of a sudden), the very first thing she said to me was that I needed to learn how to ground my energy. This had been the cause of my anxiety and ups and downs all along.

    Had someone told me this in 1982, it would have saved me sooooo much trouble, I can hardly calculate it. Really, none of what I went through would have been necessary, I’ve no doubt. This was new info to me. Drugs are the last thing one needs when one lacks grounding. They unground us even more, keep us out of our feelings and in our heads, spinning in thoughts. So it’s a double-whammy.

    So grounding was step 1, to bring some peace to the system, a bit of calm and deep breathing to just feel slightly more ease, that feeling of surrender just for the moment, and then things fell into place so much more easily because we are creating what we need along the way, is how I look at it. Amazing the difference it made.

    And it’s not easy, life is ungrounding as it is, but mutliple trauma makes it ever more so, because we keep ourselves unwittingly ungrounded with our own thoughts. There is healing to do here. It does take practice. This is what I learned of most value, I think, and what helped me to get on with things. Came to me from a variety of sources along the way, I had to synthesize it.

    Only other thing I feel compelled to say here is that trust is something to be earned nowadays, we’ve all been so betrayed by one person/community/institution or others. We are, indeed, all in it together, like it or not! We all serve, one way or another.

    Thank you for your presence and work in the world, and for putting all of your skills to good use. We’ve all challenges to overcome. I’ve enjoyed the exchange and sharing 🙂 Cheers!

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  • Dr. Fred, I checked out your services. We basically do the same thing and have similar goals with clients, to help free them of negative self-beliefs and feel their creative power. To me, that is a heart based energy, specifically. The idea of “mental illness” doesn’t even enter the picture, unless they bring it up as past experience, or they are looking for that new perspective. I work with people of all walks of life, with this same goal of personal freedom, starting from within. That is universal to all souls, the desire to be free.

    I was wondering if you are familiar with the concept of grounding, that is one thing I notice might be missing in your work, based on my perspective of healing and transformation. I am not seeing grounding here, does that make sense to you? Being in our bodies, grounded to the Earth. That is how we make manifest our vision.

    At some point, as we are guided by our own intution, we have to surrender our vision to the universal life flow of energy and trust the process without the intention of controlling anything, wouldn’t you agree? Detaching from outcome? Would you agree that this is a vital component of our personal power in the process of manifesting our lives? And specifically, to transformation? At some point, it’s necessary to let go and trust, if change is to occur with relative ease. I ask because it seems aligned with your work, if I’m reading it correctly.

    My second film is an exact example of this. It is of the Earth, and you can see it in the film, Earth and nature are visible. Humanity is on Earth, that is the nature of being human. Music is considered of the Earth, which is why it brings people together and speaks on many levels, transcending language. We feel it in our hearts,, and when we GROUND this feeling, we are bringing light to the Earth, to all of humanity. This is healing on so many levels!

    I believe we all have this power, to bring light to humanity, simply by grounding, coming down to Earth, and opening our hearts, just a bit to start. Is this at all copacetic or overlapping with how you help to guide and empower your clients and audiences? It’s all I’m ever trying to get across, and I wonder to what extent this rings true to you, especially given our similar goals in our client work–to empower via their own sense of personal freedom and self-regard.

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  • Thank you, Dr. Fred, I hope it helps to expand your awareness from a client perspective.

    Since your work is about personal transformation–as is mine–I do have one more piece to offer, again in the form of a film, the follow up to Voices That Heal. This time it’s short, only 28 minutes.

    This is all about music, love, healing and community service. On a personal level, it is my transformation, my example of it. This was 5 years after I made VTH, after my life had transformed thanks to the very thorough and in depth healing work I did, which also served as my training as a healer and teacher. I credit my truth-speaking, mostly, for moving me forward. It is directly because of that I ended up in a new and very beautiful, peaceful, and healing environment–among the Redwoods. Direct correlation between speaking my truth and transforming my life, the dots connect directly.

    Aside from being a healing guide for people, which is my life vocation, I am also music director and accompanist for a band which performs as a way of giving back to the community and raising the energy, this time with our musical voices.

    This is the result of my eschewing diagnoses and any kind of label, getting off of toxic psych drugs and withstanding a terrifying and painful withdrawal, and then getting on with my life in a way that makes my journey most meaningful and fulfiling to me, grounded, alive, and with enthusiasm for life in all of its abundant creativity.

    Littleturtle, I have a feeling you would enjoy this, too, I hope so at least. And certainly I invite anyone to watch this short film, who is in the mood for a bit of a joy elixir for the weekend. All of my films are intended to heal and uplift our spirits on some level, and to open our hearts.

    This film is purely heart-based, a musical documentation of a moment in time, and I think it’s fun and uplifting, certainly my intention. Anything to bring light to this dense society of ours and create some relief from the undue suffering. Love, music, volunteerism, giving back–those are our highest frequencies of energy, and they do bring healing to all who participate and who can take it in.

    This was our gift to the community of residents in the assisted living facillity where we performed, and their families. They ate it up!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8epJMOi3cwY

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  • You are too kind, Dr. Moss. This was my path, for better or worse. I did learn so much and I do recognize now that life is amazing, I will say that. Miraculous, even.

    To answer your question, I’m a bit ahead of you. I made a film about just this subject several years ago, simply with storytellers (including myself) recounting our journeys, and sharing our perspective in a unique conversation amongst ourselves. We are not of one mind or voice, but more so, we are diverse in our thinking. My intention was to present our perspectives in a way that was harmonious, what I call “A choir of voices” taking the audience through unique journeys of being and healing.

    I read about your upcoming documentary on your website, and it made me think of my film. And, I think it fits perfectly with “Welcome to Humanity,” because that is exactly what my film is–simply our humanity, expressed and embodied through our own voices of healing.

    I had no resources for this, so production values aren’t the greatest, but I believe the messages are clear and worthy of note. Certainly we tell an eye-opening story. It was also my first attempt at making a film, which I hope to do more, film is a passion of mine, and I think a great medium for truth speaking in all kinds of creative and engaging, entertaining ways. If you choose to check it out, I hope you enjoy–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

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  • Thank you for this perspective. I have heard this before, that diagnoses absolve one of self-responsibility. And it may apply to some people who use “illness,” or a label, as an excuse to not be accountable, but I don’t think that is either the norm or the majority of people, and it certainly doesn’t apply to me. I believe one needs to be careful about generalizations like this, as it can create a totally false projection onto those to whom this does not apply, and that is not helpful in healing because it is not truth.

    The first time I ever heard of “manic-depression” (as it was called in the 1970s) was on a Maude episode called “Maude’s Moods.” A few years later, in college, I began to experience alternating bouts of depression/anxiety, and then relief from that for several months, which put me in my usual chipper and sociable mood. That had mostly been my “normal.” Outwardly, I’d been a pretty happy-go-lucky and fun-loving kid.

    Then it happened again, that same cycling of emotions, and I went to see a counselor on campus. I told her that I thought I might be manic-depressive (as per the Maude episode, that’s all I knew about this), and she administered some standardized tests and then suggested I see a psychiatrist. At that time, there was no association between m-d and violent outbursts, suicide, hospitalization, or in any way being a “threat” to society, so as far as I knew there was really no stigma associated with it. It was about having extreme moods (welcome to humanity, right?), and there was something one could take for it. Seemed perfectly respectable, like Valium, also middle-class popular in the 1970s.

    I didn’t “self-diagnose” to get out of responsbility, however. What I wanted was relief from all that anxiety which this brought with it, and which made it impossible for me to focus on point. I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to function in life if I did not get this taken care of. I knew it had a “solution” to manage the “symptoms” (Lithium), and taking that would allow me to be able to live like a “normal” person, work for a living, have a life, etc. This was my program from the suburbs, and I followed the protocol. It was all I knew.

    That’s exactly what I learned from the media, and I went with it. It kind of worked–I worked full time, went back to school, and began a relationship which continues to this day, 34 years later.

    But of course, thanks to taking the “psychiatric path,” I suffered many side-effects, which I dealt with one way or another but kept my medical bills hardy, and I was eventually met with dire consequences which completely tanked my health and almost cost me my life, and I had to go to great lengths and expense to correct all of this on my own with blind faith. I had no example at the time of coming off psych drugs, nor of “healing from mental illness” (as I thought about it at the time).

    I did find my healing path away from psych drugs and diagnosis, thank goodness, and got my head on straight, my issues integrated, and my life back on track. But it was a close call, way too close for comfort. This was my personal wake up call to the shadow underbelly of society, going through the “mental health” industry and all its tangents.

    Fortunately, I discovered 20 years after my initial diagnosis that I was wrong, the Dr’s were wrong, and none of this was ever true, and I never had anything more than emotions and some issues from my family which I had to eventually address and clean up, and bring in my own information so that I could make my life choices in a reasonably sound and discerning way, rather than driven by chronic negative internalized voices and self-image.

    I recovered from it all, but damn, what a waste of time, energy, money, and effort. Lesson learned! I do wish I could get a refund, however. This was costlier than I could possibly say. After 20+ years of being shit on by this so called “helping profession,” a full refund would make me a very wealthy man. Psychiatry took me to the cleaners and my partner and I only suffered even more in return.

    So, I take full responsbility for walking into these offices in the first place, and for believing Norman Lear, but it was the popular belief at the time, and I was actually being SELF-responsible, that was my sole intention. Still, I have to say this to psychiatry in general and to the “mental health” industry on the whole, with full sincerity: thanks for nothing.

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  • “I just wanted to pay attention that you can’t get chaos (real randomizing) even using the most powerful computers (I know this as a programmer), so why do we expect this from nature?”

    This is very interesting and your question makes perfect sense. I do find paradox here because in one sense we can say nature would be infinitely organized (I can only imagine) and on the other hand, it can create chaos, so I can also imagine it by nature being chaotic. Plus, I am always able to say I feel my chaos, even though I’m a very focused and highly organized person. But it takes effort to focus and I also like to relax and just allow, be “in the flow” as is said, which is when I feel my “chaos.” Which is fine, I’m good with it, still grounded and all.

    I’m also an extremely creative person, so the chaos is exciting to me, not at all disorienting. I do create and manifest from chaos, all the time. To me, it feels like my nature, with which I’m totally aligned, so I guess I’m projecting onto nature from my own sense of self. But then again, isn’t that what any of us would do, how it works?

    Perhaps we are the ones projecting the chaos so that we can create from it, maybe that’s the human element of nature which brings this. We are definitely unpredictable, never know how we’re going to feel from one day to the next. Chaos is much more interesting than “perfect order,” although there is beauty in symmetry, as well. But we are such creators, I think, that I do believe is human nature. We create one way or another, whether consciously or not.

    I’m seeing both sides of this paradox, and I very much appreciate what you say here because you are a progammer and you would know this, so what you say does give me pause. Definitely food for thought, thank you for that!

    “On the other hand, we have paranoia (occuring synchronicities).
    I think that synchronicities is the universal language of nature, it is a tool of evolution.”

    That’s beautifully put. Yes, universal language of nature and a tool of evolution, I’d agree completely with that. But I’m not clear on where “paranoia” fits in here–unless you mean that we can interpret synchronistic events through a lens of fear, which then I could see how paranoia could develop from this. But that’s more about the beliefs we are carrying, not about the synchronicities. Not sure whether or not I’m understanding you correctly here.

    I experience synchronicity all the time, and it’s always a good feeling, joyous and affirming. Makes me feel that I’m on my path, and that things are lining up with whatever intention I have at the moment.

    It’s been during times where I am lacking synchroncity (or better said, I am not perceiving it due to lack of focus) where I’ve felt in the dark and with a lot of anxiety. Whereas the synchs bring me reassurance, calm, and confidence–a feeling of light and certainty in my body. It is a very good feeling, like, no worries!

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  • Salimur, I think we all have our take on this, nothing is set in stone about it. I believe it’s a matter of how we take in and interpret the nature of life, based on who we are and how we organize information. It’s different for everyone. I see it as an exploration.

    With that said, what comes to mind from reading your post is that I do feel we run energy akin to electricity, that our bodies are comprised of a continual action of electrical impulses, which would be our brain activity in relation to our nervous system, and all the signals that go out to the different parts of our bodies for the sake of functioning. It is why grounding is vital, the way we ground our appliances so they do not short curcuit. We have circuitry, too, that is our nature.

    Everyone experiences lightning and static electricity, these are most natural and universal. So to liken them to “psychosis” and “autism” only works for me if you’re saying that we exist on a continuum and each of us can achieve these extremes. That would be human nature, not just the nature of “some people.”

    Perhaps we all go in and out of different aspects of the contiuum without even realizing it, if it is our nature. So the question would be, why do some people get stuck at the extremes and wind up labeled, and rather boxed in for life, based on these labels?

    Finally, I’ve never heard of “synchroncity” being associated with “reduced brain activity,” although it makes sense now that I think about it. I associate synchronicity with increased awareness, especially present time awareness. It is one way we witness life happening in the moment.

    Too much brain activity means we are running a lot of electricity and that takes us out of the moment, and also out of our grounding, so indeed, we would not notice the synchronicity. Which is too bad, because synchronicity is the magic of life! It is all around us all the time.

    I would say heart activity is a higher current of electricity, so to speak, than that of brain activity. Brain activity is dense and heavy, to the point where it can lead to fog. Heart energy is aligned with love. That is our nature, too, I believe. And love can be, both, healing and quite chaotic. Still, there is clarity in love.

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  • Right, there is nothing to fix. We can work with the chaos. I don’t see us as humans being powerless to the chaos, but more so we participate in it. It is our nature. I think when we take that in, we can stop struggling against it as though there were something “wrong” with chaos, and instead work with it in a way that is fruitful and reassuring. Like going with the stream rather than struggling against the current to go upstream.

    Chaos is nature and nature is chaos. There is always an “x factor,” which makes life interesting, challenging, and creative–anything but static. How we organize this within ourselves depends on many things, but ulitmately, it determines how we experience our reality, which is also unique.

    We can create order out of chaos for the purpose of manifesting something, but that can go away as quickly as it came. The chaos is constant, underneath it all. Good stuff, I think, real truth.

    Witnessing is the power here, I think.

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  • “Actually, chaos theory (from mathematics) might be more useful for understanding human behavior and emotion than almost any proposed psychological theories about such.”

    I agree, this is absolute truth. You nailed it, KS. Problem solved, like in math.

    https://fractalfoundation.org/resources/what-is-chaos-theory/

    “Chaos is the science of surprises, of the nonlinear and the unpredictable. It teaches us to expect the unexpected. While most traditional science deals with supposedly predictable phenomena like gravity, electricity, or chemical reactions, Chaos Theory deals with nonlinear things that are effectively impossible to predict or control”

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  • “It is astonishing that iatrogenic problems such as persistent diseases and dysfunctions induced by prescribed drugs have received so little attention from the research community.”

    I’m not astonished, I think it’s predictable. We’re talking about corruption, manipluation of information, and deceiving/confusing the public. That is status quo. Clear, honest, direct truth is the last thing I would expect anywhere in this arena. That would be a really nice and welcome change.

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  • Thanks for this link, Fiachra. She’s excellent! Says it all, letter perfect.

    It’s a lifestyle based on exactly what she says–setting an intention and paying attention as the process unfolds, remembering our self-kindness and non-judgment, feeling appreciation and gratitude along the way, and allowing joy in the moment by paying attention and recognizing joyous moments. For me, this work is a panacea, no exaggeration.

    I call it the healing & manifesting path, and in the process, it cured me from ALL that ailed me and keeps me in a state of well-being. Same with my partner, we both practice this. That is truth. It is the jewel of my journey, gives meaning and purpose to all of it, even those years of suffering and deep despair. This has been the payoff for us. Learning this turned it all around for us both and we’ve never been healthier and happier.

    She’s right, this work does reverse the aging process. And exactly why I say above–it allows cellular regeneration, because when we meditate, we get out of our own way. When we are truly and fully in present time, we are in our power.

    I love this path, totally works for me. I teach along these lines, as well.

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  • “Brain scans of Buddhists monks (“the “Olympic athletes” of meditation,” as Lifshitz and Thompson write) demonstrate stronger and more robust brains.”

    Stands to reason, given that surrendering effort and control relaxes the mind, body, and spirit, conserves energy and redirects it to where it is most natural and useful, and brings relief from stress. This allows healing to occur naturally via detoxification (letting go of the old) and cellular regeneration (allowing the new). The ego is what gets in the way of good healing.

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  • Putting a kabbash on the conversation? How are we ever going to get to truth if we do not play these out? This is terribly amiss, Steve, and I disagree with your summary, it misses many important factors and I’d call it part of the reign of error, to stay true and relevant to this blog. But I’ll stop here, as per your missive. But dang, really!

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  • “And I thought some of us were building a political movement here, not trying to satisfy someone’s “personal” “agenda”?”

    Isn’t wanting a political movement, in and of itself, a personal agenda? Many share this, but not everyone does.

    I came to MiA for the healing factor, not political. That’s my personal agenda, and I believe it meets the criteria for the greater good, as well. Healing can be applied to individuals and to societies, to denote the need for bringing something or things back into balance, for the good of all. Well-being, clarity, and ease in manifesting occur when our many parts are working in harmony, not in chronic conflict with each other. That is the nature of healing–to bring into harmony. Each part has its individual function, but no one part is more vital than the other. They have to work together for the organism to survive and fulfill its purpose.

    Justice is of course a vital aspect of this, for the sake of social harmony and well-being, but where to begin with that? What is the most effective way of bringing justice to such a corrupt and programmed world based on lies and blatant manipulation of vital information and human minds? That’s a relevant discussion to be had.

    Healing is advantageous to everyone and unites people, whereas politics is advantageous to an elite, only, at the sacrifice of those on “the other side,” so it is inherently divisive while continuously creating social hierarchies. There will always be “others” and scapegoats in that scenario, can’t avoid it.

    And to me that is the core problem with mh industry, precisely: scapegoating. That’s where the problems begin, and snowball from that. Scapegoats are silenced, demeaned, ostracized, shamed, disbelieved, constantly on the defensive, etc. And all because the people around them do not like their truth, so they try to ruin a person’s credibility. It’s an age old story, and it needs to stop. The one usually scapegoated is the most valuable person in that community, and has the best information for healing, growth, and expansion. It’s not organized, but that’s why they are scapegoated–to avoid change at all cost.

    I’d prefer any movement to be about healing and personal well-being for anyone who desires this, without the extra added bonus of corruption, oppression, marginalization, and discrimination–which of course, undermines the whole concept of healing anything on any level. If it is political, healing is limited at best. That is status quo.

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  • Thanks so much for pointing this out, Richard, I had not seen it until now, and I have responded in kind.

    I really was not being specific with this comment, btw, but in general, I do try to weed out oppressive leadership types, that’s a discernment I make regardless of political leanings and/or professional identity. Oppression is oppression, and it can come in from a variety of sources and self-identities. THAT, to my mind, is the real and true enemy.

    My comments are not intended to be personal, but to point out where we can all be more aware of how we might, ourselves, be contradicting the cause of freedom from oppression. That would be vital to recognize in ourselves.

    I find all politics oppressive, so I wouldn’t consider it to be an effective tool to use when seeking freedom from oppression. I’d consider it more to be undermining to that particular cause.

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  • Thank you, Lee, I had not seen this until Richard pointed it out, and I very much appreciate your acknowledgment of my experience. I was, indeed, baffled, since we had had a meeting of the minds up front, but I understand how these miscommunications can happen in a forum such as this, lots to keep up with here. We’re all learning as we go, and it sure is humbling for everyone concerned!

    So, as far as connecting, I will send you a note via the MiA authors page.

    Thank you so much for reconsidering, and for seeing me for who I am. That’s a good start! I look forward to more conversation soon.

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  • “when those lines have been clearly drawn FOR us from the start.”

    And they continue to be. I’ve been twice moderated in this thread for making direct and honest statements which reflect the truth of the situation, and it seems they were taken personally, rather than as an indication of the change needing to take place, which is the sole intention of my posts. So we’re back to status quo. That speaks volumes here, but I dare not say what!

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  • As per what oldhead is saying, Richard, this is one of my problems with how these dialogues are going down. Being asked to bring people to him and that we all “learn and study hard,” when I am asking to confer about a dire situation in San Francisco going on right now, where he is, is absurd! I’m not following anyone, and certainly not getting onto a psychiatrist’s bandwagon. That is precisely where a shift needs to take place. I mean a loud and clear wake up call, if this is not obvious.

    I am struggling to understand why some of you can’t get this, and take it so personally. Doesn’t it stand to reason that I’d be a fool to use my energy the way Lee suggested? That is totally for his own purposes and agenda, give me a break. I don’t see survivor empathy here in the slightest, quite the contrary. This is getting to be truly bizarre.

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  • I made an observation based on my particular dialogue which I feel has information relevant to “class struggle.” “If you do this for me, then I’ll do this for you.” Not what activism is about, to my mind, not a tit for tat situation. Plus there is more info in that if you go deeper, but I’m not going to give it that attention now.

    Overall, Richard, I don’t see any of this in terms of “allies” vs. “enemies.” My role in this is from a healing perspective, not political. I understand there are political issues at play here, but that is not my area of focus. I try to see what are the universal principles at work here vs. personal goals and agendas.

    My perspective, I believe, ascends “right vs. left,” my identifiers don’t come from this duality. I look more for where the evolution is already naturally occuring, as opposed to where it is stuck and in resistance.

    To me, the “enemy” isn’t people, per se, but more so, actions and behaviors which do harm to others, from wherever that comes. We all share in the potential to harm others, even if that is not our intention, so I advocate for expanded awareness and personal growth for anyone concerned, non-discriminatorily. I believe that would be for the greater good, as well as good for individuals seeking evolution and change.

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  • “If it’s something you heal from, then yes, you’re implying disease or disorder.”

    Nope, it implies an “imbalance,” which is human, we all go in and out of balance and everyone has things to heal. Any particularly challenging day or event/experience can throw us out of balance, and the remedy is healing (bringing into balance). That is universal and no one is immune from this.

    Abusive behavior throws people–and societies–out of balance. My only intention here is to call it out for the sake of helping to create a more just, kind, balanced and unconditionally supportive world, which takes self-awareness on everyone’s part. Anything else is irrelevant to me ♥

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  • Your response is so gracious, Catalyzt, thank you. And I’m extremely gratified that this has been of such value to you, that is always my intention when I speak about my experience as I do.

    I was feeling it as I wrote and it’s always a bit of an emotional adventure to revisit, but of course whenever my experience and perspective can be of value to others either personally or professionally, I’m very amenable to a hardy and productive back & forth. It is always healing to me, one way or another, and I enjoy hearing about others, too. Really and truly, any time!

    My particular passion is how the human spirit unfolds during this lifetime, that of mine and others, such an amazing (understatement) creative process. It’s really quite something from that perspective. I love experiencing and witnessing that.

    Enjoy your nature-filled getaway! Sounds awesome 🙂 I live among the Redwoods now, and it’s Heaven on Earth. Most healing thing ever.

    PS–I just realized your post was made a few days ago, sooooo, I hope your getaway *was* replenishing!

    And also, if you were to want to speak in private, please feel free to contact me through MiA. I’m sure Steve will be happy to forward a message to me, and I’ll respond. Email, phone and Skype all work for me.

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  • I never said or implied disease, that’s not my way of thinking. I believe it is a learned behavior and life/relationship strategy. To heal it, we’d have to unlearn it, break negative self-beliefs and thought habits, practice unrelenting self-compassion and compassion for others, and find our way back to trust and integrity. That’s a big transformation, but it’s doable if so desired. It’s the essence of heart healing and spirit mending.

    Narcissistic is another word used to describe what I mean. “Malignant narcissism” has become common to refer to this way of being, as in “to malign.”

    Narcissistic abuse has become a common theme in today’s society, and there is tons on YouTube about this which I have found to be extremely insightful and healing. People are waking up to what this means and how it has affected so many of us, and how to heal it so that we don’t keep repeating this relationship pattern, beating ourselves up, or paying it forward.

    And as my original post states–aka bully, abuser (which we can often be our own, from internalizing this). Whatever word or phrase with which anyone feels best describes this for them, with which one is comfortable. A thorn by any other name is just as prickly…

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  • Toxic personality, to me, occurs when someone thrives on deceving, manipulating, and sabotaging others. It is control at all cost, with no regard for anyone but themselves. It is the relentless pursuit of and the creating of problems, rather than solving them, and sabotaging to truth, love and kindness.

    I looked up “toxic” and found this in urbandictionary.com, which is generally my meaning–

    https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Toxic

    It is not my intention to insult anyone, but simply to identify an aspect of our society which I feel is all-too-prevalent and problematic, causing choas, confusion, and a lot of deep hurt and trauma. That’s my personal perspective on the matter. I’ve known quite a few people who fit this description to a tee. But my point here is that when people like this hold positions of authority and power, I’d call it the root of the problem.

    My concern relevant to this website is when mh clincians have these personality traits, and I’ve known quite a few of these, too, professionally and personally. Which would make it “toxic psychotherapy.” I believe that is epidemic, and why I pursue this line of reasoning, to raise awareness about this and bring light to the situation, largely based on my experience, but also based on the experience of others which I’ve read about, including yours, Julie. You’ve often spoken of abusive therapists, and this is what I’d call “toxic,” because vulnerability is exploited and it does harm, and in exchange for this “service,” the clincian gets paid. That’s about as toxic as it gets.

    And don’t get me started on politics, which is what sadly sets the example for toxic hypocrisy in our society.

    Indeed, I’m sure there is wounding there, I know there is. But often people deny their own wounding, and at least unconsciously, in turn, they inflict it on others. It’s quite common, and it harms people and damages communities. It’s what I perceive most of this “clinical work” to be, in the end–unconscious therapist transfers their wounds to unsuspecting client. I believe that is the end result of most psychotherapy at present.

    There is no excuse for abuse. Absolutely none.

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  • Heartbreaking, frustrating and all-too-familiar story. I love your vision for a new society, based on healing, forgiveness, peace, and love. Keep to it, as will I and I know many others who have this same vision, and perhaps the world will fall in line, if we are walking our talk. I believe that is essential, and I know with certainty that it is the direction in which hope, light, and blessed truth are found. We be the change, and others will either follow suit, or get out of the way.

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  • Oppressive, toxic personalities (aka bullies, abusers) in positions of power and authority, which marginalize, censor, and generally sabotage others, can come from anywhere along the political spectrum. Some might be overt and on their sleeve about it, unapologetic, while others are more duplicitous and covert about their prejudice, virtually in denial of it while practicing it actively–the now proverbial “cognitive dissonance.”

    These are what cause problems for people, and for society at large, and drain anyone and anything in sight. I don’t believe it has anything to do with political leanings, labels, or philosophy. This is way beyond that. I think it’s an extreme lack of sense of self, which can only define itself in relation to others–specifically, it seeks to define itself as “superior” in relation to “inferior others.” (A shadow projection, of course).

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  • Thanks for the offer, Lee, but I too am working on my own manifestations at this time so my energy is tied up in that direction. Perhaps our trains will meet at some point if we are both intent on ushering in a new era of healing, which is my life purpose at this time. I work with other healers of the new paradigm. All the best with your goals!

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  • Dr. Coleman, I just watched a few of your videos on YouTube. The ones of the baskets, artifacts, and woodwork are lovely and so interesting. You have an exquisite home!

    I also watched a couple where you talk about psychiatry, and indeed, I will agree and concur overall with what you are saying, from my experience.

    What got my attention the most is that you are in Berkeley. My entire “mental health” system saga occured in San Francisco, from 1996-2012, when I left SF. That was my odyssey through graduate school and internship then to the system as client, and then voc rehab counselor, and then I worked with two Bay Area “advocacy agencies.”

    I came off of a plethora of psych drugs and went through all that withdrawal on my own (no one had done this before in my vicinity), and I also had a legal action against a social service agency for discrmination and wrongful termination, which is what delayed my time on disability–the system itself sabotaged my transition! That was proven beyond a doubt in mediation. You can imagine how in San Francisco, this would cause hardship and anxiety, and it came from the system, and the “advocacy agencies” were just as bad–discriminating and corrupt.

    Fortunately, I found my path and am a healer and teacher now, and I was also an actor in the Bay Area, and worked with a theater company in Alameda, in fact, as well as in SF. But all the while, I was investigating and discovering how SF had become such a mess over the past decade or so, and I see that the mh system is front and center here, that’s where the red arrows pointed to. I continue to wonder what can be done about this.

    ADA is pretty clear about “reasonable accomodation for reasonable request,” and is violated all the time in this oppressive system which deprives people of what they need–the opposite of *accomodating* needs. And that’s the tip of the iceberg.

    There are so many issues of blatant discrimination, including wage discrimination, against people with disabilities. And there is tons of abuse toward them, in the form of blatant disregard and hostility when trying to receive services. Grievance procedures are corrupt, and only get one into trouble. It is the epitome of OPPRESSION, when there is consequence to filing a reasonable complaint, and these are beyond reasonable. They point toward injustice. I’ve had plenty of experience with this over the years, including with Community Behavioral Health Services (CBHS), Dept of Rehabilitation, Mental Health Association, and Disability Rights CA.

    As far as the “mental heatlh” system and tangents go in SF, I’d call it exactly The Reign of Terror. Many of the clincians I saw along the way were downright terrifying, and they are extremely authoritarian and extremely classist. It is painfully obvious.

    The attitude is exactly what sucks, and which is so negative and marginalizing to people. It is impossible to get justice in the Bay Area, especially if one is not wealthy. Never mind “poor;” only the uber rich thrive in that city.

    I would like to see justice in the Bay Area. It made me so angry to discover what I did. And it has everything to do with why SF is innundated with homeless people, and all kinds of suffering, individual and social. I learned exactly how the system treats people and turns them out on their ass if they do not “do what they are told” or “know their place” or “challenge the system.” It is social barbarism.

    Any chance we can confer further about this in order to maybe do something about it? This would be my greatest wish, to help clean this up but good. Thank you.

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  • Thank you, very interesting interview, and I appreciate the hard and detailed work done here.

    Re the law, my experience has been not so much with regard to enforcing the letter of the law, but more so, in what I encountered as the bigoted and classist attitude of most attorneys toward marginalized people, especially poor people. I’ve spoken with many attorneys over the years with respect to what I’d repeatedly come face to face with all the way in the system, and in the “mental health” industry in general. And while I did manage to find one who heard me and we followed through with success, that was a needle in the haystack.

    In general, the attorneys with whom I spoke carried the same prejudice and stigma as psychiatrists and seemingly all mh clinicians do toward people with diagnoses and psychiatric histories, and who have been labeled “disabled,” believing the illusions and perpetuating the negative projections. (As I’ve said, it’s the program, the education, and the training).

    As a result, clients lack credibility and power in these systems (mh and legal), pure and simple, and face more abuse systemically simply from calling it out in the first place and defending themselves against it. Standing one’s ground rightfully and courageously can be dangerous in the system. It truly is sinister, most precise word I can think of for it at the moment.

    I do not believe that either political structures or legal parameters have the power to change attitudes and perspectives, which I believe would be required to clean up the huge apocalyptic mess which this “reign of error” (and terror) has created, and which it mind-bogglingly and criminally continues to perpetuate. To be authentic, it would be the other way around. Shift in attitude would come first, and then we’d have a shot at a fair, just, humane, and appropriate legal system for all concerned, and the law would be carried out as such. Otherwise, it is an endless blood bath of shaming and blaming words, to the bitter end, which is inevitable. Status quo is in a downward spiral right now.

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  • “So it’s a complete waste of money to continue to research for genetic markers for illnesses we’ve already medically proven have iatrogenic, not genetic etiologies. And looking for such was always a waste of money.”

    Yes, thanks, Someone Else, for bringing it back around. Exactly my initial point–the money wasted on needless research is astronomical and a huge problem of corruption, lack of accountability, and basically a lack of real value. These very sizable funds would better serve people who are IN NEED.

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  • People have moods, it’s a human quality. Considering the range of emotions we’re equipped to feel, we’re hardly one-dimensional, or even two-dimensional. We are mulit-dimensional. We experience heartbreak and celebration, life challenges and rewards, defeats and victories. And everything in between, the mundane and the routine. That’s life! And we each respond differently to it, which is our natural diversity. We just need to remember our center, then we can handle it all with grace.

    People need to get over their fears and prejudice of differences. We’re all different to somebody.

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  • “I want to show the public how even using drugs for “soft diagnoses” like depression/anxiety can ruin your life with a Bipolar 2 label rendering you a degraded non-person in the public’s eye. And a non-citizen with no legal rights at all.”

    Good grief. Talk about fear-mongering and shaming! Please let’s not. What on earth is this website about, anyway???

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  • “Not attacking you Alex.” Yeah, yeah, “friendly” challenge works for me.

    I’m protesting wasted resources, and this is an all-too-typical route for that. Perhaps that would be up for debate in some way and maybe even I am generalizing. Not interested in elaborating further on this, that would be a waste of MY resource.

    Are you asking me or anyone that last question? Seems like either a total non-sequitur or you’re being cryptic. Either way, I’ve no idea what you’re asking or why, sorry.

    Edit: Oh, ok, I posted this and saw that oldhead gets you here. I’ll let you two talk amongst yourselves. G’day!

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  • Rachel, I’m surprised at your response here. I would have thought you were totally aware that millions (billions?) of $$$ are wasted on bogus research, that resources in general are terribly wasted and misused by these research institutions–resources which could (and I think, should) be rerouted to more urgent and practical, humane needs. That’s what I meant, stated with a bit of irony. I’m fine with people making a living and drawing income, everyone that desires this has that right of course, nothing wrong with that. But the ecomonic and class disparity is glaring, and so much of that is created by “research funding.” I don’t have to tell you this, do I?

    As far as my charging for services, sometimes I do, but not always. In fact, the majority of the time I don’t. I made more money acting than I have ever charged for my healing services. And I’ve retired from theater.

    Most of my work in the world–healing, teaching, public service films, musical community service–has been for no remuneration whatsoever. Often I’ve told people that I wouldn’t charge them for something, and next thing I know they are offering a donation. I’ve received unsolicited cash in the mail as well as via PayPal, along with really lovely gifts, when people value the work I do and get a lot of healing out of it. If the work makes no impact, then no payment would be expected, although that’s never happened.

    I’ve experimented a lot with this over the years, it’s a challenge. What I’ve never had is set fees. If I do charge, it’s always a negotiation based on my economic needs and what a client can comfortably pay. This is all so flexible for me, definitely not my motivator. It’s simply an exchange of energy, and that can be in a variety of manifestations. I’ve had my computer fixed in trade for healing work, for example. Whatever is practical and fair at the time, for everyone concerned.

    When one does authentic healing work (what I learned to call “working with the light”), then the universe pays, one way or another. That’s happened to me all throughout the time I’ve been doing healing work, for the past 14 or so years. Kind of a trick of the trade, but it’s based on knowing how giving/receiving energy works. It really simplifies things, and the focus is the healing, period. I’m more interested in a person being present with their healing work, that is way more valuable, satisfying, and fulfilling than money.

    I live very frugally, not on much, month to month, and all my modest needs are met and then some. It’s called “working my abundance.” I don’t need to charge $100s and $1000s of dollars to do good work in the world. Although when people think my work is worth that kind of money, and many have said as much, I certainly don’t scoff at it 🙂

    I always pay it forward. Money is only energy, we give it too much power. And we don’t need nearly as much as we think we do (as per social programming), not if we understand our power of manifesting. That’s the gold!

    Well, not just manifesting, but specifically, manifesting from the heart. That’s an important discernment from manifesting from the ego. Seriously! If we’re manifesting from the ego, money will matter in a way that is quite stressful, and constantly so. If we’re manifesting from the heart, not so much. That’s ease.

    No charge! 🙂

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  • I started getting panic attacks as a side effect from the psych drugs I was taking at the time, started about 36 years ago, a year after starting these drugs. I did not realize this at the time, I had no idea what this terrifying and painful experience was, but I figured this out years later, after coming off the drugs, and eventually the panic attacks disappeared.

    But in the meantime, I was prescribed the usual benzos for this, at one time up to Xanax, Ativan, and eventually Klonopin was added. All leading up to big breakdown to where I had to ditch all of the drugs, and start over with all this, from a fresh and streamlined perspective.

    Eventually, I learned that regardless of what life experience triggers us into a panic attack, it translated into adrenal overactivation. So on top of having panic attacks, it also led to adrenal exhaustion, which is that “tired but restless” feeling, which is a state of physical imbalance.

    http://antianxietys.com/adrenaline-and-panic-attack-connection-what-you-need-to-know

    I addressed this in many ways over the years but identifying this as an adrenal issue is what led to my turning a corner. There are herbs very specific to overactive adrenal glands and adrenal exhaustion, for which I saw a very well trained herbalist and Chinese Medicine practitioner. In Chinese Medicine, this is all about “Chi” which is our vital life force energy, and this is what gets depleted with panic attacks.

    The herbs, accupuncture, Qi Gong, and grounding meditation all help to calm our nervous system and adrenal glands, so that our bodies don’t become flooded with adrenaline from stress, and in turn, our bodies become better equipped to handle stress when we are grounded and in chi balance.

    This is a lovely and brief (7 minutes) meditation which I found online called “Meditation for Panic Attacks/Emergency Anxiety Relief.” When we practice this enough, we are in essence training our neural pathways toward thoughts of calm, relaxing, and safe. Then, we can become our own self-healing agent during stress.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz-cNBAK7Qs

    I of course still can feel anxious and get nervous about speaking publically, performing, facing certain life challenges, and some thoughts can still trigger anxiety if I dwell on them, being human and all. But I have not had a full blown panic attack in years and years.

    Getting off the psych drugs, balancing my energy through herbs and chi exercises, and also GROUNDING (vital for any kind of anxiety, especially panic) is what healed me from years of hair trigger panic attacks, and it also healed my nervous system in general, from a lot of trauma. It’s all very natural and self-healing, with good support from the Earth.

    That’s what grounding is, to the Earth. The way electrical appliances must be grounded so as not to short-curcuit. Same thing. Humans short circuit, too, if we’re not grounded.

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  • And finally, I guess “recovery porn” can be misleading. To be vampired and used by the system as examples of “recovering thanks to the system” is not good, I agree with this. That is harmful to individuals, society, and everyone concerned, if the stories are staged or fabricated in any way in order to manipulate for the purpose of aggrandizing the system.

    But overall, healing and recovering can get a bad name around here, and I do object to that. People do have a right to heal and telling our stories of healing is inspiring and encouraging to many, and courageous of, healing for, and empowering to the storyteller. (Although I’ve noticed people scoff quite a bit at this on MiA, for which I’m sorry, but geez, how double-binding and naysaying can one get?)

    Let’s not get the real deal confused with “porn,” which to me would indicate “exploitation.” Not all stories of healing and recovering from mental chaos and confusion to find meaning and clarity in our lives are exploitative, not when they are authentic. And I’d say that is most of the stories we hear. I believe the fabricated, staged, and purposefully manipluative stories are the minority. And generally one can tell when “something doesn’t add up.” Still, I’d be respectful of anyone speaking their truth, first and foremost, especially of their healing. To me, our stories are sacred. As an agent for social healing, this would be one purpose of my particular activism.

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  • Ok, I hear you here. As it happens, Kevin was around when I was at MHA-SF (Mental Health Association, San Francisco) and later, after I left, he was on the board for a brief period of time. He’s become a celebrity and indeed, is a spokesperson for the system.

    I challenged MHA directors on this, and that is when I discovered they were advocates for the system while continuing to marginalize those who were thinking outside the box and going against ths status quo–like me, who had the only story of coming off so many toxic psych drugs and taking an agency to legal task, and then setting up my own independent practice, and certainly the only one who had ever spoken at this agency to make a film about it.

    My story was real and truthful, as was the stigma I experienced, and did not support the system whatsoever. My intention is to sway people away from the system, if they are looking for clarity and healing, and to look into their own hearts, for starters, while not listening to negative projections. Those who were supporting Kevin for his story were the exact same people who threw me under the bus (as I mention in an above post). How ironic! Although I guess it stands to reason.

    Well, this is exactly what I’m talking about re San Francisco and CA “mental health, inc.,” so in that respect, we’re on the same page here. And I appreciate that you are hearing me. I believe Kevin is aware of his choices and how the system works, whereas some of those who share their stories are really on a healing path, trying to make sense of their lives, not to become celebrities or anything of the kind.

    We’re all human, I certainly expect perfection from no one, including myself. But justice, yes indeed!

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  • “I do personally take issue with some of the folks who’ve kind of made their careers off this struggle, and go around endlessly telling their stories *without* being clear about what needs to change,”

    Sera, with all due respect, don’t you think that this is, in and of itself, invalidating to a person sharing their story? When I started speaking publically, my intention was for my truth to come to light, from my own voice, whereas I had been previously so incredibly misrepresented and innundated with extreme stigma, which was very destructive to my life, and where I began my investigation of all this. In that process, so much else has come to light, and I have integrated this along the way.

    But from the start, sharing my story front and center was incredibly freeing and healing for me. Yes, at first I was “being used” by the “stigma-busting so-called advocacy agency” with whom I was contracting, and I discoverd this eventually, and took the actions I felt appropriate to take to save myself from this vampirism.

    But in the meantime, it was a powerful start for me in this regard, and I got a lot out of it, including my film, which was my personal catalyst for transformation. Had I not been contracting with MHA-SF, this never would have happened. And I’m so glad it did! I got what I needed, in the end, and saved myself from all of this stigma and deceit and avoidance which THEY were dishing out (the irony of it all, a truth often told by now). As I’ve said often, it changed my life dramatically for the better! And all simply from speaking my truth and telling my story my way. Finally…

    Not everyone is at the same level of awareness and personal evolution here and raising awareness of vampirism and deceit is a good thing of course. But I still feel it’s a bit sabotaging to our fellow human beings to use their stories as ammunition to fight the system. That seems self-defeating to me, and kind of matching their energy, rather than rising above it. This is what your statement brought up for me.

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  • Catalyzt, wow, I feel heard! Thanks for this. Your comment is wonderful through and through, and on point. A few things I want to highlight here and respond to–

    “The natural, and (in my opinion) completely wrong thing a therapist could say in this situation would be, “No, actually, here, look in my notes, what I said was something different, obviously I wasn’t angry at all.” Or, even worse, to write in their notes, ‘Client is being manipulative, exhibiting borderline features,” etc.’”

    Yes, this happened to me, exactly. I come from my heart and reveal myself honestly for the purpose of examination, and I never had any inkling of “personality” issue. I had anxiety and depression, and have always tended to be respectful (not perfect, but not anti-social, either). If this were not the case, I never would have had a successful career, friends, or have been partnered/married for going on 34 years now, in a very loving and mutually respectful, symbiotic relationship.

    But then this came along, what you describe. Trying to heal, I instead fell into the system and got trapped by exactly this way of thinking, which blindsided me completely, and also where I started to wake up. This was only the beginning.

    “That sh*t makes me want to hurl.”

    That shit almost destroyed me, my life, and that of my partner.

    “Let’s try to figure out what was going on.”

    Yes, that would be sound and reasonable, to examine why there might be miscommunication going on. It takes two to tango. To put it always on the client (which is the norm, AND the education and training) is to scapegoat, which is marginalizing and abusive. It’s also completely unrealistic and would indicate avoidance and delusional thinking on the part of the therapist. RED FLAG!

    “I think therapists sometimes are afraid they will be sued for admitting they might have made an error– or that they might have been human.”

    Yes, I believe both are true—the first one being “fear-based” (paranoid) and the second one being self-aggrandizement. Both are problematic when working with clients. These are the energies and beliefs which get transferred, and it’s a big mess for the client.

    “the real liability– both emotional and legal– comes from dishonesty and inhumanity.”

    Indeed, unequivocally, and without question!

    “Your experience at the mental health clinic sounds… kind of surreal, and not in a good way, more of the bad-acid-trip Clockwork Orange variety.”

    LOL, very well put and yes, I’ve called it going down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass, etc., but you say it well! Fortunately A Clockwork Orange is one of my favorite films of all time (from a filmic perspective–Stanley Kubrick is an artist hero of mine), so perhaps navigating this was my own personal surreal film to live—although I am not the Alex as in that film. I was not a Droog nor anywhere near that, nor am I a lover of ultra-violence nor violence of any kind. I am a peace-lover, and I embody that. That’s my entire reason for living, and what I healed inside of me—the trauma based on emotional violence in my childhood home due to textbook family dysfunction.

    My family is from the academic world, the fighting was almost purely psychological, and it was fierce, powerful, insidious, tortuous to the mind, and wounding to the heart and spirit. I had to go to great lengths to heal all of this, especially after the mh world and practices buried it, then perpetuated it, and the trauma snowballed, until I went to energy healing and grew wildly in my self-awareness. That was shocking and necessary, and most importantly, it was effective. Awakening always is.

    I would expand your statement, however, to my “experience in the entire mental health community of San Francisco” was “surreal, and not in a good way…bad acid trip…” That was 17 years worth, total, even though I was involved in other communities at that time as well (mostly theater and LGBT communities, where I had no social issues like I did in the mh world–that was unique for me).

    Started in graduate school, where these issues surfaced for the first time. I did not hide that I had a diagnosis and was on “meds” (as I called them at the time, now “toxic psych drugs”), and I had been all during my first career in retail management, and I turned that into an asset as a psych grad student.

    But it wasn’t long before a professor began to give me a really hard time–including trying to get me kicked out of school, at which he failed because it was not merited, I had an excellent reputation otherwise–all based on what I was revealing in my assigned papers, as per the assignment! This was an experiential program, so we were expected to talk about ourselves honestly. Oops! That’s where things started to get rough for me, and that downward spiral continued through my internship and upon graduating. That’s when I came off the drugs due to side-effects, and went into the system. Double whammy!

    From day treatment to voc rehab to professional “advocacy”—and with all kinds of clinicians along the way—it was a banquet of the absurd. I had no idea what world I had fallen into, but I wanted out. My challenge came as I realized that I could no longer tolerate this community, that it wasn’t sound, and no way I was compatible with it.

    Yet, I know I have a calling here, that bell went off big time for me, and this is corroborated by teachers, my partner, and my clients. It is evident by my way of being, and also by my life experiences, which were not all of my conscious choosing, of course. Otherwise, why would I have experienced all of this madness, only to heal from it so spectacularly?

    So I switched healing tracks and found my path. I can integrate much of what I learned here, but most of it is useless without certain awareness and tools which, in the end, actually undermine the traditional mh paradigm, simply by definition. That was my experience, in any event.

    But in the end, it was all shit, pure shit programming with the end result of projecting, marginalizing, and stigmatizing. That ruins people, it stands to reason. Can’t say it any other way and be totally honest about it.

    I can get angry thinking about it, but for me this was long ago now, and I don’t like thinking about it because it is so stonewalling, it makes one feel absolutely powerless, and that is the feeling that is most transferred to clients. That is bad, and not how I go around feeling in the world. We all have our power, but it is undermined by these standard by-the-book and bequeathed professional manipulations.

    “I think part of me likes to pretend that this doesn’t go on, that the only abuses of power are the more routine issues that I hear about more often from my colleagues.”

    Thank you for owning this, Catalyzt. I’m sure you are not the only one. However, I’m also sure that we both know that waking up is a good thing, even though it may mean waking up to hard truths. Well, truth feels better than lies, and way deep down inside, we all know truth. When our conscious mind is in agreement with our unconscious, then that, I believe is the first step to real freedom. When these are split, that is a constant struggle. But in synch, we can manifest our way forward with relative ease.

    Thanks for your honesty and openness, and for how you are taking in this information and processing it. And especially for wanting to do right by your clients. We all deserve to be well and happy, if that is what we most desire. For the mh world to be a booby trap like this is what I’d like to see change, one way or another. And if it can’t change, it should not exist! There are better ways of finding inner peace and well-being.

    Many of our experiences with mh have led us in the opposite direction, and we have no legal power to demand reparations. I was simply sabotaged repeatedly by my own colleagues (because I’d been a client) and sabotaged by my peers in the system (because I’d been a therapist). Another great film/book of that same time: Catch-22!

    Fortunately, I found my way forward despite all of this, and, in fact, learned how to perceive this is my guidance. That’s exactly how the change in perspective worked for me, and I disidentified as “victim,” and instead became what is known in the energy healing world as a “co-creator” which has to do with manifesting. That is our true personal power, that of manifesting.

    Still, I should stop talking about it because it riles me to think about it, and to think about a lot of people whom I feel very strongly should be legally reprimanded. It all feels like such a stalemate to me, no movement, really. Blech.

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  • Oh, and btw, I did try to communicate with this guy, and with his supervisor, after reading these notes, and was stonewalled all the way. I ended up leaving a Yelp review advising people to get their notes, that it is their legal right to do so. And I made a film about all of this, with a few others, and sent it around the SF “mental health” system. Best I could do, that I could think of.

    The film did make an impact, this I know because word got back to me from a variety of sources, and I was invited to do screenings and to give workshops. Plus, an agency with whom I had worked and which had treated me very badly, thanks to blatant stigma, pure ignorance, and corruption, closed soon after I sent the film around, lost its funding from what I heard. Not what I was after, but they preferred to close rather than to dialogue, learn, and make some vital core changes, which is tragic.

    And I wasn’t slamming anyone in that film, but more so, trying to start a dialogue using our experiences as the starting point, from “the client perspective.” I’d never seen this before, and it was my attempt at opening a critical discussion about the “mental health” system, for the sake of everyone expanding awareness and learning from each other. Given the extraordinary number of homeless and marginalized people in San Francisco, I thought it was time to hear everyone’s voice at the table. But the hard lesson which I learned here is that, truly, there is no back and forth dialogue, that is impossible. Yet another problem here–no quality dialogue between clients and psychotherapists! How can a session, therefore, be productive?

    An up-close analysis of a typical client-therapist dialogue (if there is such a thing as “typical” in this case) would be most interesting and revealing, I’m sure of it. Were a client and a therapist from the same closed-door discussion to agree on the details of that dialogue, I’d be truly shocked. It would be a matter of who one would tend to believe over the other. Yet again, why I feel these 1:1 meetings can be dangerous and do quite a bit of damage to an unsuspecting and vulnerable client.

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  • I’ll tell you one thing that keeps going around in my head regarding all of this, which makes me eschew this particular psychotherapist-client paradmigm we have going on, and all the “social requirements/rules” that go along with it–

    During my training, one thing we were told repeatedly was that if we are to see a client outside the office–like, in the streets or at the store, etc.–the “appropriate” thing to do was to ignore unless we were approached first, to avoide SHAMING the client (so others wouldn’t know they were in “therapy”). This is common practice in San Francisco, where people run into others on the street all the time. I’ve had therapists do this to me, and it felt totally like snubbing. I always said hi to anyone I knew whom I saw in passing, including my clients. No one objected or felt “shamed,” of course not! Not only is this rude, but even simply philosophically, this is an extremely marginalizing social program which should not in the slightest be perpetuated. It CREATES and projects shame where none exists, or needs to.

    The reason I say it’s complex is because of things like ” avoid dual relationships,” which I believe is also a very oppressive and unnatural concept, but at the same time, it speaks to the boundary issue. It’s not so cut and dried, and it’s all going to depend on a person’s ability to discern between boundaries and what is naturally human. It all gets murky and controlling because these “relationships” are so poorly defined, and everyone seems to have a different idea of what is appropriate or not. What I learned in my training was definitely based on duality and division, and which to me, would only cause more trauma and splitting.

    I just think that when people “study” people, then we are forgetting how to RELATE to each other. Those are two different aspects of our brain, heart, mind, and being. I say we relate to one another, and stop studying each other. That’ll be a big change to come.

    My personal example of how convoluted reality gets when talking to a psychotherapist–the last therapist I ever saw (this was about 8 years ago) was at a public clinic which had one way mirrors as its walls to the street, so no one could see the waiting room and who was in it, and also a security guard just off the waiting room, who carried a gun. I told the therapist I was seeing how this could so easily elicit shame and fear for people, why such hiding and drama?

    Honestly, I cannot remember how he responded in the moment, but when I got my notes upon leaving (which I always recommend to people they stay on top of their casenotes, as God knows what can be written in there), he had written that I was feeling fear and shame. AHHHHH, made me want to scream. I’m over it, but it took a while. That felt like emotional rape to me, so invasive, twisted, and insane. Not a word I said was heard (other than those two “buzzwords” and totally out of context) and instead, this guy made up his own reality, projecting all of HIS crap on me. The gun is there because of THEIR fear, and I’m sure this would cause them shame to realize they feared their clients.

    What can one do? Abandon ship was my best option, and never look back. If only for the sake of my own sanity!

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  • Catalyzt, I appreciate the validation, I do try to move beyond the ordinary conversation but it’s challenging because I believe there are competing agendas and motivators in here. And I say this with complete neutrality because I also believe whatever is motivating anyone’s communication and perspective is valid, of course, whether we’re talking about beliefs, ideas, or emotional expression. We’re in murky waters with all this, nothing is terribly clear. But I do feel the agendas conflict more than harmonize, which may be why you are noticing what you’re noticing. Nowhere to go with that.

    My personal goals and motivation has everything to do with healing and personal growth & evolution (I happen to find these creative processes both fascinating and profoundly practical)–not just on individual level but also what I call “social healing,” which addresses marginalization as social abuse caused by the inherent divisiveness of the current “mental health practices” paradigm–starting wtih toxic psych drugs and bogus “diagnoses,” which make the division clear and palpable.

    But also I’m concerned about many things in this paradigm which are considered standard practice, which are more subtle yet equally powerful, if not more so, in a way which is potentially debilitating to the client. That’s a long list and I would not get into a discussion like that on here, it’s too complex. In short, I believe it can all be so risky for clients in all kinds of ways, short and long term.

    In general, I think it has to do with the parameters of the dialogue and the expectations and boundaries from such a relationship/contract. I think this is always really unclear, and there seems to be no intention of making it clear, which is interesting to me.

    I see “psychotherapy” as a service, whereas I have found often that a “therapist” falls into a counter-transference way too easily, and wants to become a surrogate parent or “best friend,” or something like that, and that is where I feel psychotherapy can fall off the rails and power/ego issues begin to compete, and it is not a fair fight because the client is open and vulnerable, as it should be for healing, but it should be SAFE, which so often it is not, pure and simple.

    To my mind, this should be a professional service, not a takeover of client’s life. I think this is where the dissonance is, and what causes serious problems. Transference/counter-transference psychotherapy is most commonplace, and is part of the education and training, and even history. I believe that is more about the therapist (i.e., ego) than the client, and can become terribly and insidiously abusive, in so many ways.

    Overall, I do agree with oldhead. I don’t think there is reform here, the imbalanced and divisive paradigm is too embedded. I don’t see how the field could function without it, that is the foundation of it. And yet I see it as the core problem, as far as healing goes. I had trained and interned as MFT, but I shifted to an entirely different way of healing when I experienced my own betrayal from the “mental health” field as client AND professional, and that became my new training and life path–energy, balance, grounding, natural and self-healing, all streamlined into ease and accessibility. I find it much more universal, human nature-based, and completely voluntary, supporting and encouaraging our uniqueness. These studies not only guide us in our healing (via self-healing), but they also raise our awareness around how we are co-creating our lives, to give us more control and power in that process. That information is gold!

    I do believe in what I’d call a “healing dialogue,” which requires a specific awareness around the energy of our communication. It’s something I practice and teach. I’ve facilitated quite a few group discussions this way, and they’re awesome, everyone feels expanded and grounded from it. A lot of healing and shifting happens, too, because it is in the moment and with a focused goals of clarity, walking our talk, and manifesting our way forward.

    I have to put politics aside when I talk about healing. The two do not mix, to my mind. Healing is about truth and authenticity, whereas politics is about social power. I’m only interested in the power of healing right now. I believe society calls for it.

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  • Exactly, we are all extensions of Source energy, including clients, and most often they are not treated as such. My particular activism for change is to bring this to light, for anyone working with clients to consider. Seeing a client’s divine nature while being in our own is the opposite of othering, scapegoating, and basically, all prejudice. We’re always in our divine nature, can’t be otherwise.

    “Namaste” means the “light in me sees the light in you.” If we could all claim this, then we’d know our light as well as the light of others (we all have light at least somewhere in there!), and the rest–our differences, even of opinions–would be interesting and creative, not threatening and, therefore, divisive and destructive. That’s my vision. I keep trying, maybe one day…

    Thank you for a wonderful read, and for allowing good hardy expansion in this space. You take care as well, and very best wishes!

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  • “THIS is what people look like when they are living in their divine nature.”

    When we are aligned with our higher self/divine nature, then we see clearly that everyone is an expression of this–each one of us a unique aspect of the one Divine consciousness. It is not just those who “look a certain way.” It is everyone, regardless of how they look and act. Diversity is Divine.

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  • The invalidation and dismissiveness with which I could be met was actually the most powerful healing I receieved. I was climbing out of the oppressive discrimination which I encountered full blast in the mh system and voc rehab, and my life had not quite healed yet (the disability/unemployment part of this journey), and not doing this for pay or anything like that, it was all volunteerism to stand in my truth and own it.

    Some audiences were fantastic while others were more naysaying types. The validation was nice and felt good, but the invalidation is what was most powerful, and gave me the best opportunties to grow and heal, because that’s how I discovered that my truth was more powerful than the projection of others.

    THAT is what I love about truth speaking, that particular challenge, to flip off negative projections and see them for what they are, which is a reflection of from where that is coming, has nothing to do with me. In fact, to elicit rudeness and resistance to truth was actually pretty validating, that I had made an impact.

    That is what saved me from oppression–my own self-validating self! That’s the voice I’d been looking for, underneath all those pills and the negative sense of self created by the stigma of the system. Finally, there it is, MY Voice!

    So, as far as my value goes (as per the title of your article), it is assigned by ME, not by others, aka SELF-worth (as opposed to worth as projected by others, on the demeaning side). Period. That’s my point here. Made all the difference in my life, to feel my worth, rather than the worthlessness which the system obviously wanted me to feel about myself. I don’t think so! 🙂

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  • Thanks for writing this, Sera, I was very moved by it. It is heartbreaking and infuriating the level to which people are dehumanized, and actually betrayed to the point of sabotage, while trying to find their voices, own their lives, and move forward in their own truth–as you say, from wisdom hard-fought and gained from surviving harrowing and traumatic experiences.

    Speaking my truth publically for years, as I was coming to my clarity around this whole experience, grew me in so many ways and changed my life for the better, and I got all kinds of healing from doing this; and at the same time, because of this, I got thrown under the bus by my own peers and colleagues in the system. Go figure. Overall, truth came to light so I would not change a thing.

    Truth speaking is challenging, but unequivocally rewarding, from my experience. But indeed, on our terms, with our own voices, and for God’s sake, not for competition! Gross, indeed. And quite counterproductive, overall.

    “‘Speak your truth…” The quote should end there.

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  • “…that the psychiatrists do despise those of us who work in retail management. As that psychiatrist was being held back, by other doctors due to her fury, her defamatory departing comment to me was ‘I’ll see you in the malls.'”

    Omg, they had to physically hold her back while she was angrily yelling defamatory things at you? That sounds like some kind of assault to me, or attempted assault. Insanity.

    During the years I was working in retail, in the 80s/mid 90s, I was living in the ‘burbs and at the time, I was not having problems with therapists or psychiatrists (ah, the good ol’ days). That all began in the late 90s when I began grad school in San Francisco, and then after that when I got off the drugs, went into the system as, first, client, and then as professional.

    My first strike was during grad school, that I had a “diagnosis,” that was enough to elicit stigma, projection, and power abuse from one professor who was more full of himself than anyone I’d ever met up to that time (until my last psychiatrist, who was quite a piece of narcissistic work–sinister, mean and just the biggest asshole ever, couldn’t get away fast enough from this jerk, and ALL of psychiatry once and for all).

    When I was in a social services group, my crimes were that I was 1) a psychotherapist and 2) withdrawing from psych drugs, and 3) intelligent and competent. The last one was true of everyone in the group, I think. The therapists/facilitators really resented intelligence and independent thinking in their clients, I’m sure you and others have picked up on this, too.

    One thing about mh clincians–they are extremely competetive, and at the same time, they cannot stand competition. As a group, I find most therapists to be terribly insecure, despite outward appearances, which is why they can easily resort to gaslighting. Go figure. More insanity.

    “Those who claim to be experts on the brain, who only bothered to develop the left side of their brains, should be educated to the fact that those who bothered to develop both the left and right side of our brains, will be the more “insightful” and able to see the big picture.”

    First thing I noticed when I began grad school was, in general, the lack of appreciation for art and theater (one of the reasons I moved to SF in the first place, aside from The Beats). I found the mh academic culture to be incredibly dry, analytical, and extremely unimaginative–to the point of stale and overwrought thinking. Anything but creative and innovative.

    Developing one’s creative side and “right brain” consciousness is, indeed, vital to deep thinking, gaining truthful insights, and assessing the big picture. That won’t happen in “menal health, inc.” I’m sure of it at this point, I don’t see how with the way they are programmed.

    “So let’s hope the “mental health” workers do some day get out of the “mental illness” creation business.”

    Yes, beautiful vision, SE. The world needs free thinkers, artists, creators, heartfelt humanitarians, as well as true blue systems busters, whistleblowers, and truth-speakers. NOT more drones from the cookie cutter mh industry. No thanks.

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  • Social issues will be alleviated as individuals (and, in turn, societies) align with nature. Science will either eventually prove this if it wants to, or some may continue try to keep truth away from the public and keep it to themselves, so they can continue to collect more and more money for more and more “research,” or what have you–maybe a nice big house, exotic travel, high rent office space, state-of-the-art technology, etc.

    What’s changed is that people are now more awake and savvy, so we’ll get the information one way or another. We don’t really need the ivory tower perspective any longer. It is neither practical nor grounded in reality, and I think most people realize this by now.

    Life simply is, and it creates as it flows. The evidence is everpresent, we do not need scientific proof of this. Life abounds, it is inherently abundant clearly, as we hear, see, feel, taste, and/or smell on a daily basis. Experience is the teacher and guide, unique to each of us.

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  • There are a plethora of healing paths far and away from anything bio and psych mainstream which many of us have discovered as we healed from psychiatric debacle. Debating it is an academic exercise and helps no one who is suffering in the trenches. It’s a matter of educating oneself in and applying different ways of thinking which already exist worldwide.

    Chinese medicine and the study of yin/yang (masculine/feminine) energy balance in the body is universal truth and based exclusively on the nature of being human. Trauma is energy, as is healing, as is love. Nature is about balance for ease in evolution.

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  • “But you’re a man, and our society’s “mental health” systems are set up for men, and set up to destroy harassed or abused women and child abuse survivors, for the religions and their wealthy donors.”

    I would not at all argue with you here, SE, you are correct of course about this, and it is extremely problematic.

    However, as a man who experienced the trauma of systemic abuse, I have to say in all honesty and very frankly that part of that was being a middle aged man being demeaned by 25-or-so-year-old young women with…well, let’s just call it “attitude.” I was in my 40s then, and I’d been around a few blocks by that time, although still programmed enough to wind up going down that particular rabbit hole for a while, until I finally woke up and got out myself out of there.

    But there were many men my age and older who had to put up with this unbelievable lack of professionalism from this particular group. I thought it was fierce and unacceptable, and one of the factors in why I ended up filing a legal complaint, and winning. They didn’t know shit, but acted as though we were the dirt beneath their feet! I’d already been through one career and had been a clincial intern, but to them I was something else entirely–someTHING, not someONE–who deserved no respect, no regard, and who wouldn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie.

    This is a serious problem with perspective, and it’s a big part of the systemic dysfunction. A staff can easily be comprised of people in their 20s, barely having cut their teeth in life, calling themselves “the professionals,” and herding people who were much older, and who knew life and had experienced many things, like chattel, as per the example of a textbook class system. It’s surreal, like, through the looking glass. Big FAIL.

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  • “Psychotherapy is only a cultural conversation and as such must not be reimbursed. Psychotherapy is in no way different from practices such as Catholic confession or Siberian shamanism; it has the same social function, the same methods and the same results. The reimbursement of some psychotherapists to the detriment of others is a caste privilege that reinforces the corporatism and institutional association between psychotherapists, psychiatrists and health insurances.”

    Brilliant and perfect.

    “‘Technique’ is actually ‘folklore.'”

    Yes, that is truth.

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  • The perspective may be different, but the misinformation and stigma are the same. “Psychological issues” vs. social abuse and injustice. The latter is the cause, the former is the effect. Remove the cause, change the effect.

    NorCal is my turf, what I’m most personally and thoroughly familiar with re the mh world. And I will swear up and down that as far as “mental health, inc.” goes up here, it is in the toilet, doing all harm and no good, a ruanaway train of gross incompetence, delusional self-aggrandizement, and rampant power abuse. It is 100% elitism. This, I know for a fact. And that is the harm.

    This also includes all “advocacy agencies” up here, for whom I’ve contracted or consulted with many. They are pure shit double-standard hypocritical advocates for the system which funds them and gives them an identity, nothing else. In all the years I’ve worked with a variety of mh, inc. personnel, I’ve yet to meet someone actually qualified and skilled to work with the particular population for whom they are contracted to serve.

    Seriously, no people skills whatsoever, to say the least–basically, corporate drones and administrative bureaucrats is more like it. It is pure and unequivocal insanity. And I’ve no doubt anyone up here in or around this system will tell you that. It’s a very open secret.

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  • Wow, SE, I feel and hear you, my thoughts are exactly the same. It is MADdening (which I guess is the point?).

    I was in customer service retail for 17 years and my experience is as yours, mutual respect as well as integrity of the products we’re selling is vital. I had very loyal and appreciative customers for years–AND a grateful staff (I was manager) because we were all in it together. To me, power meant responsbility, not getting away with abusing or demeaning or thinking negatively about my staff, that would have tanked us.

    I was recognized for having the lowest turnover rate in the company because I knew how to promote people to where they most belonged (and to where they preferred), where their skills and talents would shine, and my departments thrived. Members of the staff I supervised felt good about themselves, their jobs, and we had fun! And everyone felt valued, that was the most important thing for good functioning.

    Again, to mh clincians and staff–what’s the problem here? Can’t you see what we’re saying? When are you all going to wake up, own this crap you’ve been dishing out, and come out of denial and avoidance? C’mon folks, get real. We’re speaking the truth here, no doubt about it. Lift your heads up–out of the sand. For everyone’s sake. You’ll feel better to surrender here, because the truth shall set you free. It will set ALL of us free!

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  • They do, indeed, cause chaos to the mind and body. And I think it’s so important to emphasize that the damage needn’t be permanent. People can and do heal from psych drugs damage.

    My healing from having taken so many of these drugs over a long period of time was complex and I had to take leaps of faith and be open to learning all kinds of new things about how our bodies work and how to bring each organ back into balance, including my brain. That took focus, diligence, and trust, along with guidance from an ace 5th generation herbalist.

    After 20 years of these things, I took my last pill 17 years ago, and I am healthy and in balance from head to toe. No brain trauma (or trauma of any kind to any organ) has remained, for which I am most thankful to God every single day. Every day of my life is a miracle, and I want people to know it is possible to heal from these 100%.

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  • “As to being investigators, since it’s us non-“mental health” people who did bother to investigate, do our research, and find the iatrogenic etiology of both “bipolar” and “schizophrenia.” I’d say the psychologists aren’t very good investigators.”

    That is so true!!! At this point, I believe many of us know way, way more than they do. We got our info through first hand experience, and that is what is most reliable, without a doubt.

    And they’re not very good listeners, either, they don’t hear a word we’re saying. And it seems as though when they do hear, it gets translated into something else by the time it reaches their brains. It really is like we’re in two different worlds speaking two different languages. It’s weird. That is not my experience with the world, only with mh-related clinical or social service people. That is a world unto itself.

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  • I just don’t think psychotherapy is safe. Some people have no issue with this, and I’d call them lucky, because it can so easily go the other way. The training lends itself heavily to projecting, which is what ultimately leads to othering, marginalizing, and blatant stigma.

    It’s not necessarily about the DSM, one can reject that and still be doing this level of projecting, unconsciously, because that is how humanity is perceived through the psychological lens, in divisive “us and them” terms, and based on what, exactly? That’s what this programming inspires and creates, social division based on arbitrary terms. That is inherently abuse of power, because it is a betrayal of trust. It can all be unconscious, but it is still the result of this programming, which is why I call it unsafe.

    This is how programming works, which is what the education and training of this is all about, from what I recall, and my memory of it is quite clear. It’s a filter which is divisive to humanity, and it can stick and do a lot of harm in the most insidious ways, hard to identify but it can be felt. People graduate from their training programmed, not awakened. That’s very unsafe for future clients.

    The first thing a “psychotherapist” (or anyone who desires to help people this way) would have to learn is what it means to have a “healing dialogue.” That has a specific intention, energy, and flow to it, and I’ve never encountered anyone traditionally trained to have this awareness.

    Another thing is to understand how cording works, which is how subtle communications transpire, and how to separate from this after a client, so it is not carried forward to the next client. Everyone is healing and growing in a healing dialogue, not just the client.

    This should be a professional service with appropriate boundaries, not a takeover of someone’s life and beliefs, and ultimately, in worst case scenarios (and they do exist significantly, I believe), their mind and spirit. The issue of boundaries is usually a big problem with therapists, I have found, in that they can be terribly invasive with their own conscious or unconscious judgments.

    A lot of therapists have control and power issues, too, and can play all sorts of mind games, but that’s in all healing vocations. One MUST be careful and trust their intuition when seeking help and support in any healing way. We’re ALL vulnerable as we heal and grow. Otherwise, we don’t.

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  • I call that malpractice. In fact, I call psychiatry systemic malpractice. I believe that is as clear as crystal.

    At this point, I think a class action suit against APA would be in order. There seems to be overwhelming evidence of this–ridiculous diagnoses with no foundation, toxic drugs, abusive practices, tons of harm and death, total blood on their hands, and how injurious this is for people, and costly in all ways, including financial–BIG TIME. While they are getting so rich doing this to people!

    I am living proof because I can tesitify what it’s like on the drugs and how all that ends up, and then how my health came back and life blossomed for me, not only when I came off the drugs but also when I quit seeing psychiatrists. The only thing psychiatry did for me was to temporarily destroy my health and tank my life, all while following that particular protocol. And I know there are plenty of others who have simliar stories and trajectories. It’s obvious, and many of us are here in one place, desiring reparations which I know we richly deserve.

    Any brave anti-psych personal injury or malpractice lawyers out there who are true to their word? Lots of us are here with very compelling stories to tell. And clear, articulate, and determined voices with which to tell them.

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  • “’Dysfunction’ is a robot term.”

    I think that’s fair, in that it became a buzz word a while back. I recently began using it again, after having used words like “toxic, abusive, marginalizing, oppressive, corrupt” etc. Still, I do feel the word “dysfunction” covers it, and I’d like it to have the same punch in energy as those other words, which perhaps it feels tame given how abiguously defined this can be, as in, “my family/community/fill-in-the-blank institution is dysfunctional because it made me unhappy/afraid/feel insane.” That’s what I mean by it, and indeed, there are a lot of questions to ask at this point. Where to begin? Like a generic case study!

    I think a powerful aspect of “dysfunction” is that it HATES truth, repels it at all cost, and for good reason, since dysfunction is based on keeping active all the deceit and false projections, one way or another. So when truth does start to break through a bit, and then more and more because, perhaps, people are starting to wake up, the dysfunction is what is threatened, as it should be!

    Soooo, I think waking up is what will go a long way in resolving these issues, and so on and so on. I think that’s how to “bust up the system.” I imagine this would mean different things to different people, but “waking up” would be the common thread, to my mind. Just the thought of going from dysfunctional to functional–and getting the true ramification of these antithetical ways to operate–gives me a great deal of relief. Hmmm, wonder why?

    And I agree with Rachel completely, that would be FUNCTIONal, for love to be the motivating factor, as opposed to fear and extreme rivarly. Oh, that makes it so toxic! Someone pays dearly, and it shouldn’t be that way. Waste of energy, resources, PEOPLE, brilliance, creativity. The difference is vast, between Dark Ages and Renaissance. This is what blows my mind the most, and I’ve drawn this conclusion after hearing all of these 1000s of stories over the years, along with my own experience. Big core shift, everyone is affected. Then maybe we’d have a world of problem-solvers as opposed to problem-creators, as it seems we have at present, and have had for a while.

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  • One of the things I detest most about mental health, inc. is how it dehumanizes people, like lab rats. This does harm in so many ways and is rather vampiristic.

    To mental health, inc. clinician/authors: Write about your own mad lives and inner voices, and stop co-opting your clients’ lives and voices for your own personal, professional, and FINANCIAL gain. That is everything which is wrong with the mh academic culture. Please STOP.

    Study yourselves. That’s how truth comes to light. Not by projecting onto others.

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  • “Any time a supposedly professional person gets defensive with someone they’re supposedly trying to help, it suggests that the person doesn’t actually know the subject matter at hand and their client/customer is hitting too close to home.”

    Hmmm, not so cut and dried as all that, that’s a generalization which could easily lead to false projections based on presumptions. I’m actually talking about the ability to think and feel beyond the superfice. I’ve been shocked at the shallowness I’ve encounterd in the mh world, I’m sorry to say. But it’s true! And that’s what leads to trying to solve problems with drugs and diagnoses. If it’s not “in the book,” they are lost. That’s a fact. And there is no blueprint for healing. That’s what I’m talking about here. That is a creative process and the mh world does not get high marks in creative thinking. It is stale!

    Re what you say, Steve, I’d say we’re all human and getting defensive might be reasonable, given what clients can project, as well. Although, indeed, a good healer would know how to read the energy of this and not get bogged down by it, but instead, use it as part of the healing. Our initial reaction to things are the most authentic information there is, whether we reveal it to others or not. And when we do, it is an opportunity for truth to come to light.

    I’m talking more about a pattern of shutting down communication in all sorts of ways–distracting, avoiding, even emotional “punishment.” I’d call it more of a relationship issue, where communication becomes impaired due to avoidance. That’s when I think things might be hitting close to home, with chronic avoidance and defensiveness. Happens ALL the time! But I wouldn’t get it confused wtih impulsive projections. That would be repeating what is most destructive and violating about psychiatry, in all its delusional thinking.

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  • Outstanding article. Yes, calling out abuse, and calling it out, and calling it out…”calling unacceptable behavior what it is.” Absolutely. Healing from abuse is complex, but a big first step is calling it what it is. And, it is widespread, no doubt about it.

    “If your goal really is to truly help someone, the most effective way to do that is to actively condemn the abuse, neglect or mistreatment they are experiencing.”

    Yes, indeed. Although it is a rude awakening for many, and given Stockholm Syndrome, it can be messy to call it out before the one experiencing it is willing to see it. Still, holding the truth in a compassionate way is helpful, rather than feeding the denial. A lot of programming and brainwashing type control happen in these situations, and waking up can feel threatening.

    I definitely agree with the focus of your article, Megan, and I wholeheartedly support your truth here. Society can benefit from it, when it chooses to come out of the dark and hear and listen to the truth. Thank you.

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  • “The terms “mental health” or “mental illness” both seem to imply that there are some people whose brains work right and others whose brains work wrong, and that being in the second group implies some kind of pathology. It’s not a good starting point for a positive discussion of how to help people who are suffering for whatever reason.”

    I don’t see “mental health” as having this implication, per se, but of course “mental illness” most certainly does. I’m not seeing these as necessarily opposites, nor have I experience these as such. “Mental health” is used in a variety of ways and is quite broad; whereas “mental illness” is more precise in what it connotes, with a network of very specific false assumptions attached to it.

    Not feeling “mentally healthy” doesn’t necessarily imply “mental illness,” as people mean this. We may just not feel up to par for a time, so we rest and switch focus, until we feel our groove back. That seems natural and human, and not dramatic.

    With regard to all the categorizing of and projecting onto people which this profession practices, I’d call it lazy and superficial thinking. It’s easier to go down a checklist and put people into categories than actually understanding their humanity, which would require depth of thinking AND to be comfortable with their feelings, both of which are SERIOUSLY missing here, from what I’ve experienced with clinicians. Not to mention, it’s way more lucrative to work the human assembly line system.

    But it’s lazy and shallow to me, pure and simple. Why do you think so many mh clincians (at least that I’ve known and have spoken with) get so defensive, passive-aggressive, or avoidant whenever they get presented with an intelligent argument? They’ll get mad and quit before reaching clarity and mutual understanding, because they cannot maintain focus and grounding and have no idea what they’re talking about and simply cannot own it. That has totally been my experience.

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  • However we interpret these and apply them to our own experience, in general, I think, mental clarity feels a whole lot better than mental chaos, confusion, and disorientation, which is a human experience at times, and which can feel very painful. And even more distressing is that we can’t always put our finger on what would be causing this–at least not until we can move through the heavier feelings, which is when light can begin to come in and truth can reveal itself.

    Learning to navigate this with consciousness is a good and practical skill to have. In fact, these times of profound confusion tend to occur as a signal to awaken to something about ourselves which we’d been resisting seeing (another natural human quality), which is where we find relief, when we do that inner work. We may or may not be motivated to awaken and feel fear in doing so. All of that would depend on our level of trust in our own processes. Definitely a hot spot.

    But overall, clarity feels much better in the body, and it moves us forward, whereas we have to sit with confusion if we want to reach a point of clarity, and that can be challenging to the point of making people feel stuck. It’s all about the process, I think, and when we feel we are moving forward with relative ease vs. when we feel stuck and in constant effort. To me, that would signal relaxed vs. stressed.

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  • Considering the damage which ALL of these drugs do–at least from my experience that is the case, I was on all different kinds and classes of psych drugs over the years–I’d say this is not a hair worth splitting, for any practical purposes. And of course, that is my personal opinion on the matter, and I’m aware that not everyone will agree. I’m not interested in debating this issue, either. I know what I know.

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  • Thanks, Rosalee, and yes, defining these things for ourselves can bring good clarity and is on the healing path, imo. My personal definitions have changed over the years as more and more of all this came to light, and I discovered I wasn’t alone in all this. “How are we all relating?” (from this particular “psych experience”), would become my question.

    I like what Steve S puts forth (as per T. Szasz), which I’ve seen before. Like you say, it is accessible, and I feel it covers us all here in the human race. It’s perfectly neutral. If we’re human, we’re going to encounter problems with living. It’s where we have opportunities to grow in all ways. And that’s life!

    It’s interesting that this blog is called “My Mental Health Awakening.” Seems like a lot of awakening is happening here! You asked very key questions and basic overall clarity is growing, I think. Feels good right now, in that sense.

    Thanks, Starr, for opening this dialogue with your story. I believe that truth-laden blogs foster forward moving and energized discussions leading to clarity and light. It’s why I love it when people share their stories, leads to all kinds of liberation.

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  • I like this, too, re “problems of living,” and it is universal. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t experience this at one time or another. So then we can go on to ask “what problem(s) am I having, and how do I resolve them?” I believe much of this depends on our problem-solving skills. Which doesn’t necessarily mean taking action, it can also mean changing how we perceive our situation. That can open a door to resolution, too.

    As long as we’re in problem-solution mode, then “problems of living” would be a clear way to address our issues in a way that we solve the problems. It can be a complex network of issues, so one step at a time. We’re only human!

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  • When we use the term “neurotoxins,” we’re referring to any of the drugs typically prescribed by a psychiatrist, including SSRI, benzos, etc. We are claiming that they are all toxic to the brain, one way or another.

    For “neuroleptic,” (which I use interchangeably with “neurotoxins,” although I find that “toxic psych drugs” covers all of it), I found several varying definitions, and some do say specifically what you say, KS, but this is the first one that popped up on bing, and others keep it general, too, fwiw–

    “neu·ro·lep·tic
    [ˌn(y)o͝orəˈleptik]

    ADJECTIVE
    (of a drug) tending to reduce nervous tension by depressing nerve functions.
    synonyms:
    tranquilizing · calming · depressant · soothing · calmative · relaxing · [more]
    NOUN
    a drug that depresses nerve functions; a major tranquilizer.”

    When we talk about these drugs, seems we should be on the same page regarding what we’re talking about, given all the different things we call them. I think the prescribing patterns don’t really follow rhyme or reason, it’s pretty random at this point. They are all addicting, dangerous, and hell to come off of.

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  • “It seems like a distressful, “unjust life circumstance” to carry critical self-judgement due to early trauma.”

    Yes, I agree Steve, and not everyone has this to the same degree.

    Although I do believe that when we’re subject to particularly cruel and unjust life circumstance–especially if our lives start out this way, being born into a traumatizing family or the like–as we come to a better and deeper understanding of it and do whatever healing feels right to us, then we can become powerful and well-informed spokespeople for change, as we are doing here. We know what went wrong, so let’s be examples of “doing it right”–meaning specifically, let us be just and fair with ourselves and others, as opposed to being cruel and invalidating, which can, indeed, cause people to suffer if they are unprepared to take on such callous projections.

    That’s one way to heal (what I’d call “transmute”) the energy of trauma, and in that process, we shift our self-perception and self-identity from “victim” to “empowered.” And thus, we embody the change we want to see in the world. So much to learn as we grow, I don’t think it ever ends.

    I tend to agree with your perspective as well, I feel I know from where you are coming when I read your posts.

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  • Rosalee, after all the conflicting opinions I’ve seen on here over the years, I think it boils down to individual interpretation. Some might say “there is no ‘it,'” while others try to understand something about themselves or others close to them, when something in life doesn’t seem to be working to our satisfaction. So many reasons for that.

    Personally, I like to focus on how to get back on track, which would also be different for each individual, but it takes some introspection, and sometimes, trustworthy feedback, depends on each person, their process, circumstances, etc. That’s how I see it and it can happen to anyone who is a human being.

    As far as what to call these professionals in a way that would reflect the reality of the situation, I’m sure you can get all kinds of responses here. If they are part of the public system, I call them government bureaucrats because that’s exactly what they are. Definitely NOT healers.

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  • Stephen, thanks for that clarification. The only reason I’m surprised about this is because of how you’ve identified as a “survivor of psychiatry” and all that you have shared re your opinion about neuroleptics. You’ve also talked about being hospitalized so I guess I thought psych drugs would be part of this. Thank you again for sharing this information, it does bring more clarity here.

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  • Why can’t “mental health” (or even “mental clarity”) refer to how we feel about ourselves and our own lives and our own problem-solving skills, and our ability to navigate our lives and manifest what we need and want with some degree of confidence? Not always 100% of the time, after all we are human and inherently imperfect, striving for this or that, to keep us motivated.

    I’ve experienced solid mental clarity and also extreme mental choas and confusion. The latter was brought on by a variety of life factors converging. That made me feel mentally confused due to emotional overwhelm, an issue with being human, happens to everyone at one time or another. It signals us to look at something in order to grow, like a life passage.

    One by one, looking at each issue which was causing me confusion or painful anxiety and disorientation, I could take care of these. Sometimes, it meant shifting a life situation, where I could. Sometimes, it meant shifting a belief, and that would bring relief and change. Eventually, I felt mental clarity, which made me feel healthier in every respect.

    I don’t think our suffering is always in relation to others or life circumstances, although it can start out that way. Sometimes, we do it to ourelves, with our own critical and self-judgmental voices, which would be what we carry inside of us due to early trauma. We judge others we judge ourselves. That is, indeed, the result of trauma and can cause suffering and mental confusion. We can take care of that, and come to mental clarity. That seems both neutral and natural to me.

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  • “I think the correct statement is that people who TOOK ANTIPSYCHOTICS showed brain shrinkage, regardless of their spurious psych “diagnosis.'”

    Right, that’s how this convo started out. And I’ll repeat that this is an incredibly gross and irresponsible overgeneralization because it hardly covers the majority of people who take or have taken neurotoxins. So this sample population “studied” is not at all an adequate representation of this group, but more so, there was something else going on with that group, if their brains had, indeed, shrunk. Saying that it is the “neuroleptics” is misleading and just plain wrong, and it contradicts the truth for most people.

    I’d deem this a bad study, it is not truth. Therefore, it is useless and false, exactly like psychiatry. This study, and any extension of it, is what would, to me, be spurious, misguided, and misinformed.

    And of course, I do think these things are toxic, and they do impact our synapses and neural pathways, and I know they affect our bodies and our organs negatively, throws them out of balance. That can be remedied. But as far as the brain actually shrinking? I will not buy this. That’s preposterous, and lends itself to dangerous and marginalizing prejudice. This is what I, at least, target in my activism.

    It’s thinking like this (“their brains are smaller than our brains”) that sets people up to be treated like crap and marginalized in society, based on “scientific” mythology via academic ivory tower “research.” To me it’s rather obvious. Status quo.

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  • JanCarol, yes, that is beautifully stated and to the point.

    And I’d expand this to: the beliefs of our heart, along with our will and determination to overcome obstacles, are our keys to healing and manifesting the life we truly desire. I believe this to be absolute truth.

    My opinion about this “brain shrinkage” study has all to do with truth and integrity in activism. If these are missing in whatever info comes forth, then I find it useless and counterproductive. No change there.

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  • I just don’t want it generalized, as it is being when used as a “tactic.” It’s not based on universal truth, and it is harmful to those to whom it does not apply, which is a lot of people, probably even the majority.

    Honestly, I’m not sure what you are “stunned” about here, nor why it is so hard to understand why I would not be agreeable to this from the tendency to overgeneralize and in turn, harm a specific group. I thought that’s what we notice in here, how groups are projected onto and marginalized, and therefore are treated differently in society and their rights and freedom are compromised. I just think this study and using it as such perpetuates this, and indeed, it’s not necessarily true of everyone who has been on neurotoxins. Not even close.

    And the people who have been measurably damaged can heal, if they wish to do so. But it might challenge core beliefs. That is the nature of core healing.

    Thanks as always, KS, you make me think deeply about the issues. Done here, too!

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  • “Alex, the problem with your position in my view is that you can’t refute what you see happening on brain scans. So you either believe it is due to the underlying disease process or you believe it is due to the drugs themselves.”

    How many people on the planet have had brain scans? These are selected fractions of the population, as with all of these studies. There are so many factors that affect the brain, above and beyond the two choices you give. I would call these studies “not reliable,” for so many reasons. A discussion regarding these reasons is beyond the scope of this forum, that would be a long discussion which would merit a better space than this, imo.

    “The fact that schizophrenia patients have long documented hard evidence of shrinking brain tissue isn’t disputed anywhere as far as I know. The only scientific dispute is the cause.”

    I actually do not know terribly much about “schizophrenia,” per se (I’m more versed and better suited to speak about anxiety, pts, depression, bipolar, and dissociation. “Schizophrenia” is one diagnosis that was not applied to me, so I cannot speak to that experience).

    Personally, I do not feel science is capable of solving this, these are issues of human experience and each one is individual and unique, which personally, from my pov, I’d call that a hard and fast rule, no exception. So it does not stand to either reason or logic to me that just because some sample population is showing something like this, that it is necessarily true. Too many variables and competing agendas here.

    To me, one of the most powerful features of “psychiatric survivor-ship” is that we honor our individual selves and that is our truth, regardless of anyone else’s truth or experience–and most definitely beyond academic research. That’s the first thing I would throw out if we want a new paradigm. Otherwise, it’s the same poison, different flavor.

    “There’s little to be gained by saying that you don’t believe you experienced brain shrinkage from the drugs because of course not every brain was damaged in that way but the studies showing brain shrinkage in this cohort are pretty solid.”

    I disagree, I feel there is a lot of gain to this because I believe that our beliefs are what shape and create our reality because it is what most influences our thinking and feeling responses. When we change beliefs, we change how we think and act, and we feel differently about our experiences because we’re coming from a different and broader perspective.

    I once believed I was “permanently damaged” for a lot of reasons, and for a while I really spiraled downward from thinking this way, from practicing these beliefs. Then I learned some new things, new ways of looking at my experience, and how I could influence it with the power of my own thought and focus. THIS is how I busted through false programming, which is where I took back my power. Took a while and it was a surreal ride, but it did the trick, and my thinking is now completely my own, and I apply it to my life as I wish, like the free-thinking individual which I am.

    Where I believe there is nothing to be gained is believing that one is damaged beyond repair, or even that one’s brain has shrunk, because “studies say so.” I believe that holding that belief is what causes impairment (and fear, and frustration, and discouragment) because we will create these ourselves if we believe our brains have shrunk, and in turn, we feel damaged, lesser than, and limited. No thanks.

    “It seems you can’t accept that others may have been harmed in this way because you don’t believe you were.”

    I’m not going simply by my experience, not in the slightest. I’ve been around people on and off these drugs for a really long time—in my practice, as peers, and in everyday life. Not one of them would I say had a “shrunken brain.” Were I to think that of any of my clients who are or who have been on these drugs, I would not be able to help people heal at the core, the way I do.

    I’m not even thinking in these terms. I’m looking at a person’s heart (open or closed), spirit (where it does not feel free), and with respect to their brains, as long as we can carry on a fluid conversation, that’s what I will notice. If not, I’d look at why, and it is always 100% of the time some kind of relationship trauma, because that is when we start projecting.

    Things get challenging here, it’s kind of a fork-in-the-road because this is where our most core beliefs are challenged, when we are in relationship to others. But never, ever has it been because I think someone has a small brain, or smaller than “normal,” or what have you. Honestly, I can’t even wrap my mind around that. I find it useless information on the one hand, and damaging to believe it, on the other. I think this trumps “studies,” so if no one is challenging these, then let me be the first.

    “And the fact that a study designed to show the neuroleptics weren’t the cause but instead showed they were is solid evidence.”

    No, I don’t think it is solid evidence. I think it’s, at best, a fraction of the story, and one which makes the ground fertile for generalizing about people in a negative way, which is bad news as we all know.

    Overall, I cannot see the logic of this. I think it is way too limited in perspective, and is not accounting for so many factors in a variety of different people. To me, this particular cause (whatever it is) is beyond science. It is about individual truth, because that is what dictates our path more than anything. We want freedom, not more programming and negative beliefs crammed down our throats, that’s the case with me, in any event.

    I’m going to believe what I’m going to believe because that is the sum total of my experience with this so far. That serves me tremendously well, and I don’t see how it hurts anyone else, and in fact, I’d be happy to relieve anyone of this burdensome thought or belief about themselves, which I think would serve anyone well. But that has to be a choice. I think it’s important to pay attention to what we believe about ourselves, way more than what others believe about us.

    If you or anyone tells me, “Well my brain shrunk from these drugs, and that’s my truth and don’t mess with it!” then ok, I won’t. But what I would be thinking is that this belief of having a “shrunken brain” (from wherever it comes) will haunt that person in a way that is neither helpful nor healthful.

    I appreciate your asking for clarity, KS, and I hope that in some way this provides a better idea of from where I’m coming. If not, this is the best I can do with this right here and now. We know what we know, and we see what we learn as time passes and more and more info comes to light. But this is definitely my position with this, and the foundation for why I now hold that belief steadfastly. It certainly does serve me, and others around me, quite well.

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  • Ok, thanks for clarifying.

    “I don’t think it’s possible to undermine people’s faith in it without some hard evidence that the psychiatrists are full of crap.”

    I know they’re full of crap and you know that and many who read here know that, because we have interacted with psychiatry for years and know first hand that dialoguing with a psychiatrist is risky and downright crazy-making from the irrationality of their thinking.

    Overall, however, I believe people are going to have to discover this for themselves, if, in fact, they are in the realm of thinking about turning to psychiatry for anything. I’ll still speak about my experience to help shed light on the reality of psychiatry and “mh” anything, and I will help folks to bypass all of this with good alternatives to mainstream thinking, but I won’t go with this strategy, though, and I reject the “shrinking brain” theory as a tactic, because I don’t believe it is truth and it continues to serve elitist ideology.

    The only “strategy” I use in every facet of my life is following the truth of my heart, including activism. I’ve had a few victories against the system, fighting it pretty much on my own (until I got a legal aid attorney to help me when legal issues came up, for which I had to pay nothing), which was based solely on simply following my truth intuitively, and as a result, some pretty big changes occurred, inside and out. I’m going to stick with that. But thanks for explaining how this particular information is being used here.

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  • Hi Starr, please forgive me, I got caught up in a dialogue here on your blog and I haven’t even acknowledged your story.

    Very well done! Awesome, in fact. Congratulations on getting through it all and assimilating your life experiences into living your truth and life purpose. I would predict you have an exciting and very enriching and rewarding life ahead, and you will help many people with your empathy, wisdom, and insight by way of personal experience.

    I lived in San Francisco for 17 years, I know the “mental health” industry well in that city, was associated with a variety of agencies–in client and professional capacities–before leaving the Bay Area a few years ago.

    A lot of change is needed there, there is so much discrimination and social abuse against people with diagnoses and on disability, it is the norm. I have so many examples of this, from my own experience and from witnessing this with others repeatedly, on a daily basis–including the example from a legal action I took against a non-profit, to help fight this from the inside. It is extreme and I strongly believe it threatens the quality of life in the Bay Area, which has sadly been in decline for a while now.

    I largely credit the San Francisco “mental health” system, and its extreme incompetence, for the city’s decline. They are so confused, to say the least! And creating all kinds of social ills, not to mention individual crises. In the meantime, “disability” and homelessness are growing industries there, so I say they are not doing their jobs.

    Instead, clients on the whole tend to be judged, dismissed and dehumanized, not seen as thinking/feeling adults with the same rights as anyone. That is a terrible rift in the social fabric, and I’m sure you have noticed that it is palpable. I blame the mental health industry for this. They’re supposed to be helping heal and mend, and instead they are divisive and marginalizing. Change is needed right in this area, not sure how that would come about.

    You sound like a social warrior, so I am wishing you the very best of luck and cheering you on! You’ve got a tough job, but you are needed. Glad you are heeding the call!

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  • Responding to Steve, above (I don’t have the capability to insert my comment into the thread like you do, so I’m responding down here)–

    “I think it’s important to know about and use these studies to make our case, even as we all know that every individual case is different,”

    “Our” case? To whom are you referring in the first person plural? MIA? Other?

    Besides, I think it’s robbing Peter to pay Paul, in that you are simply creating another so-called “damaged” group–with new labels to support that–in order to scapegoat and make people feel lesser than and marginal, not to mention, dependent.

    And the systemic issues persevere, despite any shifts in perspective here. That’s not the change which I seek, that would go deeper to the core of systemic and social dysfunction than this argument does.

    “and that recovering even from long-term use of these drugs is possible for many so exposed.”

    Yes, that is the main thing, and many of us have done just that. It is vital for people to have living and breathing examples of healing from this crap, in order to hold hope, encouragement, support, and validation for their unique healing process, as opposed to more judgment and stigma and self-defeatism that inherently come with discouraging, fatalistic, and downright scary messages, such as “your brain has shrunk.”

    Even with holding that perspective while not revealing that you are thinking that, one can tell, people pick that up after a few moments of communication, and it can be detrimental. Best to know a better truth, from my perspective, as a former client. That would be of benefit to anyone, I believe.

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  • I’m completely out of all that, this was over 15 years ago and I’ve since moved on and enjoy my life thoroughly. I’ve done tons of healing in all sorts of ways, and have been a teacher and have had a healing practice for over a decade now.

    Part of my life purpose is to speak my truth about this. It was my path to take, and it has enriched me in all ways. And, it woke me up but good. As long as I have healed all that brainwashing (and social programming from way back), I am happy, at peace, and aligned with my heart, truth, and spirit. What more could I ask for? I’m here to encourage others.

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  • Yes, the neurotoxin/gaslighting combo is a killer, without a doubt. The worst of the gaslighting and abuse took place for me as I was in withdrawal. I was in a social services day treatment program which had several groups with a variety of psychotherapists/facilitators, while at the same time I was seeing the last psychiatrist I ever saw. I’ve never been around so many assholes in my life.

    I was rather defenseless in my withdrawal state, and they took full advantage, like kicking around a sick puppy–which at the time, I was, and nobody really understood what was going on, but they pretended they did and made things up to justify their thinking (false projections), as per the norm in “mh practices.” Made me feel insane, depsondent, and hopeless, and indeed, it almost cost me my life. And all of this, as the result of actively trying to become more healthy, clear, and functional. Not in psychiatry! That would be a false expectation, without a doubt.

    But I eventually recovered from all of this and got it all straight, the truth of the matter was clear: the psychiatry driven “mental health” system kills people, as it came so close to doing with me.

    “I’m glad you got your brain out!”

    Me too! Or conversely, I’m glad I got all of that out of my brain. That was friggin’ over-the-top crazy!!! My truth of the matter, and message to others, is: it can be done.

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  • Yes, I agree with you, Nancy. It’s the training which is misguided. Some would call the education “programming,” with which I’d concur. The conditioning is passed down, which I think is what we’re trying to stop–bad information to be replaced by way better information, true to healing rather than satsifying an institutional or political agenda. That would be my intention and goal, in any event.

    I was in training and MTF internship when my world began to turn upside down from the psych drugs I’d been on, and no one around me was any help, to say the least, and really quite discouraging, which turned into “demeaning,” which led me right into hopelessness. I eventually discovered and realized that the education was bad information and the skills of the therapists were seriously below par, and all of this could lead down a treacherous road for anyone, as it had done with me and so many others.

    While someone may not be out to deliberately harm another, when someone tells them that their actions are causing pain and hurt, and they argue, ignore, or turn the blame around, I can only call that toxic abuse. When the abusers have allies and not the victim, then it is systemic, and not good for anyone, regardless of having noble intentions. Even the most progressive ideas will not fly in a system such as this, since no truth can come to light in a toxic system. Information becomes corrupt, because that is the energy of toxicity–to destroy and sabotage, not to support and create. That’s how I see it.

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  • That film is more than a marketing strategy, it is false advertising and blatant propaganda. Especially if your confidence was violated, as it appears that it clearly was, repeatedly.

    I started out by going to my college counseling center (this was 39 years ago) and while I did not experience what you did in many ways, I still found it not only extremely unhelpful, but also filled with incompetent counselors. They were awful, and indeed, made me feel as though something were terribly wrong with me, because I was depressed. There were reasons for it, but they did not bother to probe that, and I tried 2 different counselors. The last one was the one that convinced me that something was wrong with me, whereas now, I can see that she was judging me, purely. Looking back, I can now understand the projection.

    Great truth-speaking here and well-written piece. I hope this article gets around, especially to the counseling centers and universities. I also hope you find your peace. Speaking your truth is a good start.

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  • Yes, it does, and they are relentlessness about it. And so many of us are mirroring back those negative expectations from psychiatry, based on experience and our own negative outcomes from said “services.” It will not kill them (I would hope!) to learn from what the mirror is reflecting back, rather than resisting it at all cost.

    Vampires are the ones who cannot see their own reflection–aka getting defensive, hostile, retaliatory, and shutting down communication when reasonable and heartfelt critical feedback is being offered, and especially when it is obvious to everyone that harm is being done, and the harmful behavior will not stop.

    Their survival depends on harming another, to drain them of life force energy. And then another, and another, and another…the vampire is the one who is dependent on others, they need the energy of another in order to survive. It is endless seduction and victimization, until the vampire is destroyed.

    That’s the only way (according to legend) to stop the cycle of vampiristic harm, to drive a stake through the vampire’s heart. In that vein, I just try to speak my truth of the matter as clearly and directly and precisely and reasonably as I know how–and then creatively when that doesn’t work. Feels good to say it, in any event, because it is truth.

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  • “I’ve watched IQ loss, decision making falter, inability to perceive and discern “grey areas” (black/white thinking), and complications get immeasurably simplified due to the drugs. I help people come off of neuroleptics, and these qualities are common among many of them.”

    This somewhat reflects my experience when I was in withdrawal from 9 drugs after 20 years on one mix or another, and indeed it was temporary, there is healing for all of this, and it is layered and complex.

    For me, part of it was neural pathway rerouting and also nourishing brain cells (herbs, light, conscious relaxation); and another part of healing my brain was about healing tremendous fear–dread, terror, to be precise–from all the negative messages that were ruminating in my brain (also causing sleep disturbance/chronic insomnia for a period of time), due to heart and spirit wounding and the disorientation which comes with that, from all kinds of systemic vampirism. That’ll throw the brain–and one’s entire energy system–off-kilter but good after a while. That is a very intricate and humbling healing, and it is the transformation.

    Systemic abuse can be very subtle, yet powerful to the unsuspecting. That has the potential to impair brain functioning in an even more powerful way than the drugs because we have a hard time recognizing abuse in an abusive culture, and it does involve recognizing toxic relationships, which can be understandably terribly challenging for people.

    This is the complicated part, healing the brain/mind/heart/spirit from gaslighting and negative projections and other dysfunctional relationship patterns which ruin peoples’ health and lives, because they lose their clarity and are filled with doubt, worry, and chronic negative ruminations. All because others like to send messages of doubt and fear. One has to be careful about this. I remember this well from my experience.

    That is what I had to heal in order to feel good, be healthy and clear, and experience the joy of life, once and for all–drugs or no drugs.

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  • Sorry, I believe you are both wrong and speaking fallaciously. JanCarol, I’m aware of myself and I’m surprised you are trying to explain me to me, and I’m sure none of my “brain is missing,” if that is what you are implying. I’m also aware of the interconnectedness of the brain, the mind, the heart, and spirit, and I also recognize and understand heart intelligence (or lack thereof). This is what feeds the mind.

    Talking about “brain shrinkage” and insisting on it is only going to feed prejudice and lead to greater misunderstanding and misinformation. I believe that those of you who insist on “brain shrinkage” in this context are delivering a very dangerous and misleading message.

    Forget studies, Steve, we’re talking about real people in real life, not these academic illusions which are constantly perpetuated by people who have absolutely no personal or first hand experience with what they are “studying.” No credibility here.

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  • Mark and Stephen, do you guys believe that the drugs shrunk your brain? That’s what I’m infering from your statements, and by the fact that you are trying to somehow convince me of this phenomenon, which you will never be able to do. I have yet to see anything persuasive here, it all stinks of divisive programming to me which makes the ground fertile for marginalization and dangerous discrimination.

    But if that’s what you all believe about yourselves, then that is what will affect you the most, that belief. I feel people own their reality by what they believe, so I do make it a point to not argue with the beliefs of others, that is really none of my business.

    But sometimes, I’m so tempted to break that rule, because from what I’ve seen in both of your posts, I don’t see how your brain could be shrunken, you both seem rather wise, alert, awake, and brilliant to me. I’m sure there’s stuff going on, from what you have both described of your experience–like with anyone, really–but I would venture to guess that none of your issues are in any way about a having a “small brain,” due to “reduction in mass.” If that’s what you want to believe, I wouldn’t argue, but I would at least give it a gentle challenge. If I am wrong, I do apologize. This is not intended to invalidate your beliefs or question your reality, I’d go with what you say about yourselves.

    But from what I’ve seen, I’d imagine the two of you have more brainpower than all the shrinks in the world put together. That’s just my intuitive hunch, based on what I’ve experienced in the world during my lifetime, in addition to what I have read on here over the years. You guys have your finger on the pulse of truth, whereas we all know that *mh anything* is devoid of this. Frankly, there is no power in that, only the illusion of it. And it’s a powerful mass illusion because it’s been around for so long and pushes our most basic buttons to create fear, and because so many people have bought and continue to buy into it.

    But, this illusion can be broken, when we make the truth stronger and more powerful and way more relevant than these institutional scams we’ve got going on now, and especially psychiatry, the poster child for institutional scams. Our voices do, indeed, matter. They are essential.

    Please do not insist that this negative and fear & shame based truth is more powerful than my truth of healing and well-being. That would be a travesty in this community, don’t you think? What purpose would that serve, other than to feed the beast?

    This is how everything is upside down right now, to my mind– wrong people in power, wrong people disempowered. Reversing this would go a long way in healing society. But how???

    Truth is the only leader, really, and it can come through anyone. It’s up to us to discern what is real for us vs. what is negative and disempowering programming. That’s the way to freedom, systemic transformation, and social change, and in that particular order, I do believe. Feel freedom, first, and the system will begin to transform, not the other way around.

    Freedom of speech and speaking truth is where it begins, to my mind. Censorship of any kind will negate truth, no exceptions, I believe. Anything can happen once truth finally comes to light, and it’s rather unpredictable, for the most part, I think. New manifestation will come from this, so it’s a creative process to follow. We can make anything we want of that, and that is what determines our reality–how we interpret and respond to the process unfolding, because it determines our emotional experience, and from that, we project our reality. That is my firm belief at this point.

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  • Thank you for sharing this, Fiachra, you sparked a few thoughts in me here.

    “Psychosis” = burnout, I can see a relationship here. I put the p word in “” given its ambiguity and variety of interpretations, including total dismissal of the existence of anything like this could possibly be, which is fine, it’s a belief.

    But burnout, I believe, everyone would understand in the same way, and I do not feel anyone could deny its existence, given it is a universal phenomenon. At least I think it is. Who doesn’t burn out at one time or another? Part of life’s lessons, I think it’s a passage.

    Although I’m sure that not all burnout would qualify as “psychosis”–that would be a matter of comparing personal testimonials to what the burnout manifested, what would make it “psychosis,” exactly, and this would need to be done without it being a list of “symptoms,” that would give it clinical relevance, which I do not feel it has. Still, I do think “burnout” would be an inherent part of any experience called “psychosis” by anyone.

    But also, what comes to mind here is: why would one person be considered burned out while another would be “in psychosis,” if there experiences are more similar than different here?

    In your case, Fiachra, based on what you say, this came from a clear and direct projection from this GP. If the two of you were comparable in whatever was manifesting that caused the p label, then it should be called the same thing (burnout is the better of the two, I’m sure!).

    But regardless–if things were truly equal here, which they should be or there is inherent injustice and discrimination from obvious stigma and power abuse–either you were both experiencing “psychosis” or you were both experiencing “burnout.” Why one explanation/label for you and another for him? That sounds like class division to me, and marginalizing. ILLUSION. It is false because he is lying–at the very least “misleading” in a way that to me, it’s the same as lying. It is deceitful, and for his own personal and professional agenda, to cover his ass in order to ACCOMMODATE stigma and prejudice. That’s how I see this, and it is a big problem.

    Such confusion and bullshit projections and basically cover-up! There would be no room for truth in that guy’s reality, would be my guess. That is dark. And to me, that’s psychiatry, pure and simple. I know this is a GP, but I’m sure his psychiatric partners in crime against humanity were just that.

    Good to raise self-awareness so we do not reach that point of burnout. But it is a potential for anyone who is a human being, and I believe it is inevitable, so that we do grow in this regard. So much to learn when we allow ourselves to get to burnout, and then recover and build ourselves back up with new awareness. I’d like to meet one adult in the world who has no idea what it feels like to be burned out, on one level or another, and the effects this has on the mind and body. How to avoid this? How to learn from it? How to move forward from it? These are my questions.

    And btw, kids who are pushed and pushed and pushed beyond their natural process of evolution WILL burn out sooner than later, guaranteed. I think when we’re burned out and continue to push ourselves without being aware that we’re already burned out (that may be a “normal” for some people, at this point), that’s when things can only get worse, imo, and I do feel it can send the mind reeling into distorted thinking. That is A LOT of stress, and it affects us in all ways negative, how could it not? We have to notice we’re burned out and stop running on fumes in order to replenish our own energy, if that is to ever change.

    Without resorting to any labels or categories which divide people up falsely, I’d say the current epidemic is, indeed, burnout, which, in energy terms translates to “energy depletion.” Replenishment would be in order, most naturally. Everyone would have their own way of doing that, starting with exfoliating that which on longer serves. Paves the way for new skin, new light, new awareness, and a new paradigm, based on a new and broader perspective.

    That is the natural cycle of evolution. Out with the old, in with the new. Permission for this to happen, and trusting the process, is what brings ease. When we resist change–especially as the waves of change are occuring–we are in effort. That will cause burnout, no doubt.

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  • This is all propaganda, neither one of these articles is persuasive in the slightest, it’s merely jargon and conjecture. Why should I take anyone’s word for this, when I have my own experience to go by? Who would know better than I do whether or not my brain had shrunk? Am I an exception? Because whether or not YOU believe it, this is not true about me, never has been, not in the slightest. I’d have to be shown clear physical evidence for me to even question my truth here.

    And so far, there has been absolutely no evidence of this for me, and I do not expect there can be, it would be impossible because I know for a fact it does not exist. And if there were some kind of evidence of this, I have no doubt I would notice this, and at least my partner would, and people around me. I’m mirrored back to be a pretty smart cookie, always have been. I’m a math wiz as I’ve always been, more creative than ever, and my mind is quiet and focused. I do know logic and reason, and I can process my emotions just fine. I’ve always been a fast learner, still am. My IQ is probably a bit higher than it used to be, in fact, because my head is much, much clearer now and I can process rather quickly. I’ve always been quite intuitive, too, on top of this.

    I am clear and fluid in my thinking, I know this unequivocally. This would not be the case were my brain to have shrunk. Quite the contrary, it has healed to become stronger and more clear than ever before. My healing was thorough and regenerative, as is the case with natural healing.

    Withdrawing from the drugs caused static and fog in my brain, and for a brief period of time I could hardly do math, even though I had been a bookkeeper and payroll administrator, and had always been able to do complex math in my head. And this is while on the psych drugs, I had no reason to think my brain was shrinking, I got awards for my excellent work in both customer service and as an administrator. Damage became apparent during withdrawal, years later.

    The damage the drugs did plus the effects of withdrawal and temporary extreme attention deficit (super monkey mind) greatly impaired my cognitive skills due to lack of focus and chaotic synapses, but I got those back into balance and after 15 years of healing from this, I have no trace of this any longer. My head is perfectly clear. I’ve worked hard to get it that way. Couldn’t have done it with a “shrunken brain.”

    I am going to go with my own lived experience over academic pontification and projection from the outside. We all know about the reliability of the irovy tower propaganda. It only serves a small elite group, to dehumanize and demean (make lesser than) everyone else. It is designed this way. It’s pure crap, and what leads to all the false programming that causes all kinds of social abuses and divisions.

    “Studies” (I even think from Harvard) used to say that different races = different brain sizes. I don’t think so! But the implication and agenda would be obvious, I hope. Please let’s not fall for this.

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  • My concern with this is that to me it comes across in a way similar to “chemical imbalance,” in that it strongly implies something which cannot be naturally corrected, a permanent and chronic condition, and I will in no way buy into that conjecture. I’d call that “a program,” in that it is a false belief to serve the elitist marginalizing system, one way or another.

    The brain is affected negatively by these drugs, no doubt about that, but it is healable. To call it shrinkage would imply a permanent defect, to my mind, which I know is false. I believe this is more about neural rerouting and synapses misfiring, thanks to the drugs, and there are so many ways to fix that once the chemicals are out of the brain.

    Plus “antipsychotic” refers to all sorts of different specific drugs, which I’m sure would have different effects on the brain. So I would question this entire study, as well as Dr. Andreasen’s motivation and agenda. Does not ring true in any way to me. Plus, of course, she is a DSMer from way back, so in whose interest is this, exactly?

    “She has also contributed to the area of psychiatric diagnosis by serving on both the DSM III and DSM IV Task Forces. She was responsible for building the foundations for the study of stress disorders by writing the definition of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for DSM III.”

    http://www.nancyandreasen.com/

    I did find this article written by Mr. Whitaker, from which I am infering this is the basis for his work. I came off the drugs before Anatomy of an Epidemic or Mad in America were published and healed from the damage done by these before even hearing about this website. Had I taken in any of this information and believed it in any way, my healing would have been much more complicated and I would have imagined things being much worse. That would have only been to my detriment.

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mad-in-america/201102/andreasen-drops-bombshell-antipsychotics-shrink-the-brain

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  • Being told you are “at risk” would, I imagine, produce a great deal of fear and worry in a person, causing them to have thoughts and take actions they otherwise would not even be thinking about, all based on fear and worry. So I’d call it fear-mongering, which is a most common strategy for throwing someone off kilter, which is disempowering, and makes them easier to control and manipulate. That would be the harm done here, leaving a person vulnerable to more potential harm down the road.

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  • “neuroleptics cause the human brain to shrink, they affect the frontal lobes of the brain ”

    Stephen, I have got to challenge this. Despite the amount of these drugs and length of time I was on them (tons, and close to 20 years), I do not ever believe it shrunk my brain. If that had been the case, I would not have been able to very capably manage 2 departments and 45 people in a retail setting, nor graduate with a 3.8 GPA when I went back to complete my bachelors while working part time, nor do as well as I did in graduate school–including internship–despite my mind and body already showing signs of deterioration due to all of this, by that time. My mind was fogging up but my brain was not shrinking.

    I was fully aware and trying to figure out what the hell was going on with me, despite all of my efforts to heal and remain stable, grounded, and functional. I was steeped in the academic world of “Integral Counseling Pscychology” as well as receiving weekly psychotherapy myself, and reaching out to everyone in the network as I got worse and worse and worse, and I knew it, no one had to tell me.

    That’s where it got extremely confusing and ultimately quite discouraging because, in the end, no one knew anything of value nor could steer me in any helpful direction, but instead, right down into the biggest rabbit hole ever–not an uncommon story, it turns out.

    They did cause many other issues–some overt side effects like weight gain and skin issues, and some subtle erosion to other organs like kidney and liver, and basically creating blocks in detox organs, which is how these things are toxic.

    The subtleties caught up with me after all that time and then I had to repair all of that, which is doable. That’s when I went to a Chinese Medicine Practitioner and herbalist, to heal my body. And I did the gut health repair, too, to develop balanced and healthy inner ecology. Those organs–stomach, spleen, etc.–had taken a hit, too.

    My brain did need to come into balance, as well, it was not unaffected. But I wouldn’t say it “shrunk,” that feels drastic to me. It eventually got scrambled and I’d say also filled with false thoughts. I had to fix that, too, which I did with a combo of herbs, accupuncture, Qi Gong, and learning to ground again. Also being around emotionally intelligent and centered people, that always helps when we can find them. They became my examples.

    I also had to learn to relax and have fun again–things got so doom and gloom at one point–and to stop thinking about things which only made me feel anxious, frustrated, and depressed. That took some shifting of negative thought habits and patterns, etc., that kind of healing. We can heal our own brains this way, train them to focus in a more light-feeling way, and not always “shadow staring,” so to speak.

    Maybe some people feel “brain shrinkage” but even if there were to be some kind of “evidence” out there that this might happen, I’m sure that this was not one of the side effects for me, and I doubt for others, I hope not. That would terrify me, were I to feel that! And I believe that is a reasonable emotional response to having my brain shrunk. No way.

    At this point, it would depress me were to I find that out or suddenly feel that, and on the contrary, I’m feeling pretty good and happy these days. I don’t think I could live happily and feeling good about life were my brain to be in any way impaired right now. It was at one time, without a doubt, and it was torture for me, worst feeling ever. But that’s way in the past, all those illusions. With all due respect, I just wanted to counter your fatalistic remark with a bit more hopeful and encouraging news 🙂

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  • So glad that spoke to you, KS. I think it’s awesome and one of the most inspiring and moving pieces of art I’ve ever seen. I was living in The Castro when this came out.

    Congrats to your aunt! Sounds like this will be an awesome wedding, Disney, how cool 🙂 I went from voc rehab graduation, crossed the street to San Francicsco City Hall, and my partner and I were among the first to be married. About 500 or so people in line! Now that was a party!

    Living in The Castro was an experience. The power and strength of the LGBTQ movement is astounding and inspiring. I worked hard as a volunteer to bring equality in marriage. Then it happened!!!

    I’d love to know more about your experiences with the queer community, KS.

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  • Plus, I’m sure there are backroom politics at play here, and more than likely at least a bit of manipulation. This is a non-profit designed to attract all kinds of people, including those who have been harmed by a corrupt and cold system, yet there is no formal neutral and objective grievance procedure here, outside of going to staff. I have asked about this. I have expressed concerns here, and I get familiarly stonewalled.

    The paradigm practiced here is the same one practiced in the system. To my mind, this is the main reason this approach is not working. When it comes to clear communication and fairness, at least, this IS the system–which means lack thereof. This has definitely been my experience, at least.

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  • “MIA’s approach isn’t working.”

    While this website has been of great value to me and others in some respects, I do feel there is something askew here. Mostly, it is because what I have seen dominate here I would translate into what seems to me to be “a movement AGAINST well-being, happiness, and peace.” (I imagine this might offend some, but I’m willing to discuss it further if you disagree).

    Fine if some don’t aspire to that, and I would not argue with others’ beliefs because how can I know another’s reality? as some of us have agreed upon here, and I’m not here on Earth to rob anyone of their suffering, if this is how they identify at the moment. Idk, hard to comment on this, from where I sit, but I’ve seen many comments on here over the years which make me think about this.

    But I do feel that any “movement” which is to have appeal and speak to most people, are movements which emphasize well-being and happiness in life, not one’s which question and debate that. I’m sure most people would see that and go “um, never mind.” I did, at first, when I first started posting here 7 years ago. And I’ve continued to pay attention to this over the years.

    The only reason I kept coming back is because this is my experience, my life, and my work in the world. It has everything to do with psychiatry, neurotoxins, healing, disability, “extreme states” (or whatever one wants to call them, the range of human experience); political, social, financial, and legal issues in the system (I won an EEOC mediation which was a unique part of my path and process in all of this, shaped a lot of it with a new perspective and allowed me to leap forward a bit); truth-speaking by going around all of San Francisco and Bay Area talking truthfully about all of this to a variety of audiences, revealing myself openly and vulnerably for the purpose of bringing change, and then making a film with others who wanted to use their voices as part of their healing path, change in life, change in the system, and on and on. No money or plan or experience with this, I rounded up a few interested people, including a filmmaker friend who volunteered her services for “the cause,” and we just winged it with what we had, and most thankfully things feel into place as though it were meant to happen. Focus, trust, faith, etc., all that good stuff paid off. Changed my life to do this, completely.

    I’ve been up and down this blasted system and just about everyone of its many tangents, inside and out, wearing many hats at one time or another, on a few different rungs of this particular hierarchical ladder, incuding the very bottom rung, like, in the basement. Crawled out of that one, finally, thank goodness, but it is a unique perspective which I will never, ever forget.

    This is my life, I live it. And, I do walk my talk, anyone who knows me well will tell you that my integrity is my standout. Manifesting is much more challenging when we are not sincerely aligned with our truth, I know this from experience.

    If you were to check out my very extensive comment history on here, you will see every aspect of me, the good the bad and the ugly. I am real and I am transparent, no doubt about that. I’ve never hidden from anyone. I’m just me.

    I’ve been healing and growing as I’ve been posting here, which is my normal, to learn, grow, change, adapt, create, expand, transform, etc. I am transparent with my process, as well as with my thoughts, feelings, and agenda.

    All of this, how my life has taken shape, because a psychiatrist diagnosed me and prescribed “meds” for me 37 years ago, and then ALL that followed, experience by experience, up to this moment.

    In the meantime, I’ve had my life experiences, my ups and downs like anyone–along with some unique experiences that most don’t experience, got “lucky” that way I guess.

    I have had a variety of jobs and careers, been rich and poor and in between, and in various sectors of our culture and society, and have finally found my way off the grid to a free and happy life, and I share with others what I can. When no one is around with whom to share, I simply enjoy my life and manifest whatever I manifest for myself until another opportunity to share arises. That is it for me.

    I’m not a man of means, I live frugally, but all my modest needs are met, and then some. It’s always nice to have more, but it is important to at least have enough.

    Due to the ecomonic crises that occur to folks thanks to psychiatry (for me there was a direct correlation, as I’ve read on here is the case with others), I did not have a car for years. I walked and took public transportation, even when I moved out of the city.

    I finally bought a car, after almost 20 years not having one, when it was a staple in the suburban world I grew up in. But I adapted, and in the meantime got tons of exercise which helped me to heal, and which is one reason I am the picture of health today, which I am. THAT is a true blue miracle, and a matter of knowing how to heal at the core and change my life, and trust that most amazing process.

    I’d like to see a world in which everyone has at least “enough,” for starters. Not having enough to live adequately, nourished, and covered is way too stressful, and that does need to be remedied, first, I honor this without a doubt.

    Anyone interested in health, well-being, creativity, and finding some joy and happiness in life, that is my tribe. From that, manifestation happens with greater ease and better results. I do not dismiss practical needs, but I try to separate that from ego needs. That’s an interesting discernment when one is assessing their issues during a healing process, and it definitely simplifies things once a person gets clarity on this.

    But if all you’re looking for is a fight (whether overt or passive-aggressive) and to argue about the definition of “health and well-being” or deny its existence or relevance, or ridicule, scorn, judge, or try to “disprove it” or some such thing, then no way are we a match, and I say with with all reason and neutrality, I believe. It’s logical, and I have no room any longer in my life for this. It is exactly why I had to seek counseling in the first place, and why it took so long to get out of all this, decades later. Last thing I want to do is to live in a world like that any longer. THIS is where I, personally, would like to see change, to this focus.

    I am a straight up, on my sleeve and in my heart, peace-loving guy, who is only looking to help bring folks some hope, relief, and ultimately some peace in their lives, heart and spirit, if that is what they so desire. It is my life mission and soul purpose, I have no doubt. It’s been my life and practice for a while now, and it fits me like a glove. If this is not one’s intention, then we have no reason to be talking, although I will not sit in judgment, as I will not be thinking about that.

    To whom it may concern: I will neither judge nor sabotage your unhappiness if you do not judge or sabotage my desire to be happy and free. Let’s just steer clear of each other, and then we’ll both be better off. Thank you.

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  • Sam, that is an awesome reply, and thank you for spelling out your thoughts and feelings re this blog/comments. I feel I understand you better now, and I see where you are coming from here. I especially appreciated reading this–

    “I really and truly do think I understand why the majority of the comments are the way they have been.”

    From what you go on to say, I totally believe that, and to me that is what counts, that we understand each other, not that we have to agree, or that our perspectives have to be the same. Indeed, we have each had unique life experiences, and are unique individuals with unique circumstances. I am most happy that you understand from where I and others are coming, and why that would be. To me, that signifies that you can live by your truth, while having compassionate understanding for those with other experiences. That’s cool! Your son sounds wise, and I hear your wisdom here, too.

    Ok, so now I get what you meant by right message/wrong audience, and perhaps the words “right” and “wrong” are what misled me here. Perhaps the words “appropriate audience” would be more neutral.

    Still, I am glad this all came to light for discussion as it did. It has expanded my awareness a great deal, and in large part thanks to your sharing here. I appreciate that very much. Cheers!

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  • That’s all good, Lawrence, and I definitely agree when you say–

    “that what makes us human is that we have the ability to create our own truths/realities and voluntarily choose our own life paths. So of course, depending upon each person’s situation, goals, priorities, coping styles, culture, etc., there will be much variation, and little unity, in what people consider the “right” message”

    Perhaps unity was misleading and I am intending to say harmonious–at the very least, not so cacophonous that no message at all is heard, other than conflict. It’s fine and natural to have different truths, and indeed that is what makes the world go ’round.

    Still, as human beings, we do have unifying features–like the need for nourishment and oxygen, and we all have the potential for experiencing a range of feelings from suffering to bliss, as well as the more common emotions of fear, anger, sadness, and joy. We also thrive on fairness, justice, and integrity, and that is not what we have going on right now, so we’re all a bit deprived at the moment, in that regard, and have to generate it from within ourselves as examples. We really need these qualities back in our society, particularly in our leadership.

    How we construct our reality would be some combo of culture, environment, natural inclinations and desires, and life experience as we go, I would imagine. That is quite a diverse humanity!

    I find that enough reason to celebrate life, but unfortunately, many on the planet do not enjoy such diversity, and would rather have everyone being kind of the same, acting by the same standard to keep others comfortable, thinking and believing the same, no room for variance or new ways of thinking. Why is that? Fear of differences? Easier to control? That’s a kill joy in life, really brings down the energy from lack of love, compassion, and natural curiosity. I believe it also indicates a lack of creativity, which we sorely need right now.

    Figuring out how to weaken or abolish an entire institution is a gargantuan task, and I admire those who can focus in such a grandiose way. That feels overwhelming to me. Given that I went through grad school, MFT internship, then the system as client, then social worker, then peer–all in a period of 16 years, from 1996-2012–my perspective would be from this experience, and then from separating from it, having all of these discussions to get clarity around the madness this created for me, and now I can move forward to create from what I learned.

    As I walk away, personally, I feel the system is already one person weaker. Indeed, another will come along, and then maybe another and 2 more, it is a runaway train. But I am not supporting it at all, and that satisfies me, for starters.

    The other thing I do is that I am a teacher, counselor, and healer, and I have supported people who otherwise would have gone for the “meds.” They came to me as an alternative, and they didn’t have to go anywhere near the system. I’ve been in practice for over 10 years now, and I’ve helped a lot of people bypass psych drugs and years and years of psychotherapy, with the energy healing and my brand of integral counseling. It is effective, efficient, and to the point. None of this vague stuff. There’s always a way to correct an imbalance, although some may require a bit more time and effort, depending on what has piled on since the original imbalance began (i.e., trauma, or anything really that causes us to go off kilter, so many potential factors).

    I have extensive training (am currently receiving an upgrade with a new training), and am certified as medical intuit and integrative healing practitioner. I did an internship years ago with a long-established and well-known master teacher near where I live where I received certification.

    I’m also a spiritual counselor, having become ordained as a non-denominational minister when I did my energy healing training; it was also a seminary. I’d have never imagined this would be my path, but it is exactly to where I was led. I did not have options at that time. One path and one path alone opened up, and I took it.

    So that’s my way of doing it, other than speaking my truth to help educate and awaken people to truth over illusion, and to who they really are (as opposed to some negative introjection).

    I’d rather support people’s healing, though, and teach new tools and support transformative healing processes. That’s what I find most rewarding and interesting. It’s the new way, and how I got out of psychiatry/mh industry, and how I’ve helped people bypass these and learn new ways of healing (which basically amounts to self-healing). What more can I do? I enjoy my practice very much, call myself a “country healer” 🙂

    I also play in a band which has performed at senior centers in my town. Whatever it takes to bring healing light to the world, I am there! After what I went through, it became more than apparent that the world needs more joy, for one thing. I think music is not only healing and uplifting, it is a connector of people.

    Do you mean team up privately? I’m more than happy and honored to work together. Do you want me to contact you via the MIA author page?

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  • Actually, I’ll just come right out and challenge this, because I do disagree with it, and it’s got a charge to it that I would like to address.

    When you say, “right message, wrong audience,” I actually think that’s part of the issue here which gives a message of divisiveness. Are their two distinct audiences? And each one is comprised of whom?

    From my perspective, the audience is the world and all of humanity. How about a consistent message for all audiences. How would TRUTH ever only translate to a *select* audience? It’s acutally hard to wrap my mind around a right message being delivered to a “wrong audience.” You mean because we are in disagreement? Isn’t this about dialogue and learning from each other? Otherwise it is about divisive truths competing with each other. How will that ever create unity?

    Come to think of it, this can all be applied to the entire mh industrial complex culture. I remember this from grad school, divisive truths competing with each other. Those professors competed constantly and vehemently (“my modality is best; no *my* modality is best, no MY modality is THE ONLY ONE!!!”). No one would concede about ANYTHING! Idk, it’s interesting I think. No harmony there, though, that’s my point. How deep does this go?

    Plus one more thing here:

    Sam, when I read what you wrote, it brought to mind what I said above, and I want to point this out to Lawrence, because it has the potential to be a good example of what I said here:

    “I feel mainstream society would be more than happy to grab onto as a way to continue to stigmatize and marginalize people with diagnoses and who receive SSDI, plays right into it, and which serves to sabotage certain people because it is a demeaning and dehumanizing misreprentation of them.”

    I’m not at all saying that this was your intention, but when you imply that there is a “right audience” for this message, that is EXACTLY who I am talking about, that select audience that I fear and imagine would use this information negatively, when it is not accurate at all. But it’s good ammo for haters, I do know this. This is what I try to catch, so that we don’t feed prejudice in society at large, because that is what statements like this have a strong potential to do, and more than likely that is just what will happen.

    Wrong message to wrong audience can be very damaging to society, history has many examples of this, NAZI Germany comes to mind immediately.

    Still, I’d want to know what you meant, because it might clarify things from your perspective. But this is how your ambiguous yet powerful statement struck me, I have to say. I’m certainly open to rebuttal.

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  • Sam, what message specifically are you resonating with here, that puts you in disagreement with the majority in the comment section? I’m so curious about this.

    And I’m not implying the marjority is always “right,” nothing of the kind, I don’t even believe that myself. Good for you for going against the grain, that takes courage and I respect it as your perspective. But still, I am sincerely curious about what message, specifically, you are referring to. Right message, wrong audience has a lot of implications, too, so clarity would be appreciated here. Thanks.

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  • KS, I’m 57, and sure I remember “We are the world,” written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie–

    “We are the world
    We are the children
    We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let’s start giving
    There’s a choice we’re making
    We’re saving our own lives
    It’s true we’ll make a better day, just you and me”

    You made me think of this, from my childhood. Same message different decade, fits me I guess (I confess!)–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiri_EDfU8U

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  • Thanks, Rosalee. Yes, I appreciate LK’s flexibility in thinking here, and I at least feel heard. This was productive, I think! It would be a big step forward if psychiatrists would own their projections, then they’d be able to see people more clearly, for who they are. Not sure the field can withstand that, though, it’s kind of a mind-bender, given how intertwined stigma and psychiatry are.

    I very much appreciate your voice and your support, we seem to be exactly on the same page with this.

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  • Thank you, Lawrence, I am grateful to know we have made an impact in this way. Obviously there is a lot of passion to accompany our thinking, this is a biggie.

    I’ve often talked on here about the film which I made, Voices That Heal, while doing peer work, and that is one of the main points of the film which I try to illustrate by example, just what you say about “the complex set of factors involved in each of [our] unique stories.” That’s my “stigma-busting” message, to stop these very detrimental (to our well-being) projections. And that of course includes Dx, but also beyond that, all these assumptions about people, on the negative side and basically marginalizing them, which makes people targets for abuse in all ways.

    We all have our stories–each and everyone of us on the planet–and they are all unique and with a complex set of factors. How can we judge? We can only learn, really, and expand our awareness around our own humanity.

    A favorite line of mine from literature is from To Kill A Mockingbird, where Atticus Finch tells his daughter, ” You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” I think we all know this, but we do tend to forget from time to time. We’re all human.

    But I think this would apply to psychiatry pretty aptly, to remember this. Those projections create a really awful feeling for the person being projected onto in this manner, which can be seriously debilitating, can cause rumination and brain fog, for starters, not to mention all kinds of heavy emotions, like terror and rage, from feeling powerless and always vulnerable, especially to injustice. Just seems this is what this field thrives on, and that is some kind of paradox. I’m so glad that we had this conversation, so that we could bring this particular issue to light.

    Thank you very much for your courage and humility, and much respect and gratitude to you.

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  • Dr. Kelmenson, I do very much appreciate what you have presented with this blog because it has led to an important truth wanting to reveal itself around what actually is authentic and true vs. what is projection and stigma. If we can get into agreement with this piece of it, then perhaps we can have a go at working toward resolving these individual and social ills which we agree that psychiatry creates and propogates, however that path were to unfold.

    Have our voices made an impact on how you are perceiving this? Or are we just spitting into the wind. I believe this is always a question in these dialogues. The reason I rejected psychiatry and all of the mh industry is exactly because these institutions are tone deaf and out of touch with those whom they are supposed to be “serving.” Can we at least begin to remedy this perception here and now?

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  • KS, I’ll be honest here, your posts often bring me to tears from the truth of them, and this time, it is from feeling your heartbreak and determination. And also now, the synchronicity. I was just telling my partner this morning that the canary is singing (meaning me), and now perhaps we are duetting 🙂 It is not easy being ahead of the times, is it?

    Ok, let’s keep harmonizing, and maybe, hopefully, we’ll make some headway here. It’s a start!

    It would be nice to have a choir of canaries in harmony. That would be a strong, powerful, and resounding voice of truth. I believe it would catapult us into great change, from the ground up. FREEDOM is a good place to start–nothing left to lose.

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  • KS, your post is humbling. You so do have a purpose–many, in fact, I would imagine. I hope you can feel this soon, because your finger is totally on the pulse of truth, from what I am reading here, and you do get it. That’s because you have been through it, and you are awake.

    I relate to a lot of this, big time–the awareness of the socioecomonic spectrum from lived experience, the maddening frustration of having followed Dr’s orders to the letter only to find ourselves in deep shit as a result, and abundant self-awareness and self-responsibility. And still, wtf?? Yes, this is quite the matrix.

    Dr. K, I’ve made my plea and have spoken my truth about all of this thoroughly on this blog, and I stand completely behind KS on this, and also what Suriving and Thriving says. You (and others I’m sure) do not seem to be aware of the incredibly hard work it is to be on SSDI and all the inherent extreme crap that comes from this kind of lifestyle, which many of us feel was almost invented by psychiatry–a bit of an exaggeration, perhaps, but the mh and social services systems sure do support and sell it, and indeed perpetuate it with their own brand of bigotry (not to mention, widespread incompetence, I think we all realize this by now). And why not? It is how these systems thrive, at the expense of people like us. (And then WE are called the social bloodsuckers? Biggest projection ever).

    As KS details, it is such a complexity of systemic imbalance, and the symptoms of this are everywhere, and mostly on those who are IN positions of power, really, and certainly, because of them. I believe there is no question about that.

    What you are doing–and I’m sure it is unintentional, but as you see from our very heartfelt comments, it is indeed the case and best you realize this now–is projecting that imbalance onto clients/the public. You know it’s the system, that is the origins of it. Own it! And get it off of us and others. That is off limits, a strict and unwavering boundary–aka, a human right.

    If this is not obvious by now, then there is a reality gap here.

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  • “But I’d been under the impression that psychiatrists sat down and listened to people and helped them work through things. If I’d known it was otherwise I’d never have gone to that first appointment that was made for me with the psychiatrist.”

    While I made my own appointment (it was my choice to see a psychiatrist), this is largely my sentiment. I was also under the impression that psychiatry and psychotherapy were about helping people to work through issues and understand oneself better, to be able to get back to functioning in life feeling like a whole human being.

    I’ve always seen these issues, which any human being will have at one time or another, as interesting puzzles to solve, which involve how we sit with and interpret our emotions vis-a-vis our thoughts and belief system. To me, that is interesting and compelling, and it is solution-oriented. And, it grows us to explore our issues this way, with good focus and self-compassion.

    I missed that in “mental health, inc.” That just became about the “therapist” working out their own relationship issues with an unsuspecting client, the most manipulative and controlling professional relationships I’ve ever experienced, with very self-aggrandized professionals. HORRIBLE!

    I knew when I first went to psychiatry that there was a possibility of “medication,” but that did not bother me, given the mindset of the diabetes analogy, which I believed at the time, 1982. I didn’t find it at all tragic or insulting to have to take a medication for a DSM diagnosis, and it did not keep me from work, school, and life. I accomodated it, and was open about it. I had a good social life and relationships, and everyone knew about this, asked me questions about it, and were impressed with how I was navigating such a thing while working full time–and in customer service, no less! Doing quite well, despite a few side-effects and adjusting to a new self-identity. it was interesting, not threatening.

    All of the stigma, bigotry, and blatant discrimination came later, and directly from the mh system, field, and all of its social services non-profit tangents. By 2000, times had changed drastically as the issue of “mental illness” became so public. This is not the same attitude as when I first began with all of this, at least not in my reality. It was no big deal, a fact of life I had to deal with, and I was doing just that in all humility and transparency. But later, the prejuice and blatant stigma is what cause the biggest obstacles to my working for income. I had to be creative about that, in the end, but systemic bigotry is the real enemy here, to my mind.

    Mainly, though, I feel that this field is enabling this delusional and self-aggrandazing perception which many of these professionals seem to have, which would never serve a client well. That is a fertile field for those negative projections, when the clincian will not own their shadow. That’s what gets projected onto the client, and it is treacherous and extreme emotional oppression.

    The idea of a psychiatrist or psychotherpist actually thinking that it is his or her job to run their clients’ lives is outrageous to me, and yet, that is what they attempt to do, and sit like a judge in the meantime. No friggin’ way is this sound. Quite the contrary, it is sheer madness.

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  • Dr. Kelmenson, I’m not taking this as a personal insult to myself, per se, as much as I am trying to convey that this particular message is what I believe most plays into the hands of psychiatry, it is the essence of a stigma which carries a very negative judgment and false perception of people which I believe is best to not perpetuate, re “a pill in return for lack of self-responsibility and disabiilty payments.” That is a bad fallacy which *my* work in the world is about trying to correct. It is important, as far as changing collective perceptions of all this.

    Personally, my way of ending psychiatry is to flood the planet with new ways of healing, having nothing to do with this. That’s my angle on it, at least, I think we are all tackling this from differnt perspectives, which is fine, this is not a one-dimensional battle, there are so many aspects to it.

    Eventually, it comes down to healthier family and social systems, where people are not ostracized for being themselves, allowing for freedom of spirit and creativity. Were we to get to that point, I think we’d have a new and improved planet.

    But there is tons of healing to do, first, from all that we’ve endured as a humanity from this global and social corruption and deceit that has led to all of this distress simply from imbalanced power relationships and the abuse that comes with that from toxic co-dependence. That is our world today.

    But my personal journey of healing is one of having healed from a plethora of psych drugs and systemic abuse by finding new ways to heal which are not in the slightest related to psychology but more so toward holistic and natural healing, which includes learning new teachings about the way humanity operates, and entirely new paradigm of thinking. THAT is where I found not only healing and relief from all kinds of stress I’d been carrying around, but also a way out of the old paradigm and into a new way of being, where manifestation becomes the by-product of healing. That was a transformative process where I was able to leave all of this behind, and embrace a new life.

    In other words, as I was healing, I was also creating my life on new terms, and on new ground. I discovered this goes hand in hand more intimately than one would think. There is a lot to learn about this, and there is tons of information now about this, thanks to the internet.

    So this is where I am coming from.

    My apologies for using the term “abuse” in my above post, but I was feeling very frustrated by what I was reading and it was registering as a red flag to me, and I felt it important to speak up. I appreciate your acknowledgment here, and indeed, if we are both trying to stop harm and bring healing to the planet, then we are on the same side.

    However, I must ask you to please consider what I am saying, as what you are putting out here does contain a message which I feel mainstream society would be more than happy to grab onto as a way to continue to stigmatize and marginalize people with diagnoses and who receive SSDI, plays right into it, and which serves to sabotage certain people because it is a demeaning and dehumanizing misreprentation of them. Thank you.

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  • What’s bothering me here is this idea of “turning over our lives” to ANYONE. When I went first sought counseling/therapy/psychiatry, it was to figure out a problem, which was a mystery to me, and indicated largely by severe anxiety which interfered with my ability to function and think clearly. I just wanted to get this fixed, somehow, so that I could go on with my life.

    When I was diagnosed with what we all assumed at that time was something “chronic” and “requiring medication,” that just became one aspect of my life. Never did I intend or expect anyone outside of myself to run my life and make decisions for me. Never, ever could I even conceieve of this. I just wanted to figure out how to clear my head and get grounded. And no, they couldn’t exaclty help me with this, but things stabilized eventually, as they tend to do.

    One of the things which made me run from psychiatry was my last psychiatrist trying to run my life (after I got off the drugs and was still healing and recovering from this, trying to put the pieces back together). Total control freak, acted like he was my “surrogate father,” assumed I was making all these transferences on him, etc. Incredibly invasive, and downright violating. He would get “angry” when I didn’t do what he said! AHHHH! Looking back, it was creepy, like he was totally delusional and self-aggrandized.

    At what point did psychiatry become an adoption and surrogacy agency? Forget “handing over your life.” They should not be trying to run and control anyone else’s life but their own! What is this “handing over your life” business? This is where I am stumped, because it was my experience that they actively stole it, in exchange for simply seeking what i though were “professional healing services.” Lesson learned.

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  • “their diagnosis enables them to hand over all responsibility for dealing with their own troubles to doctors/science.”

    There is something terribly wrong with this sentence. This was neither my intention–conscious or unconscious–nor did my getting diagnosed and drugged have anything to do with abdicating my responsbility for my issues, well-being, and life. As they were trying to figure out drug(s) and dosage–which felt like being a lab rat being experimented on, with the weirdest side effects ever on and off–I went to work at a neighborhood supermarket where I had been working summers in between college semesters. Since I had dropped out of college due to all of this, I ended up staying at that job full time for years, until I went back to school, where I finished my degree while doing work-study and on grants, etc. I put myself through school while working part time, while on these drugs and going once a week to the public health clinic for therapy and “meds check.”

    (I was at least able to live my life, but I lived with side effects which made things more difficult than need be, but I adapted. Later, the drugs crashed my system, which is why I had to come off of them, and now I am free, clear and I get it. They had been slowly eroding my organs and all physical systems, unbenknownst to me at that time. But I found out all too well after graduate school that these pills were pure poison, and all of this was troubling, like a really bad hoax and scam, tragic in fact).

    All the while I was in school and working, I was also working on my issues in-depth in psychotherapy, paying my rent, getting good grades, trying to deal with my crazy family, etc. Normal stuff which requires a great deal of self-responsibility. In no way did I ever abdicate responsbility for my life! I’d never hand over my life to a mental health clincians, but they sure as hell often thought it was their job to run my life. That was a struggle, and one reason why I found it intolerable, as well as persumptuous and invasive.

    Please try to understand this, Dr. Kelmenson. For many of us, you’ve got this totally wrong in a very significant way. It only adds to stigma/stereotype of “mental illness,” that people who seek psychiatric support and are diagnosed are folks who do not take responsibility for our lives. WRONG! and totally unacceptable.

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  • “Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff’s marks were naive and gullible”

    Funny you should say that, Rachel, I certainly felt as though I had been duped due to my naive gullability. I was hard on myself for it, thought it made it all my fault.

    I got over it, though, when I realized a few things about this–first, so were my parents, I inherited this from them; second, I get how social programming works now; and third, I get how gaslighting works.

    Waking up to these influences made me feel better because not only do I know that I’m in good company (we’ve all been duped), but mostly because I know it’s remediable, which is what really counts. We learn as we go.

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  • And they just will not hear the words, “YOU ARE WRONG.” It just won’t register, it’s the darndest thing.

    I remember while in the system it was actually risky and dangerous to contradict their clinical truth with my own personal truth, it led to backlash for me. It was positively Dickensian, as if I were a child daring to ask for something which I didn’t deserve, like the truth, integrity, healing, to be treated with respect, like an adult human being, etc. What is so fucking hard about that???

    Thanks for the validation, Rosalee, and you know where that truth and wisdom come from, as with many of us on here: from the first hand experience of being on the wrong end of this! It is quite the education through a roller coaster process. It did take a while and a lot of processing and healing to finally get to clarity on all of this. Psychiatry really creates total confusion. It’s my privilege to help bring some light to the situation, from what I learned going through all of this.

    To APA and its esteemed members: Can you all stop doing this to people, PLEASE? Thank you in advance.

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  • “Psychiatry feeds off people surrendering their free will and abdicating their personal responsibility”

    I believe it feeds off of people who are anxiously trying to resolve a social dysfunction which they have unwittingly and unkowningly internalized and psychiatry keeps them in that same loop from its own dysfunction, without resolving anything, until it snowballs out of control–one abuse repetition after another–keeping the client dependent for life. That’s the biz. Covert abusers will not allow resolution to happen, to keep people hooked. That is the essence of toxic co-dependence. Psychiatry, itself, is a textbook example of this.

    Had I known at age 21 what I now know about who I am, where I come from, and how that affected me mind/body/spirit, I am absolutely certain that I would have been able to resolve my issues within a relatively short period of time (maybe a year or so, to get it all straight and clear, a natural awakening, and make appropriate changes), instead of going through 20 years of neurotoxins. But who knows themselves that well at that age? Certainly I did not, and I was hoping with help this way, some insight from an objective person.

    The support could have come from anyone savvy enough to see the big picture, which I would have paid someone to do, gladly. I went to on campus counseling, then a therapist, then a psychiatrist. NO ONE COULD. Instead, I was seduced into the world of Dx and Rx, through the glass darkly. No reason for it, turns out in the end, other than to learn what I learned about the field, sadly. I hope we can learn from our mistakes, for the sake of future generations.

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  • “I believe that people who turn their free will over to psychiatry knowingly choose to do so because it’s convenient for them in many ways, such as enabling them to evade responsibility. Why else would clients continue to see psychiatrists year after year if the whole scam wasn’t benefiting them somehow? They could have walked away at any time.”

    This is an overgeneralization and unfair to a lot of people, such as myself. When I went to see a psychiatrist while in college, it was voluntary because I had crippling anxiety and could not think clearly, and I went by the cultural programming which was all I knew. To me, that was being self-responsible. I was not trying to evade responsbility, I was trying to BE responsible, so that I could get past the anxiety and be productive again. I had no issue saying that I had problems. I had problems! And I wanted to address them head on.

    I stayed for 20 years because I was told I had a chronic illness/chemical imbalance and needed “meds” for the rest of my life, and I accepted that. I returned to work and then finished school, and it was one thing after another as far as being “symptomatic” goes, and I kept referring to psychiatry because it was still all I knew for this sort of thing. One pill after another after another after another–because, apparently, I could only have chronic anxiety if my brain wasn’t working correctly, no other reason.

    20 years later, I finally defected from psychiatry and mental health, inc., and went in another healing direction having nothing to do with this only after crashing so badly from “meds,” and then, it turned out all of this mental/emotional abuse which I was not recogonizing as such. That took me years to recognize, given the fog which insidious gaslighting and narcissistic abuse puts one in, and it is thick and dense and persistent.

    And it took me years to heal from this massive confusion which psychiatry is, and which they managed to project onto me full on, given that I was programmed as all get out. I was ripe for the picking. My dad was a physician, so that was my world back in the day.

    I had to deprogram from this way of thinking in order to save myself and heal. That is not easy! It’s a process of healing where one specifically takes back their power. And often we have to be humbled first, to wake up. Thanks to psychiatry, I was and I did.

    So in that sense, I am grateful to psychiatry, it did cause me to finally wake up. But there has got to be an easier way! And definitely, more aligned with the human condition, which, in all due respect, I do not feel psychiatry is. How could it be, between DSM and psych drugs? These are exactly denials of–along with violation of–the human condition.

    I could have walked away if I knew then what I know now, but I was led to believe this was the best I could do, and I did believe that.

    As I DID walk away from my last psychiatrist, 20 years later, finally off psych drugs, and angry because he had said some terrible things to me and had betrayed me to my employers, whereas I had thought he would be my ally in getting back to work, he told me that I would only carry my problems elsewhere, that I should not be leaving his practice. Finally, I was able to keep walking, and slam the door behind me. Last.psychiatrist.ever. That was not easy! In the past, I would have let that scare me, due to the programming.

    Social programming is complex and undoing it is multi-layered, not at all an easy healing. Please let’s not assume that people’s free will can always overpower it. These are insidious mind games which psychiatrists can play, for the purpose of control, and which in this case, especially, is an abuse of power, because I believe we should know that a client would inherently be feeling vulnerable. This does test our free will, until we free ourselves from the situation.

    Psychiatry ended for me, personally, 15 years ago. It has taken over a decade, and a lot of conversations in here, to finally get clarity around all of this, psychiatry and its many tangents. Conclusion: This Is Insanity.

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  • I highlighted it because I think it’s important and not well-practiced. I thought it merited underlining. I’m glad we agree, and I wish more practitioners would apply this, rather than continually invalidating a person’s experience. I believe that is extremely harmful to people, to the point of being fatal, as my story would illustrate. I am sure I am not alone in my thinking here, or in my experience.

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  • “which I feel is all of our jobs and not just the professionals’.”

    Well, certainly it is the job of a collective to ensure everyone’s saftey and well-being, however that were to occur at no one’s expense. If it’s at anyone’s expense, then it is not for EVERYone. One way or another, the collective must be the safety net, otherwise no one feels safe. Bad enough we are led into such distress in the first place, but then to be blamed for it, projected onto, and have nowhere safe to turn for it? That’s a treacherous world.

    One thing about this, on an individual level, is that it’s not easy to help someone through extreme distress, under any circumstances, and different manifestations of it require different personal skills and levels of awareness. No one is going to be able to help everyone. There has to be some kind of copaceticness.

    By the time I reached my depths of distress from all the toxic mh factors coming at me all at once, I was a handful–not because I was angry and resistant, but because I had been driven crazy and paranoid by the psych drugs combo and then the systemic abuse on top of it. I had a very hard time communicating, my brain was scrambled and I was terrified that I was sinking down the biggest rabbit hole of my life. People around me were mostly angry and understandably frustrated, as I was becoming more despondent to an extreme, leading to hopelessness, and it was easy to take the anger out on me, as I was rather defenseless at that time and totally not myself, sick from withdrawal. Still, I was taking it out on me, too! Everything felt like it was my fault, that was the message coming at me, and I bought it hook line and sinker.

    My thoughts were incessant and filled with pain and anxiety. And not even the professionals could hear it, nor anyone, really. I was called a liar repeatedly by my psychiatrist just when I was trying to get myself healed without drugs, and I wasn’t even smart, clear, or aware enough at that time to calculate a lie. It was insanity, and it led me to try the final act and take my life. Why wouldn’t I? Came close but turns out that it wasn’t yet time. Apparently, I had more work to do down here on this crazy planet Earth.

    Indeed, I believe healing can be done with intention, patience, and heart. But it’s either a very natural instinct, which I do believe some people have a gift for this, and life trains them in it. OR, it at least does take some supported training, like supervision, to help someone when they are first learning to sit with others in distress and navigate that process with neutrality and authenticity. That can be a hard mix, it’s a fine line to walk.

    It is going to be stressful, one way or another, but the one doing the support is going to have to hold their stuff in a certain way so it does not interfere with the distressed person’s process. Otherwise it can be messy and even toxic, in that it drains the one in distress from a breakdown in boundaries.

    That’s part of training, and learning by experience. Sitting with people who are looking to process their distress is as challenging as it can be rewarding and self-healing. It can be a deep heart connection. But it triggers one’s own stuff, so it’s a process for everyone concerned.

    So yeah, people can do this from the heart, and even a person getting paid for this service would need to be in their heart while also in their clear head, to be of any value. And if they are, they are worth their weight in gold, so I’d have no problem paying for this. Not every week for years and years though! That’s ridiculous. But during the crisis and until it has safely passed, indeed.

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  • Sam, I’m not reading every word on here but I’m scanning to see what is standing out to me as good truth to emphasize, from my point of view. If you can validate what KS is saying here in this discussion along with me, without any personal qualification, then it really amplifies its power for the greater good.

    I think what KS is saying is the most universally truthful teaching I’ve seen on MIA in the 7 years during which I’ve been participating in these conversations. Hits home with me, and is what I try to practice with others, because I am familiar with blatant invalidation when you are telling the absolute truth, and it becomes apparent this is part of a toxic system protecting abusers. Most hard spot to be in, for a lot of reasons.

    I’d call what KS is saying the antithesis of gaslighting, and what heals us of the effects thereof. It is true empathy and compassion without enabling. This is how healing happens, and it is authentic.

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  • Kindredspirit, your comment starting with “The kindest way to respond to someone dealing with a “recovered” distressing memory…” and all the way to the end–thanks for presicely how you put that. It’s a keeper, and to me, it is the voice of a healer. You know exactly what you are talking about.

    To all who want to support others in a kind, compassionate, and EFFECTIVE way, I would take this as gospel. Everyone heals in this scenario. Thank you. May I quote you, just about everywhere?

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  • “Consciousness is not independent of the material reality in which it is nurtured.”

    On this we agree. My perspective, specifically, is that consciousness creates material reality. Shift consciousness, change reality.

    “But rarely can you meditate away a line of riot cops (though you could potentially convince them to drop their weapons and break ranks).”

    This reality is based on matrix (mainstream oppression) consciousness. It’s been passed down through the ages, one way or another, taking one form or another. It has been the global consciousness for a good long while, and this is what many of us are working to shift, starting with on a consciousness level, so that it will, in turn, ground into physical reality.

    And when I say “us,” in this case I mean energy workers, teachers, and healers like me. This is our foundation, that consciousness creates physical reality as we experience it. In my line of work, we call this “grounding light to the Earth.” It is real, and physical, but it begins with consciousness.

    Were we to see beyond this matrix reality (which is an extremely limited perspective, that’s the idea) and practice new thoughts, new beliefs, new energies, along with the naturally following new awareness of our multi-dimensional communication, then as an awakened collective, we could, indeed, dissolve this reality you describe by shifting away from the fear based belief that we (in general, anyone) are powerless. Not like close your eyes and *poof* it’s gone. But one can begin a process through intention and follow it.

    In a system like we’ve got going, which is what has been ruling the world, there are a lot of dominoes to fall, but it doesn’t happen all at once. It has to start somewhere, however, and it’s anyone’s guess where that would be, so we follow our own logic and intuition about this, from whatever vantage point we come.

    Best I can do with this in this forum. I’ve appreciated the exchange, oldhead. It’s given me a lot of clarity in the process. I’ve thought about this, too, for a good long while. Been the main theme for me in all of this (you know, my obssession with “stigma” and all), and I’ve applied a lot of changes which have brought fruitful results. I believe that can be generalized, but we’ll see what happens from here. No one can predict the future, but I do feel we can lend a powerful and conscious hand in creating a desirable one.

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  • “an exclusive or snobby attitude in social interactions.”

    No, what I mean by “snobby” is feeling superior–and believing one truly is–to others, based on the power which one wields in society, and of course money is a big factor in this, but also “formal education,” the right kind of profession, etc. And everyone else is “lesser than” and if you are “poor,” then something is wrong with you. My mother would think that person has a drug or “mental” problem.

    I worked in retail for 17 years, quite successful at it. They were waiting for me to do something of value with my life. I was happy, living freely and independently, all the while diagnosed and on “meds,” as this was after my initial breakdown. Go figure.

    My dad was always railing against “capitalism,” and lived like a king.

    It is more than an attitude, it is a falsely projected and extremely distorted (and somewhat grotesque) perception of people (including their self-perception), ALL based on “class,” and specifically, how much money one has and what one does for a living, and even whether or not they read the “right literary books” and understand and can discuss with knowledge current political events, etc. This is how they would measure the worth and quality of a person. That’s what I mean by “snobby,”–when there is a right vs wrong way to be in that world, based on the most superficial stuff I can imagine. Quite the tiny little box in which to fit, talk about oppressive!

    “the essence of capitalist slavery lies in its economic and material dominance of the Earth and ALL relations between people.”

    I honestly think that one can have power over this if one can perceive it on a bigger picture level. The power to “dominate” relies on the perceived powerlessness of those who are dominated, and that is done by programming, propoganda, and fear-mongering. Get beyond all of that and don’t buy into the fear, trust the process of change and transition, feel that trust over the fear (because one can perceive past the programming which is personally empowering because that is what returns to us when we “de-program”/awaken), and another reality emerges, which transcends this toxic matrix. I think this is where “expanding consciousness” is most relevant.

    So no, I am not saying it is an “attitude change” per se, but more of a shift in perspective, which is much more powerful and reality-altering than simply a change in “attitude,” to include more information which can be garnered by expanding consciousness and seeing beyond the illusions which make one feel trapped in the matrix. For me, that has been the path to freedom, and I am living it and manifesting from it. That is my new reality (and it is shared by my partner, I’m not alone in this).

    And you’re right, beyond this it is a very long discussion, not for this venue. But this is where I stand right now, based on what I’ve experienced and learned along the way. Still a matter of waking up, regardless of anything. That’s enough to bring hardy change in the moment, and it gets the ball rolling for even more expansive change.

    I do think it’s about “new consciousness” more than anything, and from that, a lot of inspiration comes while the system becomes more and more disempowered thanks to more and more awakening happening. Who needs “the system” (of any kind outside of ourselves) once we know our own power and self-resourcefulness?

    And I completely agree with your paranthetical statement at the end, that is my steadfast belief, as well.

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  • “Nothing, and/or nobody, can transcend class based identities or ideologies until we ultimately get rid of classes from the planet.”

    Richard, I see it as the other way around–class-based identity will disappear when people transcend these identities and ideologies based on power/money/class hierarchies. That would be having the power and courage to individuate from mainstream society and “the system” at large, and to disidentify from that. No one needs permission, it is our right to do so.

    I think it’s an internal identification, first, which has to be taught and internalized, we’re not born with it. I will disagree about “nothing and/or nobody can transcend” these because in order to move along with my healing at the core, this is exactly what I had to do, and honestly, my life reflects this now. I have ascended this way of thinking because it is how I was able to integrate my experience. I may still inadvertently find myself in an old framework of thinking, but I catch it and shift this to update because it is my transition in thinking via self-reflection.

    I come from this class crap. My family is extremely classists and snobby and othering (they used to be called “bleeding heart liberals, back in the day), and buys into all of this, mainstream is their mantra. I used to have this framework in my thinking, so of course I was perpetually in conflict between who I was in that culture, the role which I played in the system, to keep the dysfuncational system going vs. who I am, truly, creatively and spiritually, beyond all of this. Of course, that challenges the system, so it was quite an internal battle, until I got my clarity around it.

    So to heal, I had to ascend class-based identity and ideology, which I had programmed inside me.

    I’m not sure how much weight personal experience carries with you, but this is my example, which is an exception to your claim that “nobody can transcend class ideology until there are no classes.” No, it’s the other way around. Start transcending these, live your life as such, and class division will fall by the wayside. Starts with the individual walking their talk–the integrity which is sorely lacking in class-based mainstream. Changes everything.

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  • Steve, how is this discussion off topic? It’s not only exactly about how stigma serves to divide society, it is also a perfect example of it. We’re each coming from our own perspectives, why does there need to be agreement where there cannot be?

    “I really think we’re all in position to hear where both parties are coming from,” kind of reminds me of “there are fine people on both sides,” with all due respect. It may very well be so, but the truth of the matter is I think we are hearing all sides, and from that, we can make a decision about which side we feel makes the most sense and has clarity that rings true, and we go with it.

    Some perspectives are irreconcilable, and we need to know that. If you moderate when things get heated, we will not get to the truth. This seems totally relevant to the issues put forth in this article.

    This is a revolution for change, away from oppression and toward truth, however that comes about. And if we can’t use our voices authentically, then we are oppressed and no truth comes to light. Please reconsider.

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  • “You seem to want a movement that is divided up into multiple groups formed primarily by “identity” and not by class (or one’s ideological stance against psychiatry).”

    A movement “divided up?” I thought this was about cohesion and unity in the collective which transcended class-based identities, given that this is such a core source of suffering in our world. If not, I’m in the wrong place.

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  • Richard, for me, these notions have personal value of the highest magnitude, and I wouldn’t qualify these in any way, e.g. quotation marks. They are vital in healing from systemic abuse, which is overtly DISempowering. It is how I healed from oppression in my life, by knowing my power and working it, embodying it, trusting it, and refining it. I believe that’s how to do it, can’t think of any other way, it is the antidote, I cannot emphasize this enough. So that, first, without question.

    I do agree that collective empowerment, determination, and focus are what will strengthen any endeavor, and indeed these would be fundamental in sociopolitical economic change. I imagine most people want this these days and many are working toward that endeavor, myself included, from a variety of angles. Not quite sure how to make it happen, but we’re doing the best we can one step at a time in the midst of social and global chaos.

    What we do know with certainty is what is *not* working, which is just about everything status quo. But there are a variety of options regarding how to make progress, and where to focus from here, and people fight quite a bit over that, repeatedly and vehemently, and not sure core issues or disagreements ever quite get resolved. That keeps a rift in the collective, which diminishes its power.

    When those who comprise the collective disagree on a fundamental point, like how to focus the collective or what would constitute “freedom,” for example, how would that be resolved? Can’t be by force, manipulation or control, nor without transparency, otherwise oppression would simply be being repeated.

    This is where I feel personal empowerment comes in, to which everyone in a collective is entitled. What kind of result would that bring, I wonder? Would the collective split over irreconcilable differences (and lose numbers)? Or would the collective expand into something new (for a change)? Certainly people tire of the same old arguments, debates, and conflicts time and time and time again. No change there.

    So how will personal, creative, financial, and spiritual freedom come about from all this? I have achieved these, and two of my most powerful tools were my self-empowerment and self-determination. I’m also very flexible in my thinking and respected the process without trying to control it, other than to steer it toward the outcomes I most desired. Still, I had to trust this most powerful and awesome process of transformation, it has interesting and unexpected twists and turns. It is a supremely creative process when we take down the old to establish a new. All of this was extermely helpful in embracing change, and kept me grounded and looking forward rather than back over my shoulder.

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  • “For society and political movements to FULLY advance beyond capitalism, we must also advance beyond terminology and labels such as “SELF-empowerment”, SELF-determination” etc.”

    For society to advance at all, people need to feel their own empowerment. For me, self-empowerment and self-determination were vital to my healing my heart, spirit, mind, and life, following a period of profound disempowerment specifically via psychiatric treatment and going through social services system. If these were not to be my priority, to take back my power, apply it, embody it, and use it to create and support my life, then I am limited in my ability to accomplish anything, other than burning myself out.

    To expect me or anyone here to dismiss these as products of “identity politics” and the like feels very stifling and oppressive to me, Richard, with all due respect.

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  • Same for me re you both and the many on here whose voices are refreshingly honest and unique. I’ve been influenced deeply by the many examples of clear, direct, and heartfelt truth-speaking, and the courage and trust to be persistent in these vital endeavors, despite the repeated frustrations. As long as more and more clarity comes to light, we are making progress.

    Thank you, Rosalee and Kid3019, and many others, for the enormous inspiration, and encouragement. To me, THAT is “the movement” which brings the most rippling and expansive change, from the core outward. It is real and true and from the heart. How lovely were that to become the new normal!

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  • Amen! Yes, the truth is out there far and wide and spreading fast now. Everyone knows there is a struggle at present between intergity & authenticity vs. mass lying, projecting, and social programming for the sake of power, etc., and that we’ve all been deeply affected by this, one way or another, emotionally, financially, psychologically, physically, etc.

    The fog is lifting, thank God, indeed. Lots of healing happening from this awakening, goes hand in hand. I can feel relief from that.

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  • I’d say Rachel’s comment is the period at the end of the sentence. Perfectly and succinctly put. I can’t think of anything to add.

    I’d focus now on allowing and supporting unhappy people to make any positive changes they feel compelled to make, with pure validation. Not to force, it’s still a choice. But it’s a choice which, personally, I would choose to support best I knew how, when asked to do so.

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  • “Loving oneself is not sufficient to change the world”

    It is sufficient to heal, grow, and take care of ourselves. No need to think beyond that. And then, one’s personal reality changes, it has to, happens without effort. If we are feeling good about ourselves, we have good boundaries and do not tolerate sabotaging energies. Everything changes when we shift our self-perception.

    No one person needs the burden of changing the world. That would be an oppressive grandiose responsbility and an impossible task. However, the more people who practice unconditional self-love, then more the world changes simply from that shift. That would be mass awakening.

    This is a collective consciousness, not contingent upon one individual, but more so, on the various individuals in the collective to work in harmony. That would depend on everyone’s will, focus and intention. So there is another energy at play here, unseen and unpredictable.

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  • Yes, I completely agree.

    And what is most striking. infuriating, and disheartening to me is how incredibly challenging if not absolutely impossible to get these basic points across, of harm being done and rights being violated–without question and repeatedly and systemically for how long now?–to the point of it coming to an abrubt halt, or even a gradual tapering of abuse, when brought to their attention, and in fact, it just rears its ugly little head again, in the moment. It is the weirdest, and most toxic, game–

    “you are hurting me”
    “no I’m not”
    “yes you are”
    “it is you not me”
    “no really, here’s the proof, clearly, when you said this or that, it made me feel bad, I felt pain and it had this negative effect on my thoughts, emotions, and life”
    “you are this, you are that, I know better, shut up, take your meds, good bye” and for some
    “will that be cash or credit?”

    That’s my version of it, in any event, in a nutshell.

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  • I love TZ and just about anything written by Rod Serling. He had his finger on the pulse of the culture and of the universe, I believe. I watch episodes from time to time, and I’m often struck by the foreshadowing. His insight into humanity was uncanny. Many, many seriously brilliant episodes, and it set a standard rarely if ever matched these days. That was great television, when it had artistic merit. Nowadays, blech…talk about taking a nosedive!

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  • Sam and Steve, this has been an extremely thought-provoking and productive discussion, thank you both so much for sharing your deep thoughts and personal experiences, and for hearing mine. At this point, my brain is about done with this for now but my heart and mind both feel open and fulfilled from this dialogue.

    Regardless of theories and healing modalities, I believe it is obvious that we are all coming from a sense of deep love for our partners and kids. I don’t have children, but it is easy to feel the love you both have for your kids and of course you want them to have the best experience of life they possibly can. Where this is concerned, I cannot see the relevance of whether or not we agree on the details of any perspective. If our motivator is love, then the feeling in our hearts would the same, our universal connector.

    And finally, as someone who experienced first hand the debilitation and craziness of barbaric systemic social and instintutional abuse–which includes the abuse my body took on from a plethora of psych drugs over a period of time–my personal quest in life is to help others who have experienced this abuse to learn to love themselves in a way that they will not unwittingly go into self-sabotage mode, which is what gets internalized going through this stuff.

    Mostly, I want those who have experienced chronic abuse to respect themselves enough to fight back and assert their God-given rights as a human being. No one can do it for another, really, if we want to feel our own empowerment, and that is vital in healing, especially after experiencing this kind of abuse which can be very disorienting from the gaslighting, as we talk about often on here. This needs healing, the same way our bodies do when something is not working for us.

    I support people using their own voice and trusting it to move them forward. Sometimes people cannot use their own voice at first, but it is a process because I know eventually we all have the power to get ourselves through life’s challenges. I ask people to not listen to negative feedback and programming, which inhibits our belief and trust in our own processes. That’s how others can get inside of us and try to manipulate and control. That’s part of the abuse system.

    Healing from systemic abuse is a process of releasing old programming and naysaying voices and finding one’s own truth and learning how to trust it, embody it, and manifest from it. That is how anyone gets into synch with their own lives, by walking our talk. That would be universal.

    For the record, this is my “psychiatric abuse survivor perspective.”

    Done for now, thanks again, and a happy Sunday to you both!

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  • Ok, for the sake of making my point here, I’ll take that all as fact without quibbling over statistics or generalizations. I get what you are saying here. I’d say that even a mere 5% aligned with and acting on truth is more powerful than 95% aligned with lies, corruption, and greed because that is a house of cards. Its only hope of staying up and “in power” is if people do not wake up and continue to live in fear, especially of “the system.”

    And I think it’s way more than 5% of the world popluation waking up and already awakened to the bullshit we’ve been fed on every level, even to this fiasco they call “the mental health industry.” Yes, many people continue to worship the temple of psychiatry, for whatever reasons, but tons of folks get it, too. And the truth is more powerul than the lies, so we just need more and more people awake to the truth. And that’s what we’re doing right now, best we can, and how we live our lives, in general.

    And I don’t know, as to those 95% (or whatever that number would be), I say fuck ’em and get over it. That is THEIR awakening to do. I’ve already had mine.

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  • “If it were recognized by our people that science is irrelevant to the debate over whether society’s fears should trump individual rights to liberty, then we could begin what will be the long struggle to win such a debate.”

    This needs debate? Society needs to heal its myriad social phobias because no, of course mass fear and hysteria and the prejudice created from this should not overpower individual rights and liberties. That would be a fundamental belief in any movement against oppression and marginalization based on othering and disempowerment. That is a society run by bigotry, and how we end up with lies and corruption, our status quo. Those with ANY kind of stigma against them (and there are so many) would be targeted, as they are in our current society. That’s a corrupt hierarchy, because it is based on bigotry, illusion, and lies so the higher ups/elite can thrive on the energy of those marginalized and dehumanized, at their unwitting sacrifice. That’s common, it is already status quo and has been!

    How that healing and shift would occur and how it would look and where to start would be more my questions for discussion, not whether or not it should be done. Appeasing societal fears is what we do now, so continuing to do it is more status quo, no change. I certainly hope that no one here feels that social fears should trump the human rights and civil liberties of others. That would be deep paradox around here.

    Anyone remember the classic Twlilight Zone episode, The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street? It is exactly about this. Rod Serling was astute and ahead of his time.

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  • One last thing about this for now–

    “there are plenty of outside influences, such as racism, sexism, etc., oppressive schools and churches, our mobile, disconnected society (lack of community), and other influences which can result in anxiety, depression, anger, distractedness…”

    Steve, my thought around this is that these are products of social dysfunction, I don’t believe we are born “racists” or “sexists” or “disconnected.” In the latter case, it’s quite the contrary. We are born physically connected to the mother, which has to be physically severed so that the kid can move on toward independence, one learned or intuitive step at a time. Our processes are inside us, unfolding as we go, and somehow, due to the nature of our dependence at birth, we intuitively seek guidance and to get our basic core needs met. Is this there for us how we need–and naturally expect–it to be?

    I believe that issues of divisiveness such as homophobia, for example, and even classism, have to be taught by example, and internalized, if we choose to take on the beliefs and perceptions of those around us. We are not born to hate and fear people, and to feel disconnected from them; that comes later, or not. How would that be determined and where does it begin?

    And most importantly, is it possible to come from this dysfunction and then do the kind of internal shift necessary to overcome it, and then ripple that out into society as examples of healing from this? That would be a transformative shift in multiple ways.

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  • Sam, I think this is a good discussion to have, although right up front I will confess to my limitations of online communication in this case, at least for me this would be a problem. While worth having, I also believe this would be a long and somewhat multi-perspective conversation to have, to give it justice.

    I like what you are saying, too, while at the same time there are many considerations among the various ways we experience relationships on their varying levels of dependence and co-dependence vs. interdependence, as I’ve seen you talk about before. I’d say these can be different stages, and at each stage, different boundary needs would be exhibited.

    So really, we’re talking about allowing relationships to unfold in a mututally respectful way, rather than expecting things from each other without consideration of how we affect each other on so many levels. Relationships are complicated, and to my mind, in a mutually satisfying relationship, everyone’s needs would be respected as a natural REFLEX from within the relationship, an understood boundary, rather than struggling for competing needs. Relationships grow, expand and change over the years, and as we all know, love cannot be forced. It can only occur naturally.

    So your vision is lovely, Sam, and *ideally* (big emphasis on that word) this would be easy, to create a harmonious support system where we all felt supported and not sacrificed by a system–whether it be a two-person relationship system or a social, political, or institutional system.

    Can everyone benefit and prosper and feel supported in their well-being and life goals and heart’s desires in said system? If so, then no question this would be desirable, at least to me it would, seems win/win.

    But to achieve this, we’d need a grandiose awakening to happen, where everyone would actually be on the same page in some basic and fundamental way, don’t you think? How on Earth would that occur, with all our diversity along with the tendency to fight and compete? Not a rhetorical question, but also not a simple “yes or no,” I’m wondering, can it be done? As of now, that remains to be seen. But in the event that this could occur, theoretically, it would not be easy to get there, I would imagine. That would be a matter of doing a lot of healing and awareness work, on everyone’s part.

    In the meantime, we can all do the best we can to support others when we can, and maybe even make an intention to raise our own bar a bit in this respect, to start noticing when we have opportunities to support someone in the moment, and take them.

    But if it is at our own sacrifice, then what have we gained? Is there a way we can support ourselves and others, without feeling we are sacrificing our own lives and well-being to do so? That just seems like a hamster wheel to me.

    Like I said, this would be a long and complex discussion with many facets of consideration–and practically every voice on the planet–if we’re talking about what is a mutually healthful relationship and then what is nurturing support and what are the obstacles to creating a functional community, etc., and how to overcome them. Everyone would have an opinion and vision about that, as per their own life experience and their own needs.

    We cannot control people, and we cannot control the feelings of others, or their needs. The more we try to control rather than actually support, the more we sink into a hole, because that is an inherent power struggle. That, I believe, has been proven by experience throughout the ages.

    So how to achieve harmony and whether or not is it possible or even desirable would take a while to sort through. Worth it, I think, but not in this venue. I think it would be a rather mammoth discussion, but one which would definitely bring great clarity, light and truth to the table. I think this is that important, and it seems you do, too, Sam. Are we still in disagreement somewhere?

    I’m not the “rugged individualist” you might think I am, I advocate for good support big time and I more than understand the value, power, and safety of having a healthy relationship, and for me it took some time to get there. We had many, many, many, many issues to work out, it was a big transition we went through as part of my personal healing from psychiatry.

    But there are times where we are caught without good support, that can happen in life as it did with me at one point, and for a while there, I had to figure it out on my own when my brain was totally out of whack from psych drugs withdrawal and I was suddenly not the person I had been for 40 years at that point, and at one point I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it through, seemed everyone around me was toxic at that point. I was no picnic to be around, either (not agnry, but dripping with fear and despondence and general negativity), but I was trying really hard to get on with my healing and experienced a lot of direct sabotage and found absolutely no one for this one period of time who could in the slightest support or advocate for me. That’s a dark-night-of-the-soul, exactly.

    I had to create my way out of that and consciously manifest what I needed along the way, and it took every ounce of will I had, which was not much at that point. Took years, and I had to recognize every bit of light which came my way until, finally, I experienced a turnaround and things started falling into place, and I was guided to where I needed to be, and my relationships personal and with life transformed because I learned to ground and center and come from an entirely new perspective which I had to apply and embody via new practices.

    But some people made this really, really hard for me, and it seems that is par for the course. This is where I discovered systemic bullying, abuse, and sabotage. It’s what I speak about the most, because it made my life so much harder with no need other than someone else’s ego (one after another after another) while I was doing my fucking hardest to get it together and working my ass off and producing and creating and moving forward, and some asshole would come along and try to undo all of that for me.

    I used this all as guidance, in the end, but I’m still angry about it, if you can’t tell. I have a hard time with bullies because they are so sabotaging to truth and light and social growth and expansion, but at the same time, I am really tired of seeing bullies win and get to the top because no one around them has the guts to do anything about it. When in my sphere, I call it out. I’ve done it in my family, in a work place, and all through my journey in the system, as I woke up and woke up and woke up.

    I say it is systemic because I went from person to person in the system and it was the exact same thing, like a script! Gatekeeper after gatekeeper, protecting the system, and often, the actual bully-in-charge, while at the same time indicating that we’re ALL being oppressed by this one person at the top, supposed to make me feel like a “comrade.” Total bullshit hypocrisy, and very typical of dysfunction–no conviction, talking out of both sides of mouth, just following orders. THAT is cognitive dissonance, how it begins and is perpetuated through a system.

    Of course, they were also being paid to protect the bully and the system, and I was looking for work, so that was easy for them to blow me off in favor of protecting the bully-in-charge.

    Until this enabling stops, we will experience unnecessary suffering from systemic abuse and society will be in perpetual chaos. I’d bet the farm on that.

    Calling out bullying does bring chaos to light, but it is short lived as social healing is occuring at that point, starting with truth speaking and breaking a dysfunctional system. Nature will take its course from there. That’s a process of change.

    Indeed, I would LOVE to live in a world where people do not have to go through dark night of the soul because they have nowhere safe to turn when they most need it and will only face scorn and judgment from people when they need to be seen for their courage, at their very least, more than anything. It is beyond awful and terrifying, but right now, this is what we’ve got. How to rise above this would be a good question to ask, imo, and an excellent problem to solve. Then and only then, would we have a shot at achieving social harmony and due justice for all.

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  • I don’t think deconstructing how suffering is created for the purpose of reversing this trend has anything to do with dismissing or minimizing traumas of life which are not about being the product of poor parenting. However, if your emphasis is on protecting people due to how they might interpret this on a personal and comparative level, then the discussion is extremely limited. Everyone’s issues and feelings have a place in the discussion, but not in a competitive way. That’s the road to nowhere, as far as making progress with all this goes.

    In the end, I still think that lack of emotional foundation due to poor parenting will make ANY situation harder to deal with in life. Whereas if a person has the good fortune of being born into an unconditionally loving and nurturing family where everyone is valued for who they are and what they bring to the community, they will still face social and personal challenges, and will have all the emotions which make us human, but with a built-in foundation and more than likely, a positive sense of self, so the perspective would be from a different vantage point.

    So yes, life deals everyone blows, no one is immune from grief and confusion and disorientation and disillusionment and living in a world filled with all kinds of strife, war, abuse, and injustices. But if we are raised to feel good about ourselves and empowered in life, then more than likely we can tackle these issues with confidence.

    Without this internalized positive sense of self, we are more than likely going to crumble from enormous fear and anxiety because we do not have the confidence, perspective, or internal sense of support that we otherwise would. That’s how I see it at this point, in any event.

    We’re talking about going into life with vs. without the foundation of having a sense of self. The quality of early childhood rearing would speak directly to this, and it makes all the difference in anyone’s experience of life, I would imagine, it stands to reason. In fact, I’d stick my neck out a bit here and venture to say that this is universal.

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  • “I only wanted to be clear that there are other people who have good attachments but experience other kinds of abuse and trauma and oppression”

    Yes, and that “good attachment” internalized is actually an innate sense of safety which serves as an internal regulator and inherent balancer. I don’t see how having internalized healthy attachment would translate into anything as per DSM. Chronic anxiety, depression, and/or dissociation would all be the result of not having the experience of healthy, interdependent attachment. When we have it, our paths are much, much clearer and we manifest way better. Why would that person need a shrink?

    I think the attachment issue is core to all of this, and can make all the difference to a person’s psyche and their experience of the world. And it can be acquired as an adult, if missed in childhood, it’s just going to be a bit harder work in some respects. That’s a good awakening to have, and very powerful, transformative healing.

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  • I believe that, too, which is why I said, “Where we cross the line, I think, is when we *diagnose* behavior, or use it to assume something about a person based on speculation or projection.”

    If someone’s behavior gets my attention, it is usually because I am confused by it. And if I’m puzzled by someone’s behavior with whom I’m in some kind of relationship where communication is important, or it feels out of synch with what they are saying, then I tend to ask about it, for the sake of mutual clarity.

    If I find the behavior to feel assaultive, I go by that feeling and get out of the way. Maybe it wasn’t intended to be, and I’ll give that person the benefit of the doubt once. But more than once is enough clarity for me, to just walk away. There’s no good reason to put with repeatedly assaultive or invasive behaviors, REGARDLESS of the reason for it. Best medicine for that is distance.

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  • Yep, it is just that, and I think the notion of “healing from psychiatry” is the new ground we’re on here. And it is indeed empowering to put it all into perspective and have it validated by the experiences of so many others, following all of that gaslighting, denial, and projecting. They (psychiatry, et al) do make our minds spin and spin and spin, don’t they?

    “Insidious” is the word I use all the time to describe this, because that’s exactly what it is. I’m so glad to know that you have felt uplifted in this regard by what you have read here. We are so much more powerful than what that particular community would want us to believe. And they go to great lengths to make sure we are not accessing it!

    Most mh clincians I’ve met (starting in graduate school, when they were my colleagues and professors) are extremely insecure and fear-based, so they need the support of an intimidating and bullying system or they, themselves, feel powerless. It’s rather an interesting transference, I think, but still, it is toxic for clients–and society–as we know all too well.

    You have a really powerful voice, Kid3019, and I encourage you to keep using it. You know truth, no doubt about that, and you speak it with precision and light. Thank you again for that. Spread the awakening!

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  • Well said, Sam. You are giving examples of what I’m talking about. No blame or resentment, but it is necessary to keep raising awareness for the sake of healing these splits in present time. It can be done, that’s my only point.

    Denying the truth only keeps things chronic and spiraling downward. Owning a hard truth is where we experience freedom, and that kind of healing ripples far and wide into the world.

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  • With a sibling, it can often be with the worst of intentions. Sibling rivalry can lead to deliberate sabotage, especially if it follows the sibs into adulthood, ala Cain and Abel. That’s a reality in many families, although not so overt, perhaps, at first glance. But there are patterns that emerge in a family.

    Some parents play their kids off of each other, inciting competition for their love and/or approval, by creating an alliance and then changing teams when #1 child disagrees and displays their independent mindedness, things like that, which would easily confuse the issue of “attachment,” and which, in turn, would potentially create a mess for people in their lives and relationships. That is confused and confusing mirroring.

    There are lots of clever and highly manipulative ways to inflict dysfunction in a family or the community at large, out of ego needs and spite, or just plain lack of conscientiousness. No good intentions there, I’m afraid, just a need to control. And they are hard pressed to give it up, at all cost.

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  • These visionary-artists had their own brand of enlightenment. I think they were awesome.

    That was a Renaissance time. We should be continuing this trend now, to lead us out of the Dark Ages, I think. Although with all that has changed so drastically with respect to communication, transparency, and the lightning speed dissemination of information worldwide, it would be an interesting update and integration. People are way more awake now, and more than truth-seeking, they/we are truth-speaking. I believe the truth has come to light, and it is a matter of having it lead the way, rather than the lies that have been causing confusion, chaos, and sheer madness.

    Still, that was a very powerful and universally felt movement against political corruption, social programming, and toxic deceit. I’d like to see more of that power in these endeavors to end oppression. Perceptive and visionary art is extremely powerful, and speaks volumes with tremendous efficiency and impact.

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  • “…a person in excellent communication with another can actually invent ‘techniques’ on the spot, specific to that person. Eric Erickson said, ‘Therapy has to be reinvented with each client.’ I believe he was right.”

    Kudos, Steve, I agree wholeheartedly and I think this is vitally important. Healing is a present time endeavor which we *create* as we go. It is a moment by moment thread to follow by which we learn our process. This is appropriate to our uniqueness. In the moment is when we have the power to make a shift.

    For the clincians I’ve known, the problem is that if it’s not “in the book,” they are lost. If it doesn’t fit into a model, then it cannot exist. If this or that method doesn’t work, then you are either disordered or treatment resistant. This cannot work. It is why people do not heal. How can they when, in essence, they cannot be seen or heard and are only stereotyped and dehumanized?

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  • Thanks, Sam, I guess that’s what I was responding to. While I definitely can see a lot of truth in “attachment theory,” the video does come off as simplistic and “cookie-cutterish,” as you say well.

    I find that to be the case most often in how academic research along these lines, and the teaching of the theories from that, comes across, as though we are all the same, or should be–meaning predictable and controllable. And if not, then the projection would be that something is wrong with that person.

    To me, that is the heart of “dysfunction,” because one person’s truth is blatantly discounted simply because they don’t appear to “fit in.” That’s how oppression works, exactly. That’s the programming.

    How these things are presented and taught are important, because otherwise it becomes just more social programming. The idea that we’re each unique and therefore can respond in so many varying ways to attachment or lack thereof is way important, and can be missing from the education, as it is here. It’s too vital to leave out.

    It can make all the difference between being helpful information which we can apply toward finding our wholeness vs. social programming propoganda that “everybody reacts like this, and if you don’t something is wrong with you or you are lying or pretending,” something to that effect–perhaps the “sheeple theory?”

    It is a fine line, and I like to make the clear distinction between those two competing agendas because people can buy into the simplistic stuff, and start trying to fit square pegs into round holes. That is the purpose of that kind of programming, and keeps people off kilter and out of balance via perpetual sheer frustration and chronic distress.

    We HAVE to keep factoring in that we are all unique, and that there are exceptions to every rule and theory. That is a truth worth paying attention to, for the purpose of evolution, as opposed to snubbing or negating it from denial and avoidance, which is where stuckness and repetition happen.

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  • “…unless they are smart enough to understand that they’re being scammed.”

    I’d say “awake” enough. And waking up happens while one is in the middle of the experience, a matter of being humbled by life.

    Awakening is a matter of discovering the truth of a debilitating situation while on the inside of it, and then having to figure out how to get out of it safely and take back one’s power. That’s a step by step transformative process that requires expanding one’s consciousness as one moves along that trajectory, from being scammed to awakening to the toxic oppression of said scam, to becoming free. That’s where being smart comes in, as well as intuitive, courageous, creative, flexible and determined.

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  • “The shocking reality for a lot of people once they graduate from these programs and start working in the field is the discovery that the mental health system is actually an institution or manifestation of oppression. They learn that it is a textbook example of structural violence.”

    This is perfectly said and exactly my awakening. It even took a few times being hit over the head with this truth at a few different agencies, and it finally sunk in how systemic this was, the norm. Thanks for this powerful and clear articulation.

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  • Thank you for offering your insider perspective from the professional point of view. This is what doesn’t at all surprise me the most about what you write above, and yet it is still what would alarm me the most–

    “I have also been witness to shoddy and rushed work, clients who deserve better but don’t know what to expect.”

    I shudder to think what one would find were one to follow the thread of that slip-shod “work.” I would call clients who do not know what to expect “unsuspecting.” That’s like being told “sit here and wait for the next bus” not even imagining that there might an avalanche about to crush you from behind because of someone’s clerical or error-in-judgment “oops!” And yet, it is commonplace. Rushed client work can lead to all kinds of tragedy, including suicide from blatant neglect, for one thing.

    The system, itself, is burned out, and I think it’s because all the pretense and misguidedness of it is catching up with it. When a system holds no truth or light, it is a house of cards. I don’t see how it can be replenished when at least practically everyone (if not absolutely everyone) in it is burned out, and, more than likely, quite discouraged. That means they are burning out their clients.

    That’s what I would call a really bad ripple into the collective and quite toxic to society, like nuclear waste. It really does need to stop, if it can only create burnout to anyone who gets near it. I can’t see it any other way.

    With all due respect and with compassion for your position, I do think that trying to fix the system is, indeed, quixotic. Less so is the idea that society can not only survive without it, it can actually thrive and evolve. I think that is a way more realistic possibility than the idea that the system can ever be anything but a drain on society and its humanity, as it only has been forever since its inception (whenever that was) really, to my mind.

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  • Thank you for watching the clip, and for your kind words, especially in the face of my criticism. That shows grace, and I respect that a great deal.

    The only reason I can go against the “medical model” in favor of promoting holistic healing, is because of my own experience with this. “Traditional treatment” (psych drugs and psychotherapy) led me into deteriorating health on all levels emotional, physical, and spiritual and my life became a catastrophe as a result, leading me scarily close to death; whereas a different paradigm of healing is what allowed me to heal from ALL of this, including addressing the core issues which led me into seeking support in the first place, and integrate my experience and ultimately live a good life, paying forward what I learned.

    What you describe is horrible and clearly shows how deeply systemic these issues are, and all based on mythology. Many of us correlate the effects of neurotoxins with suicidal thoughts and feelings. For me, it started going on the drugs, and then coming off of them, 18 years ago. I love my life now, and I am completely healthy. I cannot say this was the case when I was receiving “mental health services,” and a big part of that was the horrible feeling of being discriminated against and receiving all of these negative projections which had nothing to do with who I am, and which, in turn, created a negative relationship between me and soceity on the whole and caused my rights to become compromised, for no good reason other than bigotry! I cannot even describe that feeling, it has to be experienced to understand it. At best, it is terrifying.

    So I hope your work can continue to move society in the right direction regarding the psych drugs (I cannot get myself to call them “medication” btw, for me it was literally poison), but again, my point about the mh systems and communities is the utter lack of personal regard and respect for clients and patients which can keep a person in their triggers and chronic state of anxiety when they are trying to heal. This would require a shift on the part of professionals in how clients are perceived (as whole human beings, regardless of one’s temporary state of being due to life issues), and also on the part of the clients to feel more empowered in that community.

    The way it stands now and especially from what you are describing, seems the client/patient is powerless because they are at the whim of a clinician’s fear of the system. That is a big problem because that not only causes huge anxiety for EVERYONE concerned, it is usually part of the reason people seek help in the first place. Dysfunctional families make their scapegoats feel powerless and double bound. Healing would require this to be remedied, so it would require a functional community, not one in which they once again feel powerless.

    Thank you for your time and for the exchange, Dr. Furman, I’m very appreciative. It has been very valuable and informative for me, and I hope in some way this has expanded your awareness around the “client perspective” a bit as food for thought. Have a good weekend!

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  • Dr. Furman, I also wanted to leave a short video clip as a response to yours. This is 10 minutes from a film I made in 2011 with 5 other people, called Voices That Heal. All 6 of us have been through “mental health services” in our lives. We’ve since moved on in different ways, and I, personally, have no connection with any part of that world and community, outside of this website. I operate and am grounded in a healing community which has nothing at all to do with “psychology,” but more so, mind/body/spirit holistic well-being. Other than that, I am a teacher and musician in my community, well situated.

    The film in its totality is 96 minutes and covers a lot about childhood trauma and how that unfolded in our lives as adults. But this particular 10 minutes is from an on-film discussion mixed with a bit of interview and public presentation, in which we share our feelings regarding the fatalistic messages we received from the “mental health” community, per se, which I feel is what creates something called “chronic illness,” when, in reality, it is nothing of the kind. This is exactly where I see change in belief and paradigm needing to happen if the world is to move forward from injustice and oppression via discrimination in the “mental health” world at all at this point.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN0-m6nhUIE

    I, in turn, am curious to know what you think of my video, when you get a moment.

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  • Dr. Furman, thank you for responding to my feedback and for offering this video to clarify your statement. I agree with what Stephen says, and I will also add that what I noticed that is the same problem as with any of these “methods” is that the “othering” (marginalizing) factor remains in tact, meaning that there is still a power and safety issue here, which, in reality, can be dangerous and harmful to people dealing with distress from life trauma. This would be not only not helpful, but potentially retraumatizing.

    I do my own groups for healing–and it is not group therapy, people do not sit around and simply talk about their issues looking for ego validation, we actually move forward with everything to create solutions–and I am extremely mindful of what energy I am putting out, and take full responsbility when the feedback challenges this. I grow, heal, and evolve along with everyone in the group, and just as transparently. I also hold myself responsible for how I hold the space, which is to be with mindful neutrality–allowing, not controlling.

    Otherwise, a group can easily get stuck in a familial pattern, causing people to simply repeat their own dysfunctional past and never getting off of that family dynamic treadmill–which can, indeed, occur, that kind of personal core shift for someone, with systemic change, but not if you have it divided up between “we are the professionals” and “you are the ones with issues.” That would be the systemic change necessary for full healing at the core. This division would have to be seen for the illusion that it really is, and there would be a new perspective to consider. Who are the group members, which would include facilitators, on equal footing?

    You do realize, don’t you, that only one group in that equation is getting paid while the ones not getting paid might be getting drained and retraumatized?

    There are other issues, but to me this is where I always see a problem with these groups run by “mental health professionals.” I’ve been in so, so many over the years, and healing groups of varying kinds and power dynamics and ways of holding the energy of the group. I honestly do not feel this is the best way to do it, with that core belief in place, that “we are independent and you are needy” along with “and we’re getting paid for it.” This is where I feel things are most off balance in “the system” to the point of systemic cruelty. It is dehumanizing.

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  • A bit OT but an interesting tangent, I think–

    Frankly, if you want a model for social change through heart consciousness, watch the movie 9 to 5. Interestingly enough, the 3 oppressed women in the film get their ideas for “mutiny” while smoking a joint. And what they imagined and desired to happen became a reality for them (which was not real but the three of them thought the same thing, and acted on that group delusion) based on a series of synchroncities, and it led to revolutionary change in the workplace, which worked for everyone, and for the greater good, and the asshole got what he deserved, simply by a twist of fate.

    Fun movie, at least, and some basic truths to it, early 80’s style. Can life imitate art? I wonder…

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  • True, some people are buried deep in their trauma and oppression, thanks to being chornically mistreated and/or misguided, which creates a great deal of resistance due to overwhelming fear and lack of trust. Wherever the light can start to come in, hopefully it will reach as many as possible.

    “‘psych injury’ affects all of us, it’s just how much our coping mechanisms are out of step with accepted cultural norms.”

    That is a very interesting statement. We’ve said in this thread that we need a “new normal.” Perhaps coping mechanisms should be taken into account when envisioning and creating a new system or society, like part of social evolution, having morphed into a new way of being, based on a new understanding of what it means to be human.

    Would it lead to greater social functionability, empathy, and inclusivity? Would it lead to reduction and eventual elimination of psych injury from family and social abuse? Quite possibly.

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  • I’d still put “psych injury” as priority because it is much easier to self-care and self-heal when you feel good about yourself, at the core, or at least that intention becomes a priority. Otherwise we can get discouraged more easily, continually think of reasons why “I can’t,” and generally get in our own way, to the point of self-sabotage, albeit unwittingly.

    Emotional abuse and the injuries thereof call for healing in this regard, to my mind, to higher self-worth and self-regard, and bringing the critical voices at least into perspective, if not shifting them altogether. Step by step process.

    Overall, though, healing from psych injury would be a mind/body/spirit issue. All 3 are vital components to our well-being. Different people’s process will dictate what to address, first, and then a natural process will unfold, like a thread to follow.

    The challenge is all the resistance to healing and the doubt that one can heal, which comes from those negative voices, thanks to the trauma in the first place. That’s why I say to, at least, start there, then one can support the body better with that intention, and things get taken care of simultaneously, and one can turn a corner where healing is happening quite quickly and noticeably, and more and more manifests to help and support us in the process. But the intention does have to be TO HEAL.

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  • ds_ghoste, I’m glad you brought this up and I’m way ahead of you.

    Years ago, as I was healing from psych drugs withdrawal, a medical intuit with whom I worked for a while taught me about gut health and good/bad bacteria, acidic vs. alkaline foods, inner ecology and how it relates to our mental clarity, grounding, and auto-immune system. And, yes, it correlates to “gut feeling.”

    I did The Body Ecology Diet by Donna Gates for 9 months pretty strictly, which is high alkaline foods to lower body acid and probiotics/cultured veggies to build healthy gut flora, which was not easy for a foodie like me! I love to cook, bake, and eat.

    But indeed, my gut was tattered from the psych drugs I had been taking, and also anti-biotics which had been prescribed to me (last time ever I took those or anything pharmaceutical, other than the occasional acetometaphine), and I worked hard to rebuild my inner ecology, which I did. It was amazing how it contributed to the clearing of the fog of withdrawal, and gave me sharper focus, while calming down my nervous system so that I could slow down my thinking a bit and relax in my body. That was an almost immediate result of starting this regimen, and it was a great relief to me right away. I could totally see and feel the value of tending to my gut health.

    This was about 14 years ago and to this day, I drink kefir every morning, and a raw veggie green smoothie. Rest of the day I eat what I want. I hardly ever get sick–an occasional allergy which clears up pretty quickly with a nettie pot and a few drops of collodial silver–and overall, I am healthier and more grounded and clear than I’ve ever been.

    So I agree with you, gut health is vital, core and basic. It effects our inner workings in many ways, so it’s good to keep healthy, balanced, and tended to.

    Also, in Chinese Medicine, there are warming foods and cooling foods, referring to how it affects our energy. Also great information when it comes to calming the nervous system by way of what we can naturally ingest, and what to avoid at certain times. Our systems can change and adapt, so we don’t always have to be so strict. But intially it requires diligent focus and strong intention.

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  • Rachel and Steve–I’m specifically talking about someone who feels confused and disoriented in a relationship, not realizing they are getting drained of energy. This is so common and the epitome of oppression (has to start somewhere), and for so many reasons having to do with “psych injury,” they believe they have no choice but to accomodate this dysfunction. All kinds of health and life problems arise from this, it is pure chronic stress.

    This is the intution I’m talking about, to trust that little voice way down deep inside, beyond the panel of critical voices, saying, “This is not your fault and you deserve better than this!” That is the first step to real freedom.

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  • I’d categorize behavior very generally, as respectful vs. disrepectful with respect to boundaries and personal space. It’s exceedingly challenging to be around people with no sense of boundaries. To do so would require a person to have a very strong sense of self, and to be individuated.

    Where we cross the line, I think, is when we *diagnose* behavior, or use it to assume something about a person based on speculation or projection. That, I think, is presumptuous, oppressive, controlling, and marginalizing, and is based on a bullshit “standard” of behavior which, as we all know, serves the elite to keep people under control, by cutting people off from their own truth.

    Overall, I think “behavior” is a category of communication. We can say more with our behavior than with our words. Still, it doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story, and often people so wrongly assume it does, starting with and especially mh clinicians. That’s where they go way wrong, I think, and end up sending people down a treacherous path, based on this false information to which they hold onto as though their living depended on it–which it does!

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  • I believe there is the possibility of one if people can acknowledge the “psych injury” factor in all of this with the focus to solve the problem with reason and compassion, rather than blame and judgment–which NEVER solves a problem. Even “abuser” and “victim” and the like are labels which are flexible. I think most of us have played various roles from time to time, without even realizing it. We’re not only human, we’re multi-facted. Besides, this can be a matter of perspective, but that’s another focus.

    But as long as an entire system revolves around draining unsuspecting people for the gain of the elite in the system, at all cost to the non-insider because it fights dirty and relentlessly when mirrrored accurately, then the system is status quo, regardless of the rhetoric of change, it is inauthentic. The prognosis for success here would be negative, to my mind.

    A more enlightened and functional system would mean acknowledgment of and healing these injuries, and certainly not making them worse with blatant insensitivity. That, in and of itself, would be instant change, because that would be a new system.

    But it cannot exist in conjunction with any dysfunctional system. I believe these two would be irrenconcilable because the dysfunctional system lives in denial and pretense whereas a functional system is based on truth and authenticity because it is safe to do so. All of this stress would just drop away in a system which were functional and trustworthy, because the people leading it by example would be.

    I think that lends itself to a lot of good potentials, but as far as “victory” goes and if there is one here, that remains to be seen. I do think it’s a relevant and practical inquiry, however, because it can lead to a newfound sense of personal freedom, when we free ourselves (individuate) from a dysfunctional system and heal the wounds from the injury caused by such negative and fear-based programming, which certainly takes its toll on a person. That basic shift can ripple in a good way in the world while at the same time, the old system would become disempowered because its “victims” are waking up and doing something about it, starting with taking back their power. That is where the healing begins, for all concerned.

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  • I think when our instincts are on track, the truth tends to reveal itself if we follow that intution. The problem with covert abuse such as gaslighting and backstabbing–and also chronic avoidance and snubbing, which can feel like abandonment and rejection (on purpose)–is that the abuser will twist reality in their favor, and relies on “group think” and the insecurities of their “victims” to create a false reality which is detrimental to the one person who is challenging the system, to “other” and marginalize them one way or another.

    When one is reeling from “psych injury,” it can be hard to think straight, the feelings can be so overpowering and disorienting. Kids and adults, both, can have a hard time convincing others they were or are being abused, even when it is right in front of their eyes. It can be denied by the community to protect the system. When the person complaining about abuse shows the evidence, it is twisted into something against the one taking it all on. (“You shouldn’t have said that to them,” “you are thin-skinned,” “it is your imagination,” and on and on). Mind fuck upon mind fuck.

    That is what I’d call “systemic abuse,” and is exactly to the letter what happens in the mh system and it happens in families. Knowing our truth is an important first step and not letting anyone in the system throw us into a state of self-doubt, which is what happens. Living by our truth in an oppressive situation is impossible, until we get out of that situation.

    It’s important, I think, to find someone who will believe you and who perceives it as you do, that you know you can trust and who will understand what you are up against. It’s a very tricky situation, and rich with healing and social change possibliities.

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  • The idea of intuiting others’ intentions and motivations doesn’t sit well with me, Steve. In the end, that can lead to false projections and chronic misunderstandings. Easy enough to ask a person if something is unclear, rather than to speculate.

    That’s one thing I don’t like about “psychotherapy,” when it ends up being about those projections because they are assuming so much and not asking the right questions, or any at all in most cases. No truth will come from that, only chronic frustration, I think.

    I’m talking more about an anxiety we can pick up when we are being drained of energy in a co-dependent relationship or dysfunctional situation such as what we’re talking about, that causes what we’re referring to here as “psychological injury,” at least how I am understanding this. It’s not just about “control,” it’s about thriving at the expense of others. EXACTLY what we complain about re psychiatry, et al.

    From the inside, it can be very hard to pick up, especially if that is one’s familiar. A covert abuser is not only subtle, they are also inconsistent and explain, rationalize, and justify things well, and keep people on a string one way or another–sometimes with money, that is one common way, but there are other carrots one can dangle to achieve same purpose–which essentially drains a person of their life force energy. Certain relationships make us more tired than nourished, I think it’s important to be aware of this in our lives, it affects our health and well-being.

    What to do about it can be not so clear. Those videos I talk about on YouTube are about healing from this kind of crazy-making abuse, which, as I’ve heard described by someone, and from my experience it’s true, can feel like an eggbeater in the brain. After talking to certain people, I’ve known the feeling.

    This is something that can heal, and needs to. It is extremely debilitating to be on the wrong end of what many call “narcissistic abuse.” Until one gets it, it does not appear so clear cut, for many reasons including believing we have no choice. Definitely an important awakening in one’s life, can lead to amazing life changes to discover and then heal from this. From feeling exhausted, fragmented, and powerless to feeling vital, whole, and powerfuand FREE–is the experience.

    I talk about this hoping to bring clarity to at least some. I’ve known so many people who have had this experience and so many online talking and writing about this, it’s not uncommon as we’re saying, and I think the info is really good. Helped me in all ways. Good to know one is not alone, as that is part of what gets programmed.

    It’s an extremely challenging situations because of the programming which becomes internalized. People can plant seeds in all kinds of ways to keep others dependent, and those beliefs become internalized, creating a negative field of focus from negative self-beliefs. That is way unhealthful in so many ways. And people can actually inflict this on another, it’s simply how they operate, learned from the previous generation. This is passed down if not healed.

    That’s where I’m hoping people don’t “get away” with something for too much longer, it’s gotten out of control at this point–that is, making people believe they are lesser than they are, exactly for the purpose of controlling them. That can make a person sick, crazy, or even kill them eventually, it can run so deep and pile on if unacknowledged. Happens all the time.

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  • The hard part for people being subjected to this kind of abuse is that very often, the “head abuser” is functioning behind a well-polished and established veneer of “philanthropy,” which, in reality, is false, they create and project an illusion about themselves. That was the case in, both, my family, and without a doubt, in the “mh” system. This is where the norm is way off, I think, when it buys into this kind of illusion and “functions” around it. Whomever calls it out becomes scapegoated, because it does not want to change–at all!

    Extreme passive-aggression and deceit, with complete disregard for another’s well-being, can be a blatant abuse of power, depending on the roles being played in a relationship. To me, this is the nature of insidious oppression and keeps people in a state of “injury” to the point where it feels like “normal.” Whereas in reality, it is causing suffering on an unseen (by the dysfunctional system) level. That would be a matter of those in the system waking up.

    One last thing I can’t resist adding, just occurred to me as I was thinking about this–when the abuser cries victim at being called out. That is a powder-keg of oppression. Yeah, been there, over it. It’s a bad, bad game and does a lot of deep damage to unsuspecting people. It’s a potentially lethal double-bind, no joke

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  • “…it’s so insiduous it’s often difficult even to identify.”

    Yes, this is what is happening now. Subtle and insidious, yet well placed comments, statements, insinuations, innuendo. That’s how it’s done. Reacting to it can make one seem off balance and “crazy.” Calling it out directly can make one seem delusional. This is what the abuser is after, how they get their sustenance from feeling “powerful.” Of course, it is an illusion, this is not true power.

    Then there is the negative and false gossip to other members of the community, to destroy a person’s credibility and to form alliances against a person, to marginalize them. Backstabbing and betrayal are so often justified by abusive people from fear and paranoia, and are common ways to abuse people insidiously. That is the essence of a dysfunctional community, when that absuer/gossip is believed without question, and everyone is playing into the fear now.

    So many ways insidious abuse can occur, and some people are masterful at it. I don’t think reason ever works with this, although someone subjected to these can usually put 2 and 2 together. But it wil not be acknowledged in a dysfunctional community, and in fact will be denied up and down all day long, and with insults and shaming to boot. I call that “feeding the vampires.”

    I believe this is best dealt with on an intuitive level. If you feel you are being abused in these or other insidious ways and cannot quite put your finger on it or everyone else tells you you’re crazy, TRUST YOUR GUT INSTINCT! That is your truth! Don’t ignore that voice.

    This is a hard spot to be in, but more and more people are awakening to insidious abouse from a dysfunctional environment. We have many examples now in the news, gaslighting is front and center in politics at this point. That’s why we call it “the norm.” I would love to see these systems break and fall into little pieces in favor of integrity and social/community/family functionalism. That would be tremendous change in the world, and I believe people would be healthier, in general. Stands to reason.

    If you really want to dig into this, do a YouTube search on “Narcissistic Abuse,” and tons and tons of videos will pop up from all kinds of every day people recovering from this. Many of us have had to.

    PS–I had a brother and a boss like this. Keyword: HAD. I am estranged from my brother and I sued my former boss, who was president of a non profit voc rehab agency which served people in the “mh” system. Next…

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  • One thing I thought about regarding childhood “psych injury” and sound psychotherapy. If a child has a trauma that is not from within the home, and everyone can see that there is some kind of post traumatic stress going on and that it would stand to reason if the child has experienced a traumatic event that leaves them in extreme anxiety from fearful thoughts, then I imagine that a skilled and heart-centered psychotherpist could work just fine with the child, and with the support of the family. IF, AND ONLY IF, there is no “medication” involved, nor diagnosis, other than simple (as opposed to complex) post traumatic stress which, indeed, tons of loving presence and kindness would totally create healing, no doubt about it. And even more so, it would be a fantastic model for the child, they’d know how to be present with others, as an adult–and so and and so on.

    However, if psychological issues arise from trauma at home, then that is where I question how a psychotherapist would handle this. And seriously, how often is this the case? Do we really need studies to show it is rampant? I imagine there is some kind of research on this, I’d be curious to know. So I think that’s a huge issue to consider.

    This is why I say that when post traumatc stress is from home abuse/trauma–and it is totally injurious in so many ways, to my mind–for the kid to have any chance at all to heal before going off into the world with all of this crap interanlized, just waiting to show itself in all kinds of ways, the family system would have to be challenged. How could this safely occur, and by whom?

    There are signs and there are stories and there are assumptions and there are projections. How are these discerned? But at least start with keeping out the drugs and disagnoses. All that does is to create more business by embedding the trauma–potentially for life–and of course, the goal is to help the child to heal and be safe, and to be free to live the life they want, hopefully, of their dreams. I’ll give a hardy and hearty nod to anyone who makes this the absolute priority, bar none.

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  • LOL, I actually had a premonition that you would post exactly this! And for good reason, too, because I’m sure I’d agree completely. I’ve since thought of a few.

    I really meant I had no words to describe my feeling upon reading this. Stunned might be a good word at this point, in hindsight. Not just at the words used (“disappointed with???” a tragic understatement), but also to post it so brazenly to this readership, and for what purpose, in the context of this comment?

    Dr. Furman, I don’t mean to be rude or disrespectful and I am one to address someone directly, but I’m not sure what to say regarding this statement. I am a bit speechless for the reasons stated above. Do you really believe this?

    My first thought when I read it was, “Hope for what? More patients?”

    Honestly, I am somewhat bewildered as to why you would post such an overtly (or maybe in this case, it’s covertly?) inflammatory statement like that–which it certainly would be on this particular website–so off the cuff! People have been wayyyy more than merely “disappointed” with psych ward “services.” It’s been a tragedy for so, so many, and continues to be, and that is no exaggeration.

    I don’t know what else to say here, this speaks for itself I think. Thanks, at least, for your courage to speak your personal truth of the matter.

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  • Karey, it’s usually a matter of simply requesting them from the service provider. You’ll be asked to sign a release and they’ll give you a copy of your records. It’s your right to get them, they cannot refuse, by law. Here’s a pdf link to your medical records rights in PA, and how to get them. The info you want starts on page 8. Good luck!!

    http://www.cyrss.com/docs/hipaa/StateHIP/pa.pdf

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  • Ok, I hear you, Sam. If something clashes with your beliefs, then go with what you believe. What I offer is what I know from my own experience, and is what informs my belief system at present. Perhaps you will discover something that will work for you which will not be in conflict with your belief system, and you can share it with others who have the same beliefs as you do.

    I get that you have been in deep struggles for a good long while now, and it sounds like you are looking for some kind of relief, something to shed a bit of new light on your situation. I hope you both can find something encouraging sooner than later. I do very sincerely wish you and your wife the very best as you move along in your lives.

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  • What I’d say to anyone who is supporting a loved one who is suffering like this is to make sure and take care of YOURSELF if you want to be effective support. Otherwise, everyone’s energy gets drained. Especially if you are one person supporting another person, I’d recommend getting some emotional support for yourself. Even as a counselor, I have my own support to help me stay present. I heal and grow along with clients, it is a symbiotic process. We’re all on a path.

    And I know it can be hard to find others who can relate to some of these issues and situations, but really, all you are looking for at this stage is simply to be grounded. So if there is no one around to help you help someone else, I’d suggest getting on YouTube and doing a search for “grounding and centering.” Tons will pop up that will help to guide you along, and all kinds of different videos, so hopefully, something for everyone. Some will speak to you more than others. It’s a worthy endeavor, however, because I know in all certainty that this is vital and first and foremost in any healing process.

    Whether you are the person in need of support in the moment, or you are the one doing the supporting, everyone in the equation is human and needs to stay grounded and balanced. People in extreme distress need time to find their center, that will take a while because that is the core problem, being out of center. That’s what makes everything seem “crazy” (out of control). Anything can be addressed and processed so much more easily when in a grounded state of being, by far.

    At least one person in the healing support community HAS to be grounded and centered, hopefully everyone is. But without that, there is no actual effective support and everyone is just dragging everyone else down. And of course not intentionally, but that is the nature of things when no one in sight is grounded and centered.

    What I tell all family members when I work with them is to do their own work, first–like ground, center, come into balance, find your own clarity and get in synch with yourself. Then, you help your loved one do the same, to the best of everyone’s ability. But if you are trying to help someone and you are feeling tattered, then you will be limited, at best, in your ability to help someone else. Could even lead to more problems if everyone in the family or community is out of center, which is the case in family dysfunction.

    On an airplane, they say if the oxygen masks come down, put yours on first before you help your child. That’s the rule of thumb for good caretaking support. If you are not feeling in balance, then get that taken care of, first. That will benefit your loved one more than anything else. We are all human and need nourishment, not some more than others.

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  • Regardless of which came first, I believe “lovelessness” is the truly problematic one, the state of energy that is the direct cause of suffering.

    If we tend to that first, then I think the collective of humanity will naturally gravitate toward creating what is best for all. I think the jury is still out on that, we can only speculate at this point, and changing socioeconomic and political systems is a gargantuan undertaking, to say the least, and takes a lot of time and enormous patience, and there are so many components to it.

    I’m all for it and I know it is necessary, but in the meantime, choosing whether to be kinder and more understanding of others is something which is in our immediate control, and I can’t see how paying attention to this right away would not make a difference in the world. These things tend to ripple and we can immediately begin to reduce suffering.

    If everyone at least made this intention, to be just a bit kinder when one feels like not being so (to self or another), that would make a HUGE difference on the planet. Doing it daily would be off the charts. But people have to choose for themselves how they want to respond to others, even when they are pissed off.

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  • I’d like to know how an outside party, however loving and present they may be, can help a child to heal without expecting some changes from the family dynamic. In my experience with myself and with clients with whom I’ve worked over the years, that is by far the most challenging aspect of all this.

    Do you think a therapist will point out that the child is being scapegoated by the family system? If so, then I’d consider this to have the potential of being “good therapy.” Otherwise, it will be same ol’ same ol’ for that kid, and indeed, they’ll have to figure things out as an adult, as in, to wake up and start making some internal changes to their self-beliefs, so as to stop playing that treacherous role from relationship to relationship.

    Healing from trauma like this would require a “good therapist” to challenge the family system. That would be brave, truthful, and groundbreaking. I’ll be impressed when I see that happening, that the therapist actually would help the child to break the family system. That would be a true ally, which is what that kid would need most at that time, to feel empowered, safe, and supported.

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  • Sam, I never “disagree” (or at least I don’t argue about it if it doesn’t ring true to me, personally) with a person’s personal belief. Your beliefs are your beliefs, as with me or anyone. I believe the idea is to live by our beliefs, that would be aligned with our integrity. Otherwise, I think we cause ourselves to split, and that’s where imbalances come in and problems eventually arise. But if we are true to our own word, then we are living our truth with a certain amount of clarity and power.

    Regarding transmediumship and energy healing, there is nothing “supernatural” about it. It’s quite natural. And it’s not based on any “dogma” or belief system, other than the belief in energy, which to me, is everything.

    As far as my path leading me to be “open” about spiritual things goes, I followed whatever path led to my feeling better, clearer, stronger, more integrated and alive, and to where I could manifest what I wanted, namely, my dreams. And in the process, I did just that. I was open to ANYTHING, once I determined that the mh world had failed me tremendously, and I had a big hole to dig myself out from.

    I’m also a very real and practical person, with good relationships in my life. I am grounded and on Earth, even though I may speak about this stuff as I do. It’s not easy to introduce such concepts as real healing in a sea of academic cyncism!

    How could I not believe in energy as our greatest resource? That’s really all I had to work with. It’s a step by step process, and true and authentic healing does, indeed, challenge our most core beliefs. How we respond to that is what determines the next step for anyone.

    I truly believe that whatever is appropriate for us appears on our path when it is most useful to us. Stay on your path. We all have things to learn as we go. I’m sure that is a never-ending process. Healing blessings to you and your wife.

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  • Thanks, Sam, very appreciated. And you’re right, although I would say that not anyone fits into a neat category, other than “human being.” And we do the best we can with what we know at each moment in time. End of story!

    Oh, and btw, in the energy healing world, DID is translated into something called “transmediumship.” It’s a gift we can learn to utilize, and it’s also a healing path. You can research this if you’re interested. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask.

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  • “I think you can see the resistance that the survivors have on this site to suggesting that anything is ‘wrong’ because our culture weaponizes that admission.”

    Sam, as a “survivor” (so to speak) of all this, I never resisted saying that anything was wrong with me. I volunteered to go to counseling when I was in college because I thought something was wrong with me! I felt terrible as I’d never felt before–crippling anxiety, mental confusion, really bad self-talk and scared to death of life. This was back in early 80’s, and I was very open about it, had no shame or self-consciousness at all about calling myself “mentally ill” at the time. So? There are drugs that can regulate this, was the mainstream thought at the time, and I was mainstream. So I took them, and went on with my life, with usual ups and downs, and a lot of hassle because of this, but I thought it was a fair trade off, if I could live my life. I had no idea how this would come back to haunt in 20 years, which it did, but that’s the next stage of my story which I’ve told repeatedly on here and in public.

    I finally, through the years, figured out what it all was about to begin with, and I worked hard to correct this in my life, but in the meantime, I was diagnosed and put on psych drugs–at the time, I called them “medications,” because that’s the world I grew up in.

    I dropped out of college and went to work, where I stayed full time until I moved to Austin to go back to school and finish my degree, which I did, in film. All the while, I was on a few “meds” and seeing a therapist and “med checks” with psyciatrists, etc. First thing I did when I moved was to set myself up at the local “mental health” clinic, called MHMR (Mental Health Mental Retardation). Isn’t that a pip?

    While attending classes, I was also in a research study at the time with the psych grad dept, regarding panic attacks, which began a couple of years after having started “meds” in the first place. That was an interesting experience, but it did nothing for my well-being. I was trying EVERYTHHING I could think of, including volunteering for studies in trade for some kind of “treatment.” Best I could do at the time, other than taking by then, I think, 4 different pills, for anxiety, depression, panic attacks. Elavil was one of them, xanax, klonopin, and lithium.

    I’d have panic attacks driving to school and would have to pull over for about 10-15 minutes until it subsided, then on to class. Sometimes in class I’d get a panic attack and would bite my pencil to stay grounded. I got through school with a 3.8 GPA and had a great time, really enjoyed my major. This is how I supported myself through it.

    My partner at the time was working in Kansas, he was a sales rep. So we’d see each other every couple of weeks, but for the most part, I lived alone, went to school, did work study where I ran cameras for a studio, and took a “meds cocktail” and got counseling. Some days I suffered and most days I had side effects, but I felt good about how far I’d come and again, thought this was the best I could do.

    After graduating from college, we moved and we both got jobs at a local natural foods store, where I became manager, and my partner’s boss. He then went to school, and I supported him, happily.

    Then we moved to San Francicso so I could attend graduate school, and within a year, my “cocktail” was turning on me, grad school was an abusive and disillusioning experience, and my partner was HATING San Francisco, which had been my dream to live there. He turned angry and resitant to everything, while at the same time, I was drowning in side effects and all kinds pressures. We had hit a wall.

    It was at this time we began our dual-dark-night-of-the-soul journey, and we were both dissociating big time. We researched DID to the hilt, and this was part of our story. Things got very complicated here.

    The ONLY reason I am writing this all out like this is because you made that generalized comment about “survivors,” and I wanted to not be part of that generalization. I respect your story and all that you and your wife have been through, and I read with interest how you support her.

    My story is my story, not to be compared with others, and I’m not insinuating anything about anyone. Our stories are unique and unto themselves. To me, that is the missing element here.

    In my case, my family was terribly dysfunctional, and I was the one carrying the burden of it. That’s not the case with everyone, but it is not terribly uncommon, either. I’m speaking for myself, sharing my experience, not comparing it to that of others nor saying that is the sole cause of extreme distress and post traumatic stress. Still, it is common and largely still denied.

    My partner is an SO, and I’m also an SO. We’re mutual SO’s. We’ve also both had issues, and we’ve dealt with them in different ways over the years. We do not categorize ourselves here in our home as an “us and them” partnership. We share all the burdens, and all the credit.

    “For my own wife it took 20 years before she felt safe to do so with me and only AFTER I made it clear to her that I loved her unconditionally. Until that point, anytime I would make the suggestion, she would spit back that I was the one with a problem.”

    Interesting. This could be me and my partner, but in reverse. He was the spitter and blamer. He’ll tell you the very same thing. He’s owned this over the years, and he has done incredible integration healing work. We share this disctintion, as we share our lives on equal terms.

    Anyway, you and I are both into supporting our spouses unconditionally and I think that’s a good thing. I hope this clarifies from where I am coming, speaking as a “survivor.”

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  • I honestly have never met anyone who didn’t have some kind of “post traumatic stress” going on, it’s kind of a fact of life in the world at this point, I do believe. It’s not always overt nor projected outward, and it can show up in many ways to which we’ve become accustomed.

    Life on this Earth as it has been for generations, is traumatic at one point or another, and often quite early on. We interpret and deal with it in a variety of ways–some people seek help and feel something is wrong with them and some people throw themselves into work and have, for example, repeated issues in relationships that aren’t really clear, but which are borne from seemingly inexplicable anxieties. There are all sorts of ways pts can manifest in our lives that intefere with our well-being in the long run if we do not wake up to it and actually do the healing for it.

    The problem which makes it worse and potentially chronic is not only when it is called and treated like a permament disorder, but even more so, to my mind, and I believe socially crippling, is when it is used divisively and to “other.” Everyone has vulnerabilities and triggers one way or another, and can experience crises in their lives. I think the idea is to learn from them, so that we do not repeat them time and time again. What is there to diagnose? That’s life.

    “Post traumatic stress” are three words which can describe myriad experiences regarding the reverberation of past traumatic events which make the body feel stress in the moment. That is a reality of being human, so I see it as simply a discriptive phrase which is literal, and which can apply to anyone at one time or another.

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  • Steve, to be clear, I’m not talking about “reducing the damage,” I’m saying the damage can heal completely. So many ways to approach this but by no means do we need to carry childhood baggage all our lives, nor any aspect of that in our bodies.

    And yes, a caring adult can help in that process, and is highly beneficial and at some point would be expected to show up, if we are focused well on our healing.

    But a mutually supportive relationship is the result of good healing from relationship trauma. Otherwise, it will be a co-dependent relationship where one person is basically the caretaker of the other. That is still a power imbalance.

    I can’t tell you the lengths I went through to get my partner to do his healing from his own trauma, so that I could focus on my own healing without his sabotage. It wasn’t purposeful on his part, but he had issues and blind spots to which he would get so defensive and angry from my feedback, even though it was totally appropriate on my part. I knew we were off balance in the relationship, and he took it personally rather than as a problem to solve.

    I was the one labeled from before we even met, but he was the energy drain, and he would tell you that himself. He has since done wonderful healing work and has woken up the way I have. He knows the negative impact he had had on my well-being, and he finally got it, and went through his own transformative healing, which to me was extremely humble and courageous of him. It takes two to tango. That was a huge process for us, really fascinating how it all played out and created transformational shifts for us, inside and out.

    So I have the mutually loving supportive relationship now, and it sustains us both. But that was not my main healing agent. That was me, tending to my heart, mind, and spirit, and learning to set good boundaries for myself out of self-care and self-respect–all that was new to me. And it worked. I was the one going from healing programs to healing internships to setting up my own practice, and then jumping on the stage for the first time in my life as a creative outlet, and speaking publically around town about my healing, despite the psychological risks, which are all too real when we open a vein in public. That was me following my inner guidance toward healing. It was a path which opened up for me, and I took the opportunities as leaps of faith.

    A relationship per se doesn’t automatically heal things. First, we have to have a good relationship with ourselves. Otherwise, we will give away our power yet again. That’s what abuse survivors need to change in order to find mutually supportive interdependent relationships, and not one in which one person would have power over the other.

    I know I’m at odds with a lot of people here regarding how we heal, and I respect that. But this is exactly my/our experience. He’d tell you the exact same thing, we’ve processed this for years, and it informs our life path now.

    We get all sorts of projections regarding our relationship when we talk about it in healing terms, and they’re always way off base. I will tell you this–I believe we are atypical in many ways, and deeply, mutually committed to each other out of very deep love. Before we knew this consciously, and could embrace it in our lives, we BOTH had to find our healing, separately and together.

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  • I’m not sure what you mean by “the world in its unfettered state,” because I thought that was the vision, not the reality at this point. But you may mean something different than how I’m reading it.

    Regardless, lovelessness and spiritual bankruptcy are negatively charged energies which to my mind would make manifest such things, I think it’s logical. I think it’s pretty much a general consesus that the world could use wayyyy more loving kindness, and I’m sure this is why.

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  • Eric, I watched your Tedtalk, thank you. There is a lot of truth in what you say, and I believe this is a valid and potentially effective approach to healing, from this perspective of injury on this level. There are, indeed, many consequences to it, some obvious, some not so much.

    There are sooooo many reasons why people are not open about this, it’s not just self-consciousness or self-judgment or shame or whatever, but also because of the risk of repeating the injury when being open and vulnerable about it. In my experience, psychotherapy was injurious over and over again, and I have a very exhaustive story about this, not just as a client but also during my MFT training and grad school, regarding professors and supervisors. They could be extremely abusive, controlling, and cutting in so many ways, and some of us felt it, and felt a bit shell shocked by it, but not quite awake to what was happening. For me it was utterly surreal and kicked off my wild ride through the system, where this became utterly systemic.

    I believe there can be good “psychotherapy” out there, although that is such a catch-all now and no one really knows exactly what this entails, it varies so much from clincian to clinician, and some are quite abusive causing same injury, without a doubt, so it’s very risky. Many stories about this, and it kind of makes sense when you think about how we repeat injurious relationships until we finally wake up, that is a common occurrence.

    People can help people to heal, but I believe we ultimately heal ourselves, by showing ourselves kindness and compassion, first, which can be quite a challenge with those abusive voices in our DNA and cells–which I agree, we store so much of that in our bodies, and then we dissociate and forget about our bodies, leading to self-neglect.

    From working on showing ourselves the kindness we deserve (what I call “the inner work”) then, I believe, we can naturally attract kinder people more and more, because we are treating ourselves kindly, which is a big change in our overall mind/body/spirit energy.

    Eventually, it would become a kind and supportive community, just by nature, and we no longer need to think about it as, “I’m going to heal you.” That’s where the power dynamic comes in, and here we go again, repeat of the past. That belief is where the dysfunction and co-dependence begins, which is insidiously inujurious.

    We don’t heal others, imo, but we can hold a loving and healing space for people to heal themselves. Changes our entire relationship with ourselves and we see, feel, and practice our own power, rather than being blinded or taken by the projected power of another, which, in the end, is an illusion. To me, that’s the healing because it dissipates the fear to know we can take care of ourselves.

    Overall, I think you’re on it, and it is tricky because of the beliefs which form from repeated trauma of this nature. I think whatever combination of tools and effective support one can utilize would be highly individual, but the goal is the same—to heal those wounds! Indeed, it can be done, I know this from experience.

    And it is an incredible process that involves many unknowns. Getting over fear of the unfamiliar is part of the process. I had to be in the world with all that uber-anxiety on my own, post psych drugs withdrawal, and face down a lot of self- judgments. That was imperative. While we do heal ourselves, it doesn’t happen in isolation.

    That’s my take on it, in any case, and also my experience. I’ve had quite a few of those traumas in my life and went through a grandiose healing process. I’m in my late 50’s with no health issues of which to speak and grounded in my life just fine, no issues at all like that at this point. I can certainly get triggered into bad feelings, but it’s nowhere near what I’d call a PTS episode or panic attack, that’s long gone. Basically feeling like a whole human being at this point. About time! I plan to enjoy my “golden years” on whole new terms with myself.

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  • Right, it has to do with reporting suspected abuse or abusive neglect of kids, elderly, disabled, etc. So when you say “it’s kind of like getting a diagnosis,” this is where I think of the word “stigma” (in the truest, non co-opted sense of the word). That black mark is akin to the scarlet letter. People draw all sorts of false conclusions based on conjecture. In other words, guilty until proven innocent. And going around trying to prove innocence is the epitome of oppression, social dysfunction, and energy draining. In a sane and rational (functional) world, this would not be.

    I applaude your courage like others have. This is what happened when I made my film to share my criticism of the system and it definitely had both a positive and negative impact, although in the end, the “negative” was only an initial perception based on the anxiety it produced, as it all led to good things. Changed my life for the better to speak my truth like that, and it also got me professoinally blackballed. Seems like those two go together! I’ve certainly no complaints or regrets in the slightest, all these years later. Quite the contrary.

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  • Thank you. Yes, Kabbalah teachings are powerful and were part of what I integrated to accomplish the healing I wanted. Definitely about breaking the mold to spark new thoughts, energies, and ideas. It’s an extremely creative path. Brave, too, because it will challenge others. That’s the idea!

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  • The two word phrase which, to my mind, absolutely defines the oppression and untrustworthiness of the “mental health/social services” industry: mandated reporter. These words make me cringe big time. That’s what creates the police state dynamic.

    At the center where I did my MFT training, a couple of the interns were chomping at the bit to report someone. That is wayyyyy too much power over unsuspecting clients, and dangerous to society at large.

    I’m sorry you and your family had to go through that, but of course you turned it into a teaching moment. Excellent work, Sera!

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  • This is especially powerful and absolutely transformative, come to think about it:

    “As Saint Porphyrios said in the other above-mentioned book: ‘A person who is accustomed to humiliation attracts the grace of God.’”

    Kabbalah teachings say the same thing.

    So transmuting the trauma of public humiliation and marginalization (what I call social and systemic abuse) would require recognizing and ascending ego response to achieve a higher spiritual resonance, i.e., a deeper capacity to love, starting with ourselves and radiating it outward, uncondtionally.

    That is indeed a challenging path in today’s abuser-victim reality of widespread family and community dysfunction, although it seems like a worthy goal which has the potential to transform the world, if there is no bypassing in the healing. That is quite the emotional journey, step by step. So interesting. Just thinking in the moment about this…

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  • Thank you for sharing this illuminating perspective. Healing the mind/body/spirit system of our humanity for the purpose of clarity, grounding, and personal growth is universal. It is so fascinating to me to repeatedly see and learn how different perspectives create different realities, based on the resonance of our beliefs. In expanded awareness, life can be mystical, and, most importantly, on a completely practical and humanitarian level.

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  • Krista, your story is so interesting and I admire your “chutzpah!” Looking forward to seeing what happened next.

    I know from my own experience that healing from psychiatry is an extremely creative and personal endeavor. We are so highly diverse that no one size fits all. And it’s an interesting way to learn our own humanity and to realize what it is about ourselves we value most highly, and own it fully and robustly.

    Thank you for sharing your fascinating story.

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  • Thank you so much, Rosalee, for watching Voices That Heal and for validating our stories as meaningful and helpful. That means the world to me and always my hope when I share this.

    I think that while we (in general) are all such unique individuals with our own personal nature and perspectives, at the core, we are all senstive, strong, and creative human beings, one way or another.

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  • Yes, I agree completely, Fiachra. All of these human conditions based on responses to prolonged distress and trauma can heal fully and completely and we can come into our natural center and balance, if a person keeps an open perspective and finds their most natural healing path. There are so many ways to heal, but mostly, I see it as our natural self-healing being supported by an encouraging and healthful, functional environment.

    Whereas psychiatric intervention does not appear in the slightest to lead to true healing and finding natural balance, but instead, it creates “chronic disorder,” as you say, and lifelong dependence. That environment is neither encouraging nor functional. By now, I’d think this would be most obvious.

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  • “It is also important to keep in mind that while women can be abusive, emotionally and sometimes even physically, men are supported and protected by social structures and gender role expectations in ways women are not.”

    A lot of mother-son relationships are tragically abusive, potentially causing all kinds problems and debilitation for the men as adults, and which can lead to anti-social boundariless behaviors. Who gets the support and sympathy and who is diagnosed? (Or villified would be the consequential other option). Isn’t that what NAMI is about, for example?

    And, it can easily continue into adulthood, as that’s probably the most challenging dynamic to break up, for what I’d hope would be obvious reasons. Imagine coming to the hard truth that in order to heal and grow, one must get away from their own mother. It’s not uncommon, and it is a sad reality for many.

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  • Ok, I see the context in which you are saying this. These are loaded words because they are used as tools for social manipulation.

    I will say honestly at this point in my life, I no longer distinguish between being an insider or outsider. That, in and of itself, is a social hierarchy. If there is that division in place, then it is a dysfunctional system, so I reject it. In a system which functions to the benefit of all, there are no “outsiders” just as there are no “insiders.” There are individuals which make up a collective. That is my firm belief.

    And I never felt like that in the world at large, I always knew I had a place in the world. But the mental health world is what I found to be profoundly marginalizing, and they happened to marginalize me. But that is not the dominant world. I was an actor and well accepted in the theater world. And I’ve been a retail manager had no trouble there. I’ve always been grounded in my community. But I do rub the “mental health world” the wrong way, for whatever reason. In no way do I take it personally, but it has been consistent. That’s what is interesting to me.

    As far as my story goes, it’s quite long and complex, but it is on film along with a few other stories, in a film I made years ago when I was contracting with a peer-type “advocacy” agency in San Francisco as a public speaker, to talk about my healing after coming off of years of psych drugs, and also my legal action against the system due to discrimination, unlawful termination, and systemic abuse at a voc rehab agency. I was the one spearheading changes in favor of clients, and they did not like this one bit. I’ll post the film at the bottom of this comment.

    The aftermath from the film is that due to screenings to which I’d been invited, my partner and I ended up relocating to a small rural Redwoods town, and it made all the difference in both of our well-beings. I play piano, we have a band that’s played around town as community service, at assisted living centers and the like, I made a film about that, too.

    We are also “forest-bathers,” love that phrase 🙂 We have 200 acres of Redwoods behind our home. Big change from urban SF, which was becoming more and more insane by the minute. I get where you are coming from regarding nature and art and music. That is our life now.

    By defecting from the “mental health industry,” I am referering to the holistic energy healing and in depth training I did after coming off of 9 psych drugs after 20 years on one thing or others. I managed to make it through grad school, but before going further with internship, I knew I had to get off of these and back into balance. The side effects had become intolerable and I was in ER every other week until I realized this madness had to stop. I was in so much debt due to grad school, and rapidly becoming disabled due to what I would consider to be blatant malpractice, to start with, on multiple levels.

    What followed was what I call my “looking glass journey” through the so-called “mental health” system. Dark night of the soul without a doubt. My partner was no help at that time, he was triggered into his own shit. It was a surreal and extremely edgy, painful time, but we got through it.

    For me to be able to heal, however, I pretty much insisted he do his own healing, which he followed in my footsteps and we both have learned about energy and how all of this works, and it has transormed our lives and our relationship. I’m pretty much his teacher now, he knows what I learned going through all of this, from a first person perspective, and he repects it enormously. That is why the last line of your article stood out to me.

    So that’s my story in a nutshell. Here’s another layer of it, if you feel like watching this. Many have found it interesting and compelling, I hope you do, too. It’s 96 minutes, so grab some popcorn! 🙂

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

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  • Your story of overcoming your obstacles and finding happiness is very moving and inspiring, Caleb. Congratulations on your hard work and success in the world.

    I am one of the people whom the system failed miserably, and I started out committed to it professionally. However, my experience in grad school, training internship, and then in the system, playing a variety of roles from staff to client, without question pushed me in an entirely different direction, as far as life path and what I believed about the world, people, our society, and especially, myself. All of that changed drastically, and it was to my benefit to be more awake like this, and more clear about who I am and what my life is about. That’s how it happened to work for me.

    Long story of course, but when I chose to reject what was being projected onto me from not meeting a certain standard of norm, that world (the “mental health industry”), in turn, rejected me. Par for the course, I know that dynamic, and it would never interest me to challenge it, for the sake of being “accepted.” To me, there is something dysfunctional about that, and I would wonder where is the potentional for change where we most need it, at the core of this particular social paradigm?

    At the same time, I resonate fully with what you say at the end of your article, ” I am now able to feel a sense of peaceful fulfillment and contentment in my marriage and in my home.”

    Indeed, when life reflects back the love we inherently are, we feel, at least, hope. The problem is, to my mind, that often this is NOT what is reflected back to people, and that is an entirely different feeling than peace and fulfillment, and ultimately what should keep hope alive becomes chronic anxiety and despair.

    Is there authentic unconditional love in a world which rejects people for not “fitting in?” Seems contradictory to me. Sounds to me like a world based on scapegoating, and what kind of world is that? Well, all we have to do is look around, and we know what that looks like. Not at all a pretty picture, to say the least.

    What would a world without scapegoats look like, where people carry their own anxieties without shoving them off onto others with all kinds of overt and covert abuses (including social marginalization, which to me is systemic abuse) and other such extreme and oppressive personal boundary violations? Is it possible? I believe it would free up extraordinary amounts of creativity, talent, and general brilliance that tend to stay bottled up from social trauma, neurotoxins, etc. We need these resources now more than ever.

    The “mental health professional world” seems to thrive on scapegoating, by definition and practice. This is where I see irreconcilable paradox. Can the industry function at all without scapegoats?

    Your article inspired me to think about this, thank you.

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  • Excellent! And all so very true to my mind as well. Fear-based vs. trust-based would be not aligned vs. aligned.

    I use the Chakra system as my orgainzing principle, based on energy frequencies and how we experience our body/spirit connection. How we navigate our emotional responses is central to this because it is how we know our spirit.

    From how I am understanding sympathetic and parasympathetic responses from your writings, there seems to be quite a bit of overlap–certainly the very same principles involved, that we are naturally self-healing beings. I believe that is our power, including to make change.

    And indeed, we’ve gotten into some bad habits based on all that programming we took on at different levels (family role, social expectations, advertising propoganda, etc.). I think what you are doing will help to reverse this, and get us back connected to ourselves. That busts up the programming right there. That has been the exact focus and purpose of my work with myself and others.

    I am excited about your work as well, and I look forward to reading more! Really great stuff, Sarah. There is good strong light here, I have no doubt.

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  • Great as usual, Sarah. I love how you make *being human* the issue, given that is what connects everyone. Indeed, the epidemic du jour is extreme stress, and there are a plethora of potential causes. That’s a great place to start, by reducing stress. Not just our feelings shift from this awareness, but also our perspective. High stress can cause us to distrort things, it is a filter through which we perceive. We can take some control here.

    “‘Oh, I’m having a rough time and my stress is too high. What do I need to change?’ That shift alone brings the stress down several notches.”

    When I work with people as an energy healer and teacher, first thing we talk about is “coming back into alignment,” when we feel overpowered and paralyzed by stress. There are a variety of techniques to assist this process, but it’s really about knowing the difference–on a feeling level–between being in our center vs. out of our center, without any judgement whatsoever about it, as this is most universally human. We all go in and out of alignment, that is part of life’s journey, and also an aspect of the manifesting process.

    Getting back into center is a matter of shifting our focus to feel relief from the stress. I do believe we are wired as humans to allow one state of being to shift into another, which is a gift because we don’t always feel in control, as you talk about. But also, this is a practice we can employ ourselves, concsiously and at will, and it serves to shift neural pathways aka neuroplasticity. We can shift so much internally this way. That, alone, changes the landscape of our perceived reality in an instant.

    Making the priority to consciously come back to center (stress reduction) before doing anything else can lead to radical changes, based on helping the world come into alignment. After all, we are each a part of humanity–each one of us a unique aspect of it–no exception. Nature will always find its way back to balance, and we are natural beings. One way or another, we “know” to come back into balance.

    When we fight this, we are fighting nature, and that is an extreme struggle which brings with it chronic stress. When we come into alignment, we cease to struggle with our own nature, and that is a HUGE relief!

    I find it to be amazing work–paradigm shifting, in fact. New ways of thinking come from this, far and away from the toxic mainstream. Thanks for the inspiration!

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  • “It is perhaps natural for those who aren’t aware of this to ask, “Why doesn’t she just leave?” but too few are willing to look at the very real and very dark and difficult answers to that question”

    This would be a good place for expanding awareness around the issues of abuse and why it is so challenging to conquer this and change the dynamic. Childhood abuse and oppressive family dynamics create all sorts of enmeshment issues which we carry into adulthood.

    And I agree with Kindredspirit, there are all kinds of insidious abuses infllicted in all sorts of ways to manipulate others into painful emotions. It’s treacherous and sadistic. I am familiar with this.

    I agree that it can be extremely challenging to look at ourselves in relationship to others, but it can be a very productive exploration for the purpose of greater understanding and empathy toward those who feel stuck in abusive relationships, as well as deepening our understanding of ourselves and our own relationship dynamics. That could very possibly help to open up avenues of change, expanding our collective awareness in this direction.

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  • I am glad to hear that you have turned to healing alternative to mainstream western medicine, Rosalee, as I do believe this is a growing avenue for people. The philosophy of healing is so different and, to me, much clearer, common sense based, and allows for nature to take its course as we self-heal, as the human body can do, and is naturally intended to do, when the process is not interfered with (which is what happens in most of western medicine, and definitely in psychiatry). It’s a whole different philosophy of living, in fact, specifically in tune with nature, as opposed to trying to change and control it!

    I think we can take it in little by little, as more and more of the current and failing systems shut down due to their lack of substance, like a house of cards. The more people who can recognize what you and I are describing, the more they can look for alternatives to playing into the system. It’s a gradual shift, but extermely significant, I believe, and powerful.

    You’re right that what we have at our fingertips (like ERs, walk-in clinics, etc.) can still be useful, but as we embrace the paradigm shift in healing–which is alive and expanding wildly on the planet now– options will continue to grow and become more visible while “the system,” as it exists now, with zero integrity, becomes obsolete eventually and inevitably. That is my very firm belief, in any event.

    I also believe that a lot of this is a matter of how we’ve been programmed, as a society, vs. the process of deprogramming as we continue to crack these codes of insidious systemic abuse. That’s the transformation happening, and I believe it is in progress as more and more people wake up and save themselves from all of this, one way or another. It’s why I share my experience as I do.

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  • Yes, Rosalee, that is true and it happened twice to me (by one psychiatrist and, later, one case manager). They both screwed me over big time by what they wrote in their notes and to whom they were distributed, unbenownst to me until I requested my case notes, which under law they are required to grant me that. Explained a lot of what I was experiencing while trying to move forward, and I was furious about what I discovered upon reading those notes–a totally ficticious me, and dripping in stigma. Systemic abuse, bullying, and oppression all in these pages. Really crazy, seriously.

    I consulted with attorneys and “professional advocates” who were no help whatsoever, given they’re all part of the overall “system,” so they all believe and perceive the same way, as per their job requirements. So much gaslighting, projection, justification and resignation take place here that it only adds gasoline to the fire.

    Best I could do was to leave very honest Yelp reviews calling out the abuse. I also wrote a letter to one of them whose email I happened to have, expressing very clearly how I felt about what had transpired between us. I can’t say if this had any impact at all, but at least it got it out of me and directly to the source. That felt good to give back their energy, that’s exactly how that felt. Lightened me up considerably.

    Other than that, I chose to learn all I could about natural healing and self-healing, which I have been practicing and teaching for years now. I use only energy healers and Chinese Medicine practitioners when I need medical support. I am not a person of means and insurance does not generally cover these healers (although accupuncture I believe can be covered, and I have found it to be highly effective in bringing healing and balance to our bodies), but in my experience, it is well worth making that change, and way cheaper, in the long run. Best of all, I actually get healing when I need it, nothing complicated at all.

    Indeed, we can find power abusers anywhere, but at least energy healers are not part of an established “system of abuse,” as we’re talking about here. Plus it opens up options a great deal. So these days, whatever they wrote does not affect my life any longer, nor does it influence my healing support. They are not anywhere part of this dastardly system. I am through with all that, it is behind me now 100%. I know the oppression of this, so this is a huge relief.

    The roadblocks you allude to call for radically new ways of doing things, and also new ways of thinking, perceiving, and manifesting. Although for many this is not radical, but instead, the norm–it’s a matter of what has been one’s belief and practice, and if it has been aligned with mainstream western medicine, then what I’m talking about would be a radical shift. For me, it was a new way of perceivning healing, and going way beyond what the system has to offer and what it puts people through, which for a lot of us, has been only more grief than with what we entered.

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  • Yes, this stood out to me, too. Perfect question to ilustrate the nature of how crap gets projected onto others, while the abuser hides behind their own self-delusion, claiming, “Nothing is wrong with me, it is all on you!” The abuser will make sure everyone believes that with a web of overt lies and covert seed-planting. It is a nasty game, been there, done it, no thanks.

    Breaking the system by not playing that game, calling it out, and then walking as far away as possible from it physically and philosophically is the way to go, imo. That is core change right there, instigated by the would-be victim saying “Fuck you, I deserve and can do way better than this bullshit.” More changes will inevitably follow, like dominos set into motion by pure truth.

    That is how systemic change happens, and let the dominos fall as and where they may…

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  • Painful story and very inspiring how you found your way to clarity through all of this. Thank you for sharing your experience. From a family legacy of abuse to systemic incompetence and corruption to self-healing and creative expression. I would say you are a *paragon* of adjustment and personal growth.

    “What I found is that each doctor labeled me differently depending on what part of my story came out (there is more to the story than space allows here). It appeared that if the doctor was male I was going to get labeled with PTSD and another label or two. One doctor labeled me with social anxiety. One with major depression. He saw me less than an hour. None were exactly the same.”

    Yes, this happened to me, too. It is random and frankly, the DSM-thumpers really don’t know what they’re talking about. Congratulations on your very impressive work! And all the best in your continued personal evolution and creative endeavors.

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  • Ok, we disagree about a few things as well as agree. Different perspectives which in some ways do not seem reconcilable. I do very much respect your conviction to your truth, but in some ways it does not overlap with mine, so be it. So much to learn in one lifetime! Seems never-ending.

    I’m starting a long weekend vacation, so offline for a few days. Thanks for the wonderful dialogue, KS, have enjoyed it immensely. Have a good weekend!

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  • You say a mouthful there, KS, all good insights and truths re what I called above “this crazy-ass double-binding, gaslighting world we live in.” Indeed, it is crazy-making, I can’t think of anyone who would disagree with this.

    Relevant to this blog and discussion, I want to highlight one sentence from your post–

    “A lot of people and personality types get left behind in this kind of societal structure.”

    Societies can grow, change, evolve, and diversify IF AND ONLY IF human beings grow, change, evolve, and diversify. How can it be any other way?

    Pioneers and visionary thinkers are rugged individualists, are they not? Where would we be without them? Not sure what else to say about that.

    I believe everyone has their place and value in society. Life can be about discovering what this is, and then embodying it. I believe that is what leads to fulfillment, and everyone has that potential.

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  • They are so intertwined, not sure how you would untangle this. It’s like yin/yang, goes hand in hand.

    “What if there was no abuse on psychiatric units whatsoever.”

    I can’t even fathom how this would work out. I believe these are also intertwined. How can psychiatry control people in these “units” without abusing them, one way or another? Impossible. And they have to control clients because they *don’t know how to heal them!*

    Abuse is not always overt, and is often quite covert, and administered in a variety of ways that are considered standard and acceptable. It’s insidious, and keeps people off their game.

    Jessica asks if these places are re-creating that which they purport to “treat.” Indeed, at the very least. They’re certainly keeping things chronic.

    There are diverse opinions and standards about what is considered acceptable behavior which varies from culture to culture and community to community. Personally, I’d call these behaviors toward patients/clients sub-standard and unnacceptable, based on my way of thinking. But that’s my personal perspective, based on my values and how I live with myself. I had to wake up to it, as well, as I went along. But now, after processing my experience for all these years and learning the experiences of others, I am clear on what I believe here. Not everyone will see it the same way, which is to be expected.

    Re people vs. institution, where exactly is the separation?

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  • Yes, KS, excellent points. I believe we are meeting here. You said it perfectly, delineating between being vindictive and being vindicated. Both are stressful, but the latter is about real and true justice, as opposed to vigilantism.

    “Vengeance tends to create bigger messes rather than systemic change. I don’t think the people still in the system are best helped with escalating the violence.”

    This is soooo important, thank you!

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  • While activism can be fueled by vengeance, it isn’t necessarily so. When I went to EEOC, it was not to be vindictive, it was to stand up for myself and demand my rights as an individual of this society. When I made my film, Voices That Heal, it was not out of vindication, it was to speak my truth and to give a platform for others to do the same, to help inform and illuminate the public of these issues, while attemping to dialogue with “the system.” (that last goal was never met, of course, AT ALL COST by anyone in the system–lesson #1!).

    With that said, I can totally feel vindictive when I think about all the abuse I took without even realizing that this is what was happening, but I do not act on it, at least not intentionally. Sometimes, I have to really ask myself before taking an action and I do some reflecting here before acting or speaking impulsively, and that is helpful for me to discern my true motivation.

    But instead, what I opt for is to speak my truth based on experience, as clearly and directly as I can, while walking my talk. (That’s important, to avoid cognitive dissonance from this process, which is all-too-common). Not as vindication, but as a way to bring the truth to light. I believe I am speaking a truth which many people feel. Nothing wrong with that. I continue to have my life, aside from all this. But I went through it, so I’m sure I’m supposed to be speaking about it. What else?

    But I do agree, that doing the same as they are doing is feeding the beast. I do not believe that is what I am doing, however, not at this point. My energy is way different than that of “abuser” or even “enabler.” Just ask my family. I blew that whistle, too! Not to be vindictive, but to help my family to awaken and heal. That’s actually been going well over the years, so I feel ok about what I’m putting out. Although I certainly felt the consequencesof it all, initially. More healing and clarity-seeking opportunities, is how I receive that. I grew and grew from all this, so I do not regret a moment of it.

    I am careful and mindful to not “match energies,” which is what you are talking about is called, in my line of work. That’s my conscious intention, in any event, but I am human, too, I do the best I can. Overall, the idea is to respond from a higher perspective, with a more neutral energy. That can be hard when triggered! But well worth the effort, because it can raise the energy of the dialogue and bring more clarity to the situation.

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  • I agree, KS, that we are all human and have the capacity to justify our behaviors under any circumstances. We’ve all made mistakes and misjudgments and will continue to do so, as long as we’re human. We also have the capacity to learn and grow from all of it, that is also a universal human quality, I believe.

    Although when someone says, “You are hurting me!” outright, and the behavior continues, then what, exactly, could possible be an acceptable justification?

    Some would say, “I’m so sorry, not my intention! Let’s not do that again…or…let’s try another way” (if that’s relevant).

    But to say, “I am not! You are lying,” or “you are imagining that,” or “you are being manipulative,” or “you just want attention,” or simply continue while coldly disregarding screams and protests, blaming that on something being “wrong” with the individual–and therefore using THAT as justification without batting an eyelash–then that is a human of a different frequency (so to speak), if you ask me.

    Is there a deep-seated wound way down in there somewhere? I’d say yes there must be, in order to justify causing others such obvious pain. So compassion would be in order. And one can have compassion with anger, that’s not at all antithetical.

    Will they justify their behavior? Every day, 24/7.

    Are they human? Yes, of course, we all are.

    Is this a toxic situation based on oppressive power dynamics supported by mainstream thinking? Unequivocally, imo.

    “We can separate the evil of the institution of psychiatry without tarnishing all of its unwitting participants as evil.”

    I’m not calling any individuals “evil.” The institution? Yes, corruption is bad enough, but this level of deception and harm to people who are, in all reason based on propaganda, expecting healing and support, and then making TONS of $$ due to all this, is the closest thing I can think of to “evil” on the planet.

    I call it institutional vampirism, and I think that is precise, not at all an exaggeration. This institution sucks energy from society in so many ways. We want light, not this utter darkness.

    And while certainly not everyone in any system is abusive—in fact, it can be a minority, like maybe a main abuser who has risen to the top by railroading everyone in their path, or an oligarchy of abusers—they have to be held up by enablers. Witnessing abuse and seeing it as abuse AND not reporting it, is enabling it. What else can it be? Lying about it to save your own ass (“no, that’s not what I saw”) is yet even more profound enabling, that’s actually being an accomplice, I think. I don’t know, splitting hairs here. None of it is helpful to people and only keeps them in a chronic state of injury.

    Yes, it can be justified in so many ways. “I’ll lose my job; I’ll get scapegoated; it’s futile, no one will listen; they’ll come after me,” and on and on. Doesn’t matter, it’s still enabling, and there are fears to face here. It’s the personal growth we all face in life from time to time. Change will require this from everyone.

    Right now that’s the crazy-ass double-binding gaslighting world we live in, but we are looking to change this, and it will take a great deal of courage from everyone involved.

    There is absolutely no excuse for abuse, in my book. Self-defense is one thing, but aggressive invasion of personal boundaries without invitation is where it begins. No means no, period. Everyone should have the right to say “no,” and that is so not the case in psychiatry, which is what needs to change. Where did a person’s right to say “no” go to here?

    And victims of abuse need allies they can trust, not more enablers of an abusive system. That would bring a core shift to the system, were the enablers to stop enabling.

    “…many probably are not internally saying “I’m okay with hurting this patient”, but probably saying internally “this really sucks but the patient will be better off drugged/treated even if forcefully”.

    The latter is a false belief. If they really feel the patient will be better off, then frankly, I’m sure that the patient is better off without that person having any power over them whatsoever. That is a dangerous belief! Isn’t that one of the things on which we call out psych industry all the time? I’ve seen the following C.S Lewis quote on here often—

    “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

    Moral busybodies indeed! That is a perfect phrase in this case, fits to a tee.

    “Let’s remember that whistleblowers are not generally treated very well in this era. The author of this blog has risked her career to speak up. That should come with accolades, but could very well result in extreme loss of income, loss of professional status, professional censureship, and targeting as potentially mental.”

    Yes, I relate to this. I had the exact same experience. Mine was about 15 years ago, so I’ve had the post-journey to this and did a lot of healing and self-reflection based on my experience of blowing the whistle on discrimination, abuse, and corruption. It has rewards and it has consequences. I’ve learned a lot about what happens to whistleblowers, from my lived experience of it. Not pretty! But seriously enriching and fulfilling. No doubt about that.

    I support whistleblowers hardily and heartily, and can be supportive of that process, what occurs once you blow the whistle publically. It’s transformational. Faith and trust is vital.

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  • Imagine being asked during a job interview, “Would you be willing to hold someone down to force them into a ‘treatment’ to which they vehemently object because it feels painful and harmful to them? Because that is standard care and it happens a lot around here and it is what we will expect from you.”

    If you say no, you do not get the job. If you say yes, well, that speaks for itself.

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  • I know we like to say that it’s “the institution” which is the problem, which is not a false statement by any stretch–the institution of “mental health/psychiatry” is corrupt and based on socially biased mythology and harms more people than not.

    However, it seems from pieces like this, and based on what many of us have experienced, that a lot of the people who are employed within this insitution are downright dangerous, to the point of being sadisitic. Maybe some are numb due to their need for income, but still, these are acts of sadism. The last psychiatrist I ever saw acted just like a sadist, which is why I finally jumped tracks after that experience to find real healing, as opposed to further injury.

    “Reform” would mean prohibiting acts of sadism toward clients, but if that actually has to be stated, then the institution is beyond redemption. There is no reform when sadism is part of the picture. More worms than apples in that barrel.

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  • Excellent and powerful.

    “During the day, I’m observing myself as I hold patients down to get medication.”

    For some reason, this sentence is particularly painful to read. Dissociation and post traumatic stress on both ends, wow. This field is healthful for absolutely no one.

    “I leave. There was nothing left to do but leave the place, report it, and never come back.”

    I’d say that’s the thing to do. Smart self-care, and you are not enabling this fiasco. Glad you reported it.

    Abusers and power mongers are covering for their obvious extreme incompetence. Being burnt out means there is no self-care. This is sheer madness. But we know that already, don’t we?

    How can “reform” even be entertained at this point, when clearly, the insane are running the asylum?

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  • Abrianna, yes, that’s clear that you are remorseful of this, and in the process, you’re expanding your awareness, I can see this. We’re all so darn human, aren’t we?

    Again, my take is simply that “personality disorder” does carry really sabotaging stigma, and it has screwed up a lot of lives because of all the false implications around this, at least for some people.

    And I agree with you, there is a boundary issue here which definitely merits attention. Some people have none, and that’s a problem for others.

    You’ve had a great deal of experience with all this and obviously you have processed a lot, but please know you’re just at the beginning. There are a lot of layers to this, and reasons for all this emotion around what you say.

    We’ve all been on the receiving end of oppression one way or another. You are making a difference and will continue to do so, I have absolutely no doubt about that. You are clearly a leader.

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  • Oldhead, it’s authentic. To me, the gist of the article is about bullying, this is what most catches my attention, and I believe this is relevant in so many ways. No surprise there, I often bring it up, myself. And yes, there are ways to discuss this, but this is a powerful start.

    Yep, there’s a food fight quality here. And not everywhere, but who is throwing punches and why? I’m not suggesting analyzing this all- over-the-place comment section, it’s more of a self-reflective question.

    Abrianna clearly is open and flexible in her thinking and is desiring to learn and grow from this experience. Also to make changes for the better, and obviously has the focus and fortitude to make an impact.
    Simply having the courage and passion to open a dialogue such as she did in an environment such as this is more than respectable, it is admirable.

    As far as I can tell, she is owning her error in judgment and trying to learn from it. That takes humility, another quality which leads to progress because it is flexible.

    Please let’s allow each other to come to truth from our own process, and not try to force a way of thinking on others. The word “force” is what I’d emphasize here.

    As far as everyone else’s comments, everyone has their own reaction. I appreciate some and not so much others, but that’s my own gauge for my own truth. This covers a lot of territory.

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  • I like this particular dialogue and find it most relevant, and important to split hairs here, and define terms mindfully. Usually, I think, there is consistency in what is defined as a particular “behavior” more than a label can pinpoint it because these labels are so stigmatizing and can easily lead to 100% inaccurate negative projections. Then the client is screwed because a whole new false identity is created, and the real person disappears. That is maddening kind of gaslighting, and can lead to chronic trauma if one doesn’t have a very strong sense of self. Eventually, a person has to get away from that for their own sanity because it is truely crazy-making. But that can be a challenge, in and of itself, depending on circumstances, like being held captive in a hospital.

    This one phrase got my attention–

    “The list of “symptoms” of “personality disorders” are simply a list of behaviors that most people find obnoxious or disturbing.”

    Yes, that is what I found to be the case in training and while I was a client. What makes this particulary challenging is that what is “obnoxious and distrurbing” to some is not a problem for others. Cultures vary highly on what is “acceptable” behavior. So many reasons for our behaviors, and it’s not always harmonious with others. When it is extreme, that can either be a problem toward progress and evolution or a maybe this is a groundbreaker who is encountering resistance to change, and that will affect how we perceive behavior, through what lens? We can admire, accept, tolerate, or fear certain behaviors, and this can vary from person to person.

    There’s also the issue of a bullying system turning the tables and making the victim look like the problem, and the abuser. I’ve seen this happen quite a bit. A bully can easily cry “victim” when called on their abusive ways. It can get very confusing to all concerned.

    In the end, I think it is evident from our own personal relationships. What is obnoxious to one person can be endearing to another, and vice versa. All personalities are challenging one way or another, and we grow and change over time, learning and refining ourselves as we go, and learning discernment in our relationships, that’s life.

    If a person is happy and satisfied with their relationships in life, then who cares what others think? Life, in large part, is about discovering who we are, which evolves over time, and who is to say at any stage, but ourselves?

    Abrianna, wonderfull charged and highly relevant dialogue you have inspired here. Thank you! I do admire your razor sharp focus.

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  • “…love is not something we can self-generate.”

    This is where I take pause. I’m not so sure about that. I actually feel this statement is a denial of a vital part of who we are, naturally.

    And if it turns out we can, indeed, self-generate love, then it would probably be good to know how to access that. I believe we can. And when we learn this, we learn how to self-heal. We are also wired for that, but it gets knocked out of us by all that fear mongering and social programming, and by those who convince others they NEED them, making people dependent. Obviously, not healthy attachment, but pure co-dependence. No love there.

    That’s one of the main grievances re psychiatry–it abrubtly disrupts our natural healing and personal growth process with a bunch of socially divisive mythology, which is why people tend to get stuck in a “chronically ill” state, and why so many people feel abused by the sytem.

    Self-generated love is, I believe, our nature, and it is our built-in mechanism for self-healing. I say we call it back into being. That would certainly be my preference, in any event.

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  • This is a great and hardy comment, Susannah, and deserves a really good discussion. Lots of truth, and also subtleties which I feel merit mindful exploration.

    While I don’t have a lot of energy today to engage too much here, I did pick out one thing on which I would like to comment because I have thought about this one quite a bit and as of now, this is how I would respond when you say–

    “Love and attachment refer literally to the connections *between* human beings, and the basis for that is a healthy period of *being on the receiving end* of ample nurturance as a child, which fortifies us with reserves of love that we are then able to give out to others.”

    Yes, a healthy dose of unconditional love flowing between child and parent mutually for a good period of time is what we all hope for–consciously, if we are aware adults, and unconsciously, if we are pre-verbal infants. In both cases, this would be the natural human desire.

    In a post above, I say–

    “Withholding love from a child is cruel and harmful control and manipulation, and sadly quite common. Take away love and you’ve got fear and rage from lack of safety and feelings of unworthiness.”

    And it needn’t be conscious of course, as there are so very many reasons why a child becomes deprived of love, and that is enough to create distress along with post-traumatic stress.

    The problem deepens profoundly when the parents or adults around a love-deprived child cannot see that this is the problem, and instead, blame it on something else or even the child–which is kind of undestandable because the alternative to blame is facing oneself squarely with regard to personal growth; but at the same time, humility on the part of the adult would be most valuable here–or a disease or condition or “the world,” or maybe the child simply gets labeled “problem child,” and treated as such, which compounds the issue and neglect turns into blatant abuse, the essence of gaslighting. Any or all of these and more.

    And really, the issue is that this child has been deprived of love. Indeed, that can lead to all sorts of porblems in life, IF IT IS NOT CORRECTED. Being deprived of love as a child can snowball and follow us from one relationship to another, and our relationship with self is ambiguous at best.

    I believe in healing, and I believe in heart healing, so my belief is that this can heal, but how? Perhaps some people do not feel there is healing for this, and I would not argue with that belief. However, that is not me, I believe childhood love-deprivation can heal. But it is really hard work and takes a lot of flexibility in thinking. This is a matter of reprogramming on a neural and cellular level. It is transformational healing.

    I believe there are many roads and options here. What, exactly, would it mean to “correct” this? To me, that is the most important topic to explore, by far, because the answer to this would solve an awful lot of problems in today’s world. This would be the conciousness shift at hand–from love-deprived to love-filled consciousness. These generate two different (and rather divergent, I believe) personal realities, and I think it’s rather palpable, on a feeling level. The contrast is enormous.

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  • I don’t know about *preventing* depression, because it can be caused by all sorts of things which would need to be addressed at one time or another. But I know from experience that, in the past, when I’d been extermely depressed even for a good long while–in the dark, emotionally suffering, and completely uninspired–I’d go see a really awesome musical show or concert and it would pull me right out of it because not only would I be entertained and distracted, it would also open my heart and touch my spirit, and from there, I’d spiral upward. I could feel myself again, my inner light. I still had to address the issues which were causing me distress, but it was much easier with an open and relaxed heart, like a new ground zero.

    During my darkest time, way beyond depression, as I was just starting to heal from withdrawal, I had one particular CD which spoke to me, which I played over and over because it was the only thing that would bring me any kind of relief at that time. I also found this one DVD called “The American Songbook,” which was clip after clip of historic performances of classic American standards through the ages, in film and on stage. It’s a 3 hour show, so that would nourish me quite a bit.

    I found music to be paramount to my healing. Probably the reason I started doing musical theater, which was a happy accident. Other than coming off a lot of psych drugs, the biggest leap of faith I ever took was enrolling in a class to learn to sing publically and perform on stage, which was perhaps the most healing activity I ever did. And on top of that, it opened a few doors for me which I had not expected. Got over all sorts of insecurities and learned to trust the creative process. In that sense, I’d call it curative.

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  • Rage is a reasonable response to the oppression and injustices which plague our families and societies, but I think, in the long run, rage is self-destructive, exactly for the reason which Sandra states below–it eats away at us and affects our lives and health adversely in the long run.

    And also as Sandra says, with which I obviously agree wholeheartely, rage is ultimately a road block to change in its constrictive nature because a shift in consciousness in the collective IS taking place, whether we like it or not. It has to, we’ve hit a wall. People are waking up in droves now, and it will continue. This is new ground.

    The energy of love is a connector for the purpose of creating, and it is expansive and inclusive, not based on division or class or race or gender or nationality or even profession or any role in the world, but is based on pure equality at the core, something we all possess innately, even though some may not be as active in it as others. Still, it is most practical and powerful. Some even say that love is THE most powerful energy in the world/universe.

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  • Yes, and righteous indignation is good power which does, indeed, fuel change. However, without the balance of love, I don’t know how righteous indignation would not become constant rage, sabotage, and eventual burnout. We need balance for well-being.

    So I think I’d say the converse– that while righteous indignation may be a necessary tool for change, it is not sufficient. Love is *the* essential ingredient for change.

    Just a thought to throw out there…

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  • “We need to sort out the real divisions from the false ones, and especially those which are being opportunistically promoted by faux “progressives” and right wing “Democratic” neoliberals, who suck in idealistic people then disillusion them.”

    This sounds like “the system” (mh, social services, and tangents) to me. That’s exactly how I would have characterized the voc rehab agency with which I’d been involved as client, then staff, and then EEOC plaintiff. The management here were the most inauthentic and dishonest people I’d ever met, and they totally projected the image you describe, what used to be called “bleeding heart liberals.” In reality, they were social elitists/marginalizers, purely. In other words, total bigots. No love there.

    I won my mediation fairly easily and they showed themselves at the mediation exactly as I had called them out, it was obvious.

    Point being, I think when real and authentic truth (whatever that be in the moment) is closing in and offered sincerely, I believe what is actually true vs. false makes itself quite clear. And as usual, everyone has to decide for themselves what they believe. Although I do agree with you, that there is a lot of inauthenticity to be considered and sorted out, I think that’s part of the challenge here.

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  • I’ve heard this from a lot of sources, and it makes sense to me. Unconditional love trumps fear because when we are connected to our source of love (what some call “inner light”), then we know profound trust in the process of life from a very broad perspective, that goes beyond the intellect. That goes hand in hand in my experience.

    So if that is the case, then perhaps “madness” would be a product of chronic fear? Which can become unbearable after a while, lack of light and joy along with chronic mistrust. That becomes a filter (internalized) and everything can appear to be threatening on some level, until something shfits through a healing process (is how I would put it). I’ve certainly been there, it’s a form of post-traumatic stress from deep betrayal.

    While love does have a feeling associated to it, I see it more as a state of being, which is how I would characterize the experience of “madness,” as I perceive it to be at the moment.

    In feeling terms, the opposite of fear would be joy, imo. Those two definitely cannot exist in the same space. And the feeling of true deep unconditional love certainly is joyous.

    I think it’s human to experience a variety of states of being as we go along. Things change a lot as we get older and integrate our experiences while creating more and more of them. I think “awakening” is not a one-time thing, we awaken to many things as time goes by.

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  • There’s an interesting connection between this blog and the previous blog about “madness.” Can’t quite put my finger on it, yet, but I can feel this. Could “madness” be at the other end of the spectrum from love in the continuum of human experience?

    And when I say “love,” I don’t mean one’s relationship life, I just mean loving life in general. That is a feeling much different than resenting life or living in fear, and more strikingly, these seem to at times be at irreconcilable perspectives.

    Really I’m just talking about the general feeling of love for SOMETHING for which one can feel gratitude, and somehow, hopefully get a daily dose of it, to fuel one’s personal growth and evolution. That’s a radical shift in, both, feeling and perspective from those of no love or gratitude, and that can apply to specific experiences as well as the overall experience of life, in general.

    Just thinking out loud, wondering about this. These last couple of blogs have been very thought-provoking. Also, feeling-provoking, which I quite appreciate.

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  • Thank you so much for this comment. These are not empty words, but indeed, the very substantial truth and reality of the situation, imo also–

    “A conscience awareness shift is taking place. But I know when I nurtured my utter hatred and outrage at the mental health field for years it ate at my soul like a rabid virus, blocking a conscious shift from taking place. Whereas ‘knowledge is power’, love is even a greater power. And I’m afraid nothing will ever change in this Twilight Zone world we’re living in if it’s governed by hatred. That only feeds the beast.”

    You said it perfectly. And, I’ll add that one way it feeds the beast is that it creates business for it.

    If psychiatry fails because instead of love, empathy, and compassion it dispenses drugs and stigmatizing labels to those who were deprived of unconditional love, then it stands to reason that the more love in the world, the less need for so called “mental health care.” So in essence, love IS anti-psychiatry, in the most powerful and practical sense.

    More love = less fear, less distress, less hopelessness, so therefore less rage and despondence from feelings of powerlessness, leading to more ease, clarity, and loving kindness and co-operation, which is where good progress occurs, just naturally. Who needs a shrink, then?

    Dr. Breggin has tremendous life experience and wisdom. These are healing words he offers, and, I believe, clever guidance. Beautiful legacy 🙂

    Same with your post, Sandra, healing words and wonderful permission.

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  • Withholding love from a child is cruel and harmful control and manipulation, and sadly quite common. Take away love and you’ve got fear and rage from lack of safety and feelings of unworthiness. Connecting with our innate love is healing, and can help to attract loving, heart-based relationships later in life, as opposed to power-based relationships, which is the antithesis of love-based.

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  • Maybe this is about an aversion to irrationality? Life is not necessarily rational, it can also be quite irrational, or at least appear to be, from our limited perspectives. So why should “rational” be a standard that everyone agrees to go by?

    There is also creativity which follows an entirely different logic than intellectualism. One of the reasons why psychiatry is so hopelessly myopic is because it will not embrace creative thinking as anything but problematic and worthy of labeling.

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  • “Responsibility requires knowledge.”

    I’m talking about taking responsibility for what we are putting out because that is what comes back to us. I believe that is the nature of energy.

    Being human is filled with twists and turns, we all face our obstacles, some people seeming to have way more than others, but still we each get challenged in life repeatedly. How we address these challenges as we go through life is our responsibility. If not, then whose? It is how we grow and learn. I believe this would apply to anyone, regardless of anything.

    So I would say that taking responsibility for our lives is how we *acquire,* both, knowledge and wisdom–as well as take control of our life experience.

    With this said, it is not my intention to blame someone for getting rooked at a time when what they need is help and support. That was my experience, as well, and I had to work hard to get out of that particular cycle. It was like a personal challenge to me. And from working with this internally, I was able to shift this troubling pattern in my life, and that’s when bigger changes began to occur in my life which supported my healing, growth, and freedom.

    So even though it is undeniably true that corruption is ever-present as a sabotaging factor in society, if we do not see how we, ourselves, can influence change in our own lives, then how could we possible expect to affect change in society? There has to be a balance between blame and self-responsbility.

    Again, it’s not black and white, so I do not believe there is an argument here, but more so, an integration to happen, a new perspective. That’s generally necessary to move forward when one feels stuck and unable to get past things that cling like shit on shoes and continue to recreate the same old undesirable reality. I’m saying it is within each of us to change this. That’s my hypothesis, in any event.

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  • I see it as an exploration of issues on which people seek clarity and understanding, and I can’t think of a better way to do that than what is happening here. To me that is one of the purposes of this venue.

    I do not see these blogs and comments as simply a linear conversation within a group of people. There are many communications going on, and people reading without commenting. I believe we’re all contributing, one way or another, to the exploration of many interesting aspects of the human experience, based on whatever we know or think about it, and how it relates to (or hopefully, negates) psychiatry and its maniacal need to pathologize what it does not understand.

    I’m learning a lot here and thinking about how all of this relates to my way of thinking about not only my experiences but those of others when they talk to me about them, simply from how I am participating, and how the entire dialogue has been unfolding. This topic covers a lot about humanity!

    So personally, I don’t see this as an exercise in futility, but more so, as a valuable exploration of a charged and interestingly versatile topic which is not so easily understood and, even more immediate, tragically misunderstood. That’s what I’d like to see corrected, hopefully, thanks to conversations such as these.

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  • KS–yes, you are correct and I apologize for getting defensive. You made a valid point which I take into consideration. Been a sticking point for me because it’s not a matter of what I believe, but of how I’m experssing it, feeling the limitation of language. I am looking at the impact and implication of what I am saying here.

    My response is a reflection of some of my frustration in this process I’m in, not at all on you. I’m thinking about this particular discussion a lot, and I appreciate your candor, and a lot of what you say. You have really good insights.

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  • “beyond that it has no universal meaning, or anything close”

    That’s not necessarily true and if so, so what? That characterizes a lot of things said on here, nature of the beast. This is ALL about subjective experiences, so the arguments and *disagreements* about that are what make no sense to me, and which feel quite pointless.

    I’m not intending to imply anything about universality, although who knows what is universal and what is personal and subjective? That’s one of the things constantly in question here.

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  • What I’m talking about when I refer to “madness” in the context above has nothing to do with so-called “mental illness,” not what I’m talking about, at least.

    What I’m referring to is a specific state of consciousness which is particularly expansive and ultra-creative, ultimately outside social programming in every sense. This state of being can be disorienting initially–which is meaningful because we learn profound trust in the process, which is invaluable–but with grounding comes the clarity from it. Tons of beautiful inner work to be done here, while we gain all kinds of wisdom.

    I’ve experienced it, and I’ve also experienced a more mundane (of the norm) consciousness. Both have their place and value, and to me they complement each other. However, the difference in all respects is quite apparent.

    Not everyone has had this experience, but I do believe it is in all of us to access. I believe there are good and practical reasons to go there if we choose to, and often life throws us into this state of consciousness by default. Depends on many things about our own personal life journeys, goals, purpose, desires, resistances, etc. Regardless, it’s always an opportunity to grow and evolve by leaps and bounds.

    But in general, it is an amazing experience to navigate and from which to learn and create. Best schooling ever, as far as I’m concerned, and it’s practical because it helps in manifesting what we need and want as we go along in life, thanks to the expanded awareness of our process. It is a fascinating perspective of life, and quite real to those of us who have allowed the experience of it.

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  • Ekaterina, I love the work you are doing here. I think it’s creative and relevant, and can open portals of new awareness and knowledge. My personal belief is that we all have our own “madness.” And I’m open to new language if this brings stigma with it, but personally, madness doesn’t bother me at all; it IS part of great art and culture, after all.

    I realy do believe that it is part of our nature, and it is useful in change and vital in evolution. It is a bridge to new ways of thinking, being, and creating. And while it can create conditions for suffering because of either how we are treated or how we think about ourselves, by no means does madness go hand in hand with “suffering.” That is something else, entirely, I truly believe.

    People can be very sane in their suffering, which is excruciating. It is less painful to check out, so madness can be a coping mechanism for suffering. It’s also how we find answers to tough problems, in other realms of awareness, and that can be so easily judged, labeled, stigmatized, etc. We tend to fear and be put-off what by we do not understand from lack of experience or ego-threat or whatever. It’s a common resistance to truth I think, as we talk about on here quite a bit.

    Madness can also be a tool for creating, and I like how you are highlighting this. To me, it actually normalizes it, oddly enough. I guess because I do believe we all possess the madness, and also the brilliance and magic of it. It’s a matter of knowing how to access these within our consciousness (hint: two sides of the same coin), and a rough journey can be an excellent teacher! It gets easier with each awakening, if we are integrating as we go. As I like to say, the guides do show up and we find good people when we keep the faith in ourselves.

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  • “implying that we are all responsible for our objective oppression and need to learn to take a “positive” attitude towards it.”

    Not at all what I am implying, but I agree with you that articulating this can be a challenge, especially in a forum such as this one, where it is practically impossible.

    We live in one physical world with a variety of perspectives and levels of consciousness–different realities. As Seth or Abraham would say, different frequencies. Like trying to listen to an AM station on FM radio, can’t be done, it is physically impossible. Best we can do is live our truth, each of us, best way we know how from moment to moment.

    (My “oops” comment was because I had accidentally posted my response to KS here and then realized my error. When I went back to respond to Oldhead, I could not edit this and instead post the comment I eventually made, so Steve, could you please delete it? –the one that says “oops.” Thanks!)

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  • Kindredspirit, I do very much appreciate what you are saying here and I certainly respect that we disagree on this point, which I hear you when you say it is “dangerously close to victim blaming.” I’ve had this discussion and my perspective is one of people-empowering.

    I am a bit shy to use the word “victim,” because I think that can become a state of mind which I don’t feel is helpful in the long run. That’s my belief in any event. Although I am aware many of us have been victimized by betrayal, family dysfunction, and systemic incompetence, corruption, and abuse/bullying.

    What I talk about isn’t a snapshot in time, it is an ever-evolving awareness around our experience, much like you describe. We do the best we can with what we know at any given time, and we have countless opportunities to learn as we grow in life. I believe there is a valuable discussion here about being victimized vs. living life from victim perspective.

    With that said, I went through all of this and have my own epic story of being “chemically lobotomized” when I thought I was being helped, being discriminated against and “othered” blatantly in the system, to the point of filing an EEOC complaint which I won. Did not cost me a cent but I had to be incredibly tenacious about it at a time when I was fragmented and feeling effects of severe trauma on top of toxic psych drugs withdrawal. I had my extreme emotional, physical, and financial hardships for years and years thanks to all of this, all just as I was shifting careers in life.

    I was on a variety of different neurotoxins for years, this is what I thought I had to do for my “condition.” Fortunately, I was able to work and go to school while diagnosed and on these things, but I was not 100% and had all kinds of side-effects I had to work around, and I thought this was my life, this was the best I could do. I didn’t realize it was eroding my organs for all those years, until finally I imploded and HAD to come off of everything. This was right after graduate school, 1999.

    No one in my life nor of all the clinicians I was seeing and all the therapists and professors I knew in graduate school, had ever heard of such a thing, coming off these drugs as I was doing. I had people around me, but that was more harmful than helpful. I was on my own with this. It was catastrophic for me, my life was going down the tubes suddenly thanks to all this, just like you and so many others describe.

    As I was finally withdrawing from all neurotoxins after 20 years (having culminated in 9 thanks to an over-zealous and basically bad psychiatrist) because the side effects kept landing me in the ER, that’s when I was getting bashed by another psychiatrist and a few therapists at a “day treatment” center. I’d been a psychotherapist intern, and I represented something very shadowy for them, because I was speaking my truth, and it did not look good for this field. You want to hear authentic victim blaming? This is where it started for me, in abundance.

    But I was not only speaking THE TRUTH, I was embodying it fully, and quite a mess I was, it was overt. But that was the end result of their work, because I did trust the field. That was my program from my culture, and I had to wake up. This is how I did it.

    So, I finally switched tracks and took all sorts of risks and chances, leaps of faith, and learned all sorts of new things and new perspectives which turned out to be my healing path. Taking responsibility for what I was creating in my life and then learning how I was doing that so that I could actually make a few changes and be more aware of myself is how I conquered all of this, without a doubt. Totally transformed my way of thinking to see how I was influencing the energy of my own life. It was either that or be miserable in life or die, so I faced myself squarely.

    I cherish my ability to be happy and enjoy life, and I worked hard for it, after this “mental health” crap debacle. Makes me cringe a bit when others begrudge me this. But that’s the world we live in now, sadly enough. I have to be very in tune with my inner guidance to keep growing in that kind of environment.

    That’s just me. If we don’t agree, we don’t agree, and I believe we can do that respectfully. But to call my truth injurious to others—well, then that is two separate and distinct realities and I don’t see how they are reconcilable.

    Still, I know I’m not nearly the only person in the world who believes what I believe, this is based on teachings I learned over the years as I healed from all I described above. It’s a truth that works for many people, the basis of tons of healing programs. From the perspective I’m coming, this is how energy works. It’s the nature of things.

    I also know I am a sensitive individual who wouldn’t hurt a fly, certainly not intentionally. But I’ll certainly defend myself against any kind of abuse or injustice. I respect boundaries but I also reserve the right to speak my truth about my healing. I expect that to be respected as well.

    I understand this is not black and white. We’ve all had different experiences and we all respond to life in our own way. We can all have our own story without invalidating others. Our stories are not always going to be in agreement, and that’s when I think we can learn the most, lots to explore when this happens.

    But not if we bash the story or beliefs of others. That is what keeps the status quo in power, all that conflict. Rather defeating and self-sabotaging if you ask me, especially considering our goals to help others. You don’t do that by maligning fellow human beings.

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  • No she didn’t. That was on the bogus orders of the wizard, which was merely a projected hologram of power, and which she bought into out of fear and desperation. She went sincerely for help.

    And it wasn’t to kill the witch, it was to get her broom. The witch died because she tried to kill the Scarecrow with fire, and Dorothy threw water on it to save him, and it happened to splash on the witch. Dorothy didn’t intend to kill her nor did she know water would melt her. But it did free the witch’s slaves, so it served a bigger purpose.

    In the end, none of that mattered otherwise because it got no one what they asked for, it was all a hoax and it almost got everyone killed. Sound familiar?

    It turned out that the man behind the curtain was kind-hearted, but he did not know what he was doing and put them through all kinds of hell and torture, and on top of that, Dorothy was sol with this guy. He couldn’t get her home, even though she did kill the witch and free the slaves, and brought him the broom, exactly as he had instructed.

    In the end, she just needed to get back to herself and trust her heart. That was her power, regardless of anything.

    Too simple, naïve, and “Forrest Gumpish” for today’s world? Everyone has to decide that for themselves. We’re each responsible for our own lives.

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  • You’re talking about power over others and I’m referring to power in and over our own lives, to manifest our deepest desires. These are not only two entirely different things, they are antithetical.

    We all have the power to be free of oppression, the way Dorothy had the power all along to get home. But first, she had to take a journey in order to experience and learn many new things. She was in a dream state, an altered state of consciousness. She had company along the way.

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  • Yes, I was thinking of Abraham teachings when I used that particular phrase. Of course, all-that-is=God=inner being=higher self=Source energy, etc., and I try to use language that I feel will most clearly translate in the moment. Not suprised, Oldhead, I’ve seen you refer to Seth. I also agree with you that evolution is inherent in the revolution we’re talking about here. I’ve gotten accustomed to writing (r)evolution.

    More than science, I believe these teachings challenge world religions because they are based on the idea that we as humans are the co-creators of our reality, and that we as humans are an aspect of all that is/Source energy, so we inhernetly have that kind of power, equal to the power of God because we are inhernetly that energy–divine beings having a human experience. When we know this, we are awake to our spirit/soul, and then we can navigagte our lives with infinitely more awareness and a much broader and heart-based perspective, aka heart-mind alignment. It is an expansive, warm and loving feeling of safety, well-being, and innate abundance, and can easily be perceived through synchronicity, if this is our focus.

    Problem is all the brainwashing and programming which has taken place for so long, which makes us feel separate from our own power source/inner being. “Listen to us, not yourselves,” creating dysfunction through co-dependence en masse. To me, the (r)evolution is the healing of this separation of human self from divine self (spirit/soul/higher self), which is heart healing. That would evolve us by quantum leaps, without a doubt, while disempowering oppressors and oppressive systems.

    It is an emotional journey, because when we heal our hearts, we are releasing a lot of old pent up emotions in order to achieve a new present time clarity. It is what makes us abundantly human, which I believe we are validating fully and unequivocally here.

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  • Close! This would be more influenced by Esther Hicks, who studied and was highly influenced by Jane Roberts. I love the Seth material but haven’t looked at it in a while.

    What I mostly recall taking from Seth is around the nature of our personal reality, creating it as we go from our thoughtforms and practiced self-beliefs. I do very much believe in and focus primarily on the vibrational nature of our physial reality, as per Seth (and Abraham, which Esther channels). So what I said above really is my truth, it’s the awareness by which I live and operate. I’ve integrated this and it’s totally consistent with my experience of manifesting.

    The foundation of this did come from my journey into multiple states of consciousness. Once I was able to ground and streamline the information, this was the result of that particular consciousness work. I think what occurs as we grow into expanded awareness and then ground it (the lack of which is what causes extreme distress and disorientation) is that our innate gifts do begin to come to light. I think it’s natural.

    It may feel like superpowers when we’ve been particuarly harsh on ourselves and systemically demeaned into chronic self-doubt, but to my mind, it is really who we are. I think that’s the path of self-discovery and soul growth, which is way different than the typical “social expectations,” which are what create that boxed-in, limited, and opppresive reality which is really what drives people crazy. I believe Seth and Abraham would both concur that shifting our focus is what changes our reality. I think so, too.

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  • “Madness can never be truly understood, and madness is something that is still very mysterious, unique, and belonging to the other world, a world that only few of us have access to.”

    Disagree on all counts. We’re all one consciousness, each person expressing a unique aspect of that oneness. Everyone and anyone is capable of experiencing their self-maligning voices, which is where madness gets its power. In shadow, everyone is mad. In the light, everyone is a unique experssion of all-that-is.

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  • The relationship between individuals and their environment is, both, complex and subtle. Add to this that being adjusted to a dysfunctional society only means that one is playing a role in the dysfunction–at the very least enabling it, which is a hefty contribution to its existence.

    Once the dysfunction is called out, then the individual who spoke their truth and blew the whistle shifts their role to outlier and usually becomes ostracized or “marginalized.” Naturally, truth is threatening to a dysfunctional community, and it will band more tightly together to keep the truth at bay so that it does not come to light. That would challenge the entire system more than it would want because then each individual would face their own hard truths. It’s a catch-22–either play into the system, or you will be marginalized.

    The other choice would be to detach from the dysfunction, heal the trauma and negative self-beliefs from that oppressive relationship, and be free.

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  • I appreciate this work very much, Lauren. I began learning and integrating a variety of these practices over the years as my healing path through psych drugs withdrawal. I went from 9 neurotoxins to 0 in 6 months, at age 40, after 20 year of diagnoses and some combo of psych drugs or another.

    My best guidance came from a medical intuit to whom I turned regarding how to free myself of all of this, as I was beginning to feel hopelessly entangled in the “mental health” industry, and seriously disabled from it. She started me on this path of energy and awareness. $45 for a 15 minute reading, the protocol of which I followed diligently, and it totally did the trick! Took years, and I learned patience and deep trust in the process. Layer by layer, my health and life came back into balance. In the process, life became a way different experience for me, and that is exactly what I was needing, and for what I’d been hoping. Biggest shift ever.

    I’d just finished graduate school, in student debt up to my eyeballs, living in one of the most expensive cities in the world, and terribly desperate, so I was open to anything at all. I’d never before meditated nor was I terribly familiar with any of this, wasn’t part of my life or reality.

    The truth is that this saved my life, and that is no exaggeration. I was in dreadful shape, and had been for a good long while, feeling profoundly hopeless from time to time, thanks to all the misinformation I’d been receiving, the damage that had been done by those psych drugs, as well as the energy it took to battle the plethora of negative projections from the system. No grounding, filled with dread, no sense of having a “center.” Thank God, that all changed, once and for all, and I completely credit things like grounding meditation, Qi Gong, etc., all leading to heightened self-awareness. Slowing down big time was hugely healing.

    Consciously grounding and centering is what allowed me to find a bit of inner peace for the first time in a good long while, and which, in turn, allowed for a new clarity to emerge, followed eventually by a new paradigm of living. For me, it was healing at the core, and sure enough, radical inner change led to radical outer change. I call it “rippling transformation.”

    So I’m with you completely on “healing from within.” Taking that perspective is what led to my own personal liberation, and for my life dreams to come into reach, finally. Very best wishes for distribution!

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  • Thanks for bringing focus to the family in this way, Chaya. I think it’s the most tricky and sensitive exploration of these issues, understandably, and also vitally relevant. One needn’t be a parent to understand a child’s needs given how we were all children at one point, without exception. How to balance needs of self without somehow depriving or expecting sacrifice from others is something we all learn to balance in any relationship. Unconditional love is not an easy practice in today’s world.

    Society is a mere reflection of how we’re doing as a “society of families,” and given the rampant abuse and marginalization (and the volatile and weighty emotions which accompany these) which seem to be the dominant social make-up at this time, I’d say the picture is obviously troubling and needs attention.

    I think we’re trying to heal generational abuse, and the effects thereof, and somehow transmute all that trauma energy into something meaningful and forward moving, a new clarity. Can we learn and grow from a history of trauma rather than to repeat the same mistakes made by others? Somehow, we have to do better than what has come before, which is what has brought us to these crossroads. Good time for an awakening.

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  • If it’s phony, then the “happiness” is merely a front, not really happy of course. In fact, it doesn’t sound like a very enviable position to be in. Projecting a phony front takes a lot of work and effort and generally carries a great deal of anxiety from all that splitting. I think being authentic is relatively easier, and is where truth comes to light.

    I do agree that the lack of senstivity and empathy in the mh industry is over the top. The most memorable line I ever heard from a group therapist in social services was “take your meds and don’t make waves”–not to me, but to a group member who was experiencing crime in his housing. Doesn’t sound like a very happy therapist to me, in fact I’d say she was quite angry, and she said a lot of stuff like this, and indeed, was blatantly ridiculing. Consistent with the rest of my experience with the mh world.

    That is one angry and fear-based industry, projecting tons of phoniness, which is why it resorts to control and manipulation, followed by avoidance if questioned. To me, this is the epitome of *lack of integrity.* And that’s the nicest thing I can say about the industry, in all sincerity.

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  • “If you’re freakishly happy all the time you must be stupid, insensitive, selfish, sheltered, or a combination of the above.”

    Not sure what would constitue “freakishly” happy, but overall, this sentiment evokes sadness in me, and feels a bit double-binding. If we have a right to unhappiness–which I would agree and to me it goes without saying that we all have the right to feel our true and authentic feelings–do we not also have a right to be happy, without being judged or labeled for it?

    I believe what causes problems is when people try to impose their feelings on others, rather than simply owning how they feel toward anything as their own experience, and not necessarily that of others. “You should be unhappy” and “you should be angry” are just as imposing, oppressive, and unrealistic as “you should be happy.” But I do think lableing people for how they feel in any respect is, to me, where psychiatry and DSM go way wrong. I also think that labeling people for being happy is the same thing.

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  • My anxiety used to be extermely disabling to me until I began to perceive the inner dialogue going on. Most often, the anxiety came from not believing in myself and for taking on and internalizing negative projections, which I no longer do take these on and have learned to individuate from negative group dynamics.

    Healing was about learning to trust my own judgment and sense of self regardless of anything, and to stay connected to my own truth over and above the projected judgments and opinions of others. That was the advantage of unwittingly hanging out with bigots/snobs/elitists/marginalizers and becoming the target of their prejudice because they did not like my truth. A true lesson in “whose reality is it, anyway?” It has never been my goal in life to climb that social hierarchical ladder. That’s neither my desire nor my reality.

    These days, when anxiety pops up, I dialogue with it in order to understand what it’s wanting me to see in that moment. That has become my practice now, to engage directly with the anxiety, given it is a part of me and my experience at that particular time. As this inner dialogue ensues, which tends to be very engaging, eventually everything I need to know in that moment comes to light and the anxiety turns into guidance and creative energy. Moving forward and personal growth happen automatically at this point.

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  • Extremely thought provoking. Thank you for speaking your truth with such power and conviction. Looking at ourselves is never a bad idea, imo.

    When you consider the whole of humanity and each person’s personal experience, these are in no way black & white issues, to say the least. We each have to take care of ourselves our own way. I think these are good personal boundaries to set and respect.

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  • “As human beings we are creators, but, at times, we certainly can feel like victims. In my experience, we more or less consciously seek out challenges which stretch us to go beyond ‘our box’. We are surrounded by, and certainly history is filled with, inspiring individuals who have made their way through unenviable and unbelievable hardship guided by the resilience of their Spirit.”

    Yes, and so to know our spirit is to know our truth, unfolding from moment to moment, and that is our own personal GPS in life.

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  • Will, thank you for sharing so honestly and transparently from your perspective, and I very sincerely respect your position and process here. Power dynamics and abuse bring up profoundly strong feelings and interpersonal issues, and can make each of us struggle to one degree or another. You articulate this well.

    I agree that we all play a part in the system we’ve created, one way or another, and we can be complicit with it in the most unconscious and unwitting ways, especially when suddenly thrust into that position. And, where there is money/salary involved, we all know the power of that persuasion. That is the nature of systemic programming, playing on our fears.

    Retaliation from the system only proves its corruption, and does not allow necessary truth to come to light, other than its own shadow which is already quite apparent to most of us. And this is what I, at least, seek in these endeavors–the truth and clarity that will lead to change.

    There are various parts to play in a dysfunctional system. One person, alone, cannot maintain a corrput system, an abuser has to be supported, so they create an enabling support system. Once we awaken to the role we’ve been playing and the implications thereof, that is an opportunity for great introspection, as you are embodying here.

    This is a highly relevant dialogue, imo, given the profoundly corrupt system, on so many levels, we’re talking about here.

    My personal experience comes from another perpsective, having played the role of “victim,” and then calling out power abuse and other potentially highly injurious practices based on power roles, and everyone protects the abuser, making it systemic.

    That experience has set off my own process of emotional journeying and trying to create meaning from it all, while learning quite a bit about how these systems trap and double-bind, completely oblivious to their abusive and injurious natures. Still a work in progress, but more and more clarity comes daily, from which I take my inner guidance based on my own personal truth and values, much like you describe.

    I don’t see anything wrong with consulting lawyers, however. There are tons of legal issues to consider when dealing with systemic power abuse. There are legal aid agencies for low income people, which I used once with success. The legal world is not easy either, but it can provide another perspective and one might just find a broad-minded and courageous attorney with insight and integrity.

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  • Not everyone subscribes to the notion of rebirth. I do not believe it is dangerous, but more so a natural cycle of expanding consciousness.

    What some cultures call “death” others call “rebirth” because what we generally refer to as “death” has various interpretations. Concsiousness, for example, never dies, according to these beliefs. It simply shifts into new awareness, a new point of focus. That would create a new reality, like an upgrade. It’s one way of looking at things.

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  • One strategy for change is to allow things (the old, outdated, dysfunctional systems) to fall apart and then seeing what emerges. That’s the natural cycle of rebirth. Could the planet be going through a rebirth at present?

    Hard to know what actions to take at any given time with such an event, but I believe being mindful of our own personal reality brings inspiration along the way. And I believe acting on inspiration is way more effective than acting out of fear and panic. There are also times where it is most effective to allow and see what happens next. We cannot control everything, that is impossible.

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  • I appreciate Monica’s blog very much because it is all encompassing in the pros and cautions of increasing our self-awareness through mindful practices simply to pay attention to ourselves, as she states above. Brings up all sorts of stuff when we first start these practices, and it is a process of which to be aware, like with any learning curve from change. We do face our own programming here. That is our opportunity to ascend it consciously, should we so *choose* to do so.

    There are many and varied ways in which to deal with these newly unearthed feelings, depending on a person’s process, beliefs, experience, etc–a variety of factors. Support when learning this is valuable, and there are people trained and experienced in helping people learn to practice conscious mindfulness–from their own experience of learning, it is a paying forward kind of thing–when people so desire to choose something new and different for thesmelves. It can be a very healing endeavor for some people, on many levels. And yes, there are challenges and pitfalls, like with anything new, and this is simply an option for focus, motivated by a desire to change something in their lives.

    It is certainly not intended to be the only tool for living, the way breathing is not the only thing requred to stay alive. One needs to eat, too, and to self-care in many ways including nourishing one’s heart and spirit, creative expression, etc. There are many practices required to have the life we desire, just like there are many practices which affect our daily consciousness. There are so many generationally evolved practices and perspectives from which to choose, including creating one’s own, as there are infinite ways to practice mindfulness/consciousness/awareness. The idea is that these practices can be powerful tools for self-support in so many ways, if applied with conscious intention.

    Responding to the idea of “forced meditation,” I believe it goes without saying, especically aorund here, that nothing forced works in any respect, other than to make matters worse. In addition, I do not believe it is possible to force mindfulness, meditation, nor even one’s own beliefs, on another. That cannot be because, in the truest sense, no one can control what is in the head and heart of another. It is either a choice or n/a.

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  • While a meditation practice might help someone clear their mind of clutter and help to sharpen focus, expand awareness and to perceive in new ways, it doesn’t necessarily change our heart or ideology and heal our wounds. That is a matter of heart healing, which is complex and is inherently about relationship to others. Meditation is about relationship to self, which is highly personal and individual.

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  • From what I understand, the present moment is all that we can know with certainty is real–in the moment we are living it–and where our true power to heal, shift, and manifest exists. When we are mindful of our process and notice our response to life in the moment, then we have the power to take pause and shift that response, if we want to experience change. Or we can simply validate and enjoy the moment, which is the joy of life. Either way, present time awareness is where the power is.

    Great stuff as always, Monica. It’s wonderful to see the edge expanding. I’m all for however we can tap into our highest creative potential.

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  • As someone who feels literally “saved” by having learned and maintained a specific meditation practice, I appreciate this article very much, Monica. I agree wholeheartedly that meditation is not simply about feeling “bliss” and sitting quietly–far from it–and that, indeed, carrying trauma influences our meditation space enormously, which we should approach with caution and awareness.

    When we shift awareness, a process of transformation begins which includes surrender and stiving for neutrality, releasing judgments, which is a quantum leap in consciousness which is literally a shift in our personal reality, inside and out. Step by step, layer by layer, it is such a process! And as we all know and discuss on here constantly, everyone’s process is entirely unique. I’m always glad to see this highlighted because it is our individual spirits we are reminding ourselves of.

    “Many folks with psych histories have been denied inclusion when approaching mindfulness teachers too… sometimes in ways that are very traumatic.”

    I actually got very lucky here and attended a healing meditaiton program where I was very welcomed by the teachers and other students, so I got terrific support as I learned the process of meditation. I was the only one I knew of when I began who enrolled in this program specifically to help me with psych drugs withdrawal, first and foremost, and then to help me to heal from the core issues which flooded to the surface as I came off all the drugs. I did not know about “iatrogenic illness” at the time, never heard of that, so I was not factoring it in. I put it all under the heading of “energy,” and learned the chakra work through grounding meditation.

    Absolutely the worst and messiest time of my life, I was in the throes of withdrawal and dark night, and even in a social services day treatment program when I began at this school. Each community invalidated the other, it was fascinating and excruciating at the same time. Although the spiritual teachers were more open to “mental health” work than the “mental health” commmunity was to the energy work. They totally judged it and found it “symptomatic.”

    I finally ditched all the mental health stuff and went with chakra and energy route, and that was the way out for me. No looking back, other than to inform my work in the world.

    From what you say in your article, I now consider myself to be extremely fortunate. This school I attended is one place where I did not experience discrimination and exclusion, directly opposed to what I felt in “the system,” whether in groups or 1:1 clincial sessions of any kind.

    And while the meditation, grounding, and energy work were major factors in my particular process of healing, what was MOST healing for me at that time in my life was the fact that I was welcome and treated with respect like all the other students. In fact, everyone knew the healing I was doing and thought it was cool, I was respected specifically for that, and neither scorned, judged, stigmatized nor discriminated against because I was dealing with such issues. It was normalized here, everyone had something they were dealing with, given how human we all are. The teachers were transparent in their personal growth and healing, too. There should be more places like this, I think.

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  • “My own working definition of love is “joyful awareness”—the experience of happiness over the existence of something or someone, including whatever or whomever inspires us, from family and friends to nature and God.”

    I love working with joyful awareness, that’s my healing path. To be awake is to know love because when we are awake, we know that we are more than just our physical selves. We are ever-expansive.

    Although being awake and experssing love in a fear-based and hate-filled society is the epitome of courage. And it takes courage to create change.

    Thanks for the love, courage, and inspiration.

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  • Lots of profound truths here. I especially appreciate this direct and simple statement–

    “None of us are perfect and there’s no one right way to help people or engage in mutual liberation.”

    I’m sure there are many ways yet to be discovered in these groundbreaking pursuits. Personally, I have found that effective boundary-setting is always a work in progress, and inherently relevant to creating mutually healing and harmonious relationship, based on authenticity. Keep up the awesome work, Chaya, you’re expanding the universe!

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  • I’d still distinguish between having predominantly positive self-beliefs vs. negative self-beliefs, and these do make a difference in how we create and experience our lives. These are also malleable and possible to shift, which to me is a transformational process. But personal prejudice is something only a person themselves can change, when they are ready to face their own self-judgments.

    And like I said, what actions anyone chooses to take or not take will depend on what they believe about themselves, what they are capable of, how supported they feel, how vulnerable one is willing to make themselves while challenging the status quo, how to navigate the anxieties of speaking one’s truth in opposition to “power,” etc. I think inspired actions comes from a commitment to one’s personal sense of truth above and beyond the prejudice which may surround them.

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  • Given that self-stigma translates into low self-esteem and low self-worth, then healing self-stigma would indicate shifting to positive and validating self-beliefs, despite outside messages, judgments, opinions, projections and prejudices. That’s an entirely different consciousness, and in turn, would create an entirely new reality for a person.

    I believe that is *the* journey to take, from self-condemnation to self-compassion and even self-love. When we feel good about ourselves, our feelings, words, thoughts, beliefs, and actions are quite different than from when we feel negatively about ourselves, producing different responses and results.

    We have the power to change only ourselves, not others. And, I believe, that is enough to bring significant change to the world. One person’s transformation affects everyone around that person.

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  • I also wanted to express that whatever spiritual awareness a person can own for themselves, one thing I learned along the way of my healing and personal growth is that what is really challenging is being human, regardless of anything. I believe it is set up this way, by nature, so that we can know our power of self.

    I believe “psychosis” (which I would say some people call a such–i.e., they project–when a person embodies a personal reality which well outside the norm and, somehow, threatening to it) is what occurs during transitional states, where we are growing, changing, and transforming, as per the nature of life and being human. We’re not static beings, and change is inherently challenging and uncomfortable, but it becomes more so toward suffering when change tries to happen in a society where it is so stubbornly resisted due to personal competing self-interests.

    Transitional states of being are natural and change is happening all the time; but judgment, shame, fear, and worry are human traits which are malleable. When we work internally, we shift what is external to us, goes hand in hand. Permission to be is a powerful healing tool and perspective.

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  • I love this article, Ekaterina, for many reasons. In fact, I believe you illustrate perfectly the oppression which psychiatry practices, especially oppression of personal thoughts and beliefs while completely invalidating, negating, and unequivocally dismissing what one feels and experiences on their own terms. So add oppression of a person’s emotions and spirit, too. How is this anything good?

    Past lives, parallel realities, and embracing one’s God-self (Buddha-self, Christ-consciousness, inner being, etc.) is reality for a lot of people on the planet, and it’s completely reasonable, and I’d say even desirable. For me and sooo many others I know, this is the case at least.

    I’d love for everyone to know their higher self and be able to embody that wisdom and live their truth outright, rather than all of this pretense in order to “fit in” and “be acceptable” and “approved of.” I think the world would improve a great deal if we were to all know how to embrace our spiritual selves as well as our physical selves, because I think we would not live so much by our judgments and fears, but more so by what makes us feel satisifed and personally fulfilled, and not at the expense of others. That’s my personal opinion and perspective.

    So much to learn, experience, and explore above and beyond the extreme limitations of “psychiatric thinking.” And by this I mean teeny tiny little boxes which amount to chronic suffering and cutting one’s self off from their own soul if one tries to fit in. This struck me specifically when you tell how the psychiatrist looked serious rather than laughed when you were joking with her. Embracing our soul path and growth is a lot more fun, interesting, creative, and freeing than is facing such a closed mind and heart.

    Thank you so much for writing this! I think it’s a powerful message and very clear. We do have a choice in what we believe, and what I believe is that our personal beliefs affect how our reality unfolds from day to day. Let’s not allow our choices and faith to be bullied out of being by this blatant oppression. I believe we have this power right now, to live our authentic truth, especially given all the oppressed voices speaking up and out these days.

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  • Healing from whatever trauma one may have experienced is what leads to greater understanding of how things work as well as personal enlightenment.

    Also, what we observe in others is merely a projection of our inner world. A person’s reality is what they feel, not what others observe about them. That would be the reality of the observer.

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  • Yes, very good distinction.

    And I would add here what I feel makes activism particularly unique in this arena, and ironically, I feel compelled to use the word “triggered,” because to me, this is exactly what I experience, so I’m speaking for myself with this word, it totally matches my intention–

    I know when I first started posting on MIA not long after its inception years ago, I was not prepared to feel as triggered as I was– not because of the issues being discussed, that I’ve been used to for years and that’s what I enjoy on here, the ability to be open about things where in most places I know it’s not so welcome, understood or even perceived as relevant.

    But I did feel a general lack of sensitivity, and even a bit more severe, kind of an “abusive energy,” and admittedly, I would unconsciously match it–not abusive, I don’t think, but insensitive and ranting. That’s what happens when I get triggered from a total lack of sensitivity in the air.

    I’ve been called “thin-skinned” on here which I cannot take seriously, as that would be impossible after all I’ve gone through, survived, and even from which I have thrived–from hospitalization to withdrawal from 9 drugs to legal mediation to being on stage (with anxiety issues no less!), and now doing very cutting edge work with people, so I do not take anything personally. I do know my truth, and I know who I am.

    But I am most definitely sensitive to energy, and I believe that is one thing that many survivors share. Not all, as I do not believe that this is a homogenous population, we are as diverse as anything. But I do know from knowing myself and tons of folks with whom I’ve spoken over the years, that being extremely sensitive to hostile negative and invalidating energies is quite a common trait among us. We each have to know ourselves in this regard, and then we can make wiser choices in life. Like HH says, to know how to best expend our energy. That is brilliant self-care and self-awareness.

    This brand of sensitivity is actually called “clairsentience,” meaning that we pick up energy from the environment on a physical level. It’s common, and something one needs to learn to work with so it is a gift rather than a crippling curse.

    So yes, it’s a delicate balance, and one I believe we can always be working to refine, if only for the sake of moving forward with all of this. In my work, there is something called “raising the energy,” which, when that occurs, a group can make great strides in accomplishing its goals. And the more one raises the energy, the more ease comes. That involves the values of mutual respect, sensitive listening and responding, from the heart, all that good stuff. I know I know–Kumbaya, as I’ve been called so often on here. But I’ll not bend here, either, because I know it to be truthful.

    One last thing, as long as we’re on the topic of communication–

    I guess it’s long overdue, but I do apologize for how I came on here and sent you a good blast of my anger in the way past, I did not handle myself well there. I’d been dialoguing with Mr. Whitaker just prior to this, and was super triggered by the article you had written. Not an excuse, but that’s the reason. I hope that in the meantime, I have grown in my ability to communicate with clarity and reason. That’s certainly been my intention. Takes trial and error. Your work is brilliant, no doubt about that.

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  • In this case, “involuntary medication” is a silly euphemism which way waters down the spirit and intention of what we are communicating. Forced drugging is what it is, and the energy of this is accurate.

    There is a “violence” to it, or at the very least, intimidation, overpowering, and bullying. It is violating to a person. When we say “forced drugging,” we are saying exactly what we mean, and that’s where the power is.

    Here, I don’t believe it is an issue of language, it’s an issue of…I don’t know…power? Needing to be right? Needing to control? Other? Take your pick. Either way, the system never comes from a place of truth. It’s a rabbit hole.

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  • Winning an EEOC mediation against a voc rehab agency took clarity, directness, and persistence. No word or mind games, and no attacking. Plain, simple, honest truth spoken from the heart. It all synched up.

    Of course the “powers that be” responded with retaliation when I accused them of blatant discrimination. And I proved it easily and without a doubt. It took its toll, but I recovered from the extreme stress of this and moved on.

    Standing up to them bolstered my self-respect, which, considering that this was my farewell to being vulnerable in “the system”– where I had given up my power to them by accepting a position with this agency after having been a client initially–this was profoundly healing for me in multiple ways.

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  • That’s hard to answer out of context because situations, intentions, and relationships vary, and I do believe in a certain amount of sensitivity even when we are being totally honest in our emotions. Whereas clarity and whitewashing do not go hand in hand, I do believe that clarity and sensitivity can harmonize. I think it takes intention, practice, and trust in the process.

    I do know what you mean, in general, and I do agree, thinking of an example from years ago in San Francisco, when I was at a local activist roundtable, and I was directed specifically to not use “the D word” (Discrimination) because it is inflammatory. Of course that is bullshit and I said so, but I was alone in this. When I was doing this work in San Francisco, there was a caution about language that was over the top, and indeed, like you say, easily counterproductive. I’m sure it had all to do with appeasing power and not losing “status” in the community. Fakes.

    What I feel is most productive is that our words match our inention, and that we mean what we say and say what we mean–to be honest and straightforward. I believe that is the best we can do, to be authentic, while also being mindful that our words are matching our intention with clarity and purpose.

    That can still make people uncomfortable for one of two reasons–they are either hearing it in a way different than intended, projecting something onto what is being communicating, or there is a truth in what has been spoken to which people can be very resistant to hearing. I think this is where dialogue can help bring clarity, but like I said above, only if a neutral focus can be maintained. That’s generally the big challenge, from my experience, yet to be surmounted. People can get attached to a false belief and simply not want to let go, from all kinds of fears. That’s a problem when trying to resolve issues and create new clarity.

    In activism, however, how can one expect to not be uncomfortable? Seeking change will inherently make us feel our discomforts. Otherwise, nothing gets at all accomplished, status quo.

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  • Having faced oppression in various forms, and then addressing what I had internalized in a healing manner by shifting my self-beliefs back to something more positive and encouraging to me, I agree wholeheartedly that language can be a powerful tool of oppression and is often used as such. It’s the essence of gaslighting.

    I also agree with HH that beyond words are energy and ways of thinking, which are inherently relevant to the subject of what words we use to communicate a specific intention.

    What exactly is our intention when we communicate a personal truth? To be heard? To make an impact? To create change? Or is it to hurt someone? Retaliate? Demonstrate power? Project our shadow so we don’t have to see or feel it ourselves?

    The last one I list here is how I most feel about what happens in the mh industry. And perhaps creating change will hurt some people. Is that a reason to not use our power of language in truth-speaking? These are conundrums I consider constantly as an activist. Who am I most responsible to, if not myself? Like anyone, I don’t appreciate at all being censored or silenced, but at the same time, I want to know how what I am saying is being heard.

    Sometimes, these are not in synch, and I find that always to be a most powerful space for new potential of clarity and understanding, if a relatively neutral focus can be maintained. If the intention of our words is to bring clarity to an issue or situation, then the outcome will naturally reflect either the power of that intention, or at the very least, it will highlight where the resistance to clarity is, which to me, is an obstacle to, both, healing and change.

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  • “Authoritarian religious groups are [sub-CULT-ures] where conformity is required in order to belong. Thus if you dare to leave the religion, you risk losing your entire support system as well.”

    This goes beyond “religious groups.” This is cult mentality, and it is a norm in our society–corporate, poltical, academic–which translates into: 1) fear-mongering, 2) conditional acceptance, 3) shaming, 4) marginalization, 5) discrimination, 6) oppression (sound familiar?), and I’m sure much, much more–all designed to empower an “authority figure” and their chosen “elite group,” as per some made up dogma which serves the top echilon at the expense of the community at large, even though this is not seen clearly through all the smoke and mirrors. Playing on people’s fears and need for belonging is the most common way to amass “followers.” That’s generally the problem which can seem insurmountable to change.

    These extremely dysfunctional communities can be ruthless in their need to maintain power and control over others. The author calls it “toxic,” with which I would agree. It does require healing once one separates from this, which to me would signal a courageous and empowering awakening to one’s true self, separate and apart from this kind of brainwashing.

    Best way I can think of to disempower toxic, abusive, and traumatizing social dysfunction is to separate from it and heal to a new sense of self, which is natural evolution, and which is also a challenging journey which requires a lot of internal shifting and deep self-discovery–aka humility. But it does eventually lead to freedom once we can claim it and own it. That is profound change happening in the moment.

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  • So many of us have said it so often. The stigma associated with marginalization is created and supported by the “mental health industrial complex,” (which includes associated entities and so-called “non-profit” social services). In fact, this field/culture promotes and causes marginalization in the first place. The stigma happens automatically, goes hand in hand with othering and marginalizing. All based on deceit, misrepresentation, mind games and gaslighting, and in general, an extreme lack of integrity–which is the antithesis of truth. That is crazy-making.

    What we call “mental illness” is often the end result of being othered by one’s primary group affiliation (e.g. family)–not always, but the family/community dynamic is a major player, given that othering does need a source from which to be projected initially, by definition–and that is repeated in the mh world perspective of what it means to be a human being, which is extremely limited at best, and overall terribly misguided. I believe that, by now, this is obvious. Eventually, this is internalized, and that becomes a profound internal split and struggle which can make one swing from despondence to rage, due to feelings of utter powerlessness.

    Once othering and marginalizing cease to be, then this will come into perspective and we can beging to heal as a society. But how to stop divisiveness is a head-scratcher. Perhaps to not play the game, on either team, would be a step in the right direction–maybe even a quantum leap.

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  • I’d put quotation marks around “stepping out of line,” because of course we’re talking about people being themselves and following their own truth. We all have the capacity to live our truth, if we dare to be different and unique.

    The only “line” one steps out of is some arbitrary “line” drawn by the “APA clinical mindset,” which is, in reality, completely meaningless, unless one buys into it. Then, it is dangerous because it is inherently dehumanizing.

    I’d say having a moral compass would keep anyone more in line, in a universal sense, although I guess that can be relative as well. And whether that is innate or learned–or some combo of both–is something on which I’m not totally clear.

    In general, though, any sense of this seems to be missing in action among our leaders, and I could not locate it anywhere within the mh industry for years and years.

    Unfortunately, this has been the example as of late, to demean those who are different, rather than to value uniqueness. I think this is where the mh industry falls way, way short, to say the least, making it a strong arm of oppression and discrimination, if not the epitome of it.

    Apparently, this field and its many affiliations have no plans to stop hurting people, despite the overwhelming evidence that this is exactly what is happening, and has been for a long time. To me, that is a flagrant lack of human values.

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  • So how does one teach respect? Other than by modeling it from the practice of it, as a general rule of living. It also helps to practice self-respect and radical self-care. These tend to guide a person in the right direction, and away from systemic abuse, bullying, and marginalizing–aka blatant stigma aka textbook discrimination. Then, wounds and post traumatic stress caused by chronic othering can heal, once out of the marginalizing community. That’s when good wisdom kicks in, from having lived the experience of it, and then healing from it with a lot of processing and shifting perspectives. That’s useful to the world right about now.

    Facing chronic blatant social and professional discrimination is treacherous, but it can heal in time, in a sound and just environment. And if that doesn’t exist, we have to create it. It has to start somewhere.

    For me, the irony has been that only in the mh world have I faced overt and chronic discrimination from the negative projections of stigma. I believe it originates in the “mental health” field of study. “Discrimination” is woven into the fabric of the education and training program and fully supported by the DSM. Without stigma, discrimination, and all-out othering, the entire field of “mental health” would totally fall apart. It relies on this for its own self-identity, and for business.

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  • Rachel, were we to have the option, I’d click “like” on your comment. I did the same thing to get away from that “stigma energy,” as I’d call it. I never took this on in my self-beliefs because I knew myself better than this, but regardless, fighting it is a rabbit hole, and it sure does get under one’s skin to be “othered” continuously, causes all sorts of problems and life/health/financial disturbances. As long as I get anywhere near “mental health” anything and I disclose anything about my history, despite all I’ve done since I abandoned anything having to do with diagnoses and drugs (which is quite a bit in all areas healing and creative), then wham here it comes, and boy do I feel it.

    What really fuels the “stigma” fire is when I own my truth based on my personal life experience, despite it not quite jiving with their reality. Horrors! Well, that’s usually what sets it all off quite aggressively, and there is simply no turning back. The fuse is lit.

    Moral of the story, of course, is to stay away from communities which exist solely on scapegoating, which is energy-sucking to the one identified as such. The more we DO NOT ALLOW ourselves to play that role and move on from it, the less they have to feed on. I say starve the vampires, and, in addition, we do better with our fellow humans. I think that will get the ball rolling in the direction of positive social change.

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  • “That is a timeline that belies the claim that Gøtzsche’s expulsion was simply because of his behavior; instead, it shows that his “behavior” came to be perceived as a problem once he became a sharp critic of psychiatry.”

    That’s typical.

    All this backstabbing, betrayal, and “ousting,” this reads like a chapter from the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Good for Dr. Gotzsche for being irritating to his colleagues. The truth always irritates unenlightened groups, like a signal that there is awakening to happen, should one choose to do so. Keyword: choose.

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  • I was raised on guilt, big weapon of control in my family. Created a lot of double binds and a feeling of emotional imprisonment. I had to practice a lot of forgiveness and detachment in order to heal this and free myself of it.

    It’s why I always talk about aligning with our personal truth and walking our talk. If we practice this daily, our neurons will shift so that those old childhood programs become a thing of the past, where they belong. Still can creep up, of course, given that we’re human and all. But like you say, it’s a matter of identifying it as past time, rendering it powerless so that we do not operate and create our experience from these self-judgments. Being able to discern past time from present time is where we experience and feel freedom.

    Striving to be kind, loving, fair-minded and humble in my emotions as much as possible certainly eases any old pangs of guilt, in general.

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  • And just to be clear, by “enablers,” I’m referring to other professionals in the system–and mh industry on the whole–who know all too well about what is going on here and could make an impact by calling this out (to someone’s face, not just in writing), but who do not, for whatever reason (job security, perhaps?). There’s a lot of fear that comes up when faced with confronting abuse, because it is generally systemic and that can be a rough go for the one calling it out. It’s why they call it courageous. It truly is, because it is nerve wracking, any way you slice it. Still, someone’s gotta do it or it simply will not get done, and nothing will change.

    Over the years, I’ve been direct in my grievances, had countless “dialogues” with clinicians, directors, etc. where I spoke my truth directly, and while it did not please them, I made enough waves which led to changes around me.

    And it was definitely not without consequences. I sacrificed my entire career to do it on this level. No regrets, I am fully satisfied and fulfilled with my choice. It’s turned out well for me because I was following my heart the entire time. I went by what I knew to be true, regardless of what others might think or project onto me. I had to let go of that altogether to get through this.

    But I was not allowed near any of this once they got that I was deeply critical of the system, and that I was, in fact, calling it all out as I went along. Once this became apparent to them, the gatekeepers came out in droves to keep me at arm’s length from their system. I must have been making my point well, considering how all they wanted to do was keep me out of their midst after a while!

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  • “If you wanted to declare psychiatry malpractice by definition I’d go along with that.”

    That is exactly my position. And this wasn’t an overnight revelation simply because psychiatry had harmed me, personally, in so many ways. This was a gradual awakening, to throw it all into that category, as I continued to work in advocacy and activism after having ditched “mental health” services altogether.

    I left behind psychiatry 14 years ago but since then I have learned and processed more and more while healing very deeply from all that I had experienced from “mental health care/treatment” as physical and emotional trauma, and have now heard countless stories and have spoken to so many people about this, including on here. The sum total of my experience to date puts me at this conclusion right now. From Miriam-Webster:

    Definition of malpractice

    1 : a dereliction of professional duty or a failure to exercise an ordinary degree of professional skill or learning by one (such as a physician) **rendering professional services which results in injury, loss, or damage**

    2 **an INJURIOUS, negligent, or improper practice**

    At the same time, to be sure, I would not accuse all psychiatrists necessarily of harming people directly, but more so by enabling the situation, as is necessary in a system like this. Otherwise, it would be so fragile it would never stand up to being called out as it has been. But it is well-protected by tons of enablers, and to me, that is like being an accomplice to systemic abuse and malpractice, as I’d continue to call it.

    Although I do believe that so many psychiatrists do quite a bit of harm to clients, and what makes it especially sinister is that negative or critical feedback from the client is met with defensiveness and even blatant gaslighting. I know that this is largely what “DSM diagnosing” is about, to undermine the credibility of the client, which, in essence, is marginalizing, which is what I call “social abuse.”

    That entire system of diagnosing I would already put on the table as systemic malpractice. It may be the “standard,” but it’s sub-par and causes calamity for people and society, while not at all addressing relevant issues. So I would challenge that entire process as systemic malpractice because it is, both, injurious AND negligent.

    I don’t know how any of this would stand up legally, but that’s where I am with it at this point in time, as per my personal perspective and belief.

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  • Setting personal boundaries is something I learned later in life, as part of my healing. As a child, I wasn’t allowed to have boundaries. My folks felt entitled to be invasive, and it was aggressive. Repeated in the “mental health” industry.

    Whereas they (parents/system) had/have very strict boundaries which are not only not communicated with any clarity, if at all, but also they are terribly inconsistent. Yet, one is expected to know and honor them, even though they are vague and fuzzy. That’s the double-whammy of narcissistic abuse, to my mind.

    Healing from abuse requires learning that we do have personal boundaries–and are entitled to them, it is our birthright–and learning how to communicate them with clarity, and it can certainly help to set them with compassion. I think it’s an art, and it comes from self-respect as well as self-care. Setting boundaries WITHOUT feeling guilt is emotional freedom.

    What words and tone we use comes from practice and, I believe, they are determined by our intention. Are we truly setting boundaries or are we angry and hurt ourselves so we project it outward, like punishment or retaliation, in the guise of boundary-setting? That can border on power abuse, if there is a power dynamic to consider in the situation.

    I think this a valuable and powerful exploration and self-reflection, so that we may know our truth, own it, embody it, and live it. That would be great self-awareness and expanded consciousness in action.

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  • “It’s how psychologically mature people strive to balance honesty with kindness, truth with tact. To be “brutally honest,” as the saying goes, is still to be brutal, to render social feedback that might be useful, useless.”

    Not sure I agree with this, seems more like a judgment than truth. Sometimes it is necessary to be blunt, when one is not heard and not heard and not heard, where truth is avoided at all cost. Clarity and authenticity are what make the impact, not tip-toing.

    Although I do feel we can start out by speaking kindly even in our grievance, still direct and clear but with the intention of reaching mutual understanding, not punishing. But so often one is dismissed or demeaned in trying to get across their pain caused by another, and then I feel it is appropriate to be as direct as it takes, and emotion can be part of it. And it should be, why not? That is our truth, we are abundantly human.

    Dismissing grievances for any reason is negligent. But when it is due to strong emotional expression, this is a HUGE “mistake” often made in the “mental health” industry which can be extremely costly and harmful to a client. That is denying a person their heart, spirit, and human truth of the matter. In this particular arena, it is tragic irony, and the epitome of abusive incompetence.

    I don’t believe anyone has the authority to call out what is psychologically mature vs. regressed, or some such distinction. That is a matter of individual personality, communication style, and most importantly, cultural influence.

    To the point of the article, ownership of one’s mistakes and foibles leads to personal growth, this I do know. Apologies are empty if the dynamic continues, but meaningful if they signify change. Forgiveness of self and others is healing and allows us to practice present time living, which is where our power to create change exists.

    But when the issues are institutional and systemic, then it is important to see what is causing all the guilt and need for apologies. Something is not right here on a grand scale. I believe we know this by now.

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  • Beautifully told story of personal growth, healing, and spiritual resonance. Very heartfelt, thank you.

    “My doctor told me after the second time that I would have to take them for the rest of my life. I believed him.”

    Yes, we believe them when they look into their crystal ball and say we’re going to need something “for the rest of our lives,” without any foundation for that kind of negative prognosis of “this will be chronic and forever.” We have been so programmed/brainwashed to believe “doctors” without question, in what has been the age of authoritarianism. Good for you for waking up!

    I also ditched a lot of psych drugs (I can’t bring myself to use the word “meds/medication” any longer, nothing medicinal about these, at least for me that was most definitely the case) in order to heal naturally. Learning what “inner guidance” meant and then learning to trust and follow it was my healing path, too.

    What I love most about that is that it becomes our most powerful and reliable tool for life. For me, my inner guidance is my teacher, healer, guide, guru, and constant companion. I believe it is our God-self.

    And what I found most enlightening from the more present time oriented teachers, from whom I have learned and continue to learn a great deal, is that our guidance is based on our body/spirit connection, which is perceived PRECISELY through our emotions. One of my favorite and most resonant teachers, Esther Hicks, calls it our “emotional guidance system.” Our truth is based on how we feel, that is our spiritual resonance. Certain things/thoughts/beliefs/people agitate us while other things/thoughts/beliefs/people bring us feelings of love, joy, and peace. It is up to us to discern and choose which of these feelings we prefer to experience and that is to where we gravitate. That is our inner guidance, and feeling our emotions is vital in that process.

    I find it so interesting–and 100% reliable–and it’s the best case against psych drugs I know. At least for me, it speaks volumes.

    Now *that* I do believe is a viable prediction, that once we connect with our inner guidance, we have this for life. And I also believe it has plenty of foundation in personal histories; unlike the physician’s prediction of “chronic disorder” requiring neurotoxins “for the rest of your life.” Working with inner guidance is comforting whereas a lifetime of psych drugs is condemning. Please.

    Great to read about your healing work, keep it up!

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  • To bring this particular thread full circle to date–the judge has been approved to the US Supreme Court, so still plenty of waking up to do here, to my mind. Not terribly surprised. We have mid-term elections coming up in a month, so the heat is up and that will be the next tell of how awake people are by then and what they want to do about it. My way of seeing it, in any event.

    At this point, I consider Dr. Ford to be a true hero in the fight against power abuse and oppression, and a major catalyst of change–a big push in that direction, at least–through her courageous truth-speaking and literally stepping up to the podium. I’ve done my own version of public sharing over the years, but what she did was mammoth, and I can’t even imagine what that must have felt like to testify in front of that group and the world as she did. Makes my heart pound just to even write about it. I remember thinking the same thing about Anita Hill, back when that was happening. There is power in trusting your heart that way, to speak hard truth, with a worldwide audience, no less.

    And thanks to Dr. Ford’s gutsy act, the world got a good view of what is behind the curtain and underneath the masks, to mix metaphors. I think it all applies. Brava to her! It was an awakening, first steps at least. Great example of what it takes, imo. I wish her the very best and I imagine she is doing good healing from this. I hope so at least.

    Oh, and I just realized I answered my own question about leadership with integrity. This is what I would call leadership, and it’s by example. Now that’s integrity!

    Interesting how things can be not as they seem nor as we might have always thought of them or imagined them, yet it there it is–leading by example, rather than by control, manipulation, and deceit. What a concept.

    Then there’s Rosa Parks, another groundbreaker and beautiful example of kicking off social change with a civil act of disobedience. I guess now that I’m thinking about it, leadership with integrity exists all throughout history. Just not (or hardly, maybe) in public office!

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  • They claim to be “healers” and are “board certified” so that it’s legally recognized as such, and instead of providing healing, the institution of psychiatry, via its standard “practice” or “service”–however that is judged and perceived–makes people all kinds of unwell. To me, that’s malpractice.

    For the sake of activism against psychiatry, I’d rather have a reasonable argument FOR malpractice than to undermine it with the perspective which you are offering. In fact, I’m still waiting for a class action citing widespread institutional malpractice. To me, that’s exactly what psychiatry is.

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  • That’s interesting, oldhead, and my first reaction to what you wrote here is that the way I have experienced incompetent treatment (aka malpractice), it actually felt assaultive. I’d call it both, in fact.

    I’ve experienced out and out bullying and shrinks snapping at me, becoming impatient and rude, eye-rolling, even yelling on two occasion, etc., which is both assaultive and highly incompetent service from an incompetent professional.

    And, I’ve experienced naïve questions, poor insights, and a lot of involuntary projections (counter-transference), which I’d put more under the category of incompetence, but it does feel assaultive, as well, due to the vulnerability of the client (me, in this case) at that moment. That’s the alleged understanding and contract of service, which, in the end, is not honored. That can cause damage.

    When it comes to psychiatry, and psychotherapy in general I believe, when it is incompetent it is assaultive and vice versa.

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  • Wasn’t sure where I wanted to post this but I’m choosing to keep it in this thread, since I used the word “survivor” often and directly here, after reading the above comments in another thread about that particular word, fwiw–

    When I use the word “survivor” in these contexts of surviving rape, the system, psychiatry, and systemic abuse–from whatever system, family, social services, etc.–I am implying that I experienced extremely powerless-making events–emotionally and physically–which in the short and long run were traumatic, in that they caused prolonged feelings of fear and anxiety, as well as oppressive and often truly crippling and disabling feelings of powerlessness, which easily made life way more challenging than it already is just naturally. Even when I was doing things to prove otherwise to myself and others, there would always be this undercurrent of extreme self-doubt, and all the stories that came with that. That is a feeling which is hard to shake, that post-traumatic stress. It is a filter that affects everything in your reality, including self-image, self-beliefs, and self-worth. For these reasons, it can wind up being rather self-sabotaging.

    When I say I “survived” this or that, I am saying that I never gave up my power, even though I was not aware of this. I learned about this later, as I went along seeking relief and healing. I am saying that one can live through these events and find their power again. That is a process, a healing and truth journey to take. It is self-enlightening and transformative. That’s what I, personally, mean by “survivorship.”

    And I never heard the term “psychiatric survivor” until I came to MIA 6+ years ago. I adopted it because it felt true to me. That was a big step to what has since been good shifting and healing continuing to occur for me, recognizing that I had SURVIVED something, and that it is a so-called “legitimate” arm of mainstream society! That spoke volumes to me, like an awakening. It is what now fuels my reality, and my work in the world. Beyond that, I’m still me the creative being I’ve always been. This, however, has been my life path, for whatever reason. At times fulfilling and interesting and other times just plain frustrating. Par for the course in life.

    Recognizing that I had *survived* psychiatry helped me to connect the dots of my story in a way where the big picture became very clear. This is a phrase which I am teaching to others all the time, “psychiatric survivor.” That totally gets their attention!

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  • Poison Ivy, I agree with you. I’m not only a sexual abuse survivor but I am also a survivor of many kinds of relentless and chronic power abuse, and it all felt like rape to me, mind, body and spirit. I’ve also stood up to “power” often (even in a legal mediation) and I continue to. I am consulting with attorneys once again, and I’m getting pretty far, we are in a good dialogue so far.

    What Dr. Ford is doing is what is necessary for change to occur, and it is not an easy task, not even remotely in the slightest! Standing up to power takes its toll, which is why I bring up the lack of integrity in leadership. I believe that’s where it begins. Abuse of all kinds have not only occurred, they’ve been ALLOWED to continue, despite all the calling out in myriad ways.

    Power abusers have gatekeepers, protectors, and enablers around them. It is a *system* of abuse. I believe this is what we’re looking to break down, to have this come to light, acknowledged (somehow), and then find a way for justice to be served. Naturally, this will not be easy, but it’s doable and necessary, to my mind.

    The mystery to me is not who is lying, but more so, how this will play out. Masks were coming off at the hearing, but still, the political elite is struggling to maintain power and control, regardless of anything. This is why I say “we, the people” are paying for it, as long as they resist the truth and keep operating from defensiveness/attacking mode.

    I’m just wondering how long the truth can be suppressed, avoided, and downright denied. This is how society becomes such a powder keg. Truth is the healer here.

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  • Whether it is an esteemed psychology professor and researcher or a US judge who is lying about sexual assault, it’s an oppressive situation for the country. Kind of a lose/lose situation. I imagine the truth will prevail at some point, and then we’ll have more clarity about which way the winds of justice are blowing.

    Although given the way people in these positions of power try to obstruct truth and justice in favor of their own self-interest, I believe it is the process of how the truth will come to light which will be most interesting to discover as this continues to unfold. The tension is at fever pitch, with public protests going on at this moment in Washington DC, following the release of an FBI report which has yet to be made public.

    I believe what is being most sacrificed at this moment is the well-being of the country. So indeed, things are hardly equal. “We, the people” are the ones who get sacrificed, thanks to this graceless battle for “power” among the “elites.”

    At the same time, I believe we all deserve transparency, so if this leads to change, then that’s why it is occurring, so we can all witness in unison what is underneath these masks.

    I’d like to see integrity in leadership, however. Is that even possible in today’s political world? Has it ever been?

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  • Bonnie, I can’t contribute much here regarding the history of political movements, etc., but I’m learning many interesting things here, so thank you. I also appreciate the global aspects of these issues.

    Although, FWIW, I wanted to point out that right now here in the USA, we have a glaring in-your-face convergence of identity politics, gender politics, sexual politics, etc., happening front and center in a legislative and media circus kind of way. To me, it’s somewhat like a Rubik’s cube of politics, in general, although disturbing, too, so it’s scary and fascinating at the same time, I think.

    We have a professor of psychology and researcher at Stanford Univ testifying before the Senate that a now Appellate Judge and nominee for the US Supreme Court sexually assaulted her many years ago, and all this stuff about sex and drinking and assault and power has come to light. The hearing spoke for itself–rage, defensiveness, total disrespect for EVERYTHING, the people and the process. I saw craziness there. Folks are coming out of the woodwork on all sides mostly accusing others of lying, all that good stuff. The President completed the triangle by publically ridiculing the accuser. These are our “leaders.”

    A lot of people are seriously triggered right now, this is opening a lot of wounds for people. I see it as healing to happen, most hopefully, but it’s a tense time in our country right now, and it seems to involve all the institutions of power in deep struggle with each other, with gender power issues at the forefront. And in this case, a psychologist is directly involved, which I find interesting, given what MIA is about.

    It’s all oppressive, in and of itself. I can’t imagine anyone not feeling that way about something like this. What I’m wondering is, can the center hold at this point?

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  • “I find it interesting and sad that very few people on the MIA website EVER want to discuss *Identity Politics*”

    Why is this “interesting and sad?” What conclusion are you drawing from this? Why is this such a vital topic and what is it you are objecting to?

    We’re talking about groups of people who have been politically, economically, socially, and professionally marginalized. Empowering ourselves as individuals is exactly what we’re after, why not? That would be the antidote for oppression.

    Personally, I find it frustrating that the mechanics of social healing are not discussed more on MIA. Although I’m not sad about it, nor perplexed at this point. I think it’s because people have forgotten how to achieve harmony in community, and there is relatively no power in disharmony, other than the power of chaos to keep things diluted and vague, which is exactly the strategy used to maintain the status quo. It also tends to make people feel kinda crazy to be in chronic disharmony. There is no stability nor grounding in this. We learn as we grow…

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  • A big challenge to being human is creating harmonious relationships with others. It’s hard work and takes humility on both sides.

    To me, self-care is needing to ground, replenish my energy, come back to center. Then I can be supportive to others when I am asked for assistance. Otherwise, I’m just no good to anyone, not until I ground, center, and replenish. And if I don’t take the time to do this, then I risk becoming sick and energy-depleted. For me it’s like eating–replenishing energy with rest, connecting to nature, quieting the mind, doing something which brings joy, etc., is self-nourishing, and we need it daily (or at least semi-daily, in order to live with well-being).

    To me, a toxic person would be one who judges and shames my need to self-care (because it takes my attention off of them), will not respect personal boundaries (which to me, is hostile and intrusive), and attempts to sabotage my energy by fear-mongering, projecting stigma, and/or gaslighting. No space for this in my life any longer, I’ve had my fill.

    In fact, too much of this in my early years is what led me to seek psychotherapy in the first place, and I had no idea that this is what was causing my crippling anxiety and self-destructive thinking. To repeat this in the “mental health” industry was insane-making, and that’s all it was.

    For me, now, this is the rule of thumb to stay clear, grounded, and healthy–stay away from the latter group. My life, sense of self, and well-being depend on it. Walking away from and leaving behind all aspects of the mh industry and culture is the most powerful and effective self-care I’ve ever practiced–transformative, in fact.

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  • “Your children are not your children.
    They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
    They come through you but not from you.
    And though they are with you, they belong not to you.

    You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
    For they have their own thoughts.
    You may house their bodies but not their souls,
    For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
    Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

    You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
    For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

    You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
    The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite.
    And He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

    Let your bending in the archer’s hands be for happiness;
    For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
    So He loves the bow that is stable.”

    Khalil Gibran

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  • “Most of the people in the sell out “peer” “alternatives” etc., movement are not antipsychiatry at all. They are exploitative “mental health” treatment hucksters. This is our reality, and the place I think we need to be starting from.”

    I agree, good place to start, in this one direction at least.

    While I am not a “peer” and haven’t been for a good long while, and I also agree that these are specious programs at best and really amount to only more of the same systemic issues, and while I no longer call my work “alternative” nor have I ever been actively part of any “movement” of the kind, my personal healing, and what allowed me to move past all the drugs, shrinks, social services, and injustices thereof, was, precisely, thanks to all I learned and applied in the particular healing work I did, which had nothing to do with “mental health” anything. It was outside of this physically and philosophically.

    In the process, I trained extensively to do healing work with others, it was one of my plans for doing work in the world for income, to be providing this kind of service in the world.

    This is a common path to healing, and many people get trained, certified, and licensed in a variety of healing arts that can help all kinds of people in all sorts of ways. When they want it, and many do and benefit greatly from it, have for centuries, it is available to them.

    Some of us even have integrity, and aside from doing individual healing work with others in trade for something like money, based on what is fair, reasonable, and doable to all concerned (I do trades of all kinds of goods and services, as well), we focus on social healing, as well, doing what we can to be an example of fair trade and no one gets rooked. What a concept!

    So while anyone can be a fraud in any category, at least those who practice true and authentic healing arts (I exclude most “mental health” system and industry related practices) can build a practice outside the norm and the systems which hold that grid in place. So why assume automatically–or put out that negative generalization–that it is a hukster selling some kind of snake oil?

    There is such a thing as “authentic healing,” and there are practitioners who responsibly practice these arts. To judge before experiencing is coming from a place of ignorance, and that is neutral, by definition.This would be one instance where I’d say let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

    People do need reliable healing in the world, and we all discover what works or doesn’t work for us as we go. We certainly look to not get cheated or harmed in the process! That’s what we’re trying to get away from.

    And aside from all that, I hate the institution of psychiatry nor do I support the mh field in any respect. Nor do I duplicate these, at least not that I’m aware. The healing work I do is about overall health & well-being, including simply grounding in one’s own life in a more comfortable way. But none of this is broken down into categories of mental and physical (and spiritual, for that matter). To my mind, it’s all connected. It’s just life going in and out of balance. We could all use support and adjustment from time to time. I have a healer I go to about yearly, like a check up, an energy read. No MD needed.

    I also do not strive to make a client dependent on me. I try to help a client make a core shift (which THEY identify they need and desire to make) in 3 sessions or fewer, and often I just go ahead and offer a brief class where I teach self-healing perspective and tools, then people can go off on their own and use them.

    My practice is to empower and integrate, not create dependence and lifetime “customers” from chronic anything. Big difference from psychiatry et al…

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  • Richard,

    “OR are you merely articulating and emphasizing the intrinsic value of direct experience in coming to know truth?”

    Mostly this, yes. Not just living through an adverse experience, but getting to the other side, reflecting on the experience, putting into the context of our lives, healing from whatever trauma may have occurred from the experience, shifting and transforming from it, learning a deeper layer of ourselves.

    This is how we trigger our innate wisdom–including radical self-resourcefulness–for the purpose of integrating this into our lives in order to expand our own consciousness and grow in our feeling of self-worth, so that we can move forward and perhaps use this experience to help society become better, more sound, just, fair, and equitable.

    I do agree with you that our elitist money-based class system is a big problem here and only serves to feed injustice. After all, elitism and class-based needs are what created this damn system in the first place. I would definitely place psychiatry–and the entire mh system–in a subset of that category because it is a product of elitism and classism.

    That IS the problem here because it is in direct contradiction to individual and social well-being, I believe. An elitist society/community is inherently unsound, unjust, and out of balance, what Krishnamurti called “a sick society.” Can’t have elitism and social well-being at the same time, imo; that’s an impossibility because it is a direct contradiction.

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  • As insightful and empathic as someone on the outside of an experience might be, there is no way that a non-psychiatric survivor can have the same “deep understanding” as someone who lived through this, especially once that person has processed it over a period of time, connecting the dots of their own experience to arrive at the truth of the matter. Observation and absorbing the stories of others could never trump direct experience.

    My partner not only witnessed my journey every step of the way, he also worked in social services for a brief stint, and would come home saying how he was finally starting to get what I went through, based on what he was seeing happen in that “social service” world, especially how the “funders” dictated everything, without any regard for client services. Clients were simply a commodity, to justify this “non-profit” business. He was horrified to discover what was coming to light, up close and personal, as he worked through his tenure there.

    And still, he’d say to me that he could not imagine what it would feel like to be on the wrong end of that hierarchy, the way I and so many others have, and he saw why I’d been saying that you have to go through it to really get the full impact of it. He finally got that, and stopped arguing with me, and started instead to listen to me, with some serious respect for my experience. We’ve both grown a lot since he began to understand this. To me, it was totally freeing.

    There is a big difference between knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom comes from living through an experience, not learning about it second hand–through books, witnessing, etc. The direct impact of what the experience feels like in the body and how the mind processes these intense feelings are missing in the latter case, and that’s vital to knowing the truth.

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  • Most thankfully, I found it. Or better said, it found me, once I got not only psychiatry but all things “mental health” industry out of my way, including myself.

    I left psychiatry behind over 15 years ago after a 20-year relationship with it, got very dysfunctional toward the end there, and it almost killed me. But layer by layer, over a period of years, I got out of that weird web and put myself back together again with new life tools and perspectives, and found what I wanted in life and from life. That was quite a trek, and not without battle scars, as you are knowing now; definitely not for the faint of heart and spirit.

    What I learned in my journey was that when we heal to the point of feeling predominantly our own light channeling through us, and appreciating that to the nth degree, then we automatically have an abundance of it to share with others. It’s pretty cool! Win/win :).

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  • Very inspiring, Catherine. I agree with you that the most fruitful path to change is to create new things which render obsolete these old ways which have caused and continue to cause such extreme dysfunction in our society. The light you bring from rebirthing into the new is refreshing and of tremendous value in the world today, the way I see it. Healing ourselves is really hard work, and also it is what uplifts us and those around us, including the world. Gratitude and respect for taking the journey.

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  • Ah, ok, I think I can connect some dots for you, been sitting in meditation with this for a few and I’m realizing why this feeling is. However, it’s going to have to wait until later this evening because I have been engaging here on breaks I’ve been taking from a project on which I’m working and I’m trying to meet a deadline this evening. I also have a few other things to do, so I’m quite far behind at this point, need to focus and detach from this right now.

    I had not expected to get into a dialogue like this today, but your first reply to my response to your comment is what initially threw me and why I said something about it, and I think that’s why this dialogue took the path it took. Which is fine, I’m glad, I think it’s interesting, truly, and will hopefully bring some clarity to what these blocks are in communication between people with divergent perspectives and roles in this particular community.

    And I appreciate your emotional transparency, and your desire to know clarity around what I am saying. I just needed to start out by saying I was having this very strong feeling because that was my experience in the moment I read your post, it was totally authentic.

    This feeling was triggered by “I hope you are well,” followed by a smiley face, which is what confused me here, in this instance. I wasn’t sure how this was a response to my post. Was their non-verbal communication taking place here? If so, you’d have to be more direct for me to get it because if that’s the case, then I definitely know why I’m confused. Especially online, clarity is contingent upon using mindful language and saying what you mean. Once you start with innuendo and undercurrents of meaning, then you are creating confusion, that’s inevitable.

    But I have a bigger picture, too, because I’d felt this before, and this was the opportunity I took to say something about it, because the feeling in me was flagrant after reading that response. That’s where I was scratching my head, as I have before with a few things you’ve said. I’ll bbl to paint you a clear picture of where I’m coming from here, see if we can reach some point of truth, or at the very least, mutual understanding and clarity.

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  • I don’t have this problem in general. I communicate with a lot of people over the internet and about complex issues and also feelings, and I don’t generally feel confused. Just to be clear about that.

    It’s no big deal, Shaun, I was simply expressing a FEELING. Just my subjective truth of our communication. Seems to trigger you, so maybe there’s some good information for you there, I don’t know.

    You’re a therapist, process the feedback neutrally. I certainly do, but I process it through my feelings (not analyzing it from observation and defensiveness), so that I am in ownership of my experience. That’s the only way I know how to learn, grow, and evolve.

    In any case, thanks as always for the dialogue.

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  • I am the example. I’m being an example in present time of someone who is confused by you. I can’t help but to wonder if others have this experience of you, or is it just me? I’m just following the thread of my emotional response to you, which is how I know my truth.

    And no, we should no longer dialogue about the system. Our positions are clear, and clearly incompatible. You take your path, I take mine, and that’s all he wrote.

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  • I’m talking about a *feeling.* Something about how you communicate in your responses causes me to feel confusion. That’s what I’m noticing, and I’m wondering from where this feeling is coming.

    “I don’t know what you are talking about” is a good start. I can see that you don’t. Does this make it any clearer, the way I am explaining this to you? I’m wondering if there is an open line of communication here without the confusion. If not, so be it. That’s exactly what we are discussing in this thread, so it’s helpful to see it in action, as an example of what many of us are talking about.

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  • Yes, I’m fine. Although I find this to be an odd response, and ironically, rather aligned with what we’re discussing here.

    I have to say, Shaun, after all the dialoguing we’ve done on and offline over the last few weeks, I honestly don’t know in the slightest from where you are coming. You confuse me, and I do wonder why it is I’m feeling this from you?

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  • Thanks for expressing this, Shaun. I can see how therapists and social workers could feel extremely powerless. The system (and its funders/supporters) renders everyone powerless, which is why it is rife with anger and ever-present conflict. “The system” is the ultimate “sick society.” Adjusting to it undermines everyone’s health and well-being, clinician and client alike. There’s way better stuff out here in the world, away from all that.

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  • Wow, Fred, this is a fantastic post. I’d like to flash neon red arrows all around it and pointing to it. It is truth to perfection, in my estimation, and potentially transformative in and of itself. The discussion does need to transform in this direction to be fruitful from here forward, I agree hardily with that.

    In how many ways can one coldly and distantly analyze away, “I’m just trying to make what I feel is a very important point based on my experience” in order to avoid the truth! Facing hard truths is, indeed, where change and transformation occur. We’re human, it happens.

    Stop analyzing, start feeling, create empathy, tell the truth. At least that’s a start. And from there, there is *a lot* of work to do to see that change through to completion. There’s your transformation.

    Thank you, Fred, for the inspiration.

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  • “I tried to question the psychoanalytic belief system, but it was not possible to argue with believers. Their argumentation didn’t follow any logic known to me.”

    Yes, I agree that there is no logic in the responses (or non-responses) when questioning the beliefs within this field, despite overwhelming evidence of the failure of it. Which, to me, indicates perfectly how dangerous it can be to sit 1 on 1 with a clinician whose logic and reasonability go flying out the window when questioned in any capacity. That’s where all the negative projections, stigmatizing, and gaslighting begin.

    If you are a clinician and experience deep frustration with other clinicians for this reason, attempting to have an open and fruitful dialogue, imagine how clients feels while vulnerable to this dynamic, and who are expected to be open in their emotions while trying to talk about their issues. That is a recipe for disaster, and it quite often has resulted in just that, for this very reason.

    “Let’s start making the world a better place by helping our children to overcome their problems not with drugs but with support and help from their peers and parents.”

    We can also make the world a better place by supporting parents in how to best guide and nurture their own kids, regardless of any issue they may have. Kids follow the example of their parents in how they deal with the inevitable stressors in life. Sometimes it’s even the parents causing the kids undo stress, and it remains in the shadows due to denial and scapegoating. What then? This is not in the slightest uncommon, and I believe it should be brought to light. There are tons of kids suffering in silence from this.

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  • Michael, I do not mean to belabor this and stray from the topic, but you have opened a door for me to talk about something very relevant and important when you say, “Until they are almost against all odds able to escape the trap.” I’ll post a thumbnail response here and were you to feel inclined to discuss this further, please do feel free to contact me. This is exactly my life work.

    Yes, it is a trap and yes again, it is almost against all odds. I cannot even begin to tell you all that I did in order to beat these odds. Being on a disability income in San Francisco leaves hardly any options because we are so focused on barely surviving, while carrying intense fear of not being able to pull even that off. But I went around town very humbly volunteering and bartering for healing and training to finally get the info I needed that would allow for the escape path to open up, which was really about learning to manifest. It’s why I’m always talking about energy and working with the light of the universe. That was a very specific perspective and skill which I happily fostered as I went along.

    This did work for me unequivocally but it took great humility, while at the same time I had to reclaim my power. It was a long and uncertain process for me, but I was told by a teacher I had at that time that I was breaking ground, so I kept going wondering to where it would lead.

    Getting out of SF in order to clear my head and ground in nature was a feat in and of itself. I had neither the means nor a destination, but as I experienced more and more healing and set a deliberate intention to break through the glass ceiling, the doors opened and I followed the path which unfolded from this, which was nothing short of miraculous.

    All I did though, was to apply Law of Attraction to what I was already doing to heal based on the energy work I learned. This is where the turnaround occurred. These are powerful teachings.

    I teach this now, to anyone–how to manifest our way forward, regardless of ANYTHING. Most everyone I know feels oppressed on some level, trapped by whatever circumstances are double-binding them.

    Just last night, I gave a class where we talked about the pitfalls of money in our society, where I remind people of something called “innate abundance.” This concept served me more than I can express. It is greater than money and everyone has it, if they can access it within themselves. From this innate abundance, money will manifest when we need it, as well as anything else.

    But in this mindset, we do not give power to money over anything else. The power is in knowing our innate abundance, and that takes deep healing if we’ve experienced the kind of trauma we’re talking about here. Still, this is where we can beat those odds, every time. So far, I know of no other way.

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  • Beautiful, Michael, letter perfect, imo.

    “The same unacknowledged unconscious inner fear that prompts a politician to induce fear in others via projective identification, also prompts the diagnosing “mental health” clinician to need to have the emotionally suffering person in front of them to embody the clinician’s fear of their own emotional suffering, so the clinician can safely go on telling themselves that they are beyond ever feeling the emotional pain that they diagnose in others.”

    Yes! And so the client gets a double dose. They then have not only their fear and whatever else they are bringing to address within themselves, but now also, on top of that, they are vulnerable to carrying whatever is not owned by the clinician and projected onto the client. That is exactly what the current paradigm allows and has become the practiced norm, and which I feel is THE vital core issue which is in need of shifting. From this stems everything–the drugging, the marginalizing, the re-traumatization, etc., and especially the notion that these are lifelong chronic issues, which I do not believe this at all needs to be the case.

    But if a client is faced with these projections week after week and year after year without realizing it (and often it is so subtle that it’s hard to catch if one is feeling dependence, and also if it is the familiar), then, indeed, this can create a chronic lifelong issue. That is trauma upon trauma upon trauma, which is what eats away at people until they get out of that situation and make necessary changes to their beliefs about themselves.

    That is exactly what I had to do in order to find my clarity again, and as a result, my energy shifted so much that my entire world around me changed because I was attracting new energy into my life– more respect, along with self-responsible and conscientious people. It was amazing to see how the internal shifting changed my reality so drastically.

    I feel very encouraged from the clarity you put forth here. Thank you!

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  • I think one of the issues many have had in the mh system is having to deal with a plethora of clinical projections that often occur after speaking one’s personal truth.

    The hard part is that the stigma which is born from these all-too-common prejudices creates social and professional marginalization, regardless of a person’s ability to not identify with the projection on a personal level. Yes, projections are about the projector. And still, this dynamic can ruin innocent lives, and it has. Truth speaking is an act of integrity, and for the reasons I give above, I see it as courage personified.

    While I certainly don’t expect it to always go down well when I speak my truth, I believe it’s the way out of oppression, and I defer to the higher power of the universe for validation by what unfolds for me next.

    The film I made several years ago, Voices That Heal, was intended to create a new dialogue, but instead, it just pissed off the system and alienated me further from it. Ok, lesson learned. I get now what happens when one mirrors the system and speaks one’s truth in that direction. It’s not pretty!

    And at the same time, my path of transformation and freedom was laid out for me unequivocally thanks to having spoken my truth of the matter clearly and directly. Because I made it a point to not identify with the projections which came at me from some when I spoke publically about my journey, and instead, followed the guidance of this higher power, I learned to once again trust the process of life.

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  • I agree with ParaPatty, this *is* a good one, Michael. And I think this article is particularly timely and relevant because you are cracking an important code.

    “Understanding that negative projective identifications are happening helps me to keep my balance and perspective. That search for balance and perspective looks to be very necessary while going forward each day into the tumultuous future ahead.”

    Yes, indeed, we need our most powerful tools and inner resourcefulness to navigate the current and upcoming conditions. We are changing, and it’s been a long time coming.

    In addition to perspective and balance, I would add speaking the truth of our heart as one of our most powerful inner resources which can help move things along with clarity and integrity. I value and respect very highly transparency and authenticity because they trump gaslighting.

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  • “Don’t take it personally” was a response I ran into repeatedly from tons of people in the “mh” world, from therapists to professional advocates. It’s like a motto or philosophy, in order to avoid. Talk about a cop out!

    And indeed, it is one-way, because they seem to take EVERYTHING so darn personally. Therapists will not take feedback, and they HATE it when you terminate with them. They feel personally rejected, rather than seeing it through a professional lens, like any other business which serves clients would normally do. It’s crazy-making.

    “Don’t take it personally” means there will be no change because nothing will be looked at on a deeper level, which is what is supposed to happen in so-called “therapy. It is a completely inappropriate response because it is a personal judgment which the therapist is attempting to project onto the client, and it has nothing to do with healing. This response serves only to appease the status quo of any system.

    This is how abuse gets enabled and dysfunctional systems remain unchallenged. It is, in fact, a form of gaslighting, so it is abusive, in and of itself, in this context of “therapy.” It’s also incompetent.

    I knew a “professional advocate” who would say this to people complaining about blatant discrimination and double-binding in the mh and social services industry–as in, don’t you dare complain about how you are being treated or there will be consequences. Don’t take it personally??? That’s not even the point of the grievance.

    I guess it’s just too much trouble to make change happen by actually challenging abuse and discrimination head on and calling it out as it occurs. We’ll just stay mad and wounded from it and complain about it forever, together in unison. But please, and this above all–don’t take it personally!

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  • Just one thing I wanted to add here that occurred to me as I was thinking about this a bit, and I felt this thought ground and relax me about this issue–

    We do go through initiation as we grow along our healer path, and facing an onslaught of aggressive invalidation is the best way I can think of to truly face our shadow and be strong and clear in our sense of self; not take it on, but instead, it further illuminates our path. Our inner voice and knowingness are way more powerful than outside opinion and judgments, and I believe the universe mirrors that back to us unmistakably.

    As an activist and truth-speaker (and when I say this, I don’t mean THE truth, who knows about that? I mean MY truth, I am transparent with this more than most, it’s how I walk my talk), I’ve had this happen repeatedly, where I am challenged by harsh judgment, yet something really good and expansive happens in my life and I end up getting what I want in the most unusual ways, because I am in my truth with integrity, regardless of anything. Doesn’t matter what others think and project onto me, this is between me and my higher self. This is how I know the correct path to follow for myself, which voice to trust.

    Who can trust outside voices in an ocean of illusion, deceit, and resistance, through all of those filters, projections, and programs? This is smoke and mirrors corruption, all avoidance of truth. I know that I certainly carried these programs at one time, it is how I grew up, this was the belief system in my family and culture, and it dictated the relationship and group dynamics in my family–which is how I got into that mess to begin with. But my experience with “the system” woke me up and I had to deprogram, pure and simple. That was the big healing, where I became totally and completely free.

    Social brainwashing is similar to cult thinking, mob mentality, etc. It’s hard to break those old thought and belief habits, all based on seeking approval and a sense of belonging (not to mention fear of consequences for breaking away from this). But that is true change and transformation to individuate from this and stand one’s ground in the midst of resistance. That was the best option I had along my path, and thankfully it paid off. I didn’t know what to expect when I was in the middle of all that and following this path of new information and perspective. I just had to trust with each step forward, gaining clarity as I went along. Radical change was inevitable, it had to be, for the sake of living the life I wanted to live.

    That’s why we’re here, at least to me this is what activism is about, and especially so in this particular arena–to challenge those programs of social invalidation and bust them up inside and out, taking back our power and calling out their shit. That’s great healing! Lots of far-reaching rippling change occurs in that scenario, like dominoes in many directions.

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  • “Gaslighting, or manipulating people into questioning their own sanity, applies here as people are often ridiculed, put down, ostracized or abandoned for trying alternative treatments. This is usually after psychiatric drugs made them too sick to engage with life.”

    Thank you, Chaya, I’d never seen it put so directly like this and it totally reflects my experience.

    I was on the psych drugs for 20 years, functioning ok in life yet of course dependent on them and on psychotherapy with chronic side effects, which came and went and for which more drugs would be added, as is the way. Eventually my system broke down completely from the toxic build-up and compromised all my major organs, including my brain, of course.

    Then I did my big shift and went from the drugs and “mental health” anything to herbs, grounding, natural healing, energy work, etc., the whole paradigm shift. After getting off the drugs I was able to do theater, a new skill I had no idea I had in me, then built my practice, then made a couple of films, and then moved to the woods, started a band, live peaceably now and in good health, doing good work in the world with partners, all thanks to God and some wonderfully supportive people in my life who witnessed my healing journey. I went from night to day within a few years and am thriving now, entirely due to this blatant shift I made away from psych drugs and “therapy” after years and years of these.

    And you would not believe the way my healing, work, path, and truth have been invalidated as I very visibly healed and transformed my life. Or maybe you would, I guess, it seems you know what I’m talking about, from what you write here. Not only gaslighting, and very cruel and sabotaging, but I also feel it is delusional, about as far away from truth as one can get because it completely lacks reason and foundation, as well as heart–a rabbit hole of negative projections. Par for the course, which is why I condemn the field.

    The fact that I healed as I did and manifested a new life with tools other than what “mental health, inc.” had to offer–which for me was both medically and socially very profoundly toxic and from which I had to heal, specifically–challenged the beliefs of those around me, and apparently, it is too much truth for some to handle. That’s how I’m seeing it at this point. It is vampiristic, as well as relentless resistance to change. Thank you for calling it out.

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  • Of course no offense taken, LavenderSage, we are different spirits and we have different experiences of emotion and how we channel them. I believe that is the diversity of the human experience, on the whole. It’s why, when it comes to healing, one size doesn’t fit all in any respect.

    I do agree that destruction is a step to transformation. My personal preference is to bring light in order to create, and when shadow lights up along the path of creation, it only serves to keep lighting up the path to the new while the old caves in on itself from its own sabotage energy and renders itself obsolete. For me, personally, that is more fulfilling and it’s kind of a catch-all, takes care of everything at once. But I do believe that to allow for the new, the old must be released, or at the very least, transmuted.

    When it comes to social transformation, the way we talk about in here, I believe we each have a role in this, and we end up playing the roles which we are most naturally inclined to play, based on who we are and what we believe, and to where our life path has taken us so far.

    I also believe this is flexible, we can change roles if we want to. Our perspectives can shift drastically during a transformational process.

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  • For the record, I am going to disagree with the notion that rage is, BY DEFINITION, blinding. I do see, LavenderSage, that you wrote that for you this is the case, and I know you are not alone in this, but I do not feel this is universal, and I think that’s important to say, for reasons of permission.

    I believe rage can be channeled in a way that is creative only, and neither destructive nor hurtful. Although sometimes the truth might feel painful, initially, but that is not the same as someone deliberately hurting another, in order to avoid their own feelings. When we smart from the truth, healing opportunities are before us.

    I’m not talking about just anger or righteous indignation. I know what rage feels like. The system relentlessly attempted to render me powerless and they were damn stubborn about it. Reason never, ever worked, so I fought and healed my way out of that, but they did not make it easy.

    However, it did lead to my true soul path, so I have gratitude for my experience and see it for what it is. But there is residue from all that crap, as we know. I’ve turned it into my life’s work.

    I’ve also had a process of waking up to sabotage from my own family, which they never got that this was wrong, on their part, they would first, deny, and then, justify it. And even my partner caused me energy-draining grief in many ways. We’ve since worked it out, that took years of deep healing work separately and together, and now we work together in our creative business, in service.

    But these awakenings and the absolute stubborn refusal on the part of abusive vampires to change, even when it is SO OBVIOUS what is going on and clearly what these relationship dynamics are all about, all of that together piled up as a huge fireball of rage in me, and it was under my skin for years, causing minor health issues here and there which were easy to address naturally. But I knew it indicated I still had some leftover energy from all this running around my body, this is insidious energy.

    But my mind was clearing up and my heart was healing, so I never, ever took it out on someone else randomly nor did I ever destroy anything. I was crazy with rage, but never blind. Letting out a scream in a neutral and safe direction feels good to me, but I know what I’m feeling and why, and what I’m wanting to say about it, once I find the words and relax my nervous system a bit.

    I usually know exactly what I want to say that is truthful, but the challenge is finding words that others are willing to hear in a tone of voice which will not intimidate them, and then they have to be willing to look at themselves in the mirror but I don’t have control over that. My job is done once I’ve spoken my truth.

    That can be a helluva challenge, and often quite impossible to be heard, for a lot of reasons. But if I were to get enraged every time this happens, then I am giving away my power. I’ve learned to see it from a different perspective now, as the guides doing their work. There is light on every situation, if you can find it, feel it, and follow that thread. I imagine you know what I mean here, I’ve seen you talk about energy and shields, etc. I work with the guides, part of my process.

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  • Yes, it is super easy and by law they cannot refuse. You do have to sign a release, however.

    I called this case manager and said I wanted a copy of my notes, and then went to the front desk where a release had been prepared for me to sign, and they gave me a manila envelope marked “confidential,” with my entire history of case notes.

    When I read them, I realized they showed not only an extreme distortion of me, but also, a whole host of projections coming from this case manager, which explained why I had been feeling so increasingly uncomfortable with him in this weird and murky way, but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I just knew he was saying off-base things, and wouldn’t seem to budge when I reflected this back. It was more than merely aggravating, it was rather disorienting.

    When I read the notes, it became clear to me why I was feeling what I was feeling. Those notes were like the scarlet letter “A” of stigma, and only that. I did not see myself in them, but instead, saw the dark heart of this clinician, as well as his delusional version of reality. Unmistakable.

    If someone perceives me inaccurately based on projections (and this is easy to tell, I know myself well enough to tell when I’m being projected onto), then I would say that their entire perceptions of reality and of humanity are distorted. They’re not seeing me, they’re not seeing themselves, so through what filters are these clinicians perceiving people? I believe we all know the answer to that question.

    What garbage. Although it is dangerous and seriously damaging for people–and a rampant practice–which is why I’m talking about this.

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  • I don’t know any activists who do not experience rage, and in fact, I believe that when we can focus, that rage is what fuels activism, in general. Activism begins with feelings of powerlessness, which is where I believe the rage originates. This is why we fight back, to regain our power.

    There’s always the option of communicating the rage, using our voice to speak our truth. I think when we are focused and know exactly what is causing us to feel the rage, and when we can take a moment to find the words to express exactly what we’d want to say, opportunities open up for expressing ourselves in a way that feels relieving.

    For example, I’ve used Yelp on several occasions to communicate in hindsight to clinicians and agencies who caused me to feel enraged. The trauma caused by these places and the fact that we’re talking about a closed system makes it tricky, which is why the rage builds up. And more than likely, there is no response to expect.

    Still, it has definitely made me feel better in the long run, because once I say what I wanted to say to the person I wanted to say it to (or I do the best I can in this regard), I definitely feel a release of this, it’s not so intense any longer. I get a lot of clarity after this, and a bit of peace.

    This is the review I left for my last and final “case manager/therapist” before totally leaving the system behind. This was a few years after the fact, given that this kind of post-traumatic stress does take a while to heal so we can find the clarity we need to finally get the picture, the truth of what happened–

    “My experience with “Mission Mental Health” was abysmal and only created further trauma for me, out of sheer frustration with a dishonest, betraying, and backstabbing “case manager/therapist.” Basically, emotionally abusive. I found this out when I requested my case notes, which is everyone’s legal right to do. I highly recommend checking out what your “therapist” is writing down about you, and NOT discussing with you.”

    My intention was for this to ripple and awaken people to their power of having the option to request their case notes, and to hopefully recognize when they are being gaslighted and betrayed, so they can save themselves from all that. I have gotten 1 “useful” vote so far on this review, so at least I know I was heard. My hope is that everyone requests a copy of their notes as one way to take charge of these power-imbalanced clinical relationships.

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  • This is a superb article, rings true in every way to me. Thank you for posting this, disequilibrium1. A couple of passages that especially stood out for me:

    “The worst, most damaging bout was group therapy led by a disdainful psychologist and a syrupy psychiatric nurse. Clients were encouraged to bring-your-own-whine, though often answered with bruising dismissals. The nurse announced ‘something about you makes me want to kick you.'”

    So similar to my experience in a group once, many years ago, where a psychotherapist said to a 60-year-old-man (a gentle and wise old soul who identified as “disabled”) complaining about bully abuse and rampant theft in his public housing situation, “Take your meds and don’t make waves.”

    And this–

    “So I’m left to untangle this large knot left by so-called treatments. I feel hoodwinked. I combed professional literature and was dismayed by the denigration of unsuccessful clients and the limited discussion about harmful therapy. We’re labeled resistant, and our dissatisfaction is labeled as transference. Or we’re conflating our internal pain with an external relationship. Or we’re difficult cases who don’t want to change or too unstable to be redeemed. There’s scarce conjecture I reacted sanely to my therapists’ distortions. As I read how therapists are trained to think, attitudes toward difficult cases, and the defensiveness toward official complaints, it’s clear why therapy left me feeling worse.”

    Absolutely correct.

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  • Read this satirical yet truthful (in its message) article, which makes a very clear point about gas-lighting from the White House, and you’ll see why lack of trust in others is justified in this day and age.

    Here is a picture of the emperor with no clothes, all his cronies, gatekeepers and minions around him (that he is using only to throw away when they are no longer useful) speaking from their well-practiced scripts. Indeed, it is fiction, but I believe it is based on a powerful and evident truth we are experiencing right now, as so many of us see it.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-shot-michael-cohen-broad-080038116.html

    The good news about all of this, imo, is that it seems the codes have been cracked. We see it, are calling it out, and not taking it anymore. This is the Great Awakening from the ever-illusory “American Dream.” Now we can get real, once and for all.

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  • Trauma can compromise our feeling of safety in the world because it creates neural pathways that signal “terror” to the body, based on past time events. Healing trauma means not only coming fully into present time and discovering long suppressed aspects of ourselves, but it also means re-routing neural pathways so that we can discern what is internal vs. that which is external.

    “Is the fear justified or am I reliving trauma?” That is very powerful in depth inner work to be done, and in doing so, the body and mind come to work in synchronicity, rather than split and in conflict with each other. That is where we can feel our power, and where we will know our wisdom, without a doubt. Takes time, patience, and integrity.

    We can know whether or not we are on our path with each step, if we tune into our intuition, above and beyond fear. That is where we find our path to healing and relief, following our emotional signals along the way. Discern as you go, see what happens.

    The only thing I know to trust inherently is my own process and that which is greater than myself, which is where I find my peace and inner guidance. Call it The Universe, God, Source energy, whatever you wish.

    That energy speaks through everyone, we are all aspects of this one collective consciousness. It is up to us to discern when we are being tricked vs. when truth is being revealed. Often, it is the same thing and when this clicks, we are on our power.

    I agree with you. It is hard to trust people. Although I have learned to refrain from judging because one thing I know with certainty is that our society is filled with the walking wounded, and that can make people all sorts of crazy, especially right now, when our country is covered in a haze of toxic smoke–literally and figuratively. This is the time to heal, for one’s own salvation. Our society is crumbling big time. Watch the news lately?

    But I do trust my own sense of truth, that is my intuition. And I can feel this in my body with clarity when I am in synch with myself, following my own truth and no one else’s. Trusting my process.

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  • I believe that in the human experience, regardless of who we are or what is our cultural or social identity, accessing our own innate wisdom and making moment to moment choices is how we (in the world) can move forward in any respect. Relying on others for their information creates dependence. Relying on others to do the work on our behalf is equal to giving away one’s power.

    Self-empowerment comes from trusting our own unique path guided by our own unique inner voice. Life brings people together as it does. Trying to manipulate or control others via deceit and misrepresentation (fraud) is how the system was created.

    We access our own wisdom by healing ourselves. I believe everyone has this capacity. It’s just a matter of discovering it. That is what I would call taking the journey of life, growth, and evolution. I can’t think of a single exception to this. I believe it applies to everyone.

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  • “I believe there is a certain journey or life mission that we each have. Sometimes it can be hard to even put into words. It can be a complicated mission. If there is any way to access or remember what that soul mission is, and articulate it in some form, even if it is not in words, it can help get some perspective on psychiatric drug withdrawal.”

    Truth! Soul growth, soul mission, soul family–the entire purpose of going through the dark night of the soul, to have our deepest, most creative and fulfilling experience of life. Quite the journey, and not for the faint of heart. This all speaks to me unequivocally. You’ve articulated it beautifully, Chaya, as usual.

    “Having a witness to the soul path can also be hugely beneficial, especially in breaking out of the identified patient role”

    Fwiw, I love following your journey, and this article in particular moved me to tears. Brilliant work, inspiring all the way. Perfect way to start my day, thank you.

    Keep shining your healing light of truth, Chaya. I see it and feel it, truly. What a gift to the world you are, and I mean that most sincerely. You are bringing such healing to the planet. I have a feeling this is only the tip of the iceberg. Really awesome!

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  • P.S. This is all I can offer on a limited venue like this. If you really want to learn more in depth about energy and how to apply these principles to healing, either post your contact info (do you have a website?) or feel free to contact me through Steve. He can forward your email to me and I’ll write you back. I do have Skype, if you want to talk face to face. I imagine that would cut through the static we experience in online written communication.

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  • Thanks for sharing your story, Shaun. Indeed, we are all having our journeys. I’m going to once again cut to the chase here.

    I don’t know if any of this will resonate with you at this point, but it’s the best I can do right now, as far as offering you what I feel might be new information. If it’s not, then I apologize ahead of time for wasting your time. Hopefully, this will be something new for you to chew on, and also hopefully it will ripple to your clients.

    There’s always more, but for starters, this is the core of what I learned in my healing journey–

    I don’t know if you are familiar with the idea of light vs. density, as energy concepts. Light is free flowing and a spectrum of colors, like the rainbow; whereas density is thick and dark, like tar. These are contrasting frequencies of energy, and can even be measured in Hz.

    On a feeling level, it is quite apparent the difference. Light feels good, buoyant, and clear in the body. It is expansive and creative, and translates into feelings of joy and optimism, and our bodies and minds feel unburdened in the light, and our energy flows freely and unencumbered.

    Whereas density feels like worry, fear, doubt, shame, guilt, and intense anxiety in the body. It is constrictive, inhibiting and even undermining to energy flow. The only thing created by this is frustration, chaos, conflict, and self-sabotage.

    There’s really no gray area here, when speaking of energy, it is either one or the other. There is a continuum of frequency, the way there is a continuum of emotion, but it is either in one category or another: light or dense.

    When we talk about healing either individuals or society on the whole (one individual at a time), we are talking about healing density, of transforming it into light. That’s the idea—transformation. This is accomplished by transmuting energy, which is how frequency is raised, and this is what brings relief to our minds and bodies.

    Emotionally speaking, we look to transmute despair into hope, the relief of which is where we feel healing (change) occurring. This is exactly how we alleviate suffering. That is a process, taken one step at a time. Quantum leaps are possible, but they can be rugged. Best to find ease in the flow of healing, which would mean radical self-care and practicing great patience and trust. That, alone, is healing.

    Truth-speaking sheds light on the dark, because truth is light energy. Deception, duplicity, fraud, and corruption are pure density. And think about it—wouldn’t anyone lying, somewhere in their consciousness, feel ‘worried’ about being caught? And wouldn’t their fear be that they would feel shame and humiliation? That is why density is now on the run, people are no longer taking on these projections. The entire country is truth-speaking at this point. Everyone who is aware of it now (and that’s a lot of people during this time of mass awakening) is sick and tired of the lies, deceit and corruption–the density which has been running our world.

    Awakening is not a one-time event. We awaken repeatedly, in layers and over time, because what we’ve absorbed from living and operating in such density as our society has become, is in our cells, and that can take a while to work its way out, depending on one’s healing process.

    Density is what blocks healing (energy flow), so there is paradox here to ascend, which is wonderful consciousness expansion. Not always easy, but highly invaluable to our personal growth and evolution.

    But to feel our own light, aka self-healing power, it is vital we walk our talk. That is synchronicity in the body, and that is what ripples most powerfully and clearly, like a stream of light. Integrity is pure light, in human form.

    Ok, that’s the best I’ve got right now. I hope at least some of it rings true. Take good care of yourself, and all the best to you. And I sincerely mean that.

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  • Nancy, I really love your exploration about the diverse advantages and applications of meditation. I’ve had a daily meditation practice for over 15 years now, and it is what helped me most to heal from the various injuries I incurred from the mh system, including temporary brain damage (and other organs) after I withdrew from psych drugs after 20 years. Not to mention, the chronic ruminations caused by too much psychotherapy. I could not shut off my brain, and that is an energy drainer.

    I’ve learned different kinds of meditation over the years, and am trained in chakra meditation, which I learned in a psychic healing program years ago, to see our own energy and work with it in a way that is supportive to our holistic well-being. I believe we are our own healers.

    I have also found it valuable in the process of creating and manifesting. Learning to quiet the mind allows us to hear our higher self/inner guidance/inner healer, so we are not dependent on others and we know our resources at all times.

    I find that daily meditation aligns me in such a way that what I need manifests on my path when I need it. No more feelings of lack or deprivation, but only abundance when we integrate with our spirit energy and higher self awareness. It is a robust feeling like no other I know, and with practice, it can become a constant, no matter what is occurring around us. True serenity, the calm in the storm.

    Although, of course, being human and all, I still most definitely feel and express my emotions, which I value highly, it is the core of our truth. But thanks to meditation, I’ve learned to enjoy my emotions, as creative and guiding tools, rather than to feel overwhelmed by them or self-conscious for expressing them. Much in opposition to what I feel the system doles out, there is absolutely no shame in having emotions! In fact, we would not be human without them.

    Thank you for your beautiful testimonial, which I’ll repost here because I believe it bears repeating–

    “Meditation it is not merely about watching your breath. There is so much depth to it than that – for example, meditation enables you to get to know your own mind (i.e., to develop self-knowledge), and to cultivate wisdom. Also, when we practice meditation, we are able to understand how we are attempting to find happiness through mere autopilot striving and reacting to stimuli, as well as the difference between hedonic happiness (which involves short term happiness that come from fulfilling sensory pleasures) and eudemonic happiness (which is about cultivating contentment and wisdom).
    Also, in contrast to what you say, meditation is not about ‘instant nirvana’ – it is a slow process of gradually cultivating understanding.”

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  • “Seems to me you might feel this way because I haven’t concluded like you have that the system needs to be abolished” is yet another projection because I’m not trying to convince you of anything, but more so, to hear what I am saying in the moment and to treat my perspective and information with respect rather than saying things like “you obviously don’t understand…” yadayada, which implies I don’t know what I’m talking about, when in fact, I most certainly do! Otherwise, my journey was completely meaningless and useless, which is neither truth, nor acceptable to me. In this venue of all venues, the voice of experience should most definitely be respected, and not dismissed. This is exactly what we’re trying to reverse, right here.

    Yes, I am saying the system is getting worse, because it is increasingly apparent that it cannot take the feedback it needs to hear. It has been a failure for a long time, people have been saying this and with plenty of evidence and powerful testimonials, and it keeps trying to chug along, draining us all along the way.

    Money for this research and that research and all this stuff that we already know, all for grant money. I think it’s a bad investment because it does not serve those who it needs to serve–the clients. It only serves to make academics richer, which is what drives the system.

    ALL about money, at everyone else’s expense. Because most of this research is meaningless and trickles down to nowhere. Fat cats getting fatter.

    So yes, you read me correctly here: it is abysmal, from my perspective, and failing society terribly, on the whole.

    What we are talking about here is so, so, so much bigger than merely introducing a new “treatment option” or “healing modality.” We’re talking about systemic abuse, marginalizing perspectives and practices, and the head-scratching and maddening legality of it all. This involves other entities (all part of the “bigger system,” so to speak), all of which collude against the human heart and spirit, for their own gain and profit.

    I believe by now, this is evident to most people on the planet. Certainly outside of the very small bubble of the mh industry, this is common knowledge.

    Are you aware of how the mh industry is not in the slightest representative of how most people perceive reality? It is in a world unto itself, and most people whom I know realize this already! Even before I tell them my story. They’re not terribly surprised when I express my disdain for the mh and social services systems, and at that same time, they are aghast when they hear my story, go figure.

    And that is a reasonable response, it is a ghastly experience to be subjected to this kind of inhuman treatment!

    The mh industry is, to such a large degree, “horror stories from the mh industrial crypt,” and that can be truly mind-boggling to the everyday person, to hear the details of how this occurs. So we all know to avoid it at all cost.

    As you and I have agreed, healing is available in many forms and fashions. There are myriad ways to *tap* into the unconscious in order to unearth trauma and shift the energy of it, for relief and clarity. But in the context of “the system,” any modality of healing is sorely compromised by the bigger picture of systemic corruption.

    “What information am I missing? You imply that I’m ignorant of something. It seems to me you might feel this way because I haven’t concluded like you have that the system needs to be abolished.”

    You are drawing a false conclusion here, and that is the third blatant projection I am seeing in this dialogue, which is exactly what I’m talking about when I criticize psychotherapy and suggest it needs to be accompanied by a warning–it’s just way too easy and second nature to do this, until we make it a point to see it in ourselves before we unwittingly project it onto others. That can confuse and disorient a client faster and more profoundly than anything, leading to all sorts of chronic rumination and post traumatic stress.

    I do believe, however, that you are missing information, and from my experience, you don’t want to hear that. Ok, go forth, and tomorrow you might see that today, you were, indeed, missing information!

    We’re all ignorant about that which we have yet to learn, you’re not alone. Same applies to me. I do think I have a much broader perspective than you do around these issues. Again, maybe I’m wrong, but that is my feeling, based on these dialogues. You’ve never been on the inside of it, to my knowledge, so you would indeed be missing that information. The information of truth comes from experience, not outside observation.

    No reason to be “offended” if you feel ignorant, that is a neutral quality we all share, until we learn that about which we’ve been ignorant. To me, that is the essence of humility.

    And thank you, as well, I feel complete here, and at peace with it all. Keep going!

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  • ” It makes me think you don’t understand EMDR or it’s philosophy.”

    Ok, first of all, let me tag that as a projection. I certainly do understand Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and I also know it’s been around for a long time. I know people who have benefitted from it, starting in the late 90s.

    “you seriously think that changes like offering EMDR is a sign that the system is getting worse? Please, I don’t get that logic at all.”

    What I find illogical here is yet another projection you make. I never said that the EMDR is a sign that the system is getting worse; those “signs” are in society and the overwhelming negative feedback the system gets. EMDR is separate from this issue. Your harping on it the way you do does not equal the power of change.

    “I tend to fall on the side that we’ve done some good but also a lot of harm.”

    If people feel the system has done them good, more power to them. The fact that it’s done “a lot of harm” is the dominant perspective here. So, I’d say “enter at your own risk” would be an appropriate phrase.

    We’d also need official warnings posted in every therapist’s office, too, if we are to offer informed consent: “psychotherapy may cause suicidal feelings and post traumatic stress.” Because that is absolutely true. Maybe not in all cases, but in a lot of cases this has already proven to be accurate, and people have the right to know this.

    Shaun, I sincerely and with my heart applaud your efforts to bring relief and clarity to your clients. Perhaps in your community, you are progressive and conscientious, and so therefore you can help bring about change for the good of everyone concerned. I can’t say one way or another. But I’d cheer you on in that process, while honestly reflecting back where I feel you are missing information. That would be up to you to either take to heart what I say or dismiss it. Your choice, your reality.

    Right now, I’d say keep going and keep an open mind. You’ll discover interesting and perhaps eye-opening things on a daily basis. Life will teach you what you are meant to learn, as it does with us all. I’m sure of it.

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  • “I’ll just point out that if the DSM and drugs weren’t in the picture, there is no way we’d be in this mess with iatrogenic effects, dehumanization, and pathologizing human suffering.”

    But they are in the picture at present, and you are talking to someone who experienced all of this first hand. This is from where I am getting my truth about it. That, and having been on your side of things, too. I am familiar with both perspectives, from a first person point of view, and my truth comes from having integrated both perspectives of my experience. I feel this gives me a very broad perspective.

    Not only has this been my direct experience, all that you mention here re DSM and psych drugs, but I got out of all this a while back and have been processing through it for clarity and very deep information for years, and with others, and I call the result of this “my truth.” You can assess it as you wish, and hopefully not project anything further onto my experience, although I have no control over that. Although I do inherently have the power to not take it on. That is my choice, and I am not in any way dependent on you, not even on your opinion. That is simply the truth of the matter.

    I hear you that you feel EMDR is a viable healing tool, and I’m not arguing with that. I’ve said this twice, already, and very clearly and directly. But I seriously doubt it’s going to save the system. Still, if it helps clients, then go for it, is all else I’ll say about that.

    The framework of the DSM and the systemic dependence on psych drugs as a tool for anything are SYMPTOMS of a much deeper issue at hand, a societal issue amounting to oppression and control, and it is not only misleading, it is also downright fraudulent to call this “healing” or “support” of any kind. I believe this begins with specific personalities who are drawn to this field.

    Yes, people want to help others, and that’s fine. But I think they discover something about themselves when they come face to face with clients, and that’s when the denial, projections, and dysfunctional power-imbalanced relationship dynamic begins. The abuse can be subtle and insidious on this level, and it can go on for a while before a client realizes they are being gaslighted and manipulated, to line the pocket book and feed the ego needs of the clinician. That is so common in this field!

    Thousands and thousands of testimonials have corroborated this. Are you going to dismiss them all as merely “subjective?” They still have the power of truth and experience behind them. Put them all together and you get a very clear picture of something terribly amiss here that goes beyond DSM and psych drugs.

    And THAT is where therapy can be extremely dangerous and most harmful to unsuspecting clients.

    “The system in some ways is changing for the better.”

    I totally disagree with this, I believe it is getting worse. I’ve seen “changes” happen that, in reality, amount to more of the same. These are illusions to appease funders. And funding groups change their mind and focus all the time, arbitrarily, and no one is going to stand up to funders and go against their bread & butter. This is why, in reality and despite the pretense of change, nothing ever gets done.

    There are increasingly more and more and more and more socially, financially, and professionally disenfranchised people every day, just look around. I believe this is the product of your “system,” which you defend on some level.

    Again, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree, and wait until history tells the story in hindsight. But, at this time, I do wholeheartedly and in my gut completely believe the reality I am putting forth about this. I’m fine with being wrong about it, and I would applaud anyone who actually FIXES this system.

    However, I do believe I am right and speaking truth here, and I honestly do not believe that the system can be fixed, in any way shape or form, because it is already a black hole. It is sabotaging itself bit by bit, day by day, as is the case with toxic systems. They eventually self-destruct, their own shadow turning against them because it is never owned. We’ll see how this unfolds…

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  • “We need a paradigm shift…”

    Yes, we do. And I believe it is a much broader and core shift than what you are describing.

    I agree that we are all fragile and vulnerable, and at the same time, we are all resilient and powerful. That is what I call “being abundantly human.” This is how we grow and integrate as we go along in life, exercising all sides of ourselves, hiding from nothing about who we really are. That is the exploration of our spirit, the journey of life, as I see it.

    And I also believe that what we manifest for ourselves along the way is the precise reflection of how we are doing in this regard, where we can validate ourselves and where we can learn and grow. This is how life mirrors us, and we can use that mirroring as our most powerful guidance and tool for growth. Or, we can simply blame life or others for our plight, and see what manifests from that. It is a choice we all make from moment to moment, involving trial and error. Again, that’s life.

    Personally, however, I’d stay far away from any of these systems–mh system, social services, the entire mh industrial complex–for the purpose of achieving healing, personal growth and spirit/body/mind integration, and I know you already know I feel this way. But I’m happy to reiterate it.

    From my experience in the system and also working with social workers in a teaching capacity (I’ve given workshops to social workers et al), I believe wholeheartedly and with certainty that they lack the training and perspective necessary for holding a safe space for growth and healing. Being loyal to the system will simply not allow it, so it is stressful to all concerned.

    I believe the agenda in the system and all that world is entirely different, at the core, has nothing to do with healing and rehabilitation, and it is of course virtually always denied that this is the case. Of course it would, that is the essence of “corruption.” I see it as blatant criminal fraud.

    Again, it’s why I call it “toxic,” most accurate word I can think of to describe such a system so stuck in its own self-aggrandized delusions, and claiming it can help others in their quest for clarity and well-being.

    You are certainly free to disagree with me, based on YOUR experience, if that is what you feel. And from your posts and our previous dialogues, it seems that we are simply not in agreement here, because you seem to insist that the system/field can be reformed, and I’m saying it is beyond repair and doing way more harm than good, in any respect, way beyond the issues of DSM and psych drugs. I believe it is philosophically misguided and vampiring society at large.

    If we are not in agreement here, and I imagine we are not, then we’d just have to agree to disagree, and I’m ok with that.

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  • “The larger truth is that -all- of mental health, inc. is often (usually) damaging, sometimes to the point of death.”

    Yes, I agree that this is the larger truth. The mh industry has proven to be extremely dangerous and even fatal for way too many people for it to have any credibility as “well-being support services.” I perceive it to be a colossal failure, and sabotaging to individuals and society on the whole. And we’re paying for it big time.

    There are many paths to true and authentic healing available in the world already that have absolutely nothing to do with the academic study of “psychology,” which, in the end, is merely a thinly veiled exercise in creating nothing more than holograms and illusions to serve a few unenlightened greedy and power-drunk self-proclaimed so-called “elite” groups, at the extreme expense of everyone else.

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  • Stephen, what do you do when you witness this peer-to-client abuse? Wouldn’t you be mandated to report this? Or any abuse, for that matter?

    I’m very curious because it would seem that reporting in-house abuse would be a powerful strategy against it. I know that there are all sorts of resistances to abuse claims in the system, and I’m also aware that this kind of reporting could lead to consequences in a toxic system. But that resistance has to be broken down somehow. Otherwise, the abuse perpetuates.

    It’s hard enough for abuse victims to get their voices heard, but when teamed up with a witness, that can make all the difference.

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  • This is really beautiful feedback, Mike, thank you for your kind words, and also for writing about the life force power of creativity as you do.

    My belief is that life is creativity and creativity is life. We’re all creative beings; we can’t help it, it is our nature. The only thing created by stifling creativity is suffering.

    Yes, you get my meaning perfectly, talking about Rollo May’s perspective. This is my belief as well.

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  • From my perspective it is common anywhere within the bubble of the “mh” industry, and I believe it is a core systemic issue. Has to do with how we communicate in relationship to others.

    The ability to communicate directly, clearly, authentically, sensitively, and universally respectfully–which also includes how we listen to and take in the truth of another–is vital to therapeutic relationships. These are relationship dynamics which are necessary to do the job effectively, if any healing is to occur as the result of this relationship. In my experience, clinicians who have this ability are needles in a haystack, and that concerns me as far as the overall industry goes, where I just don’t see change happening, regardless of anything. Which is why I bring it up. This doesn’t come from education or training or supervision, but more from personal heart instincts, just knowing inherently how to treat others. Some people have a knack for it, others do not. I believe that is fair and neutral to say, like with any skill.

    But a clinician who does not have this kind of communication and relationship skill, and who believes he/she does, can be very dangerous to an unsuspecting client! I believe this goes without saying, it stands to reason. And I believe there are a lot out there who fit this description, we talk all the time on here about this. Not being able to take feedback and getting defensive about it is quite common, I believe we all agree on this from experience, and it is a powerful tell in this regard. That’s a huge problem!

    Regarding what takes place on here, you may not perceive it as I do–as has been my experience with moderators here in the past–so I’ll let you make that judgment call. I’m not an overseer here, that takes a lot of energy and you’d have to pay me to do something like that.

    But instead, I’m merely a volunteer participant, here simply to speak my truth in hopes of inspiring what I’d consider to be positive change, where everyone has the opportunity to know and feel their power, and not just a select few. No other agenda.

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  • Fred, I don’t think it’s a matter of convincing the so-called “powers that be,” because when it comes to embodying the truth of our experience, WE are the true and real powers that be! We’ve already exercised our right to heal and the power to create change within ourselves and in our lives. These changes are still rippling.

    I think where folks like you, me, and others on here who have taken the journey and managed to beat the system, can make the most difference in the world is to own our power. If there is one thing I’m certain of, we know a very specific kind of truth, one that comes from traversing the shadows of society from a first person point of view, and surviving it to come out on the other side. It is life-changing and it shifts our perspective on just about everything.

    As we know, this very strange through-the-looking-glass trip inside “the madness of the so-called ‘mental health’ system” is a journey like no other. Lots of jewels to mine from that particular excursion through the dark night. We can share these with our own voices. I believe that’s where the power of our truth has maximum impact, because it is heartfelt and authentic. We are walking our talk.

    Everyone has their own brand of madness with which to contend, I believe no one is immune to this. Some have managed to put it off for a while by sloughing it off onto others, but I truly believe that day is coming to an end. I no longer take it on for others, and for me, that is radical change.

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  • Yes, Mike and Julie, that is exactly my point. Psychiatry sabotages people–physically, emotionally, spiritually, and creatively. It is not only criminal to the individuals, but it is a crime against humanity because we need artists’ creative light more than ever now!

    I do think you’re right, Mike, a lot of envy and jealousy here for the permission and spiritual freedom which artists can embody.

    But also, I think, an artist who is grounded and who knows their center can create circles around the system, and I believe that is very threatening to the system, which shows absolutely no creativity. I find it to be rather a black hole in this regard, I’ve witnessed this in action repeatedly. It is much too rigid, authoritarian, and hierarchical. “By the book” seems to be the motto, at the very least, and that is no way to help people, but more so, to oppress them.

    I was on the drugs for 20 years and out in the world functioning, although not nearly living up to my potential. I was reasonably happy as a retail clerk-to-manager, earned a living and enjoyed life (albeit with drugs side effects and constant blood draws, dependence on therapy, etc., always paying into the system for “maintenance”) and I got a couple of degrees in the process. But the drugs wore me down over the years until I imploded from them.

    Once I was off of them for a while and healing from all that, far and away from psychiatry, suddenly, thanks to volunteer work I was doing and being in the right place at the right time, I was acting and singing on stage (never had done that before, I was in my mid 40s, getting good reviews and paid work for this), then I made a film, then a piano came into my life and I have a band for which I accompany and musically direct, and then I made another film. All I do now is create, that’s my life.

    It was hard core change for me, in mid-life, simply from coming off all those years of neurotoxins. My life literally became a burst of creativity. That’s my testimonial against neurotoxins, hard and fast.

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  • That is a wonderful insight, Julie, and I agree with you in perspective and in feeling.

    Look at Oprah, she’s been completely open about her abusive childhood in a way that has helped so many people. And she’s been highly rewarded for it. Personally, I think it’s just, and I happen to believe that she is probably the one and only person I can think of who I’d consider fit for the office of POTUS, were she to decide to take on that challenge. She has her critics and no one is perfect, but overall, that is what I mean by personal transformation leading to important world change. She’d be my best public example.

    A lot of people have spring-boarded to success thanks to their hard knocks. When we make it a point to go in the other direction, we find our path.

    I just don’t think people have to necessarily suffer in the process of finding their success simply because other people resent or resist it, for whatever reason, competition or otherwise.

    That’s where I would turn the tables because sabotage of others is what I consider to be a “dark and evil” force in humanity. When we sabotage others, we only end up sabotaging ourselves. I truly believe it works that way.

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  • Oh yeah–and the main way in which it is preserving the status quo, from my perspective, is by mimicking its systemic bullying practices. I believe I’ve seen other pubic grievances about this, although admittedly, this would be from my personal perspective and experience. I’ve complained about it directly to staff in the past, and in this public forum–not just on my own behalf, but because I believe I’ve witnessed this repeatedly in response to others. Naturally, I get a lot of resistance to this claim, but that is par for the course in activism. I still have the right to use my voice to speak my truth, and I believe I am being reasonable about it.

    Still, how to measure the accuracy of such a statement is not something I’d know how to do, and whether or not others would agree or argue with me about this is up for grabs, although in the past, I have been at odds with this community in regards to this issue . And I think it is kind of a public consensus type thing, because I believe that this kind of measure is often based on cultural norms, and this is a multi-cultural website in many respects.

    But given that this is a website of and for activists, I’d say it is a reasonable issue to at least bring up, and most relevant to “rethinking psychiatry.” And then let the truth, whatever it be, reveal itself. To me, that is sound and fair activism.

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  • I am doing just that, vanilla. I do have a group which is exactly about that, and we’re doing it. I’ve been doing this work for a long time, and I’ve been succeeding at it little by little, changing myself, my life, helping others around me make changes within themselves and in their own lives. Not changes *I* think they should make, these are people who have the courage to make change in their own lives, not expect others around them to change on their behalf. I work with people looking to grow, the way I grow and change as I go.

    It all started with healing from what I went through in the system, and it’s rippling outward.

    As far as this not being my website, therefore who am I to have voice here regarding how things are run? Well, MIA put out a survey and then made this post, and I think the idea was for everyone to voice their perspective so that MIA can take the feedback and process it so that they can grow. That seems ok to me.

    My feedback to MIA is that I feel they are, in essence, preserving the status quo, despite the rhetoric. That’s what I think, and I wanted to put it on the table while they’re looking at the direction of MIA.

    My perspective and belief is that the only real and true agents of social change are the individuals who change and transform themselves. That is what healing is all about– change, by example. I agree with you–in what I remember reading in another post by you, I believe–that we needn’t be victims. Instead, we can use our experience to create change.

    I also agree with you that we should tend to our own gardens before throwing manure onto the garden of others. Although I have to say, you seem to be extremely critical of others. I hope you find your peace.

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  • I’m referring to the survivor *perspective* which I feel takes a back seat to a “professional’s” point of view. That’s “the psychiatric survivor voice” I’m talking about, which I definitely feel gets overpowered here, the way it does in any session of dialogue with mh professionals and the like. For the most part, dialogue seems to degenerate into projections and defensiveness at best, on the part of the clinician, and at worst, gaslighting and other disorienting and energy-sucking mind games become the modus operandi for keeping truth at bay.

    I don’t see how this is either beneficial or productive in any way, other than, perhaps, for the vampiristic personality (extremely oppressive and double-binding, which is what we’re talking about here), but that can only be in the short term. In the long run, everyone loses in this dynamic–hence, the world dominated by any of these highly oppressive and draining “systems” coming apart at the seams, as it is.

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  • Powerful, brilliant, and spot on, Fred. Thanks for expanding clarity here.

    Yes, what is intended as deep personal info to share for the benefit of one’s own healing and clarity, and also to benefit humanity with the clarity of our experience, turns sinister as instead, this info is used against the one generously and trustingly sharing their most challenging experiences and feelings. That is exactly the norm of psychiatry, and it is dangerous for people. To me, that’s the bottom line–in more ways than one!

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  • Oh, one last thing for now, this was on my mind when I first read the article, but obviously not my priority focus here. Still, this made me LOL at first, from the ironic choice of words–

    “anything sounding like “Black people do X” or “White people are always Y” or “gay people suck”…”

    And then I did a second take and wondered why you would use X and Y for Black/White people and then a specific word like “suck” as the example for gay people, of ALL possible words! I’m very surprised that no one noticed this, with all those editors. You are all wordsmiths. We discuss so much about language, this one would seem obvious to me.

    The standard false rationale for homophobia, btw, is that we’re “immoral,” or some such projected judgment.

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  • Steve, as a survivor, in every sense of the word, of the “mental health” industrial complex, I do want to say that I very much appreciate your discussion of showing sensitivity to the unique kind of trauma which survivors of the system, and of very poor and misguided (often toxic) “treatment,” have experienced–basically amounting to being “treated” badly, in a dehumanized and betraying way, simply from having some kind of diagnosis or because of socio-economic status, whatever. I’ll call it society’s collective prejudice.

    I also want to point out that, for me at least, when I share my very personal experience, it is never to hear anything like “I’m sorry you went through that,” or “that is just your experience.” I know for me, and I’d imagine for others, we are attempting to share information from the perspective of our first hand experience. I often feel these personal perspectives and insights from our own experience are dismissed in favor of some “professional opinion,” which feels dehumanizing all over again–and rather abusive, to be honest, from my perspective. I believe it is part of the systemic problem.

    Plus, I feel our personal stories–however and wherever we share them–are the most powerful and truthful perspectives BECAUSE they are based on our own experience, and not an interpretation created solely from the point of view of observing others. I believe this is where a lot of personal conflict and hard feeling happens, not to mention re-traumatization. Certainly doesn’t lead to clarity. Observation is what leads to projection, and false stigmatizing realities. The power here is in the experience, I truly believe. I also believe that this should be respected more than it is.

    I’ve experienced it on here and I’ve seen it repeatedly in dialogues, where a professional who has never experienced this particular journey of mh system survivorship–e.g., detoxing from heavy doses of neurotoxins, discriminatory oppression and marginalization, or altered states of consciousness which puts one at odds with society–will project in a way that feels demeaning all over again. It’s kind of standard procedure from what I’ve noticed. They may not even intend to, but it’s an automatic response, and I feel it merits mention because I believe people should be aware of this.

    At the same time, I’ve called out what I perceived and felt as abuse, only to be responded with, “I don’t see any abuse happening here,” which I think is pretty dicey, especially in a community like this. Reality check is one thing, but invalidating a person’s experience when they are triggered like that is downright dangerous, I firmly believe. I also believe it is cruel.

    Those of us who have gone through these experiences, and who have sorted and sifted through it all over the years, healing as we go, have information that is extremely valuable to humanity. We’ve walked the underbelly of our society, and we lived to tell about it. I know that I, at least, want to own and deliver it myself, not feed it to “those in power” so “they” can do something about it. That is exactly feeding the system and giving away our power–exactly what we want to reverse.

    I’m sure there is room for dialogue here and I know it’s all a delicate balance. We’re all human beings deserving of respect, regardless of how we identify in life. To me, it seems that even while wanting to be sensitive, there still seems to me to be a general lack of respect for survivorship here–which to me, would make it no different than the system, itself.

    This is where I’m looking for something new in these dialogues, that would really get across the value of having gone through it, rather than all this projection of “what it must feel like.” Some of us know EXACTLY what if feels like, no projections necessary! And we know exactly what we’re talking about.

    More than sensitivity, I’d like to ask for respect for my experiences. That would be positive change!

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  • “They always win no matter what.”

    Well stated and to the point. Many of those who work in this field have mastered the art of “intellectual bullying,” which is insidious. It’s also dizzying, draining, quite maddening, and leads to nowhere but discouragement, frustration, and feelings of hopelessness that mutually respectful communication can ever take place here.

    Too much of that is crazy-making, and why I now feel reform of the “mental health industry” is, without a doubt, impossible. Rigid, rigid, rigid–with occasional pretenses of change, which are, in reality, merely thinly disguised infusions of more status quo. That’s its failure.

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  • Of course, and I appreciate the vote of confidence. I’m sure I won’t be the only one 🙂 You seem to be fully aware of the process before you, and the challenges therein, so I’d say you’re off to a good start. Plus, you have tons of support, that is obvious.

    You’ve set some strong and well-defined boundaries which will no doubt be challenged. I think that will be the teaching and growth opportunities for all concerned, and from which deeper clarity will come. That’s where I find it most interesting because that is where the most visible energy is, the juice! Where creativity happens–that is, change.

    At this point, I’d say to someone at the stage where you are, “Trust your guidance!” Your well-honed skills will carry you through, I’ve no doubt.

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  • Not at all, because I don’t know what I’d be skeptical about in this case. You’re a smart guy and you’ve been around the block, so I would imagine you are a capable moderator.

    Although the new thing here is having someone so vocal in the comments and also moderating. That’s never happened here before, and it’s interesting. As always, time will tell how you and others experience this new shift. As far as predicting anything, I feel neutral right now, overall, like I do any new thing. Wait to see how it goes.

    What is up in the air right now, in general, is the direction of MIA, and that has a lot to do with the changes coming from the survey results, too. It’s all part of the same stew at this point. I’m looking at the general overall trend of MIA right now. It is turning a corner, and we’re all wondering to where it will lead.

    *Fascinated* would be the accurate word to describe my feelings here. I observe the movement of energy. This is a big energy shift and it will cause ripples, always does because that is the nature of energy.

    I LOVE change, I really do. In fact, I live for it and I embody it. I believe it is the one thing that is constant, change is always occurring on an energetic level. So when it manifests physically like this, many “aha’s” come to light, and we see what happens next. It’s so cool! Keeps me in awe.

    I also teach about the process of change and I support that process wholeheartedly and hold a space for it, and always with fascination. It is where creativity is most supremely rich.

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  • Hi James. I appreciate what you are saying here via that quote, but I think this is missing the point of “change” in this regard, at least the way I’m seeing it.

    I put that quote by DJT for a reason, because I think it is the same thing. We’re talking about oppression here, severe power imbalance. I believe MIA continues to perpetuate this, rather than to remedy it.

    I’ve been posting here for 6 years and have had many interactions with staff over the years, including several exchanges with Mr. Whitaker, to whom I voiced my concerns repeatedly. I experienced a lot of stonewalling and dismissiveness, in the exact same fashion I experienced going through the “mental health” system over a decade ago. Still, I continued to participate here because there was value for me in doing so, and at least some others seemed to appreciate it, from what I’ve heard.

    The systemic dynamic on MIA has been my greatest concern, and when I saw that at least some readers want to hear less from survivors and more from professionals, that was enough to convince me with certainty MIA is not really the agent of social change I am seeking because I do not believe it is an example of it. For me, this is where MIA is limited, and eventually runs out of credibility.

    I have gotten value from interacting here, but at the same time, it’s been stressful in the exact same way the system was stressful for me. So you see? No change here. I know where I feel freedom and I know where I feel oppression. These are easy to discern if I am feeling my feelings. Best regards.

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  • “…others preferred less of these [personal accounts] but more from professionals.”

    This is interesting. So this is a place where at least some people (gosh, I wonder who) do not want to hear the survivor’s voice. I had already pretty much gotten that feeling, and to see it spelled out like this is actually validating my feeling. It is a very oppressive feeling to have one’s voice dismissed and disregarded. It’s what we come here to talk about, where change is needed most.

    I do appreciate knowing this with certainty now, seeing it spelled out in writing.

    Ok, thank you for letting me know! All the best in your crusade for “change.”

    “There are very fine people on both sides.” Donald J. Trump, re Supremacists vs. Protestors

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  • “Mania” = lack of grounding. That’s it. Many issues can arise when we are not grounded, everything from poor judgment to adrenal exhaustion to self-sabotage. Our circuitry can run wild when we are not grounded. Same as with any electrical appliance, which also needs to be grounded in order to function properly and not short circuit.

    Learning to ground to the Earth is a profoundly healing practice, and soothing on all levels mind, body, and spirit. Extremely calming to the mind, too. Gets us centered.

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  • “I don’t think posting on MIA is going to change much.”

    Yes, I agree. For me, it’s been another leg in my journey of truth-seeking. Interacting on here around these issues with such a diversely thinking and cross-cultural group has been of great value to me, personally. In that sense, it has led to some change because it influences my work and my humanity. My communication has shifted on many levels thanks to these dialogues.

    But you’re right, it is limited for a variety of different reasons, mostly because of what I said regarding the same old paradigm. I really do think that “be the change” is the way to go. I believe that this is energetically sound, and truth to the core.

    “I think the best way for all of us to change the system is by advocating for change at the levels of power that can actually make a systemic difference.”

    Not sure this is “the best way,” and I believe you are leaving out a lot of people and denying them their power. We all have the power to make change on some level, and again, I think that’s elementary. What you are saying is that people should give their power to those already in power. Noooooo friggin’ way is that sound, and it totally supports and feeds power imbalance. Isn’t that obvious to you?

    There are many aspects to change, each one having its own value. That’s important to keep in mind, considering that we’re talking about inclusion vs. exclusion, and the psychosocial effects thereof.

    “We do need to reeducate the world when it comes to “mental illness”, as clearly people have been told lies.”

    Yeah, we do the best we can here, but we also have diverse interpretations and perspectives of what this is, like nothing else before which has been vehemently disagreed upon. Furthermore, around here and in the system, people seem to favor the explanations of those who have not experienced it, as opposed to those of us with first hand experience of this phenomena. Makes no sense to me at all, and basically creates a false reality filled with delusionary thinking. When I say toxic, I mean toxic.

    People have their own truth to live and journeys to take. We all awaken at different levels, life leads us there one way or another, by hook or by crook. There are as many paths to awakening to truth as there are people on the planet. Each one is unique. We make it easier on ourselves when we accept inevitable change, and furthermore, embrace it.

    Why not at least agree that we’re all unique, and no more projections onto that? Then, perhaps, we can start appreciating differences rather than being intimidated by them, and therefore scapegoating them.

    Of course, we have to be ok with ourselves, first, or we will inevitably resort to projecting, othering, stigmatizing, marginalizing, etc. It’s not human nature to do so, but it would be the nature of a sick society. Let’s not get too well adjusted to that, you know what they say about being well-adjusted to a sick society…

    Be well, too, Shaun. Always an adventure exploring the energy with you. I appreciate your authenticity and courage.

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  • Shaun, I have to be honest here. My wish is not to fight and argue. I do not want to go point by point because this is not how I desire to dialogue. To my mind, it does not serve other than to agitate and create even more static in the communication. There is a lot of energy here to wade through, and I try to just cut to the chase.

    I did not respond to EMDR in the above post because I already said in a previous dialogue not too long ago that I’ve heard good things about EMDR and I would never argue for whatever works for a person. Even someone on the psych drugs who feels helped by them I would not argue with, nor would I put my story in their face.

    I would instead respect their decision they make for themselves and were they to ever want to hear about my experience because they are starting to question things, I’d gladly offer it. EMDR is fine with me, but I certainly don’t think it’s the be all end all in any respect, if there even is such a thing which I doubt. Still, it’s a good tool for some.

    At this point, given that you work with people in what you feel is a healing capacity, I’d only be interested in dialoguing about what best helps people in their quest for relief from chronic suffering and a feeling of justice in the world. Arguing like this will never accomplish this, and will only create more of the same. For many, it only recreates trauma, and that’s something I know well enough about to not feed, at least not consciously.

    I’ve been where you are, in that same mindset. What I went through changed my beliefs because I took the journey, filled with all sorts of archetypes and “hallucinations” (as you would put it), and also what you would call “psychosis,” and it was profound and I was not silent in this. It lasted for a few years and I never recoiled from society, although I felt as though I was walking around in a glass booth, visibly sweating from anxiety all the time–literally, day and night. I was detoxing profusely, and it was obvious. Yet totally benign to others. I was always respectful of boundaries, what you would call “meek,” during this time. I walked around terrified, to use your word. But determined to heal and get back my self-respect.

    I was withdrawn in a way, and reaching out in another way, with my heart. The results were more than fascinating and telling, how people responded to differences, even to someone who was obviously suffering, and trying desperately to heal.

    I’d go nuts trying to get this across to you, were I to be sitting in your office. I’d feel so terribly invalidated and invisible, and ultimately drained. Same results as with the others.

    Fortunately, I can turn off my computer and get back to my physical reality, which I enjoy a great deal these days. Engaging in these same issues at a conflict level only takes me back to all that crap I’m trying to leave behind.

    From your responses to me and in other dialogues I’ve read, I’d say you are not sensitive to those of us who were wounded and harmed by the system. You are not hearing our hearts. Fortunately, we’re not depending on that, but I think that’s why you are experiencing the friction as you are. This is what happens when a therapist is not hearing a person’s heart, but instead, is reinterpreting the information in a way that is putting you on the defensive, rather than seeking truth. Can’t do both at the same time.

    This is how being an activist is a conundrum for me. I believe this is important, but I also believe it may compromise our health and well-being to be constantly arguing, when people really are suffering daily. I don’t see how this is helping one bit.

    This is what I call “therapy brain.” It overworks us to the point of draining our energies, and it can trigger things like trauma and psychosis. It’s exactly why I’m not a fan.

    Just trying to make my point as clearly as I can. Again, it’s really nothing personal, but this dialogue is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. At least for me, it makes my point.

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  • “I’m glad to hear that you admit you are generalizing. I get that your experiences fit a certain perspective, but it doesn’t mean that the field on the whole fits your experience.”

    No kidding. And yet, have you read the thousands upon thousands of testimonials which talk about how therapy screwed them up and how so-called “mental health” services failed them unequivocally? How it robbed them of money, family, quality of life? It’s online all over the place, starting here on MIA.

    Do you think it’s just the drugs? Or just the DSM? There are actually people behind all of this.

    Whoever is not an abuser in a dysfunctional system is an enabler. A professional field with this much controversy and resistance and suicide in the midst of it is seriously suspect. In my 57 years on this planet, I’ve never seen such a friggin’ mess like this field is. You can defend it all you like, but it will not change the reality that this “mental health” industry has failed. How can it bring health & well-being to people when the field itself is so incredibly unhealthy? That follows no logic, and I believe it is a given by now. I’m certainly not the only person in this world who feels the mh system is toxic waste.

    The sooner one faces reality, the easier and more fluidly change will occur.

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  • “We don’t live in a world which embraces different experiences like “psychosis”. We are too often pushed in a direction of conformity.”

    So? Doesn’t mean we can’t muster the courage to be different. Change certainly won’t occur from conforming. What is activism, if not going against social oppression? Which is what “pushed in the direction of conformity” is, spot on. How about we *not* conform, and see what happens. Keep trying. The strongest willed will pave the way and break ground, making it easier for others.

    “Most of the people I see who fit this experience of psychosis are folks who are hearing derogatory voices, fear that the government is harassing them, thinking their house is bugged, and so forth. These folks are disturbed by their experiences and it’s been difficult for them or myself to see how it is “transformative” in any sense. Unless you consider terror transformative.”

    I went through this exactly, verbatim. And I know exactly what it was, it was the moment I began to withdraw from neurotoxins. I got over it eventually, with good healing.

    But not before I was TERRORIZED by some very cruel therapists–from PsyDocs to Psychiatrists to LCSWs to MFTs, you name it, and I’m not joking about that. I had to heal from that, too, which was way more complex, tricky, and intricate than healing from drugs toxicity.

    Healing from social abuse is very hard, but it’s doable. However, not while being in an environment which casts such negative projections, as a rule, thinking it’s neutral. It’s not neutral, it’s demeaning in the most dispiriting ways. That’s what I’m saying.

    Indeed I consider terror transformative. Our most challenging emotions ARE transformative, that’s exactly the point. It is all part of the human experience. Not all have the courage, fortitude, or corporeal equipment to carry this in their bodies. Thank God for those that do. That would be a hero’s journey, and it’s also awakening. But people need to guidance to get to the other side.

    Honestly, I don’t feel in synch with MIA, we do not have the same objectives or perspective. To me, this only echoes the paradigm of the system, regardless of how it challenges it in other ways. Still, I appreciate that diverse voices can interact here.

    Please do not generalize me, personally, to the group, because that would, indeed, be a misrepresentation of who I am. I am neither enmeshed nor dependent on this group. I most definitely march to the beat of my own drummer, and it works for me. I’d hope to encourage others to do the same, to be true to themselves, and FUCK CONFORMITY.

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  • I have no problem owning that I am generalizing, and it is based on my very extensive and thorough experience in the field for over 3 decades, wearing a variety of hats along the way, often concurrently. I’m not saying all therapists are abusive, I’ve had a couple of really nice ones, and competent in addition to being humane and sensitive.

    Still, after my education, training, and years and years of front lines experience in all of these systems related to “mental health/illness/disability,” I find the core paradigm to be inherently abusive (without even trying) to certain populations and/or people with culturally challenging ways of being (not talking about issues regarding violence toward others, that is an entirely different matter).

    I have yet to see evidence to the contrary, even in dialogues on MIA. I’ve seen it overt and subtle on here. I’ve called it out, and the results have been mixed, but consistent with my experience up and down the “mental health” industrial complex.

    I have been through this on the therapist side of things, on the client side of things, on the social worker side of things, on the professional advocacy side of things, and on the activist side of things. I have lived with diagnoses and a head full of neurotoxins and I have released all of that and have moved on with my life completely and fully. That was a dramatic and revealing process of awakening and radical life change.

    So that’s fine to say that this is my experience because it is. Thing is, my experience has been vast in this particular arena, and I’ll repeat, I’ve yet to experience anything different from anyone in the field. I believe there is a lot of programming that takes place in training. I rejected it, and I paid for that. That’s yet another problem in the field, its extreme myopia. Indeed, it’s my personal opinion, based on my personal experience. What else is reality?

    I’ve also had a witness for 33 years in my partner, who eventually went to work for social services and totally got what I’d been talking about for all these years. Made his jaw drop, repeatedly. We both share the same opinion here, based on our personal experiences together in all of this.

    Would you instead prefer to pay some researcher to hear a different truth because you don’t like mine?

    Back to main point, however: What you call “psychosis” is an indicator of core change and consciousness expansion happening. A good guide can take this person through an amazing life-changing transformation. If a guide happens to be a “psychotherapist,” so be it. I’d like to meet him or her, because then, I’d know a psychotherapist who actually IS qualified to deal with what you are calling “psychosis.” But if you are calling it that, then the likelihood that you could guide this person to transformation is not very high. I believe this stands to reason, considering how people react to the word “psychosis,” and all that is inherently attached to it.

    It’s really a process of change, and people do fear change, the way they fear “psychosis.”

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  • “Why wouldn’t a therapist be able to work with someone who experiences voices or other hallucinations?”

    Because therapists are not trained to see people as anything than “other.”

    Healers who have been through their own dark night know that what you are calling “psychosis” is not a break from reality, which is based solely on mainstream thinking–and which I believe most of us in here reject wholly because it has already proven to be destructive by polarizing humanity and creating marginalized populations. That is not human nature, to my mind, but more of repeating generational abuse. We can unlearn this, should we choose to do so.

    What you call “psychosis” can also be perceived as expanding one’s own personal reality. It is a process occurring that has profound healing information within it, as well as precise guidance for an individual’s growth path. It is the breakdown of the old to make way for a new and more personally aligned reality to emerge. One has to understand personal symbols, highly creative processes, and grounding, to get this. And I don’t recall learning any of this in my training. This information came with the energy healing I did.

    That’s where integral mind/body/spirit and validating, creative healing happened for me, as opposed to simply feeling “othered,” as is all I got from any aspect of “mental health” services.

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  • I was thinking about our dialogue this morning, TruthisBest, and felt moved to once again copy & paste here my one of my favorite quotes. I’m not sure if I’m responding to what I’m feeling at present or to something in your energy based on what you say here. Maybe both, I’m not sure, but it doesn’t matter.

    What I find myself extremely moved by is your obvious courage and fortitude. I know the gaslighting thing well, that was my abuse, too, and it was long-term because I was raised this way and didn’t know any different for a long time, until well along my healing path. That was a rude awakening, but it was a powerful healing opportunity, so I addressed it. And it was also brutal because it seems to be inherently accompanied by negative gossip and kind of herding a community against one of its own. It’s quite the matrix, truly insidious. I feel you here.

    I heard someone once say that it was like having an eggbeater in your brain, to which I related wholeheartedly. Crazy-making! Which is the idea, and it works.

    But I truly believe that we can heal and get that eggbeater out of us. There is a lot of online guidance for this, check out YouTube and do a search for “healing from gaslighting” or ‘healing from narcissistic abuse.” Lots and lots of great info on this, really helped me.

    I’ve been working on that for years and my peace has returned to me for the most part. Although I do have to take good care of myself and do my energy work, because of the sheer density of this energy. Can make life more challenging than it need be, imo. So it’s a delicate balance, keeps me on my toes.

    I wish for you that same peace. I wish that for everyone that has suffered at the hands of abusive gaslighters–and there are tons of us, it seems!

    Anyway, here’s the quote and I hope it resonates with you or at least with someone who reads this. Blessings to you.

    This is from Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love:

    “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

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  • TruthisBest, I apologize if I came across as flip or insensitive. I was having a hard time understanding what you were meaning by that and felt it was ironic that I was being faced with “diagnostic symptoms” after not living with a diagnosis of any kind for over 10 years now–other than maybe a touch of post traumatic stress from time to time thanks to my stint in the system, although fortunately that is pretty minimal at this time.

    But to read what you wrote on a website like this, where we admonish DSM diagnoses (and ODD being one of the more controversial ones) is what struck me as particularly ironic, that’s all I meant.

    In any event, you seem like you’re in a lot of pain and I am sorry for that, and I certainly didn’t mean to add to it or imply anything that is not true about you. I was speaking in general when I said “you have to use your voice,” I should have said “we each have to use our own voice.”

    And yes, some people can be monstrously abusive and have no remorse about it, it’s both sad and maddening. It’s a pretty fucked up world, I think we more than likely all agree on that by now. I believe that’s what we’re looking to help heal, somehow. That’s *my* expressed intention, in any event. Best regards.

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  • “Although I hear some oppositional defiant disorder symptoms in what you say”

    Um…not sure what to make of this, but I had to chuckle at the irony of it. Although, in reality, sounds like programming to me.

    I’ve gotten in my abusers’ face, btw, and have spoken my truth to every last one of them–in my family, and in the mh system. It was not at all easy and naturally there was tons of resistance to hearing me, and I had to really trust a hard process. But in the end it was extremely beneficial for everyone concerned, and created amazing changes for all of us.

    Truth is healing, freeing, and it breaks the system. But what I have found is that you have to use your own voice–which is empowering–and not rely on others to speak for you, which amounts to chronic dependence.

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  • I like that, Steve, about different intentions infused into whatever is destined to replace the current corrupt (and disabled, I’d say, to be honest) network of systems. I’d say just about everything would have to be different than what we have going on now, if we expect to make manifest a world in which everyone’s needs are respected and met, and not a bunch of societies divided up into those who are “worthy” and “not worthy,” or what have you, based on how compliant they are with the “rules of society” and who does and does not challenge it simply with their way of being.

    This current society in which we live is corrupt and failing. So perhaps these “rules” (norms) should be challenged, and I believe that’s what activism is all about.

    People need freedom of choice, of expression, of creativity, and of simply being, in order to thrive, and I believe these are basic human rights. A humane system would honor this unequivocally, including a sound and universally supportive family system, rather than one in which an identified patient is created. That’s where all the splitting begins, along with internal struggles, and imbalance is born.

    A sound society would honor uniqueness, rather than shun, ridicule, and marginalized it, not to mention turning it into pathology. That is spirit-killing and leads to suffering and untimely death.

    Shaun, you make it sound hopeless. Of course there are viable alternatives. When old things break down, new things spring forth. I believe that’s pretty elementary. Are you aware of the power you are giving to the system with all you are saying here? You are feeding the system hardily.

    I’ve heard many therapists say “there will always be abuse in society”–to abuse victims! Is that really how we want to respond? Not a lot of empathy there, to say the least. Nor hope, if you ask me.

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  • The way I’m looking at it, “the system” is not at all for the greater good. It is for the good of a few at the expense of most others. When something is truly for the greater good, then no one is excluded and everyone prospers because we’re all part of the collective, no way around that, I believe.

    We can’t always see the bigger picture–we are human, after all, with subjective perspectives–so we have to use our intuition. It also helps to have a way to guide oneself in life, from an internal locus of control, rather than to rely on others for their information. That is true freedom, and I believe it is for the greater good for everyone to feel free, that’s my personal belief. It’s a matter of getting there, and that’s the journey of awakening.

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  • Thank you, Shaun, it’s all good. I do get from where you are coming, and I feel your heart in your work, without a doubt. We’re still coming from two different mindsets and perspectives which create different realities. I think that’s the most interesting and perhaps challenging things about life–we do exist in a world of diverse realities, like it or not. That is nature, and human nature. Can we all share the planet peaceably? That’s the trillion dollar question, to my mind. And I always say, start with cultivating inner peace, and it will ripple into the world, one way or another. Peace to you.

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  • Hi Shaun, I do think we’re at an impasse at this point because you are very much a “systems” person, from what I can tell. You are bringing in other entities (police, Medicaid) which are all connected to the same corruption. There is “the mental health system,” and then there is THE SYSTEM, of which mh is merely a subset–“the rules of law and order and checks and balances” by which we are all supposed to live. Whereas, in reality, there is no law and order starting with our LEADERSHIP, and as I said earlier, there really are no checks and balances, all of this is an illusion, the big lie. At this point, it’s all a bust, as far as I’m concerned.

    I don’t function in this paradigm, I’ve expanded my reality beyond these illusory limitations which are 100% based on oppression and fear mongering and making us believe that “the status quo” is the only way to go; whereas it is really the least desirable and beneficial for most people on the planet, to comply with “systems thinking,” as far as our current political, economic, medical, and social services systems go. That is simply enabling corruption at this point. Creativity is the key right now, and that is a real point of power.

    That is the whole point of transformation. We transform into an expanded reality. Ask anyone who has been through their dark-night-of-the-soul journey and has come out on the other side, in a new light. That’s pretty literal, and I’m certainly not the only person who can claim this. Many of us have had this path in this lifetime.

    Considering how the old systems are indeed crumbling at this point because just about everyone is feeling the extreme failure of them, I’d say we’re totally at the dawn of a new age. That’s how it goes, from Dark Ages to Renaissance. But giving police and insurance the kind of power you give them, that’s only going to keep us in the dark.

    Life on Earth offers us myriad realities, we get to pick & choose & create. I believe that once we have connected with our true self/spirit self/higher self–whatever anyone wants to call it, that which is beyond the physical, true to our hearts–then we are unlimited in our ability to create our lives our way, aligned with what is for the greater good. That is win/win.

    I have enjoyed our dialogues, Shaun, and have gotten a great deal out of them. I am going to re-focus and take a break from all this right now, let this new information process a bit while I tend to my life out here in the world. Very best wishes to you, and perhaps soon we’ll have more opportunities to compare our respective realities. In the meantime, take good care.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS3XFTwIKfE

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  • “All of these human created systems are abusive and manipulative on some level. History is ridden with examples of abuse.”

    Yes, which is why we’re advocating for radical change. For me, it starts here, and then other issues will go more smoothly and things will get done better because there is better communication. Many approaches to this, it is a big process of multi-layered healing.

    “I’m not sure what the answer is, other than for each of us to focus on our own truth, advocate for what we believe in, and try to avoid re-traumatization if at all possible.”

    I believe that IS a good answer, what you say here. That would be novel, too, I believe, in a general sort of way, so I’d call it “change.” It’s a start! Good inner focus. Lots of programming and habits to break here, but it is doable.

    “More police officers are being CIT trained, which is needed so they have a better understanding and appreciation for people who are in distressed states.”

    I was around when CIT training started, and it has notable problems which only reinforce the stigma, discrimination, and marginalization.

    You’re talking about the system changing (or improving) the system, and that ain’t gonna happen, it’s not logical. That which is the problem is not going to create the solution.

    “I agree that if this is what the client wants, it should be short-term.”

    Lots to say here, but overall, I feel long term psychotherapy is harmful and does create dependence, inevitably. I’m open to discussion on this, but as of now, this has been my observation.

    “…people who have experienced severe trauma since an early age need more time to heal.”

    Yes and no, I believe. People who have experienced severe trauma since an early age have patterns and cycles to break. Healing happens in layers, and it’s up to a person’s process how they heal and by what means. Some can be extremely efficient but still have layer upon layer, depending on the history.

    There are a lot of excellent ways to heal severe trauma that have nothing to do with psychotherapy and psychology training. For me, it was the way to go, in the way of healing my spirit, my heart, and then my body/mind. Not for everyone of course and I don’t advocate energy/psychic/chakra healing for anyone not interested in this. I just offer it as an option to those who are interested or curious, and most often they are stunned with the results and what they learn in the process. Most people who can take this healing in say that they can get what feels like 5 years of therapy in one healing session. It really cuts to the chase.

    In my practice, it varies and I have clients as well as students in groups where we discuss the manifesting process as a healing agent. My standard is to go with three sessions, where we discuss the issue, get to what needs shifting in present time, I prescribe exercises (usually one 5-10 minute focus exercise/day), and then they come back a week later to report how this affected their energy and the issues at hand, then we tweak if need be and go one more week, then come back for closure. That often works, or at least gets them well on their way. By this time, a shift has definitely occurred.

    Sometimes they want to go further simply because they find it so fascinating. Healing and manifesting happen simultaneously, so it’s kind of cool to follow the energy of this. And it can be life-changing, a whole new perspective from which to navigate life. That’s how one of my testimonials read. And, it is extremely efficient healing. I’ve been in practice for over 13 years now.

    This is based on tons of training I did over the years as I healed, and then from my own process, as I integrated this very mindfully. I’ve integrated several healing modalities in which I trained and became certified—the new stuff, based on ancient stuff. Worked miraculously for me, and now I’m paying it forward.

    “I am encouraged by EMDR as a treatment for trauma, because it helps the brain and body heal itself through bilateral stimulation.”

    I’ve heard people speak well of this. Anything that works and is obviously helpful to a client would be my standard of practice.

    “Unfortunately our culture supports active passivity and learned helplessness.”

    Well, I don’t—not in my life, and not in my practice.

    “I wish everyone felt empowered to change their lives for the better. Many feel like lost causes.”

    The world would certainly be a much easier and nicer place to live if everyone knew their personal power, rather than feeling hopeless or chronically frustrated thanks to these crazy messages of marginalization projected without effort or consciousness.

    I felt my cause was a lost one at one point, I’ve talked about my almost successful attempt to take my own life. I had good reason to believe it was hopeless, it all stacked up like this thanks to the messages I received from the system. I was in it hard core at that time. It’s why I call it “terrifying.”

    BUT, I was wrong, thank goodness, and I found my way, and then my power. I speak about it only to give hope to others. At one point, I had told a friend that I needed a miracle to get through the mess I was going through. Well, they occurred. I’m here, and I’m thriving. ‘Nuff said.

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  • A couple of quick add-ons–

    First of all, where I say, “a different perspective than what you express below in many places,” I do mean *above* not below. I must have been standing on my head at the time 🙂

    Mainly, I thought it would be important to add that re this voc rehab agency, I was actually kind of becoming a superstar, I seemed to have this in me. I was terribly insecure at the time, but it was after my near-death experience, which is another story. And I truly loved the job, until they started giving me a really hard time, for reasons which were kept very vague from me, about which I scoffed.

    Point being, I was a bit out of my mind from the psych drugs withdrawal so I wasn’t so much consciously choosing my path at this point, but more like, intuitively following some kind of inner guidance, based on my extreme desire to work, and things came into my path, like a door opening. That’s exactly how I ended up at the voc rehab center.

    And I was matching people with jobs they enjoyed right and left, to the point where I had two outside job coaches and counselors call me to tell me that people were wanting to meet me, how was I doing this? Seemed I had some kind of skill here, which this voc rehab agency could have helped me foster, and that would have been win/win, everyone would have benefitted from this.

    But I had already, somehow, stepped on management’s toes, that was all that mattered to them. That’s really the issue for me. How insane is that? Their sensitive egos are more important than their clients, the people they are paid to serve and support. I was told I exhibited too much power! I was a timid but focused, very nervous 25 hour a week employee.

    In San Francisco, I found it to be standard operating procedure, over and over again, to not let clients feel their power because it is interpreted as manipulation and “need to control.” Can we say “blatant and stigmatizing projections???” ‘Cuz that’s what it is.

    My partner finally got a job in social services and discovered the exact same thing. It’s kinda jaw-dropping really, at first, to discover how deep this goes (aka truly systemic).

    And we’re talking about a rich, rich city where homelessness and mean streets abound. The city is high tech, attorney-ridden, and owned by a very powerful mental health industry, public and private. Non-profit social services abound. Wtf are they doing????????

    Ok, I’ll shut up for now and leave it at that for the time being. But I wanted to share these details because this is what I am angry about in present time, because it just seems too obvious that someone(s) are getting away with societal murder! And it is negatively impacting us all daily. Scratching my head over this. What is the solution, I do wonder?

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  • “The legal/”justice” system works the same way. To many marginalized people, the lawyers, judges, cops, parole/probation, and prison system are all in cahoots to support and enable each others’ bad behaviors.”

    I imagine this to be true but I do not know this from personal experience because I never had any issues with the law, I do not have a legal record at all as a defendant. But I do as plaintiff in a legal mediation.

    What I do know from experience is that, in my case, the clinicians, social service agencies, advocacy agencies (including legal advocacy), department of Rehabilitation, and even ACLU (to where I took a grievance) are in cahoots to support each other against anyone challenging the system, even when doing so reasonably and with solid evidence.

    And I say this last part with confidence because I did win my EEOC mediation, even though I did not have funds at that time. I had been totally drained by private psychotherapy before having to go into the system at a critical time for me, and then “wrongfully terminated” just as I was about to transition from disability, finally (by a government sponsored voc rehab agency, no less!).

    I scoured my community for someone who would hear me that could give me the professional help I needed, and that turned out to be a senior staff attorney at a non-profit legal aid society. I was pissed and she knew it and she could still hear me to see that what I was speaking was pure truth. We connected the dots together and eventually proved that I’d been expressly discriminated against by some seriously incompetent and rather oblivious people.

    Although it did take me a few months to get to this one God-send of an attorney (who also happened to be an activist for LGBT community, so we spoke the same language when it came to social justice). Before that, I went through some frustrating and triggering (at that very sensitive time, I’d been traumatized by all this) “conversations” with attorneys who basically told me “no thanks,” while more than insinuating that I was crazy and must have done something to deserve this. And all this barely into my psych drugs withdrawal. I HAD TO WORK!

    Shaun, you noted previously my messages about personal empowerment, and it comes from these experiences. I don’t know how I did it, but I do remember being absolutely determined to get some kind of justice here. I knew they were so wrong on so many levels, and I was not going to let it rest until my truth was unequivocally validated.

    What they projected onto me because I had the “audacity” to challenge them and call them on their wickedly abusive ways would be inconceivable for me to do to another human being. For them, it was like breathing, I kid you not.

    My ACLU grievance against Dept of Rehab, however, came back after 6 months, citing simply my “psychiatric file,” received from DOR, which “clearly indicated” my “anger issues” and ” anti-authority issues,” so there was no reason to go further. I never got interviewed or anything of the kind.

    I then went to a bigly funded legal “advocacy,” agency, and they said they don’t do work like this, and suggested I “write an article” about my experiences. Then she gave me a couple of contacts, for which neither number was in service. Go figure!

    Where did these qualities they picked out for me come from, you might ask? That was a psychiatrist who had known me for 6 months only, who was my only choice at the time—private, but he took my insurance at the time, and the only one who returned my call when I was seeking help to come off psych drugs—and gave me all these labels that had never been part of my history. I had chronic anxiety and other issues which I don’t want to go into now, pretty harmless to others, mostly harmful to myself.

    And then this got passed on to the voc rehab agency without my knowing about it, and from there, to DOR.

    That’s how ACLU responded to my grievances, which were sound and I had evidence, also a witness because my partner went through all of this with me, he was catching on to the sinister quality of all this. It was sinking both our lives, and we went through protocol step by step.

    Ok, win some, lose some; although in this racket, no one really wins, in the end.

    Shaun, this is really what happened, I’m being as direct and honest as I know how to be, showing by example from where my statements come. It does happen to offer a different perspective than what you express below in many places.

    “This is also why it is so important to involve clients in their care on a equal footing, meaning they should have an active role in how the care is provided, and to be able to have access to information which would make the system more accountable for the treatment outcomes.”

    “Clients” need to be short term, and for a specific purpose, not to take over and control their lives. Of course they need to be in charge of their own care. You work for them, not the other way around.

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  • TruthisBest, thank you for highlighting and validating this particular phrase. This has been the most challenging thing to get across, and I’m not sure this is universally experienced this way, I am realizing. I’m not really clear on that at this point.

    To be clear, however, (if it hasn’t been already) this is my main cause in all of this, what I feel is the most core shift to make, and the most challenging, which I guess is par for the course. It is deeply embedded.

    It seems there are various interpretations of what would constitute “systemic bullying” and a variety of responses to it. That’s a hard topic, but I feel it’s one of the most important conversations to have. It is so epidemic everywhere now, and creating only chaos at this point.

    There are many vital issues which are worth discussing, of course, but this systemic bullying thing is, for me, the bottom line, everything stems from that. We’re talking about human beings in the system perceived as and treated like chattel, rather than as thinking, feeling, sensitive, conscious human beings.

    I was unwittingly part of this system when I was a student and then intern, I was going by the book, which is how I lived my life at that time, by “the rules.”

    But then I had the mixed blessing to be on the receiving end of this, and that’s when I started waking up, and seeing what I had to change within me, which was to give myself permission to go by my own rules because the system had failed me in every way, that had become quite clear.

    That’s not easy because suddenly I was left to my own devices, and I had to start experimenting with life and then seeing the results day by day. That was the hard healing work, but something had to change drastically at this point, wasn’t sure what.

    So I set out on this “consciousness journey,” which was eye-opening and life-saving. Mainly amounted to learning how energy works, then I got it and started applying it in a real and grounded way, very practical.

    Those “rules” do not work, they are created to marginalize and to keep the power imbalance alive. The “law and ethics” guidebook is completely unfair here, it would need to be challenged.

    And the more I fought it and stood up for myself and began to audibly call out “discrimination,” the worse they got–and when I say “worse,” I mean really, really bad. Disgracefully so, to my way of thinking, given what their jobs are.

    I still shudder when I think about some of the responses I was given to my clear, direct, and most reasonable requests/issues/questions, etc. Then to start filing grievances and going through legal protocol, and the stonewalling this leads to. To call it unsafe is an understatement. It is downright treachery. For at least some of us, it’s been a system of no checks and balances, and the result is being drained of life force energy fighting this damn system just to get basic human needs met.

    Having to “fight” the system is simply draining, so where do we get the energy to actually create our lives, in the meantime? It is scary shit–terrifying–to be at odds with a closed system.

    We can only do better, and I hope we do soon.

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  • I can see the stars from right here on Earth, Frank, where I am standing with my feet firmly on the ground.

    Life is whatever we make of it and that’s always a choice. I agree that it’s outside the bubble. The bubble is an illusion, a human projection which is fluid, not fixed, so it is changeable.

    Our imaginations can take us far. It is a vital component of our power. Got a “disease?” Create the cure. Don’t have one? Then move along, nothing to worry about here.

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  • Eric and Shaun you are both saying specifically what I was thinking while reading this article. The insistent reframing and reinterpreting, telling others what their experience is, and assessing people as lacking in self-awareness because they disagree with said assessment, is nothing short of abusive, in my book. It is an extremely toxic combination of gaslighting and double-binding, and there is no winning here.

    Even when it is not consciously intended to be purposefully controlling, it is so the norm and standard procedure in the mh world, that I call this, without a doubt, systemic bullying. It’s very damaging to a person to be constantly challenged on their own reality, and very draining to one’s energy, ultimately sabotaging. Does this not stand to reason?

    It’s why I hate the system so much and condemn it beyond redemption–because it seems to be relentless here. I see it as a runaway train in that regard. Unless these crazy projections stop, nothing will change here. And I’m not so sure this will happen voluntarily, although I’m open to it being a possibility. That would make the inevitable and sorely needed change here so much more peaceable.

    Shaun is absolutely right, there is no need for any kind of diagnosis to provide helpful support to someone in need. I understand that “helpful support” and “being in need’ can be open to interpretation, but overall, we are in the position to help and support each other along the journey in life, when we so desire to be helped or to help others. Doesn’t have to be anything forced, we all decide for ourselves when we want to reach out.

    I don’t think it’s a fixed identity for life, unless you are in a system where this occurs, which, to my mind, would be a system to get rid of, because that would be way out of balance and, by definition, would not be allowing people to grow into their potential. And indeed, that’s what we’ve got going on now, that is just way too obvious. But in general, we help ourselves, we help each other, we encourage, cheer on, etc.

    Just for me at least, however, no re-parenting, please. That is one thing I do not need from others, that experiment has failed over and over again. Really, that’s my own job to do, and I let life guide me through that process.

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  • Oldhead and Julie, I still don’t know what the hell you two are talking about, but whatever!

    For some reason, I’m not terribly bothered by this because I continue to feel my respect for you both. And if you think that’s just more bs for you to wade through, that’s fine, too. Although I’d be sorry to hear that as it would be your loss to not accept this, because I really mean it. How could I not? I think everyone on here is brave, for different reasons. But I do see everyone’s courage and commitment to something important.

    Seems however, we can’t seem to agree on what is important–or do we? I don’t know, hard to tell! Probably a mix of misunderstandings, personal disagreements, and seriously opposite and irreconcilable perspectives. I do wonder how the chips would land, in the end, when deeper clarity manifests, which it inevitably will.

    Shaun, they do know my story I’ve shared many aspects of it on here for years, and I’m quite accustomed to this. Yet another interesting component to my journey, a core paradox for me. Continues to be meaningful in ways, but I’m not quite sure how to resolve it at the core! I believe there is a lot of good and clarifying truth if I could get to other side of this, once and for all. All in good time, things unfold as they will. And I do trust that process wholeheartedly.

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  • “Ask shaun whether he ever supports the use of force by psychiatry (ask about Aunt Sally and the Psychokiller). Then get back to me.”

    I don’t know at all to what you’re referring here and it sounds like you’re trying to inform me of something that would make me change my tune and either fight with Shaun or not engage with him as I do, perhaps more confrontationally.

    But even if I were to read up on whatever this is and it would bring something to light, I’d actually have a dialogue with Shaun about it the way I have been. I have found him to be reasonable and flexible in his thinking, he clearly hears me, I can feel that, and I believe he truly cares about helping people. Is he perfect? Of course not, and neither am I nor are you nor is anyone.

    We’re all doing the best we can here but at least Shaun is actively on a quest for truth and clarity in this mess. I genuinely applaud that and definitely I welcome that here, unequivocally.

    So please, oldhead, whatever you think about ego here or whatnot, can’t you open up just a bit to see that we’re all trying? I get that you have suspicions and feel free to have them, doesn’t make them true.

    I’m being watched, eh? Hmmm, what does this remind me of? Oh yeah, now I remember…wow.

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  • “I see Alex as being irresponsible by coddling your self-aggrandizing arrogance at the expense of survivors.”

    You do? Seriously? To my mind, I was merely having a dialogue with a someone whose identity creates projections for me, and moving right through those to have a meeting of the minds and to be mutually supportive in our respective life journeys, each of us seeking truth. I felt really good about it and it helped me to move through stuff.

    I’m not going to start trying to analyze everyone’s motives. Not only is that going to lead to projections on my part, inevitably, but that’s also not going to help bring clarity on things which I feel are of value here, nor is it going to create the change we’re looking to create.

    Where does this cynical interpretation come from, oldhead? I am honestly baffled by this. In many ways, I believe we’re on the same side. Perhaps we do not agree in all ways, but it seems to me we have plenty of common ground to work with.

    But when you start with these insults and slanted interpretations of things, based on your opinion, I don’t see how we could work together. I obviously bug the shit out of you, and I’m just being myself. I’m pretty well-liked in general, so I don’t know, maybe something to do with how I translate on the internet.

    In any event, I respect you because you are passionate about your truth and you seem very dedicated to it. But what you’re doing by throwing around these insults or whatever you would call them, is just not going to help things any, that I can tell. We’re all pissed on some level, you’re not alone in this.

    And thanks, Shaun, I read your response after I posted this, moves me deeply. Oldhead, what is stopping us from all working together here? Shaun is obviously working hard to deepen his understanding, and I’m following my own intuition to the same end. Why the condemnations? Why not support for moving things forward a bit?

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  • “Some have the audacity to claim that only THEY can know what “stigma” is. That it hurts them more than those they stigmatize.”

    This I’ve never heard of. Although I know that the system did co-opt the entire issue of stigma to use it in their favor, to create business. It’s a marketing tool.

    However, taking back the term, like the Scarlet Letter “A,” then this becomes more like the experience. And it truly ruins lives, if we let it. That can hit you where it hurts on many levels–feelings of powerlessness, evicted from society at large, alienation from others and even from self. It creates, both, financial and emotional hardships, at the very least. It is anything but freeing, it is the opposite, leads to chronic self-oppression because we can internalize it. To my mind, this is the essence of suffering, and what makes it so challenging, is that others just cannot pick up on it. There is a block there.

    We’ve been talking about the remedy for this on here forever, to detach from what others think and find your own truth and live by it. I believe that is where we can regain our trust, starting in our own processes. That’s how it is possible to eradicate–or at least seriously lighten–the post-traumatic effects of social bigotry (aka stigma). That is very significant change.

    The “mh” system in all its entirety perpetuates this bigotry/stigma, that’s always my point because there is all the fraud and corruption. This leads to the forced incarceration and drugging, and the drugging in general. But even that is rooted in stigma–created, reinforced, and now co-opted by the system. Ok, but it’s still real and it’s still destructive and it can be remedied. That’s all I’m trying to say. That’s what I’ve explored most over the years that has brought me the most clarity and healing, fwiw.

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  • Oldhead–ugh, you reached out in two directions and got us both in one sentence.

    How is “New Age Kumbaya-talk” any different than any pejorative, stigmatizing, judgmental, and condemning/shaming label which people like you–and all of us on here–work so diligently to eradicate? It’s a rhetorical question because methinks there is no difference at all.

    Like it or not, I’m speaking my truth, and if it is in a language which you either do not understand or on which you project some kind of judgment or negative feeling about, then I don’t have to take that on because in my primary community, which I love and with which I feel affinity, this–what you hate so much–is the norm. It’s a different consciousness than what you have going on. You’re not alone, and neither am I.

    Still, I can see some bigotry and prejudice coming through. Am I wrong? Does this not stand to reason? What you send in my direction feels extremely judgmental, and without foundation, it’s just your opinion.

    What I’m describing is how I healed, recovered, and freed myself. Should I not speak about these things on here? Please enlighten me.

    Shaun–the feeling is mutual, and indeed, I am genuine in what I speak, it is always from my heart. Thank you again.

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  • Shaun, thank you so much for sharing your truth of the moment so openly and with trust, and also for getting what I’m about–which is, indeed, more than anything, personal empowerment. That was so necessary for me to get when I was at the bottom of the pit, and it really mattered. That is our most powerful support tool in life—our own ever-evolving sense of self–and it is in all of us, somewhere in there. Yep, you do get it, no doubt.

    I have very much felt in no man’s land, too, and it goes back and forth. I’ve been at odds with clinicians after having been among them, and that separated me from that culture; and also I’ve been at odds with other survivors, and that served to further individuate me to where I could start feeling and nurturing my unique sense of self.

    That is the groundbreaking transformed me happening, away from any norm, fully on my own and living my own truth. It is extremely vulnerable making, which is when we are at our highest creative potential, so the inner work to reinterpret any negative projections or other resistances coming at us is vital and powerful here, because it only strengthens our creative abilities.

    Our power, then, becomes spiritual/energetic, based purely on courage of the heart, as opposed to coming from our “ego,” which I believe is more about fear.

    I’m still here talking about it because on some level, I can feel it making a difference, even when it feels I’m talking into an echo chamber. Still, in my heart and gut, I can feel energy moving, and I’ve been seeing results around me in all sorts of ways. That’s where I find my encouragement, from how the universe is responding to me. Sometimes it comes through people, while at other times it is in other non-personal ways.

    Sounds like you are well on your way along in a transformative process, and in fact you seem to have been doing that, allowing change to occur as you speak your truth, regardless of what comes back to you. Individuating from established groups is a necessary part of that process, I do believe. That is an experience which we can navigate internally, tons of feelings come up. We can transmute them by expanding our perspective and seeing/feeling the soul growth happening. That is exactly the consciousness shift to which I refer.

    It’s also a flexible and ever-changing stream, so keep going, you are right on track. I say this because I do feel that is an inherent part of transformation and individuating from the corruption and oppression of the world. That’s kind of a dark-night-of-the-soul feeling, isn’t it?

    When we can align with that and see it as part of the journey, then you will appreciate this phase for what it is and move on to the next layer of evolution, which is you coming into alignment with who you really are, and trusting that process! This is where it gets exciting and even kind of magical, as far as manifesting goes. I kid you not.

    Not sure what else to say, other than I’m so respecting and appreciating your process, Shaun, I can see you going with it while taking good care of yourself. Let’s see what manifests from this clarity!

    Oh yes, and regarding why I don’t blog for MIA, that is a long story which I don’t feel comfortable sharing here. Let’s just say I felt I could use my voice well here in the comment section—“one of the masses,” so to speak, at least a representation of that. That way, I avoid feeding into the “illusion of hierarchy.” 🙂

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  • Shaun, I truly believe we are getting closer to common ground here.

    “We can choose to go against the status quo to one degree or another.”

    I’d say “to disregard the status quo,” rather than “to go against.” Going against something is effort and usually creates more of what one pushes against. Whereas disregarding something is to not give it any power, to, literally, not regard. That is a solid choice to make, and totally doable.

    Again, a shift in consciousness is required here or one will not be able to get how this is done, but I’m an example of it in many ways. I believe you are going in this direction, based on what I’ve been seeing in these discussions.

    “My point, however, is there are very powerful, coercive forces in the various systems which we all interact that do impact our choices to a certain extent (e.g., capitalism, corrupted government leadership).”

    Yes, indeed, and again, when we disregard this–which, granted, takes practice because we are shifting focus, beliefs, and neural pathways, but it is THE practice of transformation–we disempower this group and in the process, we take back *our* power, which was ours to begin with.

    Toxic vampire cultures feed on others by projecting disempowerment onto others (oppressive shaming, fear mongering, etc.). When we heal this internally–and yes, that is a process–we take back our power, and we pay it forward by NOT doing the same thing–by all of us owning our shadows and inner conflicts, so that we do not project it onto clients. We have to know that this is ok, that we won’t be “punished” for owning our foibles. We are all human, that is a given; but it seems to be often forgotten, in clinical practice.

    “We live in a toxic world with inept leaders, and of course this will have an impact on all of us.”

    Yes, we do, and it will, because we are all part of the collective. Some will be motivated to end their lives, as is what happens in a toxic world. Others will be motivated to sit in victimhood and grow bitter, that is not terribly uncommon. Some will try to save themselves from this toxicity while some feel motivated to save others.

    Some people want to know something different, others feel they are stuck with what is. Some it inspires to create and others this reality inspires to think more deeply and seek truth. It does, indeed, impact each and every one of us, and how we each choose to respond to this toxic reality is widely diverse.

    Shifting consciousness and operating from a new set of beliefs–a new being-ness, I guess I’d say–is one way to address the toxic reality we live in. Personally, I favor this approach, for myself at least, because it is what leads to the most interesting and attractive change, and it’s radical, which I also favor away from toxicity. I do not compromise here, because it is such a matter of well-being and quality of life.

    You have the belief that this elite group of coercive forces has power over society. I’m admonishing that belief. I believe individuals have way more power over corrupt groups than we are led to believe. I also believe that this belief saved my life, given the options I found myself with at one point years ago. I chose to shift consciousness and do all this internal work because I could not change others, and I believe that is universal. We can influence others with our example, but we cannot force people to change, that is elementary.

    And by changing myself to the extent I did, it led to others around me following suit, because they were motivated to do so, they could see and feel the positive changes in me, and in my life it was unmistakable. That’s an interesting story, too detailed for here. But seriously as a result of shifting at the core, my entire reality changed, the world around me. It’s still rippling, give it time 🙂

    Shaun, I must say, you are thoughtful and clear in your responses and it has inspired me to continue, because I do not feel we’re going in circles here. I do very much appreciate your presence here. You bring good stuff to the table, I feel your truth. Gratitude.

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  • This article is a tool to increase stigma and further divide people into categories with all sorts of false assumptions.

    “…perfectionistic self-presentation, a form of perfectionism characterized by the need to appear perfect, is associated with mental health stigma and may lead to a tendency to hide aspects of the self that are perceived to be negative.”

    While I agree that needing to appear “perfect” to others can lead to all sorts of internal conflict and self-induced stress, to associate this with “treatment” issues and “mental health stigma,” per se (whatever that is, as opposed to carrying stigma due to either having a diagnosis, being on psych drugs, or where one falls on the of the socio-economic ladder hologram) is actually adding fuel to the already out-of-control fire. The issues of needing to appear perfect is exactly the twisted mainstream norm which sends most people seeking some kind of help and support. It is a cultural mindset that I believe became really embedded in our society post WWII–the perfect neighborhood, the perfect family, the perfect job, the perfect salary, the perfect car, the perfect attitude and disposition, etc.

    It’s enough to drive anyone bonkers from needing to maintain a standard far above and beyond what is human, mistakes and mars on that perfection being the reasons for which people begin to feel shame for not measuring up to these impossible standards. People have killed themselves over stuff like this.

    But not only are these standards impossible, are they really desirable? I imagine life would get awfully boring if we were perfect and faced no challenges. How would we learn and grow? And from what would we create, if we faced no contrast in life?

    “Further, perfectionistic self-presentation was found to be associated with negative attitudes toward help-seeking than trait perfectionism and was connected to a higher level of self-stigma about seeking help. These results suggest those who feel the need to be seen as perfect may especially struggle with seeking help due to stigma, leading to a higher at-risk population that may rarely show signs of needing help.”

    Clinicians are the ones that strive to be perfect in the first place! They are the ones, via the DSM, who set an impossible and totally fabricated standard of existence! They are the ones who have this need to appear perfect–which in this case, means to exhibit no “DSM symptoms,” as in–“Hey, look, I go by society’s rules! You should, too! And if you don’t, we will project our entire shadow onto you, and believe me, that will hurt. Then, I don’t have to feel the shame that I am projecting onto you.”

    To put this on the client is just one more blatant example of projecting negatively onto the clients of the system. This is social abuse, and it’s generational. Researchers and clinicians continue to make the client the fall guy, that is perfectly clear to me.

    “In closing, the researchers call for further research in this area.”

    Of course they do. They want more grant money. It’s how they make a living, at the expense of those they exploit.

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  • Change is already here, Shaun. Yes, status quo begets status quo. Who needs that garbage? It has failed us all, that’s as clear as a bell.

    The idea is to buck the status quo, be brave and groundbreaking. We can each choose to live by our own values and ideals, not those of others. That is freedom–creative, spiritual, and otherwise.

    Change happens one person at a time, transformation by transformation. The biggest gift from having lived through the challenges of my particular journey is that I got to heal from soooo much, it was top to bottom transformative. Now I help others through their core shifts, transformations, rebirths, etc., which lead to creating a whole new life for oneself, consciously, on new and updated terms. That’s my life vocation, I did years of healing and training. Turns out I have an affinity for this kind of work, so thanks to all that happened to me, I found my life purpose.

    It’s here for anyone who is ready to embrace change. It’s inside of us, first. Outer change will come rather effortlessly as the result of internal shifts. That’s how energy works, projected outward from within.

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  • Yep, room for healing on all sorts of levels body, mind & spirit. I haven’t necessarily forgiven but I’m not angry all the time, either. Used to be angry quite a bit when I woke up to what happened to me–same as “millions of others,” as you say. And it can make me angry when I think of the crazy corruption in the world which is so negatively impacting the planet and its inhabitants.

    Although I have taken actions and have created things that have combated corruption in real life, so my anger has fueled my activism quite a bit, of course, as has my sincere desire to see radical change in the world. I’m doing my part every day in a few different ways.

    But I certainly don’t focus on that all the time, I have other things in life which get my attention, thinks which make me feel good, relaxed, happy, etc. Were I to think about injustice and corruption all or even most of the time, and how seriously deep it goes and how it causes such needless suffering, I’d go nuts with feelings of despondence, rage, hatred, and powerlessness.

    Healing my brain was about learning to quiet my mind so that I could derive some meaning from my experience. How was this driving me in life? How is my experience serving me to grow in awareness, and also to help others? And other questions like that, pure introspection. That’s how the healing begins.

    Many stages and steps to healing the brain, mind, heart, and spirit from betrayal and neurotoxicity. Point is, everyone has a path to healing. It’s not a religion to have awareness of who we are as spirit/soul beings. That’s simply a matter of further awakening to who we really are as human beings.

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  • Very nice and honest self-reflection. Indeed, our reality is a mirror to our spirit, as that to validate and enjoy or from which to learn and grow. I wholeheartedly believe that.

    “Being human, or trying to be, was one of the biggest keys to my recovery.”

    Beautiful statement. Thing is, we ARE human–whether we like it or not. It’s when people don’t allow themselves to be human that they suffer. We have to be SUPERhuman, or something like that, to feel self-acceptance.

    Being a “perfectionist” can be extremely harmful to our health. That is unrealistic and way too much pressure, sets us up for inevitable failure, each and every time. We are human beings, filled with all sorts of flaws, contradictions, and shadow. Part of life’s purpose is for us humans to grow as the result of our imperfections–to grow in our ability to love and accept ourselves, just as we are, from moment to moment, and to let nature take its course, rather than us trying to control nature. That is yet just another mass delusion, to believe that we can control nature.

    We are also filled with light, somewhere in there. We can be it all, light and shadow. When we can accept that and allow ourselves to be all that, then we are free because we know how to be fully human, despite absolutely anything.

    Thanks for the inspiration, Greg, and best wishes on your fascinating journey!

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  • “I’m sorry to hear that many therapists, social workers, and doctors abuse or misuse their “authority” in the situation in ways which are damaging to their clients.”

    I’m sorry, too, and I’m sure society at large has laments here, as well. And instead of just being sorry, let’s do something about it. I’ve taken abusers to legal task, I’ve written letters, filed grievance, I’ve called out a lot of abuse in the system over the years.

    You’re willing to turn in families you suspect of abuse, but you’re only “sorry” when clinicians are being abusive? Who is the watchdog here? Who is the “mandated reporter” in this case, to call out abuse and protect innocent people? I wonder.

    Hierarchies are, in reality, illusions based on delusional thinking. That is the norm right now, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. A shift in consciousness and paradigm would highlight this easily. But you can’t see it as long as you are a willing participant in the current system. Radical change can mean so many things.

    I believe that when it comes to “authority,” “empowerment,” and “mandated reporting,” we’re talking about how so easily, and seemingly by second nature, the psychotherapy and social service industries try and play God. That’s a huge problem in psychiatry as we’ve noted often in discussions on here, and I believe it is pervasive in the “mental health” world.

    “There will always be “inherent imbalance” in human relationships, say with kids and their parents, but it doesn’t mean that it’s inherently unjust or abusive.”

    I hardily disagree with this statement on so many levels. In fact, there is a lot of room for discussion here, Shaun, but I will stop now because, in the end, it is all a matter of personal perspective and experience. As long as we walk our talk, we are in our integrity and that’s what counts, I truly believe. We all have different realities, each of our paths and perspectives are unique.

    It does feel good to express my feelings about all of this, so I once again thank you for the dialogue. All the best!

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  • “Most therapists I know don’t try and prop themselves up as an authority, per se,”

    Again, our experience is different here, Shaun. My former colleagues as well psychiatrists and psychotherapists I saw did exactly that. I heard often “they need a ‘dad’ figure,” for one thing, which to me seemed exactly “to be propping themselves up as an authority.”

    So if one starts out already perceiving him- or herself as a parental figure, what do you think they would elicit from their client, even in the most subtle ways? That’s how it begins, and it can be either conscious or unconscious. But I do feel it is written into the fabric of this paradigm.

    They sold this bill of goods in graduate school, too. It was called “re-parenting.” I think that’s dangerous and can potentially cause a great deal of harm in a fee-for-service relationship.

    I was a “mandated reporter” at one time, too. Plus, anyone in any kind of social services position is a “mandated reporter.” I’ve sat in all sorts of staff meetings where “to report or not report” was discussed.

    I will be honest here, I cannot stand that phrase. I’m sorry but I think it’s a euphemism for “gatekeepers to the system.” It’s an easily abused power and “mandated reporters” can take themselves way too seriously, using this “authority” specifically to flex their “I have power” muscle. A bit overcompensating, would be my guess. And I’m sure you can imagine how incredibly UNSAFE this is for clients!

    “We also have the power to sign off on paperwork for benefits and housing.”

    Wouldn’t the term “responsibility” apply here rather than “power?”

    I believe there is a bit too much emphasis on the word “power” in the mental health and social service industries. It’s always about “power.” It’s why I feel the entire paradigm is faulty.

    Being human is partly about personal power (to create the life one most desires and live freely), but it is not about having power over others. That is the essence of oppression and corruption. That’s where a society becomes toxic and beyond redemption, when it is based on who has power over whom? That’s what needs to change, and it won’t be easy. That program of “hierarchy” is exceedingly powerful, and stubborn in an established system. I tend to find it toxic, by definition. I believe more in the natural order of things, which is not ours to choose, but that which unfolds from integrity and authenticity.

    When a person has power over another, there is inherent imbalance and injustice, and suffering is inevitable. And that is exactly the “mental health industry” paradigm, to the last drop. That will never solve anything because it’s what most people are trying to get away from.

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  • “thanks for validating that most therapists are either incompetent or abusive. There’s crossover between the two.”

    I actually had a really good, caring, and straightforward therapist early on, when I first began receiving psychotherapy back in the early 1980s.

    It was later, starting when I moved to San Francisco in the late 90s and began graduate school that I found myself swimming with the sharks, and I dove deep into the black hole of this paradigm. I was going from therapist to therapist, each one more demeaning, arrogant, judgmental, and presumptuous than the last, until I entered the public system and it was like a mine field of incompetence and abuse.

    I agree, Julie, there is a crossover between these two. When the therapist is incompetent, what makes them incompetent is their lack of self-awareness, so all their crap gets relentlessly projected onto the client, and that is nothing short of abuse. And extremely dangerous for the client, lots of post-traumatic stress in the making here.

    Can also lead to suicide ideation, when it adversely affects a person’s feeling of self-worth, which can happen if the client is particularly vulnerable and getting clobbered by their therapist with one shadowy projection after another. That’s not at all uncommon. In fact, I’d venture to guess it is the norm.

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  • “I knew a guy who had sex with one of his marital therapy couple.”

    I am not surprised to hear this, it happens a lot. One of the most prominent professors/psychotherapists I had would talk about how in the 1970’s, it was quite a common therapeutic technique, to have sex with a client. Isn’t that clearly prostitution? After all, in these cases, the “therapist” is taking money for sex!

    So violating personal boundaries in the name of “service” has been an issue for quite a while in this field, not to mention extreme abuse of power, in the most overt ways possible. That’s a problem which needs to be addressed in all sorts of ways educational and legal.

    Well, on second thought, it is addressed in school because I did take Law and Ethics of Psychotherapeutic Practice and anyone would agree that engaging in sexual activity with a client is not in the slightest a sound idea for anyone concerned, that it’s entirely abusive, and it is, indeed, illegal, I believe. Yet it does not stop people, they lose their judgment somewhere along the line.

    Just like with teachers engaging in sex with their underage students. I think that’s been going on for a good long while, too–perhaps since the beginning of time–but at least that is being reported now and teachers are getting arrested.

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  • Thanks for your very thoughtful response, Shaun. There are, indeed, no clear cut answers, and situations and people and relationships so widely vary and are each unique. As far as what is appropriate to the best outcome, there are different answers for different situations.

    You’re right there are a lot of lousy therapists out there and that is not a harm-free situation. A lousy therapist can do a tremendous amount of harm. These 1:1 meetings are risky, when one member of the relationship is vulnerable, foggy headed, hurting, and/or in need. How to discern a useful vs. useless therapist is a problem for a lot of reasons, and by the time a therapist shows their true colors, much money and energy has already gone down the drain, and disorientation–sometimes quite severe–is the result of bad therapy.

    “Someone with authority needs to be very careful how they wield their power.”

    Yes, I think that’s a truism. What is not clear to me is when a therapist considers himself/herself to have some kind of authority over a client. Why is that? To me, that is a counter-transference because a client has their own agency, pure and simple.

    A psychotherapist provides a service, and whether or not they provide it with competence and effectiveness would be up to the client to report. Yet, critical feedback is most often turned into some kind of symptom, delusion, or transference, and worse yet, the therapist can become so easily defensive. That’s happened to me more often than I can count, and it is truly maddening.

    It’s quite unclear what the truth would be in a relationship like this, I believe. It is simply not straightforward and direct, which is where we find clarity.

    This is why I don’t like the paradigm in which “psychotherapy” is taught and practiced, regardless of the diverse schools of thought and ways of practicing what is called “psychotherapy.” It still boils down to this vague idea of what service, exactly, is being provided here? And what would be considered a reasonable scope of practice?

    The extent to which it can be extremely harmful, if not provided with clarity and competence, needs to be emphasized because I believe it happens more often than not. Can’t prove that, of course, but it is my personal belief, from what I’ve seen and experienced during my lifetime.

    When I was in graduate school, one course I did not see in the catalogue was, “How You Can Do Harm to Your Client if You Are Not Careful, Clear, and Conscientious.” I believe that would be a responsible and eye-opening course to offer, leading to hardy and necessary self-awareness, in order to be “client-ready.” At least that!

    Good discussion about this, thank you, Shaun.

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  • Rachel, you put it so perfectly and succinctly. I think that’s the biggest illusion in all this, and what causes such crazy-making problems, all this behind-the-scenes manipulation—which, btw, people who are extremely sensitive to energy can feel yet it can be hard to put one’s finger on. If we follow the thread of that feeling–the energy of it–we do get to the truth.

    But in a dysfunctional and programmed system, people turn a blind eye because that truth will challenge the system, and the beliefs/norms on which it operates, way too much by making people feel and acknowledge things they’ve for so long tried to avoid. That’s an opportunity for the system to heal, change, and grow, but it most often resist this, for so many reasons—e.g., resistance to change, not wanting to face hard truths, etc.

    Personally, I find it so interesting to both study and experience. I went through this with my family. I wasn’t exactly IP’d as a kid, but I did stand out because I was open with my feelings and was truly a present-time kind of person in a very academically oriented family. I was a good student, but I was more into the arts and more of a “free spirit,” which had both its positives and negatives, but overall, I was in the flow as a kid. It was later I had issues and sought help, which began my journey. But we all got our turns being IP’d in a very narcissistically oriented household. My folks were quite emotionally needy, and we were “trained” to fill in those gaps, which of course is a big role for a kid, very oppressive and not freeing.

    And it was much, much later, while I was going through the system and feeling like the IP of the world, that I began to speak my truth to my family, how that system had affected me, and THAT is when something switched in my family and as an adult, I was viewed as “other” and “lesser than”–starting in my 40s, which was a huge blow to me and it led to ego death and having to do consciousness shifting work, if only for my survival.

    That has been my work for years now, because it started to create shifts in this dynamic, to my favor. I began to give all that energy back that wasn’t mine to begin with, and indeed, as I followed that thread through this kind of yucky feeling, it led to a lot of truth that did amount to exactly what you say here–

    “while others play the “golden child” and “winged monkeys” and other roles assigned by the cold, selfish “narcissist” at the center creating the whole drama”

    There has been one person in particular in my family who I discovered was doing this, all behind-the-scenes, and it became extremely obvious from the conversations I was having with other family members and all these contradictions started coming to light.

    The other family members had become unwitting enablers because they believed what they were hearing due to the fact that it fit the program. The one playing the role of “narcissistic abuser” knows the dysfunctional program well and how to keep the power structure in place. It is so fascinating to actually watch this in progress, from the inside out, based on shifting internally one’s self-identity and speaking a new truth, or at least, speaking one’s truth with conviction and integrity. It is a very powerful action and it creates change.

    It was extremely confusing as I processed these conversations, both internally and also with a couple of people in my life with whom I discuss these things, and I realized exactly how the gaslighting was working, not to mention a bit of Munchausen by Proxy and all sorts of seeds-planting based on lies. All in order to create (manipulate into being) a really powerful illusion which would amount to casting shadow over me and in essence, stealing my light. Exactly the same as I experienced in the “mental health” system = stigma. That’s the tool used to create IPs. It is energy-sucking, by design.

    It was amazing to finally see and feel the light on all this. Cracked the code for me. How you say it is spot on, that is exactly how it went. And after years of speaking my truth about it, allowing myself to go into the confusion of it, and then getting my clarity, I am seeing the system changing yet again, and this time, I have way more power because I changed my role in the family.

    And that narcissistic gaslighting abuser? That person is fading from the system it would seem. This is all a family healing work-in-progress and it’s new ground for me so every moment is a surprise. But so far it seems to be working because I made it a point to challenge what they had started to project on me, and I did it out loud, first to the narcissist who started this–and that was a disaster as we all know can be expected, it simply confirms what we know and they pull from their bag of tricks again, and it can lead to retaliation. So then, I started speaking my truth to the one person in the system that I felt could possibly hear me, and that started to shift the energy, slowly but surely.

    Being sensitive to energy, as many of us are who go through these journeys in the assigned role of “MI,” or “the diagnosed one,” is a curse and a gift. At first, it feels impossible to manage life being so senstive with all the harsh energies of the world right now. It’s why we tend to become the peacemakers, we want peace in the world so badly, so that we can get on with things and not be in constant conflict, which is what can add so much static to the collective energy. Conflict can lead to clarity, but sometimes it just seems to beget more conflict, as a norm in the paradigm, far and away from the peace we seek.

    As a “sensitive,” a person can learn to work with this quality and it becomes radar-like, which is a powerful tool in life, but we have to know how to take care of ourselves and how to keep our own energy nourished so that it does not become depleted. I think anyone could benefit from learning this, but being a sensitive type actually requires this for not only survival, but also in order to create a good quality of life, I believe.

    I think it’s also important to keep perspective and remember that these assigned roles are illusions which we can shift, but we do have to work the system, somehow, and what I always say is simply to follow your truth, whatever that means to you. In other words, don’t doubt your information. If it *feels* funky, it more than likely is, regardless of what anyone around you says if you are the only one noticing it. You’re not crazy, you’re a visionary, and those around you are more than likely in denial, if they are trying to make you feel crazy.

    Every voice matters, but the IP is the one carrying all the information. Once they can process it, it is gold. Whether or not others in the system listen is 50/50, but believing in our own truth is empowering, and in my experience, leads to good changes, one way or another.

    Thanks, Rachel, your clarity is extremely inspiring and encouraging to me.

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  • Not to belabor anything here and go off topic, but Shaun, I have to say that what you said about sexual transference really triggered some memories from my days in training.

    I remember there was this one director of a well-known training program to which a lot of interns applied post grad school. He was infamous for stopping the interview and then saying to the women who were applying to work there and have him as a supervisor, “Now I feel it is my responsibility to be open here and express that I’m feeling a sexual transference and it’s important we get this out of the way up front, for the sake of our professional relationship.” Something to that effect, and I kid you not.

    And they would come back to our training group at the clinic where I was doing my practicum, and report this, to which everyone would groan and say how creepy it sounded. Don’t ask me how many ended up applying anyway, because I don’t know. I’m simply remembering what this guy was putting out (so to speak).

    This was over 20 years ago, and perhaps since then this has changed, I hope. But, honestly, how is this not power abuse driven sexual assault thinly disguised as the product of transference? And for some reason, no one at that time thought to file a formal grievance, nor did our clinical director take any action, nor was that even in anyone’s awareness. It was uncomfortable for people, but that’s where it stayed, when there could have been so many possible actions to take. These programs are so, so powerful, which is why we’re asking for people to wake up. These things need to be addressed in the open, so that they can be eliminated from practice!

    I had one therapist tell me directly that I was attracted to him and that I should know better than to deny it, given my training. I can assure you that this was not the case, in the slightest. And, in fact, at the time, I’d been with my partner for over 25 years, we’re still happily married, more so than ever after having shared this experience and woke up to it all at the same time. That bonded us even more deeply. So for him to project this, and then try to double-bind and gaslight me that way, is downright criminal, wouldn’t you agree?

    If a male client is being inappropriately sexual with a female therapist, then no, of course she shouldn’t shame him, but she should protect herself, and perhaps suggest a referral? Wouldn’t that be the right message to send, more honest and direct, not to mention self-caring?

    I’ve known plenty of therapists who have crossed that line, themselves, btw.

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  • Sounds like you are talking about transference, Shaun. No one should tolerate verbal abuse. Expressing anger isn’t the same as taking it out on someone else, that’s another matter.

    Working in transference is rather dicey, imo, and can lead to all sorts of power dynamics and fuzzy boundaries. I found myself more the target of counter-transference than anything. It was amazing for me to discover what clinicians will assume a client will feel based on their actions. I’ve had therapists actually argue with me about what I was feeling. I think that’s so abusive in a clinical relationship.

    I never went into therapy looking for a surrogate parent. I was trying to figure out what I was doing wrong and why I was living with so much chronic anxiety, and then, how to do life better, with more clarity, ease, and confidence, so that I could fulfill my life in a way that satisfied me. I needed–or so I believed at the time–a professional who had clarity where I did not.

    Therapy was not only not helpful in this regard, it was the totally wrong focus for what I needed, it turns out. Live and learn.

    Most unfortunately, it actually did do me a great deal of harm, in the end. I had to fix my brain from all that “analysis,” which took me in chronic and crazy-making loops until I was able to reprogram my neural pathways. That was my brand of healing, eventually.

    I say this with all due respect, Shaun, I sincerely hope are not taking this personally, because in no way do I mean it to be. What I express here is all based on my experience. Who knows if our paths had crossed differently and I had actually been your client, somehow, I’d have a different perspective. Maybe I’d be able to say, “But there was this one guy who got it,” I don’t know.

    And despite these conversations, we’ll never know because we’re not in a power relationship. On MIA and in the world at large, we are peers, eye to eye. Were I sitting in your office as a client, this may or may not be the case. What I think is interesting is how subtle yet powerful a shift like that can be, and what a difference that can make in how we present ourselves.

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  • I find it helpful to express whatever emotion I’m feeling, including anger of course. I know anger is vilified in the mh world (although it’s interesting because I’ve seen angry clinicians, but that always seems to be ok with them; however when it is from a client–oh boy, look out, here come the projections!). But like it or not, it is a human emotion, and I think it brings clarity and movement to express anger authentically. It is your truth!

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  • “Institutions, including universities, have a tiered power structure that is unbalanced to begin with.”

    Yep, right on, Julie. When we can see past this illusion and not buy into the assigned roles of established power hierarchies, then we are waking up. We can transcend these by knowing our own power (knowing our truth), because in reality, it doesn’t matter where we are in the pecking order. People are people, each one of us no one more or less than another.

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  • Oldhead, I appreciate this distinction and how they address the issue of change from different orientations. Of course, separate and distinct parts do come together to create a whole.

    I can relate to both of these categories, and then some. Interacting here has taught me a lot about myself and others, been really rich that way because conversations like this do not happen every day in the world. It’s been very helpful for me to process my experience here among others who have had similar experiences–and with interesting differences, as well.

    Although actually *destroying* the system is not my expressed intention, because this is not how I operate, I never considered myself someone focused on destroying something, but rather creating things. As an artist, I have a passion for creativity. (I won’t lie, however–were I to see a wrecking crew going at it, I would not complain, and in fact I would more than likely not only cheer, I would breathe a sigh of relief).

    Still, I am always happy and willing to speak my truth about it as unequivocally as I can, and I will hear what comes back to me, take it from there. It’s always a crap shoot, but I always feel better when I express myself about it, because obviously this is a vital part of change, to speak up and out.

    It also stirs energy, so I know that things manifest from truth-speaking. Speaking my truth in my film changed my life, simply because of the path which the film took from who picked it up, and to where I was invited to show it. Telling the world my story, front and center, generated radical change in my life, this is a direct correlation. No money involved here, just energy, intention, focus, and following a process.

    I believe the two process of creating something new and making obsolete the old work in tandem, that is nature at work. I do my best to express how I feel these old systems have failed us (not just mh but also political, economic, and even educational system to a large degree, etc.), and I’m always ready to share not only my story as a glaring example of how this is so, but also all of my observations from my experience, and how I connect these dots, hoping to give persuasive evidence of how current systems are causing so much harm and damage. I know that more and more people can hear this now because it is so obvious, we are indeed waking up.

    In the meantime, I continue to create my life away from all of this, and that is exactly how the NEW has been happening for me. Not something I planned or calculated or designed, because I would have had no idea how to do that, this was all unknown territory for me, new ground. It all unfolded precisely by following the path away from such toxic corruption. That was the option I took when I was at the crossroads with all of this. I knew it was time to change my life, once and for all. Turned out this required a shift in consciousness, no two ways about it.

    For this, I had to do so much internal work and introspection, really look at what my beliefs had been and how they influenced my getting to such a dark space in my life, and then, of course, I worked to change those beliefs and get myself aligned with a new truth. Took a lot of work and focus, but it’s what I do, for me it’s the way to go, and I love doing this work because it creates change in the most amazing way.

    That’s what gave me an entirely new perspective and experience, and it radically changed my reality, and it took. I’m in an entirely new place now, with saving grace awareness.

    This is all based on what came into my life after the mh industry had failed me so miserably, and they could not exist in the same space. Where I finally got my healing was so vastly the opposite of what is dished out by the mh industry. Healers like myself, energy workers, etc., we already know psychiatry is toxic. It’s why we do what we do. This perspective comes from a heart-based view of humanity (one whole), rather than analytic (categories).

    And I agree, I wouldn’t call it an “alternative” for the same reasons you would not. Instead, I would simply call it “healing,” as in–the real deal. Has absolutely nothing to do with what I learned in graduate school, that was crap, and you’re right, the duality, othering, and marginalizing are built right into it, can’t avoid it in that dynamic.

    What I do is different than this. The core premise being unity consciousness, the opposite of duality. So if we get enough people into their hearts and out of their heads, a new society will come forth with no effort and the old will disappear. That’s a choice everyone has to make for themselves.

    But I very strongly believe that it would change the world, were enough people to begin understanding heart-based unity consciousness. That’s the shift I made, and which I am looking to influence. That’s what my community is all about.

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  • I see that Rachel. What I’m balking at is the message from Will and Daniel which you channeled in your post. I would seriously challenge them on this, were I to ever speak with them personally. Certainly I’d like to hear more about what they have to say about this, because I believe that is an important conversation to have. I’m not sure they’re right about this, but who knows at this point? I would hope, at least, that they are wrong. That would be a better reality, imo.

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  • I agree that eliminating DSM diagnoses is necessary, if only because they are false, and lead to nothing good. It’s just made up stuff based on an extremely narrow and subjectively-based cultural perspective of humanity; it’s totally bogus and indeed leads to all sorts of misconceptions about people in the most negative ways, and none of it based on anything reasonable or true.

    And of course bigotry and the effects thereof are real and stigma comes from bigotry. By this, we can conclude that the DSM is a book of bigotry, kind of a Bible of Bigotry, if you ask me. So yes, let’s get rid of it. But of course, this will not eliminate bigotry in the world, but it definitely would be the start of a good trend, I believe.

    What I’m most interested in is peoples’ healing, that is my main focus and that is based on who I am as a human being, and how my experiences added up for me. Society has healing to do, without a doubt, and this starts with individuals finding their healing paths. Healing, in this case, I would equate with raising consciousness, which is how we shift our energy and broaden our perspective, so that we are taking in more information for consideration.

    I don’t know how to solve the problem of bigotry and prejudice in the world, but I can do my part in it by being ok with myself, aligned with who I feel I am, walking my talk, all that good stuff. From there, I have good clarity and will see my own path of healing and change. I practice this, my partner practices this, and together we help others find their path to heart healing and inner peace. That is my job, what I do for a living, and also my contribution to the community. I do some stuff for pay, and I also volunteer my time, attention, and energy in a variety of capacities without the expectation of remuneration.

    And from there, we have the power to create a new reality around us, and I imagine this will ripple out one way or another. That’s how energy works, and it’s been working for me for years. My own healing has taught me this, and as I’ve said, much has changed around me as I’ve come to know my sense of innate trust in life–that is, to know my light (what I’ve been talking about above).

    Bigotry is based on fear, and I support others in loving themselves, and practicing self-respect. If we love and respect ourselves, we will not fear others, simply because we do not understand them or they are different, etc. If we can get to the point where we truly love ourselves (which is not what we are taught at all in this toxic society, we are taught to be very hard on ourselves, to the point of deeply cutting self-judgment and painfully harsh guilt if we do not appease others), then the collective will benefit from this in so many ways. It starts with one, then ripples outward, as Steve and I had discussed above.

    Huge task to clean up the world from this mess. This is the best I can do with this at the moment. Should more opportunities present themselves to me to help raise consciousness in the world, I’ll be there.

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  • “One challenge I see is that many providers within the system genuinely believe in the model of mental illness, and thus they think that anti-stigma campaigns are important so that people get the help they need.”

    Yes, I’m aware of this, which is where the entire issue of stigma becomes distorted to the point where it becomes dismissed, and I think that is too bad because in its truest form and how it plays here, it is not at all to be dismissed. Imo, it is pivotal to why this all gets so murky.

    I think it’s a matter of walking our talk and embodying integrity. We all do what we can. There are no clear answers, other than living our truth best we know how with our awareness of the moment. That’s always my intention, each and every day.

    As we’ve agreed upon, change happens whether we like it or not, that is the nature of life. Best to embrace it and go with it. Otherwise, could be a bumpier ride than necessary. Resist the change or allow it? That is the question. Most certainly, there are greater forces and energies at work beyond our physical being-ness.

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  • Thanks, Shaun and yes, it’s been a bullying world for generations.

    With respect to the mental health industry, we’re talking about professional bullying. People make money doing this, at the expense of those who are seeking help and support, often from the effects of family bullying/stigmatizing/ostracizing.

    So it is a triple whammy of adding fuel to the trauma fire: betrayal, deceit, vampirism. It’s quite brutal, as anyone who has experienced this would testify. We’re not talking about merely schoolyard bullies, we’re talking about drunk with power people who can act rather sociopathic if mirrored critically. It is really scary to be on the receiving end of this, and it is pure sabotage. I guarantee you, it cannot be imagined. It has to be felt first hand to get the impact of it.

    My point, always, though, is that this can be remedied with the right kind of healing. And yes, the school of thought from which I’m coming is the one that says we create our life experience from the inside out, this is how it works.

    Not everyone agrees, many people still believe that we create by going outside of ourselves and manipulating others; whereas I maintain we have more control internally than we’ve been led to believe. There’s a reason for that, but that’s yet another discussion.

    For me, personally, this is a supremely empowering perspective, because it is how I took my power back to create my own life my way. That depended on what I believed about myself. This is what I had to transform internally, following the utter confusion and disorientation of severe psych drugs withdrawal coupled with extreme stigma and the inevitable stonewalling which comes with that, from the people whom not only I trusted, but who at one time were my colleagues.

    Guess what I learned? Time to get away from the toxic environment. Made all the difference, and I started to get my head on straight again, and I did my healing work, which was profound.

    Not an easy journey, but this awakening changed my life because I changed my inner landscape, so to speak, and I started to align with my natural innate power again. The evidence is my life, which transformed amazingly over the years, as I did this deep inner work. That’s always my message. Otherwise, we give our power away to the abusers when we identify as their “victims.”

    It’s a tricky one, and I guess controversial, but revolutionary change like this is always a one-step-at-a-time proposition and it is a must to be open enough to explore new perspectives. Otherwise, what exactly do we expect to change? We’re talking about unfamiliar territory here, for most people. I like to give it time to unfold.

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  • “It’s not that easy to do – it’s something I work on every single day, and it’s literally taken years to get to where I have a pretty good handle on not letting others’ attitudes and beliefs affect how I see myself.”

    No, it’s not, but it is so rich, empowering, and effective, why not go for it? Me too. Plus, Steve, you and I have had different journeys, we have different spirits, personalities, and processes. It’s different for everyone. For me, this is a lifestyle. I walk around pretty darn conscious these days. It’s a trip! New life, that’s my point.

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  • “Being denied housing or having medical concerns ignored or having one’s employment options curtailed due to a “mental health diagnosis” is very real and isn’t something that attitude can change.”

    I disagree with that last part, I do believe internal shifts can open doors to new pathways and opportunities, because it is a matter of where we choose to focus when we face obstacles, even the most extreme ones.

    Attitude = perspective, level of patience, deception vs. integrity, fear vs. trust, willingness to learn, face the unknown, embody humility, ability to surrender to the process, etc. These are malleable traits, we can each grow as we go–although this is why I say the “ego” can be out of control: if we are attached to our ego (necessary outcomes, needing to be right, needing to control others, needing to stay in power), then we will not grow in this regard and our lessons will repeat and repeat and repeat until we’re ready to wake up to something about ourselves.

    This is where I point to the mh system and practices as the best example of stagnation and non-growth, which is not a judgment, I believe it’s truly a fact, which is why these discussions are happening. This is dangerous!

    I do not like how this field teaches people to address their obstacles in life because I see a lot of people feeling very stuck, as I know I once did before I learned how to expand my consciousness and I discovered new perspectives which is exactly what did the trick for me and allowed me to heal as I did.

    No, it’s not about thinking “positive,” per se; it is about seeing the light on things—that is, where do we have power? vs. getting stuck in the illusion of powerlessness. Can we look toward the light rather than insist on shadow-staring? Shadow begets shadow, and if you stare at it long enough, everything will eventually appear that way, even the light. Remember Plato’s The Cave?

    Are we to be victims of life, or creators of it? We choose, and to me, that’s an attitude which can make all the difference.

    It’s also about learning to come back to center after a stressful experience, which many people do not know how to do, they just carry the stress around looking for what to do with it, how to get rid of it. That can be a frustrating inner battle, to say the least. I know this, too, from experience.

    Until we learn to center ourselves and release energy, or detach from that which is clearly not good for us, things can snowball as we repeat bad patterns without knowing why. Some people have been way off center for a long time and have somehow gotten used to it. I like for people to feel it, so that they can heal it. It’s not comfortable at first, and I’m supportive through that process, always holding a space of encouragement and safety. We’re often so much stronger than we think–or than we’ve been taught to believe about ourselves.

    Once we learn to come back to center (which can eventually take simply a few moments, with diligent practice), then we have that very powerful tool for life, and things can change drastically for the better for us. I am living proof of this, and I have many videos from over the years as testament to how this worked for me, as well as my program, which has been a work-in-progress for years. I think all healing work is “work-in-progress.” It is pure creativity.

    In the healing work I did, I learned all about clearing energy, owning our stories, energy boundaries, etc.–all that I did not learn in my MFT training, nowhere near any of this, and turned out to be vital. Made me not only a better counselor but also a better person, clearer from day to day.

    Because I learned how to LET GO of things, and then how to use my life experience as the indicators of my life purpose and soul growth, I have energy for actually creating what I desire in life, rather than wringing my hands day after day and year after year because of “what happened to me.”

    Nor did I look for saviors. Teachers, yes, but I do firmly believe that we are our own guides, healers, gurus, and saviors. In the end, no one can do it for us but ourselves.

    Good teachers can help point the way, but the idea is to never become dependent on the teacher. We will always grow past them, into our own person, if the healing is worth its salt. Otherwise, it becomes just another power-relationship, and we all know about those.

    Took me years to learn this, apply it, and integrate it into my life, but I have and so has my partner, and this is what I teach others in my practice and “healing academy.” This is what it all amounted to for me.

    “So yes, we have to start with ourselves, but then we have to expand it out into the rest of the world.”

    Naturally! I think once we make internal shift, it ripples without effort. That is the nature of energy. Change ourselves, change the world. That’s a given.

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  • “It’s good that everyone is so united in their understanding of the “stigma” scam”

    Yes, you can include me in this, the anti-stigma campaigns as they are, are scams.

    “and that…“stigma” is external prejudice, not something to “overcome” internally.”

    I’m obviously the dissenter here. While we can perhaps inspire others and teach by example, we do not have the power to change others, only ourselves. And while I believe that it’s been established that Ghandi never did say exactly “Be the change you want to see in the world,” I do think it is a good guideline and I go by it.

    We’re talking major core changes here, do you think everyone’s going to be on board with that? Most people are scared of change! Even the ones that call for it and would benefit from it, then turnaround and resist it at the same time. I’ve seen this repeatedly over the years. We all have the capacity to grow in our awareness every single day.

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  • There is hope, if people can know the power of their own light.

    This following clip is not mine, I just went to YouTube and did a search on “The power of our own light,” and this popped up, a mere 2 minutes of inspiration. It is a quote I dearly love and believe in, and in fact, it is at the end of Voices That Heal. But I’d never heard of this film, and I think the context is perfect. Makes it human.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybt8wXIahQU

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  • No worries, Steve, I get from where you are coming. I appreciate the clarity and it seems we’re talking about the same thing here.

    My general thesis around all of this is that the stigma comes directly from the system, and it spreads from there. And that is a big problem because it makes people sick. The fact that the system stonewalls, avoids, and dismisses grievances makes it so toxic I can hardly wrap my mind around it.

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  • Which, yes, I completely agree with your point. Although I still say that we have power over how we perceive ourselves, regardless of anything, and that makes all the difference.

    We’ve talked about how we’re all “weirdoes,” and we can own our uniqueness this way. Many ways to look at this. But as I’ve said, when projected by the system, it is damning, and that is deeply felt and experienced, and it can really fuck a person up in many ways.

    And when I was first diagnosed, I had no issue with it, I was one of the one’s relieved to know this and that there was some kind of direction to go with it, to manage it so I could get on with my life. This was 1982, not a terribly big deal in my community.

    And it worked for a while, with limitations (living with side-effects). I was open about it, though, made no bones about it, continued to be self-responsible and I worked and went to school, had my coping strategies for anxiety. I felt no judgment or stigma whatsoever, had no negative impact on my self-respect.

    That began later in life, starting in grad school, late 90’s, as I’ve often said, which is when all of this began to come to light for me. I went on to discover it layer by layer. In the end, regardless of what I did to heal or get clarity or stand up for myself–or in any way actually embody my self-respect–I got clobbered one way or another because it is standard procedure to punish certain people, I’ll just put it that way. The independently minded ones, I guess you’d say.

    That was the case with me, and I had my integrity, I was not a trickster. This is so hard to describe and explain. Sorry this is long, but what you say is loaded for me, oldhead, I’ve thought tons about this very issue, based on what I went through. This was the core issue for me.

    So I’d say it isn’t so much the words but the energy and intention behind them, which is easily felt, especially by people like me who are sensitive to energy. The reality is that the damage has been done, and what I’m focused on is reversing the damage, and HEALING. This is what I put forth, regardless of whether it is healing the damage done by the drugs or the damage done by the stigma.

    Stigma is damaging, it’s not a matter of “hurt feelings” or “taking things personally” or “being overly sensitive” or “caring what others think,” etc. It is seriously dispiriting and it affects the nervous system, especially when it comes rapid fire, everywhere you turn. It’s an easy cause of eventual suicide, and certainly suicide ideation. At the very least, it causes chronic anxiety and depression. How could it not? It translates to powerlessness.

    For me, stigma was exactly the reason I had to do backflips just to make a living, and it shouldn’t have been that way. I stepped up repeatedly, and was treated very differently than other “peers.” I got stigmatized for my history, and then for healing, coming and going. That was the main issue of my journey, that which created the most sabotage in my life. No one saw my heart! And that really mattered, because it meant I was the target of mass projections. Trying to figure me out is not how to get to know me. Listening to my heart is. This is what I try do with everyone, listen to their hearts and spirits, not try to dissect their brain. I believe it’s why I’m a good healer.

    I got over what happened after doing healing work as a result of this, and I moved on with things, and found my affinity as we always have the potential to do after disappointments, and I repeat that often so that people don’t give up hope, which I understand how easily that can happen, given all we know.

    Some of the statements I read on here seem to imply some level of hopelessness, and I try to speak up when I see that, for what I think would be obvious reasons.

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  • Nice FreeDom, and it is indeed time for a change, so that the one who follows his/her own heart, is, perhaps, the example of change, and then others might see that this is the way to liberation from oppression, to individuate and claim one’s truth as their guide, rather than the need to “belong,” which is when we try to appease the truth of others over our own–square peg in round hole, simple enough.

    When we let go of one thing, we’re leaving room for something better. I believe that’s a fact of life, if we are open to seeing this.

    Wandering alone in the wilderness? That wasn’t my fate at all, I have many communities and strong healthy relationships with people who respect the journey I took. We all follow our hearts, that’s what we have in common, and where we feel our connection. We have complementary and compatible creative processes.

    Other than that, we’re all regular human beings, like anyone else.

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  • Ok, thanks for the response(s)–all of you.

    First, Steve, your comment above about “brain damage” got my attention, and I felt this was significant in the conversation.

    Then, when I saw this–

    “It’s kind of idiotic to create a group called “weirdos” and then say, “There is great stigma against weirdos. We need to treat weirdos with respect and offer them our support despite their weirdness.”

    Considering the emphasis on the word “weirdos” here and given that we had JUST been talking about this and how it’s projected so pejoratively, and I had also just invited your feedback to the clip I had posted—which came as the result of a program like the one being discussed here, which of course is why I explained that I had eschewed it, although not for these reasons I’m seeing here, but I don’t want to go into that now—to see this before you actually replied to me on the other blog made me think. And, other things you’ve said or seemed to imply over the years here, but I’m not going to dig for those. What I’m putting out here is enough, this is present time.

    I’ve often said the communication on here is confusing, and then I see others saying the same thing. I don’t know, this gaslighting thing is tricky, and I believe we’ve all been swimming in it at times. I can still be a bit unclear about what is being communicated initially, so I check it out, like I did above. Seeing this was like a 1-2 punch, so I reacted from my gut.

    I don’t know if you’ve ever been on that side of social abuse but trust me when I say it is significantly traumatic, it gets into the bloodstream, so to speak, and challenges our most core spirit identity; post-traumatic-mental-health-system-stress (ptmhss) is what I called it, and it was a painful healing.

    I appreciate everyone’s heads up and I hope my response clarifies where I’m coming from.

    I do get impatient with the direction these dialogues take, however, which is why I said they are played—that’s imo, of course, although I’m sure I’m not alone. I find myself getting exasperated on here for the same reasons repeatedly, which best I can say about that now is loss of focus. I think what I believe is important to focus on is different than most on here, that’s what it has felt like.

    I believe the mh system is a destructive entity and I think it’s specifically because it is a socially bullying organization. The projections and gaslighting fly back & forth faster than bullets from an M14. There is just no two ways about it, and that’s that as far as I’m concerned. I think it’s clear as a bell.

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  • Hmm, well, considering our previous discussion in the “why men commit suicide” blog, I take it you’re not a fan of my work, perhaps not even of my person, based on this and also what you expressed to me above (seriously?!)–which has kind of been apparent to me for a while, but I was hoping that we could get past personality differences and still find points of commonality, for the sake of this “cause,” (whatever it is, because based on this collective, I’m really not at all clear, even after all these years of reading and participating, I just know my own objectives). But I see now that this is impossible.

    Which is fine with me, all of it, but the method by which this information is all coming about is rather confusing to me. Anything but direct! I fail to see how any of this is productive in any way, shape or form. In fact, I’d call it DEstructive.

    I think after 6+ years of posting here, my time is done. I’ve said that before and came back, often because someone reached out to me and asked me to comment on something. Also because I felt I still had something to express here. Honestly, I can’t think of anything left. I believe all these discussions are played–to.the.ground.

    Ironic—despite my over 30+ years’ textbook journey through the mental health industry inside and out, I don’t fit in here! That’s kind of interesting to me and I guess it’s good information for me along this journey. So many paradoxes along the way, this is just yet one more. Fascinating.

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  • “If you have taken psych drugs long enough you may need a tiny amount to survive”

    I can’t speak for everyone and, honestly, I wouldn’t know why some can ditch them altogether and others cannot–given our individual natures and processes–but just for balance here, I was on so many of these psych drugs for 20 years, up to 9 during the last year of this, including 2 benzos (Ativan and Klonopin) and a host of other neurotoxins. It was a carousel of drug “cocktails” for two decades, forever being adjusted.

    And I’ve been drug-free for 16 years now. It was a bumpy ride, to say the least, and I had to find competent healing from other sources, but that’s in the past and I’ve since gone through a transformative process. Getting off the drugs allowed me to do deep core healing which brought me into balance with myself and allowed me to get on with my life in a way that was satisfying and fulfilling to me.

    I don’t know what is right for anyone other than myself, but this message that one might be stuck on these drugs for any reason kind of bugs me, because there is no reason that this has to necessarily be the case, if we do not want it to be.

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  • Steve, if you do watch the clip, I’d be interested to hear your feedback. It’s only a small fraction of the film before we get into our personal stories, but it sets the stage via a filmed discussion among those of us who went through the “mental health system journey,” full-throttle. We’re not all of like-mind nor did we have a script of any kind, this is all present time authentic speaking from our hearts. I’m always curious if, above and beyond anything else, people can hear our hearts.

    We do speak about many things discussed here, at different levels of awareness, we are at different stages in our lives, and somewhat culturally diverse, although interestingly enough (considering the topic of this article), 4 of us are middle-aged men. The cast was not planned, either, I sent an email to 30 people in a speakers’ bureau of “peer specialists/educators,” what have you, that particular population, and these are the folks who responded–literally what the universe brought to me, with no calculation or manipulation on my part.

    I was one of these “peers” at the time, although I was independent of the system, had long-since healed from the psych drugs debacle, and was working as a healer and an actor.

    I didn’t mind the “peer” identity at the time, although later I caught on to the implication of it. Someone told me about this program, and so I went back into the system (thinking it really was “advocacy,”–turned out to be the grand illusion) to tell my story to various audiences around San Francisco, including at my own graduate school, where I did my MFT training. It was a GOLDEN opportunity!

    And I did it with a vengeance, really challenged everyone with my truth. Most freedom I’d felt in years, it was so incredibly healing and empowering to do this. And it felt good to tell my own story, and own it!

    I’ve since woken up to what these so-called “advocacy” agencies really are (advocates for the system, “don’t rock the boat” activists, which makes no sense to me, that’s totally an oxymoron), but alas, I was so incredibly lucky that I was able to make a feature film using their platform, to film these stories and to have this new conversation. I’ve used this clip in presentations when I was doing that kind of work. That’s been a while, though, I’ve put the film to rest and am focused elsewhere in my life.

    So, this does come from one of those “so-called” anti-stigma campaigns and we’re all working through various levels of programming. I don’t like them, either, in the end, and when I caught on, they gave me the usual treatment, which is how I discovered their hypocrisy and true agenda, to maintain status quo. But it was an avenue through which a lot of very heartfelt voices could come together to speak a new truth–at least for us, at the time, it was.

    Regardless of any of that, we were trying to communicate in a way that people could hear us, true and real and in the moment. Over the years, as I shared the film, some would hear what was at the heart of all this, while others seemed to be focused on other specific issues which came up for them, which is fine, I think that’s to be expected.

    But I would be curious to know what it is you are hearing here, I know you have good insights and you know these issues well. It would be interesting for me to hear what you think, after all these years of not thinking about this film. Not even sure what I think, I’d have to watch the whole thing again and see how I feel about what I was saying back then! Lots of things have changed since 2011, naturally.

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  • I’m glad we agree that being one’s own person does not in the slightest equal “maladjusted,” despite how threatened or uncomfortable the “norm” might feel as a result of someone marching to the beat of their own drummer. Yes, that’s an extremely oppressive message, and quite harmful. Let’s remember the topic of this article.

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  • Btw, here’s a 10 minute clip of the film I mention, Voices That Heal. This was filmed in 2011 and we have all evolved in our lives since then. I began to post here shortly after having made this film, and have since learned a great deal. I believe–at least, I hope–that I’ve refined my thinking in many ways, thanks to everyone’s courageous truth-speaking and sharing on here. So a collective thank you for that.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN0-m6nhUIE

    I’m the guy who tells the story of the therapist that said, “Take your meds and don’t make waves” to a group member, who was a gentleman of about 60 years old, really sweet and smart guy, who wanted to file a grievance. Stuff like that is what inspired me to tell my story, regardless of how vulnerable it made me feel. This shit has got to change.

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  • I’m glad you put the word “successful” in quotes because, indeed, I believe this is open to interpretation. What exactly does it mean to be “successful” in a “sick society,” as it were? Success at what, and by what means? And that’s an open question, subject to discussion because I’m sure there would be diverse perspectives on this.

    However, succeeding at liberating one’s self—inside and out—would, in my estimation, not need to be qualified with quotation marks because I believe one can feel whether or not they are truly free, that is a personal assessment to be made internally, and it is quite apparent when it manifests. It is a powerful and unmistakable feeling.

    The more we feel the imprisoning and extreme double-binds of a dysfunctional society, the more potential we have to know our own light. That is quite a journey to take, out of the dark night of the soul. I believe this is what we’re talking about when referring to taking one’s own life. I’d say they’re in a dark night of the soul.

    When people say “oh but they were happy, had it all” or “I thought things were getting better for them,” stuff like that, I’d say the one who took his or her life more than likely felt extremely invisible. How could they not? Obviously, they were not feeling free, and no one around them picked up on it.

    “It is my hope that places like MIA can encourage ‘creative maladjustment’ in those who have begun to see what’s really going on.”

    Personally, I don’t feel maladjusted, never did. I adjusted to everything happening to me, albeit extremely painful and confusing. I was responsibly on my path, following protocol. Anyone who has ever been in a group with me knows that I take healing seriously and pour myself into the process. It’s why I do what I do for a living, I have a passion for this. The healing process, alone, is amazingly creative.

    I’m also a filmmaker, actor, musical performer and director. All of this sprang from my healing, my passions suddenly began to manifest in the most creative way. This has guided my life since my dark night, and it’s been the most amazing process to navigate this with trust, and a bit of awe.

    Makes me extremely grateful for what I went through, to discover myself this way, but it was much harder than necessary, because of…well…how can I put this? Because of a bunch of assholes I encountered along the way. I’m talking about the myriad professionals who came into my path along this journey. And I use that term to be as gentle as I can be and still be honest with my feelings about it, because, really, I’d want to use the word “murderous.”

    Were I to be really neutral about it, I’d say, “seriously narcissistic, self-absorbed, and ego-driven” (even more than “profit-driven,” the ego issues were what I found to be seriously out of control. And that can be dangerous in any kind of so-called “health care” environment).

    And I say this is neutral, because when you apply the meanings of these terms as they are generally understood, it fits to a tee. I’m not exaggerating in the slightest. Sorry, but it is what it is.

    When I tried to take my own life, it was because I had just started my withdrawal and that particular part of my healing–which was unfamiliar territory and I was doing it responsibly and under supervision—got really rough when symptoms of the withdrawal began to manifest, and it was a nightmare. I was authentic, present, reporting everything, letting my emotions be what they were, and listening carefully to what I was being told.

    And that last part was a problem, because by listening carefully to what I was being told at that particular time that my brain was an open sponge and trying to heal itself, I internalized some of the most heinous messages a human being can imagine, about myself.

    I’ll spare you the details here, but it was grotesque what they projected onto me, repeatedly and impulsively, directly from their triggers and filtered through their own shadow, with no remorse or self-responsibility. I’d try to argue and push back, and it would get exponentially worse, right off the bat. It was truly terrifying.

    THAT was the real toxicity, more than the drugs. Took me a while to wake up because I was so disoriented, and in the meantime, it was severe and excruciating to be made to believe that I was some “maladjusted” weirdo who would never be accepted as anything else, no matter what.

    And I don’t mind being a weirdo, I think we’re all weirdoes, if we are to be authentic. Who wants to be “the same?” That would be not only oppressive, it would be boring as hell.

    But when they communicate this from inside the system, it is with absolutely no humanity, completely soulless, and quite damning. That’s how I would put it because this is how it felt.

    And even after I had adjusted to professional disenfranchisement (because I won a lawsuit) by creating my own successful business, and then made a film from inside the system, after having detached from it (I went back in voluntarily to speak my truth, ended up with Voices That Heal), and even after I had become a successful stage actor in the Bay Area, thanks to using creativity as a healing tool, do you know that my last case manager/public system “psycho-therapist” did, indeed, write in his notes that I had an “adjustment” disorder?

    Not only had this never, ever been an issue with me (I worked full time and got degrees and fostered a long-term relationship–which is now a marriage–while living with Axis 1 Diagnosis and on psych drugs), but in addition, this was YEARS after coming off drugs, after profoundly good healing work, and after all I had accomplished in the most visible way. I was simply going here for transitional purposes, it was all over my notes that I was attempting to transition from disability. I was showing him my work.

    Wow, can we say projection? And worse yet—SABOTAGE? How is adjusting to and overcoming obstacles and succeeding unequivocally an “adjustment disorder?” That’s just plain weird, for real.

    This is why your statement gave me pause, personally, although I cannot speak for all. Good stuff, though, as always, Steve. I do appreciate what you are saying here, and I agree wholeheartedly, that it is about finding one’s self-respect. The system and its players do everything they can to undermine this, and it works unfortunately.

    Were we to find our power in taking back our self-respect (which is ours to begin with), then perhaps the vampires will starve.

    Moral of the story: Don’t Feed the Vampires!

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  • I’d go deeper than merely “very challenging” and “potentially unsatisfying.” Imo, that is an extreme understatement.

    As far as connectedness goes, seems we have a choice to be either co-dependently enmeshed and take the bs, or practice self-care and self-respect, only to face being alienated and ostracized.

    In a toxic system, there is usually one main extremely manipulative controller–the one who is abusing their power rather using it for the greater good–and then all the minions/gatekeepers who fear losing either 1) their job, 2) “approval” 3) their life 4) some other drastic loss if they detach from the group. It’s a cult-like dynamic, where one is punished, shamed, and marginalized for not conforming to the dysfunctional norm, which would basically be about protecting the abuser. With or without consciousness. It’s the program, and it’s based purely on fear. In a toxic system, this is what its members learn, by example.

    This is what I’m talking about, and I believe it is frightfully common. In fact, I think I’d call it the “mainstream norm,” at this point. It’s certainly the example from politics these days. And, I’d say it applies to the “mh” system.

    This is what causes despair, hopelessness and perceived powerlessness–when we are punished and socially bullied for being simply ourselves, and there seems to be no way out of it.

    Well, there is a way out of this, but people have to start knowing how to cope when rejected by a group because they do not wish to be sheeple. That’s courageous and authentic, but a community can make that extremely painful for a person–to the point of causing undue suffering–if only from their own fear-based projections, aka scapegoating.

    So back to connectedness–who would want to “connect” with that kind of society? Yuck. I believe this is to what Mr. Krishnamurti was referring when said, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

    So, if you’re feeling like an outlier in sick society, thank GOD! I’d say you’re on your way to healing. I call that “feeling your light,” and it can save your life.

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  • I’d venture to guess it has something to do with feeling invisible, hopeless, and utterly disconnected. Having one’s life force energy sucked dry is what usually leads to these feelings, from what I’ve experienced and witnessed in life. Lack of heart and soul nourishment can lead to despondence and lack of worthiness.

    I wouldn’t limit this to why men become suicidal, however. I’d say this is why anyone would start thinking about killing themselves. Social vampirism is an equal opportunity killer.

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  • Rachel, I can’t tell if this is really your belief or if you’re being ironic. Are you saying that if someone is not abusive, then, in reality, they are not caring? And if someone is not abusive toward another, then it is because they don’t care about that person? Seems to me that’s what you are implying, although please do correct me if I’m misinterpreting something here. Your statement is very powerful, but it gives me pause.

    My first impulse is to disagree with this, because abuse comes from fear (e.g. of abandonment, and other issues) and where there is authentic unconditional love, there is no fear; they cannot co-exist as one cancels out the other–the way that when a light is turned on in a room, there is no longer darkness there, that cannot be. That’s my belief and perspective, in any event.

    Although for the sake of dialogue and the current beliefs and programs running, I’d say there’s gray area here, it’s not necessary so black & white. In our particular culture, the relationship between abuse and love/caring is complex and multi-layered. That would be an enlightening–and, perhaps, liberating–conversation to have. I imagine people have all sorts of diverse opinions and beliefs regarding this. Thanks for speaking your truth.

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  • Someone Else, very inspirational, you are so speaking truth it made my eyes water. We are, indeed, experiencing a mass awakening, how can we not be? And yeah, we’re witnessing it right here.

    “There are millions online now “waking up,” who are learning that our society’s problems are caused by evil systems, like the psychopharmacology/medical/religious industrial complexes’ sins and crimes against humanity. The sins of the fiscally irresponsible, war mongering and profiteering, globalist banksters, who you “mental health professionals” are actually slaves to, and were miseducated by, are being aired all over the internet, too.”

    I guess some would perhaps still see this as “radical,” “extreme,”
    “conspiracy-related” and the like, but imo, it is perfectly stated and *absolute* truth. This is my perception of it, these so-called “systems” which rule the world. I think those pejorative words are actually programs to keep the truth hidden. These are unfounded judgments, imo.

    And while “evil” may even be a word of judgment, I believe it can still justifiably apply here, in all good faith, because we’re talking about institutions which basically bilk people for all they’ve got, cause tremendous suffering (and have for generations) because they, in reality, thrive and depend on the suffering of others (for profit of course), and actually present themselves as “helpful, supportive, healing,” yadayada–when, in fact, we know these are all based on all kinds of oppression and vampirism. First, they create the suffering, then they exploit it. I do think people get this now, I’d tend to guess we’re pretty much all feeling it one way or another in this day and age.

    I think we want to do better, which is why the awakening is happening. I believe therein lies the key to change, and it’s radical because it begins with shifting consciousness, waking up. It’s in everyone to discover what this means for themselves.

    Shout out to the commenters, and also to the authors who created the space for this, set the energy with their words, and then sat back and allowed the conversation to unfold naturally, trusting the process. Really outstanding example, I believe.

    I think this is an exciting and perhaps breakthrough discussion, and an example of great shift in present time. I was on the dubious side, but alas, things unfolded in a surprising way this time. Nice!

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  • “I can see why many don’t believe reform is possible. The power structure is too hierarchical and patriarchal. I feel a bit dejected at the moment. This is BS.”

    Kudos, Shaun, on your awakening! Excellent work, and I mean that most sincerely. I imagine that the feeling of dejection will eventually transmute its way into more of a feeling of empowerment and passion to help usher in sorely needed change.

    Now spread the word. BS, indeed. I feel a sigh of relief.

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  • “It looks to me like those in charge are simply cowardly and unable to deal with their own emotions. If so, they have no business claiming to be in a “helping profession.” If you can’t handle anger (and other strong emotions), you’re not going to be much help to anyone.”

    Yes, tell this to the very last and final case manager/therapist I ever had before finally saying adios to the system in a “client” role–who said to me once, “If you keep getting angry then that will just cause me to distance myself.”

    There ought to be a law against this. This is a therapist? Anger was a symptom, not a human response, each and every time. I believe this would make a person very sick, were they to comply with this oppression and not know better.

    What I did at that point was to tell him that he’s way out of line and if he doesn’t know how to understand emotions and ask appropriate questions and can only sit in defensive judgment, then this is a complete waste of my time. By then, I had had it with this crap. I then requested my case notes, and that was that.

    I walked away and I felt suddenly free of the “mental health” system burden. When I read my case notes, all I could see was his shadow, projected straight onto me.

    What a shame-based field this is. That’s what makes me angry about it.

    How, exactly, is any of this, in the slightest way, “healing?” It is the essence of dehumanizing!

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  • When I was working for voc rehab as a client-turned-staff, they were accusing me of all sorts of things, totally falsely, and I did so many things to attempt dialogue–I responded to their reprimand in writing, requesting a dialoguing before signing anything (because I disagreed with their crazy lies), and they got madder and madder and continued to punish and intimidate me, and refused to help me transfer out of there to another agency. They were angry that I was reaching out in order to attempt getting clarity on anything! They just couldn’t believe I had the audacity to simply want a meeting with management. Who was I to express myself?

    They were atrocious, and I wound up suing them because they simply would not talk to me. After being fired, I requested a meeting for closure, and the CEO wrote me and said, “I don’t have to talk to you, I’m under no obligation,” (seriously), after which I filed a grievance with the appropriate agency, and they made them take a meeting with me, if only for closure.

    I eventually sued at EEOC and won, and even then they did not change their Dickensian ways, and they ended up closing eventually, having lost their funding.

    These folks CHOSE not to dialogue, CHOSE not to change, and instead, CHOSE to close their doors. Gaslighting, stonewalling, avoiding, defensive–yes, that is the standard. Dialogue? Listening? Honesty? Fairness? What’s that? I know it seems so over the top and preposterous, yet it is the exact truth.

    Next story: Years after graduating, I worked for few months as a co-facilitator of a group at the grad school from which I got my MA in counseling psychology. In this group, more than anything, the students complained about the fear they had bringing up any issues with their professors, who of course, were psychotherapists. They described them as avoidant, manipulative, and shaming. It was surreal to sit there and hear all of this.

    Honestly, it took me years to finally grasp the extremely profound extent of this pig-headedness when it came to the non-communication, lack of self-responsibility and extreme lack of regard for others which came from this field. I just couldn’t fathom it. I come from a different reality, a bit more respect than this.

    After 20+ years in or around this field one way or another, I have tons of stories like this.

    Wtf? is all I want to know.

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  • Very well said. There are a lot of “fantasies” which I believe many of us are ready to let go of–for example, that there can be any reform in the “mental health” industry. I think it’s quite obvious what happens in these “dialogues.”

    Not to be a naysayer here, which is not my usual style, but “it’s gone too far” is a good way to put it, and yes, the lying has been over the top. Time to clean up this mess, for the sake of the greater good.

    Although I do agree with the premise of this article, that being non-emotional is really an illusion. Transparency is truth and emotions do, indeed, inform us in critical ways. But it’s hard to contain in a group of very passionate people when they are also rightfully angry about injustice which has yet to be remedied, so more power to you!

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  • Yes, although no one can force others to practice tolerance and respect. Starts from within, we practice it first on ourselves, then on others, then we become the examples.

    Calling out intolerance and disrespect on an institutional level is also a good strategy for taking steps to make change, except it’s only a beginning step. That’s when the scapegoating either begins or deepens. Still, it is truth so this is where courage comes in.

    The whole process of shifting the paradigm can make a person feel kinda crazy, but this is not a projection, it’s a human feeling and experience, which I’d consider to be “normal” because it’s an inherent part of change. It’s not terrible and it’s not a “condition,” but more so, a state of confusion and disorientation that would be quite natural while core changes are happening. So what? It will pass. And in the meantime, one can learn a lot of really cool stuff that will serve well, and then eventually things come together in a new way. That’s called “transformation.”

    Feeling crazy is part of it, I don’t see how anyone can get away with being part of change without going off center a few times in the process. Big deal, it happens to everyone. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be human.

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  • “…why do we need a concept of “mental illness” …?”

    That’s a great question. My response would be because it is a projection through which people can cast their shadow onto another so they do not have to own it themselves and feel it in their own bodies. Scapegoating is so much more convenient.

    Plus, a lot of people seem to have a deep aversion to differences in personality because it takes them out of their comfort zone. And rather than to live and let live, they choose to judge and stigmatize out of fear (again, of their own shadow) and it becomes a treacherous game of social persecution through marginalization.

    A major part of my healing was practicing not identifying with the projection. That was an extremely powerful component in my awakening. There’s a whole other Self underneath all that “labeling and drugging” crap.

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  • “We don’t have to clobber each other over the head…”

    Honestly, there seems to be a great deal of disparity around here (and in general, I think) regarding what constitutes “clobbering.” In addition, there are many ways of “clobbering,” including ways which are subtle and insidious, not always overt. Plus, what we witness as opposed to experience first hand can be fraught with projection. Calling out abuse, in and of itself, can get one clobbered by the entire group, in a dysfunctional system–which is what would make it systemically toxic.

    I’d suggest we begin by not “clobbering” ourselves, for any reason. I think that will minimize the chance that we step on others’ toes inadvertently. I believe that is very healing, when we give ourselves permission to love & respect ourselves, first. Then, not only are we more able extend it to others authentically, but we are less likely to get triggered in the first place because our self-respect overpowers outside opinion.

    “Listen to each others hearts beyond the words.”

    Yes, I agree, and with all respect, Monica, I would like to elaborate a bit because I love this, but I’ve become aware that it is not easy, sometimes, because of how we’re programmed in the first place.

    It can take some practice to listen with one’s heart in present time after a long time of having to “figure things out,” which is where our brains become programmed in how they receive and process data/energy.

    It’s one of the reasons I question long-term psychotherapy. I remember what it felt like to have “therapy brain,” is what I used to call it–non-stop mind chatter, always trying to resolve this and that, exhausting my mind and draining my energy, keeping me going in loops.

    Listening with our hearts requires quieting the inner chatter, first, not filtering the information through anything but curiosity and interest in what the other person is saying.

    When you’re looking for “proof” of something to match your agenda, you will not hear a person’s heart. They have a story to tell, and every single story matters, as told by the creator of that story, meaning the one who lived it. I truly believe this is without exception, if we are to enjoy at least universal respect.

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  • “Thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are somehow different or odd from the norm (but completely understandable human responses when the true circumstances for their emergence are understood) are NOT ‘symptoms.'”

    I agree that they are not “symptoms” but thoughts/feelings/behaviors that don’t fit the norm are not necessarily anything other than authentic. Everyone has their unique process, that would be the diversity. Calling them “odd” sets up a social hierarchy based on marginalization. Needing to fit in or gain approval from the norm is what is overwhelmingly stressful. Being authentically one’s self, despite the norm, is what liberates a person. Dare to be different. It is not only courageous, but it is what leads to change. In fact, I’d say it IS the change!

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  • That’s awesome, Shaun. Indeed, flexibility in thinking is a very helpful trait to embody.

    Well, I think inevitably we awaken thanks to others, for I believe we all play a role with each other in this regard, whether we know it or not. Often it is unconscious, I believe. Sometimes, it is by inadvertently triggering another with our truth, that’s always a golden opportunity for more clarity and shifting. In my practice, I call these “spiritual contracts,” which always have a purpose. Fascinating stuff!

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  • Shaun, thanks for the thorough response. Like I said, I do get how these mechanisms work and how co-dependence can blind us to our own needs and deservedness. And, indeed, in a society where emotional abuse (which is what I’m really talking about here) is such the norm and at this point, seems to be woven into the fabric of everyday living, it can be really hard to spot and identify. Calling it out can be dangerous, which is exactly why I call it toxic. No boundaries, coming or going, can be ever so challenging!

    And indeed, I agree that social and political norms have created an epidemic feeling of powerlessness. That is the nature of oppression, and how it succeeds.

    So thinking about it now, I’d say it’s about knowing exactly where our power is at all times. I do believe we carry this with us inside, but trauma can separate us from this. Gaslighting, especially, can cause complete disorientation of sense of self, because there is so much vagueness and trickery involved, conscious deceit for the purpose of feeling the illusion of “power.”

    And I call it an illusion in this case because not only is it contingent upon lying and purposeful misrepresentation, but also it is based on having power over another person, rather than power in one’s own life, to make their desires manifest.

    This is where I say a lot of people don’t realize that someone in their vicinity is purposely trying to make them feel unworthy and value-less, to inhibit their confidence by always calling into question their personal reality. That will keep a person tethered and dependent for a long time.

    The idea is to not believe what others say about you while fostering positive self-beliefs, which is a core shift, to my mind, where the true healing lies. Once we heal unworthiness and realize our true worth, then our spirits heal and can take over from there. We are, after all, our own healers and guides, each one of us. Support is wonderful, but healing is done by our spirits. That is my belief, in any event.

    Thank you, Shaun, I appreciate the dialogue. My greatest hope for others is that they find their freedom and get away from chronic negativity, naysaying, and cynicism. Inevitably, it only serves to sabotage anyone in the vicinity. But I do feel folks need to wake up on their own, no one can do it for another.

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  • That’s so interesting, LavenderSage, I do believe that we carry ancestor energy and looking at this can bring to light so many of our present time patterns, and then we can make desired shifts. That would release sooo much past time energy and clear our space a great deal. Kind of gets it outside of ourselves, like a connect-the-dots picture, and then we can feel the truth of it within. I can see how this would bring clarity.

    So much of my work is with family contracts, seems to have the deepest impact on any individual, how could it not? It’s our first human blueprint to fall on our spiritual nature.

    So you do genograms? I’m not familiar with this process and how to read it, never done it before. Although I do know of my roots and I’ve integrated as much family information and dynamics as I know how into my healing, so I have done that work exhaustively, always fascinating. But if you actually do these, I’d be interested to know more because I could see myself referring people to you for this. Plus I might be interested in learning this.

    I’m in the process of gathering healers at this very time, we’re creating a healing network in the new paradigm. Do you still have my email? If so, please feel free to write me if you’d like to discuss this further.

    Thank you for sharing!

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  • I’m glad to see this, Shaun. It’s hard though, isn’t it? Took me so long to wake up and take these steps for myself.

    Do you ever see your client in a toxic situation and they don’t see it and as a result, they can’t make the changes they desire to make and can’t see the double-binds? I find this to be such tricky territory. People defend their abusers/gaslighters all the time, which I understand how that works and why that would occur, but it feels like a Gordian knot. Any thoughts on this?

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  • One last thing, since you mention “ego death”–

    I’m certainly no stranger to this. I had a very peculiar dark night of the soul journey because it involved paradox after paradox after paradox while traversing the “mental health” system. I was a MFT intern and a client at the same time, so I straddled the fence for years, and it was profoundly eye-opening.

    Thanks to major physical breakdown after 20 years on one thing or another (usually more but it changed a lot over the years), I found it necessary to ditch all of the psych drugs I was on (all 9 of them by this time) right in the middle of my internship. I was out of my mind from psych drugs withdrawal, yet traversed San Francisco from one healing community to another, feeling more self-conscious than I could say, because I was healing from brain damage, but did not know it at the time. I was extremely regressed and slowly coming back to life, but I could hardly stay focused on a conversation and it was evident that something was amiss with me. And I wasn’t sure how to explain it at the time because I had no idea the process I was in, no one around me had ever done this and this was just as the web was catching on so I hadn’t been online reading about people coming off psych drugs, that did not exist yet that I knew of. I took the risk without any knowledge of this, if only from medical necessity. I was the first person to do this that I knew of.

    I had no good mirroring, no one knew what to expect, nor who I was, in reality. I was extremely disembodied and all I could feel was a deluge of chronic anxiety, among other painful symptoms and bad insomnia, etc. I was truly the biggest mess ever. But I was determined to heal and get back to myself, so I did anything available to me, regardless of how I knew I was coming across.

    In the meantime, I put up with a lot of very mean people (think urban culture) and I had no defenses. Peoples’ true colors come out when they think you’re out of it, but I was not oblivious to how people were treating me, simply because I had an affect and was very shaky, withdrawn, and really kind of tongue tied. It’s how marginalized people are treated–seriously dehumanized and disregarded. This went on for years.

    I’d been a professional for years, even before grad school, so this put my system into shock. It was a brand new perspective from which I was experiencing life, and not a positive one in the slightest. Rather brutal, in fact.

    The thing about “ego death,” in reality, is that it’s a deprogramming (again, releasing the old to allow for the new), so surrendering to transformation is actually an amazing process, doesn’t have to be horrible. We’re releasing all sorts of things we no longer need, like beliefs that inhibit us and make us feel limited. It’s actually the essence of *liberation.*

    Good time to learn deep trust, profound patience, and most of all, grounding. That was my first lesson in finding my center, amid all the roller coaster rides. That was my saving grace, because once you know your center, then you can allow your emotions to guide your creativity. I love my emotions, but I drive them, not the other way around. The do not hinder me now, they totally fuel me. It is my essence, the entire range. We needn’t get stuck in despair or fear if that gets triggered. We can totally focus our way out of that and train our neurons in the process. It’s a very cool process, I’ve done this for years. It’s second nature now.

    Sensitivity, passion, creativity–all good stuff. To my mind, that is our divine guidance. Nothing to judge here! We can learn to enjoy these, rather than to be tormented by them. Life is a process, can’t get any more basic and universal than that.

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  • “transcending dichotomies, dualities, and binaries can be quite challenging when the whole world is set up this way”

    Yes, it is challenging, and it’s also a choice, and there are many when one gets to this awareness. Although just because the world is “set up” in a certain way, that doesn’t mean we don’t have the option to create a new “set up,” aka “a new paradigm.”

    Yes, it’s very challenging, but some of us feel it is worth it, considering this current world is busting apart at the seams at present, at least a lot of us see it that way. Making way for the new, perhaps? Also an option. Transforming out of these dark ages we’ve been in for a while will definitely take some doing. Are you up for it?

    “I’m not cool with requiring enlightenment for folks to be treated more humanely.”

    I honestly don’t know what you mean by this. “Enlightened” or not, I’m sure we both feel that people should be treated humanely and with respect, as we all wish to be.

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  • Just to clarify, I did completely misunderstand something which you wrote, Chris, which is why I started with “I agree with you that…” I can see that this is not the case. When I read the following paragraph, I honestly thought it was meant to be universal, meaning “you” in general, as in *any of us* because it’s who we are–

    “If you know you’re bipolar, you are conscious of something to which others are oblivious. If you don’t know you’re bipolar, it’s because you have been indoctrinated into the use of such a word as mere pathology. We live in a bipolar universe, in bipolar bodies, with bipolar psyches, using bipolar neurology and bipolar chemical processes along spectrums of experience.”

    Because yes, we do live in “multi-polar” universe, which some even call “the multi-verse.” I don’t say “Bi-” simply because I believe there are more than two poles. So yes, I do believe it is universal, and I understand now, from reading again, that this is not your belief, which I respect completely of course.

    I happened to have been diagnosed “bipolar” 36 years ago and lived with that for a good long while, still living a full life but with that label attached and taking psych drugs for it. It eventually all caught up with me in a catastrophic way 20 years after it had all started, and led to a transformative awakening on many levels. It was a wild ride for a good long while there, but I’m grounded and at peace now, after a lot of in depth healing work.

    I have long renounced and have moved far away from any of that, have nothing to do with diagnoses or psych drugs, I’m not part of any “mh” community any longer, working with other healers, teachers, artists, etc. in my community. I’m paying forward what I learned in many ways, been an extremely creative and fulfilling journey for me, continues to be.

    But I certainly feel my “bipolar-ism” as well as all of myself on any given day, as does my partner (who does not have a DSM history), as do my business partners and friends, none of whom went through any of this. But we’re all who we are, light and shadow, so to speak. We all have our emotional range and our triggers, that is what being human is, to my mind, evolving and refining as we go. I do believe this is universal because I connect with anyone this way.

    So I would say that we’ll be better off when EVERYONE realizes they are *at least* bipolar, because that is part of being human. Although it will be a rude awakening, but it doesn’t have to be a label, simply a human quality. There’s always more of ourselves to discover as we go along.

    I do very much respect, of course, where you are and what your beliefs are at this time, as I do anyone. We’re all on a journey, learning as we go, doing it our way, growing, expanding, fumbling, exploring, manifesting. Who can stop us? Only ourselves.

    From what I can see, your work has been seriously impressive. There are always new things to learn, for all of us.

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  • Chris, I agree with you that it is a universally human quality to have poles. We can go from the depths of despair and fear to feeling elation and love in the blink of an eye, depending on how we are navigating our focus and allowing our perspectives to shift. I believe this is because we are naturally flexible in our ability to feel and think. I see our emotional landscape as a fluid river of energy, in its most natural state, and we can certainly choose how we perceive anything. This can change over time, with varying life experience as we move along, which I’d call evolution in thinking.

    However, I wouldn’t stop at “bi-polar.” When we are REALLY awake, we realize that we are much more than this. In fact, I’d say we are continuously expanding multi-dimensional beings, moving along the upwardly mobile evolutionary spiral. This will affect how we interpret and/or respond to our own emotions. This also can change quite a bit over the course of a lifetime, if we allow it to, which would be the blueprint of personal transformation.

    Does any of this ring true for you at all?

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  • I agree, I believe Christ Consciousness is in the collective, any one of us can go in and out of that state of being, we are each a unique aspect of it. The phrase, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” comes to mind. I believe that to be human and spiritual at the same time requires radical permission to be who we are at any given time, and also to allow others to be who they are. We can certainly choose and discern what our preferences are without being in judgment.

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  • You tell your story with a lot of power and conviction, thank you for sharing your experience and insights.

    I agree with you that there are energies and perspectives at work which seek to separate us not only from each other but, primarily, from ourselves. We’ve been so thrown out of synch by what we’ve been programmed to believe about ourselves. Good for you for taking back your power!

    “…and if we can’t comprehend our interconnection, we are all doomed.”

    Hmm, not sure I agree with this. Personally, I do not believe anyone is ‘doomed” because we’re all on a journey and we each do it our way. Life affords us myriad hurdles to jump in order to awaken to different aspects of ourselves, and I believe this is endless because consciousness does not end when our bodies cease to function. Our soul is on a growth path; evolution is satisfying to the soul, otherwise we feel stagnant, which is not a good feeling, and in fact, can lead to suffering. That’s what I believe and practice, in any event.

    Plus, there are those who get that we’re all connected and actually practice this belief by acting upon it, living that belief and reality supported by their actions. That would be what I consider to be embodying one’s truth and walking the talk, and then we know synchronicity, and we simply have to remember to not give others the power to sabotage us. Which takes me to–

    “In order to create change for ourselves, we have to step into our power…”

    Yes, I love this. And of course, stepping into our power means internal change because this is what we are looking to transform, given that the journey through the “mental health industry” is specifically about becoming disempowered through a variety of means about which we talk all the time on this website. My perspective is always that internal change leads to external change, from the ground up and based on truth and integrity, which would be a good shift to experience, imo–true change and transformation. Starts with each one of us, to ripple outward. That’s what I believe, in any event.

    Thanks for a thoughtful and honest article, I enjoyed reading it.

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  • Well, given that the discussion seems to be done here, I’ll just say this at this point and move on—

    What has made the idea of “suicide” impossible for me now is what I learned coming back from the dead. Those of us who subscribe to the perspective that, in reality, we are soul/spirit/energy beings who are in the process of having a human experience for the purpose of soul growth, heart expansion, and awakening to our true selves–and there are many, many, so many of us who subscribe to this; it is an ancient wisdom which, thanks to the internet, tons of people now practice this belief openly and teach it and guide and heal from it and it is manifesting the most abundantly fruitful results–know and understand that when we take our own lives and purposely interrupt our life journey due to overwhelm of despair, chronic suffering, shame, powerlessness, and generally fear-based living, then we inevitably will come back to that point so that we can, once and for all, learn what we need to learn there, and jump those hurdles. It is part of our soul growth, and we will not evolve until we get this.

    This is a belief from a specific perspective which, as I’ve said, many people all over the planet share. Not everyone sees life this way, however, and might even disparage this perspective, because it is not “scientifically based” in western scientific terms, whatever that means.

    Yet, it is a practiced belief for so many because it breaks through all of the glass ceilings, which is what cause the above named negative feelings to become chronic. Again, those damn tiny little boxes. We are soooooo much more than that.

    And when we are discouraged and belittled and shamed and diagnosed and drugged for wanting to express these unique aspects of ourselves, the result is suffering. That is inevitable, of this I’m certain. We’ve gotten so used to it and inured, but now we are being asked to awaken to this, and process it one way or another. Too much truth out there to avoid at this point. The elephants in the room are obvious and lit up for all to see.

    Point being: it can save lives to explore this perspective. I got over a lot of humps during my time of healing by remembering that I’ve gotten this far, I may as well keep going. Were I to kill myself at any time, I know I’d just have to keep repeating the same thing over and over and over again, until I learned my lessons and expanded my perspective, so that I could get what I needed from the experience, heal whatever trauma I may have incurred, and get on with my life, moving forward and in greater peace of mind.

    Exploring new consciousness like this would be the first step in transformation.

    I’ve appreciated talking about all of this, it has brought me a lot of clarity on many important things for me right now. I hope what I’ve said here can help others, or someone.

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  • “Perhaps we can stop blaming individual defectiveness and poor genetic stock, and start acknowledging that our society is sick.”

    Whatever we mean by “society is sick”–with which I agree, something is terribly amiss in our society at the core and it is adversely affecting humanity on the whole, I believe this is obvious–I’m sure it would be helpful to be specific here. How, exactly, does this manifest in our society? It affects us all, we are all part of “society.”

    When we know the root cause of any imbalance and trace the cause-and-effect ripples, we can do something about it. “Healing” (positive change, coming into balance) for society would depend on specifics, here.

    “Perhaps it’s time we do something different.”

    Yes, once we figure out/awaken to what “we” are doing wrong. Otherwise, how can we know what to do differently? In essence, that means bringing our own shadow into light, so we can integrate that, somehow. This is how evolution occurs, I believe, when we face our shadow squarely in the eye. To heal it, we have to feel it.

    But we have to do it ourselves, no one can do this for us. That will require tremendous courage and humility, which would be great expansion for humanity, I believe.

    Awakening to stuff like this is really powerful, and can bring about very strong emotions because everyone’s self-beliefs and core perceptions will be challenged; that is the nature of radical change. It’s vital to keep perspective and grounding while radical change occurs, at the core. That’s what we’re talking about here.

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  • “You, and nobody will ever know for sure what drove you to think about suicide as the ultimate solution.”

    Jclaude, I stopped reading your response right here. This is exactly the problem with these dialogues, so thank you for this glaring example.

    How on Earth would you know my reality better than I would? For the sake of helping to bring clarity around very tough issues, I am making myself vulnerable by speaking publically about something very intimate and transparent from my personal experience—on which I’ve reflected for years and years and about which I’ve spoken with people who know me and are part of my life and have been part of my journey–and you, whom I’ve never met nor do I know who you are–categorically deny it and invalidate it.

    There is a form of GASLIGHTING happening here, can’t you see that? Can’t you see that this is purely a projection on your part? How do you think it would feel to hear that you don’t know what you’re talking about with respect to your own life and experience? This is precisely what so many of us psych survivors complain fervently about. It is a personal boundary violation!

    This is why people say these environments are “unsafe,” and why we call it courage when we tell our stories. We risk exactly this, complete negation of our spirit, heart, and personal information. Do I take it personally and believe it? Of course not, I’m used to this by now. But I do feel and believe that it is painfully illustrative of a huge problem we have going here.

    Well, there’s the mental health industry for ya—in black & white. I rest my case.

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  • Given that this blog is about suicide, this thread began with my post wondering how many people take their own lives while receiving “mental health services.”

    This came from my experience of feeling driven to take my own life because psychiatry had rendered me powerless in my defenses (thanks to being drained and temporarily disoriented from neurotoxins and subsequent withdrawal), and then as a bonus, I got treated like a worthless piece of crap with, apparently, no rights, and was given a very negative prognosis for my life by therapists and psychiatrists, AFTER I ditched the drugs.

    Which, btw, was a false prophecy because my life is just fine after working hard as hell to get back on track once I left this all behind me, thank you very much. But it nearly killed me to hear what was said to me because I was believing it for a moment.

    I would say this all drove me to want to kill myself, after all the hard work I’d put into life and into my healing. It was more brutal than I can adequately put into words at this time.

    So when do we acknowledge that “something” is not working? That’s the title of this article. I don’t know, when do we?

    Regarding “alternatives,” I do a lot of alternative healing, that’s my vocation in life. Healing exists already in many shapes, sizes, and forms. It’s just a matter of researching with an open mind. We have many ways to heal, based on our beliefs about life, spirit, the mind, and the body. Psychiatry is nothing even close to this, does not resemble healing in any fashion, from what I can see.

    But the real alternative to psychiatry is humanity and empathy, because I see none here. A sound, just, and progressive society would be psychiatry-less, because this institution only interferes with nature, and it is highly corrupt, that is obvious.

    Progress and clarity exists in the world, just not anywhere near the institution of psychiatry nor anywhere in the mental health industry, from what I can gather. I’ve seen nothing that convinces me there is even a hint of “new paradigm” anywhere along this arena. It is a dead horse already, to my mind.

    The problem is all this dependence on it. That causes the kind of stress that can lead to suicide, because it’s like being caught in a web of systemic co-dependence.

    Ok, I’ve said enough here, I don’t want to keep beating that horse. I just wanted to make clear how this conversation is relevant to this article because I’m saying psychiatry can way too easily lead to suicide, in so many ways. I know people claim it helps them, and there are staunch defenders of psychiatry who are clients of it. Yet it hurt me so terribly, and I know I am not, by any stretch, the only one who can reasonably claim this.

    My question right now would be, how to reconcile this profound split? Those are two completely disparate realities. Yet, they co-exist, although not peaceably, that is certain.

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  • Thank you, yes, this is a really good summary, and it makes sense given what I’ve absorbed over the years from reading and dialoguing here.

    And I agree, this is so much more than simply “where to get help,” I think the entire perspective from which psychiatry operates, regarding “what it means to be human,” is completely askew–a painfully narrow box into which no one can really fit, it’s just not realistic. It’s pure solipsism, and in turn, inherently oppressive.

    So I think psychiatry is based on delusional thinking, to be honest. If that’s the dominant paradigm, then what it is “selling” is 100% illusion, and members of this club are making tons and tons of money committing fraud, at an extremely high cost for its takers, and for society at large. That’s the clearest conclusion I can draw from what I’ve experienced and witnessed.

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  • “And people who are concerned about “real” names should focus elsewhere. It’s a false issue. Those who don’t realize how dangerous this stuff can be need to study how this system operates, if only for their own safety.”

    People on here have been wondering how the LGBT movement has gotten so far in its efforts and I’d say one major reason is because people came out, despite the obvious dangers. I believe this level of courage may be highly relevant to the success of a movement. Otherwise, one is simply putting their fear on display, and I think the “powers that be” pick up on that, and it keeps them confident.

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  • “…but if we’re talking beliefs, don’t you think your own knowledge and experience regarding the evils of psychiatry is something from which they would benefit, and that at least a strong warning might be in order?”

    That’s why I’ve been talking about it all these years. I’ve been publically transparent with my entire process over the years. A lot of my information has evolved, I learn as I go. There is so much nuance to these issues and a vast array of conflicting perspectives. How to make sense out of any of it?

    While at first it wasn’t as a “warning” but more an attempt to educate from the perspective of my healing, it did eventually become more about calling out corruption and oppression–in addition to institutional malpractice–and to be honest, I was shocked to the degree this became the case. I’d been in the midst of it, so I had a ton of self-reflection to do as to what my beliefs were.

    What you’re noticing in me when you say “change” is, for me, specifically, healing. This is how I experience it, certainly feels better to me.

    I have a lot of friends and am well-established in my community. I work with clients and I have students. And everyone who knows me knows my story and exactly how I feel about psychiatry and “mental health” anything. I’ve diverted a lot of people away from that, I’m pleased to say.

    But other than to share my story and opinion, I have no control over whether or not I will be heard or believed or any of that. I try to be mindful of my communication, to be as clear, direct, and truthful as I know how. I may not always succeed here and I try to grow in this regard.

    But communication is also about hearing what is being said, and this is so often not the case. When I detect that, I will honor it, but will not push against it. I do not feel that is productive, and in fact, can feel exactly oppressive, considering how sensitive these issues are.

    Beliefs, in general, are very personal and reflect our values and how we perceive anything. There’s a lot to say about how we acquire them and how they impact our lives, personal realities, communication style, and relationship dynamics. Those would be whole other discussions to have.

    I do appreciate this dialogue, oldhead, and am glad we have both evolved toward common ground, perhaps? At least that might strengthen these efforts, I hope.

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  • Not sure although it seems that you are maybe asking whether I fall into the “reformist” or “abolitionist” category, to which, if that were the case, I’d say that I used to be more of reformist, when I was first waking up to how the entire field was askew and misguided. I figured there was a new dialogue to have, here, given the clarity my particular journey brought me once I had kicked the psych drugs.

    But then, after years of attempting to dialogue with so many different people in so many ways–even making a film hoping to start a new conversation–while at first things would seem to rev up a bit, it just always ended up going nowhere but south.

    And I noticed the same damn dynamics repeatedly, always amounting to shutting down dialogue just when we were getting to some truth–at least that’s how it seemed to me. Just like in 1:1 sessions, group therapies, and just plain ol’ trying to dialogue for clarity or common ground, there was just always some mechanism of defense which would inevitably deteriorate the whole thing, and usually in kind of nasty ways, it seemed, rife with negative and highly provocative projections. Every damn time.

    I keep saying “it seemed” because with all that gaslighting going on, clarity just falls by the wayside, and one simply has to trust their gut.

    Anyway, after years and years of going in circles with professionals in the field (I was in the center of things for a good long while), I gave up and now I feel what I feel, that it’s rather hopeless.

    Still, I do wonder about the folks who are dependent on the system. They do have their right to what they feel they need, as well. I do not want to dismiss that.

    So it’s a conundrum, but for the record, I am absolutely convinced there is no reforming here. I’m done trying to dialogue with the mental health industry, I am more than doubtful that this will lead to anything good. Although speaking my truth about it is vital in my path, it is how I continue to heal and grow in my clarity.

    So what are other definitions of anti-psychiatry? I’m curious to know exactly how you define that, oldhead, or by others who’ve been at this a long time as you have. I still consider myself a newbie in many ways, still learning these things.

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  • I believe that psychiatry is a dangerous institution with only negative value for society. I do understand very well that some people feel that psychiatry is necessary for them to have quality of life, and I am in no position to argue with them. So to say psychiatry should be history would be dismissing the reality of many people, and I do feel this is worthy of pause.

    However, at the same time, I know that my experience along with thousands upon thousands of testimonials which I have read and also from stories I’ve heard in person, from those whom I know personally, would add up to the institution of psychiatry being nothing more than a social vampire and extremely dangerous. Considering that psychiatry almost killed me and has killed many—not just with neurotoxins but also with crippling discrimination and dehumanization, causing egregious stress and fear/paranoia—and which certainly has been, at the very least, profoundly dispiriting for so, so many–then yes, I, personally, would like to see it in the dustbin of history, so that we could reroute, in a way more productive and fruitful way, the *enormous* amount of resources which this toxic institution sucks up so recklessly and fraudulently. At this point, just about anything would be more productive than what they are doing.

    I actually came to this thread specifically to post this article I just read, to elaborate a bit, because this is yet another thing about psychiatry which bothers me, and it will even further illustrate why psychiatry is dangerous in so many ways. This article is about the kids who have been separated from their families and who are being held in these “detention centers,” getting drugged with neurotoxins to keep them quiet.

    “One of the more gruesome details includes allegations that children at the Shiloh Treatment Center near Houston, Texas were routinely dosed with unneeded antipsychotics to keep them quiet and compliant.”

    https://gizmodo.com/lawsuit-detained-immigrant-children-in-texas-forced-to-1826997597

    They don’t mention psychiatry or psychiatrists, they just talk about the drugs which psychiatrists routinely use as tools to “serve” their clients. Problem is, I can’t tell where psychiatry ends and government oppression and cruelty begin, the lines are so blurred here. So that gives me pause, as well.

    I didn’t expect to find your question here, I just came to post this article. I hope I’m clear about where I stand. I do feel very strongly about it and feel I have so many ways to back up what I say concretely. I do not want to be ambiguous about what my truth is here. Thanks for asking.

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  • I would call these “ivory tower” perspectives. I believe being human and how we evolve in our process of life–including how we choose when to be social or not–is purely an individual matter. We all have our own unique and creative ways of doing life.

    Some people harmonize with each other and some do not. Some can co-create together like gangbusters, while others are continuously clashing and nothing really gets accomplished, aside from chronic unresolvable conflict and constant frustration. Relationship to others is a continuum, I believe, and can be fluid or rigid, depending on many things in our lives, like what our beliefs are about relationships, and what we carry in our hearts. That would be outside any box, true to who we really are rather than being a measure of someone else’s standard.

    Building boxes–aka “models”–in which people are supposed to fit will always lead to elitism, classism, inequality, prejudice, stigma, and marginalization. That is our current paradigm, over and over again, passed down from generation to generation, from revolution to revolution. No one model fits all, and I don’t believe it ever will. I would consider that to be the essence of “de-humanizing.”

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  • Same here, Auntie Psychiatry, I woke up to the truth here about 25 years after I first reached out for help. That’s when my system began to completely deteriorate and things got really, really bad all of a sudden because the drugs had been eating away at me all those years, unbeknownst to me. And then there was the introduction of the social abuse and marginalization later in life, to add insult to injury, quite literally!

    Connecting those dots was my rude awakening, and getting back on track with my life obviously meant completely annihilating psychiatry and the entire “mh” system from my life and energy. That took some doing, psychiatry proved to be costly in many ways. I had a lot of healing to do from the result of their malpractice. No other word I can use for it, it was purely systemic malpractice, and I will stand by that with all sorts of evidence and witnesses.

    And you’re right, we can’t “unawaken” from this, it is so glaring and pervasive. And while I’ve since moved on and have settled just fine into the flow of life again, in a new and transformed way, it’s also hard to forget. Seeing psychiatry continue to thrive at the expense of others is like a kick in the gut.

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  • Yes, oldhead, I believe I am anti-psychiatry, if it is defined as I see it on Wikipedia–

    “Anti-psychiatry is a movement based on the view that psychiatric treatment is often more damaging than helpful to patients. It considers psychiatry a coercive instrument of oppression due to an unequal power relationship between doctor and patient and a highly subjective diagnostic process.”

    Exactly my experience repeatedly over the years. Although thankfully, I don’t have anything to do with psychiatry or “mental health” anything any longer. For me, personally, that’s a thing of the past and I’ve done a lot of healing from the post-traumatic stress of my experience in the “mh” system. I post here on occasion now to speak my truth about it, feels good to me to do so and hopefully my voice can make a difference here.

    I know psychiatry to be an extremely dangerous institution, esteemed members of which seem to all-too-often resort to gaslighting and shaming when challenged by its critics, as though it were second nature. Absolutely ZERO reasonability, totally oppressive. Can’t say enough how sinister I think that is, whether it is conscious or not. I have found it to be intricately woven into the fabric of psychiatry and its ilk.

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  • This is fantastic article with some very poignant passages and brave, direct truth, I believe. Thank you for writing this. It was healing for me to read.

    “Our culture is exceedingly emotionally abusive. That it would find it acceptable to dismiss the pain driving suicidal ideation as weak, selfish or cowardly and continue to refuse to engage in self-reflection is but one piece of evidence of that. To think of suicide as weak, selfish or cowardly is to blame the person for being unable to continue to live in an environment that is more and more unsuitable for life. That’s gaslighting. Why are we more comfortable perpetuating a culture that seems to cheer on the extinguishing of more and more of its members as it denies any responsibility for their deaths than we are working toward creating something human beings can actually thrive in? What have we become?”

    This is so powerful and rings as unequivocal truth to me. Perfect questions, too. I would add, “How can we transform?”

    “…even if suicide were weak, we need to ask what’s wrong with being weak. Who is telling us that being weak is categorically a failure or deserves criticism?”

    Thank you, yes, we are Human. No one is strong all the time, that would not be human. Humility is part of being human, and sometimes it is thrust upon us, and we feel our humanness. We’re far from perfect. Is that ok?

    And especially when we are weakened by not only toxic chemicals but also by a toxic double-binding dismissive, dehumanizing, and marginalizing environment, we are particularly vulnerable because our defenses have been so systematically worn down. That’s not a fair fight, injustice and power abuse is all over this. Fighting chronic barrages of grotesquely negative projections and shaming stigma can be more than a person can handle after a while. It is life-force draining.

    Oh yeah, how on earth can we influence change here? Feels like alarms are going off. Wake up call to some new kind of humbling truth, perhaps? There’s a missing piece here.

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  • I would be interested to see numbers related to how many people take their own lives while receiving “services.” I was surrounded by “professionals” at the time of my attempted suicide, none of whom thought to ask me what was going through my mind that I felt that suicide was the answer for me. I wasn’t asked how I was feeling, I was told by how I looked what I was feeling.

    And I remember this one psych nurse who, on my first night in the hospital, laid sooo much guilt on me for not thinking of others in my life. She hadn’t a clue of my life, my past, or what I’d been through, but she effortlessly projected her judgmental opinion onto me. The shrink who saw me while I was in the hospital “accused” me of being manipulative. I was in shock and said nothing, hardly being able to speak above a whisper anyway, and he stormed out of the room frustrated. I thought about doing it all over again.

    I remember every moment of my life, including what led up to this, the beliefs I was holding and where they came from, and why I was so vulnerable at that moment. I was seeing a shrink twice a week because I was told I had to–which turned out was a complete lie, but it was the program I was running from the brainwashing system and my mind was so messed up from the psych drugs withdrawal, I really had a hard time thinking for myself during that time; I was painfully confused and disoriented, so I did what I was told, out of fear and intimidation.

    I remember every moment of hanging in the balance between life and death, and even my consciousness leaving my body. Nope, things don’t go black–in fact, it becomes an enormously colorful and vivid landscape of energy. It’s as if I learned more in those few seconds than I had in my entire life on Earth.

    Somehow, I chose to stick around and got myself back into my body, feeling I now had a mission on Earth, and I’ve since followed that path and continue to this day–to help raise the frequency of this planet. We are, after all, energy, and we do give out vibrational signals which can be felt by others (people with a sense of empathy, who are not walled up, which is another factor in all this), and we are all connected as a field of energy. Like it or not.

    After getting out of the hospital after a few days, I never took another chemical drug for anything and went all natural for the remainder of my healing journey, learning radically new perspectives that were FINALLY working for me, and a new and way improved reality began to unfold for me. Never again would I step foot into a psychiatrists office, and instead, I focused on healing my heart and spirit from repeated wounding and the lowest self-esteem ever. I had to own up to my choices and I worked hard to shift my perspective and self-beliefs. Changed me on the inside and led to wonderful changes on the outside.

    I’m a different person today than I was 16 years ago, all guided by these monstrous experiences. So at least they were meaningful and useful. Still, I believe there are easier ways to grow and evolve than going deep into an oppressive and dangerous system. That is my main point here. That is what is not working here and going so,so wrong. THE SYSTEM. Personally, I think all systems are failing now and new ways of doing things are being presented worldwide.

    But specifically, this “mental health/illness/disability” system is the hub of hypocrisy and fraud. From my experience, I honestly do not feel it is redeemable. It is a toxic beast and needs to be put to rest, for everyone’s sake. That is my conclusion from my experience in it. There are tons of ways to find healing, clarity, grounding, balance, and wholeness. “Mental health services” is not one of them, and to me, seems to mostly rely on making people dependent on them. Sorry to those in the field, but truth is truth. WAKE UP!!!

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  • Thank you, Susan, your kind words are very much appreciated. It’s been a humbling journey, as life can often be. I haven’t spoken publically about this in a while but it seems as though it’s time to lift all the veils if we are to know truth.

    And it’s definitely time for soul growth and heart expansion if we are to move forward from what we have going on now, which. indeed, does not appear to be working for the vast majority of humanity. I try to be the best example I can be, although life does wear on us all. My faith is deep now, and that matters more than anything, as far as inspiring me to, once and for all, embrace my life in terms of gratitude, appreciation, love, and infinite creativity.

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  • Thank you so much for sharing this, knowledgeispower. I just watched the whole thing and not only found it extremely interesting–and I definitely agree with her– but also I’m pretty much living proof of what she is saying about how we can totally rewire ourselves and create all sorts of positive changes this way. My years long healing from “mental health/illness” industry-related internal mayhem was made possible by applying things such as neuroplasticity, shifting all sorts of old and outdated thought patterns, beliefs, and impulses based on defensiveness and fear.

    In fact, in the middle of my journey through the “mh” system, surrounded by all sorts of clinicians, case managers, and social workers while all the while feeling extremely hopeless, discouraged, and completely alone in my mad mind and in the dark, I did attempt to take my own life and it came scarily close to working. I was seriously fucked up after this, but I got out of the hospital and within a few weeks was at voc rehab. Long story here, but I trudged on, thanks to the hope I was receiving OUTSIDE of the “mh” world. This was 16 years ago and today, nothing could be further from my thoughts now, I love my life, ups and downs, challenges and all.

    I was also able to shift my nervous system by taking some risks and really putting myself out there, while knowing where my support was. Over the years, I learned entirely new perspectives based on my experience going through the dark side of life for a while. I continue to learn as I go, and in essence shift my internal landscape.

    I’ve lived with my partner for 33 years now who has witnessed change after change after change in me, thanks to the kind of healing work I do. He thinks it’s awesome and miraculous, and has followed suit and, in turn, has also been able to shift his old traumas and outdated brain habits, while nourishing his nervous system with hardy healing energies (e.g., gratitude, as you mention, and easing up on judgments to feel more compassion). We’ve both changed radically over the years–out of necessity!

    And, indeed, it has changed our outer world. Thanks to many converging factors, I lived with underlying fears and insecurities for a long time into adulthood, and then with a lot of anger and resentment as I woke up to how this society worked, and the profound post traumatic stress the system had left me with, even after I had finally gotten disentangled from it all and detoxed my system physically, emotionally, and spiritually (energetically). I did so much healing work with a variety of teachers in a few different healing communities, which amounted to allowing our internal systems come back into their natural balance and alignment. From there, life really changes in so many ways. That is quite a transformative process–I’d call it a miracle of nature.

    Lots more to it, like learning the process of “transmuting energy,” and also what it means to have a soul journey and purpose.

    But yes, I love the work which Tania is doing as shown here because it speaks to change motivated by introspection and self-awareness, each of us responsible for our own energy and what we are putting out into the world, the collective. In turn, I believe the more we can practice inner peace, the more we are creating peace in the world. How can that not be true?

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  • Everyone could stand to be a bit kinder, a bit more patient, and a bit less judgmental–and this applies to self as well as to others. Being the example of what we expect from others can go a long way.

    Still, another issue is that we live in a world where bullies can win (as pointed out in Noel’s previous article). This can be a very rude and discouraging awakening to profound social injustice that can lead to overwhelming frustration, despondence, and, eventually, hopelessness. What is the point of living oppressed, in constant fear, and with our hearts and spirits invisible to others? I honestly do not believe life is intended to be this way, and eventually, it catches up with us in the most unsettling of ways, draining us of our life force. Yet, this is what it has become for what seems to be the majority of the planet.

    A world in which kindness and patience can prosper feels attractive to me, where bullies do not win because, as a society, we do not enable power abuse. That will be some radical change, and not without resistance. Yes, livelihoods will be at stake here, and other hard truths are bound to surface, throwing into question a lot of long held personal beliefs. That would be the process of radical transformation which would need to occur here, imo.

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  • I highlighted this because, to me, it is the grand paradox here to ascend. How can clarity occur where there is chronic deceit happening? Whether or not it is intentional deceit or simply unconscious from habit because this is what the culture requires in order to survive, it still amounts to smoke and mirrors. I’d call it “the program,” or dominant paradigm.

    We’re talking about a population in which so many are justifiably distrustful due to severe betrayal issues. Lots of wounding here, and then re-wounding when one goes through these “systems” (“mental health” system, “disability” system, “social services,” etc.). I am speaking from my own experience and what I’ve heard and read online and off from others over the years.

    And yes, I totally agree with what you say about this being a huge universal issue at the core of it all. We do live in a corrupt and unjust world at present; but to me, for a system of so-called “health care” of any kind–or some kind of social support, in any case–to be such a powerful arm of that oppression would, indeed, point toward perhaps it being the core of it, given the obvious irony.

    That is gaslighting en masse, and it has created absolute chaos because it affects the brain, how we think and perceive, and even how we strategize our lives. It’s caused us to live in a great deal of anxiety, because it is so hard to know who and what to trust.

    Shifting away from gaslighting is an entire paradigm shift, imo, toward integrity. That, alone, will instigate a lot of changes, I believe, because it will generate clarity.

    I hope this speaks to you, Matt, because I appreciate the work you are doing and I do like how you are addressing these issues. It speaks to me.

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  • Either projected, introjected, or implied, shame is toxic. Those who project it onto others are not owning their own lack of self-worth and feel threatened (fear) in the face of differences, I would imagine. These are communities which attempt to marginalize others, the weapon being “shame.” Those projected onto would be the scapegoats of that community, to keep “the shadow” at bay, so to speak.

    But one cannot be marginalized or scapegoated if one has a good sense of self and knows where their community of affinity is. Where there is affinity, there can be no shame. Conversely, where there is shame, there can be no affinity. That’s what I believe makes it toxic.

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  • Beautiful, Michele, your insights are pristine and I love how you describe your goals and client work. It’s so similar to my own healing path and also my intention with clients/students–releasing the old and transmuting energy in order to access our innate creativity to make manifest the future from present time visions and high heart vibrations aligning with who we are as spirit. That’s my exact process now, as well. Very cool!

    I have a healing and performing arts center which 3 of us founded and have been creating and operating for the past few years. The work we do is based on exactly what you describe, as far as releasing old energy and updating our beliefs in order to align in present time mind/body/spirit awareness so that we may know our selves, purpose, journey, creative process & spirit and work with it in the most efficient and joyous ways possible. Pure empowerment for the purpose of embodying our innate freedom and unlimited creative potential. We also have a band which performs over the holidays for community service, which is part of our purpose.

    My intention is to influence individual and community alignment and uplift, toward unity consciousness. To my mind, it’s all about bringing light to the planet (or allowing it in, depending on one’s perspective), for healing and manifesting purposes.

    The most interesting part of this for me, is that we all have diverse ways of channeling light, no one-size-fits-all here. I love learning these processes because they are so incredibly diverse, and each one of great and equal value to humanity.

    Overall, the framework I use for healing and manifesting work is ascension and multi-dimensional consciousness, to streamline the mind/body/connection for ease, clarity, and deep trust in one’s process. That’s the path I’m on currently and what I share in my work. Not sure whether or not you are familiar with “the ascension process,” per se, but it is exactly what you are describing with your work.

    Fascinating stuff, Michele, and congratulations for embodying your purpose as you are. Working with the universe can get rather mind-blowing, can’t it? I find it to be magical, in the most unexpected ways. Keep it up and, indeed, Namaste!

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  • A lot of similarities in our stories, although my psychiatric nightmare began in 1982, and I finally came off of all psych drugs in 2001. Started with a few pills, changed a lot over the years, and all the while I was actually working full time in corporate retail, never disabled. It was painful at times, but somehow, I managed and thought I’d be on the pills for the rest of my life, as I was also programmed to believe all the crap about chemical imbalance. As long as I could do all that I wanted to do, I was ok with taking the pills, I thought that was my option in life, if I wanted to live a full life. I figured I’d do my best to live with the side effects. This was life, as I saw it back then.

    It all went south when I started graduate school in counseling psychology. At the same time that I was discovering and moving through the underbelly of society (aka the so-called “mental health” industry), all those pills began to backfire on me, after having taken them dutifully for 15 years. Turns out they had been gradually chipping away at my well-being, toxifying my brain and other vital organs. I’d been doing regular Dr. visits as per protocol, my vital signs would vacillate a great deal, I’d have panic attacks, then the psych drugs regimen would change. This went on for a decade and a half until one shrink ended me up on 9 psych drugs and others to combat side effects. Almost killed me, and naturally, greatly diminished my functioning.

    With the help of a medical intuit and highly trained and seasoned herbalist, both of whom I was most fortunate to find, I finally began to taper in order to save my life. No one around me had ever done this and no one knew what to expect, so upon graduating, I took the plunge and over a period of several months was finally off of absolutely everything, after almost 20 years of living with these drugs disintegrating me.

    What followed was a journey through the public mental health system which was such a brutal awakening, took me years to recover from the trauma of social abuse. It was truly my dark night journey–horrific and awesome at the same time.

    Like you, I began to work with natural healing and I ended up attending a 3 year energy healing program which began my recovery and healing in full force. I subsequently trained with a variety of healers in different healing communities, synthesizing what I was learning and applying it to myself. Just that self-engagement and self-empowerment alone was profoundly healing. In fact, it was transformational.

    Eventually, I, too, left the city and moved to the country with my partner. Internal shifts leading to environmental changes. Seemed like the natural next step for us, and it has been extremely rewarding. We’ve been able to create a great deal, living in nature.

    I love your message and of course I am fully in synch with it. I’ve since left psychology behind altogether, to instead work with our spiritual natures in how that relates to our emotional and physical bodies. That was the door which opened up the universe to me. As a long-time activist, I have found that working with the energy of light is extremely helpful and supportive. Keeps me grounded and in present time, on the pulse of the energy at hand.

    Thank you so much for sharing your story and for shining your light as you are.

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  • I think it’s true that a really powerful sense of self combats shaming, scapegoating, shunning, and marginalizing because when we are well-grounded in our personal reality, we can ascend the temptation to identify with the projection– and, in turn, falling victim to it–by perceiving these not as personal attacks, but more so, we can attribute the need to project such blatant negativity onto others as a symptom of a toxic society, which I believe is truth. Those that project shame live in glass houses, guaranteed.

    Shame is a toxic energy, the way radioactive waste spoils the environment. Shame is dispiriting and greatly diminishes life force, leading to all sorts of illness and self-neglect. It’s also been known to kill people.

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  • “The notion of ‘sanism’ might help pinpoint the othering which takes place and the legitimising for people to project their fears unto sufferers maybe an alternative to ‘mental illness’…”

    Yep, it’s all based on projections. What is real vs. what is illusion is up for grabs. It’s an entire culture based on gaslighting–which is inherently confusing and crazy-making. That’s the idea.

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  • Just to finally bring it around to what I had originally quoted from your article, Emily, and my point based on my experience relating to what you said, simply put: this is exactly the attitude I got from the system, and in general, there is no recourse because it is systemic and people will say all sorts of things to deflect from facing their own shadow, and that of their entire system.

    For me, it started in graduate school and followed me all the way through–day treatment, public health facilities, voc rehab, professional advocacy, Dept of rehabilitation, etc.–every darn layer of that world.

    I saw the common thread, and it is exactly what you are saying, these are great examples you offer and I have tons more. Some are in the film I made years ago, Voices That Heal. This was my reason for making it, to call out systemic abuse. And I got a lot of gaslighting from the system, and even “advocacy,” in return (along with praise and validation, thank goodness! The film polarized, which was an interesting community response, felt powerful to me).

    My particular point is that this is the behavior exemplified from within the so-called “mental health” and “social service” industries, especially when calling them out…on ANYTHING! Tragic irony, imo.

    I think we’re conditioned this way, to turn it back on the truth-speaker/whistleblower/griever so as to avoid taking self-responsibility and face the changes we’d more than likely feel compelled to make after such an awakening revelation. But we can shift that if we so desire, although not everybody wants to, or feels they can. That would be a personal choice/belief.

    I feel it’s quite complicated and lots of different dialogues to have here, but again, I appreciate your truth of the matter because it does match my experience. And I think it’s a huge core problem here, those specific dynamics. They are scapegoating, marginalizing, and overall, sabotaging. Keeps everyone dazed and confused, and the system running merrily along, all challenges to it annihilated through means of “othering (shaming).” Thanks again for pointing it all up and bringing this dynamic to light.

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  • Thanks, Emily, although seriously, I am not at all sorry as it was truly one of the most powerfully healing experiences of my life, 14-15 years ago. I went from this to finding my true path, enrolling in an energy healing program and also in a singing and performance class. Been doing both of these since. They were the precursors to what I’m doing now, which is running a healing and arts program which I created and designed.

    In addition, I woke up to how bullies are running the show. I felt like a canary in a coal mine, predicting the leadership we have in place today. It’s entirely the same energy and dynamic. So this has fueled my transformation perfectly, forever altering my perceptions and beliefs about society, humanity, and myself. Best education of my life.

    As far as stopping future abuse, well, I hope in the long run this is true. I’ve been calling out systemic abuse for a long time in all sorts of areas–from my family to the “mental health” industry–and it goes beyond falling on deaf ears, it only gets worse. Yes, it is all those things you mention above, especially the gaslighting. These habits do not break easily, they are multi-layered. I’ve found that, in the end, it’s best to walk away and trust one’s process.

    Leaps of faith are necessary to break systems such as these. Systems do not change easily and there always seems to be a new justification or rationalization for abuse, which is what makes it systemic. Hopefully, we’re making at least some kind of dent here, with dialogues such as these. It’s a hard awakening, I understand this, and it takes many players to hold a system in place, not just “the bully.”

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  • “This is what I experienced as someone labeled mentally ill. I was literally considered responsible for the abuses I had to survive. ‘If you didn’t want to get locked up, you should’ve kept your mouth shut, instead of blabbing about your suicidal thoughts,’ one psychiatric nurse said to me. ‘You were a real danger to yourself. You should be grateful people cared enough about you to get you committed to a hospital where you could get treatment. You shouldn’t be complaining about it,’ I heard from countless friends and family members.”

    This really struck a chord with me, big time. Insidious abuse, and most unfortunately, I have found it to be the norm in pretty much all of mainstream society–but, indeed, rampant and standard procedure in the “mental health”-related world. It is crazy-making. Finally, I was able to cut through this in a legal action, which only occurred because I kept getting these kinds of responses from my co-workers in social services. And they actually liked me, quite a bit! It was, indeed, “for my own good.” They were trying to correct me, to help me save my job.

    I’d gone from client to staff at a “non-profit” vocational rehabilitation agency, and in that process of “rehabilitation”–despite doing unequivocally successful work with clients given that I was extremely empathic to their journey at that point, all of us getting back to work after a period of disability–I’d make mistakes here and there with respect to what management expected in terms of communication, stuff like that, and they’d go to great lengths to reprimand, punish, and stonewall me when I attempted to respond in defense of myself. It was insanely trivial, and had nothing to do with my work with clients. The “rehabilitation” aspect of this eluded me, which is something I pointed out in my eventual mediation. It was more like bully methods of management, given their attitude toward the population they were contracted and granted money to “serve.”

    My situation turned into out and out bullying, extremely abusive, and people knew it, it was obvious. I was still recovering from psych drugs damage after only a few months of having started my withdrawal, and I was pretty meek overall, very shaky in, both, my body and in my self-worth, even though my work with clients went well, I was intuitive with this. Didn’t matter. I favored client issues over management ego, and that truly got me into trouble.

    I was denied support and advocacy in favor of facing panels of management on my own, including one private 1-1 meeting with the President of this agency which was so off the charts, I put in writing how unsafe I felt being alone with this guy. Denial of support at that time was a huge legal infraction, and I knew it. They wouldn’t hear of it, and condemned me for suggesting that I was being discriminated against and was having my rights as a transitioning employee denied. So, I shouldn’t have said it? No way I could not, it was too blatant to not call it out.

    And doing so began my journey back to self-respect after 3+ years of taking CRAP from the system because of how I’d been programmed by my upbringing. This was my awakening, finally, to systemic bullying and abuse. What also awoke in me was the post-traumatic stress from all this. I had no idea how badly the public therapists and social workers (including the ones I liked, who had become my friends; they just didn’t know better, it was the example set in the system) had been affecting me until I saw it for what it was. Then, I could start to heal from this, and it runs deep, as many of us know.

    Not thinking it would be possible to find a free lawyer, I started taking steps to look for work elsewhere, but in that process, they fired me because I was not letting them control me this way and I had “the nerve” to fight back and own my personal power. How I was working with clients had nothing to do with anything, it was all about control, and it was so abusive, it was hard for people to believe. But an attorney did and then a mediator did when it was proven beyond a doubt. This agency is no longer in existence. They preferred to close rather than to change their view about people who have been diagnosed as “mentally ill/disabled”, which was the population they served. Really over the top abuse, Dickensian-style.

    Given that it was my first job in a few years and I was really enjoying so much working with clients again–and doing very well on top of it judging by how I was able to match clients with work they liked—I tried in all directions to work things out with them, and especially, I turned to my co-workers, a couple of whom I had become friends with, and asked for their feedback.

    The reason I ended up taking legal action is because as I was trying to get some clarity and support in order to work things out as they were doing this systematically over a couple of months, my co-workers–who were sympathetic because they did like me quite a bit, but who were so scared of management–did blame me for what was happening because I was not “playing the game.” I was told “don’t say this” and “don’t say that,” management is really sensitive.

    One of them told me how “vicious” the President of this place could be if “crossed,” (which didn’t take much for him to feel this way, apparently) so I should learn to “shut my mouth.” She told me this in this very loving way, she wanted to help me save my job and not make waves, that it would come back to haunt and I’d lose my job. She was right of course.

    This co-worker had also been client-to-staff, years before me, and had been passed over for promotion quite often, another elephant in the office. I could understand that she was happy to be working at all, I felt really fortunate to be working again. But at what cost, if the price is “take the abuse!”? Standing outside of it, it seems obvious that we would not want to take the abuse. But when working after a period of not working and not having money, things can get blurry. The problem is, the system knows this, and they take full advantage of it, which is nothing short of oppression through blatant power abuse.

    That is a powerful and debilitating double-bind, purely systemic abuse, where victims of the system are, in turn, driven by fear to enable that same system. Calling it out, distancing from it—both really good actions, I think. That is just too toxic for words.

    Thanks for the insightful article, some great truths here I think.

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  • Very courageous and inspiring story. I agree that self-love is vital, to know the feeling of love at all. That is transformational. When we perceive our challenges as our guidance to personal growth and expanding our awareness, it is win/win, and our capacity for love and compassion increases. I believe that is the most powerful healing of all, and has the potential to radically change how we experience life, and reality in general.

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  • My clarity, grounding, sense of self, and overall well-being improved a great deal when I finally recognized the energy vampirism happening around me, rejected it wholly and unequivocally, transmuted frustration into courage, and then moved toward a more heart-based consciousness and community. When what I was looking for eluded me in the world, I created it myself. We do have that power and privilege.

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  • “People are suffering because society thinks it’s funny to humiliate and torture them.”

    Or at least because it causes the bully to feel powerful at the expense of others–which is not power, of course, it’s pure cowardice and delusional thinking. “Bully” and “victim” are two sides of the same coin, and indeed, a powerful system of enabling allows this all to perpetuate. Breaking the system is not an easy feat, but I don’t see any way forward without doing so. Being different is our innate creativity and breaks new ground.

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  • Hi Gabi, sorry for delayed response, just saw this. I’m not on the internet much nor tend to post too much these days, but I appreciate your asking for clarity of my intention here so I wanted to give you the best response I can in the moment. What you ask is fair and to respond truly in full would be more detailed now that I can handle; in fact it would be a class, workshop or thesis because our frameworks seem to be radically different. Which is fine, I think that’s natural diversity, but it can impede clarity in communication due to language and interpretation, based on our points of views, beliefs, personal cultures, etc.

    I have attempted to have this conversation online numerous times—regarding “blame” vs. the cause-and-effect nature of energy, and it rarely goes well because these are really different perspectives, and emotions come up galore, which is reasonable, but there needs to be some mindful navigation of this to make it productive, imo.

    “Blame” is fraught with judgment and cause-and-effect is neutral, simply how things work. People can argue about what cause is creating what effect, but that actually has to potential to lead to productive and necessary clarity, whereas “who is to blame?” will never lead to anything but hard feelings, defensiveness, and further conflict.

    I look at these things differently now. I used to ask the kinds of questions you are asking, but that led me, personally, nowhere, whereas now I ask different questions to guide me and move me forward into new clarity.

    You say, “I have no idea how someone without faith could find a way to continue…” I agree, I don’t know either. All I was interested in after grad school was to heal and then get back to work in the world. Turning to “mental health industry” for support only got me sicker and disabled, when I was attempting to go in the other direction.

    The energy and spiritual work (as in, getting to know who I am as a “spirit being,” above and beyond being a “human being,”) is what opened my eyes to new consciousness, so I began to ask new kinds of questions—like, “what are these contracts all about?” referring to my relationship with my own partner. Although I can ask it about any relationship–family members, business partners, friends, enemies, strangers I meet on the street (if that makes a particular impact on me), etc., especially when they are problematic and filled with double-binding situations.

    I believe we operate as per spiritual contracts, that is a core part of my belief system.

    “Double-bind” is a big term for me, I find it to be the essence of “oppression,” which is the main energy I like to address in healing because without getting past that, we’re kind of screwed, I think, and will never be able to fully own our power, which to my mind is inherently detrimental to our well-being.

    That is where I believe we are all equal. We all suffer when we feel oppressed or when we’ve internalized oppression from having lived in an oppressive community or situation. Right now, I believe we’re all feeling it, on one level or another. Seems to be the essence of life in our global society at present, which is what I believe we’re attempting to shift, into more of a feeling of personal freedom. That is healthful on every level, I believe.

    Another thing I believe is universal is that we’re all better off when we can heal this oppression, inside and out. I don’t pit husband against wife or partner against partner or parent against child. In my work and practice—as well as with myself in my own life—I ask, “What is the energy here which is problematic and which is causing stress for everyone concerned?” I feel that is a neutral statement and everyone has a piece of the responsibility. That takes some examination and introspection, as everyone has growth opportunities here, and that is how a system will change through evolution.

    As always, there is so much more to say about this, but I do hope this is a clear response to what you are asking. I wouldn’t say you are being “oversensitive,” I totally understand what you are asking, and why you might interpret what I’m saying as “blaming the partner.” In my relationship, there were things I learned I could do better and there were things my partner learned he could do better. For me, overall, my partner HAD to grow quite a bit before I could really begin to heal. Otherwise, we’d simply be repeating the same dynamic which was not healthy for either one of us, and that is a provable fact, were you to hear the story in detail.

    In the end, he credits my healing for his spiritual and emotional growth, because we were connected that way. But I’m the one that sought this pathway of healing and trusted it. If anyone would have left this relationship due to abusive and double-binding ways, it would have been me. But I’m the one that stuck around and instead chose to have a breakdown (not consciously, but I can see this easily looking back) instead of abandoning the relationship.

    It was treacherous for us both for years and we didn’t know if we could make it through, but at my insistence and persistence, he began to see the cause-and-effect of his energy and, after a lot of resistance, he finally took the same healing path I did, so that he could make core shifts, and that’s when I was able to get back to my innate creativity and grow in all sorts of ways. As a result, we both found our own rhythms and learned to work in unison.

    We are devoted to each other, having both come through our tunnels of darkness, and into the light. But this, only after spending years and years in conflict, confusion, and chaos supreme, and filled with fear that life had disillusioned us both. We trudged forth, examining our contracts and taking full responsibility for each of our paths, energy, and experience of life, and that’s how we came out on the other side unified.

    I’ve said a lot, and I hope at least some of it helps in some way. Very tough situation, I do get this. I followed the light, as it were, and it worked. I got this from Kabbalah, co-creating with the light. I’m Jewish, too, and Kabbalah spoke to me as part of my work. Plus, it overlapped with Chakra work, Law of Attraction, and Buddhist principles of healing. I studied and trained in all of these communities to get as broad perspective as I could on energy, and how it related to the human experience. My conclusion at the end of it all was: we are spiritual beings having a human experience. I live by that and so does my partner. For us, it works because it is our truth, through and through.

    Very, very best wishes to you, Gabi, as you move forward from where you are now.

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  • Ok, great, I had thought as such but I’m glad I checked in because I wanted to make sure we had that clarity between us. These issues can be so tricky to discuss openly, especially online. I understand all of our emotional investments in our well-being, and that of our families.

    Yes, any crisis can be exhausting but what we are talking about is yet to be determined in so many ways, which makes it abstract, with so many irreconcilable opinions and perspectives. That is quite a powerful bomb! And as you know, it is, at the core, energy—which, indeed, shakes us up, that’s the whole point because it leads to making us more conscious of ourselves, that is, more awake to who we are.

    How you and your husband experimented with different ways of being is, again, very moving to me, because I can sense how it comes from the heart, to be supportive and help your son to feel his power. In your blog here, you talk about “cellular frequency,” and to me, what you describe can be called “shifting frequency.”

    Life IS an experiment for all of us, and we are naturally flexible, as you have obviously learned. I believe this is a gift for us, to have the ability to shift frequency. We can do this every day until we find the frequency that works for us, and then it will shift again because that is the nature of life, like a river. Sometimes it is placid and relaxing and we can enjoy the fruits of our creative labor thus far; and other times we are in the rapids and have to be more alert to keep balance during rough waters. They are finite, after all, the river is always shifting how it runs its course. Sounds like you are done with the rapids and are ready for a nice, calm lagoon. I know the feeling!

    In energy work, a basic core energy we work with is energy of “ease,” which we can focus into being with intention. That is a very nice and supportive frequency to apply. Doesn’t make challenges go away, but it does help highlight where we can make things a bit easier for ourselves so that the double binding knots kind of untie themselves and we can move forward with a smoother flow.

    Lots more to say about all this, but I will stop here for the sake of this dialogue. You have my contact info if I can be of any further assistance, so please feel free to use it at any time. Many blessings to you and your family for the journey hardily and heartily taken!

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  • Rossa, I’m sure you know the utter respect I have for you–at least I hope you have felt this over the years–and I sincerely hope that my perspective here does not undermine this. I’ve worked with families and especially with mothers, and each time my heart opens wider and wider, and my understanding of “the heart of the family” deepens. I can easily feel the anguish, confusion, and the family distress which revolves around dealing with all of this, and I can certainly relate to it, from my own past and from having heard my family’s truth as I spoke mine.

    And I say “all of this” because, honestly, I don’t know how else to put it. What, exactly, is it that we are “dealing with,” here? I believe the jury is still out on this one. Families are families, each one with its own set of unique history, dynamics, contracts, and truth, and that is a highly complex and personal issue.

    My beef, of course, is directly with the “professional” aspect of all this (psychiatry, psychotherapy, social services–aka “the system”) because a few people are making tons of money on what I consider to be a smokescreen, at best, and leaving clients in the dust. Certainly my personal experience with these institutions was abysmal, and turned out, in the end, to be seriously dangerous–and for me, almost fatal. Although after all these years of doing so, I’m done with battling the system. I’ve won a few and lost a few, and I grew into myself from speaking my truth about my experience–kind of a soul-retrieval, if you will.

    My main interest now is to offer whatever information I can from my perspective that will help to bring clarity to the situation, so that we can break this cycle of suffering, one way or another. Again, we’re all doing our best, and, indeed, everyone involved suffers. I’d like to help alleviate that aspect of it, whenever and wherever possible, while still taking care of myself in the process. I think from there, a lot will move forward and new and better dynamics will manifest.

    “They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.”

    This is so interesting because it could be a quote from the one diagnosed (“IP”). I believe the idea of being “punished” (negative consequences) for not going by the established “rules of the game” is exactly what we’re talking about all over this website and when it comes to activism in general. This is the double-binding oppression in which we’ve all existed, and from which people are generally looking to free themselves (at least I think that’s the case, but I’m not going to speak for others). I do believe hardily that truth and authenticity are what lead to clarity, healing, and freedom, whereas deceit is an overt distraction from these.

    Truth-speaking is also a courageous path exactly for this reason, because society will attempt to punish those who follow their own path and veer away from the norm of the community. Leaps of faith are inherent to transformation. It’s not easy, but from my experience, enriching and rewarding, and a game-changer. I think we need that just about now.

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  • Samruck, thanks for the response, although I do not identify with being ignorant about these issues. I simply offered my perspective from my experience. I don’t see it as “an attitude,” the way you put it. My only interest and focus is that people be allowed to heal by whatever process suits them best, and that is for them to discover and decide, along with, perhaps, whatever support they trust and with whom they feel safe, for feedback. Period.

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  • Hi Gabi, very thoughtful reply, thank you. I appreciate your openness in hearing my perspective and for sharing from where you are coming.

    I’m a psychiatric survivor with my own complex and thorough story of many years drugged, then rugged withdrawal which took a few years, then really great holistic healing came my way, and I even pursued a legal action against the system, for discrimination, which I won. I had been a Marriage Family Therapist intern back in the late 90s, but I defected the field when I realized it was only crashing me–and because it was so obviously based on power dynamics and “othering,” which is what my awakening was really about–whereas subsequent years of energy healing and training worked wonders for me, and is based on radical self-responsibility. I found that in particular to be empowering, as well as opening the doors to radical healing.

    I’ve also been married for 33 years. I was the one with diagnoses and on drugs, but we both had our own demons to face at the same time. It was not a one-sided situation, not in the slightest. Our story of multiple role-reversals during this very intense time for us, that we tell together, opens a lot of eyes. I’ll just say that for now. Perhaps one day we’ll write a book together, when the timing seems right for us to do so.

    On the other side of all this, I’m a mind/body/spirit energy healing practitioner, meditation teacher, musical performer, and I’ve made a feature length film regarding stigma and discrimination in the mental health system which got passed around various mental health communities.

    My story, at the core, is of family healing. That is what I base my entire journey on, starting from before diagnosis, 36 years ago. I have since healed with my family, finally, and in order to do so, the roles HAD to change. Otherwise, I would have been stuck in the same role as always, and at my age (in my 50s), that’s not really an attractive prospect, so I did tons of work in this vein for years and years–involving a lot of challenging truth-communicating, and also shifts in my own perspective and self-perception, and it has paid off handsomely.

    I’m well-individuated from all that, and it’s hard for them, but I’m still there for them when they need support. It was extremely challenging to break the family system, but I believe everyone is better off for it, because at that point, our paths became our own, and I ceased to be enmeshed in that system. I know with certainty that this is what allowed me to heal in the way I had wanted to and that I envisioned I could, when no one else thought I would. Well, I did!

    I guess that, overall, each situation is unique and brings with it unique circumstances which we all do try to address best we can with what we know at that moment. I very much admire your insights regarding your situation, and your obvious fortitude. Not easy situations at all, but indeed, we learn and grow from them. My hope for myself and others always is that suffering can fall by the wayside to be replaced with enjoying life–at least some of the time!

    “At the end of the day, the situation is one long reminder that we can never understand another person and have to judge favorably as far as possible.”

    Love this, and yes I agree, we learn to deepen our compassion–for others and also for ourselves. If we allow ourselves to become drained and tattered, we are no good to anyone. At the same time, we have the opportunity to expand our hearts, and to me, that is what personal growth and healing are all about. It’s a delicate balance, and we learn as we go.

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  • “…it’s upsetting for some readers to entertain the idea that they create challenges.”

    It’s true, people can easily resist being mirrored as “challenging,” and often, quite vehemently and defensively (which is challenging in and of itself!). The thing is that this can apply in all directions. I don’t know anyone who cannot pose difficult challenges for another person. I know I have at times, for others, and others have been very challenging for me to deal with. I think it’s how we grow in life, depending on how we address (or not) our challenges, especially in relationship to others.

    When a group of people sit around and discuss how challenging one particular person can be (especially with a label attached), then you are duplicating the “mental health system” because it is based on exactly this dynamic–which is how marginalization occurs, which is exactly systemic abuse, and quite cruel and disempowering at that.

    Everyone goes through passages and transitions in life and can be extremely challenging to deal with at one time or another–kids, parents, patients, doctors, lawyers, teachers, students, presidents, and on and on. Being “a challenge to others” is not a trait assigned to people in one role or another; it is across the social boards and shifts on a continuum, I believe that is natural. Otherwise, you are creating an “identified patient,” which means that this one person will be expected to carry the burden for all that is off balance in that particular community. That’s the problem in all of this, because I don’t see how that can ever be the case, and really sets a person up for failure in life, easily, because they internalize this role.

    The real challenge here is healing this internalized identity, which would mean to find one’s own power and voice in all of this. It is most definitely possible, but it takes a commitment to the healing process as it relates to transformation, because this is what is necessary, I believe, to shift internalized powerlessness-making self-identities.

    I think it’s important to understand that we’re all on a journey of healing and growth, equally. How can that NOT be the case? For me, that is the point of Rossa’s book. At least when I read it, this is one of the main things I took away from it, and I thought it illustrated this perfectly. This is her journey, alongside her son’s journey, which is a separate process of healing and personal evolution. Although one journey does spur another, which is natural and how we are inspired–another way in which nature connects us.

    The assigned roles (patient, doctor, caregiver, et al) are merely different perspectives along the collective journey, which puts each person’s story into a social context. Everyone is healing and growing, that is universal. We’re all just doing it our own way, which others may or may not understand. I don’t believe that matters, in the end, as long as we each understand ourselves.

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  • Thank you, Rossa, I’ve very much appreciated your support, as well. I am fortunate that my path of healing coincided with meeting my life goals, so at this point, my sole/soul purpose in life is to give back. It will, indeed, be interesting to discover how I am guided in this regard–all of us, in fact. We are pioneers, and the universe is amazing. Can’t wait to see where we’re all going with this…

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  • I’m always so moved to hear your story exploration and discovery with your son, Rossa. You both have invaluable things to share with the world, particularly needed at this time. I hope that one day Chris can feel the inclination to share his perspective.

    Thank you for taking the road less travelled and for chronicling it in The Scenic Route: A Way Through Madness, to share your discoveries, thoughts, and your heart. It is so beautifully written, clear and engaging, I read it in one day, cover to cover, could not put it down. I highly recommend this book to anyone, for many reasons. For one thing, it really shows how creative we can be when it comes to healing, there are always new things to discover.

    But it is your own truth which you continually voice as you take this journey which really strikes a deep chord and rings true, even though I am the other half of a mother-son relationship. Thanks for sharing this most powerful and intimate perspective. It expanded my understanding and compassion, and reminded me that we are ALL on a journey of healing, personal growth, and awakening.

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  • Fabulous and seriously brilliant work, Chaya. You are so paying it forward, giving such meaning and power to your own journey. I know first hand the delicate balance of creating a business like this, and you seem to be walking that path in your light and power, along with grace and fluidly evolving awareness. Congratulations and continued success in helping to heal this terribly fragmented humanity in which we seem to have found ourselves (or co-created, depending on one’s perspective and beliefs).

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  • I just wish we could, at the very least, get a refund for all the money many of us poured down the drain for years and years while thinking we were getting some kind of health or support “service,” only to discover later, experientially, that this is all a crock–and a dangerous, harmful, and individually and communally damaging one at that. The expense of it all is staggering.

    Healing from psych drugs damage is rugged, complex, and takes some time, but it’s doable, in my experience and things can come back into their natural balance with appropriate attention and focus. And healing from the traumatic stressors of institutionalized social abuse (the blatant stigma, oppression, and a compromising of human rights and dignity that comes from systemic marginalization) is also incredibly hard personal growth and healing work, but I do believe it is possible to individuate from an abusive society, layer by layer; and again from my experience, that is a good healing journey to take, bringing clarity, relief, and ultimately, personal freedom.

    However, healing from the financial strife of being vampired by a sorely misguided and even corrupt institution such as psychiatry sure seems to be, with terrible–horrifying!–results all over the place to prove it, is also a challenge that so many survivors face on a daily basis, while others are growing richer and richer in that very same power dynamic, and this is clearly the case, which is called “exploitation.” When justice is finally served, the economic poles should flip.

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  • “Ali is an exception that violates the dogmatic perspective of chronic, medicated mental illness so thoroughly that the entire paradigm should be threatened if her single case were to be documented.”

    Many of our stories violate the dogmatic perspective of chronic, “meditated mental illness” quite thoroughly. The issue seems to be more the dogmatic resistance on the part of “the establishment” to hear truth and reason, and also to be humble to the information of others. That is not easily gained by psychiatry, if at all.

    I think a revolutionary change in perspective on what it means to be a human being–along with owning, as individuals, our right to self-agency–is what will eradicate this notion of “mental illness” and all the bs that goes along with it. Admittedly, that is a tall order because it involves tons of money and status, and this insane “need” to be right. The ego issues run deep when it comes to not seeing the truth of these matters.

    My belief at this point is that this is about community and social structures, and abuse of power which has become the social norm, and not an individual’s permanent “condition of being.” The latter is the big lie here which rakes in the bucks, maintains the status quo of marginalizing others, and the aggressive perpetuation of which is a perfect illustration of the former.

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  • “Maslow was influenced by Graves–and in fact, due to Graves’ influence, changed his hierarchy pyramid to an open-ended view and instead of “self-actualization” at the peak of the pyramid, “transformation” is a step higher and opens up (perhaps as the beginning of an inverted pyramid).”

    I love the “inverted pyramid” image, and it resonates with my healing experience. From knowing ourselves aside from the influence of outside opinions, negative projections, and social programming, we begin to discover more of our ever-expansive awareness. We are always unfolding into new ways of being and perceiving, if we allow ourselves that flexibility, it is a never-ending process. The creative possibilities are endless, to be discovered as we go along.

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  • Lots of wisdom and great insights here.

    You describe the perfect double bind of the “mental health industrial complex”–if one complies with treatment, one’s health and life have an excellent chance of deteriorating, as per thousands upon thousands of personal testimonials; and if one shows independence of thinking (one’s true spiritual nature), then force and coercion begin (and it can start out with very subtle power-conscious mind-games, e.g. gaslighting), amounting to systemic abuse and human rights violations. There is a very low ceiling here regarding personal freedom in that particular community, and no concept at all of having a spiritual nature.

    What I found, at the end of it all, is that “psychiatry/psychology” has become the practice of “the professionals” (whether clinical or social services) projecting their inner demons onto clients, in order to perceive themselves as “healthy,” by comparison, and it becomes a dreadful power game of “superiority.” It’s how training occurs in the “mental health industry.” I remember in my training exactly 20 years ago, a big component of our clinical supervision was on how to “not give clients too much power.”

    And as a client, all I felt while in psychotherapy was incredibly manipulated and really thrown off my game and life path. I had to go way outside the box in order to first, find my true healing (because it addressed my heart and spirit), and then, to come into affinity with my spirit once again and get back to better living, based on who I truly am, and not some negatively projected image based on the prejudices and limited sense of self of some “clinician.”

    There is something dreadfully wrong at the core of this field. I think the belief systems are skewed toward fitting in, rather than being comfortable in one’s own *unique* skin, regardless of anything. Personally, I do not believe that we are put on the planet to make others comfortable at the expense of our truth.

    Obviously, the “mental health system” practices and dynamics do not work to alleviate suffering, and in fact, they only serve to re-traumatize and to keep people stuck in this systemic abuse-victim dynamic, fully enabled by the community at large, including the law, and making virtually everyone enormously frustrated, at the very least. At worst, it is highly damaging to clients. And without a doubt, it is destructive to society on the whole, perhaps even the downfall of it.

    Thank you for speaking your truth with such clarity, power, and grace.

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  • This article is sublime, and vivid in the tragic ironies it poses.

    “…we offer force and subjugation as though these are the ways to make an individual sane, and we do not have the defence of insanity for our own methodical and deliberately brutish behaviour.”

    Aside from “the insane are running the asylum” coming to mind from reading this statement, I’m also struck by the utter lack of self-awareness, self-ownership, self-perception, self-control, and the slew of projections occurring here. I find this to be typical of the mental health industry, as it is entirely based on projecting shadow onto others. That’s the problem, and where the chaos, deceit, stigma, oppression, discrimination, and ultimate power struggles begin.

    “We, in the end, quite effectively create a reality from which for many there is only one means of escape”

    Which implies that we can effectively create a reality from which people do not feel the need to escape, but more so, can embrace as the gift of life, in which one can manifest well-being, grounding, and robustly good feelings, rather than chronic ones of defeatism, powerlessness, and alienation. That would require full ownership of one’s experience, and that is not so easy for a lot of people. But it does empower one to make desired changes in their reality, starting from within.

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  • I’m not talking about specific personal practices, but more about a certain aspect of transition in awakening, going from linear to multi-dimensional perspective. From that point of view, how we receive love and compassion has everything to do with how we perceive ourselves–either separate from each other or united in one consciousness. It is the perspective that we each mirror each other, so when we give love to and receive love from others, we are, in this multi-dimensional reality, giving and receiving to ourselves–the difference between duality and unity consciousness.

    I talk about this because giving/receiving love and compassion has become complicated in our society, I believe. Our collective perception of separateness has messed with our minds, hearts, and spirits quite profoundly, I think, and has disoriented the collective consciousness.

    This perspective from unity consciousness is filtering quickly into the collective now and is being grounded by a lot of people, giving tremendous hope to others. I do think it heals double-binding at the core, and opens the door to personally empowered sense of self, which, I believe, is the only thing that can ultimately heal us–that is, ourselves.

    Although I do feel that acting lovingly and generously as a lumen for others is soul nourishing, in and of itself. When we extend love, it may or may not be received, but regardless, we can still feel the quality of that love as we offer it to others. And being able to receive love is a gift. I do know the challenges here, from both sides of the fence.

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  • Hi Michael, these double binds you reference are terribly familiar to me, I remember it well. That’s a treacherous feeling. I remember a time when absolutely no one was on my wavelength, so the “choices” I perceived at the time were particularly limited and unappealing. I was fortunate to find a good pathway out of all that, thank God, and that took more faith, trust, patience, and self-compassion than I ever thought I could muster.

    I am curious if you are aware of the notion of ascending these double binds by shifting vibrational frequency and taking the emotional journey to expanded feelings as spiritual awakening, toward consciously co-creating our life path by following that internal emotional guidance as a reflection of our spirit selves, to find our alignment with who we are, in essence, for ease, clarity, and grounding our sense of self. Ascension seems to be a path a lot of people are embracing at present, given the multiple double- binds we are facing during these especially stressful times of awakening to illusions and social programming. I believe this applies to everyone right now.
    Alex.

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  • There is an interesting perspective that is ever-growing in the collective consciousness on the planet right now. Used to be considered “crazy” and still is by some. At the same time, it’s catching on quickly because it takes us beyond the glass ceilings and into alignment with our innate creativity, freeing us from the oppressively double binding beliefs with which we’ve all been programmed and which have caused a lot of chronic suffering.

    Tons and tons of information about ascension and DNA expansion all over the internet, including on YouTube. There’s a lot of garbage and a lot of truth, like with a lot of things, so one has to be intuitive and discerning. This is pioneering work, no one has all the answers, it is exploration and discovery of a new reality, communities coming together over this exploration.

    This perspective seriously challenges mainstream beliefs on every single level, so this information can be polarizing in some communities–it either resonates, which tends to bring some excitement for folks because it is new ground which to explore, and it gets pretty fascinating as this exploration unfolds; or it is completely disregarded, invalidated, belittled, and ultimately, stigmatized. Seems to be no in between. I imagine on here, that could easily be the case.

    Still, I think it’s all so interesting to consider, as far as truly a paradigm shift is concerned, on all levels of life experience, including how we process, heal, and manifest. This is long, about 90 minutes, but within the first 10 minutes I think the paradigm shift about which she’s detailing throughout the video, is evident. Radical change is happening, it is well underway…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRaPAbk1vLo

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  • “Then there needs to be an acknowledgement that we all have hidden or visible trauma.
    You can’t be human and not have it.
    You have to take off the masks and get down on the floor
    Some folks do it better than others and it is a learning curve.”

    Absolutely true.
    Beautiful, CatNight, all the way through.

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  • “When we perceive and behave in a manner which others around us do not understand, or which renders us unable to support ourselves independently as adults, then it seems to me that we cannot reasonably expect our families or the larger society to adapt itself to our eccentricities.”

    Not being understood and being dependent on others are two totally different states of being. Our society has a major “learned dependence” component, so I believe that is a complex and relevant issue which deserves deeper exploration.

    How does social change and evolution happen if it is not challenged by our “eccentricities”? And btw, I don’t know anyone at all who doesn’t have eccentricities, that would be called our “uniqueness” in many circles.

    I think it is reasonable and fair for each person to choose what they are willing and capable of accommodating and what they are not. These are personal discernments we make moment to moment which define our personal space. Profound distress happens when our boundaries are chronically disrespected. That creates feelings of lack of safety and paranoia.

    If like minds were to come together over this self-awareness, I think more sound and cohesive societies could be formed. Right now, respect for diversity is what is lacking, and the result is a lot of shaming, oppression, and violence.

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  • Although, there is quite a bit of diversity in the spectrum of ease vs. effort in life, dominance of anxiety and confusion vs. calm and clarity in one’s process, as well as power to manifest what one desires as opposed to feeling one cannot make things happen. These seem like concrete and self-evidential discernments which have practical solutions, rather than categories of pathology which are, in the end, divisive and overall, useless to healing anything.

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  • “…professionals are developing alternative classification systems” and are, therefore, continuing to spin their wheels endlessly, wasting everyone’s time, money, energy, and human resources. At least it’s clear that the DSM is fake news, so to speak.

    Still, nothing short of a complete pole shift in perspective will be “alternative” enough to solve these problems born from dualistic, hierarchical thinking spawning endless spirals of profound core anxiety, stubbornly stalemate issues, and chronic social conflict. Only resentment and chaos can possibly be created from this one-sided perspective of “you are sick and I am well.” That is ALWAYS an illusion!

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  • So finally, I want to bring this all back to my original point re the statements I pulled from this article.

    Stephen, you know like I do the enormous difference between being treated with respect (which used to be “normal” in the world I lived in, whereas today, it seems harder and harder to come by in just about any role and from just about any perspective; just look at the example from our national leaders right now) vs. treated like a second class citizen–that is, dehumanized, demeaned, deprived, and only perceived through the lens of stigma, as in the scarlet letter. These are two completely different experiences in life, internal feelings, self-perceptions (as well as perception of the world), and, therefore, realities; and it’s not a stretch to guess which one is the more desirable for at least most people I know. Still, it is rather incredible how little persuasion we seem to have over those who are determined to be abusive, marginalizing, and controlling, perceiving from what I would call an extremely limited perspective, that this is the way to “get things done.” I think that’s why we call it a “toxic society,” when this becomes the norm. Talk about teaching by example!

    I do feel there is a way to break free of this internalized very negative and limited self-identity that is imposed by the system and field of “mental health,” based on class. One has to be able to see through the illusions, and that’s hard because illusory or not, the effects of it are very strongly felt, regardless. Still, when we seek truths higher and broader than the limiting perspective which binds us to an oppressive reality, then we can perceive the way out, through our inner guidance and intuition. We all have it in there somewhere, and these negative experiences can serve as catalysts for discovering it, for the sake of survival, and then for actually getting out of the cave, so to speak, and into the light (thinking of Plato’s allegory, The Cave, here)–that is, liberation.

    That’s all I can say about the matter at this point. The rest is up to each of us to find our path and follow it. It’s humbling, without a doubt, and also incredibly empowering.

    I’m not posting here much these days, but this article did get my attention, so I stopped in to speak my truth of the matter, as it has relevance for me at the moment. Thanks for the always rich dialogue. Best wishes to you and keep up the brave work!

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  • I’m glad to hear you have secure support and are seen for the professional that you are.

    And I agree wholeheartedly with “be the change you want to see in the world.” We cannot create meaningful change in the world without tending to our own alignment and integrity, first. Otherwise, we only create more chaos, drama, and suffering for ourselves.

    Reality is created from perspective, and we have a variety from which to choose, from one day to the next, leading to pure creative freedom. I think that simplifies the process, and makes it a bit more efficient and clear, and we see where we are at the controls of our own life experience here. What you say above is where I lost patience with the “mental health” world. EVERYTHING was a long drawn out process (and that’s putting it mildly), that usually led nowhere!

    My life changed pretty quickly when I began to perceive the bigger picture, of my soul journey unfolding. I am also a minister, so I applied my spiritual work to these experiences in order to heal from them. Also other principles of healing; but shifting to the spiritual story is what ascended me from all the double binds of this reality.

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  • Stephen, I agree with AA, takes guts to speak that way to a higher up. I’m so curious how you keep from getting in trouble, and even fired. All I had to say was, “You are blatantly discriminating against me” to receive my walking papers, despite the fact I was a very effective counselor. of course, that’s illegal, because I wasn’t just blowing smoke and playing victim, I had hard proof of this. My win here was a no brainer, they were so transparent in their bigotry. But they never admitted their wrong-doing, not for a moment, and it came back to haunt them. How do you keep your job standing up to the powers that be this way?

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  • Wow, Stephen, perfect response to her, you mirrored her perfectly. What’s interesting of course, is that this lady has her story, too, as to why she thinks like this, of why she would feel so compelled to maintain such a transparent illusion of power. Over whom? How about the most vulnerable of the vulnerable, easy to control, no advocacy, etc.

    The irony is that there is no power here, only the desire to feel it at the expense of others. That will never work, never has. It is an ILLUSION.

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  • Re: “You all want to work with people that most people avoid,” and ”Being able to connect emotionally to people who are normally rejected…”

    I went voluntarily to see a psychiatrist 25 years ago because I was feeling so much anxiety and depression that was interfering with my thought process, and didn’t know why. In the end, I have a long story about psych drugs poisoning, withdrawal, and facing discrimination in the system which took me to legal action in which I succeeded to prove blatant discrimination.

    For most of these years, I worked full-time, had private insurance and was neither disabled nor part of the public system. I lived with diagnoses, worked and socialized, made it through college and then graduate school, and took a variety of psych drugs over the years which eventually caught up with me in a very debilitating way, leading to very painful and necessary withdrawal right after graduating, almost 20 years after I had begun taking them. Ultimately, this led me straight into the “disability system.” Multiple organs had been seriously compromised, it turns out, including my brain.

    That is where the shit hit the fan for me and my life took a downward spiral like never before, thanks to what the drugs and social abuse/discrimination/stigma/systemic bullying and sabotage had done to me.

    This dark period of my life was followed by extreme core changes, including choosing to heal far away from anything like this—more toward energy healing and spiritual work from a variety of perspectives. That has changed my life in a good way, finally, what I expected—to be well and back on my path of living, loving, working, and creating. I was labeled all sorts of ridiculous things as I was healing from neurotoxins, going through rapid changes, all judgments from which I had to distance myself and simply ignore in the end, as completely irrelevant–although not after all of this had done a number on me, serving to make me feel really bad about myself and rather hopeless at times. I was waking up fast.

    So overall, my path has had great meaning for me, and by acting as explicit contrast to what I would most desire for myself in life (fun, joy, freedom, creativity), the depth of healing from my experience with “mental health” anything did eventually lead me to the life I most desire, because I chose to wake up to what was really happening around me, rather than continuing to believe that something was so wrong with me and that I should just accept my fate as a “compromised” human being, attempting to be tossed to the sidelines. That’s a cruel fate, to buy into that belief.

    Still, I felt so betrayed by the system, and the entire field by this point, thinking it was there to help me, and I could not understand why I, and others around me, were being treated like “undesirables,” that’s exactly how it felt. I was trying to heal, whereas it became apparent that this was not their agenda for me, that I was supposedly “delusional”—and even grandiose!–for thinking I could heal from this particular “disability” and get on with things, as I had envisioned for myself.

    I had just come from grad school, where I was doing MFT training and perfectly respected—and even transparent about my diagnosis, which did cause me a bit of trouble with one professor and a couple of fellow students, interestingly enough–but overall, I was an excellent student and had a very active supervised internship as I processed well through my stuff.

    And suddenly, the moment I walked into social services to actually receives services, I was another person in the system—chronically ill, forever limited, and marginal to society. That was their version of me, not mine. The difference in feeling is over the top, and it is a mind fuck like no other. My world went dark, temporarily, because of all this. In the state of mind I was in at the time, coming off of 9 psych drugs, this was extremely disorienting, and it snuck up on me. I was totally naïve and unsuspecting, having trained in the field myself.

    Now I get it, with messages like these (and they merit reposting, they are so direct and powerful)–

    “You all want to work with people that most people avoid.”

    “Being able to connect emotionally to people who are normally rejected…”

    That was never, ever true for me in my life. No one rejected me and people don’t tend to avoid me (other than in the mental health world, that is a weird and ironic thing in my life, another story). But overall, I’ve always had a healthy social life, including a partnership of now 32 years. I’ve had friends and family connections, always, despite my family issues, which was the root of all of this in the first place, finally got that straightened out in my life. And I’ve been part of many communities, always in good standing, in harmony with it all.

    Although again, I’ll highlight that only in the mental health world, where I am trained, educated, and thoroughly experienced, am I shunned in just about every aspect of it, and this was all as the result of my wanting to move forward in life. It has been an interesting experience and study for me, personally.

    Of course, if you are sending people into the world with this idea in their heads, as per the above quotes– then clients don’t stand a chance! You’ve already marginalized them, before even starting!

    I really do respect others for how they walk their path of life, whether or not I am of the same beliefs or values. It’s really none of my business how others choose to live their lives, unless it, somehow, involves sabotage to the greater good, then I would feel compelled to have a say in what goes on. But even then, I defer to the universe because I am no judge of others, my perspective is human, and therefore, limited.

    But these two phrases really jumped out at me, and I now can see so clearly why I was treated this way, which others seemed to accept, and which I simply could not, I knew it was wrong, because, other than some family issues I associate with my healing journey, and then all throughout the mental health world, I’d always been treated just fine in life.

    Now I see that, from the get-go, it was assumed that I’d been marginalized in life, simply because I had turned to the system for support when I needed it. Something to do with not having money, maybe? Does that make one less worthy of respect than anyone else? Well, to be honest, grad school was expensive, as was seeing psychiatrists and psychotherapists all those years, all leading to catastrophe and disability, in the end. That was a terribly unwise investment on my part, I must say, and I will own my choices here, having examined the beliefs behind them. I’ve since shifted my belief system, as a result, and that has changed my life accordingly.

    I could go on and on, but it really spends me to think about this. It is just such a dense, dense reality, looking back on it—which I try to do less and less as time goes on, and focus simply on moving forward into a new reality feeling like myself now, and not like some social beast, which is how I felt in the system as I traversed it years ago. To me, that’s a blatant projection, because that is exactly how I feel about the mental health system—not only a social beast but also vampiristic–and I know I’m not alone in that perspective!

    I hope that, somehow, I’ve made my point. I’d really like for my experience to be valued in a way that will help others in the best way possible, not only to consider different perspectives neutrally and even-handedly (e.g. clinical vs client perspective), but also to encourage people, in general, to use their intuition that will guide them to go in a direction that will best help them when they need support, rather than tank and drain them unsuspectingly, because they are considered “undesirable.” (To whom? would be my question) Then, it would really have been worthwhile, other than for me to have found my clarity and authentic voice.

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  • Psychiatry: “1. a medical specialty, now defunct, whose primary tenet was that all significant problems of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving were best conceptualized as illnesses, and best treated with mood-altering drugs and electric shocks to the brain. 2. (informal) an enormous hoax. 3. (informal) a shameful abuse of power and position.”

    This is sooo powerful! I’d say repost and repeat this everywhere. It is clear, direct, to the point, and, frankly and sadly, truthful. Why wait 20 years? Thank you, Dr. Hickey, really great.

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  • “Our consciousness creates the reality that reflects it. If we feel apart, other, afraid, and deadened, we will live in a world that reflects and perpetuates these energies. Push out of your comfort zones, explore, and experiment with new ways of thinking, relating, and feeling. You may find that epic beauty dwells in the most unexpected places.”

    Awesome.

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  • Powerful story. Good for you for standing in your light of truth. There’s a reason they call it “courageous.”

    Just one factual correction, where you say, “I thought about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay mayor in the US…” HM was the first openly gay elected official in the US, but he was not mayor, he was a city supervisor. The mayor of San Francisco at the time of Milk’s service was George Moscone.

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  • Wow, Juleen, perfect synch in our thinking, without a doubt. I’ve met a few other lightworkers on here who no longer post here. The focus is just so different, and yes, there is a lot of demeaning and patronizing “othering” associated with having a spiritual perspective. I believe this is academically based. I’ve been distancing myself. I hadn’t even checked this site in over a week, and had a whim last night, and happened to see your comment, which I otherwise wouldn’t have seen because this is an old blog, and I’d have had no reason to check it out. All sorts of synchronicity around here!

    There is so much here on which to chew and comment, I appreciate the rich depth of your wisdom. Indeed, like you, I believe it is the task of the day to create bridges of ascension. I think when we authentically and fearlessly live our truth, we attract a lot of help, starting with from the universe. Then guides show up, and on and on. I love that process, it is fascinating as it unfolds.

    This thread has gotten rather long, so I’m going to keep it relatively short this time, simply mirroring your truth as my own. We have so much in front of us to explore, discover, and learn. It is an exciting time, indeed. Our DNA is even changing and expanding. We can be transmuters of energy and ascension way-showers as a healing presence, and we are on our path.

    Victim/conflict/lack energy can always be transmuted into creatorship, inner peace, and abundance, working with polarities. I believe one informs the other, that’s the transformation. I work with the energy of abundance, that has served me miraculously. From that, all I need springs, like fishes and loaves.

    A couple of quick add-ons here. First, I just wanted to acknowledge this beautiful guidance—

    “Try envisioning the way first, to whatever feels like the next level of joyful expansion for you..instead of waiting for the way to be shown to you..focus on visualizing it more pointedly, even if it’s just feeling the essence of how it feels and what it represents. Your vibration is already so high that I bet if you do that in a more focused way than you have, you’ll start to feel the flow toward it being unblocked.”

    Thank you, Juleen, total light speak. I can feel it strongly because I’ve been working on just that, so you got me, here. I’m impressed, seriously! I’m taking this to heart, thank you.

    “…your intuitive guidance system which uses emotions to help you navigate by telling you how close or far from the truth of your true being you are (the worse it feels, the further from the truth it is!)”

    Esther Hicks/Abraham fan, by chance? Sounds exactly like her teachings, which I love, and indeed, I agree. Being out of alignment with our true being is what causes us discomfort, and which, in turn, guides us to our alignment, indicated by how we feel. It’s beautiful ease, I think.

    Thank you for this exquisite dialogue, it has been refreshing. Any chance you have a way to contact you via email? I’d be very interested to continue this discussion in private, but I don’t have a public address to offer any longer. This timing is actually rather uncanny to me, so I’m wondering if LOA is hard at work here, on my/our behalf!

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  • Oh, and I really love this, emphatic yes from me–

    “… I’d love to see an interim “reverse Mental Health system” ..de-pathologizing, de-conditioning, de-programming, learning how to experience and use the energy of unconditional love which is our essence. Learning to live within the new non-co-dependent relationship paradigm that is being templated now (a whole other thing!). But a system specifically for ppl who have chosen identities that involve mental/emotional/behavioral pathology. To un-do the damage as a way to help accelerate the higher consciousness shift for the collective…”

    That’s what I call creative thinking. Juleen, we are speaking the same language here! This is exactly what we do in our groups, we are deprogramming in order to know our true selves. We’re just a little country operation, though, I live in a small rural town. I’d love to expand, but at this point, I’m waiting for the light to show the way, that’s all we can do at present, as we do what we can with what we have. I’m always on the lookout for that opening, somewhere, somehow. Up to me to manifest this, right? Hmmm…

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  • Juleen, awesome post (and powerful numerical synchronicity!)–and yes, exactly what I’m talking about, allowing a new reality to unfold, which is what happens as we allow our perspectives to shift. Releasing the old and allowing the new (aka healing and change) is a radical shift, the challenge of which is that all our resistance is going to come to light for us to face and sort through somehow.

    As we shift dimensions, we face our shadows and must somehow integrate ourselves with full on self-acceptance and true self-compassion. It’s a hefty clearing, very profound.

    That’s how this core shift is healing—at least, we are given those opportunities. As you rightly note, not everyone is into taking that particular healing journey, as it does shed light on all of our programming, about which we are faced with some challenging choices here.

    Are you familiar with the terms “ascension,” and 3D vs. 5D consciousness? From all you say above, I’m thinking you know what I’m talking about, you are describing it perfectly–how we are shifting from operating in a linear reality to a multi-dimensional focus, where present time is all that is, each moment a convergence of multiple realities and energies.

    According to the universal laws of energy, where we choose to focus is what determines the reality we are creating for ourselves. And we have a lot of choices with each and every experience, moment to moment, on where to focus and what story we create for ourselves as we go along in life. We can always shift focus when we are ready for change. That’s our creative process in full power.

    To my mind, this determines everything about ourselves and our lives, and we have all the control we need in terms of where and how we choose to focus our attention, and which perspective navigates our present time consciousness. We have so many choices here. So much follows from this choice, like a chain of energy reactions which leads to 1) how we feel in our bodies and 2) what we manifest for ourselves.

    Indeed, spirituality gets just as stigmatized as anything, it is so often confused with religion, which is more like a cult to me. I think of spirituality more directly as “pertaining to the spirit,” which to me, is what is way more vast than our physical selves, yet on the continuum of it. I see this as universal.

    When we expand consciousness, we perceive more of who we are, and some of that is physical and some of that is on a spiritual (energetic) level. I believe our emotions are the doorway to how we can be aware of this connection between body and spirit. This is where I did a lot of neural pathway re-routing, with very focused meditation and awareness work. It was tedious at first, and still fascinating. But given how we can program our neural pathways, it eventually becomes second nature to expand our thinking, it is more ease than effort.

    My brain and nervous system changed a great deal just from practicing this, really calmed the “fight or flight” issue, while shifting my entire self-perception, and therefore, my experience of life. This is where I feel my power to make change, beginning internally. I believe we change on a daily basis, that is our nature. Really, it’s a matter of awareness. When we connect with our ever-changing natures, we experience more ease in life, because we are allowing our higher consciousness to guide us, and that is who we are! No more “social approval,” we become our authentic selves, regardless of anything. That is how we discover our true path and life purpose, because we are listening to ourselves, not the judgments or expectations of others. And in the process of being true to ourselves, we create that which pleases us most, because we are honoring and expressing who we really are, no pretense (like, for political purposes, for example).

    To make it practical, I see spirituality in terms of energy. My healing was centered around the principles of energy and vibrational frequency of our thoughts and emotions, and how this drives the feelings in our bodies as well as what we manifest outside of ourselves. To me, it follows a very common sense connect-the-dots logic and is the most practical thing I’ve ever learned in my life. It is all experiential learning. Reading about it is one thing, applying it and living it is what counts. That’s where our energy and perspective shift.

    I had been a psychotherapist before going into the system for support as I withdrew from all psych drugs, and that’s where I discovered the extreme limitations of “mental health services.” I was ostracized from my own field because I came out as a psychiatric client, and plus, my personality did not fit the culture. I’m actually an artist (actor, filmmaker, music director and performer) so I was way beyond the scope of this narrow perspective. I have a wide range of emotions which I like to own, feel, and express, I think that’s normal for artists, and my entire life now is about creating art via one medium or another. I always know my center, no matter how far to the edge I go.

    I think that’s the key to maintaining clarity, a sense of control, and also general well-being and enjoyment of life–to know our center, and to know how to get back to it when we are triggered. Everyone gets triggered, daily, that’s a fact of life. But not everyone knows how to come back to center before spiraling downward, that’s the problem. This spiritual energy work is what connected me with this awareness of coming back to center. That made life livable again for me.

    However, a wide emotional range of expression does not go over well in the “mental health” world, as we all know. Without awareness of spiritual energy–to which we shut the door completely when we invalidate, shun, marginalize, and drug strong emotions–there is nowhere to grow, we hit a ceiling! Things get very frustrating here, and our clarity, grounding, and overall well-being become highly compromised–not to mention, our sense of empowerment. At this ceiling is where feelings of powerless creep in, and that can be extremely uncomfortable and produce all sorts of debilitating anxiety, depression, and rage.

    It was when I turned to a chakra and energy healing program that I learned how we operate as energy, and that is what opened the door for me to transformative healing. I healed by leaps and bounds in the couple of years I attended this program to both heal and train. This is how I expanded my healing practice, once I became grounded and clear enough to get back in the saddle. This also took me from mental patient to theater and stage performer (which I’d never done before, this all started with volunteer work), which changed my health and my life indescribably. I attribute this to knowing how to follow my spiritual path.

    Then, I studied Law of Attraction in depth, as a healing tool, followed by Kabbalah studies, where I learned about “co-creating with the light.” All of this added up to be the most practical and common sense healing and personal growth path I could imagine.

    I’ve been in practice for 12 years now, teaching what I’ve learned along the way and helping others to apply it, and am currently co-creating with a couple of partners what we’re calling “Healing Academy for the Performing Arts,” where I’m combining everything across the boards—meditation, energy work, spiritual growth and awareness, music, and the arts. We’re just finishing up our second quarter of meetings, and are rehearsing for our next series of shows, as a band which performs for senior residents of assisted living centers. We cater to them musically with songs from the 20’s-50’s. They love it so much, it is really fun and gratifying.

    To me, this is extremely spiritual, in every way—connecting to each other as spirits in this energy field of music. It is healing for everyone concerned, individually and socially.

    AND, no one gets categorized here in any way. I come from the system, but my partners do not. We have diverse backgrounds and growth processes. There is no discrimination in energy healing. We are all energy of varying frequencies, ever-expanding as per our nature; and somehow, we all fit together harmonically. That’s it–unity consciousness.

    So all of our healing and consciousness work is getting cycled into community service now. We’re having a fantastic time with this, all based on feeling and sharing joy. To us, that is the healing elixir.

    I’m curious how this all speaks to you. Seems we are similarly trying to integrate all of this healing information. It is sooo not easy! Lots of resistances to truth and light in our world. It is hard to receive love when one has been deprived of it for too long. I think that’s a core trauma, lack of love. We have to start with loving ourselves if we want to experience this shift.

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  • Labeling an abused and traumatized person, rather than validating their story and reality and understanding that, regardless of anything, it has a root, is gaslighting, and downright cruel. Constant “you” statements (I notice you are this, I notice you do that, I’m aware you said this) is, both, self-conscious making and crazy-making, I consider at least a derivative of gaslighting.

    And yes, it happens all the time, it is sop, and not just by the therapist, but by clients, as well. I’ve known people who have been long term psychotherapy clients, and this is all they do, point at others the way are pointed at in therapy, ready to point out something wrong with a person, or some contradiction. People take the example from their own therapy, and pay it forward. I don’t find this a very comfortable in a relationship, to be so heavily projected onto, called this and that, being constantly told what is “wrong” with you.

    From Wikipedia—

    “Gaslighting is a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or members of a group, hoping to make targets question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, it attempts to destabilize the target and delegitimize the target’s belief.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

    This article elaborates–

    http://narcissisticbehavior.net/the-effects-of-gaslighting-in-narcissistic-victim-syndrome/

    This passage got my attention:

    “The intention is to, in a systematic way, target the victim’s mental equilibrium, self confidence, and self esteem so that they are no longer able to function in an independent way. Gaslighting involves the abuser to frequently and systematically withhold factual information from the victim, and replacing it with false information. Because of it’s subtly, this cunning Machiavellian behaviour is a deeply insidious set of manipulations that is difficult for anybody to work out, and with time it finally undermines the mental stability of the victim. That is why it is such a dangerous form of abuse.”

    While it may really not be intentional, as expressed in this definition, and I imagine in the majority of therapy practices it is not, still, when it comes to compromising “the victim’s [patient’s] mental equilibrium, self confidence, and self esteem so that they are no longer able to function in an independent way,” sounds like the effect of psych drugs to me. This is a double whammy for clients, physical abuse from the neurotoxins and mental/emotional abuse—albeit unintentional—from the standard practice of projecting so heavily onto another person. That’s a lot of multiple trauma, caused by standard treatment, perspective, and paradigm. It’s why people can go downhill fast while in “treatment.”

    And yes, it’s totally advantageous to the abusers and oppressors to have this system in place, so that the “identified patient” is unmistakable. Takes the spotlight, and the responsibility, off of them. It’s a brilliant plan, totally double-binding, and extremely costly for people and society in so many ways.

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  • I do love your vision, Dr. B, always rings true to me and speaks to my heart.

    “…a calling that proceeds from respect and love,” indeed. I also see it as an art of “responsiveness and intuition,” what I’d call being fully in present time, awake to our own inner voice in the process of listening actively to and being present with others. Also, “recovering innocence and authenticity” as source of strength. I love how you put that. I would also add inner power to that, including the power to manifest what we most desire.

    With respect to gaslighting, it is a term and practice of abuse which I’ve brought to the forefront repeatedly because I believe it is underrated in terms of its prevalence and psychological danger. It is subtle and insidious, and very hard to catch. It causes terrible post traumatic stress symptoms which can be very challenging to heal, because, in essence, we wind up mind-fucking ourselves as per learned habit, leading to chronic self-sabotage from having internalized such false negative messages, causing perpetual internal struggling.

    Imperfection is part of life and the creative process. The idea is to learn, grow, and refine as we go. It is inevitable that we reach a point of passage where we are called to transform our perspective, in order to allow change to occur outside of us.

    I’m very much aligned with the catch phrase “There is no excuse for abuse.” Especially in the healing world. That is more than abuse–it is betrayal and fraud, not to mention sinister. Sadistic personalities seek to have power and control over others. If this is the best we can do, then I’m not sure how to reconcile this, because it seems far and away from acceptable.

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  • I think psychotherapy can be sound and supportive to gain clarity, resolve inner conflicts, and achieve personal growth and evolution. My concern, however, is that it can be so risky for clients. Aside from way better training with a few more perspectives to consider than what is currently offered by the mainstream–which is especially narrow and myopic, imo–there needs to be some kind of checks & balances system to protect the client, who is in the vulnerable position of needing to trust, from mental abuse. Unfortunately, it is common.

    In addition, it is not a stretch to imagine that if one is seeking healing from childhood trauma and wounding, it can easily be repeated in a clinical relationship. It isn’t always transference; sometimes it is for real. And that can easily lead to way more trouble for the client, rather than healing. I believe it’s a common problem, and people suffer because of this–sometimes without even realizing they’re being gaslighted. I feel so strongly that something needs to be checked, here.

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  • “Psychotic” is such a relative term, in its most commonly used context–being “out of touch with reality.” And this is most often applied to those who have evolved or are evolving outside the norm–“the box,” as it were. That’s not at all an easy process, given the extreme limitations which we have internalized from social programming.

    It could be a really beautiful, enriching, and fascinating period of personal exploration and discovery–not to mention, of glorious manifestation–were we to honor personal growth and spiritual evolution for what it is. It will never look “normal,” that’s the idea.
    “Fitting in” vs. “being outcast” is one of the biggest illusions by which we operate, and this alone causes suffering for people, from that dualistic “us and them” perspective. Spiritual growth is about not giving a flip about that, because one is focused on one’s own path and evolution, not on whether or not they are being “approved of” by society. That is a non-spiritual perspective, and compromises one’s personal power, we just give it away freely in this mindset. Plus, it merely serves as distraction as to our purpose in life, if we are always preoccupied with “fitting in.” Rather, I’d suggest no one fits in and everyone fits in. We are all unique aspects of one consciousness, which makes both statements true from different perspectives. Social harmony will occur when we honor our gifts and those of others–not by being opaque, controlling, and seeking power over others, using people for one’s personal gain. That’s called “vampirism.”

    Instead, drugging and blatantly stigmatizing human expression, experience, and evolution is our appalling (and dangerous) norm–utter darkness. Of course it pisses people off, to no end, and makes them feel hopeless, despondent, and powerless. That seems justified, considering what I consider to be the reality of the situation. To me, these perceptions and practices that are “normal” seem “psychotic.”

    The most expanded consciousness would argue that mainstream thinking is “psychotic” because it is rife with delusion, limitation, oppression, and corruption. It is based on brainwashing and social control. Enlightenment is way expanded consciousness, perceiving and experiencing beyond the ordinary. That could very possibly not only be more real than what is perceived by the majority (the norm), but it can also be extremely useful, relevant, and practical information, especially given the dark times into which we have fallen. We need new perspectives and creativity more than ever now. How else will we get through this time, to the other side of this collective dark night of the soul? I believe we have to create our way out of it, and our imaginations are being tested here.

    But if society continues to shun that which is “beyond the ordinary,” and considers it weird, bizarre, odd, off-putting, and/or terrifying, and therefore, does everything in its power to suppress it and keep it at arm’s length via marginalization, then it will never grow beyond the illusions of mainstream thinking, and that cannot end well, it is a downward spiral. At some point, we are going to have to respect and value those that go out on a limb and have the courage, integrity, and inner peace to live their truth, despite social stigma and marginalization, if we are to be saved from complete social annihilation because at this point, we’re basically killing each other, one way or another. If I were to call anything “psychotic” at this point, it is at least the USA society, on the whole.

    Regarding emotional suffering, I think we just need to be kinder and more supportive of each other. I think people suffer a great deal from being shunned, turned away, ostracized, marginalized, demeaned for having issues, profiled and feared, tricked, deceived, betrayed, gaslighted, etc. Were people to play fair and with integrity, so much confusion, disorientation, anxiety, and emotional suffering would shift pretty quickly, I think. But that is a choice people make. No one can force integrity onto another. We do the best we can with what we know, and hopefully, we learn as we go, seeing more and more truth.

    For some, truth can be searing. I think that’s where humane and compassionate support would be called for—support from those who welcome truth, not from those that shun it. The latter would be self-defeating, at best, and more than likely, dangerous.

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  • Infuriating to read this. I’m so sorry for your loss, and for what you all have been put through.

    “Research natural alternatives. Don’t give your power away to people who deem themselves all-knowing simply by merit of their white coat and a medical duh-gree. Educate yourself so that you can be your own best health advocate, and that for those whom you cherish and love.”

    We definitely need to keep highlighting avenues of healing way above and beyond what is so glibly, and often so seemingly randomly and blindly, offered by “prestigious” mainstream western medicine. There are so many sound and natural remedies for everything, including multiple perspectives from which to consider what is happening in the body.

    Although of all the words in the above passage, I’d recommend simply, “Don’t give your power away.” I think when we do, that’s really the start of compromised well-being.

    Kind of a toss up as to what has most degenerated in our society–competence, empathy, human decency, common sense, heart intelligence, et al. Any or all, you name it. Thank you for sharing this so that others know the dangers of modern western mainstream health care. I’m so sorry you found out the hard way. I did too, almost lost my life–and for a while, my heart, mind, and spirit–to pharmacology and grossly incompetent care, came very close, but I was fortunate to have survived. My entire perspective on life has changed since then, that was an awakening for me, regarding to where our society has sunk, on the whole. It was a slap-in-the-face wake up call, and it got my attention but good.

    My very best wishes to you and your family.

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  • This is relevant to the dilemma of psychiatrists, but the idea of relating the intimate details of another, in this case, clients–whether under pseudonym or not–for professional gain, to prove a point, or to navigate one’s own internal paradoxes seems explicitly cold, dissociated, and dehumanizing to me. I wish even this practice would cease, as a way to show respect to one’s clients.

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  • I wanted to add this, your example reminds me so much of what this statement is communicating. I’ve posted this on MIA a few times when it feels relevant, as it does now. I have two groups with whom I’m working at present, and we start with this–it is the cornerstone of my practice, because I find it so liberating in all the right ways, to bust through the most inhibiting and stigmatizing of all that social programming. By Marianne Williamson, from A Return to Love–

    “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

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  • Congratulations, Monica and happy anniversary. Beautifully authentic and real, as always.

    I agree that by choosing to follow our bliss, we find our true spirit nature and from that, we can make more inspired choices for ourselves, moment to moment. Following the path which society expects or dictates (social programming) indeed causes a core split, because we are not following our true nature. To my mind, this causes suffering, and it is chronic until we discover who we are and make choices based on that, and not based on the judgment of others.

    The path of healing is one of true creativity, so we connect directly with our creative essence when we choose this. I believe that from the “going toward bliss” intention and momentum, we are creating a more light-filled society, by example. This energy ripples outward, as is the nature of energy.

    So it’s true, I think, that those of us who took on the burdens of society through our sensitivity can help influence healing and change by, once and for all, being ourselves, and letting the chips fall where they may. In other words, we can always give it back in order to create healing opportunities for others. We cannot heal others’ issues, but of course, we can always help to transmute the energy.

    I always say that no one heals another, we can only speak our truth in the hopes of influencing others to find their own unique healing path. You are a shining example of this. Thank you for your voice and enormous influence to create sorely needed change in the dynamics of our society.

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  • LavenderSage, I haven’t yet heard back form MIA nor have I heard from you, and since the spam posts are still active, it seems as though no one is around to help us with our request to connect with each other. I no longer publically post my address because when I was, I got all sorts of unwanted emails and all kinds of spam so I’ve stopped doing that. I’m also moving away from MIA for reasons having to do with letting go and moving forward. You actually just caught me, I thought the first post I made on this article was going to be my last on this website, then I saw your response, so I’m hanging in there until we can connect.

    Still, considering your post, I thought I’d go ahead and say here that after I came off the drugs and did all the healing work to support the withdrawal–which was all about energy, chakras, grounding, and clearing blocks (Chinese Medicine)–I had to, at the same time, consider how I was perceiving my reality. So I began to consider the values and beliefs I was raised with, and realized how much they just did not fit who I was. I had internalized my families value system–very middle class, social hierarchy, norms of society, all that crap–which put me in conflict with my own spirit, so that’s when I began to totally individuate from the “family voices.”

    What was causing me so much pain, which was uncovered when I got off the drugs and cleared my head a bit, was the inner conflict between these internalized beliefs of old vs. my true spirit, wanting to lead me to where I really desired to go, my true calling, as we all have a path to follow. When we don’t follow our true and natural path–which is programmed into our intuition I believe–because we are, somehow, stopping ourselves, we suffer because we are not following our true spirit nature, to be in affinity with ourselves. That is a core split, like playing tug-o-war with ourselves.

    So that was the start of the next phase of healing–in addition to the energy work–discerning and separating out internalized family energy and beliefs from my own true heart and spirit voice, my real desires. That set me free on a whole new level.

    After that, I learned all I could about Law of Attraction, and that really moved me way forward, quantum leaps. There are a lot of LOA teachers out there, some are better than others. I happen to really enjoy Esther Hicks’ teachings on LOA, she has hundreds of videos and clips from her seminars which I find fascinating and so relevant, a real game changer, whole new paradigm. Search Abraham-Hicks on YouTube, tons of stuff will come up to explore, on how it relates just every subject imaginable.

    At the end of it all, learning about Law of Attraction and other universal laws of energy is what got me past all of this, once and for all, because it guided me as to how we co-create our realities, so I felt more control over my life experience.

    I did my withdrawal from 9 drugs in 2001-2002, and by 2007 I was singing and acting on stage (which I’d never done before until then), thanks to the Chakra and energy work, and then studying law of attraction and applying that to my healing. I was extremely dedicated my healing, it was all I focused on during that time, and all of that work got me far (as well as staying as far away as I could from anything called “mental health services”).

    It took my a bit longer to consider myself completely well, and for that, I had to heal from all the gaslighting and mental abuse that took place alongside all of this, from the system. I found that to be much trickier and more subtle than the drug harm. The effects of gaslighting are devastating, really messes with one’s self-perception. Reminded me so much of what I went through as a kid, my family was the same way, all academic and competitive, whereas I had no such inclination.

    This allowed me to dig deep and release all the confusion and disorientation from having been chronically lied to, emotionally manipulated, stonewalled, and shamed for standing up for myself. Such is the double bind of our mainstream society. It’s lose/lose, no way to win in this. So that’s how I healed my core wounds.

    As I shifted all of these internal beliefs to align more with who I am naturally, as a spirit being having a human experience, I felt myself lighten up considerably, my thoughts changed to create a more positive perception of myself, and almost like magic, my environment changed. I attracted opportunities that allowed me to transition and that’s when I moved to a rural natural environment and found my true self, here. Pure transcendentalism, nature is beyond amazing in her healing support.

    These days, I’m moving further and further away from all this mental health stuff, mostly toward creating music and other community service endeavors, focusing on social healing. I find that the more I focused my attention on that which felt good and brought me uplift, the better I would feel. Sure enough, that’s what happened. So I continue in this vein, and I grow as a result.

    Overall, during healing, we tend to stare so much at our shadow, and I learned it is healing to go the other way–to stop staring at the shadows, and instead, look for the light. That creates a new inner landscape for us, based on light rather than shadow. This translates into what we manifest outside of us.

    I hope this has spoken to you, somehow, while we are waiting for MIA moderators to respond to our request. I felt compelled to offer at least something here, even though I don’t know your specific issues at present. Hope it helps!

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  • I emailed Hana, too, and didn’t hear back, so I guess she’s off work these couple of days. I just now emailed Emmeline to see if she can help us out, pointing her to this dialogue and asking her to forward my email address to you. I imagine you’ll be hearing from her sooner than later. I do look forward to connecting, sounds like we’re on our way!

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  • Sure, LavenderSage, I’d be happy to dialogue with you in private. I used to offer an alternate email address on here which I no longer have, so all I have is my main address which I don’t like to post publically. Perhaps you can email me a brief note through MIA and have Hana forward it, so I’ll have your email and can respond that way? Would that work?

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  • Thank you for this, Dr. Steingard, a lot to chew on here.

    “If we all have confirmation bias, how do we decide who is correct? How do we know what is true?”

    What a gorgeous exploration these questions make. I can’t imagine all the diverse responses these questions generate. At least that I know is true.

    “While I like to think of myself as deriving my conclusions through careful research and reason, I am also told — repeatedly — that I am passionate and some have suggested my passion clouds my reason. I like to think my passion drives me to reasoned inquiry, but who knows?”

    I think passion makes us human. All of us are right sometimes, and wrong sometimes. Who cares? Life is not an exact science, it is a creative endeavor. Without passion, we are totally dull and spirit-less.

    Healing from what I experienced as a psychiatric client involved a great deal of forgiveness, in addition to actually fixing the damage. In addition, I could begin to harness gratitude for the experience of awakening to my true path and spirit (my personal truth) to which all of this led me. In the end, we are all human beings doing the best we can with what we know, learning as we go–hopefully. How we affect others is something we might or might not consider along the way.

    I can forgive what psychiatry and the mental health system did to me–the deep harm and betrayal–but that’s not a pass to continue doing it. It means that I’ve released my resentment, because I recognize how this all adds up for me and my life, how I’ve been guided to where I need and want to be at present. This is for my good, and for my holistic well-being, makes me feel lighter and clearer when I release resentment.

    But it still makes me angry that it continues, despite all of the obvious protests. So many of us call psychiatry and the like social abuse, purely. There is a lot of gaslighting that happens here, and that is very dangerous for people, can really mess people up. Can we perhaps look into this and see what this over the top oxymoron is about, that psychiatry is actually crazy-making? I believe it goes way deeper than the psych drugs, that’s just a symptom of the core issue here…

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  • “The same goes for the EEOC. If they have been notified of a case where a man becomes unemployed because of discrimination based on disability, they have a duty and an obligation to represent this man in court. For free.”

    This is exactly what happened to me, I filed a discrimination suit based on disability (ADA violation) lawsuit with EEOC, after getting fired from a voc rehab agency as a client-to-staff employee, they had drafted me for their staff after I went through their program. I was succeeding wildly with clients, they were getting jobs they loved and were excelling at, and then management started reprimanding me for pissing off the CEO. I wouldn’t sign the reprimands, they were absolutely ridiculous, so they fired me, took three of them to do it, and I had no advocacy whatsoever. I asked why, and they kept it vague. I told them they were required to give me a reason (I’d been a manager for 17 years before this, I knew employment law), and they noted an email I had sent that they felt was inappropriate, which was really quite benign.

    I went to the EEOC on my own and filed a complaint, and it was denied.

    Then, I scoured the city for an attorney would not charge me, and I finally found one at a non-profit employment law teaching center. She was outside the “mental health” system, thank God. I think that was my saving grace. She heard me speak the truth, and not through the filter of stigma, and I was able to back it up because I requested my notes from the agency, and it was quite clear. In fact, the CEO had written exactly what Katie says above, “Alex doesn’t fit in.”

    What was interesting is that I made a lot of friends there, with other staffers. Of course, they abandoned me when all this started, they were so scared of losing their jobs. Although they did admit to me that they felt that managers were “torturing” me. Which is true, they bullied and gaslighted all over the place, rather shamelessly. I wanted to change agencies, and they refused to help me. They really wanted me out in the streets! It was very obvious. What could be more ironic than a voc rehab agency that cannot handle the “rehabilitation” part of their mission, and knows neither ADA nor employment law? Travesty.

    The attorney was great, I won the mediation, and she was extremely generous and gracious to wave the fee. EEOC awards aren’t that big. The mediator said I could go father if I wanted to but they would make life hell for me. This had already gone on for a year, I was in the middle of healing from psych drugs withdrawal, so I was totally spent by this time. Plus, I was more interested in getting back to work, so that was that. I was extremely fortunate to find this attorney. I do wish there were more like her out there.

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  • “I imagine lots of survivors come from narcissistic families in which they played the scapegoat while their siblings became the golden child therapists”

    That describes my family dynamic, except that my sibling became an elitist academic, he’s the dept head at a prestigious university. Although the way I handled that part of my story of healing was to speak my truth about it, directly. My family story, and how I surpassed it, is in a film I made, where 6 of us speak very publically about our journeys through the system.

    I’ve been challenging my family system for a long time, with fascinating results. While rugged and unpredictable, overall, it’s been working in my favor and causing all sorts of shifts to occur, along with releasing their burdens I inadvertently took on.

    If you’re interested in seeing this film about healing through truth-speaking, here’s the YouTube link. It is feature length, 96 minutes, our stories interwoven throughout.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

    This was made in 2011, and our stories have evolved from this point in time. I’ve learned a great deal and have refined my perspective since then. But at the time, this is how I was driving my healing, by speaking my truth. That was revelatory to me, the enormously powerful impact of this, and have been doing it ever since.

    In addition, I filed a complaint with EEOC against a voc rehab agency exactly because of all this we’re discussing, and I won, although it did get me professionally blacklisted (not the worst thing that could have happened, but of course it tested me financially, as is so common from all this).

    Although, years later, after distributing this film throughout the system, this agency lost its funding and closed, so I guess they got what they had coming. They could have made changes, but, instead, they chose to insist on their discriminating ways, despite the slap on the wrist they got, and it caught up with them. Perhaps they know no other way?

    All of this led me to alternative healing, and then training, and also to theater, filmmaking, and music, where I found my true calling. I keep experiencing that when one door closes, others open, and new parts of me emerge to meet what life puts before me. Life is a path unfolding unpredictably, teaching us our true nature through the process of evolution…

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  • “These people, before they ended up in these largely useless institutions, may have wanted to be engineers, doctors, programmers and what not. Instead those desires and dreams, which are the desires of ordinary everyday people, get replaced by hopeless desires to change garbage. If you, who were a subject of the system, end up trying to be reformer of the system, you will always be consumed by the system and what happened to you in there. I don’t want to see that anymore. Instead, I want to see people achieve the dreams they had before all this junk took place. I don’t want to see them reform the system. I want to see them get rich as hell…”

    Amen. I’d call this shifting the poles. That is where true and real change will occur.

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  • Katie, I think the truths you are speaking here are the Gordian Knots of the mental health system. I believe you have pegged exactly why “chronic illness” is the mythical order of the day within the system. This is energy draining for all concerned. As you so rightly say in your response to my above comment, everyone is diminished in these situations.

    Personally, I fear commonly disingenuous and extremely narcissistic staff more than the psych drugs. I believe the people we’re talking about here are more dangerous than the drugs, and the post traumatic stress from gaslighting can be very tricky to heal. After all, the drugging starts by people who choose to do the drugging, it is that very attitude that leads to the entire psych drugs debacle. There is such a cognitive disconnect here, it is so obvious.

    I healed after withdrawing from 9 psych drugs after 20 years of taking one thing or another, and it was very rough for me, of course, but with diligence and perseverance, I finally made it to the other side after a few years of intensive and creative holistic healing. But without a doubt, it took me a lot longer and the deepest healing imaginable to me, to heal from the utterly toxic relationship dynamics perpetuated in the mh system. I’m not even sure that is totally healed, the confusion from this can still pop up from time to time. Meditation serves me well in this regard, to get clarity and trust my gut instinct.

    I hope this article is widely read. To me, it is the bottom line truth of the matter, when it comes to wondering why the system is such a failure. Systems are made up of people with a common focus. Single mindedness is required, and in this case, it’s to keep people at least *believing* that something is inherently “wrong” with them, which, in turn, keeps clinicians/staff believing and acting as if they are the ones who are sane, stable, and, therefore, superior and the ones who are “accurate” in their assessment of “reality.” It is the essence of duality, discrimination, and marginalization, all systemic abuse.

    And to think, this is supposed to be about helping people who are seeking support due to trauma, and in so many cases, toxic family dynamics. It is an impossible situation, as long as staffers refuse to take responsibility for their own shadowy perception of “others.” That’s a huge leap in consciousness, so I don’t see it happening any time soon.

    But articles such as yours here, calling it out so clearly and reasonably, sure do move us in the right direction, so thank you again for this, very much. It is extremely validating, and obviously, from the comments on this blog, for so many of us.

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  • “Learning how to love is itself where healing begins.”

    I agree–starting with learning to love one’s self, then learning how to extend it to others, or at least how to feel the feeling of love in our hearts. When we do, we feel the healing happening. A heart opening is evident, the feeling is powerful and unmistakable. Apparently, we have a long, long way to go, as a collective. Imagine the transformation. One heart at a time…

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  • Your story is not only extremely inspiring and courageous, you have also perfectly captured the “mental health world” culture, as I experienced it as well, as, both, a client and an empathic clinical professional, one who has “been there.” Even as a graduate student in counseling psychology, I was privy to these kinds of dialogues and attitudes. It was disheartening, but I did my own thing, not really into these conversations, I was very focused on my training, very dedicated. At that time, I was not really getting the impact of all this on clients.

    Then, I discovered how it felt to be a client on the other side of this attitude, and it was more crazy-making than I can describe. I was unprepared to be treated this way, and it was not just me, it was all of us. It was an awakening to me, of the underbelly of our society–stemming from the professional side of the system.

    I found it over-the-top appalling, and it inspired me, as well, to look for a way to correct this, to influence change at that social dynamic level. Of course it led to all sorts of troubles for me, calling this out and challenging the system like this, but it also led to desirable change in my life, so as a result, I found my path, so it was all worthwhile, without a doubt.

    Still, it is thicker than tar and leads to a lot of needless pain and suffering for people, and it is precisely systemic gaslighting. All illusion, no integrity whatsoever. This is not truth or anything even close to resembling honesty and compassion; however, it is a travesty of deceit, pretense and duplicity. And who are you going to complain to? Another cog in that same corrupt wheel of stigma, discrimination, and utter lack of discretion? Guess what makes people feel insane, more than anything? That is some serious oppression leading to powerlessness. There is no safety here.

    This, especially, is vivid and rings true–

    “I remember one very revealing lunch when my new supervisor introduced me as a student in a work-study college program to a case manager colleague. The colleague went on to regale the lunch table with bigoted jokes about bipolar clients. It was like a comedy routine, and I could tell the table was used to joining in the laughter. She’d just won the agency’s case manager of the year award and was in high spirits, displaying her utter contempt for the clients she considered herself the savior of.”

    To me, this is the core of insidious mental abuse, because these authentic feelings of mockery do translate to the client, on at least an unconscious level. Although most can read it quite easily, these are not great actors, they don’t need to be, other than for their colleagues. Lack of client credibility due to stigma is easy fodder for two-faced hypocrites who gaslight by second nature. So calling them on it only makes it worse. It is a treacherous situation, insanity creating more insanity.

    “But I also decided I never wanted to work in, around, or in the neighborhood of anything that had to do with mental health ever again.”

    I don’t blame you one bit, that is self-respect in action.

    Peace and best wishes on your continued journey. Thank you so much for sharing your story. It speaks volumes with great wisdom and clarity.

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  • “I have known people who looked back on careers they regret, and tried to do the right thing, and were just blocked and hammered. They died bitter.”

    Hammered, blocked, and dying bitter simply from trying to infuse the “mental health” field with a bit of integrity? Sounds more like a cult than a professional field, and with vulnerable clients, nonetheless. How dangerous–and seriously ironic–is this???

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  • What a wonderful and courageous story. Congratulations on healing from psychiatry and reclaiming your life. You are a stellar example of natural healing, very inspiring.

    I think when we experience quantum growth and healing, it challenges those around us. That’s a good time to discover where our support and friendships truly exist, and a whole new reality emerges for us–much clearer, and filled with compassion and wisdom, as you talk about. That’s what I refer to as “transformation,” which, I feel, has the power to change the world. I’m so glad you found the inspiration to tell your story!

    I believe in the wisdom of what Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

    Very best wishes on your continued evolution.

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  • My pleasure. I had a meeting with a weekly group this morning, and we were talking about some of this, I directed them here, to view the video. We specifically addressed the heart and spirit wounding in all of this, and the challenges of healing from that, to learn trust and tolerance. Not only is the world in dire need of significant change, we also have to heal from the trauma it has brought about en masse thus far. That is a daunting task.

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  • Love the video, and I love your social welfare model of mental distress and emotional suffering. It all rings true to me and it speaks to my experience. I especially appreciated this slate in the video, and I am shortening it here, to extract the core meaning–

    “The DSM worsens outcomes by gaslighting… stigmatizing…promoting long-term drug abuse and…coercive ‘treatments.'”

    Unfortunately, people have taken this example and are paying it forward, big time. I believe once we understand exactly how gaslighting and stigma are expressed and projected, in so many ways subtle and overt, and the devastating effects these have on individuals and communities, we will be a step closer to resolving some of these socially distressing dynamics, the polarizing issues they create for all of us, as a collective, and the always eventual catastrophic effects thereof. Problem is, it can be quite challenging to change habits of thought, belief, and social programming/brainwashing.

    I will share this video when opportunities arise. Thanks for providing such good clarity so articulately and accessibly. We needed something like this. I look forward to subsequent videos.

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  • Borut, I won’t argue at all with you that hormones play a critical role in all of this that is probably overlooked. I’m sure you know more about this than I do, and I would take you at your word, it certainly rings true to me, just intuitively.

    Re the mh system, I think there is a lot of information that would cramp their style, that they’d prefer to not consider, and simply invalidate off-the-cuff, and often with judgment based on ignorance (not having all the information). I actually talked about alternative perspectives and modalities to a group of public mh system clinicians and social service staff when I gave a little presentation a few years ago, and the response from them, as a collective, was, “the government doesn’t fund it.” So that’s what determines “healing” in the mh system, and even framework and perspective–what the government will fund. Hmmm…

    I don’t think everyone on here wants to see the mh system demolished, but I do. And when I say “demolished,” I do mean that I would like for it to go away, however best that could happen, and I’m not into violence or destroying anything. And some people do rely on the system at this point, for better or worse, so there are considerations here about transition and change happening to the point of paradigm shift, that’s not so easy.

    But admittedly, the system makes me angry enough to use your term, because, well, because it is what it is, and I think it’s a big mess and on top of that makes a big mess for its clients continuously. This is what it is sending out into the collective, aggressively, defensively, and insistently.

    I am being very frank and honest when I say I think it’s a menace to society at this point, and doing so much harm, it just can’t help it. There is no clarity or even desire for clarity to be found in the mh system, just ongoing power struggles, arguing, and severely polarizing and marginalizing systemic dynamics. That’s what keeps the system in business.

    I just have nothing nice to say about it at this point. I believe it is beyond redemption. That’s my personal conclusion, at the end of it all, after 21 years involved in all of this, starting with graduate school, and all through the layers and tangents.

    And that’s very unusual for me. I try to see something positive in everything, even if it is a life lesson through adversity. But as far seeing anything at all even remotely resembling positivity, light, or integrity in the MH system, I am truly stumped to come up with one single item.

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  • If a person is drunk, then they have altered their naturally functioning mind and have also relinquished control, relying on others around them to accommodate him/her, which, in essence, is rendering one’s self powerless and burdening others unfairly. So of course they shouldn’t drive, their mind is not in control, the alcohol is. If their mind were functioning normally, none of this would be an issue.

    And if they are drunk and don’t see that driving is dangerous, then my attention would go to their spirit, and by that, I mean their heart and “emotional intelligence.” Imo, something would be amiss, here, like a disconnect, which makes life dangerous for them and others. Of course, that’s my personal interpretation of wanting to drive while drunk, others may have a different one.

    I can only hope I answered your question satisfactorily, AA. I did take it seriously, and this is to the best of my ability. I’m learning as I go, like anyone else.

    And btw, these aren’t my “claims” and “theories.” This is a school of thought, I am by no means alone in it, and in fact, more people are catching on to this and benefitting from it a great deal.

    I just happen to subscribe to it, because it gave me clarity whereas before I did not have it. This is what was on the other side of the dark night healing journey. It’s called LIGHT.

    Google this stuff, YouTube it, this is an option for people to get past the glass ceilings. These are not my original thoughts, I studied, learned, and applied them. It’s a choice. I just happened to make this one. I don’t want to burden others, just share the options.

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  • Not sure if you’re referring to me in this generalization, but if you are, I can assure you that I’m not an academic. That’s an ivory tower perspective and rarely, if ever, applies to the true nature of humanity. Academia is where “cognitive dissonance” is born–the mind outside the body. That will never work, because that separation is purely illusory and leads to all sorts of misconceptions, projections, and delusions. It also leads to control, gaslighting, and marginalization.

    Where you and I seem to be in disagreement, Borut, is that you seem to feel that the body has power over the mind, and I’m saying the opposite–that the mind (and the inherent spiritual nature of it) actually has control over the body. The difference between your perspective and mine is a big gap, I think. This is a radical shift in perspective and paradigm–not just of healing, but of living.

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  • I said nothing about religion. Having a spiritual perspective is not the same as being “religious.” I do not belong to or identify with any organized religion, but I do have my beliefs about energy and our spiritual nature. I don’t see how it is harming me, quite the opposite. Walking my talk and living consistently with my belief system is only healing and clarifying for me, allows me to create fruitfully. I have clarity about my life, process, and purpose.

    And we’re in complete disagreement when you say nothing is “above the mind.” To me, that is very limiting in perspective. There are many schools of thought about this from which to choose, based on what feels right to each of us, and that will always be diverse, as is our nature. These are personal choices we all make–or not, and that is a personal choice, too.

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  • I agree, these cannot be separated. It depends on our unique nature and process, and where we are most inclined to focus. For some, the focus begins with something physical, because that can seem easiest to perceive for some, when it is affecting our bodies, and it seems concrete. If holistic healing is being applied, then from there, that will inevitably lead to emotional and spiritual issues–that is, pertaining to our spiritual inclination. Sometimes, scary and traumatic situations propel us to seek greater understanding of things, to expand our perspective. That often brings us relief because it opens the door to new potential solutions.

    For others, chronic discomfort is best identified as emotional, first, that is what they are most perceiving, so you’d begin there. Our emotions do affect our physiology, so eventually that would lead to explore physical issues as the result of chronic stress.

    And finally, some would begin with a spiritual perspective and perhaps their anxiety and depression, for them, begins with feeling disconnected from all that is, believing in nothing and feeling despondent over the meaninglessness of life, especially if one has been plagued by trauma and can’t seem to get out of that cycle. That would eventually lead to exploring deeply one’s emotional landscape and emotional responses to life–on what beliefs are they based? Needless to say, this would more than likely adversely affect our physical health.

    So like Monica, I believe mind/body/spirit is connected in everything, and the gestalt of our life experience is what we consider when healing, not just one aspect of it. That would not amount to core healing because it is inherently limited in perspective.

    How we perceive this and how we take our journeys of healing and personal evolution is going to entirely depend on where each of us, individually, is inclined most naturally to focus, I think that translates into ease. In the end, we are all looking for relief and a sense of peace about life (at least that’s always my intention with myself and others), so however we get there is up for grabs, to be discovered for each of us.

    Personally, I always start with energy, the spiritual nature of an experience or feeling. That info comes to me very naturally, I have a knack for it, so it the first thing I will notice, without any effort. That takes me to my emotions, to see what shifting I might be able to do here to meet my objective in the moment, and from that, I have found that things take care of themselves on a physical level, if I stay grounded, nourished, and always know my center. But that’s just my inclination, because it is ease and clarity for me, and my process of healing anything unfolds quite naturally and accessibly.

    My belief is that our spirits guide and heal us, so I make sure to stay clear on my spiritual beliefs, and live by them. That’s how I keep the best and clearest flow of energy, and am free to live my life as I wish, with intention and integrity. Keeps me healthy, relaxed, creative, and optimistic.

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  • AA, in order to pursue this, I’d need to ask you a few questions to give me a picture of what you’re dealing with. I wouldn’t do this on here, that would not be appropriate. Plus, I’d only be willing to work with you if you identified yourself.

    As far as my professional qualifications go, I am trained and certified as an energy healer, spiritual counselor, and integral health practitioner. These are all based on subtle energies which are part of our life force. What I learned was how to identify, work with, and direct this natural healing energy to where we need it. That is a multi-dimensional process which involves emotions, beliefs, and our innate creative process. As we heal, we manifest a different experience of life because energy is shifting everywhere.

    I think I’m more of a teacher, because in reality, I don’t heal others, I don’t think that’s how it works. Instead, I help people to discover what tools and perspective would work to their best benefit, based on their own process, and then I help them apply these and witness the changes.

    I’ve never worked with anyone with “sleep disorder,” but I have helped people to heal very quickly from what they were calling “chronic fatigue syndrome” and “mononucleosis,” and I’ve helped people who used to call themselves “mentally ill” be at peace with themselves and go on to create their dreams.

    These are terms brought to me, I rephrase them to reflect energy. The first two labels connote energy depletion, so I start there, asking “what is depleting your energy?” and “How would be best to rebuild it.” Then we discuss possible root causes, and then move on to solutions.

    For the folks who call themselves “mentally ill,” it’s been about feeling very depressed, anxious, and chronically worried, and general internal chaos and lack of ability to focus, which, of course, merits various explorations in order to get to the core of what is going on, and then deciding what changes to make in order to feel grounded and in synch with one’s self, to find inner peace and clarity.

    For me, it’s never an illness, but always a matter of energy and how it is flowing. We easily develop blocks in our energy, and that can be due to chronic negative thinking, that’s energy 101, and it stands to reason. I know you may not like hearing this, but I am by no means the only one that believes this, it is rather common thought that we get in our own way with chronic negative thinking.

    Once those blocks dissipate, which occurs when we expand our self-awareness and relax our heart, then our energy flows naturally and smoothly, and that’s when we are on our way to healing, simply from growing and evolving, allowing things to change. Nothing is forever, in terms of the physical. We are in a constant process of change and growth.

    Thanks to neuroplasticity and practicing new ways of thinking, our neurons shift as we practice this with intention, diligence, and focus, and eventually, it becomes second nature and we self-heal as we go. Our bodies have innate wisdom, but it is up to us whether we trust it or not. It is an evolutionary process, never-ending. I believe there are always new things to learn in life, each and every day, and you never know when it will be exactly what you need.

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  • Noted, AA, thanks for the feedback. My only desire is to offer hope for people, by telling my own story of success in healing from something which I was told would never heal, that there is no healing from what ailed me. Fortunately, my story and films have done just that, so I know that some people value my perspective and benefit from it, but of course this would not be universal, I wouldn’t expect that to be the case. I cannot presume what is possible or not possible for everyone, that is beyond my scope.

    Although when a client comes to work with me, it is because they know I believe anything can heal, and they want to know how that works and apply it, to take that particular journey. If someone has an issue with this perspective, we would more than likely hit an impasse sooner or later, which is fine, not everyone is a match when it comes to healing support. I see what we believe as a matter of personal choice.

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  • I’m done with mental health anything, rebel. That stuff doesn’t exist any longer for me. My entire perspective of reality and sense of self has shifted, and there may be more of that to come because life is fluid and ever-changing. I’m living, learning, creating, and contributing to my community by way of opportunities that arise. I enjoy life a great deal now, have for a while. I’m part of a community of working healers, teachers and artists–these are my friends, partners, and those with whom I create. That’s it, and life goes on.

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  • Response to oldhead, from the middle of this thread–

    “…isn’t psychiatry malpractice by definition?”

    I’d agree with that and I’m sure others would. But a lot of people don’t feel that way, and feel very strongly about their need for psychiatry and “medication,” so proposing it this way wouldn’t get very far, it would be battle among survivors who feel betrayed and harmed and clients who swear that psychiatry saved their lives.

    But, I think that there are a lot of people who can make a case that psychiatry led to trauma and injuries which only made matters of health, life, and relationships worse than ever. Were there enough of us who could persuasively articulate this, with evidence, reason, and consistency, then I think that would be a powerful case against psychiatry. I’ve never had trouble convincing people, at least not the ones who know me. My story was witnessed by a lot of people, we all know what happened, it is clear. I’ve already won one legal mediation against the system.

    This would have nothing to do with people who feel supported by it, that’s another group of people. If they don’t have a grievance, then they wouldn’t be participating in this. This would be for those who feel harmed by psychiatry, beyond the shadow of a doubt. I’m aware it’s a long shot, and I can’t say if anyone would be willing to go this far–either survivors or attorneys–but in theory at least, this would be an option.

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  • “Depending on how one defines “clinician” — whether you’re talking about psychiatrists or so-called ‘psychotherapists.'”

    Referring to both.

    “My position is that regardless of the individual, psychiatry by definition considers itself to be treating diseases, which is inherently harmful regardless of whatever else is going on.”

    I agree!

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  • That would be another topic of conversation. For now, I’m sticking to talking about healing brain injuries, to stay on topic with this blog. Main point here is discerning what gives hope vs. what communicates hopelessness, and the importance of that distinction when it comes to human potential.

    If we distinguish “good” clinicians from “harmful” clinicians, this would be a good way to assess that. Do we feel encouraged and inspired by the feedback we get? Or do we feel doomed and forever compromised? I don’t think there is any in-between with this, that I can think of right now, it’s either one or the other.

    I’d say the same for my friends and personal relationships, too. Mutual encouragement and support is an important quality for a relationship to have, I believe. Otherwise, I don’t much see the point in the relationship. It would be self-destructive, I think, in the end. Taking away hope is neither supportive nor encouraging, and can be devastating to people.

    In the power differential of therapist to client, messages of permanent damage will do the client in, without a doubt.

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  • That’s why I stress self-healing. That was the most important thing I learned in all of this, that we are our own healers. Starts with self-compassion and heart-healing. There are tons of YouTube vids from different perspectives by folks from all walks of life, on how to develop this awareness. Just search “self-healing” and pages and pages of vids pop up from which to pick and choose.

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  • Monica, thanks for being so direct and unambiguous. I agree with absolutely everything you say here, and my experience speaks to this as well. Neuroplasticity is vital in this healing, and that is a limitless process, a game-changer. There is no predicting the future, but we can influence our own in the best way by staying open to all possibilities.

    Like so many of us, I was told a lot things during my withdrawal that turned out to not only be completely false, but which at one devastating time in my life, led me to believe I had no hope of ever being functional again, so I tried to take my own life, thinking that must be true, because life had become hell, and I was asked to accept this. I guess because none of the many and varied clinicians around me had a clue how to help me, so to them, that meant that there simply was no help for me. If they couldn’t do it, no one could.

    After recovering from this profoundly dark period of my life, I was eventually inspired to learn all I could about self-healing, because what I was offered by the “mental health” field was just not good enough for me. In fact, I discovered ultimately that it was undermining and destructive to my well being–both, the drugs and the “therapy.” All of this was driving me crazy, in every sense of the word, and I had to heal from what I’m now calling “post-mental-health-system-traumatic-stress” (PMHSTS). That takes clever and creative healing. It’s new ground, with extremely rich and fertile soil.

    Since then, 14 years ago, I’ve had a fruitful practice which has helped many people heal and grow and make their dreams happen, I’ve made two well-regarded public service films about healing through truth-speaking and music, I have a band which performs as community service, and my partner and entire family have done remarkable healing and growth, spurred on by mine. I have two business partners for my Healing Academy for the Performing Arts, which is now growing, both of whom learned about new paradigm healing from me, and have applied it to themselves and their families, with tremendous benefit.

    Had I believed this bullshit about permanent damage, it wouldn’t have been just about me. There are many of us who would have been affectedly adversely by this pessimistic version of reality.

    We have a choice–keep hope alive, or kill it. It not only affects the person in question, but absolutely everyone around them, and their extensions, filtering in the community, then society, then the world. Think about how this ripples…

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  • Plus, I can’t think of a better way to get the world’s attention than to file a class action suit on behalf of psychiatric survivors, against the APA. I’ve a feeling that would open up a dialogue like no other, and provide multiple platforms for exposing psychiatry for what it actually is. It would probably expose a whole host of other things, too.

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  • Wouldn’t a class action malpractice suit against the entire industry be warranted at this point? I think that would be a good way to utilize funds, to bring justice, and allow survivors to be compensated for what was robbed from us in the process of making us sicker and sicker under the pretense of being some kind of “healing profession.” And we offer them evidence of our truth, and they keep doing it, as if our voices carry no weight or legitimacy.

    Julie’s right, the client’s voice has always taken a back seat, that is exactly the problem. No doubt in my mind that this needs to change. That is EXACTLY when the necessary paradigm shift will occur. Otherwise, it’s more of the same.

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  • Hi Eve, thanks for sharing your position regarding present day psychiatry. What a tragic situation for so many people, as well as for our society in general. And there seems to be no end to it, despite our best efforts to bring to light the truth of the matter, in all different voices. It has become a vicious cycle of malpractice and social abuse. And the law just doesn’t seem to factor in here, somehow. It’s pure oppression, and extremely dangerous, to my mind.

    It’s rather mind-boggling, I think, that this continues on such an enormous scale, while we’re all grieving about it, and with quite a bit of clarity, I think. Talk about deaf ears and heads buried in the sand! I think the psychiatric field has taken “denial” and “avoidance” to new heights–as well as “cover-up.” Oppression is, both, supported and fueled by corruption.

    I had my own horrific experience with all of this–from which I had to heal, it was extremely traumatizing–as a former client of the system and also a former clinician. I now do healing work from an entirely different perspective, which would never be accepted or acknowledged by mainstream medicine, least of all psychiatry. Yet, it is exactly what worked to heal me and set me free from this utter chaos and confusion they call “the mental health field.”

    I love this line and agree with you wholeheartedly, “The whole universe of ‘mental health’ has gone mad.” You are so not kidding!

    Best wishes on your mission to help bring much needed change, and perhaps bring some clarity to this “madness.”

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  • I feel extremely fortunate to have found the right healing path for myself, and gifted healers along the way. Referred by a friend, I went to see a medical intuit who reads energy, to see if she could give me guidance about how to get off all of these drugs. I had a 15 minute reading with her for $45, and she was able to tell me the root cause, how to heal it, and how to get off the drugs and back to my center. Over the course of a few years, I implemented what she had suggested, and it worked.

    It was rough, because I was on my own, and didn’t know anyone at all who had done this, nor had I read about anyone doing this. I was going totally by my personal experience, and the desire to alleviate all of this chronic pain and suffering I was experiencing, and get back to my life, once and for all! Total blind leap of faith, for reasons of survival. But I persevered and was systematic about it, and I won out.

    As I healed along this path, I trained in what I was learning, and I’ve had a practice for a while, and have recently established a healing community with a group of healers, teachers, and artists with whom I work, so I’m paying forward what I learned and it’s helping others now, both in and out of the “mental health” community.

    I found it to be a fascinating process, and it did lead to my connecting with my gifts in a profound way, as all that dense energy cleared away as per my healing, allowing me to find my center and grounding once again, leading to an entirely new sense of self. That’s how I ended up on stage, singing and acting, and now music director and piano accompanist for a local band. I seriously had no idea I could do any of this, and during the course of my healing and getting back into the community, it all clicked. It was a bit startling, but really, manna from heaven, just what I needed. It’s been an amazing journey so far, extremely creative in nature.

    That’s really great you were able to get off the drugs, rebel. My mother doesn’t really understand me, either, although I think I understand her pretty well. We’re able to have a good relationship now, as I have with my siblings as well. We did a lot of family healing, that was a huge part of this. I had to speak my truth to them about the family dynamics, and the role it played in my issues. That was an interesting time, and well worth the effort, very clarifying for us all.

    We’re all good now, for which I’m also very grateful. Not sure that would happen, but it did! I figure if I can heal myself, then extend this to my family and community, then who knows how far that will continue to ripple outward? I keep the faith…

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  • This has triggered a lot of thoughts for me, there is so much to say about being on and coming off of these toxic drugs, and how all of this so intensely impacts one’s life, and often in the most devastatingly catastrophic ways. I consider myself extremely lucky and grateful to have made it through it as I have, but on the whole it is such a disaster, hard to say enough about it.

    So I will just add this right now because it is on my mind and relevant, and hopefully be done with it at this point. The issue of psych drugs is near and dear to me, I’m sure it’s one of the things ruining people, families, communities, and society in general.

    That’s fine for the folks that feel it helps them, that is not my place to question. But I do know that these are still utilized as tools for controlling and disabling people to keep the cash flow going–and a lot out of ignorance, too, and following “the norm.” I think it’s dastardly in all ways, and making a total mess for humanity in the most blatant AND insidious ways.

    While we’re talking about “reversing damage,” I’m also talking about other vital organs, aside from the brain. For 20 years, I lived with slightly elevated blood pressure, compromised liver, kidneys, and pancreas, according to levels taken at my routine Dr. visits (also a thing of the past, I will not see an M.D. any longer), and at one time there was talk of “pre-diabetes.” Of course I had my bi-yearly kidney checks, and watched those numbers shift over the years, along with lipids and sugars, up and down, often cautionary, giving me a bit of chronic stress I had learned to live with, and definitely affecting how I lived my life.

    From ages 21 to mid-40s, I felt like a borderline “sickly” person, always having to watch it, e.r. visits here and there, that would turn out to be panic attacks, which also began after I started taking psych drugs, I’d never experienced this before. So that got “medicated,” too, and let’s add “dual diagnoses” to the mix now. That was the start of my journey on benzos, on top of others.

    Eventually the ER visits were not panic attacks, but other crazy and extremely painful neurotoxin-induced symptoms.

    Since coming off of these, now at age almost 56, all of this has completely stabilized. I’m healthier than ever, active, present, focused, creating, working, living and loving, no medication or health issues of any kind, other than minor rashes now and then from allergies. That’s it. I can also stand on a bridge, look down, and then dance on the bridge, feeling great and alive, no panic, sweats, vertigo, nothing.

    Off the drugs, with subsequent herbal regeneration of organs and nervous system, along with other kinds of very interesting healing and learning, absolutely no panic attacks now. My nervous system doesn’t even register this any longer, “perceived dangers.”

    I began to perform onstage professionally, which was unexpected and new to me. Did that for years, as I detoxed and regenerated. It all started with a singing and preforming class I took, thought it would be a fun way to heal, if not a bit intimidating. I’d never done anything like that before, but the opportunity came to me.

    It became part of getting my nervous system stronger and more resilient. I had to take giant leaps of faith and trust this process. That was a mixed bag, kind of a wild ride. I was self-conscious, but I got away with it and it did the trick, got me a lot stronger and confident again, as was my intention.

    I still perform as community service. I get normal nervous, no panic attacks. No way in hell I could have done this on the drugs, I’d have had panic attacks, would have been paralyzed with fear. I worked during those years, but without an audience. I was able to handle any pa’s discreetly. It did not stop me from working or from going back to college. I sweated it out, but it was exhausting.

    I maintain naturally now, and no need for Drs. At my age, that’s a blessing and humbling. I can only feel grateful for this, after what I’ve been through medically. For me, it’s been a bit mystical, definitely miraculous.

    It’s weird, wouldn’t have thought it, but somehow, the process of flooding my system with these drugs over the years, in order to continue living a “normal mainstream life” (at the time, my goal, just to be on track like those around me), and then withdrawing completely and going through this exhaustive healing process seems to have impacted my auto-immune, self-healing, and overall resilience in a really powerful way. I’m a bit stunned by it, but certainly I’m physical evidence of bouncing back from the worst of it, after having ingested these for 20 years, compliantly. I just followed Dr’s orders, until it almost killed me.

    I don’t know what else to say about this that a lot of people don’t know already. It’s just such a sham and scam and I could rant forever about it, or at least until this is all brought to light, in a very public kind of way. If anything sickens me these days, it is merely the thought of taking these drugs.

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  • “the very idea of “reversing” a brain state from a present condition to an earlier one doesn’t make a good deal of logical sense. Our brain chemistry in the future will never match exactly what it was in the past. There is no reversion, but rather progression and constant change.”

    While I agree with this in terms of how we grow naturally, and our minds and bodies change as we go forward, as that is the nature of things, and of course, there is no going back to what had been, in this regard, what I’m talking about by “reversing damage” means that during the time of my withdrawal, the brain damage had gotten so bad that I was not able to add 2 + 2, suddenly (and I’d been a bookkeeper, payroll administrator, retail manager, as well as an advanced math student during my school years), nor could I find the language I needed to communicate, and my reading comprehension went by the wayside, among other basic brain functions which had become impaired.

    I’d just finished graduate school when all of this started, and by this point, I was extremely nervous (putting it mildly) that these were permanent impairments, that I had suffered permanent severe brain damage from the neurotoxins. Scariest time of my life, thanks to this crap. I thought I was cooked.

    All that hard work I had done in my life, for nothing, I was thinking and feeling at the time, because the drugs seemed to have ruined my life. Sure did ruin a few years of it, but I’ve tried to make up for that, and to give those horrible years meaning. I did learn a lot that I otherwise wouldn’t have, that’s for sure. And in the end, it led me right to my true path, so ultimately, I could accept it all. Still, it all stank to high heaven because this was so obviously medically induced hardship on my entire quality of life, when I was trying to get help, and NO ONE WOULD ADMIT IT!

    Still makes me mad to think about it, though, because it seems as though nothing has changed! I deserve an apology and compensation, as do sooo many others. Like that’ll ever happen. Ah, the hell with it…

    Turned out that it was only temporary, thank GOD! I’m back to being able to do math like before, my language skills are fine again, and eventually, I could once again do all the basic things I could do before, and then resume with my natural evolution, unencumbered by interfering psych drugs, back to my natural way of being, evolving naturally. (Can’t emphasize enough the word “naturally”).

    Thank goodness I found remedies for this, but it was far away from the mental health world. The more I tried to get help and answers there, the worse things got, like salt on the wound, insult to injury, pick your metaphor.

    I focused really hard on fixing all of this, as at this point, my brain was, indeed, broken. The psych drugs had broken my brain.

    Fortunately, I was well guided to where I could fix it, so that I could once again do the 3 R’s. I started with children’s books and worked my way up. Felt like I was coming out of a coma and had to learn to walk and talk again.

    That’s what I mean by “reversing the damage.”

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  • This is the most direct, clear, unambiguous absolute truth (to my mind) I’ve ever seen written about psychiatry. I reposted these words below, and took off quotes (to simplify) and numbered each of these perfectly justifiable reasons that psychiatry would not only merit abolishment, at this point, but also be taken to task, one way or another. I think each of these deserves distinction.

    These are the exact conclusions I’ve drawn from my experience, up to and including “creation of a ‘United Front’ of Professional Vanity to prevent criticism.” Damn if that doesn’t say it all, and what makes it an absolutely impossible situation, toxic and dangerous. It’s bad enough for any reasonably grounded and calm person to face this, but for someone who is vulnerable and justifiably angry, confused, in fear, being coerced, what have you, and at several disadvantages to begin with, I can only see this as social abuse and total violation of human rights. What else? I have faced this before, and it is treacherous. I did fight back though, but it is not made easy, not in the slightest. How on Earth could this ever translate to healing, or anything good, for that matter. These are social ills! Or at the very least, the root cause of them.

    And when you compound it with the other 6 reasons, I think it’s a lock. Especially #6 for me, is powerful. I’ve complained about this often, the utter lack of safety and reliability of 1-1 meetings. That is a risk, no doubt. Not always of course, but all too often, the power differential is totally taken advantage of, resulting in power abuse, which is what I think all of these add up to. Sometimes, it can be hard to tell in the moment when one is being gaslighted. But it is felt later, I guarantee it. I see it as a form of post-traumatic stress. It’s a rude awakening.

    I’m sure there are more, but these are all totally true–again, from my experience–and flagrant in their power to marginalize select people (usually the ones who are awake), by bullying and overpowering, then avoiding responsibility, simply from trying to get support. So much lying, passing the buck, and cover up take place here. That is one helluva betrayal, and extremely costly for unsuspecting clients. The veil has lifted, thank goodness.

    I think these are relevant here in the USA, too. UK is being a role model here, imo. Thank you!

    *******************************************************************

    1. Psychiatry is under criticism for its subjectivity and unaccountability.

    2. Brief crises are defined as lifelong conditions. There is no recognition of this ambiguity.

    3. Complaints are seen as symptoms.

    4. Patients are misunderstood or slandered.

    5. The pessimism of working in a Hospital causes Confirmation Bias.

    6. Psychiatry in its present form is based on a one-to-one interview that is then written up from the memory of the person who conducted the interview. This leaves a lot of scope for misrepresentation, and hard evidence such as videotape is not used.

    7. Nor is there group inter-rater reliability, but instead the creation of a “United Front” of Professional Vanity to prevent criticism.

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  • “There’s a tendency to follow what’s around us as the right message – but it’s usually a kind of socially created message.”

    I think that’s a bulls-eye, Fiachra. What I learned that helped me the most to heal–by far!–and what I help others to do in my practice, is to get our own information. I can sometimes bounce something off of others to get another perspective, and I listen to what others say, as teachers, to consider new things to see if I can apply them with relevance.

    But in the end, it is my own personal perspective and viewpoint in the moment that is going to influence me the most, regarding my own personal growth, healing, and evolution.

    As you know from practicing meditation and mindfulness, when we practice these, we reduce the noise around us in order to hear our own inner voice, what some call our inner guidance or “spiritual voice.” THAT is our true guide and healer–our higher selves. That’s all we can really trust, because you’re right, messages from the outside are socially created, which can be for all sorts of cynical purposes and which also can be just terribly misguided for us. These can be mindless rules and guidelines, which serve those dishing it out, but not others. They can be touted as “truth,” when in fact, it is merely personally subjective, illusory, and even double-binding oppressive.

    In addition, these can be outdated, passed down generationally–because “that is how things have always been done.” But times change, along with society, and these messages can lose their relevance, and still be practiced, if we act simply like sheeple. Waking up means realizing that it is time to update our information.

    With the world in such chaos, I would say that anything that’s being done simply because that is the way it has been for a long time, should be considered archaic at this point. This is the time for groundbreakers and pioneers. Nothing will look as it does now, when it is being done for the good of all, because right now, that is not happening! Our world leaders are in disarray, hording resources, and lying. So curious what a world led with integrity would look like. Have we EVER had that?

    We, ourselves, know ourselves the best. We’re allowed to make up our own rules for living, because we have free will. If the choices involve harming others, then I believe those doing harm will pay for that in the end, one way or another.

    Relying on others for information without getting our own not only creates chronic dependence, it results in giving away our power. That will never work when it comes to healing anything.

    Now, that is *my* truth, I think it stands to reason. It may, however, not apply to others. That is not for me to say, but for others to decide for themselves.

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  • Thanks for the link, Fiachra.

    “…improvements must be made in mental health care both within and outside of the NHS, to make sure people get the support they need before they reach crisis point.”

    I agree of course that so much neglect and misguidance happens along the way, that it is easy to reach a crisis, which points to everyone along the way who was not paying attention–system, family, self, et al. Neglect is a huge factor in all of this, I think, as is being guided down the wrong path. Seems to have happened a great deal, from all that I’ve read on here over the years. That was my experience, as well, and I had to take back control of my own life. It was my fault I gave it away in the first place. I thought I was helping myself and doing the right thing, but in the end, this was not the case. Lesson learned!

    But I don’t exactly agree with this–

    “She [spokeswoman for the prime minister] said extra money being invested in the NHS this Parliament would help ensure improvements take place.”

    While funding always helps, a true paradigm shift would come from perspective and attitudes changes. I think where true change will occur is when awareness is expanded around what it means to be a human being.

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  • What’s interesting is that while I was on the drugs, toward the end there, I did have a brain scan, as per a psychiatrist. I was having all sorts of weird symptoms that no one could put into any sort of context. I was suffering from them, and they were bizarre and painful, kept taking me to ER. Last thing he’d think was that it was because of the drugs, he was looking for something else to be wrong with me, on top of what had already been established as being “wrong” with me.

    This was the start of the psychiatric calamity for me. The scan found nothing unusual, but on my last trip to the ER, the attending physician said, “You have got to get off of all this medication!” That’s what did it, and I sought the path off the drugs, which turned out to be an easy recipe, but hard to put it all into practice right away because of the loss of functioning I was experiencing, as well as the organ damage that had been done.

    But I persevered, followed the instructions I got from the healers I began to work with–in that new paradigm–and succeeded in the end. Took a few years and tons of faith and trust. There were times I didn’t think I’d make it to the end of all that, but I did, most thankfully. The experience changed me, grew me, and gave me clarity about my life path and purpose.

    And of course, all of those disabling, disorienting, and extremely painful and bizarre symptoms completely disappeared, been gone for over 14 years now. I’m in perfect health, and with no complaints about anything at this time, other than what is going on in the world around me. That is most troubling.

    My measure of health and well-being would not come from a brain scan to prove anything, but more so from how I feel in my body and how I feel about the way my life is unfolding. I’m happy and settled with it all, and I live a good life, feeling fulfilled in it, plenty of fun and joy in living now, and I’m helping others in a variety of ways whenever I can, including people I don’t know, through my YouTube vids. Sums it up for me.

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  • “I would say, given those pervasive negative outcomes, there is definitely a need for a paradigm change when it comes to treatment modalities.”

    No question about it. The drugs interfere with our natural process of growth and evolution, at best, and kill us at worst. Most often they compromise one’s well-being and overall quality of life, and they are so often used as ways to control behavior, so that one “fits into the norm,” which I think is an abomination on many levels.

    It took me years to wake up to the damage they were doing to me. I discovered that on my own, from the increasing pain and lack of functionality I began to experience after a while. All psych drugs related, without a doubt. That was an extremely costly experiment for me.

    There are many established better ways of healing and navigating our personal growth, which work to support our nature rather than to dangerously suppress it, as these psych drugs do.

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  • “there is strong evidence from brain scans, neuropsychological testing, and clinical evaluations that every class of psychiatric drug causes irreversible damage to the brain, especially with exposures lasting months and years.”

    This is not across the boards. I was on many of these psych drugs for almost 20 years–tons of them toward the end of that time frame–and while at first I did have brain injury, it eventually healed with a lot of hard work, and by addressing the injury from a variety of perspectives. My mind is clearer than ever and my brain functions just fine–in fact, better than before I started taking these neurotoxins, because the process of healing is powerful in its ability to increase our clarity and resilience, while offering new perspectives by which to experience life. For me, coming off these drugs meant a whole new life and reality, way more expansive, grounded, and creative than ever before.

    Saying it is “irreversible” only spells doom for a lot of people, and I know with certainty that it is a false claim, from my own experience.

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  • “When I learnt in Buddhism that no one person was (very) ‘special’ I was very disappointed…”

    Fiachra, this made me think of a quote I love by Marianne Williamson. I guess in one respect, no one is “special,” above and beyond anyone else; and the flip side is that we’re all special, in that we are all uniquely gifted, one way or another, so why not own it and enjoy it, as we share it, for the benefit of the greater good? And, encourage it in others…

    “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

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  • I have no problem with exploring language as we wade through all of this, but I was going with what I understood to be the spirit of these words, which to me translates into the stages of radical change and transformation, in which a breakdown of the old is necessary, and this is met with all sorts of responses from different individuals. Change is easier for some than for others, depending on flexibility and grounding, I think. I believe it’s an internal process which translates into an external one, because it is universal.

    For me, personally, it fits the bill–having fallen into an “extreme state of being” while withdrawing from the psych drugs, which is what I’m referring to in my experience as the dark night of the soul. And then working through all of that systematically from a variety of angles–mind, body, and spirit–is what led to a new sense of self and personal reality for me, based on entirely different beliefs than what I was raised to believe, and that which mainstream society dictates and projects, via media and academic education. It’s quite a contrast in, both, feeling and perspective, and therefore, in my perception of reality, as well as my experience of life. Much, much better now, major relief, expansion, creativity, and freedom to be, in this realm.

    Thanks for the link, very interesting! This is actually precisely my area of focus in my life’s work. I have a group now in which we are specifically working with this shift in reality. We call it The Healing Academy for the Performing Arts, where we work with principles of energy and creativity in order to manifest that which brings light to the planet. I’m working presently with a social service agency that wants to learn these new ideas and how to apply them to their services; and we’re also a band, bringing music to senior communities.

    And in the process, we’re expanding our awareness and raising our energy. It’s all based on what I learned and applied in order to come out of that dense state of being, brought on by my experiences in the mental health system.

    So much to explore, learn, and discover here. Personally, I think this is the game-changer. At least for me, it has been.

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  • Great stuff here, Matt, thank for bringing it to the forefront. A lot to comment on, but for now, I will keep it brief.

    This really stood out to me:

    “Psychotic breakdowns are important in many respects despite their painfulness, their scariness. They break apart old systems of belief at the foundation and force a re-evaluation of life, of one’s relation it, to the journey and the work that one is here to do.”

    Yep. Perfection. I’d call it dark-night-of-the-soul. It’s how we see the light, by contrast–what many call “awakening.” Takes work, creativity, and trust in going way outside the box to unfamiliar territory and embracing the unknown–well worth it, imo. That was my experience, in any event.

    I believe this is happening on a global scale now. Old systems are breaking apart, having become so corrupt at this point. This is a necessary and unavoidable step in the process of healing, change, and transformation.

    Nice way to end the week, thanks again 🙂

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  • “I struggle with accepting that these type of people are like the rest of us, who are able to feel a wide range of emotions such as guilt and shame.”

    I respect your confession here, Shaun, but this is a really powerful and revealing statement. Guess again if you think “these types of people” (that phrase alone says it all, along with “like the rest of us”) do not feel a wide range of emotions. Guilt and shame are imposed on people who go through the system, and it is felt profoundly. Where do you think the rage comes from?

    Trust me, we feel a wider range of emotions than you could ever imagine. You need to go through this as a client in the public system to get it, that’s the only way. Were you to feel guilt and shame deeply enough, you’d know what I mean.

    And btw, “these types of people” and “like the rest of us” is the essence of discrimination, marginalization, stigma, and social oppression leading to systemic abuse. It’s called “bigotry.”

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  • I know this question was directed at Matt, but I like the question and would like to take a stab at it myself, because it is direct and relevant to our current social dynamic.

    “How would you describe someone who presents as unable to feel empathy and enjoys hurting others?”

    Deep, profound suffering due to chronic heart and spirit wounding. A lifetime of getting kicked to the curb, resulting in feelings of powerlessness. Hurting others is one way to demonstrate power over others.

    I do wonder where it all begins, what are the core wounds? That would be different for everyone. And then, how to heal those wounds, and all that has piled on as the result of them over the years, in order to alleviate the suffering. That would also be unique to each individual.

    What I’m not at all fond of is the DSM version of human suffering. That is based on the illusions of separation and elitism, and sorely lacks empathy in and of itself, as well as any sense of the human experience or true diversity. It’s actually quite insulting to humankind and causes only more suffering, confusion, and wounding for people–literally adding insult to injury.

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  • That’s ok, felt good to write it out.

    Regarding Shaun, out of curiosity after all this speculation about him, I googled “shaun f psycotherapist Colorado,” and a linkedin account matching this and all that he has stated–80 patients, skiing–did come up, exactly as he said. So unless he is committing identity theft, which I very seriously doubt, I know he is for real. I really had no reason to believe otherwise, but like I said, the speculation made me curious, and it was easy enough to find this information.

    Regarding Shaun’s statements and attitudes, that’s his truth, not mine to judge or to argue with. That’s my position. Other than on a few days of internet, I don’t him at all.

    Although I do make it clear that I’m no fan of “mental health” anything, and one of those people who are dubious about psychotherapy, based on not only having been a long-term client before I realized it was leading me down a big rabbit hole, but also on having been a psychotherapist myself, before defecting from the field, because I thought it was bullshit, and it served only to screw me up, in so many ways, which I had to fix going another route entirely. So that’s my truth of the matter.

    I do feel that anyone is entitled to what they feel helps them the most, so on that I agree with Shaun. If someone is going down the “wrong” road (which I’m not sure that can really be, so maybe if he or she going down a road that would wind up being harmful to them in the end, would be a better way of putting it), then that is up to that individual to discover on his/her own. I cannot judge accurately another’s path, that’s impossible, and I’d feel extremely presumptuous and arrogant doing so.

    Otherwise, I think he is honest and transparent, and I respect that, regardless of anything. Fwiw…

    And to Shaun, please forgive me for talking about you in 3rd person, and we never have interacted. But I’ve been reading, and I wanted to answer oldhead’s question, out of respect.

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  • Not sure what I was ambiguous about, but for the record, I’ll be as clear and direct as I know how—

    I do believe that humans suffer from all sorts of life trauma, inner conflict, and energy-draining events and people. I believe that when we have good examples of unconditional love, self-responsibility, and boundaries when we are kids, then these traumas and conflicts integrate in a natural way as we go along in life, and we grow and evolve as we do, according to how our hearts and spirit nature dictate, because I believe this is where our inner guidance resides, what I would call our “spirit voice.” When we connect with this, we relax entirely because there is a kind of clarity that is extremely reassuring, and it doesn’t go away.

    However, when we grow up in chaos, confusion, isolation, and neglect in a stigmatizing, bullying, or gaslighting environment, then our stuff doesn’t integrate, but more so, it fragments us, because our processes have been misguided. I believe that is when extraordinary anxiety bubbles up, and this can be debilitating in many ways professionally and socially.

    I do believe that there is a condition which exists in our society, which some refer to as “mental illness,” which to me, would amount to chronic and never-ending internal conflict which is powerful enough to distract us from our life path and personal creative goals, and which can also easily cause self-sabotage.

    I also believe that most peoples’ perceptions are distorted these days, because of all the brainwashing and social programming that has taken place due mostly to media, I think, and also thanks to academia. I think the academic world is rife with brainwashing and programming, and it pits people against each other, so it’s more about personal professional agendas than social well-being. I come from a very academic family, and they drove me nuts with their oppressive way of thinking, all focused on “being right,” as opposed to getting clarity on truth, which is a humbling endeavor.

    I’ve awakened to some things, having worked hard to deprogram from all the falsehoods I had taken on as “truth” (like the fact that I had a “chronic illness” and needed these “meds” for the rest of my life, that turned out to be utterly false, which I discovered only after they caused me life catastrophe, from which I’ve recovered, thank God); but still, one never knows the false programs they are carrying around, we’ve all been duped, so I still work with this, but guided by my own information, not on what others tell me is *their* truth. I find the truth of others interesting, sometimes, but it is easily not mine, and I think that’s natural diversity.

    I think we’re in a collective process of waking up to all this, and it is causing tremendous anxiety in a lot of people, even panic. That can be the result of facing hard truths, and not wanting to accept them. That can also cause profound internal struggles and enormous fear/dread.

    I think it’s fitting that you lumped me in the same category as Matt in your statement above, because where I wholeheartedly agree with Matt is that whatever you want to call these conditions, they are curable. One can heal, grow, and move on from these by resolving these inner conflicts and shifting one’s self-perception. It’s very hard work, and hardy, too. Pays off big time, from what I’ve experienced and witnessed in others.

    As I’ve said repeatedly, I was on these drugs for 20 years and accepted my diagnosis for a long time, believing in this programming, although I was totally active, social, and I had a successful career, got two degrees, lived a successful mainstream life, even though I was on a lot of drugs for different things by then. The first drugs I was given went on to create all sorts of other issues inside of me, which I did not realize was happening until I as almost 40. I had started taking these when I was 21.

    So right after graduate school, I chose to come off them, and that is when the real adventures in the system began for me, followed by spectacular healing and very positive and fulfilling life changes, part of which included suing an agency and speaking my truth about discrimination. Winning that legal mediation gave me the confidence that my truth was being heard, so aside from getting me out of the system, it began my journey as an activist.

    While I have nothing personal against psychotherapists and psychiatrists as individuals, I have disdain for the entire “mental health” field because I feel it is sorely misguided and based on severe power differentials, economics, gaslighting, Munchausen by proxy, and is inherently dehumanizing. I say this from my own education and training, followed by being the client of many therapists while in social services and group therapy. I saw it across the boards, over and over again. I think this field largely makes people sick and keeps them sick, because that is how they get business.

    My healing came from an entirely different perspective, far and away from “mental health” anything, and it was amazing the difference between what I learned in graduate school, and what I learned in a real healing environment, like night and day. So I continued my training in this direction, as I healed by leaps and bounds.

    Today, I take no drugs, I haven’t been in therapy for almost a decade, and I am on my own with my health and life now, creating tons, including films and music, as healing tools and community service. I’m grounded, healthy, happy, productive, and fulfilled. I love my life, and I never thought I’d be able to say that.

    In addition, I am teaching what I learned to others, including presently to the Board of Directors of a social service agency that wants to be as unlike as the system as they possibly can. They want to learn how to actually heal what some people call “mental illness,” and have contracted me to work with them and to teach them how this works, which I am currently doing. I also have a second group, having nothing to do with “mental health” anything—mostly a group of artists and teachers—and they are learning to manifest what they desire, from this very same information.

    Other than that, from all that was said on here, I would never, ever challenge anyone about their healing path, I think that is their business, and if they feel good about it, there is nothing to address. I feel strongly about that. Otherwise, I see that as a violation of personal space, and can be really detrimental to a person, in very subtle ways, to challenge their own sense of self and their reality.

    It also makes me angry that people are falling through the cracks and suffering every day, while others are fighting over who is right vs. who is wrong. I think in this movement, or whatever it is, there is more emphasis on activist ego than on resolving these issues. I also think a lot of activists here are merely jet-setters, out for their own gain, and to be hot shots.

    So while I continue to post here on occasion, it is only to offer alternative perspectives from the mainstream, and also to get some clarity for myself, for my benefit and that of my clients and students. I don’t see a lot of power here to create change, as a unit, as it is too fragmented and in disarray, I see no cohesion, and therefore, diminished power. We teach by example, not by forcing others to believe what we believe. That will never work.

    Although simply by virtue that some people, like me, can get further clarity participating here, then that is beneficial to society, in the long run. But I personally got off the drugs and changed my life about a decade before I even heard of Mr. Whitaker and his work. I came on here referred by someone, because of my story, and it has been educational as far as group dynamics go, and internet communication.

    That’s where I am at present with all this, more learning to come, I’ve no doubt. I hope this clarifies unambiguously my position.

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  • “We are a shame-free zone. Language that primarily exists to disparage, shame, dismiss, taunt, bait, exclude, or otherwise diminish another person is not allowed on Mad In America.”

    I addressed this specifically with Mr. Whitaker a few years ago, before I even got involved here, just from reading, given the issues discussed on here, especially trauma from the psychologically violent chronic social abuse that occurs within the system. That conversation went nowhere. So, I dove in, trying to address the bullying on here, myself, including the cultish-like group bullying that I think goes on, and I got beaten up for it. My point proven.

    It has degenerated even more since then, and I’m not sure what this is resolving in society. It is hard for me to reconcile that “social justice” is part of the MIA tagline, and yet, I see people demeaned, baited, shamed, marginalized, and called all sorts of disparaging names on here constantly. Seems to be built into it, somehow, just like in the system. This is terribly unsafe, especially for a lot of survivors. Not all of us are callous.

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  • Jeez, this entire discussion feels “bipolar,” or whatever. At the very least, makes me feel a bit seasick. I guess I don’t have the constitution for this–or the desire to convince of/persuade/prove to another my personal reality, to be perfectly honest.

    I’ve shared quite a bit over the years, and very publically, including on YouTube, my own story of healing from bipolar diagnosis after releasing the psych drugs, to help encourage others who want to take that path. And I specifically say “healing from the diagnosis,” along with the medical malpractice, social abuse and flagrant discrimination from the system that accompanied this. I actually don’t believe in the “bipolar” label, I find it very misleading. I think that is entirely something else happening, on a few different levels. In any case, naysayers are part of life.

    I think that’s what really drained me the most going through my own personal “mental health system” disaster, needing to explain myself and prove my reality, repeatedly. That, alone, is demeaning and terribly patronizing. It’s also extremely and chronically stressful, feeling like one is always on trial–not just distrusted, but always trying to be proven wrong. Horrible doesn’t even begin to describe it. That is some serious mental, emotional, and psychological abuse.

    And worse yet, it was always to no avail, that is a bottomless rabbit hole. Getting away from all that was extremely freeing and grounding. I call it “therapy brain,” incessant chatter, never a resolution, constant endless rumination; and ultimately, needing to be “right” in order to feel resolved, kind of black & white thinking–as if there were ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ when it comes to personal realities. That’s what it felt like to me, anyway, until I broke those habits and found some sustainable mental peace. Biggest relief of my life.

    RIP Carrie Fisher, a brilliant talent and extremely courageous human being.

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  • “…the values (or lack thereof) of inpatient psychiatry do not include basic human dignity and the need to experience nature. The benefits of nature could help so many, but that would depend on creativity, initiative and “outside of the box” thinking that is entirely missing in so much of modern mental health care.”

    Very well said, and I agree. The mental health system/field is Dickensian, to my mind. Seems to be a complete disconnect from the human spirit, which is how it is dehumanizing.

    In healing myself from post-mental-health-system traumatic stress (my coined term for 2017, PMHSTS), I was able to get pretty far while still living in San Francisco. But eventually, to really fully evolve out of that and shift back into a self-respecting identity and feeling, I had to move to a natural rural environment. That was a trick to make that happen, as the system had drained me of resources, but I followed a certain path which lit up for me, and it worked, I landed next to a Redwood forest in a very grounded community, surrounded by nature. Biggest relief of my life, and a lot of quantum healing has occurred, mainly through making inner peace my goal.

    Getting away from the scene of the crime and then grounding in pure nature has had the most amazing healing effect on, both, my partner and me. We figured that would happen, but the depth of how this feels cannot be done justice with words, it must be experienced. I get the transcendentalists now–we ARE nature. It is when we forget this, and in turn, deny our nature and that of others, that we run into trouble, I think.

    Plus, I’ve been able to create tons and move forward in every respect. Nature is also creative, and a most supportive tool for our own innate creativity. Nature is both teacher and nurturer, like universal parents, so it can fill that gap, too. Trust in people is one thing, and most often rather dubious these days, unfortunately; but nature something I can ALWAYS trust to be authentic and real.

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  • I am committed to helping the world become a more supportive, nurturing, inclusive, and joyous place to live, promoting music, the arts, and new perspectives and explorations on what it means to be human.

    I also will continue to speak up about social bullying and counter it with unconditional kindness toward others.

    In addition, I will continue to teach about self-healing.

    Hopefully, one day, this will add up to the world realizing that there really is no need at all for any of this–psychiatry and the like. All we really need is to be a much, much, much, much healthier society. And by “healthier,” I mean one in which people are not annihilating each other on a daily basis, one way or another, either physically, emotionally, or spiritually, but instead, at least respecting each other.

    Can you imagine the blow psychiatry would take if people actually treated each other with kindness and respect? There’d be no need for “mental health” anything! We’d actually be at peace, if we can even imagine such a thing.

    That’s my vision. Thanks, as always, Bonnie, for your commitment to global well-being. Happy New Year to all!

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  • Courageous truth-speaking from the voice of lived experience, thank you Jarett. Psychiatry is a train wreck, no doubt, and tragic. Congratulations on finding your way to clarity and for taking action in the direction of your well-being, based on your own self-knowledge and wisdom.

    “I’m convinced that I’m on this planet to help others find the same kind of peace.”

    Inner peace is, indeed, a gift we can share lovingly with others. Very best wishes on your noble mission, and your continued healing.

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  • Ekaterina and pulpamor, thank you both, I really appreciate your kind words. It is always so gratifying to hear when the film speaks to others and gives hope, and perhaps a bit of clarity around these complex issues, from the inside out. I’d never felt so vulnerable in my life as when I published this on YouTube! I’m grateful for your comments, makes it all worthwhile.

    *Sorry, just noticed this posted above where I had intended. I’m referring to the comments below this post.

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  • Indeed, it is all so personal depending on your life circumstances. We’re all on a learning curve, that is human, which I believe we ALL share, regardless of absolutely anything.

    Thanks for asking about it, here’s the link to my film, Voices That Heal (96 minutes). 6 of us share our stories of healing and of going through the system. We discuss a variety of related issues and are all on different healing paths and not necessarily of like mind, we are highly diverse. We were all part of the same speaker bureau at the time (5 years ago), which is how we came together for this.

    What we really explore here is the notion and feeling of being “othered,” as a primary cause of chronic distress, where this originates and how we inadvertently internalize these stigmatizing messages, and how we shift this through our self-perception. To me, that is how we can be our own healers.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

    No book yet, I’m working on that now, with a co-author. Stay tuned! I hope you find the film engaging and valuable.

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  • Ekaterina, your courage and integrity are so clearly evident, and I believe these are the true measures of one’s heart, from where our light shines. This is what I feel from your article, the magic of your light, your personal truth and how you embody it. How you choose to take your journey of life and speak your truth is what makes you uniquely you, as is the case with any of us. We are inherently diverse in this regard, and I wholeheartedly agree with you, that there is no reason to disrespect others for how they live their personal truth. Nor do we need to take to heart others’ opinions and responses, that’s what I’m saying above, about freedom from shame and judgment. That’s not heart-based, but ego projections, clearly.

    Yes, open hearts vs. constricted hearts is a good discernment to make, I think. We do live in a chaotic world at present, very confusing for lot of people, understandably, and a lot of heart wounding, betrayal, all sorts of issues people are sorting out these days. There is tons of anxiety in the collective now, it is hard to escape at the moment, I think.

    I think your clarity about how you choose to walk your path is your gift, and exactly what is needed at this time of global confusion and conflict. I think this makes you an example of heart-based living, which I applaud and cheer.

    At the same time, life is ever-changing, so one never knows what’s around the corner, and how that will impact us, or how we will impact others. So I do believe open-mindedness and flexibility in thinking are also admirable and generous qualities to possess. But I think as long as we are true to ourselves, than we’re always doing the best we can in the moment, and these are the examples I look for around me. I call that “alignment with one’s spirit,” which we do not have enough of in this world, as far as I’m concerned.

    No way to control others, if we are serious about abolishing oppression (or maybe “ascending from oppression” would be more accurate?) via the oppressors tools of force, deceit, and blatant manipulation (gaslighting). Trust in our own process is vital. I believe this is what most of us are complaining about when it comes to the “institution of psychiatry,” on the whole. It’s really a crap shoot, from what it seems at this point.

    My experience with the entire mental health field–from training, to interning, to being a client, to being a social worker–was beyond horrendous and totally catastrophic, and I was 100% compliant and respectful to the protocol, as I would be with anything that I thought was there to help and support me in healing.

    I was wrong, though, as it nearly destroyed me, after 20 years of trusting it. And I’ve also talked and written about it quite a bit over the years, including in a film I made about truth-speaking as a healing avenue, for the purpose of helping others to avoid the pitfalls I did, and to offer better (to my mind) pathways of healing.

    I’ve been off all psych drugs for over 14 years now, after having taken a variety of them (including lithium, klonopin, the usual suspects) for almost 20 years. That is what saved *my* life, I would have been dead or institutionalized or homeless had I stayed on them, they made me so ill and eventually severely disabled me, which was temporary, thank God. At one point, we weren’t sure about that. It was quite scary, but all worked out fine, for which I’m grateful on a daily basis.

    Instead, I healed from the drugs, healed from my original wounds, and all that came from the psych world, which was more social abuse and spirit wounding than I could possibly write about it here, and moved on to a grounded, stable, creative, spiritual and fulfilling life. I did a 180 after coming off the psych drugs, life has transformed for me.

    So our experiences have been opposite in this regard, still we both know and recognize the magic. I think that’s totally awesome 🙂

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  • I believe that when we live by, and are grounded in, the wisdom of our hearts, then we are inherently powerful and unlimited in our creativity, like magicians. I think it’s a matter of attuning ourselves to who we really are, as spirit, and living by that inner guidance, authentically, and not by anyone else’s rules, opinions, or expectations. From my experience, that is true freedom, and when life becomes entirely magical.

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  • Lovely read, Carina, thank you for sharing these touching thoughts. I felt it as a prayer, had that energy all over it. What a dispiriting world we have created.

    While I think that simply being alive at this time is courageous, I join you in the commitment to expand my courage and refine my focus in order to flood the planet with light, so perhaps from here forward, we can co-create a just, peaceful, and inclusively sound global society–one based on truth, integrity, and diversity, as opposed to the deceit, illusions, and violent intolerance we’ve got going on now.

    Human beings should not make other human beings suffer, yet it happens all the time, on a daily basis. It has become a way of life to hurt others, to take our anger out on those around us, projecting outward our fears and insecurities, rather than owning them and taking responsibility for our own feelings.

    Given that we are all one energy and consciousness (to me that’s a given, in any case), we’re basically just hurting ourselves when we marginalize others. So really, we live in a self-sabotaging society. That’s a sobering thought, but empowering nonetheless, as it points us to the seeds of change, I believe–within ourselves, always.

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  • I joined a T’ai Chi group and also a Qi Gong group (the individual exercises which make up T’ai Chi, the dance) as a basic feature of my healing from psych drugs toxicity and post “mental health” system traumatic stress, and it is fantastic on so many levels, truly holistic healing. Balances energy on all levels–physical, mental, emotional, it is grounding, quiets the mind, clears blocks, integrates masculine/feminine energies (yin/yang), etc. By amplifying our chi, we regenerate our cells and core energy, to kick in self-healing. I ended up integrating Qi Gong as part of my lifestyle, 15 minutes in the morning, and I teach it as part of my healing practice. It is extremely gentle and healthful maintenance.

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  • “I know there are extreme states which represent transcendence and reaching another spiritual level, but if they do not fundamentally impair a person’s ability to function and relate, I would differentiate them from the experiences being discussed here.”

    Matt, from what I understand about this, a true and authentic spiritual awakening in our society will undoubtedly cause confusion, chaos, ungrounded-ness, and some level of temporary social impairment. It may not necessarily impair one’s ability to function as far as survival goes, but on the way to this awakening, one is flooded with doubt, fear, and questioning their entire reality on the most core level. It is always disorienting, by design. That’s how we find our strength, power, and the clarity of our hearts–the purpose of it all–by overcoming these extreme emotional experience through our faith and trust in the natural order of things, ultimately leading us to our own sense of self-synchronicity, aka alignment.

    A spiritual awakening happens when family, social, and media illusions/programming dissolve, leaving one with the feeling of being in a void (dark-night-of-the-soul). It is how old internal systems, beliefs, and dynamics break down, which is a hardy state of transition.

    Emerging from the dark night into the light of awakening means a radical shift in perspective, which will more than likely not be harmonious with one’s environment, until more and more people awaken. But there is definitely suffering involved, because old wounds must come up to heal in order to awaken, and that can be rocky, especially when people are in the habit of suppressing their feelings and being in denial, by looking outward, through projecting filters, more than inward, in ownership.

    Still, the tools and faith we acquire in order to overcome this are what become part of a new way of living, from new beliefs and new ways of perceiving reality, and self. We learn our heart’s truth, our inner guidance, way above and beyond what comes to us from the outside, all those opinions and judgments. They have no bearing on an awakened soul, other than as a reflection of the world around them.

    When we drug or otherwise interfere with a natural human process, as opposed to supporting it and seeing it through, then we disrupt the awakening, and that’s when people get STUCK in suffering, because the process of human nature and evolution is being tampered with aggressively. That will never lead to anything good, not ever. I don’t see how it could.

    This is my own personal perspective of this, based on my experience and others I know who have gone through this process. I’ve heard people say they’ve awakened because at one moment in their lives, they experienced being “one with everything.” That feeling comes and goes, whether or not one is awake. I believe it is more complex than this, and reaches deeply into our heart, spirit and overall awareness. It is life changing in the most fundamental way.

    Spiritual awakening is often called “re-birth,” and births are not pretty, they are messy and painful. But from the mud grows the lotus, and therein lies the prize of the arduous process of spiritual awakening–just like a newborn baby, so eager to give and receive love, simply by natural instinct.

    And when love is not flowing, then there is no light, it gets dark. That would cause all sorts of extreme states and a whole host of potential issues, health and otherwise, because it means we are operating purely in illusion.

    When we start feeling the love again, we begin to awaken to our spirits, which is our inherent manual for living, unique to each of us. That is healing, 100% of the time.

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  • It’s why I talk her up whenever the opportunity arises. She was humanistic AND scientific about it. She was a straight woman, but her social community was mostly gay men and women. From these interactions, she basically said to the psychological community, “Being gay is an illness? What the hell are you talking about??”

    And then she proceeded to prove, with her research, that as far as health and well-being are concerned, gay or straight is an indicator of absolutely nothing in this regard, that it was purely made up, fabricated from fear–as is the case with all bigotry. It is the fear which needs to heal–not gay people–for social evolution to occur justly and soundly, the way we desire it to.

    I think that maybe the reason she is not more well-known is that my impression is that she was extremely heartfelt in her work, and it sprang from her sense of truth, not desiring to be a celebrity or anything like that, not a media whore. She was dedicated to her work with humanity, from the heart. I believe her heroism springs from the fact that it is probably the last thing she had in mind, to be a hero. She was authentic and sincere, completely in her integrity. To me, that’s a role model.

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  • I always think of 1973 as the landmark year where “homosexuality” was removed from the list of “mental illnesses.” While Stonewall was definitely influential, as it had occurred a mere 4 years prior to this, I always attribute liberation from this category to the brilliant and groundbreaking work of Dr. Evelyn Hooker.

    http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/hooker.html

    **Great composite of her work and the effects thereof–
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZV1GPGlfGo

    There is a wonderful documentary about Dr. Hooker and her pioneering work in this area, called Changing Our Minds: The Story of Dr. Evelyn Hooker. I love the title, I think it speaks volumes.

    http://cart.frameline.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=T392

    **Here’s a brief clip of the film–
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWOfyD5qvSQ

    I consider her a hero.

    **WARNING: both film clips contain a few graphic images.

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  • Thank you so much for sharing this video, Sera, I found it to be extremely riveting and enlightening in so many ways. I really could write a dissertation on all of this, and in fact I took notes and noted time codes as I went along, everything she said was so incredibly interesting and noteworthy. But for the sake of making a comment here, I will highlight a few things which I found to be particularly powerful and relevant, and it addresses a lot of issues I see made in this discussion. It is a bit lengthy, but I’m trying to cut to the chase, here.

    First, I do like how she begins the video, and I’m thinking this is a lot of what you all (authors) had in mind, that laying this all out directly and authentically would basically light up people’s shadow tendencies—in this case, racist inclinations. Which, I think is totally legitimate and to be expected, when at the bone like this with such a charged issue. As you say in one of your comments, it is, indeed, part of the healing process, to expose the root causes.

    And it affects us all so profoundly, we’re talking about severe social ills, is how I would put it. And it causes suffering which I think can be alleviated, and we can perhaps do some social healing here, were people to tune into each other with compassion and empathy, rather than defensiveness and entitlement. Although, that is a choice, as we do have free will. As Dr. DeGruy says, we’re all at different levels of awareness, and I think it is sound to honor that with compassion, universally.

    I think for this blog article, personally, I would have included this video up front, in the article, to be transparent about your intention. I think it still would be a hot and crackling dialogue, but people wouldn’t feel set up, as it seems some have felt this way, simply by responding authentically. I think it would have felt a bit safer, rather than to risk being interpreted and accused. I think that’s where a lot of the downward spiral came in the dialogue.

    I did a lot of inner work reading this, as I kind of outlined transparently in my comments along the way, and it really helped me understand a few things I’d been thinking about regarding my own identity, internal culture, and personal reality. To me, that is the value of bold writings such as this, to be a great healing tool, as well as a teaching one.

    Still, it’s true, that when we delve into topics such as racism, homophobia, sexism, etc., we all become vulnerable to the truth and rather naked. However, I don’t think we need to feel shame when we discover our “inner racist,” but more so, courage and humility to own it, and to really think about how we treat and think about people, simply by habits of social programming.

    We all have this in us, and we could all use self-enlightenment here. How can we expect change to happen outside of us if we don’t examine what is inside of us? That would be impossible. We can’t change others, we can only change ourselves. I love what Gandhi said and I personally go by this—“BE the change you wish to see in the world.” I believe that is energetically sound, it is the only way change happens, really, to my mind.

    So much more to comment on, but I don’t want to write a book here. A couple of other things, though, before I sign off, just to touch on them, I think they’re important—

    I heard a lot of parallels between slavery and what if felt like for me to go through the system– mostly, the feeling of being dehumanized, quite brutally, where realities are concocted to soothe the cognitive dissonance on the part of the system/clinician/social services/abusers & oppressors (DSM diagnoses, for one thing, I think that’s a great example of this).

    I do not see my plight through the system as “slavery,” however, as it was not slavery, the way I understand it. But still, there are powerful parallels with the feelings of 1) dehumanization, 2) being dehumanized for the purpose of making others wealthy, and 3) lack of reparations.

    Like Dr. DeGruy says here, sure, it’s ok to heal, but don’t ask for reparations, keep your hands off of our resources. The mh system, et al, also gets filthy rich for how they dehumanize its clients, the way she described wealthy slave owners becoming filthy rich from their slave trade. I have yet to feel vindicated for all the money that I feel was literally stolen from me, under false pretenses. While I don’t think psychiatry is slavery, I do think it is FRAUD, pure and simple.

    I was treated as though I had no feelings, as though I had no sense about anything, like life, and they were shocked when I knew the law and got an attorney that saw my perspective and advocated for me. No slave would have that luxury, so I see a huge difference there.

    So while, indeed, there is no way slavery is the same as being a mental patient, to my mind, there are definitely overlapping very deep feelings of entrapment, helplessness, powerlessness, and punishment for saying “boo.” It’s also very paranoid-making, because of the utter lack of protection from social abuse. Those in the system do have their humanity robbed, I think that’s apparent.

    I have tons of examples from my own experiences that would lead me to believe that many of the clinicians and social workers I dealt with would have more than likely been slave owners in a past life, if one believes in past lives, because the attitude and energy feels exactly how I would expect that to feel. But certainly, it is not at all the same, because no one is really being bought and sold. That is a whole other level of sinister and dark insanity within humanity, to be sure.

    Finally, at 34:00, she says exactly what I was thinking as I read through this discussion earlier—have we forgotten that humanity is all one consciousness? She says, “Isn’t it a shame that we’re still debating that in 2008?” (when this video was made). My answer is, “Yes, indeed it is, and it’s 8 years later now.”

    This perspective applies here very practically—we are really just fighting with ourselves. Outer conflict and struggle is a symptom/indicator of inner conflict and struggle. When we heal what is inside of us, then we have the power to influence healing outside of us, but not until then. Inner healing is a precursor to social healing. This is what I heard Dr. DeGruy saying, and it is also what I believe, I’ve written that here often.

    Overall, I think what she says here echoes exactly in the intention of my film, Voices That Heal. As human beings, we cannot see each other with any clarity because of these filters we carry around, and in turn, we are afraid to tune into what is around us, for fear that it is a reflection of who we really are, and is that who we want to be?

    In short, we run the risk of seeing and feeling our own cognitive dissonance, and that can be a hard truth to face. It is humbling, but it is also totally empowering, when we own our shadow like that.

    We are human, human, human, each and every one of us. We all have interesting stories, backgrounds, cultural heritage, and unique perspective. Why on Earth can we not find peace????

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  • Looks awesome, Sera, thank you, extremely interesting. I’ll be watching this this week, I imagine I can learn a great deal listening to her. I’d never heard of Dr. Degruy until now. I like what she has to say, it all rings true, very direct and clear.

    As you can see, I got tons out of this. I feel expanded awareness coming on, so much to learn here that I think is of value–the subtleties of human interaction coming to light. Curious to where it will lead, but I do feel a lot of energy on this.

    Really powerful stuff, so again, I’m grateful to the authors for going to the edge with this. You gotta start somewhere! Always takes courage, because I think it’s inherently uncomfortable, until it no longer is. At that point, we’ll feel the progress, and following that, will be the witnessing of it, I do believe.

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  • This discussion brought to mind a scene from an old film from 1947, Gentleman’s Agreement, and I happened to find that exact clip on YouTube. Not the greatest sound quality, but it’s doable (turn volume on high), and even though they are talking about anti-Semitism, I think this dialogue they are having is relevant, if not chilling in its truth. Dave Goldman (John Garfield), who is Jewish, is asking Kathy Lacy (Dorothy McGuire) about her experience at a party when the Jewish jokes and slurs started happening. What was her response?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTFzXyqmuiA

    And then I searched Racism and White Privilege, I wanted to hear different perspectives on this, and found this, also extremely eye-opening, and to hear this perspective, and it is totally the other side of the spectrum from the above clip—

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCv4luaBfk4

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  • And if that’s the case, then we see what happened–cause and effect.

    I’ve been wanting the dialogue to be more in depth about our own experiences with racism or being around it, what have we internalized from our racist society that perhaps we can become aware of, own and shift, all that good stuff. That’s my intention with these dialogues, per my comments. To me, that would be moving forward.

    I know that a lot of suffering in society is due to the HORRIBLE way people are treated, due to their differences. Society seems programmed to sabotage people based on race, and other differences. At the very least, it makes life extremely more challenging for some more than others, simply from prejudice and bigotry, and by habit, simply not being aware. In my world, that is unacceptable. People need to wake up.

    I’m about to make a post below, which I came on here to do, and then saw your comment, so I responded to that, first. My next post is an example of what I’m talking about, with respect to how I, personally, would direct this dialogue, to more neutral territory.

    I really think there is a lot to learn and think about here, at least this has been very enlightening for me, to think about these issues and apply them to my own experience, while hearing those of others. Not into the personal squabbles, though. I think that is distracting from what is really important and interesting here, imo and fwiw.

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  • I’m thinking this was more about grinding personal axes rather than actually having a spirited and enlightening conversation about racism, which, indeed, would be valuable to one and all. But when it becomes personal about specific people, the dialogue will undoubtedly tank. That’s when the community turns on itself–which, of course, is exactly what the powers that be enjoy so much, right? To keep oppressed people (already filled to the brim with anger, resentment, fear, and blame) from uniting on a common front?

    And if that is the intention behind the blog, to out others, then I believe the results are destined to be quite messy and bad-feeling. That’s what I’d call a negative agenda, and I believe it stands to reason that, in turn, it’s going to lead to a negative outcome.

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  • I agree with you, Julie, and I think most people who post here would, too–that any kind of coercion is harmful and undesirable, whether it’s drugs or meditation or anything. That’s still forced treatment, regardless of what the “treatment” is.

    As far as imposing beliefs on another, I wouldn’t stand for that either, who would? Once it becomes an imposition, then it becomes pointless. I don’t argue, though, as that is draining to me, and also pointless, I think. I just walk away without looking back.

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  • “Holistic psychiatry teaches that within each and every one of us there are great and latent powers, which are beyond the ordinary life. It also teaches that there are practical methods by which these forces can be released.”

    There are tons of people from all walks of life teaching this now. It is innate wisdom. When we release all of our family, social, and media programming and resistance to change, stop grinding axes, take responsibility for ourselves, quiet our minds, come into present time, and learn to dialogue with life with awe and humility, we get it, and we can unearth and integrate our natural gifts into our create process. That is the paradigm shift–an entirely new experience of life. It is within each of us, and not at all contingent on outside influences.

    It’s also important to stop caring what other people think. I believe that this is our biggest power and energy drain, to make the opinion of others our focal point in life.

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  • I was out all day and came back to this tonight because I knew there was something extremely valuable for me, here, and sure enough, I found it, and something really clicked for me.

    It started with this article you posted, Iden, which I’m going to repost here because I read it and I got all this clarity suddenly about something that’s been gnawing at me for way too long, and this really helped to break that up. This is an outstanding article, imo, really deepened my understanding of this entire discussion–

    http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/02/how-people-whitesplain-racism/

    I do avoid “taking sides” because I don’t like to operate in that kind of duality. This is just my own process speaking, thanks to all this authenticity and very honest discussion. But I do have to say that I get now why using the word “slavery” as comparison to being a “mental health system client” is offensive, and why insisting on it is truly hurtful and lacking in compassion, as I see it.

    I certainly know how I feel when someone tries to tell me about my experience as a “mental patient” and all that I went through as a result of this, which, really, is practically impossible to explain the depths of the feelings this stirs, made to feel so valueless and expendable, and knowing this is being done either intentionally, or as second nature, because it is the norm of the culture, the dominant perspective. There is no winning there. Who does one complain to, or how does one find protection or even a bit of encouragement and support, if that’s the norm?

    Moreover, I don’t see why I have to keep explaining it, in order to justify my experience. I’m always happy to talk about it, I’m very open about my experience and my feelings about it, and I share for the reason most of us do, I imagine, to help others on similar paths, one way or another, as well as to help ourselves, using our voices and owning our power to do so. If it leads to an interesting discussion that is inclusive to all in the room, then that is great movement, and new clarity is bound to arise, and, most importantly, cohesion.

    But so often, rather than either taking it in as my truth discretely or offering some kind of compassionate feedback, I am challenged about my own experience in ways that feel so violating, because I am being told that what I’m feeling does not matter, but what another feels or how they interpret my experience, somehow, trumps mine, or simply that it should be considered equally. Maybe it could be equal and people can agree to disagree about something objective, like a movie or politics, but certainly not about my very personal life experience! That is mine to own, and if that cannot be accepted, then I’m in an environment that merits examination, because I’d say something is wrong with this. It is going nowhere fast, stuck.

    That would only discourage me from sharing anything (aka silencing), as this only continues to re-traumatize; whereas when our truth and deepest feelings are respected, then we actually go in the direction of healing. That would be a safe and supportive environment, which I think is inherently healing, it happens without effort in an environment where personal truth about one’s cultural experience is respected as is, rather than challenged or reinterpreted. Our truths morph and shift over time, by our own experience, not by the opinion or reinterpretations of others.

    Aside from therapists, which unfortunately, this happened quite a bit with me and I didn’t walk away for so many reasons having to do with social programming and what I believed about myself at the time, I’ve had a lot of people try to tell me about myself, completely disregarding the fact that they have never walked in my shoes, yet they have this opinion about my life experience and feelings about certain things, that they do insist is some kind of truth, when I am saying that it is most certainly not. And then they will try to prove it to me, by noticing things about me that are “inconsistent” or some such thing. That is pretty darn offensive, if you ask me, and should be seriously out of bounds. I think it’s rather abusive, to be blunt, (one way to gaslight someone) and these days, thanks to growing in my ability to discern what is good for me vs. what is draining, I would walk away from that person, and not look back.

    Thank you, truly, for this blog and discussion. It is so rich, and I feel I’ve grown in my awareness from it significantly, and can release something now that I’m ready to let go of. Very powerful, thank you.

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  • I’m simply expressing what moved through me as I took in the discussion, mostly recalling the feeling of being dehumanized, and how oppressive that felt and how severely it negatively impacted my life, until I could find a new perspective and work with that internally.

    I don’t have a concept of people being “too angry,” people have a right to be angry, that’s human. Still, there is a lot of shaming others–dehumanizing–that goes on in our society (marginalization), and it is extremely wounding for people, and I think it starts in the one who uses shaming as a tool for power and control.

    To me, this is all relevant to racism, and it echoes how I felt going through the system. I thought it was an interesting and very powerful parallel, that’s all. Nothing aimed at anyone in particular.

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  • Thank you for sharing these very deep personal truths, they are extremely thought-provoking.

    I’m first generation American, grew up in a Latino household. My folks had accents, and I’d hear quite a bit, “They don’t even know how to speak English,” which was preposterous, they were brilliant, well–educated, and extremely literate people. (My mother still is, my dad passed away 8 years ago).

    They prided themselves on being “liberal Democrats” and felt they were “the good guys,” and everyone else was either a bigot or ignorant or both. They liked using the word “stupid” a lot, to describe people. In short, they were two of the most patronizing and snobby people I’ve known,–judgmental to the extreme–that’s from where I come. I used to be really angry at them for so many reasons, but that’s in the past. We are who we are who we are who we are, and I learned to love them for who they are, even though I’d challenge them all the time, simply being myself.

    My family is also Jewish, and I was called names in school for this reason. Although we did not practice our faith, my father eschewed all of that that. He thought I was “ridiculous” for wanting to light the Menorah on Hanukkah. As a result of not attending services, the neighborhood kids, who were mostly Jewish, had their demeaning opinion about this, too. So I felt all that judgment and stigma from both sides in this respect, no one was shy about offering me their opinion.

    I’ve also been out of the closet as a Gay man since I was 20. To this day, people see my wedding ring and ask about my “wife.” I correct them with a smile, and say, “You mean ‘husband.’”

    Shortly after I came out, I was diagnosed via DSM, and I was out from the get-go, never kept that a secret. I could have, I was more turned inward than “out of control.” I just felt like I was a “wrong person” and had an extremely low-self-esteem, but I was not articulating this, until years later. At the time, my life experience simply caused me more anxiety than I could handle. It is terrifying to feel so unsafe and targeted, simply for being. So I went to see a psychotherapist, and one thing led to another, then diagnosis and pills, and after years of this, eventually, down the rabbit hole I went.

    Looking back, had I known then what I know now, I would have taken a different route to address my anxiety. But at the time, this seemed like the appropriate place to go.

    I grew up in Memphis in the 1960’s. We lived 2 miles from the Lorraine Motel when Dr. King was murdered. I consider this my first “awakening” regarding the issues of violent bigotry which we faced as a society. I was 7 at the time, and I remember that night so clearly.

    Today, decades later, I’m on the other side of this truly horrible and horrifying journey through the “mental health system,” and none of the above which I describe here is an issue for me any longer. None of that made me suffer as did the real and true oppression, divisiveness, and shaming that is generated from within the “mental health” world. That was extremely cruel, brutal, relentless, and consistent in every aspect of the “mental health world,” (starting with graduate school), and nearly destroyed my life, for no reason other than I was naïve about it all. I really thought it was there to help people, not brutalize and shame them.

    And I can seriously say I’m so grateful for that experience, because it continued to awakening me to the complexities of humanity in ways I could have never imagined. And that started with my own humanity, and discovering all that I had internalized from this bigoted and highly judgmental environment in which I grew up. As an adult, going through the system, I could process discrimination differently, more consciously, than when I was 10, including filing a law suit for discrimination, and winning it. So it was really a second chance to firmly stand my ground and heal from all that I allowed others to make me believe about myself, so negatively oriented, for being “different” in one respect or another. (As if anyone does not possess differences from others?)

    It definitely made me a better person, I think, because my awareness grew so much going through something like this. I could never, ever have anticipated feeling so dehumanized in life, but there you have it. That’s what happened, and it took a lot of healing and shifting my perspective so that I could align with myself in a way that I could breathe freely again, and feel good about life. Now, I feel my inherent value, and this is a good thing.

    What I learned as a result of this arduous experience, is that people really crave love and respect, and one way to get under people’s skin, of any color, is to withhold this, and instead, make a person feel really, really bad about who they are. I think it’s because that person doing the whacking cannot come to face their own hurt, so they insist on projecting it outward and blaming others for how they feel in life. It’s insane-making.

    These are the impressions from my own life experience that came to mind as I read this blog and discussion, so I thought I’d share. I always appreciate the opportunity to use my voice as an expression of my truth. Thank you.

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  • I love the word “allow” here. Healing is not something one does to another, it is something we allow to occur or not. It can most often occur without effort or interference, quite naturally and unobtrusively, when we are truly at peace with ourselves. And that is something we can practice at any time, through meditation. It is a practice, we’re all human.

    Yes, worry and fear constrict our bodies, especially our hearts, and it distorts our thinking. In essence, they block energy, so when we embody these feelings, especially chronically, we are not allowing healing to occur. When we heal, we feel at peace, so practicing being at peace, regardless of anything (though the practice of detachment) is a great way to get on our true healing and growth path, and also the path to change.

    I’ve heard worrying described as praying for that which we do not want, because our attention is entirely focused on it, and that on which we focus dominantly is what manifests, that’s inevitable. I think trust (in ourselves, our process, our intuition) would be the remedy for this, while focusing more on that which we do want, rather than dwelling on all that brings us fear and resentment.

    When we are in a space of trust, that does produce a relaxed feeling in the body. Relaxation seems to have become a lost art. This is one way to bring it back into fashion. We’re so much more productive, as well as practicing well-being, when we are relaxed and clear, rather than uptight and worried about everything. I think that’s a given.

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  • What I love about meditation, and how it most helped me, is that when I finally allowed myself to focus purely on the moment as my mind quieted down (that was a trick, but with practice, I finally got there), my entire nervous system began to calm down, and I’d find myself at peace. Even though that inner peace would go away as I went through my day interacting with the world and my life, I could still feel an ever-so-slight shift in my thoughts–less fear-based and more neutral and uplifting.

    The more I got into the habit of meditation, grounding, and quieting my mind to simply be in the moment, always going back to that little space of inner peace I could only find in mediation at that time, the more my thoughts shifted, and as a result of that inner shifting, my outer reality began to change. And then, it totally transformed into something I’d never expected–satisfying and fulfilling.

    So not only did a daily meditation practice shift my neural pathways to something much more light and desirable than that which produced only feelings of fear and powerlessness, it also taught me that when we shift internally our thought habits and how we respond to the world around us, then we discover the power to create desirable change that ripples into our personal reality, in the most uplifting and life-affirming way.

    I also studied healing and did a large part of my training with Buddhists (not exclusively, I studied a variety of spiritual healing paths), although I don’t identify as Buddhist. I’m Jewish and identify as such regarding my heritage, but I was ordained as minister in a Christian Church that was adjunct to a school for meditation and healing, based on the universal principles of energy. My work is as a non-denominational minister, spiritual counselor and healer–“spiritual,” not like in “religion” but as in, our spiritual nature, which I believe to be universal. We all have a spiritual nature to learn and explore, and from which we can manifest what we desire.

    The commonality between all of these different spiritual paths and healing perspectives is “Law of Attraction,” every single one of these diverse perspectives meet at that same juncture, so I began to investigate this via spiritual teachings and meditation. I found the evidence of it in my own life, practicing making internal shifts, which radically shifted my attitude and outlook along with overall perspective and self-perception. As a result of this practice, I witnessed the external changes around me, in my environment. It has been phenomenal and life-changing to discover how this all works, and it is how I found my true life path.

    So yes, I agree, meditation is a great start to opening new doorways of perception that can change reality to something better, because we can find inspiration from a space of peace, rather than acting out of fear or resentment–which usually, in the end, proves only to be sabotaging to ourselves.

    There’s more after that, but it does start with quieting our mind, focusing on our life-giving breath, and being in the moment, making a habit of that in order to feel our own sense of peace. From there, the possibilities are endless.

    So, indeed, I believe that mediation is a great remedy for depression, anxiety, worry, fear, resentment, etc. At least for me it was the way out of all that chronic anxiety and stressful thought habits. And when that went away, a whole new life was born, reflecting who I am as spirit, not as the mirror image of an extremely judgmental, competitive, stigmatizing and personally denigrating society. I learned this from others who had had the same experience of transformation, who were tired of the old ways of being, as a slave to society..

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  • Ironically, I’d just been having a conversation with my partner about the “dark side of humanity” as it is coming so visibly into light these days, and I was feeling quite frustrated with it all. Then I came to my computer to check out the discussion here, and found your reply, which uplifted me more than I can say, so thank you again. You express it all so beautifully spot on.

    Indeed, releasing our fears, resentments, and judgments to allow for love, understanding, and compassion, as a general rule, would be the quantum leap of the paradigm shift. That will create a new and improved society for which I know most of us yearn. I think we’re doing it, thanks in large part to your tireless work, and that of others, myself included. I have a teaching and healing practice in which I help shift consciousness into the new paradigm, and I’m also musical director of a band which performs for senior residents of assisted living facilities as community service. My entire journey was all about pointing me in this direction. I learned the hard way to follow my own inner guidance, but I finally did learn.

    I’ve been dreaming of this social awakening for a long time, and it is enormously gratifying to see it come to fruition, finally. I know we are in transition now, as the old systems have proven themselves to be utter failures, and everyone knows this. This is our opportunity to improve on the situation, with our own examples.

    From what I see how the world is changing now, I really believe that you will fulfill your promise to your son, as his wisdom continues to inspire the way forward for all of us, through your heartfelt commitment to unity within a heart- and spirit-based society.

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  • I won a legal mediation 12 years ago against an agency because I was able to prove that I had been discriminated against as a 1) disabled person, and 2) Latino. It was not that hard to prove this, and the legal professionals were able to see this.

    Were I to keep my mouth shut, no one would know I was Latino, Gay, that I’ve had a psychiatric history, or that I sued anyone. And yet, I’ve made a career of speaking my truth openly about such matters as discrimination, oppression, marginalization, and social abuse in general–and how to evolve and heal from such trauma–from my lived experience of this, speaking publically in person and on film. And as a result, I was ostracized from the mainstream, and from the field in which I had trained and dedicated myself to. Thank goodness, because that’s when I discovered real life, creative freedom, inner peace, grounding, fulfillment, and true abundance.

    So, in addition to other marginal identities which I took on, it was partly racism which, indeed, defined my path. FWIW.

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  • “I hope we all can keep working towards expanding these holes in our hearts.”

    Yes, I agree, this is all about heart healing. But how can that occur in a world filled with hate, resentment, fear, and perpetual divisiveness? That is exactly what wounds the heart. I imagine this is universal, we all have tender hearts, regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, state of health, culture, etc. The heart is what connects us to all that is.

    Takes a lot of courage, fortitude and faith to live in one’s heart, because it is rarely understood in today’s society and lends itself to all sorts of stigmatizing projections from cynics and naysayers. Takes a very strong sense of self, too, so that none of that gets under one’s skin. Heart healing is the most powerful healing there is, from my experience, and is exactly from where one finds the clarity to achieve holistic well-being, as well as the power to create desired change, quite naturally.

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  • “I’m beginning to wonder if all of this is not just about minorities and racism but about social class.”

    I am certain that is exactly what it is. The system is utterly classist. Poor people are perceived and treated as less then human, shamed, and judged. All sorts of false projections and highly discriminating stigma happen here. These projections become their identity, en mass, and they are (mis)treated and dehumanized accordingly. And good luck complaining about it. As WoundedSoul74 so rightly says, it will merely become yet another symptom of crazy. The oppression is severe, cruel, and very dangerous.

    Poor people are the clients of the system, otherwise they’d be seeking support from a private practice. And they are perceived as powerless, so right from the get go, one enters the system with a scarlet letter already in place. And if one insists otherwise, that they are not that projection, there is hell to pay in all sorts of ways, starting with gaslighting and then comes intimidation. It is commonplace in the system, to exert control over others.

    Personally, I feel this perception of poor people being powerless is the delusion which makes the system most vulnerable, because that is anything but true. I’d love to see that particular illusion totally and completely cracked at its foundation, so that the truth of personal power can be seen and felt for what it is, regardless of financial status and where one is on the social and professional hierarchy–all illusion intended to make a few elitists feel powerful, at the expense of most others, who feel rendered powerless. That is some serious social vampirism.

    Don’t believe it, everyone is powerful. And that’s a really scary thought for this system, which works very hard to disempower its clients in every way imaginable. Could it be that, at the core, these big shots feel powerless, themselves, on a personal level, so they insist on being so manipulative towards and controlling of others?

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  • Hi Judy, first, my heartfelt condolences for your loss. Obviously Dan had a very loving and sensitive heart, evolved consciousness, and he had valuable wisdom to share. Sounds like you are following through beautifully with your intention to keep his vital message alive and spreading.

    I had the same diagnosis at one time, starting over 30 years ago, and it has since evolved into exactly what you say this is, and to what Dan apparently knew to be the truth. I took an alternative route to healing to which I was finally guided, which was an entirely different–and much, much broader and *inclusive*–perspective on humanity and personal growth & evolution than I had been taught by the world of psychology, and as a result, I was able to ditch the drugs (it had become a total of 9 by this point) and leave behind the mental health world altogether in order to, once and for all, complete that awakening that had begun decades before. But it was not without a terrible and almost life-ending struggle, thanks to the mental health system’s extremely limited perspective and spirit-sabotaging practices.

    I was extremely fortunate to have survived my suicide attempt. It was a very humbling time for me which prompted similar thoughts—”no one is listening to me, even though I know I’m speaking a valuable and necessary truth as I see and feel society degenerating around me.” I felt value-less to society at this point, and alone in my truth, even though I knew it to be real and valid. I still carry that same truth with me, expanded and deepened now, thanks to life experience, although I’m no longer alone in it, which makes all the difference. I know so many now who have awakened to the truth of all this, and who are trying to awaken others, at least hoping to have some influence here. People need to be ready on their own to awaken, it cannot be forced, obviously.

    And not only that, as you well-describe, I was being demeaned, drugged, and dehumanized, simple for having my truth and daring to challenge those around me with it, all for the purpose of hoping others around me would wake up to what was happening in our society. I, myself, was feeling stuck, and in order to get past that, I had to call a few things out, so it was really all in the name of my own self-care and desire to grow. But these basic and seemingly inalienable rights were simply not respected or even regarded as reasonable, and I consider that to be a travesty.

    Instead, people wanted me to simply stop talking, to shut my mouth, because I was making “others uncomfortable.” I actually had a therapist say this to me, that I should not go around “pushing other people’s buttons,” that I should actually take to heart what others think of me, personally, and that I should bear the burden of responsibility for their feelings as a reaction to my truth. I don’t think so! I can’t imagine anything more powerless-making than that.

    At one point, I literally lost my voice for 2 months, could barely speak above a whisper; I hardly had the strength to project air from my lungs in order have my voice heard. I imagine it was because I felt it was useless to have a voice by this point. It eventually came back on its own, and I started talking up a storm about all of this—very loudly, directly, and persistently.

    From your video, this especially got my attention:

    “We have to step outside of the box and open our minds and start accepting these different beliefs and perspectives and allow them to heal and to travel their journey and bring us to a better place, because things must change.”

    Amen, Judy, truer words have never been spoken. God bless you in your continued efforts to help bring the truth to light, for the sake of us all, as a society trying to heal. Your work and Dan’s message are sorely needed in the world. I want change, too, without a doubt, to a heart-based, creative, just, safe, and spiritually enriching world. I will accept nothing less. What on Earth would be the point? Your post here fills me with hope and encouragement. Thank you from my heart.

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  • The mh system is indeed an institution of bigotry, class division, and marginalization. It is systemic social abuse, embodied, so it will exhibit all symptoms of racism, sexism, elitism, and exclusion. I believe it is a “culturally (and otherwise) incompetent” black hole in society.

    This is not a personal attack on anyone who is part of this system, or even on anyone who supports it (does anyone actually defend the system, as is, these days??), but, truly, my authentic impersonal critique of the system after having experienced it from top to bottom, in many ways, for a couple of decades, and then distancing myself from it, cleaning up the mind/body/spirit trauma I experienced from it, processing my experience, and then seeing it from afar, with more clarity than when I was spinning within it.

    In all neutrality, I can honestly say that I find the mh system to be so much more destructive, harmful, and divisive than anything that resembles some kind of help to anyone. That’s what seems to be the needle in the haystack here.

    If we ever are to have hope of unity, at least in the USA, and I imagine the world, the mh system simply cannot be, because it is more fearful of, judgmental towards, and angry at its clients, rather than compassionate, kind, understanding, and *fair.* And it will not hear this, regardless of anything, obviously. No mirroring allowed, at least not in THAT direction.

    There is no neutrality here! And a lot of fear, which is a precarious ground zero from which to operate, but that’s what I witnessed, tons and tons of fear of people–its own clients–so there is this impenetrable wall here, clean and clear division of a diverse humanity, and everyone’s “proper place” in that particular society.

    By how it operates so insistently bullying, stigmatizing, and oppressive as hell–at least from my experience, that was prevalent and consistent from agency to agency–social unity and well-being would be an utterly impossible goal to achieve. This blasted system is totally in the way of progress, evolution, and social healing!

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  • Hi Jim, yes, even though generations, by nature, evolve out of what came before, I do agree that the post-tech, internet, and cell phone culture has been quite the leap in evolution in one sense, while being isolating, crazy-making, soulless, and socially fragmenting in other ways. It certainly stands to reason that when electronic communication replaces real time heart to heart communication and interaction, we are losing something vital to humanity. These are red flags that are best paid attention to.

    The future is unfolding now as we speak, so indeed we shall see what that will continue to look like. Good stuff as always, Jim, thank you!

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  • I’m not saying they don’t have consequences, but people are people, and there’s no way to control the reality of others. Such is life–not linear, but multi-dimensional. “Right” and “wrong” are products of a limited and judgmental society, which is what we have now, which is why we are so violently polarized. Everyone can say that equally about that with which they do not agree, it is never-ending.

    Our realities are the products of the sum total of our responses to our life experience at that moment. That changes as we go along because life continues to teach us until we die. Our realities are constantly being challenged, one way or another, and how we RESPOND to that is what creates our reality and life experience from that moment forward. This is subject to change, depending on our willingness to shift our perspective and responses. We have choices here, with which to experiment, and see what works and what does not. That is the game of life, and how we refine our awareness as we go along, growing into the life wisdom we acquire.

    In the end, we’re all responsible for ourselves, and for what we create around us. We’re the creators of our reality, so if there is something we don’t like (like being hurt or attacked or stigmatized or marginalized), we, ourselves have the power to change that, within our own reality.

    When we put our well-being, clarity, sense of self, and emotional freedom in the hands of another, then we render ourselves powerless, which leads to chronic utter frustration (and depression) because that is exactly trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. And it will never, ever work, not in the long run, at least.

    Personally, I think this is the endless struggle in the mental health arena. People are not at all likely to conform to what OTHERS think is reality, because it is not natural for them–the reality of one is not the reality of another, no way it can be. 7 billion people = 7 billion perspectives = 7 billion personal realities. That is true and authentic diversity. Sharing the planet has been problematic, everyone wants only like-minded people in the entire world. Stands to reason that that ain’t gonna happen, which is a good thing because then we’d be the dullest and most boring, un-creative planet ever. That would truly be the end of our evolution, and more than likely, our existence.

    We learn, grown, and evolve by facing squarely the resistance coming at us, because it challenges our perspective. When we shift perspective, we change our reality, in the moment. When we own our power to create our reality, then we are completely free, because we do not rely on what others think, say, do, or believe to guide us, but rather, our own sense of self does that job best of all.

    So, to me, this is always about knowing ourselves humbly and authentically, who we are as light and shadow, as a felt sense knowing–not by analysis, which disregards personal subjective reality and is largely merely projection from the outside, mostly from an extremely dualistic perspective. This is where delusions like blatant stigma take over, and to me, that is what is dangerous to people individually and to society at large. We already have all the evidence we need of this, because it is how the world is currently operating, and it is not good at this time, not at all. At least most people I know are not at all happy with they way the world is operating now. So let’s shift perspective and see what happens. Change the reality. That is how we can take control of what we experience.

    We are what we feel. Our feelings and emotions represent our spirit. Sometimes our spirits are wounded, and our emotions reflect this, as do the actions inspired by them. When we feel good about ourselves, this, too, is reflected in our actions, as well as in the life around us, our personal reality.

    We choose our preference–do we want to project our hurt and wounding outwardly? Or our sense of self-compassion, self-respect, and self-responsibility? What we project outwardly from within us to send out into the collective is a choice we make every time we speak what is in our hearts, or take action. Is it through fear and resentment? Or inspiration toward collective well-being? That is a decision we make from moment to moment, based on our subjective reality.

    Great dialogue, very thought-provoking and highly relevant, I feel. Thank you, Ron!

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  • I agree that the fabric of our society is deteriorating due to eroding communication, thanks in large part to how we are applying technology. Just last week I went out to dinner with a friend, and there was a family of 6 sitting nearby–parents and 4 kids, seemed to be ages 10-16, in that range. While they ate with one hand, each one had a device in the other, all 6 heads were down, all eyes on the iphones, and complete silence between them. I don’t judge, but it’s not my world. I’d HATE that in my circles. These are not relationships I’d want, with people that do that.

    However, when reading this article, Anthony Weiner came to mind. Also, all those pictures of Hillary in the media staring at her iphone. And, Mr. Trump and his Twitter rants, et al.

    So is it really the technology that is causing this social breakdown? Or is that merely a catalyst for what has always been under the surface, and kids are still taking their example from adults?

    I think when we’re looking at social deterioration, technology may highlight what is already there by bringing it to the surface. Still, the root cause of such deterioration is always going to be the choices made by the members of that society moment by moment, based on the examples of the adults–our “leaders” and “authority figures,” and the messages they send to the youth of our society, through their words and/or deeds–mostly taking their cue from the actions of the adults they witness, either in person or in the media. How else do kids learn?

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  • “One of the dilemmas in life is that we can’t fully understand human relations and other important matters, they are too complex (whether looking at them from the outside or the inside) – and yet we do have to make decisions about what to do, guided by the best understanding we have.”

    A couple of things, here–first, I don’t see how this is a dilemma, but more of an open avenue to increase our understanding and awareness. Yes, we do the best we can with what we know at any given moment, but there is always a way to increase understanding, if we are present with the experience at hand, from an intuitive space and not a space of “programmed knowledge.” There is no formula for how to be, we just are as we are, evolving as we go, however that looks to anyone. What’s important is how it feels to us, as individuals, not how we are assessed by others.

    I think we need to be open to multiple perspectives if we are to understand anything, and apply them as situations arise. I think that’s how we learn as we go.

    Second, when we look at our relationships from “the inside,” that is our personal reality, we each have one. Who’s to say from the outside what someone doesn’t understand from their internal reality? There is no objective right or wrong way to perceive our reality, it is what it is.

    We understand our own reality, and when we are confused, we can seek support for perspective, if we choose to do so. Some people might choose to take a meditation retreat to gain clarity. But overall, I think we each are entitled to the understanding we do have, and no more to say about that.

    I say this because I think it’s fundamental in how we respect other peoples’ realities, given how core this is to these issues–how the “mental health” system is so dehumanizing and disregarding of personal realities, and how this leads to so much conflict and power struggle, leading in turn to more trauma and life catastrophe, from all the marginalizing that goes on thanks to this level of personal disrespect.

    I think that’s the bottom line here, when speaking about so-called “psychosis” or what have you, alternate realities, “extreme states,” etc. Suffering is one thing, and indeed, my work is also about helping to alleviate suffering, that’s always my priority in healing. But we perceive what we perceive. We are all entitled to this, equally, despite how anyone is defined, explained, or observed from the outside. That is our human reality, and everyone has their own which we can choose however we like to navigate. Any imposition on that is pure force, oppression, and an extreme violation of personal boundaries and human rights.

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  • Occurred to me after posting this–if the family scapegoat is, indeed, scapegoated because they are being authentic and true to themselves, and therefore not playing the abuse-enabler game to protect the system, then it would stand to reason that were the family to actually take the example of the one they scapegoat and marginalize–to see past the social programming, disregard expectations of others, and not buy into the illusions of dysfunction–then a lot of healing and personal growth for everyone concerned, including family healing, would more than likely occur because that is going in the right direction, toward universal truth, true diversity, and honoring the greater good, without exclusion.

    Whereas diagnosing, drugging, demeaning, stigmatizing, and marginalizing the one that is courageous enough to be themselves, despite community “disapproval” (via harsh judgment and shaming), then that pretty much spells doom for everyone, in my book. How does anyone win when a system fights so hard to remain dysfunctional by punishing the truth-speakers and visionaries, by basically cutting them off from their natural functions, their innate creativity, and their self-healing process, and then taking away their right to free will and self-respect? Everyone gets hurt in that scenario, and it is the norm!

    When is society going to learn that the scapegoat is the one being true to themselves, and PUNISHED for it? That is really backasswards, and, I think, how a sick society is created. And we have, until the perspective on all of this shifts 180. That’s how I see radical change happening.

    We are all so very powerful. Not just some people, with $$ and “position.” EVERYONE is powerful.

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  • Great example of how each of us projects our reality, according to who we are and what our personal experience is. Even in the same household, we each come from a unique perspective.

    In addition, each and every relationship is entirely different. One sib might be willing to conform to a family social structure, garnering them “approval,” while another may not, despite the consequences (“parental disapproval” aka conditional love). This is where scapegoating happens, because the one not willing to conform is seen as a threat to the system. Imo, a dysfunctional system is going to feel threatened by anything that is authentic, because dysfunction relies on people buying into an illusion.

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  • That’s what I do, this is the work I’ve been doing with people for 12 years now, and counting. I’ve helped several people make radical shifts in consciousness, which changed their self-perception in a positive way, as well as their entire outlook on and navigation of life.

    I come from family dysfunction, lots of emotional neglect, invalidation, shaming, and gaslighting–extreme pressure to be “a certain way,” to play the game, like everyone else. Which, of course, is not me, I did not fit into their box, so even though I did well in school and seemed to have a “normal” life as a teenager–I was quite sociable–I felt really bad about myself, very anxious all the time, so I thought something was wrong with me.

    And then I went through the mental health system, which added insult to injury (as well as injury to injury, like pouring acid on a wound). That was years later, after this all started, being diagnosed and drugged. I worked and went to school, lived a normal life while on psych drugs, until they turned on me and made me very sick and disabled. I had not realized they were eroding my system, and after 20 years of this, my system crashed and thus began my dark night of the soul.

    Coming out of all that, releasing psych drugs, crawling out of second-class citizenship and systemic stigma took exactly a radical shift in consciousness. I not only wanted to heal, I also did not want this to ever happen again. I had to learn how to protect myself from a toxic society, in a way that I could still feel free to be and to create as I desire. I was not about to isolate myself from the world, that is no solution.

    I discovered many things about myself which I could shift, and that changed my entire reality and personal world. It was vital, first, to feel good about myself, and people don’t make that so easy in our society, all sorts of name-calling occurred toward me, as I grew into myself with new confidence. I had to ignore that and continue to heal the negative inner voices, so that when these messages came at me from the outside, I’d have the perspective that it is more about the one trying to shame and marginalize, and not about me.

    That was when I started feeling relief, and felt more comfortable being in the world again, protected by my own grounding, personal power, free will, and perspective, while moving forward with a new mind–one that was kind to me, rather than denigrating. For that, I had to heal the heart wounds this all created for me.

    In the end, it was my heart which needed healing, and my own inner voice I had to change. Thank God for neuroplasticity. We are not stuck with what was dished out to us as children. We have the power to change at any time, and grow ourselves up.

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  • “…how easy it must be for the infant or tiny child so see the world as chaotic and unsafe”

    Yes, exactly. That becomes a neural pathway, which is why it feels chronic, regardless of circumstances, until one makes a deliberate effort to shift it into new and more supportive, safe-making, self-loving, and self-compassionate internal messages. I do believe there is healing for this, which would be a shift in consciousness.

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  • “…with the only other alternative being to let the bullying continue, throwing up our hands and saying we can’t do anything because we can’t hope to understand what is going on.”

    I think this could use some exploring. I believe there are many options here. Especially in a family/community/society/world where we’re constantly having to decide who is beating up on whom and why, I think it would benefit the greater good to understand the dynamics of the culture at large, particularly the leadership, and how they embody the norms of that particular culture, because that is whom we’re forced to trust, one way or another. What messages are they sending to others in the community, through the veil of their “authority?”

    Seems like we might be able to discover how the ground is fertile and ripe for bullying and victimization to exist so rampantly to begin with. That would be addressing this at the root, where social healing is at least possible, because it makes everyone accountable. Societies are not created by one person, they are co-creations among everyone in that particular community. Although certainly, leadership sets the example.

    Bullies and victims exist because they are allowed to, that is the norm. To change the oppressive dynamic of a culture, one has to look inward, to check their own internal dynamics. I think this is where humility, ownership, and definitely self-compassion play key roles in raising awareness. Otherwise, this incessant bully-victim power struggle is simply enabled by the culture in which it occurs, and will repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat…

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  • Ron, the example you give here seems more like a rescuer-blame dynamic, rather than one of unconditional compassion. I understand universal compassion to mean that we have compassion for a situation, because we cannot know a dynamic between two people merely from observation. That is where we project our own truth onto a situation, which is human, and indeed, how we create our reality, via these projections, but I don’t think it’s neutral and absolute truth, as all would see it.

    It is not always clear who is the vulnerable one and who is the bully. That is often a matter of perspective, interpretation, and projection. When we are in a truly neutral space of compassion (non-judgment), then there is no distinction like this between people. The situation is seen from a very broad perspective, as an event in time, part of a story, and not as an isolated abuser-victim interaction.

    That’s my way of thinking about compassion, in any event. It is unconditional, and does not require delving into a person’s psyche in order to feel it. To me, that would be “conditional compassion” which I don’t feel is authentic compassion, but more of a mechanism of power, control, separation, and duality. We can simply be in the habit of compassionate perspective, indicated by non-judgment and a neutral and balanced perspective, without needing to analyze or understand anything deeper about a person. To me, that is what feels dehumanizing, to be subject to “explanations,” which is not the same as “being.” When we respect human authenticity in all its diversity, we do not require explanations. It is a matter of the heart and spirit, not the intellect.

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  • Ok, thanks for clarifying, Matt, I get it. I had interpreted this as your assessing whether or not a person is spiritual, which I’ve seen people doing, actually “accusing” others of not being spiritual. But I get you here, that people do vary along this continuum of spiritual inclination.

    Personally, I happen to think everyone has spirit, aside from their physical body. I think that’s universal, that which connects us all. But I do agree that not everyone subscribes to this.

    FWIW, I tend to believe that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. When I look at this that way and apply it moment to moment, it really takes the edge off and allows me to detach from the drama of life, in order to see the life journey as purely a learning process of limitless creativity; more of an adventure than a burden, even during adversity. That’s just me, though. I certainly respect all beliefs that do not include harm to others.

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  • Congratulations on your robust healing, and getting to the other side of all that you describe. I hope you found it freeing to tell your story. It is courageous and inspiring, and in addition, you are speaking a truth that many cannot yet fathom. So please, keep speaking it, because it is hope, encouragement, and an example to others who so easily feel defeated, thanks to extremely oppressive and reality-distorting systemic stigma.

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  • Very well-stated. DSM diagnosis is more judgment than anything else. And when we are judgmental, we do it at any distance. It does not take deep thinking to be judgmental–in fact, it’s usually quite shallow, superficial, and leaves out relevant information, because it doesn’t fit in the box of the one doing the “diagnosing”/judging. How can long distance diagnosing be anything other than pure and transparent projection? Says more about the accuser than the accused.

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  • “So, since we are all ‘in psychosis’ now, maybe it’s even more important to think about how to work through psychosis to some kind of ‘other side?'”

    Brilliant, Ron. I like your multi-dimensional thinking, here. Seems to me this is an opportunity to, once and for all, get what this means, as per everyone’s lived experience, in the moment and self-responsibly.

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  • In some circles, I’ve heard this state of being referred to as “initiation.” That is, it is a transition into a higher state of being and awareness, and in that process, chaos can erupt. When it is impeded or suppressed, this is basically interfering with nature, and that’s when it becomes harmful and dangerous. But if supported with permission, wisdom, and love, then it is a beautiful journey of awakening.

    “I think some people are not spiritual”

    Matt, this statement got my attention. How would you know if someone else is spiritual, unless they out and out told you that themselves? That is a very personal and intimate connection with one’s own spirit, inner being, and the higher power of their heart.

    I think one of the issues with all of this is that how one chooses to be and live their life is subjective in nature, not what is based on observation. That’s when life becomes impersonal, dissociated, academic, and dehumanizing, rather than one of being in the moment and connected to one’s feelings, which is where our humanity, power, and creativity reside. It’s exactly what I don’t like about the “mental health” system, and why I feel it has failed miserably.

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  • For me it was a matter of trusting what I was doing, despite the doubts that would pop up from time to time. Just keep moving forward is all I kept telling myself. And yes, rocket fuel is a good analogy for that energy, it really took me to new levels of personal empowerment, and, indeed, a new and improved reality, where I could, first, breathe, and then thrive.

    I also attended California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and got my MA in counseling psychology. From what I remember of his bio, I believe Paris attended this school also, and I even think it was around the same time, I graduated in 1999. My troubles actually began there, that’s a big part of my story.

    I don’t know Dr. Steinman’s work. I’m thinking that, perhaps, you are referring to a comment I made on his blog, which I haven’t gone back to. Not to get into that here, but just to make clear, that was truth I felt necessary to speak, for my own sake.

    Interesting that during my 17 years in SF, I never ran into these gentlemen. Most of my time was spent in the system, social services, voc rehab, and professional advocacy. I was all over the place in and out of the system. My alternative healing work and training was done in other healing communities, mostly a school for meditation and healing, where I learned the energy work. I also did tons of community work over the years, a lot in Castro, where I lived, with the LGBT community.

    That city has become increasingly problematic over the years, and a lot of it has to do with the mental health industry. It’s the pits.

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  • As far as, literally, escaping the system goes, that was pretty much a systematic step-by-step process I can easily share here, details to be filled in later.

    First, can’t do it on psych drugs, so those must go, if one wants out of the system—by definition. Then I did everything in my power to heal, and that became my life path. I continue to practice what I learned, all that natural stuff, and I also teach it and create from it.

    Then, I sued an agency which discriminated against me, and won the mediation. That was a bit of a miracle, but I was so certain in my truth, that nothing deterred me from seeking justice I knew I deserved, so I was tenacious about it. In the end, it cost me nothing to do this, other than any hope of getting work in San Francisco, where I had trained as MFT. So I did it on my own, my way.

    From that, I went on to continue my training and certification as energy healer and medical intuit, and opened a practice, as well as was doing all sorts of things in the community, mainly theater. The creativity helped tremendously. That was the first time I disengaged from the system.

    Then, after establishing myself outside the system, I went back to professional advocacy because I heard they had an “anti-stigma” public speaking program, and that was my story, so I felt this was a good opportunity to start sharing my story publically, which I did around San Francisco for a couple of years. At the time, I was unaware of this professional ‘anti-stigma’ game, but in my case, it applied and I talked about it.

    Then, the opportunity came to make a film really speaking out about our experience, several of us, which I produced and directed, while sharing my own story as well, and that led directly to a big transition and move, which has worked out better than I could have imagined. Not because I cashed in, the film is a public service. But because I happened to send it to the right people and it got passed around to more of the right people, and then screened a few times and one thing led to another, and the path really did just present itself, opportunity after opportunity, so I went with it.

    That eventually got very messy as things got very political for me in the system, I was feeling stigmatized, controlled, and second-classed again, and after a few clashes where I got the full picture, I told them to f.o. and that was that, no more system.

    I’m now established where I am as a healer, teacher, and artist, and I just formed a group of other healers, teachers, and artists, we’re performing for seniors at various centers, as a musical group, while also doing healing work for others–hard core community healing work. I think we need it at this time–healing and uplifting.

    And in the new year, I’m contracted to work with a non-profit alternative-to-the-system organization, they want to learn my energy work. So I feel I have a wonderful opportunity to pass this info along to yet another group of good folks, who are intent on providing the kind of community support that comes from loving respect for others, what I like to call “unity consciousness.” That’s what I teach, how to apply that to healing and creating.

    All of this kept testing my patience and of course trigger after trigger would come up from constant struggle with the system, no matter what, it seemed inevitable. I never, ever went back to drugs or therapy, and instead I used all my new tools and perspectives to continue my healing and to get clarity about how I was continuing to experience this. It repeated, so I had to do my own inner work in order to detach from all that.

    Eventually, the triggering stopped and I got clarity on a whole different level, which is what I call “the spiritual journey.” That’s when I felt not only completely divorced from the system, but also healed from it, and I could finally move along with new ease and clarity.

    A lot of my interactions in here, on MIA, have helped me a lot with that, so I always appreciate the authenticity on here, even if it can lead to frustration at times, but such is life just about anywhere.

    I do agree that it is healing to work things out in dialogue, but to my mind, it has to be completely authentic to be effective as a healing tool, rather than controlled or censored in any way. That can be challenging, no doubt.

    Anyway, this all occurred from 2001, right after grad school, and when I finally tapered and also entered the system at the same time, up to now, present time. I was not in the public system before grad school, I was in the private sector, and paid a lot to go through this. Still, I consider all of it ‘the system,’ because it is ‘the system’ at large, including political system. But the public system was definitely a shock to my middle-class nervous system. That was the best life education I got.

    So it took a while to dig my way out, but I followed a very definite path as I was learning all these new things and applying them, and it led me very well, thankfully. And no, I don’t have a lot of $$, the system drained me financially as well as in those other ways.

    BUT, part of learning how to work with ‘energy’ is learning how $$ is just energy, and we can create abundance in all sorts of ways. It’s really interesting how this works, and in my life, it was a game-changer. Indeed, I’m eager to share more about this, because it takes ‘economics’ out of the picture in a way that is seriously empowering on a personal and individual level. No other way I could have done all of this, had I not trusted what I was learning about how energy works, very neutrally.

    More to come!

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  • Thank you both for the encouragement, I will consider this. I actually submitted an article a few years ago and then rescinded it, as I did not feel ready to post it here, I did not have exactly the clarity I wanted first. Fortunately, these very honest discussions have allowed me to process just about every aspect of my story of going from chaos to clarity and leaving this all behind, so I feel I’ve streamlined it quite a bit now, the dots connect more visibly and directly. I’ve been working on a book, so I’ll consider submitting portions.

    Matt, I agree with you–what I’d call ‘enmeshment,’ along with projected beliefs of ‘doom,’ is a really bad combo for the mind.

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  • Very thought-provoking interview, tons of food for thought, here.

    For me, the issue of family influence on attaching to delusions later in life came directly from accepting what I was raised to believe without question. Also, by taking on the fear that my parents felt about life, from their own perceptions which were formed based on *their* life experience. Their fears, worries, and delusions became my fears, worries, and delusions, until I was ultimately able to separate from their world view and come into my own, based solely on my experience and not on anyone else’s. When I individuated from all of that, and how others lived their lives and walked their paths, and focused purely on what felt right, true, and real to me, I was able to ground in my own reality and create the life I most wanted to live, and the issue of whether or not my experience was “real” to others became a non-issue for me, completely irrelevant.

    The psych drugs contributed enormously to feelings of paranoia, attached to stories of persecution. Having gone through the mental health system, however, this seemed somewhat reasonable, given the aggressive marginalization that occurs in there. “Persecution” is not so off-base, given the level of prejudice and blatant discrimination that occurs in the mental health field. But it is traumatic, and combined with the drugs, it became exaggerated and I carried it most everywhere for a while.

    In the end, distinguishing my own self from the family culture, ditching the psych drugs, and completely defecting from the system is what ultimately healed any doubts I had regarding my reality. Once I became aligned with my life, owned it on my terms, and felt good about it, all the fear-based and negative thoughts began to subside, and the reality I most enjoy materialized before me. And that was the end of what anyone would call “psychosis.”

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  • “It’s this endless sniping and hate fueled atmosphere… This country is never more united than when it has someone to hate…”

    It’s a shame we can’t unite over something to love, universally, as we do so easily over that which we hate.

    “…and Trump sold the people exactly what they were looking for.”

    What, a savior from all that threatening diversity? Coming together as a nation by marginalizing people? Well, yeah, that’s what many seem to want–unity by exclusion. I’m not at all clear on how this ultimate paradox could ever work, but something powerful is playing out from all of this, without a doubt. I very strongly feel that this particular combination of chaos and never-ending series of blatant contradictions is the precursor to imminent change.

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  • Rebel, I see your truth here and I’m in full agreement with it. Society will heal if, and only if, each of us, as individuals, takes responsibility for our own healing and personal growth. Those who do not are not able to be part of a healed society, by definition, because they will repeatedly externalize and manifest that which has not healed and integrated, until they once and for all deal with it head on, discovering and exploring their own innate wisdom of self-healing.

    For change to occur, at least with a level of ease and clarity that would make this kind of radical transition humanly manageable, I think it’s necessary to shift our perspective on things, from the inside. From that, change occurs in the environment, it is inevitable. That’s my truth, in any event, from my own experience.

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  • What a simple and brilliant example of the illusions of our society, Stephen. This is but one example, and I’d be the farm it is the norm. We have no idea what these folks are up to, really, and whatever it is, obviously, it has not been working, and you’re right, it is in no one’s interest but their own. That is the way of present time politics. It is about ego, money, and the illusion of power, and certainly not about being of service to the people they allegedly “represent.”

    “I think that everything that the American people are allowed to observe about our politicians may not always be the reality that we think it to be.”

    I’d say this is more than likely usually the case, if not always. Healing and personal growth have everything to do with facing hard truths and waking up to illusions. The media has served them to us by the trainload, for years and years.

    So then, what exactly is the reality of the situation? I have a feeling we’re about to find out, given how things are going at this point. Can’t wait for those revelations to occur, once and for all. Then, we’ll have a new game, finally. It’s about time!

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  • I appreciate what you are exploring here, Dr. Steinman, but isn’t “Using Lois as a teaching example…” rather dehumanizing? This is a big problem in the mental health field, I think. People can speak for themselves and tell their own stories. Lois’ story is filtered through you, and you are using her.

    To be clear, I cannot bring myself to support books and articles written by mental health clinicians using their clients as examples of their professional success, or to prove a particular point about a healing modality. In graduate school, where I studied counseling psychology, most of my professors would do this, tell us students how their way worked with client after client, relating to us the stories of their clients, while at the same time bashing their colleagues’ (and my other professors’) methods and modalities. This was common, this dualistic competition–almost like back-stabbing, a bit gossipy, in fact–and then the inevitable examples of glowing, miraculous success with their clients via their own (brilliant, by implication) way of doing things.

    We should be using only ourselves as examples, given that we are all human with human issues, and we all, equally, have healing, growth, and evolution to experience. It is our subjective experience that matters and has value to us, not what someone else says about us via observation. That’s not necessarily real, and in fact, usually is not based on the talked-about person’s reality in the slightest. I defected from the field of psychology, both professionally and in my quest for healing and wholeness, specifically because I see these norms and dynamics as toxic, purely. I feel they have created a very negative and energy sucking culture, quite frankly. How can meaningful core healing happen in that kind of environment?

    With all due respect, I do honestly think this is exactly why this field has failed us all, and has created such mass delusion in all sorts of ways. This is not authentic to the client, with or without their permission to tell their story. So to me, there would inherently be distortion here. The client’s personal story is told through the filter of someone with a professional agenda, and I don’t believe that this would be the client’s actual reality, nor at all in their best interest. And to be true to my word and walk my talk, no, that is not for me to say, that would be for the client to say; but in my experience, this has tended to be the case, that we do not prosper by having someone else tell our story, explain us, or interpret us.

    People need to speak for themselves to feel the power of their growth and healing. Otherwise, I’m reading only about the clinician telling the story, and not the actual protagonist–the honorable client. I know I’m being blunt, but I suffered through this for a long time, and finally got over it. But it really sucked more than anything I’ve experienced in life, practically destroyed me, and it is all because of this vampirism. Please stop “using” people. Thank you.

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  • Hi Fiachra, oh that money thing is an issue in so many ways. Lots to say about this tricky topic.

    Mostly, your post makes me think about how much money I have saved our government by eschewing their services years ago, and doing it my way—which is considered too out there for the mainstream, so why fund it?

    Had I stayed with that “mental health” lifetime of services they seemed to insist upon for me, from this illusion of a “chronic disorder” and toxic pez meds they were feeding me at the time (sorry, I don’t mean to offend anyone who is helped by this, but this is exactly how it felt to me in my experience, and for me it was the exact truth, so this applies to me and others who I know feel the same way), I’d be costing the taxpayers more than I can imagine. The cost of all those psych drugs alone would have trickled all over the place, ultimately to taxpayers, not to mention from frequent Dr. visits of all kinds, including psychiatrist et al, as had been the case for years, until I woke up to the fact they were keeping me hooked on the system and chronic “mental health care,” and how they were doing it–rather insidiously.

    I’ve had none of this for the past 10+ years, thanks only to the energy healing work I did, and all that I learned that guided me away from anything mainstream health (and my dad was a physician, so that took some neural re-programming, too, that had been my world) along with the family healing and spiritual work, etc.

    The system’s way for me would have been so costly for everyone concerned, only suffering for me, total grief for my partner, and no end in sight, until I passed. My way, which they shun, has cost them absolutely nothing, and I’m fit as a fiddle and enjoying a good life, finally. Figure that one out! THAT’S what I’d call a sick society, and not terribly competent, to say the least. It ain’t me, babe.

    I don’t want to sway too far off topic or from this story, but I do see economics addressed in this discussion, and I think healing and money are often a core issue. Much is held in that equation, and people have all kinds of perspectives to offer. At this point, I think the more perspectives we hear the better. Obviously, our current global economy situation is not working for at least most people, so I believe we need a shift in perspective here and it’s a complex issue, not black & white, especially when it comes to healing.

    I think a lot of healers these days are trying to figure out what feels most comfortable for them, we experiment. Overall, I believe the world is seeking a new economic system, as the current one has failed us miserably. Knowing about energy makes a big difference here, it can be applied.

    Just to add—personally, I believe trained healers have every right to charge what they feel is fair to them and reasonable for a client. This is hard work, and takes focus and energy. I offer guarantee–no results, don’t pay. But that’s never happened, in 12 years of practice.

    It’s totally reasonable to expect something in return for services rendered. Why not? I’ve known people to scoff at this notion, so I felt compelled to express this.

    Given that I went through the disability system after graduate school, and money became a dire issue in my story (the system drained me financially, as it does to anyone, while ruining my health, go figure), I run my practice in all sorts of ways, financially, creatively mostly. My intention is to not make it about money, but more about fair exchange of energy, which can mean a lot of things. My practice is based specifically on healing through creativity, so this becomes part of all that. The healing is what matters the most, obviously, that’s always my priority.

    Although indeed, the practical side of life calls, so I consider this a flexible area, ongoing, depending on what best fits the situation. With each client or group contract we see what is doable for them and reasonably fair for me, although I usually wind up on the short end, which is totally fine. I love my work so much that it’s always just a pleasure to do it, and the energy work I do answers to the money thing, and compensates. Part of the fun of working with energy 🙂

    Didn’t intend to be so vocal here but a lot from this blog speaks to me and my experience, and I’ve enjoyed this blog and discussion, so thank you again, Moni . I think these are ground breaking issues to explore. I think the concept of what is truly and authentically “healing” is changing in our society, thank God! We’re seeing way more of what is possible now, and that’s a really good thing.

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  • I agree wholeheartedly that to find the inner healer is to find our higher selves, and along with that, our grounding, clarity, empowerment, and freedom–abundant well-being.

    I also went from “bipolar” diagnosed, lived with that for about 20 years, and then redirected my thoughts and shifted my beliefs around this, from my own lived experience and what was happening to my health and my life as a result of trusting that “DSM-psych drugs path,” as it was all I knew, only to realize years later that this was an illusion, at least in my case it was.

    Very long story which I’ve shared often over the years in a variety of ways publically, but in the end, integration and healing was possible only by way of working with energy, including family healing, which is at the core of my story, along with withdrawing from tons of psych drugs, and healing from all that, as well, learning and applying the principles of energy.

    Studying and applying a variety of perspectives led to all sorts of new discoveries in healing and other things, far and away from anything I had learned in psychology or anything else up to that time, it was a whole new world. Although family systems work is part of my story as well, so that was helpful to learn and apply.

    So yes, in the end, I also believe that we are our own healers, guides, and gurus. We can only guide ourselves to how we want to address the diverse energies which abound around us. I think that’s where things become so individual, and we simply gravitate to that which we prefer, while separating from that which makes us feel bad. That’s how I do it, in any event, guides me perfectly.

    So much to learn and explore here, I think this is a new age of healing. I see it all over the internet, and it makes perfect sense to me when I apply it and see the results for myself. We have so much more power over our reality than we think, and I believe now of all times would be a good time for people to awaken to this.

    Thank you so much for sharing this information. Personally, I think it’s revolutionary, and much needed right now, this new perspective. All the best.

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  • Wonderful story, Moni, very inspiring. I agree, energy healing is amazing, and it works on everything, because everything is energy. Whether individual issues or world chaos, at the core, it is all energy, as is each human being on the planet. When we learn to tap into this awareness and apply it, we discover our personal power on a whole new level.

    And best of all, it is available to EVERYBODY, equally. Energy is not limited, nor do we need to buy it. It is free, and can be accessed by anyone at any time. No discrimination there, nor politics. It is based on our individual and unique selves and journeys.

    Best wishes on your continued work in this area.

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  • Well, I’m certainly not paid to speak my truth of the matter and I hope to God I am not normal, given how the norm is not at all attractive or appealing to me at the moment. But I guess that’s really beside the matter because I do pretty much agree with your statement. At least, my version of this is–that the “mental health” system is insane and insane-making.

    Clearly, it is not the only institutional community in the world which can be described this way. However, the fact that it is called the MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEM and it is so insane and insane-making to just about anyone who comes near it (and I do mean anyone, in any role or capacity) then it is in a paradoxical league of its own–wayyyy out there, teetering on the edge.

    If the USA is such that it supports so fervently such an institution, then the irrationality of having our current president-elect does not surprise me. How could it? From one insanity to another. How could anyone desire to be of the norm these days? “Going crazy” from all this would seem like a natural survival defense, considering how “normal reality” actually looks and feels right now. Detaching from that reality would seem like a huge relief at this point.

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  • “Insanity is often the result of chronic oppression, trauma, and a sense of injustice and hopelessness.”

    Mental health system, in a nutshell.

    And the difference between mh system and other oppressive and traumatic social institutions is that this one is traumatizing and oppressing the people for whom it is contracted and being paid to provide support and healing services. So on top of all of the above, it is fraudulent, as well. I believe it is an irredeemable mess.

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  • I’m not talking about childhood, per se, Julie, I’m referring to general lack of compassion and peace in the world right now, and as it has been for a while. It’s hard to heal in such chaos and violence; that can become a vicious cycle of trauma and re-trauma. Although the one to find peace in chaos is certainly making good strides.

    I agree with you that psych abuse is a hidden demon in our society. Calling it out only leads to more stigma and blame on the client, and often persecution and aggressive marginalization. Lots of shaming and humiliating can go on here, if you stand up to the ‘wrong person.’

    I think that’s where it is wrong–and dangerous–to draw the premature conclusion that the client is paranoid, delusional, lying, or manipulative, which are very common stigmas projected upon psych clients–which, in turn, is extremely ironic, considering that our complaints are basically the same thing, in reverse. After all, who is getting paid in that scenario, and has a job to do? Many of us complain of gross incompetence among psychotherapists and psychiatrists, and I think there is plenty of hard core evidence of this.

    At least that is my conclusion toward most of the mh system staff and clinicians I have encountered along the way–extremely abusive, systemically, as a general rule, because they are all part of the same network of education and mis-perception of humanity, it’s a mental program that is false.

    I managed to peel myself out of there, but I did have to find a more loving community and environment that would support my healing and personal growth in a way that was actually helpful and effective, which I did.

    The mh world is a teeny tiny box, hardly anyone can fit into it and there is no air, it is suffocating. There are other communities out there with better values and healthier social dynamics than this–like, way.

    If you want another cause for–and example of–what I’m sure society would commonly refer to as ‘insanity,’ the mental health world, in totality, would be it, imo.

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  • “…to sense good intent, gentleness, and love in another, similar to how a young child does with its mother in symbiosis, is what heals extreme states, in my experience.”

    Very nice statement, Matt. I agree with what I see implicit in this–that chronic and sustained feelings of lack of love will lead to these kinds of issues in people cycling back and forth between despondence and rage, all from feelings of hopelessness. Whatever we call it, it is extremely uncomfortable to the point of causing suffering. I think the remedy seems obvious, but it is hard to detect love in the world right now, at least in the USA. Mostly, I sense panic and resentment at large–feelings of betrayal, lack of support, victimization, etc. Seems to be the norm right now.

    So, to paraphrase this article, I do think we’re in the midst of a collective “something” that is challenging just about everyone at present.

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  • Nomadic, I do believe that ADHD is a false and misleading label, based on othering a child who does not conform to the norm in a controlling and narrow-minded environment. Sadly, all too often, parents and the school system match in their desire to control the child rather than to see this as an opportunity for THEM to evolve, as well as the entire community, especially the family. We learn and grow from kids, they are the ones acting as per their true nature.

    I’ve observed that usually, the kids that are labeled and drugged are usually far more aware and creative than the adults around them, so the adults end up feeling threatened and that’s where the trouble really begins, leading to labels and drugs, to keep the kid acting “normal” and compliant.

    I do think it’s abusive, but not intentionally. I believe people are doing the best they can with what they know. But overall, I do think people need to wake up to a new level of awareness in order to see the consequence and root of their choices for the kid. I believe it’s a matter of education, but it’s hard to get people to listen. This stuff makes people really defensive.

    Personally, I hate “mandatory reporting.” it plays into the system and causes all sorts of problems for people. This is pure ego and control and people use it to play God and judge their clients.

    I believe the solution here is on a much broader scale. Society, on the whole, is tarnished with scapegoating and corruption. I think it’s a matter of seriously assessing our “leaders” in every regard. Dynamics such as these, which create confusion and chaos for people, start at the top.

    To me, the chaos down here in “the trenches” signifies that our leaders are lying, pure and simple, and stressing everyone out in the process. Vampires, in short, draining others for their own gain. Makes it easy to dupe and control others. That’s what I think the real problem is here.

    I studied Sal Minuchin in in grad school family therapy class. I used his model to break my family system a few times and spoke my truth. Fascinating process.

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  • I hope we’re not establishing that boundary-less and abusive behavior can be excused by anything, regardless of whether or not one has exprienced trauma, family abuse, or has some kind of physical issue which impacts emotion and behavior. We are still responsible for our actions and simple decent respect can be learned at any time, even later in life, although that can be a bit of a challenge.

    But it’s more challenging and will cause hardships to not be aware of personal boundaries as one goes through life. That’s just asking for trouble. No one is going to care from where this stems, people naturally have an aversion to experiencing a violation of their boudaries and personal space.

    There is NO excuse for abuse, even from those that have experienced it themselves. People have had all sorts of trauma and life hardships, doesn’t make them hateful or bullying toward others.

    Some people employ their empathy gained from their experience, given that they know how it feels to be on the receiving end of abuse, and make it a point to be more loving about what they offer to others, than they themselves received, to not repeat the cycle. I wish more people would take that example and break the abuser-victim-enabler cycle once and for all.

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  • Been there already. And been healing without drugs or therapy for years now and moving right along in life. Nature has a way of correcting imbalance when we allow it to.

    I respect your opinion, but I disagree with it. I also think it’s ok to have divergent perspectives. No need to be insulting, and I don’t fight about it. You think what you think and I think what I think. I believe that’s ok, to have diversity here.

    In any event, best of luck to you. I hope you find relief soon.

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  • Everyone has a wide range of humanity within them, from deepest shadow to brightest clear light–that is, from pole to pole. We all navigate our arc of emotions, responses and behaviors as we see fit for ourselves. How others respond to anyone’s process is their business. In addition, adverse childhood experiences, of which there are various natures, affect people in a variety of ways.

    What is called “bipolar” is what I would call an ungrounded, unfocused, kind of messy process. That can occur for a variety of reasons. It can also be remedied fairly easily, but not with a stigmatizing and nonsensical label.

    Cleaning up and integrating ones creative process with expanded awareness is powerful and effective healing. It’s also universal. Life on the planet has been rather traumatic for just about everyone I know, so everyone could use a shift in their process. That’s how we heal and grow.

    “Bipolar” is a catch all for “unstable,” I think, which happens to everyone from time to time. It’s also usually an unstable environment causing it, and the one noticing this becomes the scapegoat, so the dysfunctional system is preserved.

    The rest is meaningless, since everyone is bipolar, it’s a continuum of awareness. That’s how I see it, in any case.

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  • The entire mental health field is based on control, manipulation, and maintaining power at all times. I found every bit of that world to be oppressive, judgmental and uptight. It’s easy to lose focus. I found that to be the cultural norm, no attention span. No space for people in their humanity, only very quick sound bytes, and they think they have you all figured out. To call it a myopic world view is being generous, in my estimation.

    And what better way to to control and maintain power than to make up an “illness” which becomes a label intended to brand people in all sorts of mythological ways in order to 1) make tons of money and 2) stay in denial and ignorance of what are the true roots of these issues? Which means people taking responsibility for themselves where they are most reluctant to do so. Scapegoating is alive and well in the 21st century, so the burden of growth and change falls on a mere few, rather than on the collective at large.

    Also, it will implicate a lot of people who either pretend they are helping others while only interested in their own gain, at anyone’s expense; or, they truly feel they are helping others when in fact, they are doing more harm than good. Sinister, but clever. Sure has a lot of people good and confused. I think that’s the idea. Lack of clarity is a tool of oppression, keeps people in kind of a daze, and perpetually doubting themselves.

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  • I don’t make it my responsibility to protect people, Frank, unless they are my kids. People, adults, have to learn to protect themselves.

    You say, “I’d rather see more people accept responsibility for their own actions instead.” Yes, me too, and I’d also like to see take responsibility for their own lives, rather than to be dependent on another person, constantly, for validation, perspective, and protection.

    At some point, we have to take over those reigns ourselves, and I think the entire mental health world would object to that. The idea there is to not think independently, but exactly like your therapist (or supervisor, or professor, etc, or whomever in authority thinks they get it and no one else does). Then, you will win their approval, and congratulations, you’re hooked for life. That’s how I see it working, and yes, I think it’s terribly harmful in so many ways.

    What I do take responsibility for is working to educate people, based on all that I’ve learned, and also being open to hearing other perspectives, to understand from where that person is coming. I also always have an intention to walk my talk and be an example of whatever it is I’m talking about. It’s all a process. Life changes from day to day so I let myself grow right along with it.

    “’Stigma’ is making ‘disease’ trendy don’t you think?”

    Only in the mental health world, which is a reality unto itself, a very tiny box of a world, with no windows, dense air, hard to breathe. I live and work outside of that, and people get it. I work with partners, who have never had anything to do with any of this, other than what they witness from my life, and they get it, with total clarity.

    This illusion of “mental illness” is based exactly on stigma, that’s all it is. I use stigma the way I’ve always used it, before it was co-opted. You can say negative projections, society scapegoat, demeaning mythology, marginalizing beliefs, snobbery—all of that is what I mean by this word. Regardless of what you call it, to me, that is the root cause of what we are calling “mental illness,” that thing we hate.

    If there is anything else going on with a person, that can be addressed in some other way, specific to whatever is going on, without all of this bullshit, cuz that’s all it is, pure made-up bullshit.

    But once you call it “mental illness” you are automatically talking about “stigma,” as I define it above. I think they are the exact same thing, because it is defined by how people are treated, socially, and this impacts our well-being more than anything, I think, because it is, literally, dehumanizing, pure and simple.

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  • “…obviously on anything that keeps the systems running, we would not be allies. We are not wanting to “improve” the system after all, but get rid of it.”

    I agree with this, of course, although as far as “what is keeping the systems running,” that would be open to interpretation and merit discussion. Given that it’s held up by smoke & mirrors, at least to my mind, it is, what exactly is keeping it running vs. what we think is keeping it running and what we think is challenging it with integrity, truthfully would be tricky to discern. These are all layers upon layers of illusion, so much programming and filters.

    After all, we’re talking about long-running corruption, so we’d have to dig deep to see what is really and truly keeping it running, beyond and beneath what most of us could list off-the-cuff by now. There is a lot still behind the curtain to come to light, I believe, things that could still surprise us. Life in transitions has all sorts of unexpected plot twists which often enlighten to as to why things have appeared stuck. That would cause a shift in the collective perspective, game changer.

    As far as how self-identify, I am in the “get rid of it altogether” camp. Some say that is questionable, because I do make my focus healing. But I believe the system is not redeemable at this point, it just keeps proving that over and over again. If it were to awaken to itself, it would disappear instantly, because it would see itself as the illusion it really is, all of that reality created from “DSM” et al. It is not real! It is a totally delusion-based constructed reality. I think the trick is to not conform to it. By doing so, you validate their reality, and that’s exactly what we DON’T want.

    To me, healing is change. Going from sick (as in “sick society”) to well (as in balanced harmonious parts-working-together-justly and-fairly) is healing and desired change. Of course, what constitutes “just and fair” would be a lively discussion to expect sooner than later, I imagine, and it would spawn all sorts of issues to explore on a new level.

    I also believe that everyone has things to heal from right now, that is universal. It is not just one person’s awakening, it is everyone’s. We’ve ALL been a victim of at least one thing or another, betrayed by society, and totally duped in so many ways. It is not one, but all. I think how different people respond to this and how they interpret and think about this, would create different cultures and realities. Not all would see it the same way, different parts of a greater whole.

    “Where can we often ally with folk who are not antipsychiatry?”

    My connector would be to people who are seriously working toward world peace starting with finding inner peace. To me, that’s the most efficient path to desired change. That would be everyone taking their part equally in the collective responsibility to bring change. It’s all I’ve ever had in mind—and, most especially, after the experience I had going through all of this hook, line, and sinker, that’s the only journey I’m interested in taking, however it unfolds.

    Life is unpredictable, but when we know our goal with clarity, through and through, it all fits together, so we brave the unknown, breaking new ground along the way. And, perhaps, hopefully, choosing a bit more wisely this time about what to create there, based on all that we learned from this crazy mad world we’ve created, somehow. I kind of believe it is self-destructing at this point, lots of mirrors have been held up they can no longer avoid. Let’s see what happens…

    People can call themselves whatever they like, and identify however they feel most comfortable in their own skin, but that’s the bottom line for me.

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  • “As for MindFreedom, please note that MindFreedom is not and has never claimed to be antipsychiatry. Nor does Mad in America. It is into reform of the system, while antipsychiatry folk are clear that the system has to be bit by bit dismantled.”

    Thank you for being explicit about this, Bonnie. I’ve been trying to figure this out ever since I discovered this community five years ago. Now I get it.

    Although this statement confuses me–

    “That said, I am grateful for allies even when they are not antipscyhiatry. And I have no interest in fighting with them, only for being aware of when we can and where we cannot work together.”

    If one part of the team wants unambiguously and adamantly to abolish psychiatry while another part of the team is more interested in reforming it–and, I would add, implicit in this is the insistence to keep the system up and running, one way or another–then how is this an alliance?

    And furthermore, how could one possibly avoid power struggle, conflict, and deep division at one point or another? Those are two completely antithetical goals, and each side is quite passionate about their intention.

    Work together toward what? The only thing I can see with the potential to work cohesively here is agreeing to disagree, but that doesn’t spawn change and evolution, but rather it keeps the dualistic, split, and power- and rival-oriented status quo.

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  • Plus, we do not have to let society influence us if it not an influence we want. We have boundaries we can develop, to where if we want to feel love, joy, and peace in our lives, and we live in a violent fear-based world (as we do), then we can create boundaries and seniority to the fear, and not allow it to influence us. That is, we can connect with a really broad and compassionate perspective, regardless of anything, when we choose to do so.

    That is life-mastery and self-mastery, and in turn, our insistence on feeling good despite the crap around us will outweigh the negativity, if we can hold to our center and stand our ground. It will be tested, and of course we can get triggered, that is human. But if we are aligned with our intention to feel good and stay focused on that, without being distracted by attempts to interfere with that, then the trigger will be guidance toward further evolution, and we will pass that test, and self-love has won out. That would be a very positive influence on society, I believe.

    If enough people were to insist on feeling good about themselves, to make that a priority, and not let society fuel our fears and doubts, I believe that would, in turn, eventually crush all the corruption and saboteurs, because we, as individuals, would not be allowing negativity to influence us, and everything would come to light. That’s my vision, in any event.

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  • I agree with you both that’s it’s a matter of interdependence. However, we can only control ourselves, not others, so when we master self-control, then we are in charge of how we influence society, and we choose whether to influence it from love, fear, anger, etc., depending on what we project outward. What we put out comes back to us, that’s the nature of energy. And what we put out starts from within.

    No, it is not linear, it is multi-dimensional. The signal from an antenna ripples in all directions. From what I understand, we, as humans, put out signals in the exact same way. We are senders and receivers of energy signals, way above and beyond simply speaking words to each other. Our thoughts and feelings are energy, and they influence everything about us, whether we disclose our thoughts and feelings or not. I think everyone is pretty transparent these days, one way or another. Those veils of non-disclosure are lifting, from what I’ve observed.

    We are multi-dimensional beings, not linear. Linearity is based on limited perception. Awakening is about perceiving our multi-dimensional nature. That’s a whole new ballgame of life, as it speaks to our creative process as limitless, universally, when we can perceive it as such.

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  • “…love isn’t a feeling, but an act of the will.”

    Hmm, I’m not sure I relate to or understand this. I feel it as a feeling, although I do not consider it necessarily an emotion. I think it shifts the hue on emotions, but it’s bigger than that. But for me, it’s definitely a feeling. I can very clearly tell the difference by the feeling in my body when I am feeling love and when I am cut off from it, that is a very distinct contrast. Not feeling love causes stress in the body, while the feeling of love is relieving. It relaxes the body because we have certainty about who we are, sense of self.

    Our will dictates a lot of things, and sure, we can will ourselves to love, by first setting an intention. Lots to say about this.

    Also, love doesn’t mean going around smiling all the time. That’s more like “bliss” which is different than love. What love does is to create a really high and broad perspective, because we are more open to seeing things differently than we have been. There is tolerance in love. There is also safety and trust in love. There can also be anger in love, just not fear, they are antithetical.

    At least this is how I learned it, and have found it to be completely true in my experience. This is my experience of “love” after a really long time being cut off from it, for a lot of reasons.

    In any event, I think what’s important is to feel aligned with whatever our truth is, and sounds like you’ve gotten some clarity around yours. Best wishes to you.

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  • Hi Rachel, your comment brings to mind the story which Stephen relates in the above comment. In my opinion, I don’t feel it’s at all “wrong” to hate and be angry with people who hurt you. Personally, I don’t believe in right or wrong when it comes to feelings, those are your feelings! And they seem natural to me, given the circumstances.

    I was very angry for a time, and that felt good for a while, it was justified, and I felt at least alive in that anger. However, it interfered with just about every part of my life, including physical health, and I didn’t like what I was attracting from that, so I chose to shift it, in order to lighten up, for my own sake.

    If I were you, I’d give myself permission to be angry and to feel that hate, don’t judge yourself for it, not at all. It will be temporary, but it won’t pass until you allow yourself to be ok with that. That self-judgment is really what makes us feel badly, it’s not good for us to judge ourselves. So see if you can release that, and let yourself have what you feel, own it.

    The thing about certain religious doctrines is that they can make us feel shame or guilt for having natural feelings, if they aren’t exactly positive feelings. We’re human, we want to remember that. We’re built to feel a huge range of emotions, all of them valid, because that is our experience.

    But we do have a higher consciousness, so we can integrate that, and it will lead us to a lighter, clearer space. That would be the inner dialogue. From my perspective, our higher selves help us to grow, they call us up in perspective. So to me, a core part of healing is learning to tune into that aspect of ourselves. Some call it “the God self.”

    Once you can accept your feelings as they are now, in present time and validate them to feel your humanity, then that will start a flow of energy, and you will feel it. Emotions are not static, they flow, like a river, when we allow them to.

    I can tell from what you say that you desire to release this and find a different perspective. Since you are religious, I will put it this way: when we can see it from God’s perspective–neutrally and with no judgment because God loves EVERYONE unconditionally–then you have accessed your higher consciousness, because we are all part of that energy.

    Not that you have to love your persecutors, but let God love them, and tend to them, I believe s/he will. And that is God, on your side. When we focus on the God perspective, our hearts open up, and that releases a lot of that dense negative energy. Could be tears, or something else, whatever would feel like a good, hardy release of energy. On the other side of that are new thoughts, new perspectives, and new meaning to your life experience.

    Once we really and truly get clarity about our life experiences–the good, the bad, and the ugly–then it starts making sense in a really cool way, I think, and we see how it points us forward, onto our life path and soul purpose. That’s the whole point of adversity, to wake us up to who we really are, our spiritual nature, and to why we’re here on Earth. From that point forward, life becomes different, more clear, and we get how to protect ourselves, and how to navigate life’s inevitable challenges in a whole new and more meaningful way.

    This stuff can be hard to put words to, because it is so personal and we attach different meanings to all of this. I hope this resonates with you.

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  • Mark, I’ve been telling my story publically for years and made a no budget film sharing my story along with 5 others, and I was on disability at the time. Yes, there were consequences because I challenged power with my truth, that was to be expected. I was on the bottom rung of that social ladder, so I had nothing to lose. I was not looking to “fit in,” quite the opposite. I wanted to be authentic, and let the chips fall where they may. That’s how I live my truth.

    As a result of making this film, regardless of how I was stonewalled professionally, my life changed radically for the better. Had nothing to do with money, I wasn’t marketing the film for cash. But that is some kind of healing and shift when we face our fears and go for it, with a clear purpose and intention. You’d be surprised how freeing that is, regardless of anything. That is true self-empowerment.

    My film is a public service on YouTube and the latest version has gotten 947 hits so far and climbs daily. The first version, before I did a slight re-edit, got almost 1200 hits before I replaced it. And it’s gotten several hundred hits on cultureunpluged.com, who solicited it when they saw it on YouTube. I’ve given away tons of DVDs, to folks who wrote me after seeing it on YouTube, who wanted to use it for college classroom discussions, and also to family agencies, for education. These days, anyone can have a large audience platform, thanks to the internet. It also played repeatedly on local public access, and that drew an audience, too.

    Truth-speaking really pays off, when we can trust.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

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  • Right, because love is what heals, and also what creates change most peaceably. Carrying hate, rage, or resentment for too long only turns on oneself, that is inevitable. It eats away at us.

    Same with fear. Fear and love are opposites, so where there is fear, no love gets in. To feel love in a situation that brings fear, we’d have to shift perspective to where we do not feel fear, but more so, where we feel our power to change the situation. That’s true freedom.

    It’s not a matter of embracing oppressors, abusers and tormenters. It is about broadening perspective and expanding consciousness. There are a variety of perspectives from which to witness and experience anything. But if we are saddled with fear or resentment, more than likely we will not see past a limited perspective. It’s a matter of trusting the unknown, and stretching ourselves a bit. It’s challenging, but enriching and practical.

    When we come from a broad and generally neutral perspective, which happens when we are able to simply feel love in our hearts, in general, then we can actually make change, rather effortlessly. But when we perceive ourselves as victims and only that, then effort is the order of the day, because that is a very dense and heavy energy. It not only feels that way in our bodies, but it would actually be measured that way in wavelengths. Our thoughts and emotion, like color and sound, can be measured in hertz.

    http://energyfanatics.com/2013/03/19/how-frequency-vibration-create-structures-matter-life/

    I made a huge internal shift in this regard by learning all of this and applying it, and as everyone who knows me knows by now, it completely changed my life, I did a full 180, like a personal pole shift. First internally, then it rippled outward, totally shifting my life circumstances in a way that really pleased me. That’s how energy works naturally.

    More than anything, I had to embrace my experience of life as a learning path, and that gave it all meaning and neutrality, so I could focus on what I wanted to create, rather than continuously ruminating about what had gone wrong in my past. That’s what leads to repetition of that which we do not want, to constantly be thinking about it.

    Now that I’m more aware of how my process works and am not bogged down with resentment, I am so much more in control of my life, and generally more at peace than I had been, and I can create more consciously and deliberately, rather than by default. Feeling light in our bodies is what gives us malleability, with life being basically unpredictable and all.

    Thanks for sharing that, Stephen. Powerful stuff!

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  • To be very honest and frank, as someone who has made a career out of sharing my story of healing–by public speaking, teaching, and even making a deeply personal film where 6 of us who went through the system and faced discrimination share our deeply personal stories, very openly and from the heart, and have published it on YouTube for anyone in the world to see–I have found social media sites to not be the safest place to share. People can be extremely insensitive and project all sorts of demeaning and inaccurate things, with insistence. It can feel very discouraging and even trigger old trauma. When we share, we are being extremely vulnerable, which I think is a good thing, and it leads to creativity and freedom, without a doubt. But some people can be not terribly nice, that’s just the way it is in the world right now.

    With that said, of course I agree that it’s vital to speak our truth, as examples to encourage others. One has to be aware that it’s impossible to control how others will hear us, and sometimes, you gotta take it on the chin.

    I experienced so much personal growth and healing facing naysayers, and it’s gotten easier and easier as I go along, really great healing work and consciousness growth comes by facing resistance from others, and dealing with the social consequences of being authentic. How can anyone find freedom in any regard while living in fear of what others think, say, or do? And how is change going to occur, if we don’t test ourselves bravely, and challenge others with our truth? Truth-speaking, where it is most resisted, is the ticket to change, always has been. Remember “the power of one.” That is where change begins, that first domino.

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  • I agree with that! It has become a common teaching these days, a lot of people say that. We can create Heaven on Earth, if we are inclined to do so. Starts with a loving frame of mind and practicing unconditional kindness towards oneself and others…

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  • This is pretty awesome, Tim. Perhaps there is a bridge being built here. I’d be interested in discussing more about this, if you’re game. I’m about to logoff for a while, but if you go to my YouTube page via the link I posted above, feel free to contact me through there and either you can send me your email address or I’ll be happy to send you mine. If you feel compelled, of course, no worries if not. I don’t have a business email at present and I’d prefer to not post my personal email on here. But I find this extremely interesting and worth pursuing. I like that we are both seeing this the same way. I’m not so academic research oriented, though, I’m an experiential researcher. Perhaps they can go together in a way that will reveal some good stuff.

    This has been validating and incredibly clarifying for me, Tim, I’m extremely grateful for this discussion.
    Alex.

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  • To me, that would be about relationship issues. That’s one thing I ran into a lot while in psychotherapy. I had no intention of enmeshing nor working through any kind of transference. I was always in present time with my issues. Even the past time stuff I knew to keep separate.

    But I’d get counter-transferred onto constantly. It’s why I eventually bowed out of all that and turned to what I do now, which is energy healing and spiritual work. That has a whole different set of boundaries, it’s not psychotherapy. If it’s not a match, it’s not a match. I don’t try to convince clients to stay or anything remotely like that. It’s all optional, based on choice. Healing can be an enjoyable experience, even if it means facing hard stuff. If it’s not at least interesting, then I don’t see the point in it. Resistance is normal and to be expected, but if there is chronic resistance that leads to conflict, then I’d ask, “Then why are you here?”

    Usually three sessions does the trick–presenting issues, self-healing exercises, then completion. If it takes longer than that, best to work in a group, I think.

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  • Yes, we are having a meeting of the minds here. Seems as though we’re coming from the same perspective of calming inner world struggle and internal conflict. I was having trouble at first understanding your use of the word “control” in this context, but I think I get it now—you mean controlling our focus and thoughts, our perception? If that’s what you mean, then yes, this is the heart of my work, too.

    When we learn deliberate focus (my phrase for it), then we are really driving the car and affecting our own reality. Where and how we focus, and by what perspective, determines how we feel, as thoughts trigger feelings. We can choose how to feel by choosing where to focus and how to perceive that on which we’re focused. To me, that would be control in a way that we feel in charge of our lives, so it releases all the stress of powerlessness, even to a corrupt world, and this will turn things around for us because we are coming from an entirely new and self-affirming perspective. Are we on the same page, here?

    Having been a client, myself, in the most hard core sense of the word for such a long time, I’ve gone back and forth quite a bit regarding how to work with clients in way that we’re in clear, netural communication. People know me as a psych survivor, so I can easily not be respected as a healer (I’ve got stories about this!). I’m on my sleeve about it, so for some, it’s an asset and for others, it’s confusing, to say the least. Having this dual identity has made it interesting for me, part of my journey of evolution.

    I feel a client and I are “partners in healing,” that’s what I call it. After all, when I do healing work with others, I’m also healing and growing. There’s always something to shift or refine. I think it goes both ways, so I’m always prepared to grow. I’m really rather flexible and transparent as a healer, but my boundaries can be tested. Always a growth opportunity.

    Where I consult with a client is on the fee. We do that together. I’ve got a reference as a standard, but really I’m open to anything, and I let them tell me what they can pay. If they cannot, we work something out. I’m fine working for free, which I’ve done quite a bit. But sometimes, I get taken advantage of. I’ve had all sorts of situations experimenting with all this. That would be my balance to achieve!

    Money is a hard one. I’d prefer to be funded so I can do it at no charge for anyone. But that hasn’t happened…yet! I don’t like taking money for healing work, but I do have my own survival to consider.

    I appreciate your wonderful feedback, Tim, thank you. If you have time, I thought you might feel like checking out my film, Voices That Heal. Based on all you write about, I’m thinking it may resonate with you. It’s 96 minutes, so not a short one. I just screened it yesterday for an alternative healing group and they were taken with it. Kind of a “presentation from the heart,” so it goes quickly, from what I hear. 6 of us tell our stories of going through the system, and what we experienced in terms of stigma, discrimination and social abuse in general. Also our family dynamics, how the diagnosis thing got started for each of us, and about our individual healing paths.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

    There’s a second film on my YT page which is only 28 minutes, a musical documentary I made this past year called The Dreamcatchers Follies: Music for the Ages, if you’re interested in checking that one out, too. They were filmed 5 years apart (VTH was revised very slightly in 2014, but I filmed it in 2011), so you can see evidence of how this work was transformational for, both, my partner and me.

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  • Thanks, Tim. The reason I say that about the chemicals is because yes, my response to go into perpetual anxiety was very normal and natural, given the double-binding circumstances. I wasn’t misreading the situation, of course, it was extremely unsafe, for years, during my development. But hard as I tried as, first, a young kid would do, and then as a teenager, I could not change it. You know how stubborn family systems (or any social system, for that matter) can get–the more you try to change them, the more adamant they are about staying the same. And it can get brutal, like a cult.

    What happened is that I got stuck in that anxiety and it would be with me in any environment, even when it was light and fun, I could not take it in. My thoughts were extremely self-deprecating and I began to worry about everything. I’m sure that was the result of neural pathways that were created during these years, and they got stuck in that mode, until I was able to identify all of this and do the neural re-rerouting work, which is something I learned to do along my healing journey decades later.

    At the time, I was calling this “mental illness” without a second thought, because that’s exactly what it felt like. It wasn’t until years later that the stigma thing reared its ugly head. Until then, I had no issue with this. It’s what it was, or so I thought at the time. I was also very open about it, all my friends knew, so did my employers. I wasn’t an angry person, other than toward myself. Of course I had anger like anyone, but I was not likely to externalize it. I was just extremely down on myself, and I know why that is. I had to develop a better internal dialogue to heal the crippling anxiety and depression that would come from these chronically negative ruminations. And, I had to give myself permission to express my anger, which was radical for me.

    But up to that time, my synapsis misfired quite a bit. I’m not a brain scientist, but to me, this seems like it would affect brain chemicals, simply from the toxic environment. Although, indeed, on the drugs, I DID have a chemical imbalance, because those cause it for sure! Nothing natural about them, they force the brain in a way that should not be forced, and makes it fixed and rigid. That’s how I think about it, at least. That’s gonna cause lots of trouble down the road, inevitably, as we all know.

    So for me, healing from all this meant discovering neuroplasticity and applying it with diligence. That’s very hard work, but it does work, and it pays off in all ways. It’s a radical shift in consciousness, which, in turn, changes reality for the better. Worked somewhat miraculously for me, I was rather stunned by the extent to which shifting how I talked to myself and felt about myself, really and truly, deep down inside, affected my entire life and reality. And it happened pretty quickly, once I took this road. I had to get used to quantum healing, which was an adjustment, in and of itself.

    Being in a high stress environment while vulnerable–especially as a kid–will throw things off internally, how can it not? BUT, they can be corrected and brought back into balance, if one wants to do that. That’s the big IF, to my mind! Not everyone can buy this perspective. But as far as I’m concerned, that’s my message of healing.

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  • Wouldn’t that depend on each of us? Mine fits me spot on. Whereas the DSM diagnosis I got 35 years ago and with which I passively identified for 20 of those years, until I woke up, was totally off-base, truly meaningless. Except that it dictated my reality for way too long! Which made it actually dangerous, turns out. Live and learn…

    But INFP was me when I took the test 26 years ago and it still well describes my process. It’s neutral, no judgment either way, unlike DSM. For me, this was very helpful, gave me self-insight at a time I needed it, and it’s still relevant to who I am.

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  • Very well-written story with some great insights.

    “Self-acceptance is a very human experience, and a necessary one in the pursuit of personal happiness.”

    Simple and true. And it allows us to be more accepting of others. Whereas lack of self-acceptance leads to intolerance of others and suffering.

    INFP here.

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  • I was told at age 21 that I had a chemical imbalance because I was so anxious and depressed most of the time. So I began taking Lithium and went back to work.

    Over the years, I began to develop panic attacks, so I was put on benzos, in addition to the Lithium. I proceeded with work, then school, then work and then school again.

    After 20 years of this, my body started to break down, which is when I got off all the psych drugs, all 9 of them by this time. That was right after grad school, where I was training as MFT. The mess and chaos that followed is well told on this website, and elsewhere, it has become a common story. That’s when I discovered the extreme social ills of the mental health system, and how toxic, dangerous, and sabotaging to humanity this all was.

    I healed naturally, confronted every inner demon I could tag at the time, did some hardy neural shifting, and have had no more of these debilitating symptoms. Turns out it was bad family dynamics, in the first place, in which I could only play if I were drugged.

    Once I got off the drugs, healed, and gained perspective, my family became distant, they could not understand me. They seemed kind of angry at me, but would not disclose.

    I made a film talking about how I perceived what had happened and sent it to my family members. Discussions ensued and a lot of air was cleared.

    They still have a hard time understanding me, because I am now my own person, and I don’t carry their values or beliefs, but of course I love them, and we carry on long-distance relationships just fine. One sibling is actually taking my example of healing and personal growth, she got it. Finally, they were able to celebrate my turnaround, but at first it really threatened and confused them, because I had so much gone against their grain in order to find my healing.

    And mostly, they were somewhat disoriented because I spoke my truth about family abuse. This was hard for them, understandably, but it was vital in order for me or anyone to heal. At least, I was giving them the opportunity to look at themselves, as I had been doing with myself for all those years. I was fortunate, in that the family healing took. I had to break the family system several times, which was extremely challenging on many levels.

    So we’re all clear on this now, and everyone is in present time. I’ve gotten on with my life and am well-settled in it now, moving forward daily and creating quite a bit. I’m also feeling healthier and more grounded than ever.

    I haven’t taken psych drugs in 14 years. If my chemicals had been out of whack, it was because my environment was chaotic. That is natural, and I believe that’s how it works. But I wasn’t born with it, I inherited it from my environment, without a doubt.

    The drugs exacerbated internal imbalance, and caused more symptoms to appear, for which more drugs were needed. That led to a disabling crash. It was slow and insidious, took 20 years to catch up with me. Coming off of them allowed me to heal and put myself and my life back together.

    Couldn’t be more black & white, and that is exactly what happened.

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  • I was raised in a privileged, professional environment and that was the world I knew, so I took it for granted. At age 40, following a successful career and then graduate school, I became disabled (from psych drugs). I lived in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the world, and suddenly found myself living hand-to-mouth, and seriously sweated out being able to make rent month to month, in a city well-known for its homeless population. This lasted for a good long while, first because of the disability, and then, thanks to very sabotaging stigma which would not allow me to move forward.

    Fortunately, I freed myself from the cult-aspects of the system, and I’m back in action now, working and producing, but the system bankrupted me. This was a whole new experience of life for me.

    What was compromised was my ability to focus because I was scared to death. My finances were drained, and so was my energy, so the prospect of making money doing anything was grim at that time. And I had lots and lots of student loans, on top of it all.

    In addition, this was all new to me. I was not aware of my survival skills, not sure I had it in me to deal with this. So constant worry about where the next meal was coming from and will I have a roof over my head tomorrow would, indeed, interfere with thought functions because these are constant worries. Even when we’re not consciously thinking about them, they lurk inside there, and take up tons of space, both emotionally and mentally. Hardly room for much else. Hard to feel any peace, joy, or love at all when constantly worried about basic survival.

    The other big stressor is that people LOVE to brag about their money, and flaunt it. Some people really go out of their way to try to evoke jealousy from others, as a way of control, and also as a way to boost their own ego. Society, in general, shames those with no money, so it is very spirit-wounding, and quite easy to slip into feelings of unworthiness, which can be devastating, especially as an adult. That’s where marginalization and other forms of social bullying occur.

    While it is necessary in our world for survival, we put so much value on how much money we have that it has come to determine our worth in society, and also the level of respect people receive. Why should money (as opposed to, say, integrity, kindness, and humility) determine respect? That is tragic, and it leads to madness, on all levels, because it is madness, in and of itself. While it is a very powerful belief in today’s world, I still think it’s completely delusional.

    My needs are basic now, and my life is simple. I’ve never been more at peace. The money game is yet another tool of control, brainwashing, and manipulation. I think rich people can experience way more stress than poor people, in many instances. So really, it is a matter or perspective, and the social perspective regarding money really sucks, in my estimation. That’s what I learned going from financial stability to living on disability to feeling my abundance by accommodating simple needs. I don’t have a lot but I am definitely not in lack, because I am extremely grateful for everything I do have, and that feels like the world to me. Amazing and totally enlightening journey that was–mind-bending and life-changing, too.

    All in all, it was core healing from some very delusional beliefs about money, power, and self-worth, particularly perpetuated in the media, which is brainwashing, pure and simple. That was some of the most freeing and relieving healing I’d ever done.

    In a world defined by the division of those who have and those who do not, who is going to suffer?

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  • Not to belabor needlessly, but yes, we do agree on things. I enjoyed this blog very much and agree with your perspective wholeheartedly that we need to dispel the myth of “chronic” anything. I think that is so vital.

    And your premise supports my own personal agenda in all of this, which is regarding the issue of stigma, precisely because of these myths. It’s not an ego or “hurt feelings” issue, it’s an extremely practical issue related to suffering because this particular stigma undermines quality of life for people, as well as sense of self, from the get go.

    These particular myths of “chemical imbalance” and “chronic illness” lead to marginalization and social abuse, and it completely distorts reality, and that is where so many people are operating. When we live with false beliefs, we are not seeing the big picture, and this can cause us a lot of problems, in the end.

    Thanks for the hardy discussion, Tim. I feel complete with it here. I appreciate how you have navigated all of this deftly and authentically.

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  • “I think keeping the bigger picture in mind and recognising that, very often, there is not one right way to get to the destination might be a helpful perspective.”

    Total, complete, emphatic agreement, here, Tim. Most often, I believe this is the case. And in this case, we’re talking about continuously breaking ground, so it is unchartered territory. No one has all the answers–not yet, anyway–this can only be an exploration, a process of change and transformation to follow. It’s really an opportunity for all of us to put our money where our mouths are, as humanity is desperately trying to heal right now. So what is each of our roles in this?

    When a community can recognize the validity and value of every single voice, and figure out how to work in unison, utilizing everyone’s strength–and we all have certain strengths and attributes to contribute–then that community has achieved success where most communities struggle to create cohesion. Once that is achieved, the battle is practically won because the power of that group kind of takes on a life of its own.

    But if one way or another is insisted upon, at all cost, then that will never happen because there is no one way to create change. We all have our own way of navigating this. Sooner everyone can accept and respect that, the sooner cohesion will occur.

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  • That unity connection is felt in the heart, Tim. As a healer, this is the first place I go, to heart healing, and that can be tricky, but I think it’s necessary at this point. Once we clear the energy from old wounds and dysfunctional relationship dynamics, the rest is much, much easier–virtually effortless. At some point, we really do have to trust nature because certain things are simply out of our hands. But first, there can be a lot of old thought patterns to shift, which is transformative healing. Layer by layer, clarity emerges.

    I appreciate all the diverse energy in this discussion. It is a fitting reaction to these extremely dense issues. Kudos for going to the edge. That is exactly how change occurs. Keep the faith.

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  • I’m thinking now that “chemical imbalance” is a cover-up to avoid the real imbalance which causes distress–social imbalance. Society blames certain individuals and most individuals blame society. Problem is, we’re all connected. The biggest myth in life is that we are separate from each other.

    I think the majority of the people on the planet recognize by now that we are, indeed, unified by one all-that-is energy field/consciousness. There is quite a bit of study and research about this with fascinating results, it has gone way beyond “philosophical” and “new agey.” And it’s a Godsend of wisdom, because it is a radical shift in perspective from how the mainstream operates, in duality, which is what creates othering and marginalization, like the scarlet letter, leading to grave social injustice, oppression, and a lot of suffering, without a doubt.

    So do individuals create society or does society create its members? What is the dominant factor in our development as human beings? How can harmony and clarity come from all this social chaos? Harmony is easier on the ears, and on the body and mind in general, than are discord and cacophony. That’s what is stressful. And when it is chronic, it is dangerous to our health and well-being.

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  • “I think lack of control is at the heart of psychological distress.”

    Certainly when we are out to control others, we are setting ourselves up for profound distress and conflict. We have a great deal of influence over our life experience, based on our perspective and beliefs, but we cannot control the natural flow of things. We can try, but that’s what has led to the disaster we call “mainstream society.”

    Part of creating and manifesting is knowing when to surrender to the process of life, and when to act, from inspiration. When we learn to work with nature, rather than against it, we are free of the need to control anything but our own selves, which we can do by owning the choices we make, and being aware of what we gain or learn from each of them, step by step.

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  • Hi Tim, thanks for the response. Our entire reality as projected by media and academia is, for the most part, illusory, to my mind. I believe that is why extreme distress is at epidemic proportion right now. People are really confused, and the examples on the political stage don’t offer us much good of anything. I think people are waking up to things that they are having a hard time reconciling, because all of our beliefs are being challenged these days. Hard to know what to believe, based on what we’re told. Especially about people, our leaders.

    Regardless of how long it takes to make this shift, for me, healing occurs when we learn to get our own information, to connect with the truth of our hearts and spirits, so that we do not have to depend on others. Anxiety and depression happen when we feel stuck in fear, and we lose our courage to speak our truth because we are not trusting the process. I think people can suffer from a sense of powerlessness at this point, which can feel devastating.

    Healing allows us to feel our power of creativity and manifesting. I think we can get pretty cranky when we feel that we cannot create what we need and desire. I think that’s what mostly causes distress, when we cannot drive our own creative process. If we’re not in control of our own process, then who is?

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  • “We all have much work to do to change this reality that presently consumes us all.”

    I believe some people are successfully separating from these old illusory realities in order to create a more just and humane society which celebrates diversity rather than bashes and marginalizes those whom do not play the “fitting in” game, by being personal examples of change and transformation. Energy doesn’t stop; it must be transmuted in order for change to occur. That starts individually, before it can happen on a larger scale.

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  • “…there is good evidence that medical explanations of mental illness such as the chemical imbalance idea are associated with stigma that is both serious and widespread. Malla et al. (2015) report that several well-conducted studies have concluded that when campaigns promote biological explanations for mental health problems this does not reduce stigma.”

    I believe this. I’d say that the chemical imbalance explanation *promotes* stigma–in fact, it is stigmatizing, in and of itself–precisely because it is false, and the stigma becomes “you are chronically ill.” Not only is this a complete falsehood that ruins peoples’ lives, but this also makes current practices fraudulent and extremely dangerous, because they are so largely based on this false premise. The fact that it is an out and out lie is what makes it stigmatizing. It has also been a fantastic marketing tool, because it drums up quite a bit of business and it keeps clients hooked on drugs and the system for life.

    Moreover, professional “advocacy” agencies use ‘stigma reduction’ campaigns to encourage people to walk into the system and get “treatment,” and therefore, embody the stigma. What an over-the-top scam this whole thing is!

    Another difference in Santa Clause and chemical imbalance theory is that usually it’s just the kids who believe in Santa Clause, whereas adults believe the chemical imbalance myth. They will argue and fight about it, relationships are compromised and destroyed from this particular ” is it myth or real?” debate. It is extremely divisive and it triggers rage and hostility in people. While some kids might feel disillusioned when they discover that SC is a myth, the emotional triggers associated with the “chemical imbalance, real or not?” debate are much more profound and potentially sabotaging.

    “If people don’t accept a chemical imbalance explanation, they may experience fractious relationships with their treating mental health professionals, they may be described as lacking insight, and they may become caught up in a cycle of “nonadherence”

    Indeed, and that is called OPPRESSION–“either believe the lie I am telling you about you or there is something even more wrong with you, and I can make things very uncomfortable for you!” And it’s so common, and reprehensible, I believe. How can anyone offering this ultimatum possibly consider themselves a “healer”? That would be an excellent example of delusion and lack of self-insight. I wish there were some way this would be illegal, because it is adult bullying and abuse of power, pure and simple.

    Makes me wonder with what other myths are people walking around, believing them wholly and convinced as the way it is, whereas that is not at all the case–in fact, it’s usually the exact opposite, in reality. All sorts of things, I imagine…

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  • Thanks, Richard, and I’m focused on this, too, rings completely true:

    “Psychiatry, with all its labels, drugs, and power to incarcerate without due process, plays a critically important role in subduing (or rendering “comfortably numb”) those sections of the people who historically have been rebels and creative agents of change.”

    When I was on the drugs, I was still connected to my creativity and utilized it, but I also experienced so many limitations which I thought were just who I was, naturally limited. Plus, I was mainstream in my thinking, I thought psychiatry was the way to go, didn’t give it a second thought.

    When I finally came off the drugs (because I knew they were killing me, it was evident by what was happening to my mind and body after all those years taking them) and got clear with myself, those limitations seemed to vanish, and not only was I suddenly able to be extremely creative and self-resourceful, but my thinking changed, and I could see how I had been duped and doped all those years. So my entire perspective shifted as a result of this experience. And it woke me up to exactly how society was oppressing and marginalizing people, via standard practices, and how this is what had been defining my self-perception and driving my anxiety.

    I’ve recently contracted with an alternative-to-the-system social service non-profit group where I am to be their trainer and to teach a new healing paradigm, based on natural healing and energy. I am hoping this ripples well. I’ve also started, along with partners, a center which will become non-profit soon, called Healing Academy for Performing Arts, to help people continue to grow and evolve as creative beings, with good support, and to their heart’s content. Aside from teaching, I’m also the music director and invite anyone to play in our band, as community service to senior citizens in assisted living facilities and rehab centers. So it’s community healing, as well. Trying to make a difference, here, based on all that I learned! It’s also extremely rewarding, personally.

    As far as the economics go, I agree we’re not set up for equality and justice in the slightest, and by definition, we are oppressed in a Babylonian debt-slave, ultra-rigid society. It is hard to make a living without playing into this, but I have experimented with all sorts of ways to stay afloat while providing affordable services. I do a lot of work for trade, too. As long as their is a fair exchange of energy, doesn’t have to be money.

    Thanks for the clear and direct response, Richard, makes perfect sense. I asked these questions because I think when we get to the root of any issues–as in, what is making this so sticky and stubborn–then we have good guidance around where to go next to create desired change. No doubt, this is about as sticky as it gets, I’ve never seen such stubbornness and lack of either interest or ability (or both) to improve the situation, in the face of such grave and numerous complaints!

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  • What is it that keeps psychiatry alive and well, despite all of its damning critics, and all the evidence of fraud and systemic malpractice, and all the horror stories out there now that are associated with having been a psychiatric client? Why has this not been enough to close down the shop?

    It is the ultimate irony that a field that was once about “listening” cannot hear the cries in their own houses. And in turn, they call its critics “delusional,” or some other conveniently discrediting label, and they actually get away with it–repeatedly, standard procedure. It’s become a psychic blood bath, it seems. What on earth is up with that?

    And, how safe is it to sit in an office having a private meeting, being vulnerable, confused, and sensitive, with someone who cannot hear critical feedback, and moreover, who becomes seriously and adamantly defensive when mirrored? Really, on the counter-attack. That is a disaster waiting to happen. It already has, over and over and over again. The blinders need to come off, for everyone’s sake.

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  • One thing I wanted to add regarding the new paradigm of healing–what I learned that was most helpful and illuminating was about “manifesting.” When I focus on what I want to manifest, then what needs to heal in order to make this happen lights up without effort, so these are our healing opportunities, to shift beliefs, perspective, and consciousness.

    In short, we can manifest healing, if we know how to drive our power of manifesting, our creative process. It was truly radical the difference between MFT training and psychic energy healing training–like, dark and light, respectively.

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  • Yeah, sadly it’s true, at this point, with all the very loud grievance and protests, it is so obvious there are cover-ups and alliances which have led to crimes against humanity. I’m glad and relieved it’s coming to light as it is, to clear the way for true and real healing, with none of this inane, insane, and insane-making bs attached to it, which only serves to undermine the intention to heal and grow.

    I did the bulk of my withdrawal right after graduating and some of my internship. I interrupted training to do a complete withdrawal, and that’s when I entered the system for support. This was 14-15 years ago, been on a healing path ever since. I’m 55 now, never been healthier. I’m so glad I ditched the drugs!!!!

    At that time, I still had not woken up what that was all about. I was still naïve about the system, thought it was there to help people. That’s where I got my best education and awakening, being a client in the system right after my graduate education and training, and I finally got why I had been so uncomfortable in graduate school. I did fine at CIIS, but my discomfort was telling me something was amiss, couldn’t quite put my finger on it though.

    After being a client in the system and in social services for a few years subsequent to this, I finally put it together, that these were not at all sound practices, and especially, that the social dynamics, norms, and extremely limited beliefs were actually undermining people, rather than supported them to be all they can be, and simply, themselves. I could see how it was promoting dependence and disability through stigma and marginalization. There is simply no permission to be human. It’s all about being “the right kind.” I witnessed an utter lack of tolerance for humanity in the system. It was really, really frustrating to see this, and to experience it first hand.

    The projected stigma was overwhelming and staggering, it is embedded into the system. This is how it operates, from this dualistic reality. It is in the language, expectations, beliefs, and general attitude and it translates into poor outcomes, as well as sheer frustration for clients, at the very least.

    That’s when things really got rough for me, being treated second class while withdrawing and trying to get it together so I could go back to work, that’s all I was thinking. But suddenly, I was deemed “unfit” or some such thing. And this, all from going through withdrawal, they thought I had messed myself up rather than recognizing I was going through a healing process. It was just all the stigma at work, systemically, and utterly defeating cynicism. And, extremely limited education and consciousness, seriously. I’d just had my training, I got what was so limiting about this, and why it was failing people.

    I was talking in one social service group about what I was learning at Psychic Horizons, and they wanted to start labeling me again. It was surreal–what is the norm and common knowledge in one community, tools for support and healing, is called “delusional” by the mental health community–and they are just blocks from each other, right down the street!

    Even more ironic is that what I learned at Psychic Horizons is what totally and completely saved me from all that, and where I found my healing. And they want to call what we learn there delusional??? If that don’t say it all.

    Psychic Horizons not only saved me and healed me, but it also trained me well. I was dedicated to that work, and it taught me how to clean up all this weird energy and focus it in a better way, to support my own well-being while helping others in a non-intrusive and respectful manner.

    I practiced for 11 years, up to last June, but I’m retired from private practice now. I just started a performing arts healing center, which is about to become non-profit, that’s all fallen together expediently, seems as though the universe has given me a green light on this. I’ve also been contracted as trainer and teacher for an “alternative-to-the-system” group, which starts soon. So I’ve got some good opportunities here, for which I’m really grateful.

    You know how it goes, everything serves a purpose, part of our soul journey and life purpose. It’s all fallen together, so I’m having a good time with it all now. It was like pushing many, many boulders uphill for a few years, so whew, glad that’s over!

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  • Yes, there are different factors, but everything you mention can be overcome, somehow, through personal growth and expanded awareness. If not, then what is the point of life? If we cannot overcome our tribulations, then we are doomed to a lifetime of suffering because we will continue to create only more of the same.

    People can learn new strategies all throughout life. At some point, awakening must occur in order to have quality of life.

    Unless, of course, one consciously chooses a life of suffering, which I guess is possible, although personally, I have a hard time understanding that. But I’d respect anyone’s choice, nonetheless, as long as they don’t use it to make others suffer. That’s when it becomes unacceptable, at least to me it does.

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  • “While I believe people can have dire problems in living, including enormous distress and confusion, I do not believe in ‘mental illness’.”

    I’m trying to find clarity here, and I like how you stated this, Bonnie, it’s very concise. Part of my education on MIA has been to learn more in depth about how people perceive the phrase “mental illness” and also the phenomena to which people commonly refer as “mentally ill.” I use the plural, because I think to different people, it means different things. I know there is more than one phenomenon of being in our culture which perpetuates this label. I also know that for some, like you and others I’ve read on here, it is non-existent, a social illusion which serves only those that made it up.

    What you say here I think is true for everyone–that we all, at times in life, feel enormous distress and confusion. And yes, some have more extreme hardships than others. But not everyone who has hardships gets a diagnosis, and not everyone who gets a diagnosis has had extreme hardships. But still, we all have times of extreme confusion and high anxiety, to the point where it interferes with our ability to focus and stay present, and which can turn into extreme self-doubt, haunting thoughts, and negative thinking patterns, even sabotaging (to self or others) ideations.

    Especially as we move on in years, we all go through these passages at one or more times. I think it’s a natural part of our evolution. If there is an exception to this, I’d very much like to know about it. These passages start early in life, it’s normal for even kids, part of growing up. How parents handle their stress will be the model, by example, of how the kid handles theirs.

    My question then, is: what allows some people to manage this, integrate it, and move on with new awareness, while others get stuck in the distress and confusion, and it becomes a chronic lifetime thing? No doubt that will lead to life hardships along the way, in and of itself.

    We have, indeed, identified psychiatric drugging as one way to get stuck, which is why I feel that these practices are barbaric and consider them crimes against humanity, pure and simple. But people who do not seek psychiatric services get stuck in distress, too. I’m wondering why some can free themselves from distress and why some cannot?

    I don’t think it’s a brain defect or genetic influence, not at all. Any physical issues can be compensated for and we adjust. That happens all the time.

    Socio-economic factors, oppressive cult-like communities/families, also play a part in creating chronic states of distress, but again, some evolve from this while some do not.

    So I’m wondering what it is that would create this difference, so that, perhaps, we can figure out how to help people get unstuck, so they are not chronically wallowing in distress and confusion. Feels to me like this would relieve a lot of suffering, overall, both short and long term, as well as individually and communally. That would ripple out fast.

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  • Bonnie, I so admire your fortitude and sense of self for going against the grain of academia. 40 years of that would be quite the journey, I imagine. Congratulations on this profound manifestation of your professional and life goals.

    Btw, as an aside here–I wanted to thank you for the perspective you gave me in a dialogue a couple of months ago, it really paid off. As a result of this shift, I’ve been contracted as a teacher and trainer. Thank you for the inspiration to trust the process and to embrace the unknown. Obviously, you are an example of these, and of how to get meaningful results in doing so.

    So thanks, also, for walking your talk. Certainly cuts down on all the confusion! The best teachers set the example.

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  • Your story is heartbreaking. I very much admire your courage.

    “There is a sense of betrayal to my father and grandmother by working in a profession that failed them and is the only medical specialty to have its own survivor movement, not from the illnesses it hopes to treat, but from the ministrations of the profession itself.”

    Indeed. Profound irony here, on many levels. When surviving and healing from “treatment” becomes the issue, I can’t imagine a bigger and brighter red flag around something which I would call fraudulent. And as you illustrate, tragically, not everyone survives it. In fact, so many do not.

    I hope your path brings you good healing and clarity. My very best wishes to you.

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  • Thanks for sharing this, Stephen, I appreciate this story on a lot of levels, and of course mostly due to your point of illustrating true courage, selflessness, humility, and grace, to the point of saintliness, from what you describe. I had the enormous honor and pleasure once to meet and speak with Sasheen Littlefeather, and she told me an extremely inspiring story about Mother Teresa, for whom she worked in San Francisco at one time, which popped up in my mind when I read your story here. There are some really amazing people in the world who demonstrate so much power, simply from their faith, and their ability to love unconditionally.

    But to bring this back to at least the topic of this website, in general, I can’t help but to ask myself what is up with these adults who spit on people, and authority figures who shame those in their fold, for their virtues, as if they were abominations? Even metaphorically, adults “spit on” each other all the time, and often simply for being virtuous and helpful to others. Jealousy? That’s one guess.

    To me, while we shy away from the phrase “mental illness” around here, I’d feel compelled to explore this further, because it is behavior like this that makes our society crazy and crazy-making, because it discourages people from being all they can be. It’s toxic and traumatic, regardless of one’s virtues.

    Can’t we do better than this? The response you describe to the good works of this nun is sheer madness, to my mind. And sadly, it is all-too-common.

    (And while I do appreciate being able to edit, now, it would be really great if we could get the comments to post in order from top to bottom, so the dialogue can be read chronologically, rather than kind of scrambled and in reverse).

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  • “In the hierarchy of the Church laypeople are always beneath priests and religious. This nun never subscribed to this idea.”

    I think when someone disregards an established hierarchy in order to do their soul work and help others, then you have someone embodying their true spirits, as an example to others. These sound like truly great women, Stephen, I really appreciate (and feel) the enormous gratitude you express for knowing them, and for the role they have played in your life. Beautiful!

    (And to MIA staff, I send my gratitude for the editing feature!!)

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  • Breaking a lot of thought habits, shifting neural pathways, all in a day’s healing! 🙂 Sounds like you are well on your way, Meaghan.

    “The process of sifting through the automatic roles and patterns of behaviour to a place of truth threatens the very things our lives depended on as children: acceptance, acceptability and approval.”

    I believe this is where our transformative healing and awakening happens, when we shift to self-acceptance and self-approval, rather than needing or expecting it from the outside. We may already know this in our intellect, but that body memory stays with us, until we make the shift deliberately.

    To me, that is connecting with our higher self, our true and self-validating inner voice. From there, we’re not conflicted, so we can start to feel inner peace, finally. That’s how it worked in my process, at least.

    When I stopped feeling guilty about self-caring over taking care of others, my life finally began to unfold the way I would want it to. That was my family dynamic to heal. And that is what, once and for all, quieted my mind.

    No, it wasn’t easy, that stuff is sticky. This took time, and tons of self-compassion, there can be layers to work through. For me, family healing meant that I brought in my own beliefs and value system, and lived my life my way, as per what felt good to me, regardless of whether or not it conflicted with their way of thinking. Rocked the boat, of course, but that’s the idea, how change happens. And just keep moving forward! Embracing the unknown helps, too, while trusting the process of life.

    Continued best wishes, Meaghan, I think your story is very inspiring, and such a wonderful example of personal growth and evolution with very keen awareness. Very fascinating and rich, creative process, I think.

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  • Very powerful and truth-speaking essay, Meaghan. Your passion for healing is obviously driven for your passion for living.

    I think one bit of light on trauma is that it ultimately drives us to feel our freedom to experiment and go the edges. After all, we’re pretty much fed up with all of those boxes and expectations from others, aren’t we? Attaching to that, alone, keeps post-traumatic stress alive and well.

    I think detaching from social expectations and ‘the way things are done,’ in order to take our soul journey and feel who we are as creative spirits–the characteristics and purpose of which are unique to each of us– is healing in and of itself, because this is when we evolve. I think that’s the portal to emotional freedom and well-being, because as we take these leaps of faith, I believe we are creating a lot of good stuff for ourselves that matches our heartfelt intention–not only to heal ourselves, but to help others in their journey, those who wish to be supported, which we can all use from time to time. Actually key phrase, to my mind, would be: mutual support. That’s been my experience, in any event.

    “Ultimately, healing is a deeply personal journey.” Yep, so is life. ‘Nuff said.

    Thanks for opening the window to new perspectives.

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  • Also, regarding isolation, I’d also say that there are diverse responses to this. Many people use isolation like this as a way to find inner peace and enlightenment. When we can get ourselves to focus, we have an inner dialogue which is totally in our control, at all times. That can make all the difference in even the most tortuous situations.

    Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning Comes to Mind, as well as Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Talk about stress! They used it to enlighten themselves, and to educate the world, each of them a powerfully influential legacy, all from extreme stress, isolation, and persecution.

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  • I totally agree that we exist on a continuum, and can each of us experience fragmentation, dissociation, and severe disorientation from high levels of chronic environmental stress. From that, we grow and learn. I think the idea is to find the balance, so life isn’t always treacherous and effort-filled, but that it has its joyful and restful moments, too. I think when we live for too long with stress and no joy, we suffer.

    At present, the environment is extremely stressful, considering the state of the world. Our society, as we know it, is falling apart at the seams, the violence of it is in our faces. And so is the corruption that has caused all of this. Waking up is stressful, but absolutely necessary for positive change to occur.

    So I think it comes down to how we respond to that stress. This is where we are diverse. Different people respond in different ways–some are more extroverted about it while some are more internal about how they handle stress. And within these two poles is a range of responses to stress, also. I think a big part of healing and personal growth is balancing our authentic responses to stress, with what is most fruitful and guiding to us, as opposed to self-sabotaging.

    Often, people who are extremely stressed out, and more than likely, fragmented and perhaps carrying a lot of fear, can still sometimes get away with appearing together, balanced, and grounded, but in reality, that is not the case. I also think that the veils are lifting, and people are not so easily fooled any longer. I honestly believe we will be seeing evidence of this more and more, behind the curtain.

    So I think we all have some kind of symptomatic response to stress, being that we’re human and all; and also I think, at the core, we’re all quite sensitive, so I do think it is self-defeating to name it something like “schizophrenia” or the like, because then it becomes a matter of “chronic illness,” which is simply ridiculous. Life is stressful, and we each have different responses to stress. Everyone flips out at one time or another, I also think that is part of the human experience, universally. That’s when we learn our best lessons and evolve hardily. Labeling these experiences an “illness” is nonsense, truly, to be blunt; and drugging someone for having their awakening experience is sabotage, pure and simple.

    No, many don’t ask “what happened?” They simply react to that which triggers them, and that becomes “mental health treatment.” I can’t say enough how crazy-making I think that is, for all concerned.

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  • Matt, reading your article again and then the discussion so far, I’m reminded of one of the most moving and profoundly simple and clear comments I’ve read on MIA, I believe a few months back, by Bonnie Bustrow–and I’m paraphrasing because I don’t see “comment history” any longer so it would be a needle in a haystack–but something to the effect of, “We’re trying to understand what it means to be human.” I think, in the end, that’s what it boils down to.

    This is how your well-thought article–and I guess, the series, on the whole–is speaking to me now. Whatever we call ourselves and others, however we address the trials and tribulations of our lives–and we all have them, no exception–however we choose to grow, gain clarity, and to feel love, that is how we are human. Can’t think of where I’d want to go from there, other than wondering how to best utilize my humanity. I imagine that would be different for all of us, based on our own beliefs, personality, and life experiences.

    Kudos for using your humanity, full-bodied, to bring clarity to others around extremely challenging and personal issues, and to offer compassionately alternative ways of thinking. I think anything at all in life has its challenges and rewards, including being a pioneer. We are what we are, and we make the best of it.

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  • “The consequences of this phenomenon, which has probably not been studied since to do so would threaten the system, are quite severe in my opinion.”

    I believe it is evident all around us, especially now that we’re being so transparent. There is no doubt of the harm being done. And you’re right, were we to wait for research to validate this truth, we’d be waiting an awfully long time. At this point, it’s a matter of desire, intuition, leap of faith, and trust in our own process. Researching human beings can be a spurious endeavor, I think, and laden with political and economic agendas, including a drive for professional gain, rather than actually serving the greater good.

    It’s not only the chronic-broken-brain stigma which harms and keeps people stuck and downward spiraling. It’s also the social stigma of “not fitting in,” that is, of not following the norm. That, alone, brings dangerous and discriminating diagnoses. Having been in staff meetings and trainings with psychotherapists and social workers over the years, I witnessed this repeatedly. I can’t tell you how often I heard, “I think he’s a narcissist” or “She must have an adjustment disorder or something,” and “He’s definitely borderline,” so off-the-cuff, with no foundation in the slightest, nor awareness at all what they were saying, because they are, for whatever reason, put off or irritated with a client, and judging them all the way. They weren’t even in a diagnostic frame of mind, they were just venting, and all agreeing gleefully, like an alliance.

    Can you imagine how this will affect that client? Especially because they are not even telling them, this is just how they feel about them, personally, so it’s not like they are thinking, “How can we help this person?” They’re simply being insulting behind their backs, having this power over them to affect their lives–all while carrying this stigma around with them, ready to project it outward, to maintain power and control. It is overt, and rather shameless, to my mind.

    I haven’t been around this in a while, but it still makes me angry to think about it. Personally, I think it’s a flagrant ADA violation, and it’s being committed daily, from what I remember. It’s the norm in that world.

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  • Matt, I think you make a thorough and persuasive argument that what they offer is not only not working to help people heal, but it’s only making matters way worse, to a tragic degree. And, you illustrate that there are a plethora of avenues to healing that are sound, natural, and heart- and human-centered. Yes, they exist and people are seeking and using them. The ‘alternative-to-the-mental-health-industrial-complex’ is here, on Earth, and ready to be utilized, for those who want it.

    Thanks to the dense and widespread stigma caused by these “diagnoses,” clinicians don’t see the person, they merely perceive a distortion, coming from their own inner reality. Has nothing to do with the client. It’s a delusion, projected aggressively and abusively, and carries the potential for doing incredible long-term harm to the client, because of the disorientation and chronic inner struggle which this inevitably causes, until one can come back in synch with who they really are, over and beyond some shadow projection from a clinician or social worker.

    “Many years ago, I was told I had an incurable brain disease and would always need to be on drugs.”

    Yes, me too, and nothing could have been further from the truth. That is a dead-end version of someone else’s reality in which I don’t care at all to participate any longer. I lived with that delusion for 20 years, then finally woke up and changed my beliefs and healing process, which worked to completion for me. I’ve never been as vital and healthy as I am now, totally fulfilled in my endeavors. Still boggles my mind how they could have been soooo wrong, to the point of it nearly destroying my life, and that of my partner, from their wildly damning prognosis–all stigma-based, pure fiction.

    I think “chronic illness that requires a lifetime of drugs” is the most harmful delusion of all, because it sets one on a path of despair and self-destruction, eventually. But of course, it is what keeps business booming.

    People need hope, encouragement, validation for who they are, and to know that they are not broken individuals, but more so, are seeking connection, sense of self, heart healing, clarity, and direction. That is human. Parents often do not deliver here, and instead, we pick up anxiety, confusion, and mixed-to-negative messages, from which we seek to disentangle. Life is wounding for all of us, that is the nature of being alive. We get hurt, and we heal. From that, we manifest our lives as we go along.

    Really good stuff, Matt, thanks!

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  • Stephen, I appreciate your thought-provoking comment. Brought up responses in me right away. I’ve split your post into two—re love & family and regarding what is a “good therapist”–in order to respond to each part, they both carry a lot of energy.

    “I believe that people need to be loved into being by others before they can begin to love themselves. In families that function well I think this happens normally. In families where trauma rears its ugly head I feel this becomes problematic.”

    From this, I’d infer that you believe that we are born needing to learn to self-love, rather than the idea that we are born naturally self-loving? Personally, from my perspective, I actually think it’s the newborn who is there to teach love to the family, not the other way around.

    We have no judgments at birth, and we only know to gravitate toward or cry for what we need. Intuitively it is our needs which matter most, as infants, and we inherently demonstrate the power to have our needs known. To me, that is self-love in that it is self-caring—we expect to have our basic needs met, which we have a right to expect. What happens next will determine a lot, it’s a fork in the road.

    I think when a parent, or whomever the adult in the situation, does not respond to this cry or reaching out to get a need met, or worse yet, who punishes this action of crying (or somehow getting attention) for what the child needs because the kid knows of no other way to communicate, then we are actually sending another message to undermine the kid’s natural intuition to expect his/her basic needs to be met—that he/she, in fact, does not have the power to have his/her needs met, and that it might be dangerous to ask for this.

    From that point on, they will start to feel undeserving, deprived, resentful, jilted by life, etc.—tons of negative messages accompany this and internalize from it–and something will go awry either physical, emotionally, or experientially, because that is not at all true, we do have the power to have our needs met, I believe this is innate wisdom with which we are born.

    So not being responded to, or being responded negatively to, as an infant becomes a split between innate spirit wisdom and this newly developing brain and ego. (Just an aside here–actually, I believe healing is about bringing these two back in synch, so our bodies and minds can integrate our soul truth, which is a much broader and universal truth than ego and intellectual truth).

    When adults withhold meeting the needs of a child, that is when the child will forget their natural self-love, and more than likely, shift to into self-loathing. Chronic despair, agitation, frustration, rage, and abusive self-talk will perpetuate, because our self-love was not validated. That’s how I see it working. Healing our spirits brings us back to self-love, because we can feel our hearts opening and expanding. Often, this epiphany leads to a deluge of tears, as releasing old fears and resentments, to come back to our innate wisdom from which trauma has separated us. It’s a really beautiful feeling, and it sets one on a new course in life.

    “I think that a true therapist is a person who loves people into being so that they can learn to love themselves. It’s in that experience of acceptance and being loved, with proper and good boundaries, that people can begin seeing their own potential and worth. I suspect that it’s the rare individual out there in the world these days who can do this kind of loving of others, without prejudices and judgment and assumptions, so that the person can come to see their selves for who they are.”

    First, I don’t really believe in the concept of ‘a true therapist.’ Different people can provide support for different people in different ways. I seriously doubt anyone at all can help everyone, universally, given our vastly diverse nature. That seems like a stretch to me.

    For me, a therapist is actually someone who helps a person solve a puzzle, to get to the root of an issue, so that they can move on. I do not at all see a therapist as someone to replace love missing in one’s life. That’s true codependence with an enormous power differential, which can be terribly damaging for the vulnerable client.

    And, that is what I was taught in my MFT training and I rejected it hook, line, and sinker. I think that is presumptuous and self-aggrandizing, and exactly what is wrong with the entire field. That is a therapist who craves love from others, to my mind, to which I would say, “beware.”

    I do agree that an effective therapist would have a loving heart and an open mind, willing to learn a new perspective (the client’s world) and would also respect a client enough to be authentic with them–as opposed to withholding, for the sake of keeping power in the relationship. Not easy, but doable, with hardy inner work.

    Boundaries solid, yes, and flexible. One never knows where a healing process will go, that’s the interesting part of it, I think. A good therapist knows that in a healing relationship, everyone heals and grows, not just the client.

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  • “…the traditional medical drug treatments are whats causing the Longterm Disability.”

    So does the prejudice, marginalization, and social wounding from the system, etc. Long term disability doesn’t necessarily mean a person is “disabled.” It can also apply to people who are simply deemed undesirable in and of no value to a narrow, driven, fear-based, and uptight society. Disability can simply be founded on stigma–the illusion of “not fitting in.” That, alone, is traumatic for people, so it’s a socially-induced disability, by way of “othering.”

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  • A lot of people who turn to the “mental health” industry do so because of family trauma, which leads to become distrusting of personal relationships. So they seek a professional for that connection, where the client lays down their burden to a stranger and pays them, and in doing so, risks relinquishing their power. Then, social trauma will more than likely incur due to stigma and marginalization–at least, that has been the case for so many.

    The quantum leap from this state of being and spiritual injury to social connectedness is profound. I think, first, it is sound healing to learn to develop self-respecting and self-loving relationship with one’s self. Then, a person is prepared to offer respect and love to others. Otherwise, dependence is likely to develop, energy gets drained, conflict either ensues or anger is repressed, and we’re back to square one.

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  • I’m very moved by your story, and especially the family healing which you spearheaded. This is a beautiful illustration about how gaining insight into our suffering and facing the truth of our experience head on leads to brilliant healing, especially of self-blame, which is a huge relief, and which allows us to feel love. Your kids are blessed. Great heart opening, thank you 🙂

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  • “If, however, lack of insight is defined as a failure to accept an alternative view of reality, then do the rest of us lack insight, too?”

    I would call that closed-minded, arrogant, defeatist, and cynical, for starters. It’s also delusional. There are sooooo many perspectives and perceptions of reality. Narrowing it down to one is, well, narrow! And extremely limiting and oppressive. To the nth degree. Humanity is comprised of diverse realities, how could it be any other way?

    The problem is when diverse realities are in competition with each other, and one culture wants to do harm to an antithetical culture. That’s when the threat of annihilation comes to light, and people start to invalidate the reality of others. Which, really, is an exercise in futility, because our personal reality cannot be controlled by others, rightfully speaking.

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  • “And mental health workers usually do not realize how intuitive and perceptive even the most regressed people are – they tend to have very long emotional antenna due to all the difficult experiences they’ve been through. In my experience, they sense quickly whether others are labeling or objectifying them as a ‘person with a lifelong illness to be managed,’ or conversely, whether they have a genuine interest in them as a person and think they can fully recover.”

    Yep, very true. People can tell when they’re being stigmatized and patronized, or being jerked around because they are perceived as “not aware,” which of course is about as far away from the truth as one can get. People going through the system are extremely aware, they just feel powerless to do anything about it, that’s the problem. That belief can be challenged in order to find freedom through self-empowerment.

    Feeling powerless so common in the mental health world, and the more one fights it the worse it gets. Personally, I think it’s best to walk away from that and instead be encouraging to others, to start creating change. People need authenticity and encouragement, not duplicity and doom.

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  • I think what’s interesting are the multiple levels of communication that occur between people, whether speaking, touching, reacting, or simply being. There is energy in silence that we can hardly, if at all, perceive if we are speaking, acting, or even thinking. Personally, I feel truth in silence, which is probably why people have trouble sitting in silence and quieting their minds. Sitting in silence is an art, because we are often in our highest creative movement when we are at this level of non-resistance, and simply allowing ourselves and others to be.

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  • Right, and that’s what I mean by shifting perspective as a gateway to forward movement. From a spiritual perspective, by which I mean from a broad energetic point of view–the spirit of the situation–no one is “broken” and the only thing which causes us risk is our own fears and distorted, limited perspective, a mere and infinitesimal fraction of what is really true, from that broad spiritual level. The spiritual perspective is that we are learning, growing, evolving, and awakening as we go along, if we allow ourselves to. Keyword: allow.

    From this perspective, all are of One consciousness, each of us representing a different and unique aspect of that One–“all that is” (what some call Source, God, Universe, etc., that which is greater than our physical selves).

    That is unity consciousness, as opposed to the duality which inherently incurs conflict, stigma, and judgments (shame, guilt, etc.), leading to trauma, violence, and general chaos, because we are not recognizing our continuum of humanity, which is what connects us all.

    No one is immune to life’s trials and tribulations, we all must face them. How we perceive that which causes us stress is pivotal to how we will respond to it. If we see it as a threat, something to fear, then we will more than likely spiral down in some way, because we will perceive the cause of that fear as something outside of us.

    Whereas from a spiritual perspective of energy, where we acknowledge being the creators of our own reality, we perceive our trials as guidance, that which moves us forward, because it is generated by our own spirit as the means to personal growth and evolution. To me, were we all to adopt this, then we’d all be taking responsibility for our own life experience and seeing the value of each and every challenge. I believe this would great reduce stress and violence on the planet, leading to peace in the world. Inner peace = outer peace.

    It is a radical shift in perspective in some communities, however (not all, this is standard in some communities), and not necessarily an easy one to make. Although I highly recommend it, as it is a life-changer. That is the journey of radical change, the inner journey of healing and awakening. It’s how we go from being a victim of life to actually partnering with it in order to create our desired life experience. A spiritual perspective puts us in charge of our lives, by teaching us where we are at the controls.

    Life is an education, not a prison. However, it will be what we perceive it to be, because our perception is what moves energy and creates what we recognize as our physical reality. That’s my way of thinking, in any event. Not everyone will take to this, but for me, it WAS the way out, and it continues to be the perspective by which I live my life.

    That was the “alternative” that finally worked for me–applying the spiritual aspect of reality. That is what opened the door to healing and personal growth, after having gotten painfully stuck, thanks to what the system dishes out–the drugs, the stigma, the gross incompetence and lack of soul education. Took a radical shift in perspective to create transformative change in my physical life, and it was well worth the effort, leading to emotional freedom and limitless creativity. No more boxes, none.

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  • And this–

    “…Six Flags is revamping its exhibits so that they feature zombies, I think the takeaway is that advocacy works!”

    In this case, yes, it created tangible positive change, away from negatively stereotyping people who suffer–stigma that has directly done great harm to a lot of people–based on the voices and truth of those with lived experience. That will ripple out to whomever Ms. Chan communicates about this, starting with the staff involved with the exhibit, and also the directors. Everyone will have an opportunity to reconsider their views about this.

    Not everyone will change their minds or perhaps even care about this. But even one mind changed is significant. And my feeling here is that this advocacy has affected more than one person’s perception of people who live with diagnoses and in psychiatric institutions. It will make them think twice about merely echoing public sentiment, mindlessly.

    I think this is the essence of advocacy–literally, the heart of it. To create change in perspective leading to raised awareness leading to change in actions, all translating to the public, one way or another, because these subliminal messages will have been ceased from that particular source. I think that’s a great achievement in advocacy, a bulls eye, in fact. Would love to see more of this.

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  • “And as far as kindness, we cannot approach any of this by seeking pity. ”

    I don’t correlate these. The energy of kindness is healing–not born of pity, but of empathy and compassion, and the desire to feel love. I think the main issue from childhood trauma and abuse is that it creates a deprivation of love. That can cause all sorts of illness, despair, rage, bad relationship patterns, chronic frustration, etc. People need kindness more than simply more hostility.

    Regardless of beliefs and perspectives having to do with “mental illness” existing or not, or whatever that means, there are people who are in psych hospitals who suffer daily, and who have been traumatized and abused in all sorts of ways. This attraction is portraying those people as monsters, which goes right along with the oppressive and socially traumatic stigma that “these people” are violent and dangerous which is so readily perpetuated in the media. So I agree with this advocacy 100%.

    And I’m no PC prude. I love film and theater and there are all sorts of stereotypes that are portrayed in classic masterworks which some could find offensive and which I see simply as a reflection of the times. Stereotypes happen, different ways of dealing with it.

    But in this case, I think it’s clear that this is the basis of one of the most damaging stigmas for this population. Unless you want people to continue to believe that people with diagnoses and who live in institutions are dangerous monsters. That’s already a powerful stigma out there that is causing all sorts of problems and misconceptions to perpetuate, and it’s the basis of popular thought which motivates the Murphy Bill.

    This attraction is a reflection of that stigma and media-driven stereotype. I think the response from the Six Flags rep validates the advocacy, that is a victory of affecting someone’s perspective in a really positive way. She learned something important and became aware, had an awakening, around what I believed was the message we wanted people to hear–that people with diagnoses and institutionalized are human beings, and who have experienced hardships in life. They are not killer monsters, contrary to popular belief.

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  • “It is unrealistic to expect a radical change in the way we respond to human suffering while all professionals operate within the discriminatory infrastructure of mental health legislation.”

    Perhaps it is how we *perceive* suffering that will require a radical shift that would bring revolutionary change. There is a spiritual element to these issues that most often goes missing. That opens a whole new door to how these issues are addressed–mostly in the fact that from this perspective, they can actually be resolved, so that evolution can actually occur, as per our nature.

    Academic and political perspectives have failed us miserably, and only have served to cause suffering, as well as mass confusion. To inject an authentically spiritual point of view would rock the mainstream boat, appropriately. It would also create a new reality.

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  • “Murphy and his allies are helping child abusers. We must show this, and we must work for tangible results, instead of seeking therapeutic release in our therapists’ offices.”

    This is an excellent point. I’d never looked at this way. But I’d agree, that’s what it boils down to in so many cases. We’re not crying about it, we want to correct it. Stop the abuse, the demeaning, the shaming, the gaslighting, the coercion, etc., damn it. At this point, unconditional kindness would be a revolutionary act that would more than likely lead to radical change. Can we handle it?

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  • This is a very powerful piece. The contrast between KBF and Six Flags responses is dramatic Loved reading this:

    “Nancy Chan, communications manager at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, outside San Francisco, wrote to apologize. ‘We are making immediate changes to this attraction including converting the theme and will change out the references in advertising and social media to reflect the new theme. The maze will now feature zombies,’ she wrote, adding, ‘This is a good lesson for us all about perpetuating stereotypes…’ A teachable moment!”

    Really great activism, Susan. Teaching people awareness regarding our humanity, right on!

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  • This is sadly and maddeningly all too true. They get too comfortable, I think, and forget that this is a professional relationship. There should be a goal and a process to follow, not just random responses and opinions, which end up being judgments.

    People who have not sat in the client chair and experienced what can easily happen in these 1:1 meetings do not seem to get it, because it is hard to fathom. But so many clinicians do not think before they speak, and indeed, that can be dangerous to the point of causing despair and hopelessness. It often does.

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  • “I am very happy for you that you feel able to use your real name now.”

    So am I, I know how you have struggled with this. It’s always so wonderful to witness personal growth through transparency and trusting the process of life, walking courageously up to our personal edge. That is exactly where change happens. Bravo for being such a shining example of change and transformation.

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  • “You would think that as a society we would have learned that by now!”

    Which, to me, begs the question: Then what is exactly is preventing society from learning what it needs to learn in order to evolve into a better and more enlightened, just, and peace-achieving network of communities?

    Personally, I think it has a great deal to do with communication, and there are all sorts of factors involved in resisting change. But the mainstream is in dire need of education, and when it refuses to learn, it is hard to know where to begin, really. Almost feels as though it is in the hands of fate, at this point.

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  • Whatever we call the end result, life’s trauma can be crazy-making for anyone, especially if it is generated by those whom we trust to be there for our well-being. Betrayal trauma is powerful and insidious, and has long-lasting effects when it comes to trusting, even ourselves. When you consider health care systems, governments, media, etc. then it would seem as though trauma and betrayal are universal. We live in an abusive and traumatized society, paying it forward.

    These psych drugs cause trauma of all kinds–physical and emotional–while at the same time suppressing the trauma which really needs to be explored in order for healing to occur. Snowballs into one big mess, eventually.

    When we can separate ourselves from this social madness and have clarity around our own path and who we are in our hearts and spirits, then we can ascend this traumatizing lifestyle, and find our true voice and freedom. And that includes ditching the drugs and finding our natural healing path.

    Sounds like you’ve done just that, congratulations on your healing accomplishments! Speaking out from experience is the most powerful tool we each have to make sorely needed changes.

    One big change would be to actually wake up and address the abusive tendencies of a family or community system, rather than to drug the victim in order to suppress the truth of the matter. Were we to have the courage and humility to do this, then many things would change for the better, to my mind, from this truthful clarity, because then we’d have the opportunity to heal, rather than to appease community denial.

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  • Wow, bluntly put, and I believe it’s truth. Given that it is bullshit fraud that denies truth, when truth is exactly what people need in order to heal, I’d call it criminal, because it is harmful to the point of being lethal. At the very least, these practices are crippling and disabling for clients.

    I strongly feel these should be illegal practices, based exactly on the premise that, whether they are knowingly lying to clients or are making mistakes by following a corrupt protocol, either way they become aggressively defensive when criticized, then on the offensive with their gaslighting and mind-games, or worse yet, coercive and retaliating, and hurt their clients as a result. We tell them, they get nasty. Seems to be standard procedure. Illegal would be the adjective I’m seeking to represent the truth of this matter. Then, I’d be satisfied.

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  • Actually, I never took it on, I fought it down the line. But I felt their wanting me to, it was obvious. The language is all innuendo, to trigger these self-judgmental feelings. But, instead, when I filed my lawsuit, by the time we got to mediation, all three top brass had resigned and had scattered all over the country. I called them all out. Like I said, it wasn’t mine to begin with.

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  • There is also shame dispensed for offering critical feedback, or for rejecting negative mirroring (stigma), for not complying with the system’s perspective–for being not like everyone else. One can be called “paranoid” for speaking a hard truth, “narcissistic” for displaying confidence, and “manic” for embodying passion and enthusiasm. Kind of a spiritual and emotional gag order, if you ask me. I think it’s really abusive and sabotaging to people. One of the things I hate most about the system, how it shames people out of growing and feeling good about themselves. I think it’s commonplace, and treacherous.

    As for guilt, I was told more than once, “You hurt my feelings,” when trying to combat blatant discrimination, from a clinician and then from a professional advocate. No diagnoses involved here, it’s just the way to avoid being mirrored and correcting the problems, the social ills they so freely perpetuate. Totally stuck, which is why I had to go legal. I wouldn’t do it again, it’s a total pain and draining, but it became a pattern the deeper into this I went. It’s rather overwhelming the extent to which this occurs, sop.

    Guilt and shame are used by the gatekeepers to keep change from happening, given that these are easy triggers. Total gaslighting. Makes me mad to witness this, and to remember it. It’s incredibly dualistic and heartless. I’d be hard pressed to not send the guilt and shame right back from where it came in the first place. I try to be better, but I’m only human. And no, it wasn’t mine in the first place.

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  • Yes, yes, and YES. Bravo, Michael. Now, please let’s send this message to the “mental health” systems. These are their weapons, to guilt and shame, and they are used and projected aggressively. It is all tied up with marginalization of our fellow global citizens. Some people are pushed hard to be made to feel as though they don’t “fit in.” That can lead to all sorts of problems, including chronic psychological torture.

    Unfortunately, we are bombarded with these messages from media and communities, it is a form of oppression, to use these psychological tools. I was raised on guilt, so it was best to not push anyone’s buttons in life. Can you tell me how this is possible? We’re all responsible for our own feelings, not those of others. And I say this with no guilt, whatsoever!

    Thanks, Michael, I think you deliver a vital message for good health and healing here.

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  • And btw, being rigid in thinking is one’s downfall, because life is not rigid, but ever-changing, so they will not be able to keep up with changes, and particularly, with radical social, political, and economic change.

    Psych drugs aren’t the only thing which cause rigid thinking, many things do. In fact, Psych drugs create neural rigidity by artificial means, and that can be corrected by withdrawing from the drugs.

    But I think that, even more to the root of the problem is the idea that, perhaps, these drugs are used to curtail fluidity in thought in order to match clinical rigidity, at least on an unconscious level, I can see how this would be. As we all know, free and creative thinkers tend to be labeled, stigmatized, and shunned in the “mental health” community. God forbid a client evolve past their therapist in awareness. It will not be tolerated!

    (It’s ironic to write this here because I consider Dr. Berezin to be quite independent in his thinking, and courageous in his truth-speaking. However, an established reputation and long held position makes it a bit easier to be authentic in a rigid world; whereas for us plebeians, it’s a professional death-wish).

    And when an entire community is rigid in its beliefs, it hasn’t a prayer. That can only be mass delusion.

    Awakening is, therefore, in order for change to occur with ease. It will occur regardless of anyone’s objections, because that is the nature of life and of human beings. But it is WAY more challenging when it happens against rigid, unwavering thinking and fixed beliefs. That can cause quite a bit of chaos, for which people are hardly prepared.

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  • “…“ADHD” symptoms aren’t always the result of psychosocial causes or trauma. Often, they are the result of normal kids being expected to act abnormally by adults who have unreasonable expectations for the age.”

    That is, indeed, psycho-social trauma. Especially because it is chronic in childhood. It can easily become a lifestyle habit in adulthood to be a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, if that is what is expected of us as children, until we wake up to what has influenced us in this regard. Then, we can shift those judgments, because that’s what they end up being, a slew of self-judgments from an internalized panel of judges, from feeling that we’re not being who we are SUPPOSED to be, based on what we learned as kids.

    Imagine how the neural pathways would develop in a kid that lives with that kind of high stress to be someone who they are not, while their own sense of self/natural spirit is being invalidated thoroughly. We really have no choice but to be who we are spiritually, but when we pretend that we are someone else, the truth leaks out, one way or another. That can be a very debilitating split causing grandiose anxiety.

    When we own our true nature, we come out of denial, and that is healing, although it can be disorienting at first. All part of the process of healing and awakening to our true sense of self. That is a process to trust.

    There can be all kinds of coercion in this dynamic, subtle and overt. Threats of being punished or deprived for making a poor grade in school–and often a poor grade by high achievers would be a “B”–is 24/7 stress, which can easily lead to cheating, for example, for the sake of survival. That can become a habit in life, if it goes unchecked.

    Plus, a kid who is subject to “abnormal” expectations will, more than likely, impose that on others. Sometimes people develop good awareness and sensitivity to others as a result of their empathy from their experience, but often people who have been abused themselves lack empathy for others, so they will merely repeat what they learned from the adults around them.

    There is a quote in my film from Walt Whitman, which says,

    “There was a child went forth every day,
    And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became,
    And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
    Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.”

    I find it to be relevant to what we’re talking about here. Kids learn from the example of the adults around them. That becomes the neural map of their brain, what else would it be? We are fluid and mercurial by nature, however, so this can be shifted fairly easily. That’s transformational healing, our self-identity changes, along with our perceived roles in the family and community.

    Although, I will say this–psych drugs make us rigid, they seem to fix and embed neural pathways, so I believe they actually undermine our ability to learn and make changes. That’s the impression I’ve gotten over the years. I believe we actually lose our neuroplasticity on psych drugs.

    So in essence, we can’t heal trauma, until we get our fluidity of thought back. I don’t think that can happen on psych drugs. They get people good and stuck, and end up not being able to change negative thought habits. So much damage done by these pills, it’s over the top.

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  • Nikola Tesla said, “If you wish you understand the Universe, think of energy, frequency, and vibration.”

    Reading this article, I’d say what is mirrored here is a world reflecting the energy of extreme chaos at the frequency of sinister sabotage of humanity, and, as highlighted even in the title, vibrating at, and therefore creating, tragedy. What a mess of a world, is all I can say. And it has been for way too long.

    Good place for another quote, here, by Albert Einstein, “A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.”

    From Shakespeare to Beckett to….? Can’t wait to find out.

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  • “I take exception to your statement that MIA promotes hypocrisy half the time.”

    Seriously? We’re swimming in hypocrisy, duplicity, false disclosures, illusion, holograms, etc, from start to finish–at the core of the system all the way to the outer layers of activism, and everything in between. This is the exact problem in all of this, why nothing gets done, fixed, or followed through on, in any way that authentically supports change. And especially, it is why people don’t heal hanging around any of this.

    When we keep staring at the shadows, we not only give them power, we will, in addition, only create more of them for ourselves, until it eventually becomes our entire reality. That needn’t be the case, but it does require integrity to heal and grow past that, whatever one’s personal opinion about anything might be.

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  • This article with video tells a rich story. The kid is fine, there was no intention to harm, and I wouldn’t even call this necessarily abusive or traumatic, although perhaps a case might be made for that, I don’t know. And the witnesses did seem traumatized, from their reactions of horror and disbelief.

    However, I do believe that it’s certainly child endangerment, as did the witnesses, obviously. Overall, I do know it illustrates how stupid adults can be regarding their children, and bring them at least close to harm, if not fully, including fatal–without even realizing it. This is what concerns me: “without even realizing it.”

    I believe a strong case could be made here that, even though she is thinking and believing that something is fun and innocent and because it is desired by the child, it is ok. Somewhere, something needs to shift with the mother. She needs to wake up to something, to grow in awareness, to own something about herself. Is there any doubt? And I imagine she will not understand this. I would hope to be wrong about this, but from all accounts, she will not get it. Two of her kids are already part of the system, in foster care.

    No, this is not everyone, I’m not making a generalization, I’m talking about this one mother, in this story. Still, I imagine she is not the only one who cannot understand when she, and perhaps other adults around, are, in fact, putting their own kids in harm’s way, and say something to the effect that this mother said to onlookers–“Mind your own business! It’s my kid and I’ll do what I want with them! I know how to raise my own kid!” That is a conundrum, and leaves everyone around them feeling totally powerless, which, I think, would be the point. WAKE UP CALL!

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/8b471c4a-dd4a-3978-a7d7-b7ae21e4b0d0/ss_charges-filed-after-shocking.html

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  • I am extremely moved by this plea for sorely needed respect for the well-being of our kids. Indeed, this has been a long time coming. We are talking about generational abuse, paid forward as second nature now. Kids eventually grow up to be adults, and this seems to have been happening on a pretty large scale for a while now, which could explain why our leadership is so in question now, as the world as we’ve known it appears to be crumbling.

    I imagine there are a lot of traumatized people running the world now, traumatized right out of their hearts, no moral compass. I think it’s evident when you look at the world, and the horrible struggles and suffering that are purely human-inspired, and by no means natural, at least not to my mind.

    You bring up a variety of abuses which are epidemic in American society. Hardly a day goes by now where I’m not reading about parents killing their child, or forgetting about them in a hot car, or throwing them in a closet and starving them, or stuffing them in freezers, or, most recently, overdosing in their toddlers presence, both parents at the same time. I believe they were in their 50’s, not young’ns.

    And that’s the extreme stuff. Subtle abuse has become a way of life, I’m sad to say. Vulnerable people pay for it, in the end, and children are the most vulnerable of all. At the same time, they are quite powerful, by nature. I think that has interesting relevance to how they are treated in certain environments.

    I think it’s all programming, false beliefs based on highly oppressive messages from all over which we internalize to our detriment–media, etc. I believe it’s a matter of aligning with our true nature, and leaving behind the need to comply with social norms as the bar for sanity–family, community, whatever in this vein, to fit in and be “accepted.” That’s actually crazy-making, square peg in round hole.

    Kids who are rejected, punished, or shamed by their families for being who they are will have quite a chip on their shoulder as adults, until they recognize their own true merits, as distinct from the family programming. I believe that’s healable, those negative messages, but they can be hard thought habits to break if there has been a lot of repetition of this same over the years, from not recognizing this post trauma.

    I think it’s one reason psychiatry can fall under the gun, given that it re-creates the exact same trauma of alienation. Marginalized first, by family, then reinforced by psychiatry, then embedded in society. All that very dangerous stigma for not fitting into the family, or simply being made to feel that way, gaslighted. Causes chronic internal torture, until people can only numb themselves, for the sake of survival.

    I practically gasped when I read “American Psychiatry has gone off the deep end.” That is truth–a hard truth, perhaps, given the paradoxical implication and tragic irony, but it is poetic in resonance, because it is exactly right. “Off the deep end” says it all. I applaud this courageous assessment of your own field, Dr. B. That takes guts and true insight.

    As far as families and diverse societies go, the family thing is hard, people tend to fervently resist looking at themselves, and their role in dysfunction. That can lead to violence in many ways, vindication, etc. It can be scary to call out abuse, and where healing becomes courageous, because we learn to trust post betrayal.

    Wonderful stuff, as always Dr. B. This gets me thinking about all sorts of things, in a forward-moving and clarifying way. You’re on it as usual!

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  • Here’s an example of wisdom from perhaps my favorite teacher in a long line of teachers. I can’t even remember what the student was specifically asking about, but he I do remember that he was worried about being off the beaten path, that it would make him ‘weird.’ This is dialogue from a class–

    Student: Do people do that?
    Teacher: Do you?
    Student: Yes
    Teacher: Then people do that.

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  • Thank you for the video, Kjetil. It clarified your perspective for me a bit. Although after watching it, I come back to my original question about your statements regarding “normal.”

    In the video, you repeatedly talk about “therapy” as a way of bringing people back into “normal range.” This is what I was challenging in my first comment. My argument is why would this be necessarily desirable? Human beings are human beings, who is to say what is each one’s natural state of being is? I prefer relaxed, but some people operate quite well wound up. It’s a matter of personal preference and what works for us, not how others will perceive us–that’s where we totally lose our power, when we go by what others think of as ‘normal,’ rather than to go by what we feel is *natural* to us. Now, if we’re not happy with our results in life, that is a different story, and something would need to shift here. But we decide that for ourselves, not leave it up to the opinions of others, nor what is the social “norm.’

    This is what we discover along our life journey, from moment to moment, who we are as spirit, per our soul blueprint (which I call “vibration,” akin to the colors to which you refer below). This is a continual exploration with constant evolution.

    Even a majority vote would not and should not affect anyone’s individual sense of being-ness, as it would undermine diversity. Talk about boring! And terribly unproductive, unimaginative, and creatively repressed, which is an oppressive way of life. Sounds like the Dark Ages to me.

    What is considered “normal” is a value judgment based on society group think, to keep society “comfortable” and unchallenged, and it seems that what so many of us are waking up to and agreeing upon now is that this is not a “healthy normal,” precisely because people hold it up as a standard, and this standard has been affecting the global society really badly, it is evident all around us. This is the essence of OPPRESSION. Holding everyone to “normal” is oppressive. Who’s (or whose) normal?

    Perhaps we’re reaching for a “new normal,” and that’s what all of this so-called “mental illness” is about? I believe it’s about going to the edge, and then growing past that, accepting ourselves at every moment. I do not believe it is about “bouncing back to normal.” Society tries to keep us stuck in its values or people face all sorts of consequence for not accepting being “stuck” like everyone else, because society as it exists today is taught to serve and feed the powers that be (oppression); whereas in a balanced and just society, run by the rules of nature, it would be the other way around. Those in power would actually serve the people, because the power would be secure, from its own wisdom. That is not in the slightest what we have going today.

    Evolution is constant. I think that’s what we are discovering now, and beginning to embody, a never-ending state of change. That is natural, and I believe it is a “healthy normal,” because it aligns with our nature, which is not in the slightest static.

    I do have a lot of stories to tell, by the way, about when I pushed the envelope of society with my truth and how I embodied it. I made a film about discrimination in the mental health system and field that challenged just about everyone’s reality. And by standing firm in it, I grew by leaps and bounds, rather than appeasing anyone, and so did others around me, especially my family–by challenging their long held beliefs.

    I found a new normal for myself. I’ve always been this way, it’s my nature. Once I learned to embrace it, rather to listen to naysayers and invalidaters, I healed in quantum speed and my health and life transformed.

    I’ve got all sorts of stories about energy and timelines, life-death transition, channeling, soul visits, etc. However, when you talk about normalcy, I’m not sure how these will be filtered, so I’m a bit reticent to share here. I am reflecting this back like this for one main reason: I spent years telling my stories upon request, only be betrayed and have it all used against me. This is my healing, now, in the present moment, to express this here. It has pushed my buttons a bit, and I would like to find a new story now, perhaps a new clarity.

    Thanks for sharing so authentically, Kjetil, it has helped me tap into something important for me at this time. And sorry to break the rule about splitting these up, it’s really so much easier for me to write my thoughts without thinking about that. I’m not sure where the break is, anyway. Thanks for understanding.

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  • Thank you, Beatrice, for your enthusiastic response! I see money as merely another form of energy–of course, one to which we attach so much power. I believe this can be neutralized so we’re not so dependent on it, but rather, we learn how to manifest from our soul awareness. That would be the energy of “abundance,” to which I refer above. It really works.

    I really appreciate this statement–

    “we are simply making our children ill by the life they are required to live.”

    Indeed, the lifestyle and beliefs we are taught are not healthful. I’ve heard our society called “Babylonian debt-slave society,” which seems to fit. We are taught to want more than what we have, if we are to have any sense of our own value. We are also taught that certain jobs and roles are more “socially acceptable” than others, so we are also told taught “fit in,” or we will be publically humiliated and marginalized. We are raised with threats of consequences if we do not follow society’s rules, as arbitrary and politically-serving as they are.

    I really don’t believe there is a way to “fit in” to a society like this AND be healthy, that would be paradoxical. If we are healthy and in our spirits, then fitting in is not an issue. Not only are we inherently free to embody and express our individual spirits (and we just have to do it, not wait for permission), but to my mind, in reality, everyone on the planet “fits in,” somehow. We are all aspects of one consciousness, it is impossible to be left out of this. That’s our biggest delusion, I think–that we are all separate beings. That is the illusion of duality, as opposed to unity consciousness.

    I believe you are 100% correct when you say we live in our heads, as opposed to our hearts. That is not only limiting and taxing, it lends itself to attaching to illusions and falsehoods. In my awareness, expanded, unlimited consciousness comes from the heart.

    We began classes for this new center and so far it’s going really great, our foundation is solid and the expansion has been occurring practically spontaneously. That is part of “co-creating with the light,” which is something I learned in Kabbalah studies, an important aspect of my healing. I’ve been connecting with other groups with similar goals. We’re keeping a record of how this is manifesting, my partners and me–there are three of us starting this.

    Thank you for your availability, Beatrice, I will be in touch!

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  • Takes courage, faith, and humility–as well as fortitude–to live life in service, LavenderSage, good for you. I’m in service, too, it’s totally where I ended up. Confused me at first, this wasn’t my conscious plan. But I love it now and find it so enriching and rewarding, fits like a glove. Although at present, I’m looking to transform it into being way more fun. I believe it can be!

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  • That is an awesome story, LavenderSage. I had no idea about onions as a fever reducer and after reading your story, I googled this and sure enough, people swear by it. I will remember this now! Indeed, I know full well we get our information when we need it, if we are open to receiving it, and we never know from where it will come. I bet you channel quite a bit, don’t you?

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  • Ah, I see, it seems you’re implying “that which pushes the envelope of normalcy,” and actually in an affirming way, for the purpose of expansion, growth, and change. So yes, indeed, I agree completely! Thanks for clarifying, Kjetil. I’ll own my projection, here, that feels good.

    I also agree that “manic” when we use the word colloquially, as opposed to diagnostically, is not necessarily something about which to be concerned. Often it simply means obsessively focused on invention, thoughts coming in faster than one can speak, aka inspiration–and thank God for that!

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  • Fiachra, Ellis was a rationalist who deemed anything spiritual to be a fabricated story–even though it may be beneficial to the mind, as is, from what I understood while reading this article, to what Kjetil refers in this article.

    So again, I think Ellis is measuring reality from his own personal subjective perspective, and anything outside of that is made up, and perhaps “extreme.” That would be his call, but not everyone’s, maybe even not the majority, if everyone in the world were polled, who knows? I certainly question this highly.

    There would be a few ways to look at this, including the idea that we’re literally making it up (and projecting it into our physical perception) as we go along. That is definitely a school of thought which is becoming more and more popular, and it makes sense to me; it rings true and it follows a certain logic when you connect the dots of how energy moves. It is also extremely self-empowering, to learn exactly how we influence our own reality, we have more power than we think, is what I’ve learned over the years. Been life changing, and it’s all over YouTube–search: “how we create our own reality.”

    If we can create stories that upset us–and, indeed, we do that all the time–then we also have the power to create stories which make us feel hopeful, encouraged, and optimistic. Why not? By all accounts, when we can hold to these beliefs, and can self discern when our demons come up to challenge our own good feelings and power of creatorship, and address them self-responsibly, then we heal as we go. In my experience and witnessing, this is personal evolution at it’s finest, with relative ease and with the feeling of enjoyment, at least dominantly. Growing pains are inevitable in life, but it doesn’t have to be a chronic state, not even.

    I think the basis of healing is to feel at least hope, and even better, unconditional optimism. We all know life has its ups and downs, but if we can minimize our focus on the downs and focus on the ups, and maintain that feeling as per what stories we tell ourselves, then healing, clarity, and self-empowerment are all inevitable, I have found that to be the natural order of things.

    Again, that’s my perspective based on my reality. Feels good to me, and gives me good clear direction for personal growth, which affects everything in our life, streamlined. That’s what I go by.

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  • This is an interesting article because it suggests strongly that we create our own reality, based on what stories we tell ourselves, and what beliefs we hold, regarding our life experiences. In other words, how we narrate our experiences IS our reality, inherently, and we have choices here.

    I believe this, because what we tell ourselves and how we interpret our life experience will determine the feelings we feel in our body. Hopeful, affirming stories make us feel open, expansive, and good, and, in turn, this creates a more favorable life experience aligned with how our imagination is focused; whereas negative interpretations which make us feel hopeless, resentful, or stuck will make us feel constricted in our bodies, creating chronic anxiety and grief, which eventually leads to imbalance (illness or other life trials) as energy is not flowing smoothly here. In addition, our beliefs and repetitive thoughts create neural pathways, which determine what we project into our experience, while the feeling of it is what fuels it and gives the thought, idea, or story energy. This is why I feel it’s important for people to own their stories and tell them their way, rather than to allow anyone else to tell them—or others–who they are.

    This statement stood out to me, “It is possible to view all psychological problems as extreme varieties of normal thinking.” In line with this article, it is possible to view “psychological problems” in a variety of ways—as spiritual questioning, grounding issues, physical imbalance, matter of perspective, as the product of social ills, as the response to trauma, oppression, marginalization, etc. Calling it “extreme varieties of normal thinking” I believe strongly suggests stigma and marginalization (othering), however.

    If we’re calling “normal thinking” that of the mainstream, I don’t think that’s very desirable, and myself, I’d call *that* extreme. Sometimes, what the “normal” mainstream would consider “psychological problems” are actually healthy perspectives and individual process, appropriate to an individual that the mainstream would not be able to understand, because of it’s own narrow perceptual reality.

    If it’s outside the box, the mainstream will deem it as problematic, which is a problem in and of, itself, I think. Not only is there nothing inherently problematic about being outside the mainstream box (it’s the social abuse projected by others which is problematic), but I think it’s actually healthy and courageous right now, pioneering, and it breaks new ground. So when “psychological issues” are perceived as “extreme varieties or normal thinking” to me that sounds more like a value judgment based on group think normalcy, rather than a universally held reality which honors each individual on his/her own merits, not as a measure of “acceptable” social norms.

    That’s my story, in any event. Thanks for the thought fodder. Good stuff!

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  • “As the years went by I had forgotten about my experience – until one day I discovered that my GP surgery had my name on a Severe Mental Illness Register and were gaslighting my records.”

    Wow, Fiachra, that is scary, to be on “a list” like that–that there even IS a list like that! Coming out of all this is just one rude awakening after another, isn’t it? Damn.

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  • Sa, I know in my case, the role of my partner in all of this was significant, although it wasn’t as simple as his supporting me through it all. He was as caught off guard by all of this as I was, and, both, emotionally and intellectually, he was much less prepared for life’s challenges than I was. I was way more philosophical about things, and neutral, just by nature. I’m also a problem-solver, I’ve always been that way.

    Although during this time, that was not the case, as the psych drugs withdrawal had me wringing my hands–and brain–quite a bit. Took a couple of years for that fog to clear altogether and feel my intuition again, as well as to regain my self-perception. My emotions had to regulate, also. A lot had to come back into balance and regenerate after the effects of the drugs, and that took some time.

    The challenge for us was that my health crisis due to the withdrawal from drugs triggered his unresolved issues, so we both ended up going through our respective journeys at the same time, and it affected us each in different ways, which put us at odds, we were power-struggling all the time. I spearheaded the healing, because I was the one who had been disabled, and in addition, it was me who was training to be a healer, this was all my gig from the get-go.

    In our case, it was our relationship dynamic which created and then embedded the crisis, we each played a role. He finally took my cue and example and followed the healing path I was on, he attended the healing school I went to, when he saw how I was getting such great results from this program. This put us on the same page, with better clarity and perspective, each of us owning our part in all this.

    Our entire way of life changed, and eventually, so did our relationship roles. I’m his teacher now, we got it straight. We’re not stuck anymore, as we had once felt, and learned how to create together in the most efficient and fun-loving way now. We did a 180, thanks to all this. The relationship is what needed healing, not just us, individually.

    Aside from playing out the healing this way, in partnership, I think another reason that I was able to free myself from all of this is simply because I did not have a vision of myself as was being projected onto me, all that stigma and false conclusions about who I was as a person, from superficial data. I knew full well this wasn’t me, but It was seriously hard dealing with all that while I had no defenses of which to speak, given that my mind and emotions had been temporarily tattered by the drugs. That was a 1-2 punch.

    But that was part of my education, in the end. I learned a lot about people, for better or worse. Woke me up. But that was definitely one of the most challenging aspects of healing–naysayers, stigmatizers, and marginalizers, all along the way. Learning what this was all about taught me more than I ever wanted to know about our society, but it sure did explain a lot. And it’s why I’m here.

    Healing requires a positive, self-affirming, loving, and grounded environment. We can do it alone or with others, as long as the above requirement is met. At least, that’s my perspective.

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  • Yes, I agree, people are caught off guard because they’re not told the truth and they go deeper into what they feel they can trust, mainly from a desire to get well and feel good again– and wham, suddenly there is betrayal and deceit all over the place, all this re-traumatization from trying to get help and support.

    Still, I’m wondering how some people get out while others do not/cannot. Some people with horribly traumatic backgrounds who end up getting caught up in the system get out of all that, heal from all of it, and move on with their lives–I’ve seen many examples on here alone, over the years, and I imagine we’re all over the place–while others get stuck. I’m curious what the difference would be between those who make it and those who don’t?

    I don’t at all believe that the worse the trauma the more likely one is to not heal and find freedom, not in the slightest. And while I think money can be a factor in this, I also don’t think it’s definitive. I had no money and I was able to get out and heal, thanks to all the new stuff I was learning, to which the desire to heal led me. I just happened to find what I needed, I left no stone unturned in my quest for healing and clarity.

    So to my mind, there is something even deeper going on which distinguishes the fate of people.

    In fact, I think the trend is that the more profound the trauma and the deeper the entanglement with the system and all that, the greater the potential for going in the opposite direction. The worse the trauma, the greater possibility of personal growth and evolution–by leaps and bounds–and acquiring wisdom. We can grow so much from life’s trials and tribulations, and many people do. Why do some not?

    That would be my research question because I think there is a lot of subtle information here that is of value in understanding what it means to be human.

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  • Oh, and I got to Kabbalah upon the recommendation of a medical intuit (medical psychic) who helped me to get off the psych drugs.

    I can be grateful for my experience being pushed into darkness by the psych drugs. Thanks to all that, I was led to this medical intuit, who is already off the beaten path; and from that, came all that I do now, which created my new life. I’ve connected all the dots, and it is beyond fascinating, as well as extremely clarifying and grounding for me.

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  • Total agreement here. My path was completely fateful. I had only one good choice, every step of the way, and from the feedback I’ve gotten over the years, it made me “an original.” To me, it was the only reasonable way to go, given my circumstances and options. Feels “normal” and natural to me.

    Trust and faith were vital, because I was perpetually in the dark unknown, and no one could help me out of that entirely. I was given tools and a variety of perspectives, but it was up to me to sort through them, in order to make sense of my own story and my role in life. (Play/character, if you will).

    So I followed the light, in every sense of the word. Now, I co-create with the light, given how I know to trust it unconditionally. I learned that from Kabbalah studies and have been applying it ever since, with extremely fruitful results that continue to manifest.

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  • I think this is the most compelling argument of all. Our emotions guide us to where we want to be. And strong emotions are loud guidance–as in, we better pay attention to what our emotions are saying to us. When we can’t, we become lost, because we cannot hear what our heart is telling us. That happens via our feelings, our inner voice.

    On the drugs, however, the emotions are repressed, which, in and of itself is harmful and dangerous–not just to an individual, but also those around that individual, as repressed emotions can lead to all sorts of projections and self-justified sabotaging behavior. So not only do our bodies and minds become ravaged with toxic chemicals on the drugs, we also suffer from profound repression, which is totally unhealthful.

    I think the answer is a combination of love, nature, and perspective. In a safe, reasonable, and mature society, there is no need for these drugs, I’m sure of it. The problem is, this is not what we have (as evidenced in this story). We live in an extremely defensive, toxic, double-binding, and highly judgmental society where people are left longing for “acceptance,” rather than simply paying attention to following their path and living their dreams, as everyone should be entitled to do.

    I don’t think it’s a conundrum, however. We could always choose to grow in awareness and centeredness, as well as to demonstrate unconditional respect for others. That would make the drugs obsolete, once all of that caught on.

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  • I love this story. From what you say, here, you deserve the Father of the Century award. A hardy congratulations for getting your daughter out of all that before it even started, the hell of psych drugs dependence.

    So, to recap, your ex is on Prozac and so she thought, in turn, it wouldn’t be a big deal for your daughter, and this was all happening behind your back, and then she wanted her to LIE to you about it, to your face.

    Then, you speak with a nurse who did not know the side effects, nor did she even have curiosity about this, and she was the medical representative for your daughter. Then she becomes defensive and cannot own her mistakes–a medical professional.

    Then, you speak with a physician who sounds like a brick wall, has a huge ego flair-up while you’re trying to discuss the welfare of your daughter, and who is vindictive–all because you want clarity for the sake of your daughter’s well-being.

    ALL this defensiveness, lying, and stonewalling, simply to defend a drug. Too many red flags to count, here. Thank you for shining such a bright and articulate light on all of this.

    And I’m very glad to hear the psychiatrist agreed with you. You’re an example of clarity, awareness, and taking responsibility. Cheers!

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  • “It is like ‘growth’ for most of us after the age of 25”

    This I understand and for the most part I agree with it. Perspective and good defenses are part of maturing.

    Still, in a systemically oppressive community, psychological trauma (as I would define and perceive it) can be a way of life, and we don’t even notice it. Marginalization and the discrimination that occurs from this is chronic systemic and social trauma, most often unrecognized. But the effects of it are more than evident, and it is felt profoundly. I’d like to shine a big ol’ light on that.

    And where there is marginalization and discrimination, there are marginalizers and discriminators. I’d like to shine an even bigger light on that–what I’d call ‘the shadow’ of our society. The gaslighters, bullies, manipulative liars, etc.–the ones who pass it along freely, poisoning others’ minds for their own gain OR protection, without a second thought…

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  • Wow, this is *literally* an entirely different reality than mine. Not that it’s only mine, I know others share in the knowledge of the power of psychological abuse, injury, and wounding–as well as the healing of it. And I can accept and respect that this is not your belief or position, Frank, from what you state above. I see that this is your truth.

    But I am so struck at the diversity of beliefs and realities that exist on the planet, even just on this one website. Whether people agree or not on basic items such as this, can they/we still co-exist peacefully? That would be my question at this time. Can we respect diverse realities, rather than to challenge the reality of another. Is that really anyone’s business?

    That’s exactly my issue with the “mh” world–they want to challenge insistently, relentlessly, any perspective that does not ring true for them. And to my mind, that’s an extremely limited perspective (e.g., DSM). Nothing to explore there, it’s pretty black & white, which I think is a completely unrealistic read on anyone. Everyone is complex, and how they embody that is their business.

    But if you don’t believe in psychological injury, then perhaps you will not recognize when it is happening? That is where I go with that. At least in my reality, that would be the case. Not yours, of course, because there is no such thing. But I would wonder about my psychological safety in that case, is all I’m saying.

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  • I can relate to that story, except in my version, they called it “bipolar,” which turns out was never the case, I can see that now. I actually didn’t argue at the time, I felt relieved that it had a name and their were drugs to take for it. In reality, I thought it was kind of interesting, I didn’t at all feel a stigma from it at that time, why would I? For me, it did not translate into “disabled” back then, so I went with it, and then went to work and to live my life. It wasn’t until 19 years later it all caved in. I’d no idea that these drugs were so insidiously toxic, it all just snuck up on me, and then WHAM! That’s when the really bad stigma and toxic system abuse began for me.

    Wading through and navigating all of that, after withdrawing, is what completed the journey I had begun 32 years ago, which got drugged up big time. Finally, off the drugs, I was able to continue my path of evolution, whew. It’s very relieving, like, suddenly, there is ease, which had been sorely missing in my life–thanks to the drugs, which made everything way more effort than it needed to be. I also have clarity now, not possible on the drugs. They inhibit neural flexibility, which is not at all healthful nor natural, to my mind, to be rigid in thought.

    Although at the time I was diagnosed, I see what they went by, but I also see what they did not weigh in, which was, of course, who I am and how I process. they forgot to listen to my voice. They only heard their own voices, telling them fibs, based on misguided information, which is programmed in their neural pathways.

    When we have that kind of education and practice applying it over and over again, it becomes a program, and that’s why “mental health” clinicians, on the whole (from my experience) don’t recognize PEOPLE as who they are, but merely as a projection of their own shadow. Not always, but terribly often. Especially their clients, because that’s their bread & butter and they are vulnerable.

    But I imagine it’s not limited to that. In fact, I know it’s not. I know how therapists talk about people, I was around a bunch of them in graduate school. They gossip in diagnostic terms, it’s pretty interesting to witness, if not a bit disturbing.

    So you’re saying that after tapering, this is where experience really become diverse? Some heal and get on with life, and others don’t? I just want to be clear about whether or not this is what you’re saying, because if it is, I agree, and it puzzles me. Why do some people seem to heal and others don’t? Or perhaps the time for healing varies? I don’t know. But I think it’s a very important question to ask. I’ve definitely noticed a fork in the road here and have wondered how this would be explained. I’m sure there are a lot of avenues of exploration, here.

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  • This is a really powerful story, Ron, well told. I believe many new pathways are currently underway. Each one of us has a personal hell from which to seek new clarity and light. A lot of ground is breaking now, people are waking up. The failures of all our systems are quite evident at present.

    Probably the single most important and practical bit of information which I picked up along the way of my healing journey is that we all have the power to create our own reality, consciously, from wherever we stand in life currently. John Law sounds like a supremely creative person, indicated by his level of risk-taking. Passion, courage, and vision, as it seems he embodies, are our most powerful creative tools.

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  • Stigma is a *false* projection, an illusion. It’s not “stigma” if the allegations are true. And I think it’s more than obvious that psychiatry has failed us all, that is not an illusion. Calling it “stigma against the profession” is simply yet another tactic of manipulation. They are taking it personally, rather than seeing that these are legitimate complaints. So here we go–we offer reasonable criticism and as a response, they become “victims.” Typical gaslighting crap.

    What we are offering are poor evaluations, bad reviews, and justifiable grievances, based on evidence. No way is that stigma. It is, however, a wake up call. So the real question is, “Can the mental health field WAKE UP?” I’m afraid when it does, it will not like what it sees about itself, but that is when healing begins.

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  • “In any case, the system is harming people it at least claims to want to help and… it is hurting people in every direction at this point.”

    I agree, this is exactly the focus. A system which is allegedly *contracted* (at least through strong implication) to help individuals and to uphold society, like “pillars,” and which only harms people “in every direction” is beyond travesty. It is criminal.

    I wrote this to a friend in an email recently, I think it is appropriate here:

    “I know what is sound vs. what is toxic, and my experience [in the mental health world] was about 99.5% toxic, that is no exaggeration. The education is misguided, the training is bad, the attitude is childish, the philosophy is false truth, the work is incompetent, the results are horrific. So why is that such a lucrative field, and at society’s expense? And we wonder why the world is imploding the way it is? Wow…”

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  • Oh yes, that’s the pattern. Gaslighting, munchausen by proxy, etc. Extremely abusive and cruel, and all-too-common. This is how stigma is utilized to alienate people, and to encourage alienation. It’s hate speech, because they are announcing that people who are labeled with “bi-polar disorder” are ‘undesirable,’ so it’s ok to target them, it’s socially acceptable.

    And, indeed, being angry or snapping at someone, that is normal relationship stuff and it happens all over. Trauma makes us angry and can make us even feel mean at times, when we get triggered. Doesn’t mean anyone is either violent or evil, but tell that to an ignorant and paranoid society.

    Plus, I know how it goes–people poke and poke and poke, and when you get angry they capitalize on it. Obviously, it’s their rage to begin with, they are trying to transfer it outside of themselves by making OTHER people angry, so they don’t have to feel their own rage. The trick is to not identify with the projection, but that can be hard when one is flooded with these stigmatizing projections.

    When this happens, FeelinDiscouraged, it is always about the abuser, it’s really their issue. What they’re doing is trying to give that issue to another, that’s how certain people get stuck “carrying the ills of society.” Boundaries, separation, and perspective are really vital to learn, here, that’s the healing.

    And still, I agree, this is a huge problem. We can get away, but it stays with us, and it’s all over the place, this is the norm now, to gaslight people. It’s why there are a lot of terribly confused and disoriented people walking around now.

    I think it’s why expanding our consciousness is key, because otherwise, it is practically impossible to reconcile this. We need a new and broader perspective in which to put this into a context where the one receiving the abuse can actually grow from the experience, through healing, rather than to sink further into trauma from it.

    Thank you for bringing this up. I think you are asking a key question. This attitude is at the core of what has become a monumental problem in society, thanks to the terribly misguided field of mental health.

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  • FeelinDiscouraged, you made my day. I could not resist this–

    “What do you make of all these people who post on blogs or forums saying how all “bipolar” people are evil?”

    Honestly, I think there are a lot of ways to answer your question, there could be so many reasons that a person would need to believe something like this, such blatant stigma projected onto another. The media influences this in so many ways.

    Mainly, of course, what I feel is that they are simply not owning their own “evil,” which is to say, their shadow. There is something about themselves which they hate so much and feel such shame about that it is buried deep within and in know way are they willing to recognize and own, that they will find a way to project this onto another. And as we all know, people with DSM diagnoses are easy fodder, because they are already carrying stigma and negative self-beliefs thanks to the mental health system.

    So this is really bad stuff, I’m glad you brought it up. We all know it’s out there so it’s no surprise, but personally, I still find it unacceptable and actually, the ROOT of evil, to walk around and project these kinds of beliefs. That is what is killing our society.

    This is what also makes it impossible to live with a diagnosis and stay sane, ironically enough. That kind of treatment from society on the whole is so toxic, no human being could really withstand that. Certainly no one can heal in that kind of environment, and sadly, right now, that is the world at large, not just ‘the system.’ Although I think the system sets a terrible example, and actually influences this, with their own stigmatizing perspective.

    I believe this is what we’re trying so hard to figure out how to change, to WAKE UP humanity. Best way to awaken others is to awaken one’s self, first.

    Another answer is that they are ignorant as fuck.

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  • Come to think of it, that IS gaslighting. Best to stay away from people like this, from my experience. Really clears things up, the further away we get from that. I liken it to having my brain put through an egg beater. That’s what needs to heal, and it will in time, as we learn to hear and trust our own voice and process.

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  • I agree with all the comments, this is an exquisite essay, thank you. Yep, rings true to me, too–the mental health world is double-binding hell. Congratulations for waking up and taking steps to your freedom. I see it, too, the sun rising, bringing much needed light to the darkness which has engulfed us for way too long. Thanks for sharing the light of your heart, your truth. It illuminates everything.

    And to me, the lesson is: don’t trust anyone with the inclination to use your own words against you. That is the red flag of all time. Gaslighting is not far behind, this is how it begins.

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  • Oh, and what I call myself now is simply “healer.” Technically and legally, I’m a spiritual counselor (ordained non-denominational minister), and I’m also a trained Clairvoyant Healer, I trained extensively and formally here, did an intensive training program.

    Also as medical intuit, via principles of Vibrational and Chinese Medicine. I did a hospital internship with a Buddhist healer/teacher (who was my mentor in coming off the psych drugs). I’m also a meditation teacher.

    All in all, while integrating all of this however it would be appropriate to each client, I do mostly dialogue and refine stories, as you describe, and I do it from a spiritual perspective–meaning, the story of our spirit, how our soul grows, not just in this lifetime, that’s our physical growth. Our spiritual and soul growth goes through many lifetimes. It’s the same soul in each one, bringing forth lessons from previous. This is how our energy shifts and moves, as we awaken to our soul story, beyond that of merely our physical. That’s where consciousness *really* expands. That’s the play, anyway. Totally works! (If one is open to it, of course, that would be key).

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  • I feel complete and clear with this dialogue, but this one thing you said, Dr. B, has stayed with me, and I feel inclined now to respond to it, this is what came to me–

    “Just in case you didn’t know, I include you as a good therapist.”

    First of all, thank you for saying this, I do very much appreciate your acknowledgment in this regard, I consider that high praise because I feel you know the difference clearly and could detect it easily.

    In reality, I *was* a good therapist, I got high marks in my training, from supervisors and clients. Results were good. Except I was not completely comfortable in that role, as I was expected to embody it. I struggled with between my natural intuitive inclinations and how I was trained to approach a client, the perspectives I was offered and taught. I would have seriously enjoyed being one of your students, I’m sure, given what you write about.

    I disrupted my training to come off the drugs, and that’s when everything went haywire. Enter, the system. Roles switch.

    Coming out of that is where I discovered the real reason I was struggling, as I sat in the opposite chair in that condition. All that I talk about on this page. And it sank me further, nearly to death, when I should have been healing.

    So I trained in all these different modalities that were supporting my mind/body/spirit healing by leaps and bounds, after 20 years of “mh” treatment led me to health and life catastrophe and disability. As well, I learned a variety of new perspectives which afforded me options by which to perceive my self, my life, and a variety of contexts into which I could put my life. My choices, based on what felt right to me, what rang true to who I am. There are soooo many realities out there, so many cultural perspectives. I got a good education here which I could apply. I was using my disability time as productively toward healing as I knew how.

    What I learned along this journey took me way beyond psychotherapy, although that component could, indeed, be valuable, when it is not actually harming, again as we discuss on this page as being all to prevalent. We have yet to determine how to best discern before the damage is done, when intuition has fallen by the wayside due to the reason people seek this kind of support. I think that’s a conundrum. It would be better if they were all trained properly.

    Plus, the professional mental health world has shunned me, they don’t want me, unless I go along with being treated second class and all that, which is out of the question of course. That would be masochistic as all get out.

    So again, thank you for saying that you feel I’m a good therapist, but the irony is that this is not a good enough reason to allow me to participate in that world as a healer. Neither is the fact that I found my healing in the most interesting and precise way, and I’m an open book about it. I don’t think it’s stigma, either, in this case, not any longer.

    I think it’s because I’m too awake, too conscious, and I don’t play the game. My power is my truth and my truth is my power. I’m not giving that up for anything. As I’m sure you realize, I do carry it in my heart, so I am humble to clients.

    In my work, I don’t seek to appease people’s egos. I seek results in healing. Can’t have both, it’s either one or the other–like, with love vs. fear. Those can’t exist in the same place, either, and they correspond. Fear creates illness; love is the healer.

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  • Just to add–this did separate me from the system pretty much altogether. But after having established myself as a healing practitioner, teacher, and actor, I went back to be an advocate, to do public speaking with an advocacy agency, one of those anti-stigma campaigns. To my story, it fit like a glove, “stigma” was the core cause of my grief with the system at that time, how it had failed me the most. I made my film, Voices That Heal, from this premise, it worked for me.

    THEN, I discovered the hypocrisy of advocacy, and how these anti-stigma campaigns work, and all that “peer” stuff, and true what many say, it’s used as marketing, to drum up business, keep things under the thumb of the system, at all cost.

    These places are as stigmatizing and discriminating as anyone, and they have no clue of ADA law, because like you say, who would believe a “crazy person” anyway? ADA worked in my lawsuit, it was very clear: reasonable accommodation for reasonable request. I’d say that is probably one of the most violated laws in the land, intuitively, on a daily basis, and mostly in the “mental health” world. Their goal is to make one feel powerless, or so it seems, not to honor requests, but to deny them.

    I’ve been layer by layer by layer, all the way to activism. It doesn’t stop. The gaslighting thing is truly insidious, it’s the word I keep using, because I think that best describes it. Makes it hard to tell fact from fiction, and who is being honest and who is lying through their teeth, masterfully.

    This is what I truly hope is getting clearer and clearer for people to be able to tell the difference. I always tell people–trust your gut, trust your heart, trust your intuition, DON’T trust a naysayer, invaliditater, or shamer, we know the difference.

    If you know you’re being gaslighted, you’re awake, good for you! Walk away from it, as fast as you can, and trust that process. There’s the journey to freedom, but you have to trust, because it’s what it is. Things will change if you keep going, you’ll have help along the way, trust that. When we’ve been where we’ve been, any step forward in awareness feels relieving. Keep following that.

    Many a time I have said this, referencing the video below, but in reality, I’m not done until this particular thing comes to light, how this abuse happens and how it affects all of us, this horrible systemic stigma…

    To make a point, with amusement–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYcSqIuqkz4

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  • My lawsuit was against a vocational rehabilitation agency at which I had been a client, and they ended up recruiting me for staff. After a spectacular and very successful start with clients, I noticed they started acting weird toward me, and they started threatening me with write ups and reprimands for really stupid stuff. Instead of doing their jobs as “rehabilitators,” they were more like judges and punishers, that was their idea of “rehabilitation.”

    They were clever in their own way, but really, not terribly bright. Didn’t know too much about mental health, either. I’d been a therapist and I was trained, but these were all business people, this was a business to them, not a social service. Even thought we say “non-profit” don’t believe that, it’s a misnomer.

    And, they were seriously abusive through control and intimidation, Dickensian-like. So I called them on it, and after a series of very unpleasant meetings, where I was heavily gaslighted and insulted me, threatened me in all sorts of ways, and it was confusing as all get out, they fired me. But it was just firing, they were tortuous about it. Even my co-workers noticed this, and they all liked me quite a bit, I’d become friends with a few of them, outside of work.

    But no one would stand up for or advocate for me, they were totally scared of these bosses, and their jobs were more important to them than justice. These weren’t client-to-staff, either, they had not been through the system, as I had been. That’s how oppressive these people were and how intimidated the staff was.

    Can you believe this is a non-profit who were supposedly dedicated to helping people with “mental disabilities?” Well, I guess by now we’ve all gotten used to how this goes, but I don’t want to lose my feeling of being stunned by it, I think it’s important to not get used to it, even though it is that way, it is obvious that it should NOT be that way, and we should not allow it, it is unacceptable in a decent society.

    It was over the top, as if no one had noticed this before I was hired. When I was a client, they were fine, I was humble and did my classes, I was only focused on working again, that was my only goal. I was not an activist at this time, but this is where that all started.

    After they fired me, I knew that they were so in the wrong, and had blatantly discriminated against me, and lied through their teeth about all sorts of things. I knew they were Trouble, note the capital “T.”

    I went all over the city looking for an attorney, which is not easy when you’re on disability. dazed and angry from something like this, and with no job! That was a hard process, but I didn’t give up. I was led to contact a non-profit employment law student training center, and I connected with an amazing attorney who got my story and knew I’d been wronged.

    I’d been an employer myself before I went through all of this, so I knew the law, and I knew they had broken several of them. I also got my notes from them, since I’d been a client-turned-staff, they had kept a record of our meetings, etc. That was in my favor, the whole story was there.

    So we took them to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), I told my story, the mediator could see I made sense and was reasonable, and I had the evidence. Plus, their responses made them look foolish, they just wanted to attack me, she could see that clearly, and that they were not very nice people, and that, indeed, they broke the law with me. So she ruled in my favor. Didn’t cost me anything.

    That’s how I did it. It’s a very difficult process, and I had to be ok with being triggered over and over and over again. Was doing a lot of healing at the same time, working with energy healers.

    They were horrible every step of the way, delaying the mediation 3 times (which was legal) and by the time we got there, the CEO had resigned, and the president had fled to the state. Program director had also quit. Only my direct boss and the board were left, with a new CEO. Pretty obvious, huh?

    They eventually closed, that was their choice, rather than making the appropriate changes. They could just not fathom how to operate justly, not in their reality.

    I don’t recommend this, unless you’re ready to fight and take a lot of shit. I’ve had plenty of other opportunities to make it legal, but I did not because it is more than it’s worth. Although it did help to have my voice validated this time, that was a first in all of this. It’s a conundrum, though, because the legal system can be just as horrific and unjust as the “mental health” system, maddening as all get out. I got very, very lucky, astute lawyer and astute mediator.

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  • Great, thanks for the validation of everything here, Dr. B. and I agree that the real deal can be taught, there is such a way. And it is beautiful, indeed, I so totally relate to your feelings about this, it is the essence of life, a truly magnificent string of pearls to behold. I sure do get that, as you know, and it always opens my heart to even think about this process. It’s why your articles on Play of Consciousness move me so much, you are speaking truth with all that, I know it.

    What so many of us have encountered, and what is still going on daily, is infuriating, indeed. In my case, my psych drugs toxicity experience, disability, and system ordeal began right after graduating and doing my training. I thought I’d get off the drugs, heal, and get back to my practice, clearer and with more valuable information integrated, personal and otherwise.

    However, as I write on this page, that is not what occurred, because of what we are talking about here. Although, it did become my REAL education, and now I have that in my tool box, which is invaluable.

    Took me 12 years and TONS of gaslighting and utter resistance via stigma to go through all of this–withdrawal, legal action, family healing, training alternatively, and then making my film, all while on disability. I felt good about myself, but it did not translate to my last therapist/case manager, nor to the advocates who were supposedly there to help me. Guess there are all sorts of ways to read that, but I don’t see the need to do so, they’re like that, that’s all we need to know.

    So whatever my accomplishments or skills or training or credentials or certifications or experience or personal testimonials, I could not rise above PEER in that world, which means patronized, stigmatized, discriminated against, know my place, and limited in potential.

    So I am not in that world, and now I’m a human being, once again. I went bankrupt in this process, and have spent the last several years trying to recover from this. We’re ok now, but have not recouped nearly what we lost in this highly debilitating and crazy-making process that the system puts people through.

    Ok, so we start over again, with new wisdom. We’ll see where it takes us, best I can do now. In fact, my work is expanding to a performing arts healing center, I begin with test students in a couple of weeks, based on The Dreamcatchers Follies movie.

    I’m moving forward, producing and creating, and continuing my healing in the process, regardless of anything, but it’s rather challenging in my situation. Still, forward movement is evident, and I am blessed with tons of loving support from my friends, so I continue to feel hope and even optimism, on occasion.

    But I would like to see this behavior punished, including criminally. I could certainly make a case for that, easily. At the very least, I am owed.

    Feeling solidarity with you, thanks Dr. B.

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  • This therapist was my last case manager, and I went to him with the very clearly stated goal of transitioning form disability, once and for all, after doing all this grandiose healing. It’s in my notes, I have them.

    I had a healing practice, based on what worked to bring me healing and clarity, and I had this zero-budget feature-length film I made from within the system, where 6 of us tell our stories and speak out about stigma and discrimination in the system, for the sake of SHIFTING it. He let me speak to the staff, who were rude and disrespectful, but would not let me near clients. I just stopped going at all, this was obviously a waste of my time.

    When I wrote him to tell him how disappointed I was, his response was, “You’re welcome for having helped you get out of the system.” Utterly avoidant, in denial, and downright delusional. He insisted on it, regardless of anything at all I would say–anything. Period. Rabbit hole.

    I made the film at a local advocacy agency, with their knowledge and permission to use their platform, and even though the assistant director, with whom I’d been working closely, claimed to love it, given that I spoke critically against the system, I apparently insulted their board members (psychiatrist being the top gun), so they totally threw me under the bus in the worst way, dangling carrots and leading me on, all a lie to keep me and my film at bay.

    My film was eventually picked up by Dept of Health & Human Services in another county, by some advocates to whom I had sent it and I had a highly successful screening and all day workshop as a result. Given how well-received it had been, I wanted to do more workshops, feeling that perhaps this would be my opportunity to generate income, and they said yes, even with enthusiasm, so I moved from the city.

    When I got here, I was told the grant was written specifically to hire training from one of their staple agencies (and then apparently, from what I understand, that grant-writer took off and quit, without warning, that’s what I was told, it was a bit “mysterious”), and that I could be a “peer” if I wanted.

    Of course, I told them where they could put that. I’d already been out of the system, working on my own, and making films, as well as doing theater. I had “graduated” from peer, this was my profession.

    When I told the advocate that who had told me the problem about the grant, and who gave me the option to be a “peer” that this was my job, it is my profession, her response was, “I see everyone here as a professional, you’re asking me to see you above them.” Made me want to scream, after all that.

    Two of the advocates/staff members to whom I turned for support in transition from disability said to me, “I’m so grateful I have a well paying job.’ One even said, “I make the big bucks.” That was his response to my seeking support with transition from disability.

    Do you really want to know why people experience prolonged disability when it is “mental health” related? It’s not the psych drugs, I’ve been long past that. It’s this insidious and sinister attitude on the part of those running the system, the gatekeepers. They’re insufferable, incompetent, and downright mean. This is the reason for the high disability rates.

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  • “had my issues discussed with other staff without my knowledge or consent and was lied to about this.”

    Yes, it’s a vicious gossip mill. Are therapists aware that people really can tell that they’re being talked about? Anyone can feel this, it’s in the energy. They’ll do it, say you’re paranoid, and ta-daah, gaslighting is born.

    I was told I was paranoid when trying to get support for my discrimination suit, and then found an non-profit attorney who got what I was saying and saw the evidence of it. I won, because I was right, not in the slightest paranoid, but more like, astute. Bad, bad stuff going on here.

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  • I managed to get myself invited to share a clip of Voices That Heal, along with a brief presentation, with a large group of psychotherapists in the public system, and I was talking about the problems I discovered as I went through the system–how official grievance were not taking at all seriously, and in fact, laughed at (I know this because I worked for a brief period of time working with the grievance manager at Community Health); how the drugs were backfiring and making people sick more than well (I was direct and honest, but still trying to be diplomatic and not alienate them, so they would listen); and how some therapists could “come across as somewhat bullying”–is how I put it–and pulled from specific examples, including what was in VTH.

    These are the responses I got: so what do you expect US to do about it?; the government will never fund that (talking about the all the different alternatives healing which worked for me); and, we tell clients to file grievances if they have a problem, but they don’t follow through. Those are the three comments that stick out.

    They knew I had been a client, knew I had withdrawn from 9 drugs, that I had healed from that, set up shop, and had made a film while doing public speaking. Not a single one of them said anything nice or encouraging. At first, they “approved” of my accomplishment, I could see the smiles as I gave the thumbnail of my healing story.

    But the moment I began to express my opinion after having gone through all of this, the smiles turned to glares, I kid you not. Never did anyone say to me, “Wow, congratulations, job well done. How on Earth did you get off nine medications?”

    One senior staff therapist very visibly rolled her eyes at me and walked out. When I asked the therapist who had invited me, he said, “Her feelings were hurt.” When I asked what his colleagues thought about what I had said (for an hour), he literally would not disclose, simply said they found it all “interesting.” I got miffed, and he said, “Alex if you get angry, I’m only going to distance myself.”

    This is San Francisco public mental health system, where the homeless and “mentally ill/disabled” population is soooooo over the top.

    I’m sorry but all I can say is wtf is wrong with these people???

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  • I have a question, Dr. B. How would you recommend that a client discern between what will be a good therapist vs. a bad therapist, before they embark on that particular journey? I agree with you, I think there are competent and safe therapists out there. However, I also know that there are grossly incompetent and extremely unsafe therapists out there, a whole lot of them, from my experience. Downright abusive, intrusive, and outlandishly inappropriate. Many of us have called it “emotional rape,” and I feel this is not an exaggeration. All it takes is once to feel the trauma of it, even though it is more subtle.

    I’ve taken the journey of transformation with myself and I’ve taken it with clients of my own–not as a psychotherapist, but as a spiritual counselor and integral healer, including medical intuit, drawing from Chinese Medicine and body/organ vibration. I’ve seen a lot of healing and personal transformation happen, first for myself, and then for others.

    My concern with psychotherapy is often the relationship dynamic. When a vulnerable and wounded person seeking help sits in any kind of private 1:1 meeting, the person across from them–whomever they are and whatever they call themselves–has to be extremely centered, focused, and self-responsible, not inclined to pull a power play or gaslight when they get triggered by the client. It’s going to happen, these triggers, we’re all human. I’m sure you fall under the good category, as do some others, but still, we’ve called that a needle in a haystack around here, and I agree, I think it is, you are.

    So checking it out for a few weeks or months to see how it goes can already do tremendous harm to a client. I know this, trust me. I have story after story after story of the most horrifying responses made by therapists–things like, “I didn’t know he was out and out crazy!” regarding a fellow intern who was working through his issues in a supposedly safe training environment. And that’s just off the top of my head, I’ve heard all sorts of therapist responses to people that kind of make my hair stand on end.

    In my film is the topper of all time, my favorite therapist quote to show how they think, “Take your meds and don’t make waves.”

    I’ve heard ’em all, like a highly regarded psychologist, professor, and clinical director of an MFT training center, who told a fellow student who felt slighted by him about something, “You’re not mad at me, you’re mad at your mother.” I’m serious, he said exactly that. Talk about mind-bending, and totally irrelevant to present time.

    And then there’s the fellow who ran another training center, not part of my grad school, who told all of the young women that applied to this place that, “we should get the sexual transferences out of the way.” People talked about it, but they were desperate for internships (you know how competitive these places can be), so they swept this brand of sexual abuse under the rug. At least I saw it that way. I thought this guy was slimy from the get-go when I first met him, then I started hearing these stories, one after another.

    One of my psychiatrists, during my most suicidal period, as I just tapered from the psych drugs, kept telling me that it was ok to have the hots for him (which in no way no how did I) because I should know from my training that that’s what happens. He thought I was angry because he went on vacation, he felt I was mad at him because I could not have him sexually, he told me all of this. He said I lost my dreams, which is why I was depressed. I ended up finally trying to take my life because of what this bozo was repeating to me over and over. I was about 10% functional, my brain a mess from having come off of them, and he knew it. This is how we treated me, until I finally woke up and left him in the dust.

    I could go on and on. I was in a sea of therapists in grad school, internship, social services, as peer, colleague, student, and client, and I’d say most of them should be nowhere near people with sensitive and complex issues. I’m not sure the education and training system weeds out the bad stuff, seems that it’s getting in like a deluge.

    Every word of these quotes and what I describe is 100% true and accurate, and the context is the full picture, there is nothing vital missing here. I was discussing it with my partner along the way, we remember every word because we were totally confounded about all of this, and somewhat panicked, until I found that meditation and energy healing school which saved my mind, my health, and my life.

    I’m not trying to be melodramatic, I’m just wanting to be very clear and direct about this. Bad psychotherapy can traumatize people in a heartbeat. Thanks to living in an abusive society, seems a lot of people are not yet recognizing the abuse of gaslighting and power differentials. It’s torture, and it is all-too-common. It can heal, but I found it to be more tricky to heal than the effects of the drugs, and I’ve had plenty of experience with both. The post-traumatic stress from bad therapy can be overwhelming, and hard to detect. It’s insidious.

    So how do you think someone can tell, BEFORE they get traumatized by bad therapy. It really doesn’t take much to trigger a core wound and keep a person down in it, for the sake of their own business gain.

    Always with great respect for you, you know that.
    Alex.

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  • I respect and honor Reid’s courage to not be anonymous. To show fearlessness in the face of such fear-inducing circumstances is the example of true courage. Speaking our truth anonymously can only go so far, for a lot of reasons. Mostly, it is the example of embodying fear and/or shame, and generates pain, anxiety, and depression.

    To be powerful when creating change, and persuasive, I think the courage to be vulnerable would be vital. That’s how healing occurs, as well, which is internal change.

    Without vulnerability, there can be no change, only resistance to it. It’s like letting go of the river banks and trusting the current. Those who don’t let go never move from that same place, as the river rushes past, causing them to dig their nails deeper into the earth. That’s a lot of resistance.

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  • Remarkable courage, Jen, thank you. Instigating change is extremely vulnerable-making. We have to trust the truth of our heart, without looking back, and without taking on and being distracted by the inevitable projections. When we overcome our own resistance to change, seems we encounter resistance in others, it can be maddening, tiring, and also guiding.

    I make surrender part of the process, when I’m too tired or overwhelmed to do anything else. Eventually, I find my inspiration again, and this brings me, both, energy and opportunities, as well as renewed hope, and that changes my entire perception and emotional landscape. When we change ourselves, we change the world.

    Thank you for your very powerful and inspiringly honest essay.

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  • I was just looking at your website and I found that I have some questions. I see from your responses that your time is quite limited, but that you are entertaining questions. These are more logistic and administrative inquiries that I have, not sure it would be appropriate to ask these here.

    Would it be ok for me to contact you through your website? I don’t want to take up your time unnecessarily, these are just questions I have regarding the business aspect. I’m learning as I go. Please let me know the most convenient way for you to be contacted about this. Thank you!

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  • Hi Beatrice, wow, I got healing just from reading this description along with the pictures. Sounds thorough and, really, quite exquisite. Congratulations for pulling this all together.

    I noticed the cost above, and so I wondered what your clientele is like. How much of this is out-of-pocket? I was wondering if it mostly people from privilege, judging from the price tag. I’m sincerely asking this neutrally. If that were to be the case, at least it’s a start, and much can come from this. Your approach seems totally spot on in how it respects the totality of an individual, including allowing them their process to completion, in a comfortable and nurturing environment. That is great respect.

    I also ask about the money issue because of from where I come and what I’ve been able to do on my own, as I healed from my own heavy-duty disabling withdrawal from psych drugs after 20 years, 9 in the final year. Lots of trauma and drama around it all, but that was about 15 years ago now, and I’ve since done so much in depth healing. I actually trained as I healed.

    After 20 years of it eventually breaking down my system and leaving me more confused and unclear than ever, I finally ditched psychiatry and the entire mental health world, even after I had gotten my MA and did internship as an marriage and family therapist (MFT), because it out and out failed me so miserably, and, in fact, disabled me completely.

    I turned to grounding and chakra work and did an extensive years-long program in San Francisco where I learned to work with my energy, and heal from that perspective. It was life-altering, and I healed like gangbusters, layer by layer, while manifesting all else that I needed alternatively–herbs, acupuncture, Qi Gong classes. I was on disability in San Francisco, exorbitant city, but I found that the universe was really working in my favor, and all of this came to me with ease and extremely cheaply, and it all worked in tandem to heal my mind, body, and spirit after years of seriously messy malaise from psych drugs.

    At the same time, I discovered a singing class, to add some fun to my healing, and wound up in a theater career which I didn’t know I had in me. My spirit was suddenly freeing itself up and a new me was coming forth. I went directly from the mental health system into a surprisingly successful theater and performing career, doing musical comedy of all things. Just a few years prior, I had been catatonic with depression and anxiety, and before that, I had not done anything like this, other than a small bit of high school theater. The natural healing and energy work was literally miraculous.

    I’ve since moved from SF and now live in a small rural Redwoods town in Northern CA, near the Oregon Border. I love your description of the setting, as it made me think of how vital nature has been in the continuation of my healing. I could only go so far in a chaotic and highly-charged urban environment. I love the city, but it is not healthful in the slightest. This is heaven on earth, and it is reflected in the people, as well. Mellow and grounded is good, not the dog eat dog rat race.

    My partner and I started a band which plays for senior residents of an assisted living center, where he works. We’ve done several shows and even made a film of this, which is posted on YouTube, called Dreamcatchers Follies: Music for the Ages, if you want to check it out. I’m not posting the link here since I’m leaving a long comment and I’ve posted my films here recently, I get a bit self-conscious about it, not trying to promote myself, just illustrate to what I’m referring.

    I’ve been a practicing healer for 11 years now–after chakra school I did a medical intuit internship, and work in that capacity as well, via Chinese and vibrational medicine–and am currently transitioning my private practice to a performing arts healing center. I’m starting with a few students this fall, to teach grounding, chakras, Qi Gong (I eventually became a Qi Gong leader when I lived in SF). I’m also an ordained non-denominational minister so I practice as a spiritual counselor, in terms of spirit to body connection, which is what I learned in theater that so profoundly impacted my healing. At the end of it all, we play at different senior venues around town, and anyone from the class who wants to sing or play an instrument can do so, and it is part of their healing process. It’s certainly not required, once can be in the healing program regardless. But it’s an option for those inclined to take a leap of faith. I found that stepping up to this degree was enormously valuable, and where I truly found my spirit. I’d never sung in front of an audience in my life, until I was 44 years old. It’s second nature to me now, go figure.

    I actually was able to create and manifest all of this with hardly any money, really. This was all part of what I learned about energy, how to manifest abundance, without the need for abundant cash–simply the energy of abundance draws to us what we need for the desired goal of manifestation. This was all mind-bending to me as I was learning it, I do not come from this new age energy world. I come from a highly academic family and was a retail customer service manager for 17 years, that was my career before graduate school.

    This was all new to me, as I healed and learned about energy–a whole new world. And one by which I went from disabled mental patient to stage performer, healer, teacher, actor, musician, and filmmaker. The real me that was hidden under all those psych drugs. Kind of a personal Renaissance, really.

    Your blog inspire me to tell this story, I’d never told it quite like this. The performing arts healing center is brand new. I’ve been talking about it, and it has manifested. I have no idea what to charge, but for now, it is free. I guess eventually I should put a price tag on it, this is the culmination of my life purpose, I think, the dots connect perfectly, and there is ease in this process. I take that as a green light form the universe.

    What to charge for healing is always a conundrum for me, always has been, since I started. I threw so much money, time and energy down the drain with 20 years of psychotherapy and psych drugs, it bankrupted me. That’s just not right. I agree with you–healing is a right–a HUMAN right–and should most definitely not be a privilege. I go back and forth with this all the time, still do.

    Thank you for the inspirational blog post, and very best wishes with Inner Fire!

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  • “They arrived in the staff room and began to roll up their sleeves, unclip their ties, remove their watches and prepare for action. They had an air of anticipation, adrenaline, and ritual that I could only liken to when I was part of a team that was about to go on the pitch for a football match.”

    This also got my attention. Sadly and maddeningly, I think it’s a very apt description. I knew someone once–a friend of a friend–who worked at an agency, and at the end of the day, he’d tell of any takedowns he’d make, as though he were mounting the head of big game he had successfully hunted. He was proud, arrogant, and excited to do this, made him feel tough and superior. He had no training, he was hired for his muscle. And yet, he loved to call himself “a mental health professional,” which was purely delusional.

    I’ve met a whole lot of people over the decades who work directly with clients, one way or another, whom I shudder to think about being around extremely vulnerable and powerless-feeling people with these particular issues. This goes for clinical settings as well as advocacy settings. These are dangerous people with no perspective, boundaries, or self-control. Talk about the insane running the asylum, jeez…

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  • “While we all look for explanations that can reassure and provide a sense of stability and certainty, we must take care that they are not seen as universal truths and that they are not tarnished by discrimination that then enable traumas to be compounded. We must be sure that our explanations do not comfort those in power at the expense of those without.”

    There ya go, the basis of duality, discrimination, stigma, and oppression. It’s also the most toxic element of psychiatry/psychology, to my mind. The whole basis of drugging people depends on false explanations.

    These *explanations* of people is where I find the most craziness and delusion. When a client triggers the clinician, social worker, or staff member, the *explanation* (made up story) will ALWAYS be skewed toward projecting a picture of “craziness” or “belligerence” or “threat of violence” upon the client, while keeping the staff member in a position of superior awareness or perspective or skill or knowledge or whatever–even making themselves out to be VICTIMS of their clients, which of course, is merely a reflection of the victim mentality of the clinician or other staff, projected with aggression. I have found most clinicians to be, in reality, terribly insecure, walled up, and extremely judgmental. Major superiority complex.

    These are STORIES based on inequality and power differential, as well as good ol’ fashioned prejudice and bigotry (from insecurity and snobbishness). They are, by no means, universal truth, but the terribly stilted and falsified “truth” of the clinician/staff member. I always recommend to clients that they request their notes to see how their truth is matching the clinician’s truth. Most often it is like two different clients in one–one version is the client’s version of themselves, their own story, while the second version is the clinical version, a story projected onto the client, and usually not an accurate one, and certainly not flattering.

    This is Munchausen by proxy. standard procedure in the mental health world. It is how they operate, and how they get clients for life, while literally driving them insane along the way, by *insisting* on these false projections. The more you fight it and stand up for yourself, speaking your truth about yourself, the worse they get–totally deceitful, threatening, seed-planting, and downright crazy-making. It is a very dangerous and ill-making rabbit hole, which can often lead to force. That will be explained strategically in the notes, and to staff.

    The only solution, if one wants clarity and well-being, is to get away from the system. Clarity and well-being will never, ever happen in this environment. All wounds and trauma can heal, when one is in a healthy environment, and not in the gaslighting chamber that is the system, as you so well describe.

    These *explanations* suggest a reality that one can either accept or reject. The system has created a reality based on these so-called *explanations* of people, that is dastardly and dangerous. That is because these *explanations* are always false, so they create illusions. How do I know that this is always the case? Because people cannot be explained! That alone is completely dehumanizing.

    Furthermore, these explanations are usually demeaning, ostracizing, marginalizing, and shame-based. We explain people to feel better about ourselves, and that is never going to work, it is an illusion, a false bottom. People are waking up, and I look forward to more of that.

    Life is about living, not explaining. And being human is certainly not about being “explainable.” Rather, it is about *being,* purely. When we are explaining ourselves, we are not being. And when we are explaining others, then we are not allowing them to be, in our own minds. They can only exist as a projection, and that is not who the person is.

    When this happens in a clinical setting–which it always does, it’s always about *explaining* people–the client suffers. Eventually, it will catch up to them. This is toxic, and it can linger for a good long while. It is downright insidious.

    Stop explaining and start being. That is where we find life–in our hearts, not in our heads. I stopped listening to explanations about people a long time ago, in favor of simply experiencing them. To me, that is true and authentic reality–not how we explain, but how we experience. No need for explanation, just the experience.

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  • Ditto, exactly. I just made a post on the Gut article “in the news” regarding how psych drugs disconnect us from our grounding, too. So one is ungrounded and with boundaries/defenses compromised on the psych drugs. In other words, people are rendered powerless, in that they lose access to our own energy and the daily maintenance of it–vital for well-being–and as a result, live a life of dependence and the underlying fear that accompanies this, rather than self-agency, which inspires freedom and confidence. Really great point about energy shields, LavenderSage.

    This all relates to what I say above about cultural beliefs, and the stories we create around experiences outside the norm. From those stories, we create our reality, if that is what we are believing and projecting–then we are creating it. Stories of demonic possession will create a reality of this, for examples. Stories of chronic illness will create this, as well. Stories of healing through a process of energy transmutation will, in turn, create that particular reality. It’s all in what we can allow ourselves to believe.

    Personally, I put everything in terms of energy, and my perception is based on what feels easiest and lightest in my body. I can pretty much boil everything down to grounding, boundaries, and centeredness–that is, knowing one’s higher self neutrality, no judgment and broadest perspective. When we understand how our energy works, we can create any story–and therefore, any reality–we choose. Hopefully, one that is uplifting, and not damning. We have the capacity to do either, based on where we choose to focus and what energy we project onto any experience, whether ours or that of another.

    Yet another component in the reality we create for ourselves–what are our stories and what is the quality of our energy? Those are all choices we make every day.

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  • I agree with this, Stephen, that “healing” is merely a pretense and illusion in the system.

    But on a semantic note which I think is subtle yet significant, I think “grounded in the system” is a perfect paradox. The system, itself, is not grounded. Quite the opposite, it is heady and stuck in past time, which makes it exactly ‘ungrounded.’

    So I’d say that the system and its participants do everything they can to keep people *ungrounded* in the system. That’s how they keep control over people. Being ungrounded makes us extremely vulnerable, and keeps us separate from ourselves, so we cannot create what we desire, including clarity. That’s what psych drugs do, they disconnect people from their grounding. That’s utterly disempowering in every way.

    When energy–whether from an appliance or human energy– is not grounded, it is unpredictable, unstable, and easily short-circuits.

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  • Fascinating article, thank you for sharing this. This is such an interesting topic to me because it reflects the beliefs and general perspective of a culture, and the stories that occur around it to give context to bizarre experiences.

    I know that some cultures believe that *all* illness is the result of influence from dense energy taken on from the collective by an individual, as per having poor or no defenses and boundaries. And here, we are learning the converse belief, that illness is what creates the illusion of dense energy infiltration. Kind of a chicken and egg thing.

    In any event, I think what’s important is exactly what you say, to focus on whatever gives hope and encouragement to heal. That’s how a healing path is illuminated, from hope and courage.

    Wishing you the very best with your research around all of this. I think it’s a rich and relevant topic. And good healing to your daughter.

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  • I learned about the energy of forgiveness in a workshop I took, we also did a ritual. I’m not one for rituals, on the whole, but forgiveness rituals–indeed, the burning away of past time energy–are powerful and can be quite effective. We also discussed it as it pertained to our experience, allowed ourselves to own and move through resentment and blame, owned our own energy around our experience, and then did a separation from the person/people/experience, clearing the past and coming fully into present time with ourselves, empowered in a new light. From this, so much meaning can be identified that defines and guides us.

    It was not a fly-by-night mindless intention, but a true and authentic invocation of heart energy. Following that, I was able to feel more love in my heart and body than I ever had, and from that, came a new reality with new and improved experiences, along with more clarity about who I am in relationship to others. I still have to work on “feeling the love” sometimes, but this definitely gave me a new baseline.

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  • Btw, when social/community norms are challenged to the extent they are being challenged at present, due to all the blatant inequality and the harm done and suffering imposed onto innocent people as a result, that means it is time to evolve! So how would that be possible if everyone who challenges the norm, in any respect, gets labeled, drugged, shocked, and basically discarded from society, especially if they dare to speak their truth about the matter? No growth there, no evolution, just a stuck society, rife with corruption, abuse, and all sorts of violence. That is a bleak picture.

    That’s what the DSM does, it invalidates anyone who challenges this sick society (which it so badly needs to be challenged, it is more than reasonable at this point), so the pressure builds. Doesn’t seem very useful to me at all, if we want to heal, grow, and evolve forward. Can’t stop the truth, though, and we definitely cannot stop change and growth from happening, so I’m extremely curious how this will go down.

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  • “‘For validity,’ Whooley writes, ‘its referent is underlying reality, not communal norms.'”

    I think this is a pivotal statement. While “underlying reality” may, in and of itself, be a controversial and debatable item, it is definitely true that the DSM is based on “communal norms,” which, as most of us have come to realize, is no measure of health and well-being, as per Krishnamurti. In fact, we know with certainty that establishing a social standard as per these “communal norms” is dangerously and unnaturally rigid, and unrealistic beyond measure.

    To my mind, this is exactly what causes such chronic stress, to feel that one has to live up to these bogus standards feeling one has to live up to this to be considered “healthy” or “acceptable” to society. In reality, I truly believe no one does live up to DSM standards, it is impossible, non-human. It’s just that some know how to skillfully project that they do, while, in essence, hiding their authentic self, extremely repressed.

    And when one admits and demonstrates freely that he/she neither “fits in,” nor cares to, here comes the stigma, marginalization, and eventually, second-class citizenship, all for either not fitting into the sick society (so society makes itself even sicker via othering), or for having problems and asking for help. The DSM is a dictionary of stigma..

    From my film, Voices That Heal, “Stigma is born in the mindset of fear and discrimination and occurs when social norms are challenged.” Sounds like the DSM to me.

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  • This article matches my feelings and perspective about the issue of forgiveness, just to offer this perspective as expressed in an article written by psychiatrist Karen Swartz from Johns Hopkins–

    http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/publications/johns_hopkins_health/summer_2014/the_healing_power_of_forgiveness

    I believe the article makes a lot of very good points and discernments. This is what I’d highlight, in particular:

    “If someone is stuck in an angry state, what they’re essentially doing is being in a state of adrenaline. And some of the negative health consequences of not forgiving or being stuck there are high blood pressure, anxiety, depression, not having a good immune response. You’re constantly putting your energy somewhere else.”

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  • “In fact, we don’t even need to know why this multilevel approach to healing works, or how. We can move beyond the chemical theories, the complex analysis, and simply be in the process of sending the bodymind a signal of safety. Safety looks like ease. Trust. Curiosity. And even surrender. It’s not a fight. It’s not a battle. It’s a cooperative exchange and an exploration. It’s becoming more of our whole selves because we are becoming less fragmented and self-evasive. We stop hiding parts of our personhood from our awareness. We embrace it all in order to heal.”

    Absolutely beautiful paragraph, I really love this. I agree, we don’t need to know how a process works, we know whether it is working or not from how we feel, moment to moment, and as a general trend. Safety, ease, trust, surrender, all such relaxing and soothing energies which support healing and wellness. Whereas fear, effort, lack of trust, and the need to control will only keep things stuck or make them worse.

    I think this is the great journey of healing toward wholeness and alignment, going from the latter to the former. Learning how to get from fear, effort and control to safety, ease, and surrender–along with calling forth our hidden selves and embracing ourselves wholly, light and shadow–is, both, an emotional and spiritual journey which illuminates our healing and growth path, along the lines of our own self-healing and self-guidance. And it’s an awesome journey to take, magical. Well-being, clarity, and manifestation abound.

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  • I think “keep it simple” is a good mantra for healing. For complex situations, I think it still pays to keep it simple, one step at a time. Eventually, things lighten up because one has added ‘ease’ to the process, which I think is enormously helpful. At some point, healing simply becomes a process of personal growth and evolution, and we learn what works best for us, tools for life. It’s a gradual process of ascension, layer by layer.

    I think western medicine tends to complicate things unnecessarily, for a lot of reasons. It also puts a Band-aide on things rather than healing them at the root, leading to chronic conditions. I far prefer Chinese Medicine to Western Medicine, down the line. Mainly because it works! It’s also affordable, unlike western medicine, which is basically “medicine for the rich.”

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  • You’ve got a wise kid, that’s exactly it–business over truly helping, or even admitting they don’t know how to help. Money, money, money.

    A friend called me last year, mother of an 18-year-old college freshman, telling me exactly what you describe above, that the daughter had started having “anxiety/panic attacks” out of the blue, and she feared having to take her to a psychiatrist. I was soooo happy she called me first.

    I gave her a few pointers regarding grounding, along with perspective regarding where her daughter was in her development. I knew her story so I could put it into context, and suggested that her daughter might want to consider taking a semester off. The daughter was relieved to take time off, and learned to do grounding meditation, and she is now back on track.

    ALL therapy, drugs, mental health anything–avoided and all is well. Took a bit of common sense, perspective, and learning about what it means to be grounded. That’s it.

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  • When people are desperate for help and relief from suffering, judgment can be way off. The field takes advantage and feeds off of this, which is why I call it vampiristic.

    Same with me, I was compliant because I trusted them and thought I was being helped, why else would I take these services? Whereas it turned out to be I was being pushed into addiction and seriously gaslighted along the way, eroding my health tremendously over the long term, rather than helping me to find my way to clarity, balance, and well-being.

    Let’s hope others can hear us and will wake up before going down the rabbit hole of psychiatry and a lifetime of psychotherapy.

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  • I believe that insisting that they are right about everything and ignoring client feedback will be the downfall of the mental health field. That level of denial and dismissiveness always comes back to haunt. They are supposed to be “service providers,” but the service has proven to be rather terrible for a long time, according to most reviews.

    Usually, that means a business is about to fail. So what on earth is keeping this particular industry alive, despite all the scathing reviews, which it obviously deserves, based on the plethora of stories we hear now?

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  • Last thing I’ll say about forgiveness, then moving on. The story I chose to reveal in Voices That Heal, about my dad, was prompted by mother striving to understand what had happened to me that took me so deeply into an abyss at one point, that I actually became disabled after all these years of working and functioning ok in life on psych drugs. I wasn’t sure how to explain it to her at the time, aside from starting with telling her that the psych drugs I’d been on for 20 years slowly eroded me from the inside and I had to recalibrate my system after an extremely rough withdrawal.

    But of course, it was really what had been originally suppressed by these drugs in the first place that was rearing its ugly head, and that was family trauma from insidious dysfunction. I did not want to out and out tell her this to her face, she would not have been able to hear this with self-compassion. So I explained best I could in my film, and then sent it to her, she was the first one outside of cast and crew to see it.

    She knew I had forgiven my dad, but still, this question lingered in her, so I appeased it by outlining the family system and how each of our defenses and responses to abuse take us in different directions in life.

    She got it, and felt horribly guilty, she told me so–which was like asking me for forgiveness. I told her of course I forgive her for allowing this, for not taking us away from abuse, for allying with my dad when she should have been our advocates, not his. And for asking me to twin with her resentment, which, of course, caused me a lot of confusion, and then grief. Really a mess of mixed messages, it would confuse the clearest of minds, I think.

    My mother is alive and well and we’re buds again, like we used to be before all of this. She asked for forgiveness, and I didn’t give it a second thought. For her, it meant everything. So I’m good to go and moving on now, in a new light.

    If families can’t heal, they can’t heal, and life and soul growth will continue one way or another. I was very fortunate that mine was able to, thanks to my breaking the system again and again and again and again–until she finally got it. I’m so proud of my mother for being able to make such profound shifts, in her 80’s! That is rare, and I am humbly grateful–extremely.

    Perhaps thjs is why my life is dedicated to the light, and giving back in a way that will bring healing to others–whether by truth-speaking or making music, bringing joy, sharing love and light, whatever works. That’s my soul path, and it never would have appeared for me with such absolute clarity, had I not made it a point to actively forgive–and then, to consciously *transmute* the energy from one of fear and resentment, to one of unconditional love. Not sure there’s any more I can do there, why would I want to? For me, unconditional love was the goal. Now, on to create new things, from that energy level. Let’s see what happens…

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  • Life always mirrors us, somehow. It’s up to us do decide what to do with that. I think that’s where discernment and sense of self comes in. Chronic negative mirroring is extremely harmful for children and will cause them problems as adults, without a doubt.

    But I think part of healing, growing, and maturing is learning to take feedback in stride. Sometimes it fits and sometimes, it simply does not ring true. In a toxic society, one has to be careful how one interprets others. Negative mirroring can be a form of sabotage. Or it can be an honest opinion, we can only decide that for ourselves, in the moment.

    Clarity of the heart is where we find our connection to self and truth, because that is how we feel. Analysis can’t possibly trump our human feelings. Our feelings = our guidance. That is freedom.

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  • Sorry to keep adding here, but this has generated so many thoughts, and there is one thing I said which I want to kind of revise and restate.

    I’m not telling the whole truth when I say that I’m impervious to the opinion of others. In some respect, I am, in that however hard as someone with whom I really don’t have a relationship might try, it’s hard to make me feel terribly bad about myself, because there is ALWAYS a better and more self-compassionate perspective from which to know myself, that’s a perpetual healing. Most often, a negative projection is about the projector, I don’t identify with it (not any longer, in any event, that had been a problem for me in the past, but I have perspective now).

    However, there are some opinions that matter a great deal to me. For example, my partner, his opinion matters, we give feedback to each other all the time. And, my clients’ opinions matter, or my audience, if I am performing. If they are not approving, then I need to shift something, that’s a given. It might mean I could do a better job of communicating or it might indicate the need to find a new audience or referring the client. But still, it is important to know their opinions, as this will guide me.

    Still, overall, that is like Source speaking through others, from how I perceive it. It is guidance. Something is amiss, so some kind of change must happen. That’s ok, it’s evolution.

    Most importantly, if I were to ignore their opinions, no doubt the universe would humble me in a way that was not so comfortable, so I do listen, and I discern. That would be my process. Keeps me out of trouble!

    Just wanted to clarify that, I thought it was an important hair to split.

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  • I had to add this afterthought–

    Btw, of course my upbringing did lead me on a path of approval-seeking, which is how psychotherapy became so toxic for me–and I say this with all due respect, I imagine I would not have had this experience with you. In fact, I probably would have gone pretty far, given how I identify with the theater of consciousness, I seriously love that.

    But do you what finally made me stop seeking approval for others? I discovered what it meant to be validated by the universe. That trumps any opinion from the outside, my most personal relationship is with God/Source/All-Consciousness. That’s truly the only approval I seek, and thanks to all that I learned along my healing journey, I now know right away from that, when I’ve done good, or when I need to do better. There are all sorts of ways to perceive that, depending on who we are and how we operate. But it certainly freed me from outside opinions–unless they are good opinions, of course. I am human, after all! 🙂

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  • LOL–I thought about writing, “I’m going to have to ‘forgive’ you for this,” but of course tongue in cheek, I have no personal issue here, your truth is always sincere and well-stated regardless of whether it matches mine or not–and as I’ve said often, it usually does.

    “Often one still seeks approval and fear of rejection no matter what.”

    Indeed, Dr. B, I get this totally, as it does keep one in a powerless position to always seek approval, especially from abusive and draining people who will never, ever give another what they need, unless it serves them, somehow. What I was seeking in relationship with my dad was an affirming connection to my family legacy, which I finally was able to feel internally. I’m connected now, in that regard, and it cannot be reversed. That was like a soul-retrieval to me, vital to my authentic being.

    When I forgave my dad for being intolerant of my being (and all the shaming and coercion that went with that which led me to mental health services in the first place), I eventually was able to feel love for him (tons of it, actually, the floodgates opened wide) because it cleared my mind of “victim identity,” and I could see his virtues.

    My dad was an extremely competent and humane physician, with impeccable integrity. He did not lie or cheat, very honest, and was extremely authentic in his emotions. But he would easily lose control without warning, and all hell would break lose, he’d become a different person, and this was enabled in my family, from fear. That was too bad, where things could have been different, but the family lived in fear of my dad (including my mom, along with her resentment), and I took this on.

    His father abandoned him and his mother (my grandmother) when he was 10, leaving them dirt poor in the Jewish ghetto or Buenos Aires, and he never, ever forgave him, and in fact, held a grudge up to the day he died. This was the basis of his chronic and very easily triggered and wildly undisciplined rage.

    His past, which he carried with him on his sleeve, made him feel tremendous shame and resentment, which he passed along readily, I imagine without realizing it. But it was chronic, unpredictable and devastating to our otherwise “model” professional middle-class family. No safety within our walls.

    While I’ve always said, and still say, that there is no excuse for abuse, I can at least hold compassion for him, and an understanding of my own lineage, shadows and all. Didn’t mean I was going to tolerate his abuse or demeaning attitude, and I challenged it explicitly. That cracked the egg and it became rather messy, to be expected. I was deep into my healing work, so I continued to explore and shift my energy and perspective around it all as I went through all this. That took me deep into mystical layers of consciousness, but I was not mad, this was my training! I was perfectly grounded.

    The final step for me, once I had gotten my clarity, was to really and truly forgive. That created the biggest shift in my family ever.

    Maybe because he was my dad, I made an extra effort here. Being Jewish and Latino, our family ties are strong, these are cultural traits. Rest assured, I don’t take any shit from people, although I try to remain open and loving, in general. Some do test that, however. Always a healing and growth opportunity when that happens, which keeps me on top of things and feeling protected by my own desire to feel love rather than hate or fear.

    My partner has a story of forgiveness, too. He wrote about how extremely grateful he was that I forgave him, and which he recognized the need for. He was quite a handful, to say the least, filled with resentment toward life, and it drove me over the edge. It was, of course, a repetition compulsion for me, and I recognized that. Rather than leaving him, we healed together, and are now both on a highly creative and spiritual path together, an unbreakable bond.

    And indeed, we’ve mourned over the past, and brought in tremendous gratitude for present time, where we experience our freedom. So whatever it takes, huh?

    Regardless of our differences, I always very much appreciate your eloquent truth to ponder and process. Thank you, always.

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  • I attended UT Austin in early 90s. I was on Xanax and Ativan at the time, for high anxiety, but I made it through school fine. It was a few years later, and with Klonopin added to the mix, that I ran into trouble, lots of trouble. Fortunately, I did very in depth healing with gifted healers, and that is all behind me now.

    What I was wondering about is if the public “mental health” system there is still called MHMR (mental health mental retardation)? That’s quite a stigma to project.

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  • I think is that everyone has the potential for madness and everyone has the potential for greatness. Often, they go hand in hand. Where we fall on this continuum at any given time depends more on our courage than anything. Our society makes it really challenging to be our unique selves—whether genius or mad or both–and not like everyone else. That is where shaming and marginalizing begin, which is tragic. Uniqueness should be celebrated, it is our gift.

    When society throws away people, they throw away gifts that will bring solutions to social ills, so, in essence, society is screwing itself. I see society right now as self-sabotaging, a sinking ship, which is why I stay far away from the mainstream. I believe change is happening now, because of people like us, and countless others, who don’t shy away from truth. And yes, many of us come from this crazy-ass “mental health” world, so there does seem to be a powerful connection between madness and social transformation.

    I think when we each go by our own blueprint (our most natural tendencies), rather what others or what society expects from us, then we are being true to ourselves and on our rightful path. How it looks to others is irrelevant, if life is working for us, on our terms. I believe life will reflect that for us, if we are really in our own skin, comfortably, honestly, and humbly—humble, in that we respect the choices of others and simply focus on our own path. To me, that is where we find clarity, ease, grounding, self-respect, self-care, and good manifestations.

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  • That’s exactly why I’m always saying your voice is so powerful, Julie. There is YOU, and there are your stories from life, your experience to tell your way, in your voice. To me, that demonstrates a strong sense of self.

    We are who we are, and we’ve had our experiences in life so far. We have fascinating and revealing stories to tell now, that can help educate, guide, and inform others, if they wish to hear us. Doesn’t mean we have to continue reliving them.

    On the contrary, as you say, we can even find amusement from it all once we detach and separate from all that. Stand-up comedy is all about taking life’s challenges (and some comics are quite extreme and daring in what they’ll tackle, much to the chagrin of others) and seeing the light in them. Life is what it is, for better or worse, and we learn as we go along. Theater of the absurd consciousness!

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  • And that’s for the greater good. Psychiatric abuse is not something I put in the category of “to be or not to be forgiven.” It happened to me and to tons of others, still going on. This is a grave social issue, to my mind.

    I, personally, got myself out of it, healed from the multiple traumas of it (that took a while, because it was so seriously insidious), and in that process, I got my clarity around the experience. So now I can tell my story with a feeling of neutrality–not without emotion, but definitely without resentment. It was not personal to me, it’s how that system/culture operates. I just happened to find myself in the middle of it. I’m the better for it now, having grown away from all this. That was my life experience to own.

    I don’t consider truth-speaking to be the product of resentment, but more so, as the way to create change, from the heart and with integrity. I believe it’s a positive and healing action–for the truth-speaker and for those who resonate with that particular truth–including when it is spoken with indignation.

    I think we are most effective when we speak our truth about social abuse directly, clearly, with certainty, unwavering, and with authentic feelings. I believe that is where we find our power, and I know it is felt, like strong ripples of energy.

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  • Fiachra, I don’t like to sit in resentment, either. Makes me feel badly, constantly agitated and short of patience, it clouds my thinking and my judgment, and I end up making worse choices for myself. Forgiving past experiences brings me into present time with myself, which is clarity and ease.

    That feels much better and leads me to better experiences because I’m thinking more clearly, discerning better, and making more desirable choices for myself leading to better outcomes as well as healthier, mutually supportive relationships, as opposed to continuously repeating old patterns of self-sabotage. Forgiveness breaks the cycle, at least for me that’s to where it led, which is what led to relief, positive changes, and peace in and around me.

    “In my opinion The Psychiatric Services are Evil and it’s my job to demonstrate this – and to promote longterm successful alternatives.”

    Yes, I do think there is a purpose here. I think many of us feel this particular mission after what we’ve experienced and all that we learned from it along the way. More power to us.

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  • “…but there is no limit to the damage bad doctors and therapists can do.”

    I agree, it’s primarily a people problem, and it’s insidious. I think that’s what makes this all so sticky, and practically unresolvable. There is no regulation in these 1-1 meetings. And I’ve seen therapists wield power in a group like nobody’s business, gaslighting all the way. Even suggesting that, perhaps, they are not being sensitive to others garners defensiveness and retaliation. I’ve seen this repeatedly in social service groups. Keeps everyone in their “proper place”–that is, stuck. Business is good, therefore, and power is secure.

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  • I tend to identify with Dr. B’s writings, as well, usually. Perhaps I didn’t read carefully enough? I’m open to being corrected about my interpretation of what I read, if that was not his intention.

    I will admit, there are shades here which I’m not sure how to take–for example, degrees of abuse, and what merits forgiveness and what does not. How can anyone speak (and more importantly, *feel*) on behalf of another, in any of these regards? It is so personal and subjective. Wouldn’t that undermine our sense of our own truth, our self-agency, along with our self-determination? That’s how it seems to me, at least, but I’m open to hearing other perspectives, for the sake of my own education and clarity. I like this discussion, I think it’s vital to healing.

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  • I tend to agree with quite a bit of what Dr. B writes, especially regarding our theater of consciousness. Mourning (or what I would call “grieving”) is resonant with me, I recognize that as part of the healing process as well. separating from the past. What surprised me here was what actually seems to be *invalidation* of forgiveness. These are such personal choices subjective to each individual, and perhaps, these words mean different things to different people. The word “Love” can send people reeling, as well, and is hard to define. I think these are human feelings to feel, and can be almost impossible to put into words.

    Forgiveness, as it were, works for a lot of people as a healing avenue, and it can, indeed, release resentment. That’s certainly been my experience, and that of many around me. This article makes it sound as though forgiveness is a ‘fool’s way’ or something to that effect. Not to put words in Dr. B’s mouth, but that’s how it came across to me. I was a bit confounded by this, and if that’s the case, it’s not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing, it’s more a matter of invalidating the healing path of another, which is a bit troubling to me, as a general rule.

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  • I grew up in a family where blame and holding grudges were the norm, and I saw the effect this had on my folks, and also my siblings, very angry hearts and unsettled spirits–ungrounded as all get out. As a product of this upbringing, I also felt it in my own mind and body, like a chronic constriction, all this anxiety, very crippling. That’s what made me feel ill enough to walk into a therapist’s office in the first place, many moons ago.

    Years later, I was the first in my family to learn what it means to truly forgive and move on, and it has been an example to them. I’ve had conversations with my sister about forgiveness, which was so gratifying and healing because it was radical in our family. Thanks to the example of my family healing, my partner was also able to access his forgiving heart toward his family, where many issues had lurked. And we both practice self-forgiveness, for making ourselves so sick with rage, blame, and resentment for years. For us, this practice has moved us along well in life, while bringing us to peace with ourselves. Really made a huge difference, the biggest.

    Forgiveness, then, became my healing path, as it is for many people who practice this on a daily basis. For me, it is an energy of the heart which actually does expand me into my authentic being, unlike what you say above.

    I’m surprised that you would invalidate a healing path as you are doing, Dr. B. These are such personal matters, it’s a bit uncomfortable for me to discuss this in academic terms. Heart consciousness is the key to awakening and personal evolution. Brain consciousness perceives a linear and limited reality, whereas the heart is multi-dimensional, so it’s an entirely different paradigm of living, perceiving, and creating. Personally, I much prefer living from the heart, and it’s served me extremely well. and most definitely better than how I had been operating previously.

    Learning to get my own information and go with what is right for me was, indeed, extremely liberating. I know myself now, along with my self-resourcefulness, because my mind is not filled with clutter, chaos, and negativity due to an angry and blaming heart. Therefore, I can hear my self-validating heart and spirit voice, and I have clarity about myself and my life, and nothing feels better than that. It doesn’t go away, either, it’s a permanent connection with my spirit. That’s what I’d been missing, prior to practicing forgiveness and moving on with self-agency intact, and clarity in my heart.

    I know many balk at the idea of forgiveness, as you seem to in this article, Dr. B. And I’ve had a lot of hostility come in my direction when I talk about my own healing path via forgiveness. I get that the notion of forgiving an abuser is downright offensive to some, which I understand how that would come to be, given the heavy emotions that are generated by such trauma lingering into post-trauma. I don’t prescribe it for others, but I certainly don’t discourage it, either.

    We all have our way of moving on in life. All I can say is that after spending years blaming and feeling resentment toward my dad, learning true forgiveness (not an easy task, I did a lot of meditating and learning to feel this in my body) allowed me to not only see his virtues–of which he had many, despite his obvious blind spots which could make him rather cruel, controlling, and gaslighting–but it also grew me up to where I could easily discern how to navigate this relationship in a way where I felt empowered and loving. That was for my benefit, a healing gift to myself.

    As a result, my dad and I had 7 wonderfully heart-connected years together before he passed, which meant the world to me. We had our most intimate and revealing conversations during my occasional visits. I hated hating my own dad, and thanks to forgiveness, I learned to feel love for him, warts and all. Changed my self-perception a great deal, and my body was finally beginning to relax and feel good for the first time in years. And most definitely, my brain un-clenched. That was the end of what had felt like ‘mental illness’ to me for so many years. My mind shifted dramatically, and I began to live the life that felt like it was genuinely and authentically mine, in pure present time, and not as a reaction to past trauma.

    Didn’t mean I put myself in the line of fire again, because I learned to take control of the relationship and protect myself. The meant literally following the messages in my heart, as inner guidance. After all, this was my dad, and I was not going to give up in making this connection. I’m grateful for my tenacity and faith because the pay-off was huge, and it kept my family from falling apart. I learned from my previous misconceptions and errors in judgment thanks to my naïve trust, because forgiveness and love replaced resentment and anger. Brought me to peace, and changed my life–along with my character in the play. Isn’t that what we seek, regardless of how we get there?

    This is just about me, my healing path, and what helped me to turn an important corner. I believe everyone has to make these decisions on their own, when they are ready to take a leap in consciousness, their way. Extremely personal and individually guided matters. I cannot fathom anyone telling me, nor my telling anyone “Don’t forgive! It doesn’t work!” That’s a big stretch for me.

    Regardless, as always, I appreciate hearing your truth. We can’t agree on everything!

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  • Congratulations, Naas, I know how hard this is. The drugs started backfiring on me, too, when I was at CIIS (back in the late 90’s), and could only do a partial withdrawal while still in school and training. Sadly, my psychiatrist took me the wrong way after finishing grad school and I ended up on nine psych drugs at once before realizing that I’d hit a wall and needed to ditch them all. I recognize several from your list from my own.

    I’m not as optimistic as you are regarding psychiatry, I think, overall, there is too much misguided education and also too much corruption, deceit, and stigma, regardless of the few who perhaps ascend this. But it is the culture at this point, and it seems quite untrustworthy and dangerous, I believe.

    In any event, your accomplishment is profound and inspiring. Well done!

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  • “So it’s this amazing chain reaction that helps to free us from our isolation and the world’s oppression.”

    This gave me chills to read, Elizabeth, yes indeed! I liken it to the underground railroad going above ground. I believe this is a most exquisite transformation to witness. Finally, we can celebrate being human, every bit of it. We are certainly all in it together, no doubt about that–and that includes everyone, even those on whom we look back in scorn. We are all one humanity.

    The heat came mostly from the agency where I made this, which was yet another awakening for me. I hadn’t expected to discover their duplicity in advocacy, but lo and behold, that’s exactly what happened, so it is yet another chapter in my story. Amazing, yes, and in fact, rather mind-boggling.

    Fortunately, I’ve had many nice comments like yours and Iden’s, and others on here. Screenings were always exciting when I was doing them, and rich with very interesting and multi-dimensional discussion. The truth-telling led to family healing, too, which was most rewarding of all.

    Thank you again and I am so grateful this has all resonated with you. You and Iden have made my day 🙂

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  • Elizabeth, thank you so much for your kind words and validation of our voices! Means a lot to me what you say.

    Speaking for myself, it got to the point where I had no choice but to go as public as I could with these issues. When it comes to this level of social abuse and stigma, there is neither reasoning nor empathy from “the system”–whether the mh system or power-imbalanced family systems. I believe that speaking our heart’s truth and telling our ever-fluid stories our way, front and center, is the way to freedom of social oppression, and therefore, healing in all ways.

    I’ve taken a lot of heat since putting this out, which was part of the learning and healing process. That stigma is downright insidious!

    So we evolve ourselves and, in the process, disempower the toxic systems and eventually make them obsolete. That’s my idea of non-violent revolutionary change.

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  • Fair enough Bonnie, thanks for the clarity re defensiveness, I wasn’t sure otherwise why you had brought it up, but I get you here.

    Re feminism, I’m simply not connected there. I applaude and support any group standing up for equal rights. I identify as a Gay man and did a lot of work for equal marriage rights, that’s my backyard. I’m also Jewish and Latino and have faced social issues there.

    But on MiA, I identify as a psychatric survivor, which, for me, has been the most oppressive identity of all. I think it’s a catch-all. Any form of discrimination, oppression, abuse, bullying, shaming, etc., on here, invalidates “the movement” to my mind, because that’s what a lot of survivors are attempting to heal and recover from, so it’s a big toxic loop for folks.

    Unfortunately, I’ve both witnessed and experienced that here, and have been accused of doing so myself. Many languages spoken on this board. But I hold hope for a clearing. I’ve made no secret of my frustrations here but I am still here, aren’t I? At least virtually, I can remain detached from it all.

    This is what I got from living this for years, the moment I connected in any way with the mh field, starting with grad school, and all through the culture, inside and out, layer by layer and wearing a variety of hats for 20 years now. I only see a sinking ship because these issues are inherently divisive so it is hard to see unity from this perspective.

    The solution is a radical shift in consciousness–not so easy, but vital. I help people with this, I work with select clients who are ready to transition into a new personal narrative and paradigm. That’s the journey out of oppression, per my personal lived experience.

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  • All that you say sounds reasonable to me, Bonnie, and I know myself to be a reasonable person.

    I’m doing well self- employed, and, in fact, I’m happily semi-retired at this point. I’m pretty much a volunteer in the world at present and seriously loving that freedom. Coming from where I come, I don’t take that at all for granted and am always happy to pass along what I learned in my complex story of healing. I do not hoard information that would benefit the greater good.

    This was not about “employment.” This was all volunteer until they were up and running, which is still not the case, which I had predicted easily they’d get stuck. I’d do it all for free of it were worth it and nourishing to me on its own merits, but I knew this group would be terribly draining. Self-care is always part of the equation with any decision I make.

    My desire is always to contribute to society, even simply as a kind neighbor. Both my films are public service–one being an example is truth-speaking as a way out of oppression and one about sharing music, love, and spirit as a away to community healing. I made no $$ on these but the universe has rewarded me handsomely for my public service work. That’s how it works on a just society.

    I went to 3 meetings and had a hardy dialogue with the woman who invited me aboard and then discussed it with my partner. We both saw red flags all over the place.

    I’m not easy when it comes to these things, I take my time and get my info, examine my feelings. Implying defensiveness when someone is describing discrimination and social abuse is rather tricky territory, Bonnie, and borders on unsafe and victim-blaming. That’s a question of maturity, wouldn’t you say? While I understand how some people may cry wolf as a way to keep their victim status alive, I’m not one of them, quite the opposite. Which is why I won my lawsuit. I was right, and it was proven beyond the shadow of a doubt. That place is closed now because they refused to own their foibles.

    What else can I say?

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  • With a client, yes, I can see the layers and phases of their process and can give it permission to be, that’s my job. Transition is an evolutionary process and each layer has a voice which needs to be expressed.

    As a potential staff member of any health agency, walking into blatant discrimination–yet again, after all I experienced in the system, inluding legal action due to discrimination–I would have felt enabling, non self-respecting, and really kind of stupid. After experiencing this with myriad agencies repeatedly, no more. I made my film in hostile territory, so I do not shy away.

    But this group was bad, and not unlike all that I’ve experienced. The buck of discrimination stops right here. I see peoples’ heart and spirit and this is what I attempt to convey and illustrate in Voices That Heal. That is a level playing field, and we can have it at any time we awaken to what is truly just, universally, at all times. The means IS the end in this case, otherwise we have no examples of justice and equality.

    Discrimination is social abuse and there is no excuse for abuse–EVER! No yeah-buts about it.

    I’m happy with my path, too, and feel good about my work and community service. Discrimination is life-sucking, so I feel as though I freed myself to enjoy life making music and helping people when they ask for my support. As long as each is us is happy with our decisions, then we both did the right thing for ourselves. The truth of the matter is subjective and personal I’m sure, and contingent upon so many factors unique to each of us. Thsts about the size of it, to my mind.

    Thanks for sharing your truth.

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  • My exact thoughts as I read this. It is so painfully obvious that the mh system is one big vat of social ills. All we can do is keep spreading the word.

    I also hope that people wise up to the fact that there is no changing this from the inside. I’d say it’s time to jump ship. Its demise is inevitable in this day and age is social revolution against corruption and oppression. Given that it is SUPPOSED to be about health, let’s add criminally fraudulent to that list of reasons why it should no longer be.

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  • I get that and totally respect it of course. No doubt that rings true for others. Great example of diversity in how each of us responds to our situations.

    I’ll take back my generalization and apply it to myself. I was also successful in life even after I was diagnosed and relied on psych drugs to “normalize” me, so to speak. It was coming off the drugs and the disability that accompanied this temporarily that jolted me out of mainstream living.

    Then I became a minor celebrity in San Francisco thanks to theater and a film I made about the system. That was fun at first, and definitely healing to feel valued aftervtge long stigmatizing haul through the system. But it wasn’t me, I was stretching, all in the name of healing and discovering who I was in my heart and spirit.

    Now 4 years later, I’m well and at peace, because I am a perfectly ordinary person in a new and peaceful community, and fulfilled as a result, as a country healer and local musician.

    I know a few famous people and I don’t envy them. The pressure they put on themselves is obvious. That’s the kind of stress I learned to avoid in order to stay grounded and at peace with myself.

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  • Facing blatant disregard and utter lack of respect is maddenning. On a daily basis, it’s abusive–abuse of power. The message from the abuser is “You have no power,” for the purpose of control. That is assaultive to one’s spirit because we all have power, it’s our nature. As a result, this behavior can cause illness and imbalance in those around them. It is vampiristic.

    The problem with the mental health system is that its INTENTION is to disempower people by punishing them for rightfully owning their power and using it to stand up for themselves in self-defense. Staff can be abusive and to their mind, they are doing their jobs because they are following standard protocol. It is the norm in that culture, tragically enough. It’s as though two divergent realities exist in the same space, and the abusive one dominates. In other words, the insane truly are running the asylum.

    I applaud how you stand courageously in your truth, these stories must be told in order to bring change. You are extremely brave and pioneering. Very best wishes in your heartfelt struggle for freedom. You are helping a lot of people down the road as you help yourself by speaking your heart’s truth.

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  • The dark night of the soul journey teaches that we are all spiritual beings having a human experience. Once we get that, as a collective, racism, sexism, homophobia, et al, will heal. We are infinitely more than our skin color, gender, sexual preference, etc., and on that meta-level, we’re totally equal, each one of us a valuable and uniquely gifted aspect of One conciousness. Can’t point to research on this, but when we understand what it means to embody our ever-evolving truth, we get it, it rings true.

    It’s a spiritual perspective, not academic. Can those two worlds meet with mutual respect and listening eats? That is my question du jour. I wonder…

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  • Your comment moves me so much, CatNight, I so get you here. Being on the wrong end of a stigmatizing environment is, indeed, one double-bind after another, and it can feel overwhelming and rather treacherous. That’s a lot of issues piled one on top of the other.

    As you say about trusting your judgment, after feeling that my process had failed me and that, perhaps, I wasn’t as intuitive as I had thought, that was a huge hurdle. I was filled with self-doubt after all of this, and that can be crippling, because we talk ourselves out of moving forward, from fear of falling again.

    I had to get really philosophical at this point, which is where I began to learn other perspectives–different spiritual philosophies–and I began to apply those as they seemed relevant. Took years to learn and integrate all of this, but with each step, I focused on what felt as improvement, where I could have at least a small amount of clarity, an opening of hope, and that would take me to the next step. Eventually, I discovered my power to create change, starting from within.

    So in one sense, I know I had to do this on my own, and seek what I needed for spiritual purposes, and that led to emotional healing because the double binds began to dissipate, coming from a broader perspective.

    But also, with each move forward, I’d attract different things and people in my life that were appropriate for me at that particular juncture. I believe the universe works that way, as per Law of Attraction. When we shift our own energy, we have a different experience of life, and different things manifest around us.

    I’ve gone through several communities as I healed, each one reflecting the stage I was in. So it was a combo of solitude and community, depending on my needs at the time. I didn’t even have to decide, life did that for me, and I went with it, which is how I learned to trust my process again, because it was working, I was healing by leaps and bounds. Both were important, but learning to be comfortable in my solitude was vital for me to feel comfortable socially.

    I learned pure present time consciousness, to stop ruminating about the past and worrying about the future. That was a challenge and I can still struggle with this a bit, but even the intention of practicing this is very relieving, and it allowed me to take one step at a time, without talking myself out of the moment, and I’d simply connect to the experience of personal growth and healing in that moment, which can be sublime.

    That’s what it was like to crawl out of the dark tunnel, and into the light, so to speak. So, so, so much to learn, explore, and discover along the way. It’s an extremely unique process, and it is empowering. At this moment, know your power to take the journey, that is pure courage. Our humanity is Divine in its totality, shadow and light. When we embrace our shadow as our humanness, then we are in good position to celebrate our spiritual freedom. That is hardy integration.

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  • Magnificent comment, LavenderSage, I think you really captured the spirit of the issue of duality (which to me, is an issue of pure snobbery) and the effects of stigma (considered inferior) affects one internally. It’s no picnic, and it leads to all sorts of problems for people.

    “I truly think they are jealous of the freedom we express when we dare to be our true selves; when who we are will not fit the box those folks have defined as “societal norms,” and we dare to be okay with that. We are brazen enough to challenge the notion that we are what is unacceptable in the scenario; we see that it is the box that has limitations, not us. How dare we be free when they keep re-inventing one-size-fits-all! I, personally, have always felt pride in the ability to challenge the norms. Powers-that-be can get very threatened by that, depending in part on their personal sense of insecurity, which underlies their desperate need to be recognized as an authority. There simply is no more legitimate an authority than one’s own personal experience.”

    Right on! I think this is about as core truth of the matter as one can get. This is the code to crack and the illusion to see past—there is no box to fit in, we are free. One’s personal experience of their own life far surpasses any outside “authority” of the matter.

    Jealousy can be an extremely destructive and sabotaging energy, and yes, it is rampant. Perhaps these clinicians should take our example rather than be jealous, they’ll feel much better.

    I think it was at an APA meeting in the late 1950’s where the psychiatrist showed up with a paper bag on his head to criticize the DSM category of “homosexuality.” I wasn’t aware he was gay, I actually thought it was a straight shrink who was dissident, and with fear, obviously. I could be wrong, may not be remembering correctly, but I know the incident to which you refer. It’s in the wonderful documentary, Changing Our Minds, The Story of Dr. Evelyn Hooker. Are you familiar with that one?

    Hooker championed the cause of removing this from the DSM, based on her many close friendships in the LGBT community (called Homosexual community at that time). She knew from her personal experiences that this was pure rubbish, and she proved it to the point which led to its removal from the DSM. That’s actually one case where someone not specifically identified with that community spearheaded it to break ground, which I think is interesting. She seems like a seriously amazing person. Anyway, it’s an excellent and very moving film, if you ever get a chance to see it.

    http://cart.frameline.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=T392

    Here’s a brief clip I found on YouTube. *Warning* first image is graphic.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWOfyD5qvSQ

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  • “feeling like you have to become famous in order to be an “ok” mentally ill person…”

    Yes, I like this a lot. Striving to be an “acceptable ‘mentally ill’ person by standing out and above through high public achievement is just as dehumanizing as a DSM diagnosis, and playing the social game of “acceptance.” I do not think we find happiness or balance this way, and I agree with you, it can lead to self-delusion simply for survival purposes. We can think well of ourselves and be happy with ourselves without needing to believe that we are the next Pablo Picasso or the new Messiah.

    Although I will say this–I do believe absolutely everyone in the world has the potential for greatness in any regard, it’s really a matter of where we choose to focus, what goals we have, and what path we chose to take at any given time. I think the really sinister and sabotaging impact of blatant systemic stigma is when we internalize the message that we are limited in comparison to others. That’s a complete lie which undermines people until they wake up to their own truth, and not that of others imposed on them.

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  • Citing famous people as examples of ‘overcoming’ also puts undo pressure on people. We do not have to be famous or celebrated by the world in order to have value. That’s a terrible message to send to any person, and sadly, our media does just that, celebrate the rich and famous as though they were examples, and even deities. Yet another dynamic of an oppressively sick society.

    Our value is intrinsic, whoever we are. It’s our responsibility alone to know this for ourselves.

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  • I think once adults can let go of the idea that they need approval from others in order to feel good about themselves, then a lot will heal from the inside out, rippling exponentially. Needing approval or acceptance is crippling, disempowering, and only reflects that which we do not accept about ourselves. I believe that is a leftover from childhood invalidation.

    We can fill in those blanks ourselves, when we learn who we are and take that particular journey of self-discovery, rather than relying on a marginalizing society for mirroring. That’s really setting one’s self up for failure, to my mind. At the very least, it pretty much guaranties a great deal of chronic stress, to always care what others think. That’s how one loses one’s voice and dissociates from one’s truth.

    When we live in our authentic truth, we will attract others who do the same, and this will create more harmonious societies, albeit diverse. No reason to sell ourselves short by trying to please anyone but ourselves. When we practice unconditional self-acceptance, our entire perception and experience of reality shifts, and projected stigma has zero power. It becomes completely irrelevant.

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  • Also, they did not reject me from participation, only blocked me from teaching. They wanted me to stay and work with them, regardless. They loved my film and knew I had done my own healing from all of this. But my presence was contingent upon my allowing myself to be discriminated against. I’m the one that walked away. I thought that was absurd and that this group was useless, just a carbon copy of what they were protesting in the first place.

    So first, they stigmatize and marginalize me, attempting to disempower me, and then, they take it personally when I walk away. How obvious can it be that this is nothing other than power struggling based on pure discrimination? All starting with a blatantly stigmatizing projection to “keep me in my place.” Totally unfounded, I was conservative in how I presented.

    I’ve experienced and witnessed this dynamic in all advocacy and activism, and rampantly on MIA. It does become personal for some folks, and that’s too bad, as that only undermines the collective goal and focus.

    The mental health world and its tangents are a lost cause, I’m afraid, the mindset is much too dualistic and ego-driven. It will self-destruct in time, that’s all I can see. And I, for one, will feel relieved when that happens, for the greater good.

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  • At least the internet has provided us with a window into all of this, a reflection of our own vast humanity. Before this, many people in our segregated society thought of social ills as ‘out there,’ rather than noticing that it is within all of us, how we were raised, by family, community of peers, and the media.

    When abuse, discrimination, and physical and psychological violence toward one another becomes so dominant and visible as it is now, change is inevitable. I would say, at this point, it’s out of anyone’s hands, other than the individuals who know how to trust the process of change and transformation. Not everyone does, which is especially challenging.

    The momentum of radical change is upon us and moving swiftly. I’m sure this upcoming election has everyone on edge, and the alarm bells are going off loudly and wildly. I would predict that the next couple of months will shed light on quite a bit that will shift the collective perspective dramatically. That’s my hunch.

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  • I did deliberately avoid those terms, describing the event specifically as “blatant discrimination based on gender,” which to me, you seem to be justifying as “part of the process” whereas for me, it is unacceptable. That’s no example of change, and only embeds the values of the status quo.

    This is not about taking it personally, and I imagine you are truly aware of this. Is that a response to give when one calls out discrimination and abuse? In the mental health system, it is exactly what people say. Talk about putting it on the whistle-blower, seriously, never mind “blaming the victim.”

    Whereas, in reality, it is a matter of blatant hypocrisy in action, to me it’s quite obvious, and that spells trouble in my book. I don’t think it’s a smart move or perspective whatsoever and will keep things stuck, while coming back to haunt.

    You say it is part of the developmental process, whereas I would predict it to be self-sabotaging in this day and age, at this particular juncture in human history.

    I will stay tuned and see how it unfolds, but I do not see a good outcome from the perspective you give. That’s just my intuitive hunch, based on what I know about energy, and how it works to either create or sabotage.

    To me, with this example, the writing is on the wall. If it turns out I’m wrong, I’ll be the first to own it, and I’d be happy about that, because I would like to see activism succeed and change happening, but I continue to see more of the same, over and over, from the activist camp, like a black hole.

    That is honestly my assessment after all these years/decades involved with this, and producing on my own behalf, for the purpose of creating change. I’m telling you, Bonnie, groups bring people down, there is no respect for individuality–above and beyond any discerning features– and that is a problem, I think, when it comes to healing, either individually or socially.

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  • Not to stray too far OT, but for perspective—

    Bonnie, I was once invited to join a local “alternative-to-the-system” organization–based on ‘non-stigmatizing and non-discriminatory practices”–which was in the process of development. I went to the first meeting, and it was 8 women who had either worked in the system, received services, or both–and me (who qualifies as ‘both’).

    As the meeting progressed, I suggested that we each teach a class to the others, based on what we are bringing to the table, in terms of healing or perspective. For example, mine would be my perspective on stigma and discrimination and how this affects our well-being and quality of life, and different paths to addressing and healing this. That’s always my focus in my work, as healer, teacher, and activist.

    Their collective response was, “We’re not taking a class from you, we don’t trust men.” Two women actually expressed this–one of them out and out saying, “Men are tricksters” and the other 6, while they said they’d be ok with it, supported the naysaying women, so that became the dominant voice and perspective, fixed.

    That’s their choice, of course, and I’m sure they have their own personal reasons for making this choice, but how is this not blatant discrimination based on gender? I’m simply trying to work, and that perspective sabotages my opportunity, and it’s all based on stigma, projection, and transference of feelings and issues toward me, before even being given a chance.

    I left and never went back, which to me was the most reasonable, productive, and self-compassionate choice I could make. I also was certain that this would not fly. Still, the irony was over-the-top, as was their lack of self-awareness around this blatant hypocrisy. This was three years ago. They’re still not up and running.

    I’m thinking a lot of what ripples from these tangential groups who claim to be wanting to solve these problems and, to my observation, are simply recreating them. This is the cycle I would like to see broken. In the mental health system, there is no discrimination, Everyone loses, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation.

    I’m not one to say “what about men’s rights?’ in general, because I’m totally aware of the social and professional inequalities which women have had to address; and I’m not one to say we need a “White History Month,” because I’m aware that “White History” is our dominant perspective, and making room for other cultures and perspectives is something we must do consciously and proactively, to reverse the discrimination we’ve practiced for so long, as a society.

    BUT, in the mental health system, middle aged white men are just as victimized as anyone, and made to feel violated, dehumanized, and discarded. Can’t we at least get on equal footing as far as the mental health system goes? At what point are we going to stop saying or implying, “Hey, I’ve been victimized worse than you!” because that’s what these discussions often read as to me. I believe we’ve all been victims of social brainwashing and personal space violation. I believe in this regard, we are all equal.

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  • The catch-phrase for the “mh” system could be: “where no lives matter,” or “where lives don’t matter.” Choose one or both. As far as being a client of the system, I do not believe they discriminate here. Any color, race, gender, sexual orientation–anyone at all on that side of the fence–will be treated equally in this regard. That’s what matters to me in this particular focus, fwiw.
    #mhsystemwherenolivesmatter

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  • I came back to read your article again, Iden, this one has really stuck in my mind. I’ve thought for a while now that here in the USA, at least, we have such an epidemic of social abuse and bullying, seems to be the order of the day. Trains, airplanes, buses, on highways–practically every day now I see videos of violence, either verbal of physical, pretty much always based on race or sexual orientation. People get violent over differences of color, sexuality, or even merely opinion. People kill each other now over simple disagreements–bully children in adult bodies.

    Perhaps that has always been, given our twisted history, but is this what we want to see continue? It’s like our entire society is stuck at regressed angry teen-ager or something like that. When are we going to grow up and act like reasonable and responsible adults? What has happened to that particular sect of society? Where did they go?

    I don’t think we can regulate people’s prejudices, we all have them one way or another. What’s awful is how people actually act on these prejudices and actively project their hate so actively and feeling justified in doing so. As far as I’m concerned, this is the downfall of society because when we actively practice hate, we are in sabotage mode, starting with self-sabotage and extending it to the collective in general.

    Hate is hate, and when we actively project hate, it is because we feel hate toward ourselves. I know that sounds textbook, but what else could be? We could all use inner work here, when we feel compelled to act on our hate. Self-regulation is part of growing up, learning self-control.

    Someone made us hate ourselves, so we hate them back. In the meantime, there is no love, no light, no trust, no faith, nothing good to see of feel here. And what would be the point of living that way? That is the underbelly of humanity. In a society filled with hate, who will be the first to actively project unconditional love, regardless? That would a revolutionary act, to my mind, and a pioneer.

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  • These are exactly the examples we portray in a film I made a few years ago. First, we get our own clarity, then we can extend it to others in a way they can hear, because we are coming from the heart, the language of which is universal, to those attuned to it. To my mind, that is the shift to make, to attune to our hearts, to discern how something feels from the inside vs. how it is observed from an outside perspective. Inner change = outer change and as well inner peace = outer peace. Can’t see it being any other way.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

    I had to dodge a lot of bullets to get this out there. The agency with which I was involved did not like that I used their platform like to criticize the system and call the entire field of ‘mental health’ into question, so we had a nasty “divorce” here, but that only served validated our voices with even more resonance, I think. So interesting how one has to re-interpret things for the purpose of activism.

    Thanks for a groundbreaking blog and discussion, Iden!

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  • “Being open and willing to grow will get us to where we need to be.”

    Indeed, so well put, and I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, I believe it is the uniqueness of this movement in particular, as it centers around an industry that is supposed to be all about personal growth and healing, and which fails us exactly there.

    So now, we have an opportunity to be the example of personal growth and change, ourselves, as a community, which is what the system stunts and undermines. Healing, growth, and personal change (whatever that may mean to anyone) will not only help people to feel better, lighter, and more grounded, and therefore improve the lot of society, in general, simply from experiencing newfound well-being, but it will also completely invalidate current mental health practices altogether. In fact, it will become glaringly evident to everyone just how incompetent and useless–in fact, terribly counterproductive–that field is, if the anti-psych movement is actually a community of well-being. What better and more salient example of change can there be? The means completely support the goal.

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  • Very powerful essay, and a challenge to all of us. We teach and learn by example. Those who practice and embody respect and unconditional love for self and others are the ones to whom I look to in leadership, because, to my mind, they ARE revolutionary change, and that will ripple out around them. Can be hard to find these examples, however. My personal observation is that this movement is filled with hate looking for a home.

    Thanks, Iden, for prompting me to take a good look at myself, especially in relationship to community, for the purpose of personal growth and expanded awareness.

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  • Final note, as I realize I’ve made this thread quite long and again, I do appreciate your patience with my process, Bonnie, this discussion was important to me and I appreciate having had this opportunity along with your prompting comments–

    I say what I say with sincere all due respect for the many, many “professionals” out there of all kinds who are dedicated to fighting the good fight for justice and personal freedom, despite, perhaps, having to make certain sacrifices. I know there is a lot of integrity in that community, while we also know there is not so much in vast areas of it. It can be rather challenging to tell the difference, so many smoke and mirrors. Psychology can be a language all its own, and with a lot of vague innuendo, and most of the world does not speak it.

    And also with respectful acknowledgment to those who have written valuable books to achieve greater understanding of humanity and the mind.

    I just want to draw attention to the difference between being a case study and being human. Those are two entirely different perspectives on a person. I’m not sure people always realize the difference, in practice.

    That’s my main point. I’d like to see the the ‘dehumanization’ process that occurs in this field cleaned up. No healing occurs here, it is vampiristic, very bad for people, makes people sick when they don’t realize they are being subtly dehumanized.

    I think it’s the most subtle abuse of all, albeit unintentional.

    But I feel it when I’m around it, which is why I no longer submit my story anywhere or do studies, etc. The responses I would get, if I’d get them, made me feel raped. That’s how it felt to be dehumanized, step by step.

    That’s the best I can do at this time to get my main point across regarding all of this. That would be the entire point of my activism, the core of it, to speak my truth about feeling dehumanized. It’s why I made a film with only us telling our stories, no one is interpreting anything for us. Pure truth, unfiltered, in the moment.

    I won’t belabor any longer, Bonnie, I really do sincerely appreciate this dialogue. I finally got to my point, whew! Many, many thanks, not just for this conversation, but for all you do. I know you are the real deal.

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  • I completely agree, and I think it’s one of the misconceptions about this particular activism work, in the ‘mental health world.’

    There is an air of ‘savior’ in this arena that I feel is quite dominant, and I also feel that people are looking to be ‘saved’–kind of goes both ways, a perpetual co-dependence which keeps some people feeling powerless and bound up, while others remain ‘in charge,’ at all cost. This repeats, generationally, until the cycle is broken.

    I think that’s where truth-speaking comes in, to break the cycle of social abuse, at least that’s a necessary start, to my mind.

    That’s my main criticism of clinical work, that it is often about the clinician’s agenda to be a savior more than being authentically present with a client’s truth, that is, looking to empower him or herself. That’s the agenda to focus on, not “from what client stories are my next book going to be written?”

    I AM my story, it can’t be told by anyone else, at least not with accuracy and integrity. It is my own, for my purposes. I believe I’m entitled to that, having lived it and with the battle scars to prove it.

    I think this relationship dynamic bleeds over to the activism, that’s where I think things get stuck and continue to repeat the cycle of stigma and marginalization (aka systemic abuse), as a way of ‘putting people in their place.’ The system fears personally empowered people, they see through the veils.

    Your statement clarifies this issue perfectly. Thank you, Bonnie, for articulating this directly and unambiguously. I think it’s an important point to not only remember, but to apply as we go along.

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  • So no, I was not saved, I did it myself–I learned to heal myself and to own my experience in a way that was profound and meaningful, giving me back the power to take control of my own life. My partner followed suit, got his own information. I supported him through that, based on my own experience. He trusted me because he saw how I worked my healing with integrity, no short cuts or bypassing. I was thorough. And I’ve been helping others find their own power and voice ever since.

    I am not invalidating your work with others, Bonnie, I think you are courageous and highly compassionate, I see that you care about people and humanity, for real. I can tell when it’s authentic and when it’s lip service (at least most of the time, I think). I have a lot of respect for how you address these issues, as per your writings.

    But I am trying to give another perspective, from the inside of this shift, fresh in my mind from recent years. I’m still shifting, on a daily basis, it’s become kind of a way of life, perpetual transformation. Makes life fascinating and highly creative, full of surprises and all sorts of fun manifestations.

    I think these perspectives can be complementary, rather than competitive. That’s usually my intention here, but I am often met with competition rather than complement. I’m sure I’m not innocent here, altogether, but really, my intention is always in the name of unity, not further division and segregation. Not an easy feat in such a supremely media-programmed institutionalized society.

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  • I know I’m being really chatty here, but this is exactly my focus, so a lot of information is coming in about this now.

    For me, it boils down to this–in my film, Voices That Heal, which was filmed in 2011, I say that imo, the ‘stigma’ around DSM diagnoses and having a psychiatric history is what makes a mess of all this–from that comes blatant discrimination and social marginalization, all based on heavily insisted upon projected assumptions. It is an IMPOSSBLE wall to surmount, the more you fight it, the stronger and more fierce it gets.

    It was after I made this film that I was led to MiA and I’ve been participating here for 5 years. I wondered if my opinion about this would change, it was challenged repeatedly in here. In the end, it has not. I still stand by that statement, more than ever now.

    Think John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me. Second-class citizenship is chronic stress and trauma, 24/7, one double-bind after another, a bottomless pit of it–a product of power abuse galore. That is to say, “Hey, I have the power here, that person has no money or position, nor a leg to stand on. I will just take full advantage of that with no regard for ‘the other,’ because I can!”

    This is our social epidemic.

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  • The thing I have the hardest time getting people to understand is that my partner was not ‘there for me,’ he was part of the problem, in a really big way, he’ll be the first to tell you that now. He supported me getting off the drugs because he knew they were toxic, but he could not handle what was to follow. That was HIS dark night, on the heels of mine. Oh, it was a “fun” time in the City by the Bay…

    One thing we learned is that ‘mental illness’ (or whatever one calls it) is more of a product of relationship imbalance (e.g. clinician vs. client).

    We have a complex story. He’ll be the first to tell you that if it weren’t for my persistence with my own healing, he would not have awakened to what he needed to awaken to, for his sake as well as mine.

    I’m completely transparent about my story and so is my partner, and still, the stigma follows me everywhere. Being off the grid, it does not effect me, I am impervious to the opinions of others and am not disempowered by them, I am my own boss.

    But getting the accurate info out there for the purpose of helping to bring clarity and truth to these matters is very challenging, because of assumptions such as these.

    I wasn’t ‘ill,’ it was the relationship which was toxic. I’m the empath in the family, so I took it on. I was still learning to develop healthy boundaries, which were compromised by my own family abuse, which is what led me to all this in the first place, as is the case with so many people, which I don’t think is a coincidence.

    We both did our healing, repaired the imbalance by getting our roles straight, and as a result, we both transformed.

    Awakening and transformation is not about ‘diagnosed’ people; it is about everyone. No discrimination here, it’s a level playing field. Not something I can say about these systems and institutions which have undermined our society so violently. That’s the problem.

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  • At the end of it all, my conclusion here is that a group is truly effective, at the core of change, if and only if each and every member of that group knows her or his true self, and their freedom, above and beyond any sense of ‘victimization.’ That is power through perspective, and it changes reality.

    Otherwise, I think it’s pretty much a guaranteed conflict and dependence-ridden power-imbalanced mess, aka status quo.

    Until then, one person can be more powerful in their clarity and focus than an entire community in disarray, and break ground for change on her or his own. Others would choose to either follow that path or break their own ground. I think that’s a neutral choice, based on one’s personal blueprint and preferences.

    But “being saved” is not an option if one is desiring personal freedom and empowerment as the pathway to healing. That’s a perfect paradox. In the end, everyone winds up feeling used, betrayed, and having to perpetually cover their asses. That is stressful living, and not the only option in life. That’s what I discovered, once and for all, thanks to going through all of this.

    Been sitting with this one since we began this exchange, Bonnie. I believe it’s a critical discussion, where the power is in dissidence for the purpose of revolutionary change. To me, it all speaks to individual healing through personal self-empowerment, they go hand in hand. Otherwise, we simply repeat oppression and marginalization, I think that’s been demonstrated repeatedly in history, one oppressive group replaces another, and on and on…

    I appreciate your patience with my process here, all a work in progress for me, this is my focus with my work and activism. I’ve had to process this out loud a bit, obviously, to get my clarity on the matter. I hope it’s meaningful to you on some level.

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  • Also, when we heal from the effects of blatant social ills, that is when we realize that the feelings and experiences of freedom, self-sovereignty and living in our personal truth and empowerment tremendously outweigh the opinions of others which are projected effortlessly and continuously. That’s how we heal stigma, starting from the inside.

    As a healer, this is what I strive for others to feel–their own power, from their self-loving hearts (that’s the work, to get there), so that they can be and feel who they truly are, and not a reaction to a sick and seriously judgmental society, which is not at all freedom or self-agency.

    What makes this challenging is because it means leaving behind habits of thought of being an ‘underdog.’ These are internalized beliefs which we can shift at will, but it takes work, and a lot of humility, because in order to do so, we must eschew old beliefs and explore the unknown and unfamiliar. Takes courage, trust in our process, and the heartfelt desire to heal. That is transformation.

    At some point, we have to grow up and take responsibility for ourselves in way that makes us feel good about ourselves. Feeling good about one’s self would indicate healing from the system and our institutional culture, because they cause us to feel bad about ourselves, powerless and expendable. Turn that around, and these institutions will be the ones disempowered.

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  • I think the separation is between people who have felt in their bodies the experience of chronic social marginalization and dehumanization to the point of being rendered utterly powerless, and those who study these phenomena observationally, from an academic perspective. That is the difference between heart wisdom and intellectual perception. It is the experience of this *feeling* is where clarity and truth are found.

    An observer can interpret it through their filters, even being told the story or witnessing it, but they cannot even begin to imagine what it is like to have this experience. And less so, what it takes to crawl out of that very deep hole. That is where transformative healing occurs, and where personal power is restored.

    That’s the clincher, coming out of it. That’s when one can look back and see with greater clarity why it happened the way it did, and how to prevent that from ever happening again to one’s self.

    There’s a reason people go down the rabbit hole in this system, and it is exactly that separation in perspective and experience. That is a vast internalized cultural difference. Were that to be reconciled effectively and authentically, then I’d have more faith in these endeavors for change. But without that shift in understanding, I don’t see the possibility of change at present, certainly not from the intellect. I truly believe that it will come from the heart of experience, and from there it will ripple outward.

    My partner was witness to my experience and even worked in social services for a while, and got the full picture. What he knows is that ‘mental health service’ and ‘social services’ are atrocities rife with social ills and law-violating behaviors, but even after all our talking about it and his watching me helplessly go through this, he STILL cannot even imagine my experience of it from the inside.

    His humility to my experience is what has allowed me to heal and grow past all of this, other than to use my voice to speak the truth of the matter, for the greater good. Otherwise, I have no stake in this at all, other than as a member of society at large.

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  • Bonnie, as someone whose focus in all of this has been specifically personal stories as the means to the end, I do appreciate what you say here. I think one of the most interesting aspects of this entire endeavor is the unique role that these particular stories play in creating world change–which, to be honest, I’m not terribly clear on how my story is ever processed by others, and it often doesn’t match my truth when I get wind of it, so I’ve kind of given up on that. I believe we all exist to each other as projections, anyway, we fill in the blanks. I’m really so off the grid at this point, that my focus is shifting rapidly away from all of this in order to continue creating new things. I’m ready for the new world.

    However, as an activist who can still get kind of angry if I let myself think about my journey through the system too much, if only because I just haven’t seen a shift here in abuse and marginalization dynamics despite so many of us trying every which way to communicate this as directly and reasonably as we can, and indeed, sometimes angrily, but can you blame us? And so very often, the dismissal, disregard, and even gaslighting that occurs at this point is hair-raising, that would be systemic, it’s in the language of the culture. The extent to which we avoid dealing with this in the moment is staggering, I think, and not a good outlook.

    This is, personally, my main concern about the system because it is the crux of the bad power dynamics that keeps certain people at a grave disadvantage and the trauma from that builds.

    Yet, I’m aware that it is the most challenging issue to address, for so many reasons, it gets very personal and that can be scary. I can accept that is the case, but it’s the reason I don’t stick around too much these days.

    Given that this is a field that is supposed to be able to deal with trauma and it only causes more of it is something I still, after almost two decades of this, have trouble wrapping my mind around, even though we talk and talk and talk about it, and so many of us have experienced it and we can express it rather articulately and reasonably at this point.

    Shouldn’t these testimonials/stories carry more weight than they actually do, as evidence of systemic abuse? It’s kind of a loud secret anyway. I think everyone knows the system sucks and that it damages people. I just can’t believe for how long this dialogue has been going on and it’s getting worse!

    I get tired of hearing, “I’m sorry about what the system put you through,” which is the best I can get, even from attorneys now. Although one friend did say to me once, “This is insanity! Why doesn’t anyone do anything about it?” That was 10 years ago.

    With that said, one of the more salient reasons that I am angry about all of this is, what these institutions and systems put us all through, is that I know how far down I went because of 1) these drugs they push and 2) their blatant and sadistic discrimination and 3) their lies, ignorance, and utter lack of self-awareness and self-responsibility.

    I was about a minute from death at one point–maybe even less, I had left my body–and that was my choice. I thought it was reasonable at the time, based on what had been communicated to me about my condition and “prognosis,” mixed with the fact that I got more anger, blame, and shame thrown at me than empathy and compassion, God knows why, but that’s the system for you, sop.

    Had I succeeded, I never would have made my films, which have touched many people. A lot of peoples’ lives would have been affected quite adversely. It was a miracle I willed myself back and the eventually, fully back on my feet as I did.

    Anyway, I’m saying all this because I’m still angry that they’re killing people like me every day, at the very least killing their spirits, as well as the ability to create. Can you imagine how many creative resources are being wasted in this stupid and useless system just at the time we need these the most?

    I think that, in general, those that get diagnosed and drugged up are the most brilliantly creative people who threaten extremely uptight, extremely controlling people, to be blunt. That was my experience and observation, repeatedly. I think it always comes down to dynamics such as this. It is legal abuse, based on personal insecurities and limited tolerance, and it limits society on the whole more than we realize, of exponential proportion. Who knows what do to about that? But I felt compelled to say what I’ve observed, that might influence some introspection for people.

    I’m taking an MIA break for a while, at least, but this is where I am with it all at this point, and when I saw your post, this wanted to come out. Feels like a good stopping point for me. Thank you, as always.

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  • Oh, and one more thing I want to share, based on what you way above about not being able to play through your compositions at this time–

    I became a performer AFTER I had come off the benzos. I was still detoxing from it all when I took my first public performance singing class, but I really wanted to do this, to distract me from all that gook I was feeling, and also because I know that music is a glorious healer.

    I went on to do all sorts of things I had no idea I could do, and most of all, channel music. I’d never, ever sung in public before my mid-40s, and thanks to this class I took, I ended up being invited to sing here and there, with different groups, and I was pre-cast in shows without audition, got great reviews, etc.

    Seriously, I had no idea where this came from, but I enjoyed the ride a great deal, did wonders for my energy and clarity, and also for my ego, which badly needed it after feeling so devalued in the system, simply for being myself. I was recognized in the streets of San Francisco for my stage work. This was a radical change for me, to suddenly be in the limelight and appreciated. Can’t say I hated it. That was powerful healing for me, direct from the light.

    I hope this resonates and amplifies your hope. You are correct, we gain super strength going through this, and our gifts come forward like never before. The bumps are temporary and they will recede. I am so glad to hear you are keeping the faith.

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  • Namaste, Merry, and I really mean “the light in me sees the light in you.” I sent to firehawkpoductions address, I hope that is still good.

    Been listening to your songs this morning, I am totally swept away. Your spirit not only shines, it soars. Your themes are on point and ring loudly true. Thank you for sharing your many gifts to uplift humanity.

    To MIA readers, please check out Merry Citoli YouTube page. We’re talkin’ serious talent. Just beautiful.

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  • Also, I just noticed that one of the songs you sing is called Abbetira, which I see above as a commenter, so I wondered if this is you as commenter? I looked up your comment history wondering about this, and lo and behold, I saw a lovely post you made recounting some of your story, which I recognize from your blog, here, in response to me, specifically, where I shared my story of benzo withdrawal, about 2 1/2 years ago! I never saw it before tonight, for which I totally apologize. Had I seen it then, I would have responded right away. You did leave your contact info, so I will gladly email you tomorrow to follow up, if you’re still up for it.

    Wow, talk about Divine timing, eh? We seem to have quite a bit in common. I also cherish my connection to source 🙂 More soon…

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  • Hi Merry, words are hard to find right now. Your story is so courageous. You’ve been through a lot more than I have, but I did do the benzo withdrawal about 12-13 years ago after a long period taking them, and it was hell for a while, but I finally cleared my system of it and also regenerated my nervous system with herbs and other natural remedies, such as Qi Gong and grounding meditation, that was vital. I really appreciate what you say here–

    “The one thing I do know for sure is that I have more strength than I ever imagined life would require of me. Managing to come through benzo withdrawal and recovery makes you feel as though just about anything is possible.”

    Indeed, and I do think that we gain untold strength and power from this, as well as creative inspiration. It’s like quantum leaping in evolution. I wish you the very best in your continued healing and outreach to others, as well as your continued artistic endeavors.

    And btw, I’m a musician–musical comedy actor as well as music director and piano accompanist for a local band–and your bio piqued my curiosity so I looked you up on YouTube and found your channel. You are FABULOUS! Your voice is tremendous and you sing gorgeous songs, very moving. I seriously hope you are able to get back to recording, it is obviously a calling for you.

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  • Thank you, Bonnie, I very much appreciate your kind words of encouragement :). And I return the compliment, I think your work is brilliant and heartfelt. I like to think we’re all addressing this issue of social change from our best perspectives, somehow creating a whole. Thank you for generously engaging with me as you have, here. This has been enriching and very clearing for me, and I am feeling more optimistic.

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  • Interesting that you put it that way, I made a film a few years ago with a new conversation, all of us having gone through the system. There is no one speaking for us, this is just us, the survivors, of diverse voices and experience, even perspective. I call it a choir of voices, not one voice. We all told and interpreted our own stories, and discussed the stigma and discrimination amongst ourselves, transparently.

    I went pretty far with this in the CA system before they caught on that, despite identifying myself as a “peer” at that time, I was not at all a friend of the system. How could I be, after going through it exhaustively? It was eye-opening over the top barbaric, and I am not exaggerating.

    I’d never seen ‘professionals’ acting this way toward people–one way with their colleagues, almost in code, and a completely opposite way with clients, more than dismissively, more like downright demeaning, like whipping-boys/girls. I’d worked corporate retail for almost 20 years and I’d never seen such flagrant discrimination as exhibited here. Like two cultures that cannot meet, so one tries to force the other like a square peg in a round hole, and all this friction occurs. It’s quite dispiriting, at the very least. I think it’s just plain misguided, altogether.

    I was floored, it was rather traumatic on this level. I began to see exactly how people are seriously marginalized, with this kind of chronic negative and insidiously oppressive mirroring from people in positions of power. And then add the psych drugs to that, and you’ve got some serious vulnerability added, because this takes away a person’s natural defenses, along with other debilitating effects.

    I’ve also been a “professional” in the system, but I identify most strongly with “system survivor” at this point. That’s what I would like to see more of. Many people are not surviving the system, and I think that’s the point of contention. A “healing” environment (at least, it’s supposed to be!) which is so precarious that people don’t survive? How can that be? The shift to justice would be radical, in this case, bigger than we might imagine. That is a process to behold, I’ve no doubt. Hopefully we will witness that much sooner than later.

    Anyway, I do appreciate how you are attempting to incorporate the voice of survivors who have been through this level of social discrimination while being stripped of their resources, all to feed a corrupt system they are led to believe is helping them. Wow, what a mess!

    Having distanced myself and healed from the social abuse, I was able to glean a lot of information regarding these social dynamics, which, indeed, are highly stressful for one and all. From what I can see, we are creating our own chaos here, mental and otherwise.

    FWIW, here are our voices, a few of us here from the system, in a conversation about the system. This is a 10 minute clip of the film I mention above. If it piques your interest, there is a link in the description to the entire film, which is 96 minutes. I hope that at least some of this, resonates with you, too, as your findings rang true me. We touch on quite a bit, all converging around how we are mirrored in society, beginning with family society, so often repeated in the “mental health” system, and the impact of that on our clarity and well-being.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN0-m6nhUIE

    Of course, the point of healing is that as we get older, we can let go of the opinions of others, and know ourselves as we are, based on our own sense of being-ness, not by what others expect or demand. Self-agency, I believe, is the goal in our quest for personal freedom. I believe that’s what takes courage in a highly co-dependent based society, where we depend on others to make us happy, rather than finding it within ourselves. My personal perspective.

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  • And btw, this is my contribution to the collective, this 28 minute musical documentary. This is my activism now, to change the world through music and sharing our hearts and spirits with others. The entire thing is healing for all concerned. For me, it is the example of my transformation in living color. Much of this I attribute specifically to my activism, which was enormously healing to me. I hope you enjoy!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8epJMOi3cwY

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  • Beautifully stated, Bonnie, and right on I think. I envision the new world as just and harmonious in all its diverse glory. We teach by example, so the first community to show this example through and through, with high standards of kindness and respect, as opposed to fear, prejudice, stigma, and alienation, will change the world. Change starts from within. always, otherwise the change is superficial at best, and even illusory.

    Thank you, this dialogue has been perfect and to the heart of the matter, imo. Institutions are made up of people, and the institutional dynamics are defined by the example of who is at the top, the elite of a community, usually defined by who holds the purse strings. And these folks can be quite intimidating and retaliatory if challenged, which, to my mind, is pure systemic corruption.

    Moreover, If they are not in harmony with themselves, then they will create a discordant and ineffectual community, as an extension of their dynamic. I believe that’s how it works, universally. As you say, the power dynamics become compromised, yes, indeed.

    To change the system, the ones on the bottom rung of the hierarchy are the ones with the power, as they do not have to play politics. They have nothing to lose at that point, so they can actually be authentic and speak their hearts truth. The trick is to stop the generational abuse and marginalization, to speak our truth with responsibility, integrity, and awareness, and to be purposeful and mindful of what we are putting out to the collective. We all influence the collective energy, one way or another.

    We can so easily pass along abusive manipulation, in the name of control rather than true personal power. Awakening to ourselves, and the energy we offer to the world through our words and actions, is the first step to creating change and social transformation, I truly believe that.

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  • For clarity, when I balk at the “constant conflict,” I don’t mean about issues and debating perspectives for clearer vision about objectives, if it is productive. I’m talking about ego conflict and control issues, which so often steal the spotlight from the goals and distract from the issues. So many mind games played in groups, and some serious manipulation.

    Personally, I believe that is what is the crux of this community in particular, what brings psych survivors together. These mind games (gaslighting, etc.) is what does the damage, to begin with, and what leads people to seek help. And, it is often undetected it is so subtle and insidious. Drives people to madness. This is what becomes most draining of all, especially repeating this in a psych survivor group.

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  • It was rough, but most definitely empowering, and it served me well to be on my own and fight my own battle. I wouldn’t have though I could pull it off, but I did, and it grew me and made me feel fit for the world once again. Nothing at all to be sorry about, it was my path to take and it served me as healing transformation, that’s the most important part of my story. It was my personal battle to fight, and I was very proud of winning it even with all they threw at me. Healing from this brought me a lot of enlightenment, which is the point of facing our trials and tribulations with authenticity.

    Personally, I have a hard time in groups. I find them virtually impossible, group dynamics are tricky to navigate, I think, and tends to bring up our family roles to repeat social trauma. Becomes all about control, and I rarely see justice modeled in a group. I find that bullies tend to wind up in leadership positions, and that’s just a repeat of the system, so *real* change, at the core, doesn’t really occur, simply more illusions to replace the old ones. One thing I’ve had it with is the repetition cycle of corruption. I think we need an entirely new perspective for real change to come about. That’s how it worked in my personal life, in any event, and I believe that applies to the bigger picture of society, as well.

    Although, as a long-standing LGBT community member who participated in all sorts of pro-marriage equality events (I lived in Castro District of San Francisco for 17 years), I do understand the power of numbers. Still, for me, personally, group dynamics tend to be more difficult than acting alone, ironically enough.

    I love activism but I think it’s changing, due to the way humanity has shifted into fear and anger, due to en masse injustice and mega-violence. This is not the 60s or 70s any longer. The world has become much more dense and fast-moving (electronic) since then. We’re in much different times now with social dynamics that are killing people at worst and leaving them in the dust at best. Groups seems to replicate this, I’ve noticed, the constant conflict is maddening.

    That’s just me, though. I so very much appreciate your thoughts, Bonnie. I’ve enjoyed learning about activism from your work, been really interesting for me. Thank you.

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  • Overall, I agree, Bonnie, but I also think it depends on the relationship of the activist to society. Success in creating change is exhilarating, but the road there can be vastly divergent experiences for people. We’re in different life stations and I believe that matters quite a bit regarding the effect of activism on our energy and health. There are myriad reasons people are led to activism.

    I did well in a legal mediation 12 years ago against blatant discrimination, and it was not only life-affirming, but also life-saving. And it all led to where I am now, which is good. And aside from good life changes for me, it led to changes in the community, so that felt good.

    However, I cannot say enough the seriously negative (draining) impact that this had on me, regardless. I was facing monsters, extremely dishonest and exploitative. The mediator saw this clearly when I told my story of what happened. It was the most needlessly oppressive and blatantly discriminating operation and work environment I’d ever experienced, and I worked retail for 17 years!

    I didn’t have the support system that my employers would have, I was facing pure uncertainty. One very keenly empathic, big-hearted, and clear minded attorney was my salvation, 5 months after this happened. I did not give up, and I faced a lot of seriously stigmatizing crap going from lawyer to lawyer, until I found someone who saw past the stigma to actually see and hear *me,* and finally listened and got it.

    This was my first job back in the field after having gone through a brief period of disability to get off the drugs, and during my success in work and in healing, all this discrimination started, and it was devastating to me. This was VOC REHAB, and they knew I was healing and I was hired after I did their program and healed by leaps and bounds. It was their idea to hire me, I did not go to them, they came to me. Then they turned on me with blatant discrimination, and it was evil what unfolded over the next few months, I will just tell you. They stonewalled me in every direction.

    All smoke & mirrors I discovered. My co-workers knew I was right and supported me personally, but they feared these employers and said nothing to them, only to me, in whispers. Yes, I was very naïve, but this woke me up fast and hard. They eventually closed.

    This was the epitome of “the system.”

    Despite my success and the changes which incurred as a result of my action here, it took me a while to heal from how I was treated, that was tricky and intricate—really, the utter shock of such systemic barbarianism. Simply from very honestly and diligently trying to move along humbly and get back in the swing of things, I found myself in a whirlpool of corruption and discrimination, and that’s not so easy to heal, at least not at first. I was extremely vulnerable and sensitive at the time, as to be expected. They had no clue about how to deal with these vital life transitions they were supposed to be supporting, and I was kind of counting on at least competence. But no, this was a mess, and to them, perfectly normal.

    It’s really quite a shock to the system to suddenly be treated second class, and extremely rudely, disrespectfully, utterly patronizingly, and in a controlling manner, as though I were a bad child who didn’t know my place–especially when everything is going great for me, on my way back. I’d worked for years, I wasn’t green. I was in my 40s at the time, my bosses were way younger than me, hot shots, complete snobs. The harm was not about my ego, it was about my nervous system. I was disoriented from it, and had to do all sorts of multi-dimensional healing in order to gain my balance, clarity and sense of self again.

    But I get what happened now, I know the story and what it means to my own life path and purpose. My healing was all about accepting this and learning from it, using it to heal from core issues, which worked for me. It was a valuable and meaningful life education and great things came from it, especially my personal freedom, so it really is behind me at this point.

    But I can’t help but to stick my nose in this still, even though it can be frustrating and triggering. I can’t stand what I learned about how we operate and take pride in whatever changes speaking my truth has brought about. I’m always feeling a bit vulnerable at this point, I’ve gotten used to that. It’s fine.

    So yes, activism can be life-affirming and enriching, indeed, and right now I believe it’s necessary. Still, it can also be dangerous and toxic, if we are at the front lines standing up for ourselves and challenging these very narcissistic people. At present, this is how I’m seeing it. It’s a huge dilemma in how to deal with extreme narcissists who will no way no how listen to reason, and use all sorts of dirty tricks and dangerous mind games to maintain power—including pissing you off so badly that they’re just waiting for you to act “crazed,” then they got you.

    People with histories face consequence for showing anger in the face of oppression. Another way it is draining and unhealthful. That anger builds if not, somehow, expressed in words or action.

    Two perspectives of the same coin, I guess.

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  • Reading this made me feel the oppression of living in modern society. It’s easy to see how utterly stressful and paranoid-making life, itself, can be. It’s par for the course, which is why people are burnt out from it all and stressed beyond reason, even if they have been fortunate and skillful enough to be fruitful in their efforts. It’s always a super pain in the ass, regardless, because we cannot trust. These institutions can so effortlessly betray people, and so often do as standard practice.

    “The system is not our friend.” True, and it is draining and ill-making to all concerned, totally energy-sucking. So why on earth do we allow it to continue to exist? It serves a few at the expense of everyone else. Certainly the numbers are on our side to change this.

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  • “Doidge’s passion for healing might be expected, given his own medical training as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst but, as he says, ‘the true marvel is…the way that the brain has evolved, with sophisticated neuroplastic abilities and a mind that can direct its own unique restorative process of growth.'”

    Now you’re talkin’. Love it. Thanks for posting this.

    Also this, along the same lines of self-directed natural healing–

    “Through scientific inquiry, research has exposed that only 3% of our DNA is wrapped up in the spiraling double helix strand. During the time of the 75,000 year cycle when we are exposed to the most torsion energy waves and it affects our DNA by reorganizing the 97% “junk” DNA from a 2-strand double helix to a 12-strand helix advancing man in a leap of evolution.”

    http://myscienceacademy.org/2013/01/23/scientists-finally-present-evidence-on-expanding-dna-strands/

    There is tons of information about junk DNA and evolving 12-strand DNA on the internet. All sorts of new information and perspectives are coming to light around natural self-healing, thank goodness.

    I think that, due to such long-standing oppression, injustice, and chronic violence in the world ,the call for social change is so powerful right now, and the shift in consciousness, as a result, is so profound, that we’re actually discovering the power of willful evolution, through our minds and bodies. Always something new to learn!

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  • In other words, you can’t please everyone. It’s either the system or the client. In reality, the two are quite incompatible, to my mind. There should be no more riding the fence, as this is what causes the clinician to be split, and that trickles down to the client, it’s inevitable.

    This is why I say this field has become all cognitive dissonance, exactly what you say here. Why should there be a conflict here? The clinician is not an arbiter, that does not work. They will always side with the system, unless they have the courage to face the consequences of dissidence. Then, they will be good example of personal freedom, rather than shackled to the system from oppressive fear. Isn’t that what we all want, personal freedom? If that is not universal, then I’m in the wrong universe!

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  • Thank you for reporting this, Lois. It feels good to see this perspective put in such concrete and clear terms. I think that’s a powerful collective voice.

    This struck me in particular, been sitting with this to see what occurred to me–

    “There was an understanding of and appreciation for the impact of diagnosis on mental health professionals. Some people were critical and some were sympathetic of the predicament professionals face—having to work with a model that distorts the people in front of you and is impossible to “get right” but, nevertheless, being influenced to see and relate to people in terms of that model.”

    Feels like a loud call for a shift, with this ‘model’ creating such personal inner conflict and struggle. That seems flagrantly paradoxical to me, to have a personally traumatic and double-binding system which is supposed to help people heal from trauma and inner conflict!

    While empathizing with those caught in this double-bind, still, the fact that we know that the currently *required* perspective distorts people (and how does that help people find balance, truth, and their sense of self? How ironic and self-defeating is that??), certainly is a loud wake up call for something radically new–at least, to protest this impossible task which leads to harm to others through distorted (stigmatizing) perspectives.

    I’ve been there, in a professional sense, and I found it unacceptable, so I called it out, faced the consequences which was the process which led to my clarity and vindication of justice, and moved on wholly intact, with more life education under my belt. And in the process, many changes occurred within me, and also in the environments which I challenged.

    So I can, indeed, have empathy and feel compassion for professionals caught in the middle. But my respect goes up tremendously when someone casts their fate to the wind in the name of truth and justice and takes a bold stand with courage and trust in the process.

    I’ve experienced this on both sides, as client and professional, and the client is at way more of a disadvantage when the professional is double-bound by the system. The client ends up suffering from this–via scapegoating and being subject to the whim of that socially imposed power differential–so my greater empathy is with the client.

    Although, sure, everyone has their challenges in the system, which is why this entire things need to change into something without that particular dilemma. Then, we might see some actual healing and social change happening.

    Thank you again, the information you reported here has been very helpful to my own process and personal clarity.

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  • Plus, they’re both based on attracting people who have been traumatized and victimized, profess to be their advocate so that they will make themselves vulnerable and spill their guts “confidentially,” and then proceed to exploit them, for a fee. It may not start out as exploitation and a clinician may have the authentic intention of helping someone.

    But I think it becomes apparently pretty quickly that the clinician really does not know how to help the client, but they will continue working under the pretense that they know what they are doing, and wind up gaslighting–even unwittingly–the client into believing that they have some kind of personal and social defect which will require their ‘service’ interminably. Sorry, but it is a harmful–and even deadly at times–scam. This is one big lie, a grand social illusion. I believe the evidence of this is all around us, in every direction. The mental health field has done society no good whatsoever, and has, in fact, tanked it considerably. I think it’s obvious. It is way too messy, confused, and fraught with conflict to be an effective healing environment. No clarity or justice, either. Just a big mess, from where I sit.

    Over the decades I have been involved with the mental health world one way or another, I have never, ever seen it SOLVE any problems, only create more of them. It is vampiristic, feeding on people’s personal and highly intimate information for professional gain. Seriously.

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  • Still, the entire field of ‘psychology’ is based on subjective interpretations of humans from observation, claiming that it is some kind of ‘truth,’ even when the client protests–and, in fact, *especially* when the client protests. That should raise some eyebrows, indicating an imbalance in the social structure, which is exactly what can easily undermine healing and personal growth under those circumstances. To me, that’s a social ill.

    Whereas, in reality, this perspective is always limited to the projections of the clinician who claim they are making an “objective assessment,” which is usually way off the mark, and which many feel is simply created from the prejudices of the clinician. This may pass as some kind of “clinical truth,” but I don’t think it has anything to do with “human truth,” in the most authentic and heart-based sense. Often, the reality of the clinician and the reality of the client are so vastly divergent, it’s hard to imagine how effective and even-handed communication can even occur, which it so often does not, another red flag.

    This field of ‘mental health’ is, in reality, all academic and subjective, based on social norms and whims, to preserve “power.” It is not a grounded reality, which is why it leaves so many people utterly confused. There are much clearer and sound perspectives from which to operate when it comes to actually healing and evolving forward.

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  • Provocative and relevant thoughts, Julie. What you are describing that we do as a society (label, finger-point, blame, judge, other) seems to me to be the example of the mental health field, precisely. This paradigm of thinking and operating seems to have guided us to judge those whom we do not understand, and then make all these things up about them (negative myths, aka stigma), therefore creating this excessive challenge for certain people, usually quite gifted in many ways, to participate productively in society on the whole.

    Prejudice, stigma, discrimination, oppression, social marginalization, etc., all existed before the mental health field came along. However, it seems as if that psychiatry and the mh field in general were created to JUSTIFY this level of social abuse.

    Challenging abuse, corruption, and the status quo, in general, gets one labeled, stigmatized, and marginalized, that’s par for the course. And the mental health system will not only tell a story that will justify this abuse (of course they won’t call it that, and play victim, themselves, somehow), but they will also participate heavily in that process.

    You’re right, we should all watch our own judgments of others, if we are to have integrity, which would be our power. Otherwise, yes, this will never be taken seriously in any regard because that will be the first thing pointed out, the hypocrisies. That will translate into “lack of self-insight” in a heartbeat.

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  • Oh yeah, retaliation is standard operational procedure. When I accused my former employers–who were of the system–of discrimination, they retaliated by firing me, pretty brutally, too, it was witnessed. This was my first job since having been on disability, and I was just about to transition from that, and they totally screwed that up for me, without any justification other than their own insecurities and control issues, that was very clear.

    It took me several months and a whole lot of phone calls to find a non-profit attorney but I finally did. It took over a year to get them to mediation, but we finally got there. The whole time, I was healing from the drugs withdrawal and social stigma that cost me my first job since disability. I was furious, and determined to be heard and compensated.

    I was succeeding wildly with clients, they could not handle it, and they created all of this stigma around me, it was really something to experience, like a web of deceit that no one in the system would question..

    Because I stood up for myself, I was professionally blackballed and they kept trying to push me into the margins of society, which was not possible, but they tried really hard, that’s what they wanted for me. I was totally stonewalled.

    I won the mediation, and EEOC said I could go further, but that they’d make life hell for me (which, apparently, is legal and also standard procedure). I stopped there because I was spent by this time. Take the money and run.

    I won because I was right and because it was painfully obvious they were clueless. Still, I had no prospects, whereas I would have been very happy to have continued as a voc rehab counselor had they not been for this bad environment, I enjoyed it a great deal and I was good at it. But they could not handle my sense of individuality, I know that. I was always extremely professional, but I won’t support blatant discrimination in the slightest.

    I used my award money to pay for training as a healer and also for theater training. This was 12 years ago. Today, I have a fruitful practice and I’m musical director for a band which plays for residents at an assisted living facility, and I’ve made films about both, as products of my healing. This feels like my true path, fits me like a glove.I found it when I dissociated altogether from the system, thanks to their wicked, wicked stigma. It’s not universal, though, outside of that no one cares about any of that, other than how I learned from my experience.

    Indeed, we take risks when we’re ready, but sometimes life pushes us to move along. I tell this story because I had no self-respecting choice at the time other than to speak my truth unambiguously. And by doing so and trusting that process (which wasn’t always easy)–retaliation or not–I found the life I was meant to live. I’m sure I’m just one example of this.

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  • And worse yet, nothing new is ever creative there. I don’t find this field to be terribly innovative at this time. It’s all about recycling the old, repeatedly, which is why I stopped going to therapy a while back. At some point, one has to move on and create new things. Otherwise, we will go mad, or stay mad, or whatever. No joy in dull and boring repetition.

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  • Haha, “normal” is a funny word, isn’t it? “Of the norm,” which is relative, of course. What is ‘normal’ for one culture is often ‘weird’ through they eyes of another culture. Of course, that is simply based on the fact that one doesn’t understand another, so it is considered weird, and kind of ends there.

    When we bring ourselves to a place of understanding rather than judgment, then perhaps we can get past ‘weird,’ and find differences more interesting, or better yet, actually *valuable.* That would be a revolution in thinking, wouldn’t it?

    We live in a world of diverse cultures with diverse perspectives, beliefs, and practices. I don’t see that ever changing (at least I hope not, how incredibly boring and unimaginative would that be?), so we may as well get used to it. From diversity comes all our creativity.

    I’ve heard of “cultural competence” standards set in the mental health world–complete with manual and committee–but I’ve never seen it actually practiced. The mh world does not walk its talk on practically anything, is what I discovered. It’s ALL cognitive dissonance. That is the normal of that culture! No thanks.

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  • That’s certainly what the powers that be want us to feel, fear of speaking out. Fear is the oppressor.

    Not speaking up is guaranteed self-imprisonment. People have to assess for themselves when they are ready to take risks, but it is how freedom is always attained. Pioneers do it alone, and are the biggest risk takers who pave the road for others, by example.

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  • Hi Fiachra, I see it as part of the mental programming on the part of clinicians and the philosophy of the mh system in general, which to me translates to,

    “I’m not comfortable with you and you are not adhering to my sense of ‘normal,’ therefore something must be wrong with you (and I won’t even tell you, I’ll just think it, project it, write it in my notes, and share my frustrations about you with my like-minded colleagues). Can’t be me, no way! I’m completely normal!”

    Who are they kidding??

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  • At this point, I think it’s very clear that people can and have moved beyond anything resembling “mental health care”–not just psychiatry, but the entire mental health world paradigm of thinking. It is all based on the illusion and duality of socio-economic classes–that is, what is culturally accepted, as a norm–e.g., that “titles = evolved awareness” and, especially, the most damaging illusion of all, that “money = power.”

    Or, what I would call “the box,” which tends to be extremely well-defined and immovable in this very rigid “mental health culture.” Walking into this to heal one’s heart, clear one’s mind, or soothe one’s spirit–especially from social trauma, which I truly believe is the core cause of mental distress and spirit wounding–is a paradox. That is pressure that cannot be resolved in such a culture. It is suffocating, and you can’t win in any regard unless you cut off from your integrity (and along with it, sense of self) and play the wicked game. That’s survival in that world, to dissociate.

    To me, the “alternative’ is actually learning to perceive and navigate life from a different perspective, where everyone is regarded without the assumptions and terribly discriminating stigma found in cultures where economic disparity is so blatantly highlighted. I think the mental health world is Orwellian, where it is very clear that “some are more equal than others.” I think it’s quite flagrant, and explains the frustration and stuckness. How can injustice heal injustice?

    My 2 cents on the matter.

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  • Wow, Michael, very powerful story with pristine clarity. Much of it is painfully familiar to me, having also been on the clinical and client side of things, often overlapping. The shift in perspective and social experience is profound, and quite telling of where the core problem is, imo. These are two incompatible realities, or so it seems. So ironic, and truly a call for a radical paradigm shift. What else?

    This really stood out to me–

    “Also, since leaving the hospital I’ve been quietly approached by some of my former team members, including one who participated in my diagnosis, who admitted they actually saw the same problems I did, but worried over the consequences of speaking out.”

    I am not one to judge others and I think people have their own reasons for doing things as they do, which I always try to respect. But when people who know these problems exist and have seen for themselves the corruption, and don’t speak out due to fear, then they are purely enabling the corruption and along with it, the harm it does to others. I don’t see a way around that, and it is a choice.

    I’d imagine they would, therefore, counsel their clients toward fear-based living, even it is unconscious, that would be the natural order of things. Our beliefs always influence those we counsel and support, it would be impossible for that not to be the case. That’s a terribly negative ripple effect, starting with a fear-based therapist. I’d also call that “lack of integrity,” as this is the opposite of embodying one’s beliefs. It is deceit.

    Personally, I feel that a good and creative life is best fueled by courage to live in our truth and trust in a process, rather than hiding in fear.

    Kudos to you for speaking your truth and letting the chips fall where they may. That is freedom.

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  • I believe these are the stories to be told, not just to inform others of the unseen dangers of shrinkology, even simply “talk therapy,” but to free ourselves from the trauma of it, as well. Looks like we’re all talking about the exact same thing, and it is epidemic in the mh world, that I know. It’s part of academia.

    The insidiousness of it is hard to grasp, but I think people will start recognizing these kinds of dialogue patterns which leave people on the vulnerable end of it feeling slimed and re-traumatized, in the name of “support.”

    Life is traumatic and everyone experiences it. Time moves on, we grow, we change, and we heal. This is universal. This ‘branding for life’ thing is where the mental health field goes way wrong and runs amuck. And it affects everyone in that society. Creates mass delusion. Time to wake up.

    Everyone is powerful, not just *some* people. If we use it wisely and for the greater good, then maybe we’ll get somewhere. Although, if we keep using our power to try and control others, I expect the revolution will pick up speed rather quickly.

    Hmmm, suddenly I’m feeling optimistic, either way.

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  • I think that nails it, Julie. From Wikipedia—

    “Evidence suggests that rape culture is correlated with other social factors and behaviors. Rape myths, victim blaming, and trivialization of rape have been found to be positively correlated with racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, classism, religious intolerance, and other forms of discrimination.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_culture

    Hard to know what to do other than to call it out and hope some kind of shift takes place after a while, simply from more and more people waking up and standing up for themselves, in the moment, calling out the systemic abuse and getting the hell away when possible. There are many factors in a closed system like this, where the most reasonable and provable grievances are met only with retaliation and further victimization.

    We’re deeply entrenched in this. Good to know how to protect ourselves, but it would be much better to not live with that chronic stress, which as far as I’m concerned, is created by these extremely narcissistic and self-serving “leaders” who consider some people to be not worthy of respect and human rights. That’s a sick society, and it makes the people in it sick!

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  • I do think that living an exclusively privileged life is sheltering. In this world, having money and position allows people to get away with anything–from lying to corruption to rape to murder, etc.–while poor and socially humble people are discarded, disregarded, demeaned, and dehumanized, simply because they are perceived to have no power or value. Not exactly what I’d call a humanistic society.

    I know that’s a misconception (aka stigma), but I also know that is the belief in an obsessively capitalist society such as ours. Takes a lot of grit, courage, strength and power to survive oppression, and a great deal of cleverness, stamina, and faith to thrive despite it.

    I grew up in middle class professional academic family, and it wasn’t until I entered the system after graduate school, in my 40s, that I experienced the underbelly of society, going through disability. It’s quite an education, very eye-opening.

    If it hadn’t been for these trials & tribulations I experienced in the system, I would have never woken up to the reality of our society, and also to how I had been programmed to middle class thinking. Looking back, I shudder at myself, remembering the things I used to believe were true.

    So for that, I can honestly say I’m very grateful. At least now I can make more informed choices in my life, that are supportive to my growth, rather than being sabotaging to it, as the system proved to be–wayyyy outside my comprehension of either healing or justice. Upside down world that is. In my film, I say it’s like going through the looking glass.

    I lived in Memphis from 1961 to 1970 and remember the bussing issue well. Yes, it really brought home the violent energy of blatant discrimination, starting with psychological violence, based purely on fear and prejudice. When people are provoked and there is no legal or social recourse, they are likely to get angry, that would be normal. And that’s when the scapegoating begins. There’s the endless loop of oppression, extremely unhealthy to all concerned.

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  • Yes, I saw this awful story. The blatant and paranoid-making stigma caused misinterpretation of reality, leading to cold-blooded murder. Stigma=violence, sooner or later.

    The tells are there, To me, it feels like a calculated coldness and general heartless disrespect and attitude toward people, in general, and a lot of lying to cover their asses. I wish this could become clearer in the general public to better ferret out the frauds, unambiguously. They are the ones who are dangerous, and keeping things stuck, imo, because they play both sides of the fence pretty convincingly, for their own gain, nothing to do with the greater good. Weirdly, they become “leaders,” in the eyes of the culture. Hopefully, they’ll either be exposed soon, or they will hang themselves with their own rope. That would be sorely needed justice, for the good of humanity.

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  • “These are troubling times for people with lived experience in mental health care. More than 50 years after deinstitutionalization, mental health systems across the country are still unable to provide the appropriate care in the community that was promised long ago. We must ask ourselves why this is so, and we come back to the fundamental issues of stigma and discrimination.”

    I agree with this wholeheartedly. I believe it’s all about stigma and discrimination. This is what I believe creates the *illusion* of what society refers to as “mental illness.” In the family, in society, and certainly in the system. That’s the last straw, because it is where people go to heal and find support, and only get traumatized–yet again–with the exact same issues, and more. It becomes a battle of the classes at this point–families, the system, society, all agree on who should be–or deserves to be–in the margins, and watch how that methodically happens. It is quite the wicked game of gas-lighting, stigmatizing and good ol’ fashioned vicious gossip. So this time, it’s not just a personal betrayal, it’s a professional and political one, as well, and it includes iatrogenic illness from toxic drugs, which weakens a person’s defenses. What a world we live in…

    People who have not experienced this will not get it, and how could they? That is not an ordinary experience, and it creates an extremely treacherous feeling on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level. God knows I’ve talked to a whole lot of people from all walks of life about this for years and years–while I was going through it, and then after I had, thankfully, got it all into perspective and removed myself from that crazy-making reality– and 100% of the time, people cannot get past certain beliefs and associations. It is impossible.

    The stigma is SO PROFOUND, can’t emphasize this enough, and it is socially prevalent–not just for diagnosed people or those with psychiatric histories, but for all oppressed people. This is how it works, the stigma is fundamental to oppression, and where discrimination is totally justified and legal, in practice. Stigma, per se, creates an entire reality (social illusions based on personal judgment, not fact) aside from the actual truth, and it is impossible to dissuade, at least it seems as such so far. I hope that is what can change soon, but how? People believe what they want to believe, to suit their own purposes.

    “We are different.”

    Artists and accountants are different from each other, too, in fundamental and character-related ways. This applies to all “different” groups of people and cultures, universally.

    Although I would be interested to know why some people get diagnosed and labeled “mentally ill” while others don’t. How does that story line play out, where a person winds up on the client side of the “mental health world”? Personally, I think everyone is, at the very least, a bit crazy. I think that’s human, especially in a smoke & mirrors society of in-your-face injustice such as the one we live in at present.

    At this point, it seems as though the truly insane are the ones running the show, and somehow, they get people to protect them. I guess it’s all that fear-mongering and brainwashing, so much blatant manipulation. It’s very disturbing to know what goes on in this arena, but I’m seriously grateful to no longer be any part of that. It’s toxic and dangerous. Had my fill of it going through the system.

    You have a tough job.

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  • I think that, ironically, “anosognosia” used in terms of lacking psychological self-insight, is projected by those who do want to see something shadowy or contradictory about themselves. It’s easier to observe others with judgment rather than to cop to our own projections. That’s how scapegoating works.

    I can’t imagine anyone at all on the planet not having blind spots. We all have them, repeatedly, they come to light systematically. Often, the ones who hold power in society have the most glaring blind spots, which is how scapegoating has become so rampant and standard procedure in our politics and social systems.

    Owning our blind spots humbly as we become aware of them in order to evolve forward is how we grow into our expanded awareness and personal power. I don’t see any way around that. A label of “anosognosia” is, indeed, utter toxic gaslighting completely fabricated nonsense.

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  • “It is sad to see America in the state it is today. I have to say that as a young person I am ashamed to be a citizen of a country that acts in the way that we do collectively, that oppresses and abandons and tortures the weak, the traumatized and the sick.”

    I agree, BPD. As a middle-aged first-generation American, I’m so put-off by our mean-spirited, fear-mongering, arrogantly judgmental, and criminally bullying society. I’m talking about our collective character. Our political system is not exactly one of justice, integrity, reasonability, and unity, much less, kindness and compassion. Their example is what trickles down to society, it’s what we emulate, socially, because it translates to “power.”

    So to me, that system is the root of our violence and social ills and marginalization, as evidenced by this bill. I can’t even bring myself to vote any longer, as it only validates this egregiously corrupt system. Can’t stand it any longer.

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  • While perspectives would naturally vary about this, I’d agree that anything directed at another with the intention of demeaning, shaming, or insulting them should be moderated, as an example of fruitful communication, as a standard. Unfortunately, that would include a whole lot of posts and comments by others, often vicious, to my mind, which are left standing. Although I’ve often been disagreed with on here about what is abusive and what is not. Regardless, there’s a lot of ‘hate’ around here. This is par for the course.

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  • I had taken Ativan, Xanax, and Klonopin for years, in addition to others. I finally tapered from everything when it became evident that these drugs were only destroying my body, mind, life, as well as my partner’s life and spirit, witnessing helplessly my own deterioration after long term use of all this. Klonopin was the last to go, crumb by crumb. The withdrawal was the worst physical pain and disorientation I’d ever experienced.

    This was 2001, and I had not heard or read about anyone doing this at the time, and I faced a lot of resistance from the “mental health” community, despite what the drugs had been doing to my body. I persisted and persevered in my healing, leaving no healing stone unturned, despite what anyone thought about my personal process.

    I was extremely fortunate and found exactly what I needed to heal, regenerate, replenish and recover my well-being–this time, from the core. A combo of energy work, grounding meditations and exercises, and chi gong, for rebuilding foundational energy, gut health renewal for heightened auto-immune function, heart calming, and mental clarity, and natural herbal support for regeneration and balance, laid the groundwork for integral healing. Most important thing was allowing my perspective to shift radically. That was the most challenging, but it was so well worth it. My entire reality transformed, as a result, to one of ease and clarity–exactly what I needed.

    The drugs had masked every issue that needed addressing and numbed every emotion that would be my natural guidance. The drugs had taken me away from my self, my natural rhythm, my connection to my own humanity. It was painful to recognize the hard truths that lay beneath the placating effects of these drugs–and all that had snowballed as a result of how much these drugs limit our consciousness–but it is what led to healing and well-being, allowing me to experience life in new and improved way, purely as my own self, who I am and am meant to be.

    Coming off of these terribly toxic drugs is a rugged and enlightening process, no doubt, and extremely humbling. Probably the best life education I’ve ever had. Woke me up to the truth of the world, big time. “Not pretty,” indeed.

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  • Life in the mainstream has, for so, so long, been about being deceived, tricked, manipulated, controlled, and oppressed by a dualistic and obsessively capitalist system which devalues people and marginalizes them in favor of maintaining wealth and power for their own elite class. We’ve been duped about a lot of things–most things, in fact, I think.

    Waking up to all that we’ve fallen for, and which has led us down very bad roads, has the challenge of our emotional response bubbling up, which can be intense and painful when we figure in betrayal and harm as a result; but in the end, at least we recognize truth and become better informed as we move forward. I believe it’s our responsibility to speak the truth of the matter and inform others of our experiences. In fact, I feel it and think about it as a mission. As a society, we’ve been screwed around on so many levels. The truth–and only the truth– shall set us all free, I really believe that.

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  • Extremely powerful, Julie, and so beautifully written as always. Personally, I don’t perceive you as voiceless, however. Your courageous and luminous sharing can already be saving millions of lives, and certainly has the potential to keep doing so. I, for one, always look forward to your posts, always direct, honest, profound in their truth, and literary on top of it all. Makes it a pleasure to read, even when the content is heavy. Truth is truth.

    My kidneys and other organs also suffered from 20 years of Lithium, et al. They healed after a while, with good care. Been 14 years since I got off the psych drugs. Our bodies can regenerate over time if allow them to. Very best wishes, always, in your healing.

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  • I empathize with you, Dr. Moncrieff. I hear a lot of bogus excuses and standardly dismissive responses, too, trying to reason with established systems. They never seem to budge, regardless of anything (perhaps they throw a bone here and there in the pretense of “progressive change,” which only always amounts to being a decoy away from corruption), and, in addition, I certainly don’t get paid for my efforts here, so it turns out to be an energy-drain, overall, since nothing at all comes back from these efforts other than sheer frustration, repeatedly. There must be a better way, or at least a different perspective.

    Maybe they’re not as powerful as they believe they are, and as they have mainstream society believing they are, via propaganda. And perhaps they are compensating for their massive insecurities and fears of change by putting up oppressive walls of resistance to the truth, and, in fact, do everything in their power to sabotage the truth of these matters, as it would spoil their own personal party. Wouldn’t be the first time, I think that’s pretty much status quo.

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  • Yes I’d agree with that, stress can be motivating, in that we strive to do better–but for our own sake regarding our own goals, desires and visions, not to avoid judgment or to fit in–especially if it is a toxically demanding society! That, to me, would be the ‘bad stress,’ worrying about judgments. We disempower ourselves that way, and focus away from our goals as a result.

    Given the vastly divergent perspectives on people and humanity that we’re dealing with, here, I’d say you’re right, that dialogue would go on forever. We each see a piece of it our way.

    The mind vs. the universe, hmmm, so much to say about that! Both the same thing? Who knows?

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  • I believe you get straight to the heart of it, Victoria. And I agree, pressure to be perfect–which I feel is alive and kicking in our society–is literally insane-making.

    Most people will say philosophically, “Nobody’s perfect,” but in practice, it does seem to be demanded from us, we demand it from ourselves, and we end up demanding it from others. Not always overtly, perhaps, but we have little to no tolerance for mistakes, differences, uniqueness, and the general imperfection that we and life are, inherently. That makes life treacherous and dreadful (as in, we dread each move forward for fear of making mistakes), and in the long run, people wind up drained, bitter, suffering because of this.

    I think a step in the right direction is stop expecting perfection from ourselves and others, and to celebrate our IMperfections, as this is what makes us human. When we punish or shame imperfections, mistakes, differences, etc., and call them “problems” or “issues” or “disorders,” then we basically invalidate ourselves big time and create a negative self-perception, leading to utter frustration and feelings of failure, which needn’t be the case. We do not have to measure ourselves according to society’s judgments. When we go easy on ourselves and others, we walk toward inner peace, as well as a more peaceful and tolerant society.

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  • Oldhead, I can see why you’d want to report it, since it is false and seemingly “accusatory” statement made with absolutely no foundation whatsoever, but I’m not personally offended by it. When I did live with diagnoses because I believed that paradigm via my cultural programming (it was the only one I knew of at the time that addressed my experience), I was really open about it–with friends, at work, etc. My bosses always knew, I told them, I felt it was my responsibility. It never interfered with my work, I had it under control.

    And it was nothing I was ever ashamed of, that never even occurred to me until I actually went through the public system. I could see that it was all shame based.

    Personally, I had thought these experiences I was having were really interesting, albeit very challenging, which is why I eventually went to grad school to learn more about how our psychology works. I was extremely disillusioned with my experience, for all the reasons we talk about here.

    At the end of the day, it’s a crock of shit and applies to nothing practical, imo. In fact, indeed, it is extremely oppressive and dehumanizes people. I used to love psychology, but now I think it’s all academic and nothing at all real. And, that’s it is used primarily to control and manipulate others, to “figure them out.” I see no point in that, it leads to nothing productive or creative.

    The reason my professional work deals with ‘stigma,’ per se, is because that suddenly popped up in black & white when I began a psychology graduate program. That’s where the phrase ‘mentally ill’ became an insult, when I first encountered a pejorative and demeaning attitude about it being projected. I had discussed this in my interview as an asset, which was fine and the panel could see this, which is what I expected, that seemed reasonable to me.

    But once I entered the program and began to disclose, some of my fellow students/therapists-to-be, along with a couple of professors, freaked out and gave me seriously hard time. At that time, during grad school, this was the last thing I needed and it confused me, I had a hard time with this. I felt betrayed by the entire profession at this point.

    Suddenly, being diagnosed with a ‘mental illness’ was a threat, to the therapists. I’d never experienced anything like this before graduate school. No stigma or personal negative association like this whatsoever. But in grad school, there it was, most flagrantly. And it continued and grew the deeper I got into the mh world. That’s why I think it is dangerous, uncategorically.

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  • Jackdaniels, I said the opposite–non-violence, and I especially have a disdain for psychological violence, which is what I feel people in general have a hard time side-stepping when they are in fear and feel threatened.

    I think this is especially epidemic in the mh world, as Kim pointed out. I think “psychology” is used more as a tool for manipulation and oppression than actually helping people to deal with their inner conflicts and demons. I said that I wondered if there is another option, nothing having to do with force, control, manipulation or violence, but more so with self-empowerment and clarity.

    I don’t have the power to force anyone to do anything. I prefer for people own their power of free will and use it wisely, for the greater good. That’s always my intention and practice.

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  • “Status. That is how psychiatry works. It labels, insults and tortures people who challenge it…the techniques are clear in your posts on this forum.”

    I’m not commenting on this dialogue and commenters, just this latest post. Kim, this is so succinct and well said, and I feel totally accurate, that’s where it all gets so stuck in this vicious cycle. I’d draw a big red circle around this, as far as clarity goes.

    When reasonable challenges to another’s way of thinking are met with this, what you describe here, than that is a toxic society, it is completely unsafe and oppressive, and only chaos and various levels of violence (including psychological violence) are manifested here.

    Unfortunately, this level of retaliatory defensiveness over disagreements (which I would call “diversity in thinking”) seems to have become a way of life. People’s egos become so threatened, and they cannot see past that.

    Indeed, when it happens in the psychiatric world, then this only repeats the dysfunctional dynamic which more than likely led a person into the mh world and diagnoses to begin with–and then, yes, forced treatment in order to be socially compliant, which is, without question to my mind, abusive, tortuous, and utterly anti-nature.

    I think for true change to occur, this cycle must be broken. But without reasonability, what options does that leave? How can non-violent change occur when reasonability is sorely lacking? Gaslighting and insulting, stigma-filled projections, are emotional violence, and leads to rage.

    When reason doesn’t work we use force of one kind of another, some kind of overpowering manipulation–at least we try. What would be a third option, I wonder? I’d bet the farm we’d find true change in whatever that is.

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  • Givemeyourkind, aversion de-conditioning may work on one thing but it replaces it with even more trauma, it is a never-ending loop of trauma and post-trauma. I’d need to know exactly what is meant by ‘helped,’ because that can be construed in a variety of ways, in order to *appear to* fit the desired outcome, but in reality, this is not the case. That happens quite a bit when trying to persuade on controversial issues, the whole exact truth is not revealed.

    What I saw on YouTube along with testimonials are enough evidence that this is not kosher and that kids are being harmed. Especially when it comes to any kind of alleged “health care,” ONE CHILD HARMED is too many, imo, and immediate and thorough investigation should take place. When the responses such as what I saw them give is the best they can do, I’d say it is time to shut them down, for the good of society. This place produces trauma, I think that is clear as a bell.

    I think your belief that this is about ‘mental health care’ is where you run into trouble, here. This is not about “mental health care. ” it is about family dynamics that are not being addressed. Even with a kid that behaves aggressively, it is the family which needs to grow, as a unit, and that hardly ever happens. This is scapegoating, and it spirals out of control in places like this. This would not be a good prognosis for future well-being for anyone concerned.

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  • Well, I’m glad to hear that, at least, although the ‘waiting period’ you mention is worrisome, indeed. Given that, and also that they are continuing with adversives and that whole philosophy, sounds like they are throwing a bone. Although I will call it an opening that at least this has been duly noted, but damn, it has to stop.

    To me, this seems like a state of emergency situation calling for immediate action to cease and desist. It makes me think of day care centers where the owners are discovered to be harming their charges, and they close it down immediately, there is no waiting period. It is seriously over-the-top how varied our individual perspectives are on what is abusive and harmful vs. what is helpful and supportive–never mind “healing.” That’s certainly something to consider, when appealing to the general public.

    How we treat our children is one of our most polarizing issues, which I believe speaks to a lot why these things occur in our society all-too-frequently.

    And yes, it is totally mind-boggling. Their website has their “anti-bullying policy” and “bullying incident report forms” on pdf, which is the height of irony, and an excellent decoy from the truth of that matter. Also, I notice that their board of directors are ALL professors of psychology, except for one that is the vice-president of a bank. Makes me shudder.

    And where does their funding come from? Is it private or govt funded? Do families pay out of pocket? Insurance? And is this yet another non-profit with the usual smoke and mirrors bilking funders under false pretenses?

    I think what you’re describing here, Jonathan, is such a perfect example of social brainwashing/programming through fear mongering and emotional appeal/manipulation, and the actual violence to which it leads, all legal. And even were the physical violence to be stopped, the psychological violence is even more powerful and insidious, and long-lasting in its post traumatic stress.

    Never mind what is truthful, manipulation and emotional appeals are what sell and get funding. Well, it’s sop in our society, that’s considered ‘good business sense.’ I think this is what we’re up against.

    This is exactly what I’d call systemic abuse, with all the components of the ‘system’ working inside deliberate illusions, for $$ and power. I’d also call it social stonewalling, because grievances are met with defensiveness and lies. That is an extremely dense and toxic reality.

    Well, this has really captured my attention, I appreciate all the info and updates on this, Jonathan. I don’t know if or how I can help in any way, but if so, I’m open to it. This is really awful, and it is in black & white.

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  • Jonathan, thank you for explaining this. After reading this thread, I looked this up and there are a few extremely disturbing YouTube videos that talk about this, with graphic video, which is why I’m not posting it here, so any curious folks out there, be forewarned. But it is gut and heart-wrenching, and infuriating.

    I wondered how this is legal and still practiced. It’s child abuse and sadistic. The staff doesn’t at all seemed bothered by the extreme pain they are causing to these kids, which really catches my attention here.

    The fact that this is not a no-brainer to some people concerns me a great deal. Talk about ‘forced treatment,’ jeez–except that their parents gave permission, or at least they gave approval for something drastic and extreme, they have to know that.

    Still, these methods and outcomes have been long-reported, so they do have access to the goings on here, and the extreme controversy around it, so in essence, they are giving the green light. I understand their desperation, but this???

    So where is the root of the problem, here, and how can we instigate change? Parents give their kids over to this place and, with all permission and support of the law, the kids face aversion shock to instill socially acceptable behaviors. I wouldn’t know where to begin disentangling that particular and incredibly toxic domino run.

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  • It is so distressing to read that a fellow human being can be treated this way, and that it be in any way justified and considered anything less than criminal, never mind that passes on any level as some kind of “health care.”

    I can’t imagine being one to administer such torture on another human being. That is one place I’d have trouble achieve empathy. Even those whom I perceive to be social bullies and instigators of violence deserve compassion, we all have our stories. But to insist on this kind of behavior toward another human being in the name of professional health care is a bit too way out there for me to grasp. I know it’s reality, but at the same time, it’s surreal, too, in a very queasy-making way. All I can think is toxic, toxic, toxic. Somehow, I don’t think that the phrase “fellow human being” would register as it should.

    What kind of internal defenses that must take, really cut off from their humanity would be my guess. We need wayyyyy more kindness in the world. I think that has become sorely missing.

    My very best to the extremely courageous Mr. Daniels.

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  • I don’t identify with anything you’re saying here, uprising. We are speaking past each other, as usual. I’m sorry you are so angry, but this is an exploration, there is nothing definitive being spoken here. We’re looking for forward movement, not backsliding into more and more conflict. That seems unavoidable with you.

    I’ve said before that I’m not here to fight, but to dialogue and discuss for the sake of trying to help achieve clarity for all concerned, the greater good. It will never happen in an environment where it is all about grinding axes, getting revenge, and making false accusations toward OTHER SURVIVORS.

    I was abused by family members and then again by the system. And I faced a lot of hard truths, and spoke them to my abusers, as well, in order to heal and get over it–with a lot of inner work, focus, and support from wise people. I spoke about my abuse to the world in a film I made. That was not easy at all and took a lot of trust on my part–a leap of faith–but it was healing. And I’ve helped others heal from abuse PTS in my practice. What you do or personally think about my experience and perspective is your business, not mine.

    This website is rife with cyber-bullying. To me, you are coming across as abusive and totally invalidating of my experience, while attaching your own negative interpretation to what I’m saying, without regard or consideration, a total repeat of the system.

    That is your negativity and rage, not mine. I don’t see how that is any kind of change from what we’ve experienced from the mental health field. Good luck with it all.

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  • Main thing for me about this is that when we hang onto resentment, then we have not cut ties, but are still enmeshed, somehow, with the abuse. As a result, we, ourselves, are giving it power over us, even if we are on the other side of the world. In turn, we will more than likely pass it on to others, or we will self-abuse, or both.

    Generational abuse occurs when we do not forgive the past, but instead, hang onto it as a way to self-identify. That makes it easy to justify abuse toward self or others, and even be unaware that we are doing just that.

    If we are neither victims, abusers, or enablers, then who are we?

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  • I’m not forcing anything on anyone, I’m simply talking about my own personal experience with how I handled similar situation as described in this blog–family betrayal, resentment, jealousies, all passed down generationally via abusive projections. I like for people to not suffer, but I have no say or stake in their personal decision-making and perception of their own experience. That goes without saying, but I felt the need to say that here, from your implication, because it is incorrect as far as my intention and actions go.

    It’s not my business whether others forgive or not. If speaking my truth about my own experience constitutes “force” and “compounding abuse,” then we really have a problem here where dialogue and learning from each other because I have no control over the perception that speaking ones truth of their own experience is abusive to others. That’s a perfect double-bind, and speaks more of the person receiving the information than offering it, with complete neutrality and ownership.

    In any event, if one can heal from relationship trauma without forgiving, more power to them. For me, it was impossible. But that’s just me.

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  • I don’t think we can make someone forgive or tell someone to do so, that is a personal decision to be made, and I believe it’s an inevitable part of any healing process. That comes when we are inspired to do so, there are many stages and layers to healing.

    To forgive is not to forget or to justify behavior, at least not to my mind, but it is, as said above, letting go of resentment (and, indeed, it can be very justifiable) for the sake of one’s own health. It is not about “ok, that’s all in the past, let’s continue this relationship,” but more so about calling for some sort of change. When we forgive and let go of ruminating dialogues which only lead us into physical constrictions and mental loops, we free ourselves from the trauma of past abuse. That takes inner work, focus, trust, and practice. It’s hard personal work, and imo, well worth it, if we want to heal.

    It’s about cutting ALL ties with abusers–not just physical, but psychic ties. At some point, we can perceive our experiences as our life education rather than a path of victimization, but the true value of our experience will be lost if we simply allow anger to fester, in addition to sabotaging our own well-being.

    As Bradford says, it’s a process, and it does not mean going back to abuse, it means *ascending* from it. When we hang onto resentment about something, we will inevitable draw that back into our experience, that is how we repeat relationship patterns.

    When we forgive (let go of resentment and focus on something more productive, that makes us actually feel good and creative), then we free ourselves to change these patterns. It is for the well-being of the “forgiver,” as well as for the greater good, but only when that stage is reached, which is a personal choice and decision. Like anything, forgiveness (letting go of the past) cannot be forced unto another, that is impossible.

    This is about stopping the cycle of abuse. Someone has to be the first to get a broader perspective and not repeat the cycle–with ourselves or with others. That would be (r)evolution.

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  • The illusions of society play on our fears. Healing is humbling, and an act of courage. Were we to focus on healing rather than appeasing a system of hierarchy based on blind authoritarianism, the illusions would disappear in favor truth. Then, we would achieve clarity, which is relief and personal empowerment. In addition, our society will have shifted enormously.

    Michael, you are truly a treasure. Thank you always for your kindness and wisdom.
    All the best,
    Alex.

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  • “But how can we better inform parents of our beliefs about alternative mental health care that are so different than what they hear from psychiatrists and other prescribing medical doctors – doctors functioning in the professional role that parents have been so inclined to trust and believe in their whole lives – even since they themselves were children. It’s a real quandary.”

    It is a quandary, indeed, Michael. My mother works as a translator for the public school system. She translates between counselors and Spanish speaking parents of children who have been diagnosed with ADHD, among other diagnoses, but ADHD is by far the most common. I’ve asked her perspective on this, and her response is direct and clear: “The child’s behavior and focus have improved, they’re doing better in school, and the parents are grateful.” And, she’s quite indignant about it, kind of defensive, really, because she knows what I’m thinking.

    Of course, you and I and others who know better understand what this all means beneath the surface, and the future is sadly predictable for most of these kids, that they will have problems down the road—issues that aren’t being addressed now will surface, and they will also have a psych drug dependence to deal with, at the very least. And, we know there are other, safer, and more well-informed paths to take.

    My mother also witnessed my coming off of psych drugs after 20 years, up to and including 9 that last year, which came extremely close to killing me. She knows I followed protocol to the letter when I was going through mental health care. And, she knows that it eventually created catastrophe for me, as well as for my partner. We were both victims of the system. She knew I did scads of alternative healing after I ditched the drugs and the mental health system, and that I became trained and certified in a variety of healing schools of thought, including energy healing, spiritual healing, natural healing, and Integral Alternative Medicine. She knows my story in detail, of course, and has witnessed the complete transformation of my health and life.

    And yet, despite the fact that my mother is a highly intelligent and well-educated person, she is unable to put it together, that the drugs did the damage, and without them I am thriving. She refuses to see that I am thriving creatively, happy, grounded, in synch with myself, and fulfilled; she cannot take this in, her very limited perspective will not allow it, it is all tied to profound social programming. (I’ll spare you the projections I can still get repeatedly from her, which is why I limit my contact with her).

    Despite my success in healing from extreme and debilitating anxiety, social trauma from the mental health system, and a mental and physical chaos due to psych drugs poisoning, she can only feel threatened by my reality, for whatever reason, and insists on throwing invalidation in my direction. She has no concept of the courage and fortitude it took to take this journey, and how it changed me for the better, as my natural evolution. It’s bizarre, more than anything.

    Overall, I feel it is the result of deeply embedded ego issues. When we question these profoundly programmed beliefs, I think we face a great deal of fear, because then we must let go of all we thought we knew, our habits of belief, and we face the unknown and unfamiliar. Personally, I like to embrace new pathways and I find the unknown to be exciting because that is our most fertile creative time, and it means that new things will come to light. I believe that is why I had the success I did in healing, I never, ever resisted anything new put before me, regardless of how “out there” it may have seemed. I left no stone unturned and explored everything made available to me, and then discerned what rang true and what did not.

    But I know there is a lot of resistance, from fear of the unknown, for many folks. Each step forward is an unknown during transition, so I think getting people to face their fears and trust their process would be a step in the right direction. I’ve had no luck with my mother in this regard, she is completely fear-based. And so even when the example of this is right in front of her face, she cannot take it in.

    My partner, on the other hand, who also witnessed my healing and transformation over the years, is in awe of what I learned and was able to apply, and followed in my healing footsteps and he experienced transformative healing as well. She will not hear either one of us on the matter. Go figure.

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  • Self-harm, harming others–both can be perceived as coping strategies, as responses to trauma and overwhelming stress. I thought we were calling psychiatry on violating “first, do no harm?” This is so terribly confusing to me. We have myriad choices for how to cope with the stress of life. Does it have to include ‘harm’ of any kind?

    Personally, I’d prefer more gentle, self-loving, and self-compassionate examples of coping, that’s just me and my personal preference. Although it stands to reason that gentle, self-loving coping mechanisms could calm and soothe the general energy of our society at large, rather than continue to inflame it.

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  • I believe the confusion occurs when we hear the term “self-harm.” To harm means to “inflict injury,” so I think it’s understandable how someone can assume this is an act of violence toward self, simply from that phrase. When it is a coping strategy, shouldn’t it be called “self-soothing?”

    I highlight this given that we are looking specifically at the elements of violence in society, so that we can rightfully curb it. As we’ve said often in here, language matters, and “harm” certainly does imply something specific that is hard to interpret otherwise.

    Violence comes in so many forms, I think it’s important to agree on what is and what is not violence. That would be an important cultural characteristic to discern. What is perceived as violent vs. what is perceived as kindness? (And equally, self-violence vs. self-kindness). Is it possible for violence and kindness to exist in the same space?

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  • And he was certainly not alone in experiencing treacherous inner conflict–our nature vs. the demands of a toxic, judgmental, shaming, and marginalizing society. That’s not even limited to gay folks, it is across the board.

    Some kill others as a result of social trauma, some kill themselves, some do both, some get physically ill, some live lives of quiet desperation, and some successfully individuate from the toxicity, heal, and get on with things without incident or fear, and in fact, go on to create great things for themselves and society, as a result of having experienced this level of trauma.

    I’d be most curious to know what factors create these diverse responses to social trauma.

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  • Thank you, Theresa. How can they not know? Millions of us are communicating this daily to them, have been for years, and they continue. Perhaps saying they don’t give a damn is not really fair, but I certainly experienced this, I was met pretty much exclusively with indifference and dismissal, which is what allows things to reach an unnecessarily dramatic and catastrophic pitch. At the very least, they are terribly confused and they don’t like to admit they are wrong. That, I think is a fair and accurate statement.

    I came off psych drugs 14 years ago, after 20 years of taking one thing or another in a variety of combinations, culminating in nine on the final year of this, which blew me apart and created disability for me. I’d been fully employed and received two degrees while taking them, having a normal, functional, and reasonably creative life.

    But then side effects took over, my psychiatrist became overzealous, and I was desperate to heal, and in the end, they severely eroded my system, organs, and clouded my mind so badly, that I became totally dysfunctional. This had been happening slowly all along, now I see that, from what I’d experienced while on them, which would be dismissed in favor of the fact that “at least I was working.”

    This is where my own personal nightmare began, which also led to the transformative healing I experienced.

    I’ve since healed from it all and have turned my life around by reclaiming it and trusting it to nature, via healing methods I discovered along the way as I left the mental health world and their practices in the dust. The transformation I went through due to this massive withdrawal was profound and liberating in all ways, and I did find my joy, happiness, and peace once again, thank God. Indeed, picking up self-care tools along the way are treasures to discover and integrate, and they serve us forever.

    If the psych drugs are at all useful, I think it would be extremely temporarily, until the real work and path to healing becomes more visible and tangible. But more than extremely temporarily, they are unpredictably dangerous. Nature provides all we need to heal. That is what is most fun and rewarding to discover, I think, because it is who we are, intrinsically.

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  • Great point, Richard, I agree with this. Going from chronic anger, fear, grief, and despondence to discovering and feeling our joy is a transformative healing journey that ripples from individuals into society. If an individual does not feel their intrinsic sense of joy, peace, freedom, and love, then how can society be expected to embody these? We teach, lead, influence, and persuade by example.

    Of course, it’s not an overnight change. There is a lot of letting go, grieving, and acceptance to experience in that process, which is humbling, and can be a bit chaotic. This is where we can embody trust, which I think is vital for change to occur. We can find joy in embracing the unknown.

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  • I also thank you for sharing so bravely and beautifully. I believe you speak for a whole lot of people who would more than likely tell a very similar story.

    Two phrases stood out to me from your story:

    “I lacked the tools to help myself…”

    I think this is beautiful and very humble ownership, and that, indeed, we are well-served to learn self-support tools from the get-go. Ups and downs is a universal part of life.

    Of course, most of us do not learn this as children, so we grow up devoid of self-compassion and self-love. We are taught to be very hard on ourselves, so that we ‘measure up,’ (a false premise in life, but all-too-common, nonetheless, and terribly damaging to our self-perception).

    I believe if we remedied this and made it a priority to learn our safest and most effect tools of self-support, including a developing a healthy and validating self-perception, then we could bypass things like psych drugs for alleviating distress, which, as you so well-describe, are anything but safe and effective, and more so, they suck the life out of us.

    “I had found drugs… and a brand new life. Unfortunately, the life I’d found was void of humanity and joy.”

    I’ve often said that the problem with the “mental health world and practices” is that it does, indeed, drain us of joy and humanity. I know for them it is about making a living, but the real question is: what is the point of this, then, from the client perspective? Joy, fun, laughter, feeling and validating our humanity, kinks and all–all of this is what heals us mind, body, and spirit, and which defines our quality of life.

    So it makes no sense whatsoever to provide “treatment” for distress, depression and anxiety by methods which eclipse our joy and humanity, and take away our ability to laugh, have fun, and enjoy life. I’m sure they know this. I imagine they don’t give a damn. At least, that’s how it seems to me.

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  • Yes, I was stunned when I read my notes, and I saw the same judgments and ridiculously false conclusions drawn by an extremely narrow-minded and deeply *programmed* clinician. And it explained to me the sinking feeling I’d been having more and more as we went along, that I was being gaslighted. What a friggin’ waste of time that turned out to be, he was useless. Plus, his responses to me in the aftermath also proved to me that he was delusional, as you say about your Dr. I believe it’s more common than not, this is evident now.

    I hope people read this and get that it is not only perfectly within reason, but also a legal right, to request to see one’s clinical notes, and also legally, they should be easy to attain, a simple signature of release to self. A lot of truth is revealed in this process.

    Can you imagine if, all of a sudden, clients began to request their notes in droves, to check out what their psychiatrist or therapist had been writing down about them? And they HAVE to furnish them, it’s a basic right. I think that would show a lot of client power that would shake them up quite a bit. The system is really afraid of clients with a sense of personal empowerment, I know this with certainty. Blows their whole cover.

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  • “A) Be true to yourself regardless of where you are or the consequences.”

    Love this, that’s already a social revolution. As a culture, I think we tend to worry too much about “consequences,” and therefore create self-fulfilling prophecies. Takes courage to be true to one’s self in a judgmental and toxic society. And, I think it’s vital for necessary change to occur.

    “B) Be love and fun regardless of the environment.”

    That can be very challenging in an environment filled with fear and anger. Takes me back to A. There are definitely consequences to “being love” in an environment filled with hate and resentment. Although we know that “love” is a healing energy, so to my mind, that is the ultimate in courage, and I cheer it on all the way.

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  • Yes, it’s the only way the truth will come to light. Of course fear is understandable, but that would be healing and change, in and of itself to face it.

    Although, as we know, people are on the attack when you rock their world, but growth and evolution is about developing a sense of self so that one can navigate the asteroids of judgment or intimidation that will more than likely come flying at a truth-speaker. However, I think if one is sitting in silence, then they are already experiencing judgment and intimidation, so it cannot be avoided at this point. When we speak up, it externalizes, and that’s when we have the opportunity to respond in a new way, with self-empowerment as well as compassion, I think it’s a delicate balance.

    For me, it was only freeing and transformative in every respect to face those fears and speak up and just deal with whatever happened next. One can choose to embrace the unknown rather than fear it. If not, the options will not be terribly comfortable, I think that’s pretty much guaranteed. And each next step we take in any respect is an unknown, especially these days. Such is radical change!

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  • Great, great questions. I am taking a stab at responding, from what popped up for me as I read them. This is kind of off-the-cuff–

    “What responsibility should people working in the system take for the traumas they are a part of inflicting?”

    At least take steps to transition to another job/field, and then quit. I believe that would be the most important thing to do, separate from the system altogether. If one is working for a traumatizing system (of ‘health care,’ no less), more than likely, one has taken on the trauma, to some degree, as it is unhealthful to be in a toxic environment for a prolonged period of time, for anyone at all. The more sensitive people feel it without a doubt and can be afraid to speak up, as these are fear-mongering environments which create paranoia, among other things; and for the less sensitive people–or the more dissociated ones–it kind of sneaks up on you, I think. But it affects anyone that is human, I believe. So I say, get out, for everyone’s sake.

    Then, there is the option of communicating to someone with some kind of power (I think funders are a good target, they have all the say) about exactly what goes on, how the system is abusive. And they’ll want examples. For me, they were clear, I could name names and say exactly how these actions were abusive and traumatic to where it would make sense to most people, at least to those whose only agenda truly was justice, for the greater good.

    “How can that conversation happen without those in power simply continuing to silence it out of fear, shame, or self-protection?”

    I don’t see a conversation happening, I see the action of separation and boycott. I think that would be the example to follow. Takes courage, and this is the time for it. Again, we’re talking about social toxicity, it will seep into the discussion as well and go around in circles. Been there, done it.

    “And, even if we can grant a pass to those who have taken part in actions and words that harm for not fully understanding their role at the time… what do we demand from them now in terms of recognition, reparations and being a part of how to change things moving forward?”

    I think if they can be persuaded to see their role in how the system is functioning as toxic, abusive, and traumatic for people, en masse, then they can be offered support in exchange for telling the truth, and using whatever influence they have to speak their truth about what they witnessed and experienced in the system.

    Good stuff to chew on, these are essential questions I think. Thank you, Sera.

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  • And there’s all the difference in “it’s your fault” and “you have the power to change your situation.” The first is blaming, the second is showing faith in another, it’s empowering.

    The whole idea of “social change,” to my mind, would mean “get inspired, somehow, to create that which the system does not supply.” Necessity is the mother of invention. Creativity is of great value here, over resentment. Although indignation over injustice has been the catalyst for great change.

    Again, there’s a functional difference between resentment vs. indignation. I think it’s best to focus on what we want, not what we lack, or what we’ve been denied, that’s only self-defeating. At least, that’s been my experience.

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  • That’s actually called “the dark night of the soul,” and everyone has one to take. There is a middle path, rather than to blame or self-blame. We discover it as we walk through our core fears, self-soothing best we can along the way, eventually coming to a new clarity. That is the healing path, and like I always say, it is a choice whether or not we embrace it. No one can force it on another, that’s impossible.

    Regardless of anything, we make choices–to act or not to act, to resist or allow, to be resentful or accepting, what to think and believe, and how to perceive ourselves and our experience. All choices we are free to make from moment to moment.

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  • That’s fine, I get that. I think there are a variety of things to consider here, mostly that life is a process and that we all have times when partnering with others for support or healing is beneficial and available and times when it is not. I don’t think it’s an all or nothing life-long proposition.

    So what to do when we feel we can’t go further without assistance and the assistance we need is not available? That’s too often the case, as we discuss in here all the time. Working for change is one action on a meta-level, and at the same time, we can have immediate needs that no one is available to fulfill. What then? I think that’s a void where people often fall into because they do not know their own power and do not trust their own process.

    I’m speaking of adults here, children are a different matter. People with disabilities is a controversial issue on many levels. There is a lot to explore here that is not easy for anyone. Even Mr. Whitaker’s work centers around the dramatic rise in people labeled as “disabled,” and we are exploring the various reasons for this. I believe there are quite a few reasons for this.

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  • And yes, I’ve had a lot of advantages in life. When I went through the “disability system,” I saw the effects of chronic social trauma, poverty, and homelessness on the face of my peers. I’d never seen such grit and courage, I was extremely humbled and moved. It would have been very cruel and stupid of me to preach gratitude and forgiveness to them. Instead, we shared in the details of our traumas, with mutual compassion.

    Whereas I had for a long time resented this entire experience for what it once had led me to believe about myself and the social trauma that came with that, I really cherish it now, in retrospect. This was after graduate school, which did not even begin to approach the multiple educations and level support I received from others in my plight at that time. Peer support does have its value, if not for the political implication at present.

    There was a time when it meant just that, peers who support each other, because they are peers–in whatever station in life.

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  • “No one is arguing against independence and I am not sure how you could conclude otherwise.”

    When I read this sentence, “Independence, lack of emotion or vulnerability, and material wealth are what most of us are taught to strive for, above and beyond most anything,” what I immediately thought of is how some people can get kind of attached to being dependent, from learned helplessness. I don’t blame nor judge the person in any way, but I do feel it is a real phenomenon and worthy of being addressed, for all concerned. That can lead to newfound empowerment for that individual. That’s my personal perspective and experience.

    I do realize that some situations are far more complex and challenging than others. Still, we are, indeed, like you say, all on different paths and so any kind of comparison I find to be irrelevant. We are to our experience as others are to theirs, we cannot compare them otherwise, it would be a false comparison because no one fully knows another’s path. We are individual beings, comparisons between people have no real and true foundation, and is, in and of itself, dehumanizing and dismissive, to my mind.

    “Of course, people need to move forward but when assistance is not available in spite of their best efforts, it is kind of insulting to tell someone to pull themselves up by their boot.”

    First of all, so when assistance is not available, what would you suggest someone do? NOT pull themselves up? Stay in chronic lament mode that no one will help them? I’d suggest finding inspiration to take some kind of action that would fill that void. Not only would that help them, but then new ground would be broken, and that’s exactly what we need for change to occur. Someone’s gotta take that first step.

    Perhaps you and some would say that this is not possible for everyone. So then you have a person with no assistance and without the capability of being inspired into some kind of action to remedy their own situation. That feels pretty hopeless to me, and I have a really hard time going there. To me, that is what would really and truly be insulting, to not have faith in a person’s ability to move themselves forward when no one else is around, which sometimes is the case, that’s just a fact at this time. And yes, we’re wanting to change that, but in the end, people simply cannot be controlled and we must take control, ourselves.

    We are stronger than we think, and if a person cannot believe that about themselves, then ok, that’s not my business. I would not argue, but I’d have a hard time with any kind of conversation with that person, I’d imagine.

    Second, not everyone finds this insulting, some people find it be appropriately challenging. A perceptive person would know the difference in the moment, based on what the facts and energy of the present time situation.

    When I post on here, I speak generally about healing, not for specific audiences, because there are people at all sorts of levels of their journey here. So if it does not apply, it’s fine to ignore. For some, it may apply, so I give my perspective. I don’t see anything insulting about this. That would be in the interpretation of the beholder, because it is not universal.

    Although I’m aware that in this community, that is challenging, for whatever reasons. Still, I know it is not at all across the boards in the world, and that many people respond well when they realize it is up to them to take the next step, no one can do it for them. When we make that intention, we discover power and inner strength we had no idea we had. At some point, that is true for everyone. If it’s not your time, it’s not your time. That is every individual person’s decision to make for themselves. No one can do it for them.

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  • “I’m not sure how it works in other parts of the world, but I do know that here in the US a central message of our culture is to pick yourself up by the bootstraps, toughen up, and stop blaming others for your problems.”

    “If you’re poor, it’s your fault. If you’re sad, you’re a baby. If you ask for help, you’re a moocher demanding a handout. Independence, lack of emotion or vulnerability, and material wealth are what most of us are taught to strive for, above and beyond most anything.”

    I don’t see how these sentences don’t necessary follow, seems like a jump to me. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect people to take responsibility for themselves and, at some point in their process, to “pull themselves up.” Relying on support is certainly also reasonable and necessary at times, but I don’t see “independence” as a bad goal to have whatsoever. In fact, that would seem highly desirable, to my mind. Even if it seems far-fetched, working with that intention in mind is empowering.

    And at some point, it’s sound to stop blaming others, even if it is their fault. Regardless, we can take the wheel of our own life at any time and take back our power. When we blame others, we give them our power and stay stuck in past time. Power and well-being are found in present time, not hanging on to the past. Life does move forward, with or without us.

    We may feel justified in blaming even society, but in the end, when we blame, we give away our power to make change. Chronic blame keeps us stuck because we give our power to others.

    Still, calling someone “a baby” for being sad or telling someone suffering in poverty that it is their “fault” is actually cruel, cold, and completely devoid of empathy, to my mind. It is dehumanizing. I believe there is a middle ground between the first two statements.

    “On the other hand, displays of melancholy, pain, fear, or uncertainty are not only spurned, but they often have dire consequences.”

    This is true–being authentic in our emotions can lead to diagnoses, stigma, discrimination, judgment, shame, etc., which, in turn, can lead to all sorts of social ills and marginalization that can destroy lives–that is, systemic bullying. Being human is a high risk endeavor in our toxic society. I don’t know anyone who has not been traumatized by life, it seems to be inevitable with all the mixed messages, double-binds, and illusions which we face along the way.

    Healing from trauma is transformative in that it can create healing and change not just for an individual, but also for an entire community. Perhaps it can also transform the world into one that is safe and enjoyable. That would be seriously radical change.

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  • In fact, I always recommend to people that they request their notes, so they can see whether or not everyone is on the same page. When I finally got my notes from the last case manager I saw (who was also senior staff psychologist at this agency), I could see clearly that I’d been betrayed, and took steps to transition out of that mess. And one of those steps was to tell this guy exactly what I thought about his “practices,” to his face.

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  • “In other words, the current paradigm of care is 100% the opposite of beneficial, if recovery is, in fact, the goal. But, of course, we now know recovery is not the goal of many of the psychiatrists. Their goal is to convince people they have “lifelong, incurable, genetic mental illnesses,” then create “lifelong, incurable, iatrogenic mental illnesses” in their patients, with their drugs. This is also known as gas lighting a person, and ‘mental abuse,’ rather than ‘mental health care,’ however.”

    Perfect, every word is the absolute truth. And I’d emphasize ‘current paradigm of care,’ so as to not personalize it.

    It is not about individual clinicians, it is about the embedded and horribly stigmatizing mindset fostered in education and training, on an institutional level, creating systemic abuse. We have example after example after example. I’d be curious what the psychiatric rebuttal would be to what you say, Someone Else, exactly as you state it. I know we have plenty of evidence to back us up. It’s all in the notes…

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  • A left out one thing–I also had to work hard to re-build my inner ecology (gut flora), which is feeds our natural auto-immune/self-healing mechanisms. The psych drugs pretty much destroyed this, which is why I feel there are so many physical illnesses related to taking psych drugs: it’s because the drugs undermine our immune system.

    Healthy inner ecology also leads to a relaxed heart and clear mind, it is all directly related.

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  • “What helps people stop their psychiatric medications?” “What gets in the way of stopping?”

    These are the perfect questions of course. However, I was also curious about the 5-year mark. Seems that long term post-tapering would be indicative of what is possible, without the fear of relapsing.

    I’ve been off psych drugs for 14 years, after having taken them for 20 years. During the last year, I had been prescribed, and proceeded to take, 9 different drugs off all sorts. I was desperate, had student loans to pay, and did not realize that I was being poisoned. I ended up firing that psychiatrist (after letting her know very directly that she out and out disabled me), and tapered on my own.

    The mh folks predicted that I would fail in my endeavor, that it would be impossible, and I didn’t know anyone at all who had come off psych drugs, so I was on my own. 14 years later, I’m healthy, grounded, and living a good life, the way I had intended.

    This is what helped:

    Support from real and authentic healers. I sought teachers and practitioners who worked with energy, Chakras, grounding, and heart healing. I found a brilliant 5th generation herbalist who knew how to help me detox, regenerate what had been damaged from the psych drugs, strengthen my nervous system, and bring all of my organs back into balance. She was extremely nurturing and supportive, like I’d never experienced in the mental health world.

    I did many things recommended to move and balance energy, such as acupuncture and Chi Gong. I found Chinese Medicine to be invaluable when detoxing from psych drugs.

    Not only does our body go through core readjustments, but also the issues which were suppressed by the psych drugs do surface, so those must be addressed, somehow. I like to recommend psychic healing, which many say one good energy healing is like years of therapy. That was my experience, as well, when I was healing. Really cuts through our inner muck in order to get the clarity we seek, and provides hardy quantum healing.

    And, most importantly, I had to really and truly forgive the past, own my life, and learn to make better choices for myself, based on my own inner guidance and not based on the judgments and expectations of others and society as a whole. That is, I had to see through all of the bullshit lies and programming from our media, etc., and wake up to who we really are and acknowledge the need for radical change. I embraced my own transformation in this process, with trust. Trust is a vital factor in healing.

    This was the time I really and truly learned that my life was my own and I was free to find the perspective that worked for me, and that allowed me to take control of my life experience as well as my destiny, by working with nature and the universe as support and guidance. I became fully independent of what others believed, in order to find my own spiritual nature, beliefs, and values which made me feel aligned with my true self. These were the most powerful and healing lessons.

    I also learned to be grateful for my experience, regardless of anything, as this is how life was teaching me what I most wanted to learn. That was a hard one, but well worth the effort to practice this. Very rewarding, in many ways, and spiritually and emotionally uplifting.

    What gets in the way of stopping, I believe, is a lot of fear. Being around naysayers doesn’t help, either. Some people get serious jealous of those that are growing and evolving, and that can lead to sabotage. It can be quite insidious, just a heads up here. This is when we can really learn good lessons about what is good for us vs. what is not at all helpful, and in fact, an drain to our energy.

    It can be tricky, because as the real issues surface to be addressed and healed, it can be a pretty bumpy ride. A healer put it to me this way, “The waters are going to get rough, but you are not going to drown.” That was pretty much right on target. Change is not easy, and detoxing from damaging drugs make it all the more challenging.

    Best thing is to have safe, respectful support from someone you trust, and who you know has good resilience. Getting away from toxic people, who will only want you to go back on the drugs, and make you feel bad from healing, is also an excellent way to self-care. Strong, self-loving boundaries are essential.

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  • And I’m not implying that anger is a bad thing, I understand being angry about all of this, and it was an important step in the process, allowing myself to be angry, and to express it.

    But I found that after a while, it became exhausting to be chronically angry, and it did not help my situation too much after a while. In fact, I think when we hold on to anger for too long, it becomes self-sabotaging. At some point, I think it’s sound to get past the anger, and start looking at things from a different perspective. Again, that’s my personal experience. Perhaps others feel better in the anger, that’s not for me to say or judge. If that is the case, then I imagine there is a reason for the anger at that point in time.

    Like I said, though, eventually, I found that hanging on to the anger and resentment only served to wear me out, keep me stressed, and at least bordering on being only sabotaging, and keeping things stuck.

    I think change best happens when we open up–like lowering the dam so the water can finally flow through. Chronic anger dams up energy. That can even be felt in our bodies, it’s not healthful.

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  • I’m not implying, I’ll be totally direct about it—people—adults, specifically–are responsible for their own health and well-being, regardless of any condition or how it came to be. Who else would be responsible for it? I don’t expect anyone to be responsible for my health, other than myself.

    Even the temporarily debilitating conditions which were the result of psychiatric malpractice and social injustice were, in the end, mine to deal with. Only by taking full responsibility for my health and life was I able to turn it around and live the life that I most enjoy now, with excellent health and pure freedom. That took some doing, but it did not happen by my going around judging everything I did not understand or berating that which did not sit well with me. I was very open to facing hard truths, and I took fruitful action.

    I know a lot of people who take responsibility vs. those who sit in blame and resentment, and it is easy to pick out and discern who is whom by who is more relaxed, centered, grounded, and enjoying life. Not everyone who has been traumatized by life and who lives with chronic pain–whether emotional or physical–is angry, resentful, and bitter. That can change, and, indeed, when it does, we become healthier, clearer, and create better things for ourselves. I don’t see how it can be any other way.

    And no, it’s not magic and it does not happen overnight, it’s hard work and it takes time, patience, diligence, and focus. It’s a choice what we believe and what actions we take. From whatever we put out, it comes back to us, one way or another. I don’t think that’s such a stretch.

    And, you’re right, I think if we each took responsibility for our own lives and stopped trying to be saviors for others, and let each of us choose how to direct our lives best we know how and to be the best people we can be at any given moment, including flawed shadowy human and all, then, indeed, there would be no need to be “mad” in America. I’d prefer “healing” in America, but that’s just my own personal opinion.

    No charge.

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  • This is a seriously beautiful and heartfelt comment, Johanna. I know I appreciated taking it in, especially when I got to, “Like Popeye, ‘I yam what I yam,’ and I just need to find a way to be the best me I can be.” I call that masterful permission to be. And what an utter relief that is!

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  • Beautiful sense of self articulated here. Thank you for sharing your truth, and for embracing yourself fully, light and shadow. I believe that when we are able to achieve this level of self-acceptance, then we are more understanding of others, because we are embracing our own inner diversity, so in turn, we can better embrace diversity in our communities and world. We are not only of different genders, races, ethnicities, and cultures, we are also all of various temperaments, coping strategies, and beliefs. You’re an excellent example to your co-workers and clients.

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  • Oh, and the reason I’d hold out for $$ this time is because I was doing all of this pretty much as a volunteer (although I did get paid for a couple of gigs). But most of my work in this arena has been as a volunteer. And I’ve regretted it, because it is SO DRAINING to go into the mental health arena. I do my music voluntarily as community service, happily, because those people are grateful. But the politics of the mental health world is overwhelming. There is no room for healing here. I’d have to be well paid to back into that pool of sharks. But for the right price, I’d do it, if you really want to know how to grow a new limb!

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  • Maybe that’s not how it works in your reality, but that’s exactly how it works in mine. I told you, we are coming from completely different perspectives. From my perspective, we create our realities. I know that is horrendous for some people to hear on here, but that is my full-bodies truth. And I’m not alone. There is a lot on the internet to explore about this, expanding consciousness. ‘Nuff said about that, here.

    I said I teach how our negative emotions and cynical beliefs undermine our natural healing capacities. I’ve done workshops in several different agencies in a couple of different cities, including Dept of Health & Human Services in my county, to clinicians and clients of the mental health system, and they were well received. What you are asking me to ‘prove’ is covered in these workshops.

    You get me a nice big grant and set me up, and I’ll be happy to put that money where my mouth is. I’m confident about what I teach. Shouldn’t I be? Or should I be insecure about it an full of doubts. I don’t think so!

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  • As far as I know, I never, ever said anything about my ‘enlightened’ point of view. I truly believe everyone is enlightened, and everyone’s perspective is to be honored and respected. Dialogue can help us to grow and learn more, from divergent perspectives, but how am I supposed to have a neutral dialogue about important with this kind of energy coming at me? As far as I know, I’ve been extremely direct, where was I passive aggressive?

    Again, we are in two different realities with divergent interpretations of words and meanings. That makes this particularly challenging.

    Re growing a new limb, absolutely this is possible, as cells naturally regenerate. What stops this natural self-healing and self-regeneration process is our cynicism, doubt, and fears. There is tons more to say about this, to fill in the blanks about how this process works, but this is not the place for it. However I have taught classes in how this works.

    I don’t know whether or not this will satisfy you, and I don’t mind being challenged. But can you please be a bit more neutral and open about it, if you really are after clarity? I’m not looking for a fight. I’ve had enough of that in the system.

    This is about clarity and solutions, and getting personal and angry because you don’t like what I’m saying is more on you than on me, as far as clarity goes. Clarity and real true progress toward change would require a clearing of static like this. That’s just a fact.

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  • Also, uprising, what I say about healing has nothing to do with the impact of psychiatric abuse and malpractice. Those are two different issues. Like so many others, I was also horrendously injured in multiple ways by psychiatry that I was led to believe would never heal. I challenged those beliefs, and I won the challenge.

    Why so argumentative? This could be a neutral, interesting, and perhaps enlightening discussion that could help others, were it not for all the personal slurs. I empathize with Bob when he attempts to dialogue with the psychiatric suits. Key words: open-mindedness and curiosity.

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  • Also, in general, detaching from what other people think is always a way to feel much better about any situation, that brings tons of relief. Then, we can simply focus on our truth, and our inner guidance, which is exactly how we discover our true selves and the paths we intend for ourselves.

    This is all about self-healing, we really do have quite a bit of untapped power there. To me, were we to foster this diligently, that would put most traditional western medicine out of business–at least the corrupt part of it, which I guess may be most of it, I don’t know. Hard to tell what is going on in all that smoke-screening, but I do know we have the power to focus our own healing when we detach from outside opinions about the trajectory of our own lives.

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  • Ragnarok, this is the key, what you say here:

    “I’m not saying that TD is something that can never be improved in any way,”

    That would be the belief to follow. It is one step at a time. Start with taking steps to improve it, and don’t look past that, stay in present time with the belief that you are taking steps to improve, and then mark the improvement. That will shift your energy automatically, and changes will begin to occur, inside and outside your body, because you are going toward feeling relief. See what happens, but don’t try to predict the future. Just stick with the belief that you can, indeed, improve, and start asking yourself “how?” then see how you are inspired, then go for it.

    When you say this,

    “but I am saying that due to the physical nature of the damage that there surely is a limit to how much the condition can be improved,”

    then you are kind of setting yourself up for limitation, because maybe that is true and maybe it is not. Anyone can be the first to heal from something deemed un-healable. At the initial stages of healing, we just don’t know what to expect, the healing process is a bit mystical, there are unknowns at play.

    But if you can keep your focus on “I know this can at least improve,” without any doubt, then you have embarked on your healing journey. Embrace the unknown and go simply toward FEELING BETTER, and see what happens.

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  • It’s also fine to take the advice. My comments are my truth, and which I, and some, feel are relevant. Doesn’t have to be everyone, nor does it have to be the majority or even anyone, really. We all have our unique perspectives.

    When someone responds to me, then I respond back if there is a question or a challenge, or something I particularly agree with emphatically. You do have a choice whether or not to dialogue with me.

    None of this is personal to me, it is all information for the purpose of clarity relevant to these issues, for creating much needed change. I lived the journey in living color, so I have every right to express my truth here. Much of it overlaps with the majority who post here, and some of it is my unique perspective. That’s not so far-fetched.

    I have nothing personal going on with anyone here. This is about collective well-being, as far as I’m concerned, way far and above anything personal or eg0-related. I get that my truth makes you angry, but I can’t help that! I can be passionate about my beliefs, but ‘m not even nearly attacking you nor anyone, not even close.

    We have two different realities going on, great example of ‘diversity.’

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  • Point being, if you believe something is impossible, you are limiting yourself before even trying, which is self-defeating. Whereas when you are, as Bob so aptly put it “curious and open-minded,” than all sorts of possibilities you never dreamed of will come to light. That has happened all throughout history. It is also logical.

    Naysayers are limited because they believe in the limitations. Those with fertile imaginations and open minds are the pioneers, because they know they can manifest anything, including good health & wellness. And lots, lots more…

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  • “Perhaps there is something about the training our psychiatrists and mental health professionals receive that somehow trains this compassion out of them.”

    Yes, that is what I’ve often talked and written about. This is exactly what I discovered. In my graduate training, I was taught to categorize people according to certain behaviors that would be deemed either ‘socially acceptable’ or ‘not socially acceptable”–that is, based on social judgments. It was about maintaining power and control over the client. What they tried to pass for ‘compassion’ was really pity, but they were very clear: that is THEM, not ME!

    I entered the system soon after graduate school, as I was coming off the psych drugs, and discovered, as a client, exactly how this translated in the field, and it was intolerable and, indeed, ill-making. Two of the psychotherapists who facilitated the groups in the day treatment center which I attended for a brief period had graduated from the same graduate program I had (which was supposedly progressive and cutting edge psycho-spiritual), and they were nothing short of barbaric, demeaning, and oppressive–not to mention insulting. As I quote in Voices That Heal, one of them said to an older client when he grieved, “Take your meds and don’t make waves.” That became my anthem for protesting this nonsense.

    This is why I sought out heart-centered support and healing, which was nowhere to be found anywhere near anything called ‘mental health’ anything, at least not in San Francisco. And that city is exploding with homeless and seriously disabled people, and it is FILLED with therapists (and also attorneys, who think just like the therapists–cynically, suspiciously, discriminating, and filled with stigma). But heart and compassion? No way. That is a black hole.

    Good call, Steve, what you say is true, and very significant in all of this, I feel.

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  • Also, to answer your first question, have I ever seen anyone with td? I did work in the heart of the mental health system social services in San Francisco for years, so indeed I have. I saw just about everything. I was social worker at the time, so I was not acting as a healer or teacher, that came later.

    But I had clients with all sorts of issues whom I helped and matched with jobs that they enjoyed, which they actually desired. A couple of them had been deemed ‘unemployable’ (for what I knew were stupid reasons, it was all so personal).

    I’ve been extremely successful in working with helping people, when I was in the system, and even now working for myself, off the grid. No one has ever doubted my empathy, or has accused me of blaming them for their plight. Were that the case, I would not be successful at what I do, and I have been since I started.

    I didn’t blame myself, either, when I was a victim of the system, I learned what all this was about and I know there is plenty of victimizing going on. But I did take full responsibility for where to take it from there, and I got myself out of that quagmire, first, by having an open mind about my healing, and second, by asserting myself with the corrupt powers that be.

    I took it upon myself to file a law suit, I took it upon myself to make film calling out the system, and I took it upon myself to get myself hardily trained and certified in what I knew was effective. That took years and I did several internships and intensive trainings.

    All this while on disability in an exorbitant city like San Francisco. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, nor did I sit around and think about how I can’t because of this or that. I just walked forward and expressed my needs, which were finally met by healers, because it had nothing to do with ‘mental health.’

    I just made my second film, which is not about any of this, but still about healing, through music, for residents of an assisted living center, to uplift them. They swooned over the experience, their joy lasted for days after the screening.

    I do my best to contribute to the world best I know how with what I have, which is not much, in terms of resources. I hardly make a dime doing it. Still, my needs are well met and I am abundantly rewarded in life, with fulfillment in the knowledge that my healing journey can have meaning for others. I am by no means privileged, I was drained by the system. But I am very creative and have a fertile imagination, so I lack for nothing.

    I have plenty of compassion and empathy, but I do not feel sorry for people, that would only be patronizing and defeating. I like for people to feel their power to heal and to create. If that makes people angry, I’ll accept that, but it begs many questions. To me, that would be some kind of block. I dunno, it’s interesting, but this does have me scratching my head a bit.

    Something to sit with and think about…

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  • I do understand your misgivings, and I’m afraid that I don’t have the capacity to get more into this on this website. The way you mirror this back to me is not what I’m intending, so I blame myself for my not being able to communicate clearly my intention here.

    What I do know is that I’ve been practicing this for over a decade, this has been my education, training and practice. I have a perspective regarding the energy of these physical conditions that lends itself to expanding awareness around how we self-heal, which is everyone’s unique path.

    I have plenty of hard evidence of all of this in my own life and in my work. I’ve worked with clients for a long time and have helped people to heal from all sorts of things that the medical community could not accomplish. I have these testimonials. I also work with people who have contacted me from reading my posts about energy healing, and they saw for themselves.

    I should be happy with that, then.

    Thanks for the feedback, uprising, I appreciate it. I should no longer talk about this on here, then. It’s the new paradigm–of that I’m certain, I’ve been doing this for a long time–which does require some rethinking of language and perspectives, but I can’t seem to say what I mean, apparently! I’ll work on it, for when that time comes around again.

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  • Absolutely not what I’m saying, in the slightest. First of all, hope is more than important, it is essential. Without it, nothing shifts and nothing heals, and we suffer.

    The healing process is multi-layered. It’s not about wishing, it’s about beliefs. I’ve talked about this before in here and others feel it rings true, but it does seem to put people off (which surprises me, so that speaks of a different mindset, I guess, to me that is GOOD news). So I’m not inclined to say too much more about that, but it’s been my education, training, and applied experience, that’s all I can go by. Apparently, it is not something well-received in here, that does baffle me, I have to say.

    But for sure I’m not at all talking about “wishing something away,” that would be rather messed up. I’m talking about how our chronic thoughts and beliefs impact our bodies, perspective, and life experience. We have the choice to hold out hope and seek whatever it is that will make us feel better and evolve from wherever we are; or we can choose to believe there is no hope for healing, and focus on something else. Perhaps for some that is more acceptance, which I do feel is healthy. If that’s the case, then I’d call it the first step in healing. Again, that’s from my perspective on healing.

    It really is a matter of how we choose to think, what we choose to believe, and where we choose to focus. I don’t believe in right or wrong here, but I do believe in cause-and-effect, when it comes to our beliefs and chronic thoughts, which is what dictates our energy.

    All through the evolution of time, we’ve been advancing by doing things one thought impossible. And a lot of people who were ridiculed, called crazy, locked up, and even persecuted as “heretics” proved to be exactly right, and the truth is what made them targets for social abuse. Why are we insisting that healing is not possible for everyone? We can’t even entertain that notion, it’s offensive? I don’t get it.

    I won’t argue with anyone who believes they are stuck with what they have going on, whatever it is, but just as a general rule, there are a lot of us in the world who think otherwise, it’s not even an issue. Perhaps that is not the case in this particular community. I’ll respect that, but we do have a choice about what to believe, and anyone can test the impact of that in their own lives.

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  • “I think the numbing effect IS what they do. I think for some people, who are hyper-concerned with what other people think about them or whether they are measuring up to some outside standard, small degree of numbing feels good…”

    Yes, and it hides the fact that this person is attached to what others think, which is inherently disempowering and self-alienating.

    Good healing would focus on detaching from what others think or from society’s standards (which are no measure of health and well-being, as we all know), and guiding that person to feel comfortable in their own skin and on their own path, regardless of outside judgment. Healing self-judgment is powerful healing and brings tremendous changes, because only then can we feel our own light and create from that.

    Anti-deps or any numbing agent only embeds this dependence on approval so the low self-esteem and lack of independent thinking never shifts. This serves no one to any positive end, other than those wanting only to control others for the sake of their own wealth, prestige, and power. In the meantime, people are walking around completely dissociated from themselves, thanks to these drugs, and that creates only chaos, which I think is evident.

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  • The reason I started posting here is because I was one of the ones told that I’d never heal and live a normal life, and dang if the psychiatrist who adamantly insisted that I “face reality” was wrong. And I was very ill, could barely function, or even speak for a while my body was so damaged from psych drugs.

    Turns out the psychiatrist was the one with who would have been better served facing the reality that he was not only wrong, he actually took away my hope at one point, which I believe is very dangerous for people.

    Fortunately, I found hope again, along with my real and true healing path, by investigating my options outside of psychiatry. I worked hard to heal and got on with things, and ended up establishing myself as an actor, filmmaker, teacher, and now, musician, living the life I enjoy now.

    I’m happy and fulfilled now, despite having been deemed ‘permanently disabled’ with ‘poor’ chance of recovery. Nothing could have been further from the truth. This is a message I like to spread around, to give hope. I also back it up. I’ve helped a lot of people heal from tough things over the years, including disabling extreme states of being. I think it’s self-sabotage to give up hope, kind of suck the life out of us when we feel hopeless. There are always new ways to look at and think about things, for the purpose of uplifting humanity and moving forward.

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  • How on earth can providing hope for a cure for anything be offensive? That makes no sense to me. There was a time when many things were thought to be chronic and terminal that is no longer the case. How about we raise the bar and let in some hope, and some space for exploring and discovering new things.

    Personally, I find that being adamant that ‘there is no cure’ about ANYTHING is far and away more damning and hopeless–and therefore, offensive–than anything I’m proclaiming here. But that’s just my opinion, and I’ll stand by that, regardless of what others think. After all, we just don’t know about the future in any respect.

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  • I don’t know, I think shame, guilt, self-judgment, and even a perceived fear of consequences, are extremely powerful deterrents to waking up to truth. Although sure, fear of financial consequences is quite powerful in our society.

    But I wouldn’t underestimate the power of repressed negative emotions as a factor in their unreasonable and extreme stubbornness. Some of these folks could retire very rich right now, and still have to live with the truth of our negative feedback. If only they were not so fearful of emotions and their own shadow! So, so ironic.

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  • Great read, thank you. I admire your awareness of our naturally ongoing process of growth and evolution. The moments do keep circling around, we can shift within them as they do. Although I hear you when you say, “No one asked me what I would like to do. I was automatically deemed unfit for decision making, but that just wasn’t the case.” That’s very powerful. I believe this is at the core of how psychiatric treatment is sorely misguided and of negative value to our health and well-being.

    Best wishes on your journey of discovery.

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  • It’s true that the older we get, the more challenging it can be to heal, and I believe that’s mainly because we are more entrenched in our habits of thought and beliefs. A younger person has more flexibility here, they are still experimenting with life, so what they grew up learning is not as deeply embedded. Life is more fresh and their minds are more malleable, so learning new things and shifting perspectives comes more easily the younger we are.

    That’s the secret to self-healing and solving complex issues, from what I have learned and experienced–being flexible, creative, open to learning new things, and allowing different perspectives to be considered in order to allow new ideas and realities to emerge above and beyond what is presently even conceivable. That’s the process of exploration and discovery in life, and how new things are created.

    Still, regardless of age, some people are naturally very flexible and fluid in their thinking, while others have grown more rigid. The older we get, the more rigid we tend to be in our thinking, because our lives have shown us the evidence of our beliefs over and over again, and it is our beliefs and chronic thoughts which dictate our focus, from habit.

    It’s certainly possible, however, for an older person to be very flexible in their thinking, which, to me, translates to humble living, and therefore they more easily allow themselves to consider new perspectives. That would be to their benefit, because people who are flexible in their thinking tend to be more creative, and therefore, are more than likely to be able to create solutions for themselves for anything that is a problem for them, including health issues which some might deem as ‘permanent disability,’ rather than wait for someone else to do it for them. Were we to wait for solutions from the mental health field, we will wait a very long time, since from here, what we get are the problems.

    Solutions are found in flexibility and creativity, and this can transcend age.

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  • Thanks, Bradford, and I do agree of course, that financial interests are part of the reason for resisting what is so evidently true. I also think that there is a lot of fear of judgment (and self-judgment) were they to themselves to awaken to these hard truths. I have compassion for that, we all wake up to hard truths in order to grow, and sometimes they can be real doozies. But that’s exactly how we evolve in consciousness, and it is a must if we are to heal this sick society.

    Still, my question about why the truth isn’t getting out there is more about what I’m starting to feel are corrupt lines of communication, so to speak. It’s like speaking on the telephone but all you can hear is static, no clear words, nor even the tone of a person’s voice, just random electrical energy.

    So there is defensiveness, accusations, judgment, name-calling, ridicule, and denial. These are examples of dialogue? The entire mental health profession is based on two things: drugs and dialogue. Seems they are both now toxic. Sheesh.

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  • I also think there may be some deep shame and guilt lurking underneath this rock hard defensiveness, which would surface should they choose to once and for all to awaken to the absolute truth of their profession. After all, these are common feelings transferred directly to so many clients. Of course, that would trigger a great deal of healing for them and for society, but they’d have to own the egregious errors of their ways, first.

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  • Yes, I agree, this has been my experience, too. I have found mental health clinicians, in general, to be contrary, as a rule, and needing to control at all cost, not just in public, but in private client sessions, as well. It just is this way, and it boggles my mind.

    I do not see how these common professional cultural characteristic of non-transparency, avoidance, lying, and ‘cherry-picking evidence’ (good and relevant phrase, thank you) is in the slightest bit copacetic with achieving truth and clarity so that people can improve their health, relationships, and their general lot in life, and to feel better!

    Trying to reason and show evidence contrary to the “official” psychiatric dogma brings only defensiveness and hostility, including being hostilely snubbed, it is felt. What does that reveal about a person’s psychological state of being?

    To me, this is not a personal issue, this is a professional issue. I think it’s logical, like simple math, 2+2=4. Fear-based, controlling, and defensive clinician + vulnerable trusting client = bad prognosis, more than likely getting re-traumatized..

    Unfortunately it is a very common and sabotaging power dynamic that is holding everything up. How can clarity be achieved in that environment? These are spinners of mythical tales and fabricators of illusion, and they project it everywhere, when it is truth and clarity we desire and seek. Insanity.

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  • Thank you so much, Dr. B! Indeed, every time on stage is a healing, I just make myself go through it, certainly pays off in many ways. Trust, trust, trust…

    Oh yes, the urban to rural and nature has been transformative. I think I can safely call myself a ‘transcendentalist’ at this point. I am deeply in love with the nature that surrounds me, that is the source of my newfound clarity.

    You know how I appreciate your work and spirit very much. I wish there were a way clients/survivors and psychiatrists could work together in a way that would truly bring unifying clarity to these issues. I do feel strongly that it is close at hand.

    Thanks always for your kind words of support and encouragement 🙂

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  • And he, as others do, would write in his notes ALL the evidence of why he is right, and more than likely it is based on falsehoods and a very skewed and stigmatizing perception of the individual. Not only does this cover his ass, but obviously, he would rather be right about deeming someone chronically ill rather than so pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong, because that would be better for the individual.

    When the need to be ‘right’ trumps the need for truth for the good of the client, then we have corruption as the result of utter lack of integrity.

    The clinicians whom I’ve challenged with the story of my healing would always get gaslighting on me, and attempt to ‘remind’ me of my past troubles, by bringing up what had been painful experiences in my past when I had clearly moved way past that and was–and still am–perfectly in present time with myself. That’s what I’d call “the Nurse Ratchet syndrome,” and sadly, I’d say it is epidemic and, to my mind, the foundation of why this is such a disaster. It’s common, insidious, and terribly toxic and crazy-making. Go figure.

    So it comes down to who wants to know the truth, and who is simply invested in ‘being right?’ Is this about the greater good or individual egos? Personally, I believe one focus is way superior to the other, that would be my judgment to own.

    The reason I feel this is because when we focus on the greater good, there are no exclusions, we are invested in collective well-being; whereas needing to be right at the expense of others and ‘the truth,’ is what causes marginalization, blatant oppressive sabotaging stigma, and a whole host of myriad social ills.

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  • It also should make people wonder that goes on in those private 1-1 “dialogues” that take place in a client session. While I know that the psych drugs are definitely a factor in why we have so much “chronic mental illness” that would more than likely (imo) not be the case otherwise, I’d also point to the quality of the dialogue between clinician and client behind closed doors. When it is laden with negative and false projections (stigma) on anyone that challenges their version truth and reality, that is highly oppressive, dangerous, and abusive to a vulnerable and trusting client who is seeking help, and often times desperately.

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  • “Unfortunately, what we don’t see is a curiosity and openness of mind about findings that challenge their medicating practices…”

    Yes, I’d say the same thing, that there is a lack of curiosity and open-mindedness to that which challenges their perception and reality. I’d call that ‘resistance to the truth.” It is extremely stubborn, to the point of madness, I’d say.

    I’ve had all sorts of projections thrown at me, misinterpretations insisted upon, and words put in my mouth when attempting to dialogue about my healing, and how the psych drugs made me catastrophically ill after a long time taking them, which lead to a period of disability that went on much longer than it should have thanks to that very lack of curiosity and open-mindedness. There was an equal amount of disinterest in how I healed at quantum speed when I withdrew from them, abandoned any form of mainstream ‘mental health care,’ and found my true healing path.

    I’ve not had terribly good luck talking about this without resistance and backlash, as though it were all so threatening, rather than celebratory. I get it, and it makes me wonder WHY the truth is not getting out there, as it should, to save a lot of lives from needless disaster.

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  • Thank you so much, Michael 🙂 I’m a big believer in BE the change you want to see.

    I take very much to heart your messages about love. These are not fanciful clichés, but truly where our power lies, and particularly our power to heal ourselves, our lives, and our communities. Our shining light–that I truly believe each of us is, at our core–can permeate the globe, were we to allow it to channel through us. That was my discovery, as well, and from where I feel true change will occur.

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  • “It takes the brain time to readjust, and it’s not clear if full readjustment happens if the person has been using a long time.”

    Steve, I like all that you say here re withdrawal effects. From my experience of having withdrawn after 20 years of psych drugs, there were many things going on at once that created all sorts of new neural activity and pathways, including actual issues coming up that had been suppressed by the drugs. Cells are changing and adjusting all over our bodies, not just our brains. It’s quite disorienting, to say the least. All I can call it is ‘a journey.’

    The longer we are on them, the more stuff can pile on because we’re really not making core shifts. So all of that needs time to surface and process on multiple levels, including cellular. That’s a lot of energy. And at the same time our brains and other organs are changing and shifting. Multiple adjustments are happening on a body and mind level.

    And I was very active in life on these drugs and interacting all the time, going to school, working, having a relationship. A lot did, indeed, pile on as the years went by, all the while my system was slowly and systematically breaking down, unbeknownst to me. Became an internal train wreck after 20 years.

    Regarding “full readjustment”–it’s been 14 years since I took my last psych drug of any kind, and what followed for years was kind of epic, really. I had no idea what to expect, and I basically followed this thread as each step appeared. It was the only option that had any hope and light attached to it, all visible roads would doom me, undoubtedly.

    As far as being able to focus, function, create, and be happy with how things are going, that did come back to me, after having sat in a pool of anxiety and other issues for a while. My brain felt totally scrambled of course and I was emotionally raw, but normal functions eventually came back and my emotions regulated. A lot to that shift, but that’s it in a nutshell.

    Although my brain did change considerably, because I learned new things and began to address life in a different way than I had. My values, beliefs, experiences, and perspectives changed radically–as did my relationships and the quality of them–so whatever occurred with my brain from drug use to withdrawal to finding my center, I’m sure it does not look like it looked before, it has changed.

    What it adapted to was my heart and spirit–the real me, not the me that was created from trauma (negative self-beliefs, non-deservedness, “I am bad” etc.)–so that is a different perspective than I had before, hence, a different brain, and definitely a different reality and life experience. Naturally, that feels a lot better to me, more relaxed and clear. You can imagine how chaotic it was during and just after 20 years of psych drugs, 9 on that last year. Messy doesn’t begin to describe it.

    I’d use the word “transformation” rather than readjustment. Although there is certainly a lot of healing to do, which in this case, would be radical core change–but back to our selves, and that may be unfamiliar. Another adjustment to make after coming off psych drugs. Who the hell am I?

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  • My website explains what I do. My focus is our spirit to body communication and connection. I think when we are spiritually attuned, that’s when we can really take control of our health and life because that’s how we best get our own information, inspiration, and inner guidance. No need to depend on outside sources when we are attuned to our own spirits. That can take some clearing of static from what life dishes out to us. That’s where the ‘ease’ comes in.

    This is all based on what I learned during my specific healing journey, which I applied to myself and it was quite a turnaround from what I had experienced in the ‘mental health’ field, which only tanked me after a long time trusting it.

    http://www.embodycalm.com/

    I’ve been working with clients for over a decade now and am retiring from private practice in order to expand into something on a more general social and community level.

    Right now, I’m working with music and the performing arts as a way to connect with our spirits in a deeply felt and affirming way. Just made a film about that, which is posted on the second page of my website, if you want to check it out. Like life, I am also fluid and ever-changing!

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  • “The most basic function of any ethical healer would be to promote peace, sanity, and love in the troubled person and they will improve on their own.”

    I do agree with this, and that is always my goal with clients. And I also agree that we should all respect each other, regardless of how walk our paths and live our lives. There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to live, there’s no manual. We make it up as we go along and discover for ourselves what works for us and what doesn’t, as far as what supports our choices and desires in life, whatever they may be. These are individual choices which we all have the right to make for ourselves. When we are not making choices for ourselves and someone else is doing that for us, we tend to eventually get pretty cranky.

    However, I do feel that these goals are not compatible with perceiving one’s self as a victim, as a general rule. When we see ourselves in the victim role, we are literally giving away our power, and when we do that, it impedes our ability to feel love and inner peace. That would be more of a fear-based perspective, to my mind. When there is fear, there is neither peace nor love because there is no trust.

    Also, I don’t consider myself to be a match for everyone. There are some people with whom I am not compatible, I’m sure I’m not alone in this. I think a responsible healer would own this.

    There are a lot of healers in my network with a variety of sensibilities and an array of specialized foci, so when I run across someone whose goals or sensibilities are not compatible with the way I work–which has happened a couple of times–then I happily refer. Hasn’t happened often, but when it has, it’s worked out fine.

    Bottom line: we’re our own people, always. As a healer, I never try to influence anyone’s desires, I help them discover what they are when they are unclear and vague about them. My goal is to help bring ease to a person’s process. There are myriad ways to do that, to simplify, allow, and just be.

    Life is fluid and ever-changing. When we ride the wave of life with presence and trust, we discover peace, and the feeling of love is soon to come to light. That’s my blueprint. Not everyone goes for it, but plenty do. Always a choice, and I’m transparent about everything.

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  • “‘You are a dental assistant, not my therapist, or my spiritual advisor, or even my hairdresser; you have no business asking about my feelings.’ When she replied that she “has to ask,” my response was, ‘No, you don’t actually; it’s intrusive and inappropriate, and I decline to answer. If you need to fill in a blank, write: MYOB.'”

    Damn, you’re good! 🙂

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  • “Try and choose more light today in your heart than darkness, more love in your heart today than cruelty- before it’s too late and your very short life is over. You may need some help doing that from a higher power. I did.”

    Yes, if we make this intention and follow through, little by little, day by day–regardless of whatever else we are doing and how we are living–it would transform each of us, humanity, and the entire world.

    Thank you, Michael.

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  • Thanks, Mariel, the website is great, I think it talks about all the right things.

    Indeed, some things might be impossible to forgive. I just heard recently, “when you can’t forgive some, at least pray for them.” At least that gets us in our hearts in a more loving way.

    This blog and discussion has been profoundly healing for me. Thank you very, very much 🙂

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  • Btw, my family is highly academic, to the core, my dad and brother both post grad professors. And this was also my experience within the mental health system, they just made things up right and left that had profound negative impact on my life, until I freed myself from all of this via my very intensive and multi-layered healing which brought me back my personal power, like soul-retrieval. Took years, though.

    I had no idea to what truths this would lead me, and I was really stunned at the profundity of this phenomenon, and how insidious and damaging it is. Then I realized how common it seemed to be, kind of social norm/epidemic, I fear.

    Fortunately, it also brought to me a lot of meaningful information regarding who I am and about my life path and purpose, which I guess is the point of our trials and tribulations in life, to guide us to who we really are.

    I’ve noticed these types of projections to occur a lot from the academic world. I’ve always felt the extreme competitiveness and pressure to perform and to fit into this tiny little box of social and
    professional “acceptability,” can really lead people astray, embed them in their ego, and these fears of being marginalized (ironically) in their own communities eclipse their hearts.

    Combined with having brilliant and focused minds that can be quite clever, this can all be so very toxic, that is what I found these relationships to be. All of them ring of the MSbP phenomenon.

    It’s not my intention to put the academic world on the defensive, but this is definitely a pattern I’ve noticed, so I thought I’d say this in case it rang true to you or others. I just think this is such a key issue. When this truth really comes to light, a lot of significant change will begin to take place, I really believe that.

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  • “So even if I was doing my thing that I do, it was worth every ounce of self-doubt, embarrassment, and awkwardness I felt. Sometimes that is the risk, so worth it, this being the outcome!”

    This is true and authentic courage and trust, the essence of it. That’s what moved me so much, LavenderSage. What you describe is what makes us human. I know that feeling very well. I made a film where I told my story, along with 5 others, and I posted in on YouTube a few years ago. I was hoping that it would help bring clarity to the what it is like going through the system as a ‘stigmatized’ individual, at least in some respects. We cover a lot of ground.

    It was terrifying to post this and just let it go out there, without a clue what would come back to me. It did pay off well and resulted in some wonderful core changes in my life, that had been one of my intentions, to heal my life. But I took a lot of crap, too, which, really, was my opportunity to continue healing on a very deep level. All part of the process.

    If you feel like checking it out, it’s 96 minutes. I have a feeling it might speak to you from all that you say, which, btw, I so very much enjoy your posts, too, I think you’re really on it and have gotten tremendous insights from your journey.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

    I just made and posted a second film, too, called The Dreamcatchers Follies: Music for the Ages, which is also on YouTube. That’s only 28 minutes. Between the two, which were filmed 4 years apart, you can see the evidence of transformation. My husband and I are in both films. My healing journey was OUR healing journey, no two ways about that.

    LOVE your stories, and obviously you are a channel of light. But you’ve been doing spiritual work for a long time, if you are Wiccan. So very cool!

    Btw, the “reply” buttons disappear after a few posts in the same dialogue thread, so if you hit the last one available, it will show up at the bottom of the thread, in response to the post previous to it.

    Thanks for your beautiful words and all your sharing, LavenderSage. They shed light for sure 🙂

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  • I’m talking about a self-perception that permeates every situation and interaction, where someone is always thinking of themselves as a victim, and portraying themselves as that repeatedly. I’m not saying there hasn’t been a victim act committed, but I do think there are ways to perceive anything to where we get our power back. When we stay in victim mentality, we give away our power.

    I do believe it comes from the trauma of having been victimized, perhaps repeatedly at a time when a person is particularly vulnerable, which, as I said, we are all victims of a sick society, at least.

    But at some point, we have the power to shift that self-identity, which I think changes our reality and experience of life. I’m not making a judgment. I think this is an energetic reality. When we think of ourselves as a ‘victim of life,’ then that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Whereas one has the option to do some inner work and shift that belief, were that to be desired.

    I understand that you disagree with me, which is fine, I wouldn’t argue with you about it. This truth certainly applies to me and is what drove a lot of my healing work and changes in life. I find I’m a lot better off in all ways when I take full responsibility for any experience of my life, and I certainly never let abusers off the hook, I’ve called them out repeatedly.

    I’m not intending anything personal at all, but I do think our self-perception has everything to do with our health and well-being.

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  • Well, I do consider it to be as close to whatever it is I might refer to as “mental illness,” in that it is directly sabotaging to others specifically through lies and betrayal, and seriously crazy-making behaviors, which I call gaslighting and double-binding, both of which are considered to be extreme and insidious mental cruelty, with which I agree.

    I’m sure the perpetrator of this would not see it this way, I guess in their minds they are perceiving what they say they are perceiving, but it is a total delusion/projection. Were I to assign a traditional DSM label, I would call it “extreme narcissism,” in that there is such core wounding that leads to such extreme emotional neediness, that all empathy is lost in relationships. I think it’s based a lot on jealousy, too–jealous of a person’s light and, perhaps, ability to love. Those who perpetrate MSbP, I would say, are not attuned to their hearts whatsoever, and love and light threaten them, rather than soothe them, so it’s very toxic.

    I had this experience with my older brother, and I am in the process of trying to forgive him. He caused me great pain which I had not realized the seeds he was planting everywhere, which others in my family were buying into, much to my detriment. I woke up to it 50 years into our relationship, and it was a very rude awakening. By that time, I had a lot of healing to do around this, but I’ve kept my distance for a while now. No reason to allow that into my life any longer.

    I really support what you are doing, because I feel it is so core to the messiness of these issues, where clarity eludes us all. What you are working on here, I feel, will bring a lot of clarity because it is, naturally, quite well-hidden, and I think it’s way more prevalent than we realize. I believe this is how a vast majority of “mentally ill” clients are created, via negative and stigmatizing projections made by very insecure, wounded, and jealous people who cannot come to terms with their own wounding. It’s treacherous.

    So thank you again from the bottom of my heart for this courageous work, I think it will be a game-changer, seriously. I’ve been meaning to check out your website and haven’t had a chance to, yet, which I will do this evening. So I’m glad you posted this to bring it around again!

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  • I believe we find happiness when we take control of our life, which is our creation as we go along. When I learned how we create our realities, as I healed from the chaos of the mental health system, etc., I went from being chronically anxious and frustrated with life, to dominantly happy and fulfilled. Took a few years to make that transition, it was step by step and layer by layer. I had to make a lot of internal shifts in order to change my reality.

    We create negative beliefs and bad self-care habits from the result of trauma, until we rewrite those neurons, which is what I consider to be a vital phase of healing. It’s how we embody what we learn, rather than having them remain abstract and academic concepts, dissociated from our physical cellular being. When we practice new beliefs consciously and repeatedly, with conviction, our neurons shift, as does our physical apparatus, energetically, and it eventually becomes second nature. That’s transformational.

    We are victims of many things in life, but once we awaken to how our energy is drained by society and perhaps, certain challenging relationships, as well as by our own negative and defeatist ruminations, then we are free to take steps to make changes. To me, that would be healing victimhood.

    When I say ‘victimhood,’ I mean attaching to the identity of ‘victim’ to the point where one is repeatedly feeling victimized (“it was someone else’s fault”), which, to me, would indicate that some sort of shift in belief would be in order, were that person to actually desire healing. Not everyone does.

    But I’m sure there’s no way anyone can be dominantly happy in chronic victim identity–maybe fleeting glimpses of it, when their victim identity is validated, but that can only be fleeting, because that identity will persist and it’s only a matter of time until something happens to make that person feel like a victim, and this would continue to repeat within that self-identity. In the meantime, that person would vacillate between rage, paranoia, and despondence.

    I really strongly feel that this is the result of underlying negative self-beliefs based on a specific perception toward life (which we absorb in our upbringing, by example), which we can shift if we want, in order to see things from a different non-victim perspective. That’s where healing, change, and the pursuit of happiness can be fruitful, to my mind. That was my experience, in any event. We’re all different, though, and we each find happiness our way.

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  • I want to say as graciously and un-intrusively as I can, that I am so extremely moved by the above exchange between Elizabeth and LavendarSage, my heart was on overdrive as I read through this. I was so moved throughout by this dialogue, brought me to tears. Thank you for this sacred moment in time.

    Courage, truth, and heart all rolled into one, pure human authenticity and spirit. What a wonderful example you both are of shining one’s light, very inspiring. Thank you again.

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  • One last thing about the money issue here that just occurred to me–

    Another thing I learned in my training was that we need not rely on clients for our income, as I said these are offerings as energy exchange, and ideally, made in gratitude and trust. But the most important thing I learned is that when we are spiritually healthy, we know our innate abundance. That is the energy for which we strive, as from abundance, anything we need or desire can manifest. We take care of ourselves in this regard, not rely on others to pay us. This is the new paradigm I learned and it has worked like miracles in my life. Good news at the end of the dark night of the soul tunnel.

    Lived experience and training did pay off well, they complement each other uniquely. I learned how to become independent of anything oppressive and manipulative in order to know my own truth, and how to create my best possible experience in life, without compromise. In turn, I learned all about how awareness of energy can support really good healing, multi-dimensionally.

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  • Regarding payment, I always work this out with a client, we make an agreement based on their input.

    In my training as a healer, I learned that we do not do the healing, we merely know how to get into a neutral and grounded state of being in order to channel healing energies. Dialogue is one way to channel these energies, through words and intention. That would be a healing dialogue. But it is not the healer’s wisdom which heals, it is the wisdom of “the light.” (That’s what it is called in some trainings, referring to the universal energies beyond our physical focus). So, it is the light which heals, and healers work with the light.

    When working with the light, money is simply energy, one physical form of it. In healing work, there does need to be an energy exchange of some kind, or it will drain the healer if they are the only ones offering energy. Money is considered an offering, and is not a set fee. I’ve done work for trade in goods and services, when that is the offering, and also at no charge.

    When I agree to this, I know the universe will pay me, one way or another, it always does. Not necessarily with material things, but with opportunities, or some other kind of life reward.

    To me, payment is a matter of self-care and trust. The rest is simply energy, and I think it’s important to be aware of the balance of energy in any relationship, but most of all, in one intended to bring healing.

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  • I think allowing ourselves to be human and flawed is also a good quality for a healer–that is, self-acceptance even in our darkest hour where only our shadow seems to lurk, and when we err. When we see this as the gift of guidance, we have integrated our body, heart, and spirit.

    Nobody is perfect and nobody is virtuous 100% of the time. A client is always a reflection of the healer or counselor, in one aspect or another, so a client can help a healer grow and evolve. They can be guides for the healer, as much as the healer can be a guide for the client, it is not a one-way street. We grow alongside each other. That is what I consider being humble to the client, and to the process.

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  • “Are you ready for your initiation? Do you want to move into a freer, more actualized version of your self? Trust me, when I tell you that it’s worth it. It may not be one trial. In fact, they may keep coming so that you can step more and more and more into your authentic self. So that you can get closer to unconditional love. So that you can know better what it is that you are here to do… not your ego, but your soul.”

    And therein lies the journey of awakening and transformation into whom we are meant to be, authentically, creatively, powerfully, and freely. Superbly stated. And I agree, it is well worth it.

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  • When we know our life path and purpose, it is like a calling–the universe just seems to point us in that direction, opportunities appear and doors open. It almost seems as though it is impossible to avoid. If we are in our integrity, then we become what we become, and that is part of our life path and journey of learning and evolution, very personal.

    Being a healer requires that we understand that there is always a process occurring, and that change is constant. Also, that there is a big picture, beyond what they may perceive. A good healer does not enable victimhood, either, to my mind, and intends to help a client feel their own power, and is humble to their challenges. That’s what I look for, in any event, when I work with healers.

    I’ve worked with and gone to school with tons of mental health professionals over the years, and got no satisfaction there, only drained and further in the dark, so I no longer work with them. Sorry, too many illusions and mind games in that arena, very confusing and it can be somewhat disorienting. So to my mind, no, they are not necessary.

    A good healer is transparent and crystal clear in their personal truth, to my mind, and without ambiguity. To me, the mental health world is completely ambiguous and enigmatic, which makes it toxic and unsafe. No healing found there, at least not for me, and I had been a believer enough to train as a psychotherapist.

    Having felt horribly betrayed, however, now I’m a defector and touting a whole different perspective, one that makes sense to me, and that brings me clarity rather than more confusion and chaos. That’s what I do feel is necessary for healing, clarity, and I did not find that from any mental health professional along my journey, in the slightest.

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  • Btw, my folks were pillars of the community. My dad was a very well respected physician, worked for the county with indigent populations, and taught medical school. My mother kept an impeccable home, dinner was on the table at 6 sharp, and she drove the carpools. We took elaborate vacations to all sorts of exotic locations.

    They were all image, and lived somewhat shame- and fear-based, from their own issues and beliefs, which is why they judged anyone that did not live up to their impossible standards.

    And they were the ultimate consumers, not just of material things, but also of the news and media, they bought into it hook, line, and sinker, and felt we should all adhere to cultural norms. Yet, they complained and complained and complained about society.

    These are the standards and beliefs (and horribly mixed messages) with which I was raised, which is what I would call the ‘elusive wound’ to borrow your phrase, both, emotional and spiritual. They wanted me to be someone else, that would fit their projection–to not *embarrass* them (or myself, they would warn me)–rather than allow me to be myself and evolve into the person I was meant to be. (Coming out was particularly interesting, and they labeled themselves as ‘liberal,’ but of course, not in our own backyard!)

    I can’t imagine anything more personally constricting than being emotionally manipulated via shame to be other than what we are comfortable being–who we are meant to be–until we wake up to who we really are and living the life we are meant to live. No one, but no one, can tell us this. We have to trustingly follow our paths and inner guidance. Indeed, we have to love ourselves to find our best selves and create our most desired lives. Of this I am certain.

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  • Yes, we’ve had a patriarchal society which has gone to hell in a handbasket. I talk about the patriarchy in my film, Voices That Heal, and how this affected my family, and how it tanked my mental health and caused me to go on the dark night journey. All based on rage, aggression, intimidation, fighting, and oppression, without notion or concern about that is affecting the entire family community. I experienced the microcosm of this in my family. It affected my mother tremendously and she can still reel from it 8 years after my dad’s passing.

    Although what made it so toxic is that, even though my mother lived in resentment of my father’s oppressive temper, demands, and emotional neediness, at the same time, she enabled it, and she actually defended my father when it was ME he was demeaning, shaming, and bullying! She was not fond of the fact that I was upsetting the apple cart by standing up in my defense, so in my darkest hour, I lived with the belief that I deserved to be punished. That was my worst delusion, from which I have since healed, via neural rewriting. Thank GOD for neuroplasticity!

    I came into acceptance of who my parents were and how they judged and behaved, and my healing was about releasing their programming that I had internalized. What they taught me about life and what the responses they exemplified did not fit my own spiritual blueprint, I did not agree with their perception, and they took this personally, rather than giving me the same permission I gave them to be the people they are—that was a one-way street. Well, I was the better for it, because I was the one who lived with permission and gratitude, and free of the past.

    So that’s my point, really, that learning forgiveness, permission, and gratitude is where I found my intrinsic sense of love. I could not count on my folks for unconditional love, it was all conditional to my agreeing with them and validating their negative perception of me, which I would not do of course, that would be spiritual and emotional suicide on my part.

    In short, the virtues of releasing past resentments—and also all that I had internalized as a result of this resentment–in order to come into present time with myself in a validating and self-caring way, standing independently in my truth, regardless of how others felt about that, was how I found that internal love, which is what I feel is the God part that connects us all, at the core of our being, our heart consciousness. And to me, God is a perfect masculine/feminine blend. I believe at our core, this is who we are. When we integrate our masculine and feminine selves lovingly, then we feel our wholeness, beyond our physical gender.

    As a society, this is what I seek, that unity consciousness that integrates our parts, rather than keeps them in conflict with each other because we refuse to let go of our victim identity. A society built from victimization and anger is duality, that’s what we have now that is so not working.

    Unity would see that our differences add up to much-needed diversity, the collective whole as a sum of each one of us, an aspect of God. That is where I feel the love and my thirst is quenched.

    Thanks as always, Michael, for these very stimulating and inspiring discussions. I’ve grown a lot from them.

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  • “I believe that our social-Darwinism-based and patriarchal/corporate mass market culture uses the emotional currencies of guilt, shame, fear and anger to motivate us, and by doing so, emotionally wounds us in many ways we aren’t easily aware of.”

    Ah, you have said a mouthful here, Michael, and I wholeheartedly agree. So much I could say about this, practically a thesis, but I will attempt to streamline here.

    Mostly, what strikes me as I read this, and how I interpret it, is that you are talking about mass social wounding. From post-WWII consumerism and media advertising blitzes, it’s been intensifying as the tech info highway grows vastly.

    These emotions you mention, yes, we are programmed with these from so early on, as a way of separating us from our innate sense of self, so that we are not getting our own information, but instead from fear, shame, and guilt, we are easily manipulated by outside information, that we *need* something, or else. This kind of subliminal public relations-induced ultimatum creates false beliefs and illusions, because they are lies we are scared into believing. That creates an entirely illusory reality!

    When we are in these states chronically, we cut ourselves off from our true nature and intrinsic self-love, which would, in turn, generate love outward without effort were we to be in synch with ourselves.

    But instead, as a media-driven culture, we wallow in these constricting emotions thanks to the lies, deceits, illusions, holograms, etc., all those scare tactics, which the media puts in our faces all in the name of power and profit for a very few, at the direct expense of all others. This is a collective consciousness/cultural awakening issue, to my mind.

    I think to share love, empathy and compassion, we must learn to feel this for ourselves. So how to achieve this in such a deeply dissociated society? What is real, in that we can depend on it unconditionally, and what is illusion?

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  • Yes, I like that phrase “coming to terms with.” I believe it is all meaningful and guiding once we release what I’d call “the ego attachment” to whatever our experience has been, which is when we become fluid for change. To me, that is spiritual consciousness, in that we trust our inner guidance, which I’d also call our ‘spirits,’ and what you are calling our “the feeling of our being…anchor of our loving…quiet voice…innocence…source of our creativity [and] fountain of our aliveness…” All of these beautiful phrases add to up to inner spirit guidance to me. When we feel this in our bodies, then we are on the path of our hearts desires, and indeed, we can shine because we feel good in our bodies. In turn, I have found this to be key in manifesting with relative ease what we need and want, rather than to go through life feeling powerless because that has been our assigned role in the eyes of a dualistic society.

    If I may, I’d like to share with you my example of all that you write about, since you have seen my first film, which was filmed in 2011. Just this past weekend, we premiered locally our new film, The Dreamcatchers Follies: Music for the Ages. I play in a band with staff members of an assisted living facility, and we filmed our second show and added interviews with staff and residents. It’s 28 minutes, should you have time and feel inclined to check it out.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8epJMOi3cwY

    Between the time of my last film and this one, I’ve relocated from San Francisco to a rural area where I live among the Redwoods, and my only contact with the mental health world–aside from clients with whom I’ve been working–has been through MIA, where I’ve been processing the entirety of my experience of being rendered “permanently disabled” and second-class (and therefore, powerless) by the mental health system, thanks to these unique and enlightening discussions.

    By the time I got around to making this film last year, I had changed quite a bit in terms of how I was responding to things, and how I was interpreting my past experiences in the system. As a result, my role changed, the theater changed, and my consciousness expanded wildly.

    The residents came so alive on Saturday night, when they watched this, and from what I have heard today, their cheery disposition continues, they not only remember the movie, which is unusual, but they continue to be enthralled from the experience. All because I did, indeed, mourn the resentments, which lightened me up considerably.

    Still, why I can forgive and release resentment, it continues to be obvious that great changes are needed for the good of society. I try to bring light best way I can, but it is not always welcome. So I look for where truth and light are embraced, and this changes my entire focus, and therefore, my self-identity.

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  • “Every person feels the presence of his hidden Authentic-Being, one way or another. It is generated by established circuits of cortical limbic mappings, an artifact of the morphogenesis of consciousness. These circuits remain throughout life as the agency that generates the feeling of our being. It is the anchor of our loving. It is the quiet voice inside of us. It is our innocence. It is the source of our creativity. It is the source of our conscience. It is the fountain of our aliveness. None of this is magical. It is just the way consciousness is organized in the brain.”

    This is poetic, Dr. B. As connect-the-dots matter-of-fact academically logical as this sounds, I will admit that it pinged my heart and brought tears to my eyes. Perhaps as the result of limbic activity? To my mind, it is because I felt the truth of the matter, and it is a gorgeous and valuable truth. That is how I’m interpreting my feeling response to reading this.

    My particular interest is the role of heart consciousness in all of this. To my way of thinking, when we forgive the past, we take back our power to shift our play of consciousness, which to me, translates into changing our role in the community/society. Whereas when we hold resentment, we are denying ourselves the power to make those shifts. I’m wondering if that overlaps with the role of mourning that you describe. The impact of our feeling and emotional nature on how our brain interprets our experience and creates our personal reality is fascinating to me.

    Thanks always for your very thought-provoking words.

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  • “Your role here is as a consultant, not an authority.”

    That is exactly right. I had this same issue repeatedly with clinicians. This is where the confusion lies. When I was seeking support to help me heal from the distress of trauma, by no means was I implying that wanted to be ‘parented.’ That’s ridiculous, and the height of arrogance, off the charts. Let’s not hand them over our personal power on a silver platter!

    Self-empowerment such as what you describe here is not only the pathway to healing through self-agency, it is also what is going to make this profession rightfully obsolete. Thank you for being the example.

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  • I completely agree that the deeper we know ourselves and allow ourselves to grow and evolve as we go along, the better equipped we are to support others when our paths cross. I’m not convinced, however, that it need be any profession in particular, I believe we can voluntarily support others that desire it, to the best of our abilities at any given moment, self-caring along the way so as to not drain ourselves. For me, it’s a matter of spiritual conviction and values.

    But certainly what you say rings totally true, that as long as there is a ‘mental health’ field to go into, one should be well-prepared to face and work through their shadow issues with complete ownership and with no resistance. Otherwise, they get projected onto the client, which is when it becomes bad news for said client and they start a downward spiral, via drugs, stigma, coercion, and marginalization–aka institutional abuse. Thanks for highlighting this. Sadly–and, I think, obviously–the latter scenario is the norm.

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  • The problem is when the abuser not only does not recognize that he/she is being abusive and rationalizes life- and spirit-sabotaging behaviors (including carefully spoken and specifically directed words), but also when they are protected by an enabling system. Calling it out can be rough and it can elicit retaliation, shaming, and all sorts of projections that can do harm if a person is vulnerable. People generally do not want to see they are being/have been abusive; that can be a hard truth to own and the guilt from awakening to that can be overwhelming.

    But how else will it cease? At least guilt is a good deterrent.

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  • I learned this term, Munchausen by Proxy, fairly recently and I immediately recognized the significance of it.

    I agree, labels and categories, neutrally applied (rather than stigmatizing and with all of these distorted, negative, fear and judgment-based connotations) can be helpful to find much needed clarity–IF, and only if, they are founded on something real and tangible for the purpose of deeper understanding that would lead to the betterment of an individual, and in turn, society.

    MBP is a very real and toxic issue that is most relevant when discussing issues of and related to “mental illness.” It is a huge part of the confusion. Your story gives excellent clarity to a taboo subject, seriously brave and enlightening.

    Wonderful work, very significant, and exciting, I feel. Thanks so very much for bringing light to it.

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  • Yes, I agree Someone Else, I think that’s totally true. I had to walk in away in layers, so to speak. It was not a one shot walk-out-the-door deal. Took years, patience, and a lot of creative thinking to see new perspectives. That’s what opened each exit door for me, step by step. .

    Walking away from psych drugs was one thing, then disengaging from ‘mental health’ practices altogether, then social services, then even professional advocacy–all of these seemed to be based on the same blueprint, to disempower, make dependent, and, indeed, psychologically and perhaps financially “enslave,” via all the programming which I believe plays on those stigmatizing beliefs. Makes a big mess for a person’s self-identity and really undercuts self-worth, etc., not to mention the ability to grow personally and professionally. It’s totally marginalizing if you don’t play the game.

    I kept going back, if only to try to resolve things and also to help create sorely needed changes, but each time was the exact same story; I kept running into the same double-binding smoke and mirror type illusions, all that we talk about here. I could not believe how utterly stubborn and sticky this all was, as we’ve discovered, like tar.

    I think at least making the intention to walk away and disentangle from all that is a step in the right direction. I find it literally crazy-making. There are better ways to find healing and avenues of support for personal growth, where we are NOT repeating trauma because it is not based on value judgments and social acceptance, but more so on individual process and personal evolution.

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  • Yes, and the very powerfully oppressive and damaging message behind this is “you have no power here.” The experience of socially imposed powerlessness is why people vacillate between rage and despondence, which wreaks havoc on the nervous system, among other things.

    So I agree, the solution is to go elsewhere if one is in need of support, where one’s personal power is neither denied nor derailed by a stigmatizing system, but instead encouraged and strengthened, as the guide to healing, clarity, and making desired changes in one’s life.

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  • Elizabeth, you have just stated the exact perspective from which I navigate my life (well, by intention, in any event, takes practice and patience for sure). I learned this in my healing journey, as well, it was so freeing. A true paradigm shift, in every respect.

    You bring to mind one of my favorite quotes, by Marianne Williamson, which I’ve shared a few times on MIA, and which feels totally relevant to what you say here:

    “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

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  • Elizabeth, your story really engaged me. It reminds me how we are all connected through our light, as one universal consciousness, and mirror reflections of each other. What we perceive outside is a manifestation of what we carry inside of us, there is no separation. As we shift internally toward our true integrated self, we discover our power to change what is external to us.

    Thank you for the inspiration!

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  • That is a wonderful and relevant exploration, Ron, and I can’t resist taking a stab at this, given that, from my experience, this distinction feels pretty clear to me:

    Psychotherapy training taught me to always be in control, and to not give the client “too much power.” (quote from a supervisor).

    Being a client in the system forced me to surrender control, because my civil rights would not be recognized.

    For lessons in ego-busting humility, ask anyone who has been categorized and “marginalized” through acts of oppression in the name of health care.

    I think this article does a pretty good job of interpreting ‘humility.’

    http://beinspiredeveryday.com/2009/08/21/how-to-practice-humility/

    One aspect of humility which it talks about that I feel is particularly relevant here is: “be teachable.” Had I not been willing to learn and apply all things new and foreign to me at the time, way outside the box, that some may feel is nonsense, weird, or whatever–with no experience of it whatsoever (good example of lack of humility)–then I would never, ever have healed what needed to be healed and gotten on with my life. Psychiatry said that would never happen, that I had a “poor” chance of recovery, and they were incredibly wrong, most thankfully.

    That kind of pie-in-the-sky negative prognosis is pure arrogance, don’t you think? And I’m not the only one who has wrongfully received it. You can imagine the harm this does to people, to believe that they will always be limited. So perhaps that would be a good place to start in the training–“check your propensity to project stigma.” That’s where dangerous and sabotaging arrogance will be found, each and every time.

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  • Ron, as a final comment on my behalf, I have very much appreciated this conversation. I think it’s perfectly fair and reasonable to put on the table what you have, and courageous and trusting how you’ve navigated this discussion to the depth that it has gone.

    I’ve made no secret of my opinion that psychiatry, in general, is not a healing field but one with dubious political agendas that do not serve clients, but more so, which harm them extensively and profoundly. Were we able to ferret out the individuals with integrity and who focus on the greater good, rather than individual personal agendas and embroiled in their egos, I’m all for seeing this come to light. In the meantime, I do know with certainty that there are so many paths to healing and wellness that require none of this, even for the most challenging cases of psychic imbalance and chronic self-sabotage.

    To whomever we turn for support, I think the bottom line is that *choice* is a matter of exercising free will and we can each take responsibility for the choices we make in life, while forced anything is oppressive and harmful. Psychiatry will take a step closer to earning my respect when they are humble to their clients, not controlling and overpowering to them (abuse of power)–which most of us have testified is the psychiatric experience. That’s just plain old nonsense, and not the slightest bit in the interest of the client or their healing. How is that in any way even remotely close to, “First, do no harm”?

    Thanks again, all good stuff to chew on I think.

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  • There are many kinds of ‘medicine’ practices above and beyond anything in western medicine that far exceeds it in effectiveness. Whom we choose to turn to is an individual choice. Many of us in this discussion have talked about the importance of cultivating calm, grounding, and inner peace as a pathway to healing, by way of activating our natural self-healing mechanisms.

    Again, we are individual in how we achieve this, but natural healing is the other option to what you are talking about, this is a common practice based on research and training, just like psychiatry and other medical specialties. This is an effective option that is available to people, and that many of us have faired very well practicing this type of medicine as good healing.

    I know what for me is preferable, based on my experience with both, in depth. However, I’d never try to persuade someone that “my way is better.” It’s better for me, by far, that’s what I know. In fact, for me, western medicine, and psychiatry in particular proved to be toxic and it made me very ill and temporarily disabled, that was my experience. When I turned to natural healing, Chinese Medicine, and energy work, everything reversed, including the damage done by psychiatry, and I started healing at quantum speed. I’m fine now, creating my life. I know for a fact that had I stayed with psychiatry, I would be permanently disabled and more than likely institutionalized, I had become extremely dysfunctional under that kind of ‘care.’

    Let’s just put both options on the table, and let people choose. People can always change their minds, too, if the initial choice does not satisfy.

    Ideally, we would integrate these perspectives–western and natural medicine. But from what I know, most psychiatrists, at least, don’t trust nature and only interfere drastically with it. They do not understand energy and do not seem open to learning about it, it does not seem to fit their frame of reference. I don’t know what to do about that. Were they to listen to the many of us who found healing in ways not easily perceived by western medicine, then maybe we’d get somewhere.

    But this information is continually shunned, and even demeaned and stigmatized by some, and without any real knowledge of or experience with it. I hear snap judgments made all the time about healing outside the norm.

    Oh well, we each choose for ourselves what works, and I think that’s all that matters, isn’t it?

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  • Someone Else, re my comment about psychological framing of the human condition being misguided, what I mean by that is that whereas the mental health field centers around creating our stories as a result of our psychological make-up (“if this happened to you or if you did this or if you believe this, then you are more than likely this kind of person,” etc.–aka, stigma and false projections/conclusions), I think what that dismisses is our spiritual nature, which is inherently and universally one of high creative permission, at least that is my personal belief.

    This is who we truly are, in our process of constant change and evolution, and this does not seem to be on the radar in common psychotherapy, and certainly not in psychiatry, at least in my experience; the focus is on ’emotional symptoms’ based on a questionable psychology–that is, perspective. All that judgment and social values of a sick society applied to the detriment of a client’s spirit. To me, that leads to non-personhood, which is pure social trauma and spirit-wounding.

    My experience with psychology is that it is more about manipulation by figuring out what pushes a person’s buttons (either in a positive or negative way), and then there is this illusion of control over a person. I have found that, more often than not, our stories are heard through judgment, and our psychology is used against us, to “prove”–or attempt to prove–that something is ‘wrong’ with a person, rather than to use this information supportively, with compassion, and encouraging.

    I think that is so backasswards, and it screws people up terribly. That’s the gaslighting and double-binding about which we’ve often spoken. I think it’s common in the field to use a person’s psychology against them, rather than as a tool for healing. I believe this is abusive, extremely betraying of trust, and criminal because it is totally sabotaging to a person’s well-being.

    And yes, indeed, what you describe about change in frequency and how tapering from the drugs affect this, is pretty much my experience. We are vibration and what we ingest affects the frequency of that vibration. That is simple energy protocol.

    Chemical drugs lower our frequency because it creates blocks and resistance in our bodies, which in turn, causes our bodies to adapt to a forced and unnatural process. When we taper from the drugs, then our body is free to again find its natural rhythm, which is our natural frequency, so there is literally a ‘bouncing back’ process, which requires adjustments, including in our consciousness.

    So the higher frequency you’re describing after coming off the drugs is more akin to your natural frequency, which is suppressed on the drugs. When we feel that, which is intense, we realize that our bodies have to catch up, as they have been also compromised by the drugs, as well as many false beliefs we took on along the way.

    Change happens first, virtually, and then there is a physical process that occurs to match it, which is how we perceive the change on a physical level, which marks a passage of time.

    As all that shifts, changes, and heals, we become physically aligned with our true spirit nature, and this raises our frequency quite a bit, it can be overwhelming because is powerful, like waking up from a spiritual coma. The trick at this point is to focus on healing the body, to strengthen it in resilience so that it can follow that spirit frequency accordingly, and be in synch with it. Then, we are aligned with ourselves, mind body and spirit.

    That’s when we transform our reality and really feel our creative nature and power–that’s the intense feeling with which we suddenly become attuned when we come off the drugs. That’s exactly the path that unfolded for me, it was quite something, I could never have anticipated this amazing process.

    I’m sure some people have this feeling, simply from being raised well and encouraged and supported in their environments as they were developing, validated for who they were unto themselves, and not living for the approval of others. A good upbringing will teach kids that they have creative power and free will, otherwise we are stifling our kids. I learned it later in life, as the result of my healing.

    Really love what you bring up here, SE, thanks 🙂

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  • “It strikes me those who have experience getting off the drugs, who survived, are likely the most knowledgable in such matters at this point in time.”

    Yes, that is an obvious truth that always seems to be dismissed at the 11th hour. Why? Fear of change, and fear of the unknown, is what I think. Hard for some to wrap their minds around this pole shift. Experience is the teacher. How can it be any other way?

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  • “the entire system should be scrapped, but it won’t be, since it’s so profitable…”

    With so many options these days regarding good, effective healing, my hope is that people who DO perceive they have choices would learn about what *healing* really means, which, in essence, is to create positive change. When we lose the ability to create positive change–within our bodies, lives, and society–then we have cut ourselves off from our creative powers.

    Good healing guides us to improving our lot in life, from wherever we are, not getting stuck in a compromised life and health situation. Change and growth is natural, so when it is not occurring, we are doing something unnatural to block healing. My experience with psychiatry is that it blocks natural healing and keeps people dependent. Psych drugs and blatant stigma undermine our natural healing mechanisms, the first one is physically compromising and the latter is socially and professionally crippling–quite a bad combo, in fact, it’s horrific and insidiously tortuous.

    Good and true core healing can happen in so many ways, I do not see the need whatsoever for psychiatry. The failure rate is so high, and who has ever really and truly healed via psychiatry? I’ve heard people swear by their psych drugs, which is fine if they have found stability with that, but is this healing? I don’t think so. And there is so much good healing going on now, looking up healing on YouTube and google is always revealing about this. This would be a great social evolution, to integrate true healing into our social education and practices.

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  • “Calm mind-states also bring about healthy changes in brain structure, as studies in neuroplasticity have shown.”

    Yes, Nancy, I think this is such an important statement. Achieving states of calm and grounded-ness *first* will kick in all our self-healing mechanisms, neuroplasticity being one of them. When we allow healing to occur naturally by not undermining it with our own fears and doubts, desired changes occur, that is our nature.

    An effectively supportive healer will encourage the process of an individual, rather than try to redirect it unnaturally, by forcing it or applying some kind of value judgment along the way, as is unfortunately so often the case. That does not calm the mind, but more so agitates it, which is not healthful to the body.

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  • It would be helpful to learn ancient healing protocol, how energy works to affect the mind and body, and about spiritual contracts. From my experience, that has everything to do with how we find our grounding and healing information. Without this information, I would not have been able to integrate my fractured consciousness, heal my heart, mind, and body so that I could create my life the way I most desire, and get on with things.

    At least integrating the kind of healing that tends to be resisted by the mainstream would be a step in the right direction. Were psychiatrists to be open to going way outside the box, forget about DSM and psych drugs, and be open to new perspectives with curiosity rather than cynicism, then sure, that would be a valuable contribution to the field. I would sincerely very much love to witness this kind of courage and insight from within the field.

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  • “Mania” = lack of grounding. That can be remedied in so many natural ways, including with visuals as extremely effective and lifelong tools. It’s a matter of practice, then it becomes second nature.

    In Chinese Medicine, lack of grounding is often associated with an energetic kidney imbalance, which can cause the adrenal glands to misfire, which, in turn, can throw us into a state of agitation and panic. A brief series of acupuncture treatments and natural herbs which balance kidney energy can remedy this.

    Herbs are regenerative and need only be taken temporarily, because they raise the vibration of the physical body (whereas chemical drugs lower our frequency because they are unnatural). So there is no dependence, our bodies eventually mimic the herbs and generate what we need on its own. I had heard this in an herbal training I took, tried it, and it was exactly my experience. I went from psych drugs to herbs to nothing now, other than meditation and nature walks in order to stay grounded.

    There may still be personal issues to address after one finds their grounding, but that is sooo much easier to do when grounded, which automatically quiets the mind and soothes the body, including emotions. When we are grounded, we can also better manifest what we need and want with more ease, so the healing path becomes much clearer.

    Psychiatry complicates things to the point where they distort issues beyond recognition. Plus, I feel the premise of “psychology”, as a factor in our human condition, in general, is completely misguided and without practical focus, as per the education and training, which I have had, myself. I’d say the entire field is ‘ungrounded.’

    Chinese Medicine and natural healing, on the other hand, keep things streamlined, clear, and practical, which tremendously increases the effectiveness of any healing treatment.

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  • Also, I find that ‘psychiatry,’ overall, sorely lacks imagination and creativity, which I feel are vital in order to address these issues with any effectiveness and hopes for personal evolution.

    Although I very much like and appreciate Dr. Berezin’s work a great deal, specifically because it is creative and tells a human story, and is therefore open to support and navigate real growth, healing, and transformation, which, personally, I feel is the order of the day. This is where we find authentic and true change, at the core.

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  • My very strong impression is that “psychiatry,” in general, is not a human relations field. in fact, it’s quite the opposite, cold and academic. So how could it make sense that they would help people with emotional issues?

    Ethics and honesty aside, emotional imbalance and mental chaos due to trauma and patterns of chronic life stress require loving care to heal. Anyone with the capacity to hold a loving space of permission to see a process through to its completion/transition is a healer. It does not have to be from any particular field.

    But psychiatry, of all fields, is the last place I’d look, simply because, overall, it functions as controlling and forceful, rather than actually healing and personal growth-oriented. More than anything, it seems to keep people stuck in their issues and spiraling downward.

    My 2 cents.

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  • There are a lot of obvious factors for the mega-violence in the world today, not the least of which is people’s anger, rage, and victimization being egged on. This is a toxic bully-victim society. I see no neutrality, no center, in our society, making it extremely vulnerable. That will make people feel mad, in every respect.

    And of course, no anti-depressant, nor any psych drug, will create a solid center–it does the opposite, it avoids the fact that there is no center.

    A society with no center, no moral or ethical foundation, no integrity, and no sense of self-responsibility is sure to be transformed, one way or another.

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  • I believe rendering people powerless physically, emotionally, and politically is what is doing most harm, and causing rage, hopelessness, chaos and a host of social ills. That’s the damning effect of blatant stigma, it is a tool used to make people believe they are less than, and non-deserving. That is purely psychological sabotage, in my book, and it is rampant in the field; and it works if people believe it about themselves, or who believe they are trapped, and waiting for something on the outside to change before changing anything on the inside.

    Considering that this comes from the ‘mental health world,’ I’d call it criminal social abuse, and, indeed, it is logical that it would lead to suicide. This is the cause of horrendous chronic pain which is constantly dismissed, disregarded, belittled, and negated. There is no soothing it.

    It makes me angry to think about this. As a member of the human race, I find it absolutely unacceptable, it is cruelty beyond measure, all to preserve ego and profit.

    So how on earth to get the system to show a bit of humility and self-responsibility is beyond me. All I experience from that world is duplicity, then conflict, then avoidance. Seems the truth is the enemy. A conundrum, indeed.

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  • Reading this took me back 15 years. I made a very serious and almost successful attempt to end my life and I have spent a lot of time in meditation reflecting on what happened that would lead me to this place.

    First of all, I am a believer in free will with respect to our own agency, and my choice to end my life was a conscious one which I felt was reasonable at the time (before I knew what I know now, I’ve learned so many vital things about life and energy since then). Looking back, I’d still say this. Based on the message I was being given coupled with the fact that my psych drugs-withdrawing mind was temporarily disabled at the time and focused only on that which made me feel seriously fearful and broken, and without the spiritual awareness I have today, I can still perfectly empathize with the old me. Given all the factors and lack of awareness at the time, still makes perfect sense to me that I would have done this. The difference now is that I have so much deeper understanding of who we are as humans, as energy, as spiritual beings, and I know get where all these thoughts came from, and I have addressed, shifted, and healed all of that.

    Mainly, I was very ill from having withdrawn from tons of psych drugs, eager to get on with my life, and I found myself surrounded by extreme narcissism in the form of “mental health clinicians.” I didn’t identify them that way then, I was too wrapped up in my own pain, fear, panic, and despondence to analyze or assess anything outside of myself. I only knew how it felt, and the word for that is ‘brutal.’ ‘Cruel’ would be another fitting word.

    I had gone to great lengths to heal, and it was being perpetually undermined, simply from the dangerously stigmatizing beliefs regarding who I was supposed to be, with no inkling of who I really was (and still am) on their radar.

    I was perpetually provoked-then-demeaned, it happened repeatedly. I knew the difference from what it felt like to be a respected citizen, because I had been all (at that time) 40 years of my life. But once I turned to the mental health system, I was no longer considered worthy of respect, and I could feel that down to my bones 24/7. It literally drove me crazy, endless loops of chaotic thinking, trying futilely to figure out how to make this mental messiness stop. My heart was nothing but an empty hole, there was no love nor light there of which to speak.

    I would not wish that feeling of being treated like a marginalized second-class citizen on anyone. For me, that is when things appeared hopeless, because I did not have the strength or clarity to fight it at that time, I just knew it crushed me and I felt doomed. I was in my 40s, had a first career under my belt, and a masters in psychology, including internship hours. How could life had gotten so sour so quickly?

    Well, in reality, it wasn’t that quick, it was a slow decline. But for some reason, we all enabled this decline. That is what I’m continuing to look at–where the neglect (including self-neglect) begins.

    We are supposed to be in control of our lives, that is the freedom for which we all strive. At what point do we hand over our power to others? I think that is where we lose not only our sense of control and power over our own lives, but we also lose our sense of safety and hope. It is hard to imagine living a quality life with no sense of control over it. Choosing to end one’s physical life is one way of regaining control over our agency, and it speaks volumes to those around us.

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  • Haven’t checked in on here in a while and I’m so glad I did now. I love that you asked this question, Michael–

    “I’ve often wondered if there is any permanent damage done to the brain after being medicated for long periods. Does anyone have any thoughts on that, or links to articles related to long term effects of psych drugs?”

    When I came off of nine psych drugs after 20 years of one combo or another, not only was my brain damaged in many ways (speech, clarity, easily overwhelmed emotionally, delusions, motor skills), but so were other organs. I had been thoroughly “toxified” and it affected every aspect of my energy in the most debilitating way. It had been insidious over time, and I was not aware of this until the damage was profound. This was all about 14-15 years ago, as I finished up graduate school.

    All is back in balance now, including my brain. It was not easy, very hard work to heal all that, but it began with the belief that everything can heal. I’ve had disagreements on here with folks about that, so I won’t say more about that, our beliefs are personal and I respect that. But that is my perspective and thank God because at one point I thought I was permanently damaged, sure felt that way, and it was the message that kept coming to me from clinicians. It really sunk me, until I looked elsewhere for healing. That is where I learned about how our beliefs create the reality we experience.

    Quieting the mind through focused meditation, I learned to be grounded, self-soothe, and allow my body to self-heal–something else about which I learned thoroughly through training. I also hooked up with a 5th generation expert herbalist and gifted healer, these herbs were regenerative, supports cellular balance and repair. Acupuncture rounded it out. All my organs eventually came back into balance, all is in working order at this time.

    For me, Gi Gong was essential as well, I began that practice. And also gut health, probiotics for good flora, to cool the system and clear the mind. I learned a lot of practical tips about the energy of what we put into our body, and how that affects everything, including the brain.

    Most importantly, I had to apply neuroplasticity and shift a lot of negative thought patterns and self-beliefs, to heal the effects of social and medical trauma/betrayal. That was meticulous present time awareness work, but it really allowed my mind to shift into a more peaceful space, and all of this allowed my brain to come back into balance because I was about 1000% more relaxed about everything. It was a process to go from chaos to peace, took years. But that’s how my brain healed from all that damage.

    My brain can still mal-function, but I think like anyone’s can at times, we all get tripped up, no one is perfect. Especially with all this energy flying around, we all get triggered and knocked out of our center. Plus, getting older, well, that explains a lot! That’s just a matter of accepting the inevitability of life, not a big deal.

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  • Very brave and enlightening article, Michael. Congratulations on embracing your wholeness. I wholeheartedly agree, to be sensitive is to be human. Our emotions are such a gift, when we are not beating ourselves up with them.

    I had a teacher who would say that the idea is to learn to swim in our emotions, rather than drown in them, as this is how we learn not only our humanity, but also that of the collective. Feeling our way through life takes courage, strength, and trust, and from my experience, it also leads to well-being and good manifestations. Our emotions are our most powerful creative tools. Thank you so much for sharing your story.

    Love your website, too, I think it’s right on. Wonderful work!

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  • “Dialoging and appealing to people’s rational sense of what’s proper, good, and valuable for people gets you absolutely nowhere. Being reasonable gets you nowhere at all and the system will eventually smother you.”

    You’re describing the essence of a sick and toxic society. When there is no reasonability, just as they refuse to respect personal choice and boundaries, then people become enraged, despondent, and feel powerless–which I think would be a totally normal and reasonable response to being demeaned and marginalized. Yet it is most certainly not the road to inner peace and well-being. That will only occur in the absence of such toxicity.

    What happens after that is the direct result of the powers that be being invasive, unsafe, and unreasonable to begin with, threatening people’s health and survival, one way or another. We are hard pressed to set a better example. In that sense, I wouldn’t underestimate the power of one.

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  • I’d also like to add that this comparison of how we label people and the origins of what caused what does seem to confuse the issue of social abuse in present time. To discuss aspects of mental illness and autism in comparison with being Gay feels a bit off to me, somehow.

    Everyone is marginalized in their own way. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t feel this deep down inside, that they are ‘different.’ Some people just hide it well because they don’t like to go against the crowd, for fear of being ostracized; whereas some people really don’t care about the mainstream norms and opinions, Personally, I think the latter leads to better health and well-being, and certainly freedom and creativity; but for others this may not be true. Going against the norm can cause people great distress.

    I really think it’s about embracing diversity, and to grow out of the insecurities that often accompany our differences, and the judgments that come with others’ differences. That would be hardy evolution, and people wouldn’t get so enraged because they are constantly being demeaned and rendered powerless in the community. That would piss anyone off, justifiably.

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  • Going against the grain to follow one’s truth will often look like “symptoms” in a sick society; whereas, in reality, what is being witnessed is one person’s uniquely creative process. How dehumanizing for a person’s creativity to be stigmatized. That’s exactly what I would call a social ill, the epitome of it. And, indeed, it occurs with alarming frequency to extremely creative and individually-minded children, in an uptight society.

    I think when we honor our own process without judgment, we are more inclined to embrace diversity. It always starts within.

    As for submission, I’d just plain stay away from anyone who supports the legal power of an alleged “institution of health” to do such a thing to someone trying to heal, that is unsafe from the get-go. I can only shake my head in disbelief at such a notion, even though I know it all too well to be true.

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  • Well, as usual I can have a lot to say about this subject, and I’ve allowed my perspective to evolve quite a bit, thanks to these rich and very honest discussions. I’ve also been working with families quite a bit, and of course, like you say, Rossa, all are different; the truths of each family are as diverse as snowflakes, each one unique and different.

    Main reason I’m piping in is because of the reference to being Gay, and as a Gay man who continues as such, and as a person who considers himself to have been mentally ill and then healed from it (that’s my story, and there are reasons I label my experience as such), the one trait that each of these can have in common is how we feel about ourselves, despite how others perceive us.

    A Gay person or a mentally ill person, just like anyone who is easily discriminated against due to the stigma and prejudices of society, has the daunting and empowering task of knowing themselves to a much more powerful degree than all that negative stigmatizing crap which others project onto them. We are who we are.

    Families, teachers, peers, therapists, society-at-large, can all challenge us to accept ourselves as we are. Others are more validating and supportive, that is, unconditionally loving.

    Nobody’s perfect and everyone is always doing the best they know how at any given moment, I truly believe this. As we continue to learn, grow and evolve, we do better, including with our self-compassion. I do not think this ever ends. We can always do better, I think that’s a very beautiful human quality, our power of evolution.

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  • Agreed on all counts, BPD.

    What I’m saying, however, is that I think that when an individual without social power displays personal power (that is, they do not fall for the illusions and lies of an abusive system) that is when they specifically become targets for abuse, diagnoses, drugging, restraints, and overall marginalization, as personal power is extremely threatening to the corrupt and brainwashing status quo, because the person is rightfully challenging the control and integrity of the authority.

    This is how the abusive system delivers the message, “You have no power here!” which is easily internalized either in a developmental stage or when lacking defenses due to drugging. That turns into a negative self-belief that can haunt until we rewrite it.

    Truth threatens corruption, and it doesn’t take wealth or position to know the truth. In fact, it most often comes from a more disadvantaged place in society.

    True, the more that speak up about their experiences of systemic abuse in the mental health system, the more this will ripple. As far as those who remain silent from fear, shame, or even just the inability to articulate their thoughts and feelings, I would hope that eventually these examples of courage and support would ripple to them, as well.

    However, there are so many forces at play here, and so many smoke and mirrors, I imagine that it would be impossible to reach everyone. Still, we can certainly do the best we can, and keep speaking our truth, regardless of anything.

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  • “The last reason would be that psychiatric victims are on average very weak in their ability to fight back. What I mean by that is that the most vulnerable, voiceless, mostly uneducated, poor, minority people are disproportionately the victims of abuse and induction into the disease-drugging model. Therefore it is easy for powerful forces in society including corporations and abusive adults to marginalize and silence them.”

    I have the opposite perception, that victims of social abuse are actually quite powerful, to the point where these individuals and their truth can really threaten society, which is why the social powers do wage such an aggressive campaign to keep them marginalized and feeling shame. Making one’s self vulnerable is an act of courage and trust, which is what leads to personal growth.

    Once a person wakes up to how they’ve been, or are being, abused and oppressed–which can be quite insidious and subtle, but deeply felt and damaging over time–and that their familiar is neither sound nor healthful but only draining, chronically frustrating, and limiting, and it is more than obvious that change is vital for their emotional and/or physical survival, (and even more so, in order to thrive), then they will really and truly bring out the insecurities of the powers that be, and that’s when things can get ugly, because when these bullies get mad, they are ruthless. Inside a bully are massive insecurities that, when triggered, can explode into rage.

    How this can heal this on an individual and social level is my focus, and that is tricky because in order to do so, one needs to know their power. The stigma, to my mind, occurs when people are told they have no power, and this causes so much fear and feelings of lack of safety, chronically. That is a lot of stress to carry around. Plus it gives people a terribly low image, to feel they cannot protect themselves in life.

    That we are powerless is never true, everyone has power. But if one has been cut off from it thanks to these abusive messages one can internalize, then it can be very challenging to access it. That would be a matter of healing any internalized message that we are powerless, because it is a lie.

    That’s one of the pts effects of abuse, to believe one has no power to stop it. The ones that know how to stop the abuse in their lives are free. I believe this is where transformation occurs, when we learn to stop the bullies and abusers in our own lives, and ascend onto a path of creating what we need and desire, without the extra added and very burdensome ingredient of sabotage.

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  • I think people are reluctant to go there because it rocks everyone’s world to call out abuse around them. Calling out abuse destroys the illusions people have clung to for so long, as familiar. Everyone’s self-image is tested and challenged. So the system protects itself aggressively, which can further devastate the victim of that abuse. That’s the nature of systemic abusive ill-making oppression.

    Breaking the cycle of abuse-victim is probably one of our most challenging psychological chores, but I feel it is the way out of oppression. Acknowledging it and calling it out is courageous and risk-taking, and, I believe, a vital step in resolving it; while denying abuse (or the internalization of abuse, post-traumatic stress) will only cause it to get bigger until it is once and for all acknowledged.

    My question is: why do we always wait for a tragedy to occur before waking up to abuse? There are always red flags, which, in my experience, people tend to rationalize, dismiss, or deny–and rather aggressively, and often with a counter-attack, to discourage such grievances. That’s where significant change can happen, in our response to when people are claiming that abuse is actually taking place. How do we each respond to that? With compassion? Or defensively?

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  • Actually, I’m even transitioning our of that now, and I’m becoming a full time filmmaker and music director. I make films about healing, and I have a new film (my second one) being premiered locally soon, which highlights a band I’m in performing for an assisted living facility.

    Healing through music and the arts is my next endeavor as a healer. At this point, I’m trying to go a bit general, rather than working with individuals. The power issue is very challenging–if at all possible–to circumvent, it shows up repeatedly in individual healing work.

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  • “The power, the sexualisation of the relationship (by them actually demanding I “fall in love”) while the whole time knowing they could lock me up and drug me if I didn’t comply or reacted negatively to their requests was just plain sick. It was rape, rape and more rape. A total abuse of power and their situation….and my humanity.”

    This is very well-stated, and I relate completely. This happened to me as well, very blatantly. I have many stories to relate here from, both, personal experience, and what I witnessed as an MFT intern. I changed fields as a healer because I discovered this to be the norm, and impossible to get around. This is what I would consider to be “extreme narcissism,” which to me seemed to permeate the field.

    The overt manipulation and power imbalance I encountered in the psychotherapeutic community was over the top and damaging. I felt this as a student, and then as a client. This is dangerous.

    It is these toxic ‘professional’ relationship dynamics which lead to cruel narcissistic abuse and the systems which protect this behavior, serving only to deepen the trauma which leads a person to seek help in the first place. Breaking this cycle takes a lot of focus, trust, and inner healing work. Not an easy road, but it is a hardy transformation, which I think it’s necessary for the evolution of ourselves and of society.

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  • Very well put, Ron. I agree, risk-taking is vital to our growth and evolution at some points in time. Speaking up for one’s basic rights is actually a high risk venture in the mental health system, which is why I applaud and deeply encourage efforts such as Serafina’s. Takes guts and trust in one’s process because one person’s risk is another one’s boat rocked, and there is a lot to go through in ‘healing’ from the system.

    Everyone has the opportunity to grow when one person speaks their truth against the system–aka “breaking the system.”

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  • Thank you so much for writing this exquisite piece. I found it riveting, and am in awe of the courage and integrity which you and mother exemplify with grace, in the face of such blatant and oppressive stigma, not to mention, ‘clever.’

    You tell the story beautifully, and because of that it is maddening to read. I do relate to this kind of crazy-making dialogue with legal and clinical professionals. What a life-sucking system. It is voices like yours which will bring about the radical changes we so desperately need. Thank you again, for sharing your truth with such eloquence.

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  • To me, healing means getting stronger, clearer, grounded, and more at peace–that something has changed from bad to better; and that we’ve released inner obstacles to personal growth and evolution through learning, in order to create a better life experience for ourselves.

    Overall, though, I believe it is all very personal and subjective to our own experience, call it what you will.

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  • I’ve been working with a couple of families over the past year. One of them has a college age kid that had started feeling “panic attacks” and was experiencing depression and sudden bouts of low self-esteem, along with negative self-talk that was interfering with her ability to focus.

    The mother asked me if I felt her daughter would need ‘medication,’ and I suggested that, instead, she teach her kid the meditation and focus techniques which I taught her, as well as the new perspective, that these are manifestations of energy which are guiding her. This shifted her perspective entirely, and along with that, she found her voice and learned how to self-soothe and self-heal.

    As a result of her daughter’s temporarily disabling anxiety, the two of them came together for natural healing, and it worked. They formed an even deeper loving bond because of this. The daughter is back in school with a new lease on life and sense of self. All systems and drugs averted.

    In the other family, the mother also recognized her role in the healing and began to practice grounding and centering through meditation while learning about the properties of energy and how this applies in healing, and her adult child began to come out of her catatonic episode, and is now doing fantastically well and putting her life together, her way, based oh her dreams and desires. The entire family has been healing by leaps and bounds.

    Healing–especially regarding issues of distress and other mental/emotional functions–is never about just one person, and is always about the community at large. Everyone has a role and responsibility in it. I can see it no other way.

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  • Oh, good grief, you are relentless. I’m never going to fight or argue about this, that serves no purpose to me. I have my opinion, perspective, and experience. My partner and I are integral to this community.

    In response to what you post here, I am totally aware of the cause-and-effect chain that involved Feinstein, etc., and also of the various interpretations of this history. Like I said, I’ve been an integral part of gay rights history, and I continue to be, through my life and film work.

    There are diverse voices and diverse opinions on the matter, such as there is with anything.

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  • Although I guess since this statement in the article, I will respond a bit, if it is helpful in any way:

    “The psychiatric survivor and ‘mad’ movement today is a continuation of a revolution launched by the women’s movement and gay rights movement…”

    Having been an integral part of the gay rights movement, I personally find it hard to relate to this. In fact, I don’t at all.

    My work and experience as a survivor activist has been radically different than my work as a gay activist. The issues and dynamics don’t really overlap on a basic level. One is based on oppression, discrimination, and marginalization in a system which is SUPPOSED to be about health issues, while the LGBT movement is based on lifestyle and life partner choices, based on desires of the heart.

    The political and economic power gained was the result of the AIDS crisis, when LGBT discovered they had NO power in Washington, and that’s when the community began to come together in support of each other, quite lovingly. This is what created the foundation of the community we know today, which is powerful now.

    So while health and political issues relate to both, they are in completely different contexts, since the mental health system is cross-cultural. It is not gender or sexuality or race or ethnicity that is the common bond, it is some kind of dissonance or imbalance or a crisis, which can happen to anyone.

    I don’t know about the women’s movement, and while I’ve always advocated for equal rights for all, I’ve never identified as a ‘feminist,’ nor would I strive to. This movement does not speak to me, but the survivor movement does. I believe this is our opportunity to once and for all set a different example, for which I’m still waiting.

    I lived, worked, volunteered, and hung out in Castro for almost 20 years. I threw a fundraiser for equality in marriage before it had become such a public debate. I was on the steps of City Hall with thousands of LGBT community members celebrating the doors opening.

    The riot following the White verdict was not a shining hour for that community. Rage was understandable, but to channel it in such acts of destruction does not lead to any kind of true and authentic power, only the power of mad rage, which is hardly change from the old. It’s just more on the surface when triggered by blatant acts of disregard.

    It was the sudden loss of lives due to a devastating illness that led to what we know today as the very powerful and highly respected LGBT community. First, however, there was a lot of grief and humility to own and experience. Then, things started to happen.

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  • Maybe on another blog where it would be on topic, if one were to be ever published, I’d be more willing to go into all of this. My comments regarding LGBT issues were in response to acidpop’s well-founded remarks. But I’m appreciating all that you’re saying here. It’s a complex and fascinating subject, how LGBT rights evolved. I am, indeed, well-versed in the subject from my personal experience being in the hub of that community for a long time.

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  • Dan White was not acquitted, he was convicted of manslaughter (as opposed to first degree murder, which would have been justified of course).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_White

    I just wanted to make that correction for the sake of historical accuracy, but I don’t feel it’s appropriate to go further into this discussion on this blog. Thanks for the interesting dialogue, oldhead, as always.

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  • Re stigma, I thought I had remembered you balking at this pretty firmly, so I’ll take back that I understand your position on it, since you are unsure about it, yourself.

    And yes, that is why I call scapegoating a universal social ill. Best we can do is not scapegoat others and set the example. Other than that, I’m not sure what will stop those in the habit of doing so, and like I say, it’s become so normal in society. I agree, it’s dangerously oppressive, which is why I call it out.

    I thought open dialogue was about being reasonable in discourse, although I don’t know anything about it, I just figured that would be a requirement for dialogue to be fruitful. Perhaps that is not meant to be directed toward oppressors, but to my mind, it would be, for the sake of healing in a family system.

    In any event, I was thinking about when I attempted to reason repeatedly with the management team at the voc rehab agency at which I was client-turned-staff, when I was sure they being blatantly discriminating. I went through protocol, as directed, and ended up getting fired in retaliation.

    In the end, I did defeat them. But that was incredibly taxing, and I would not go through that again. I’m awake now, and having learned from all this, I don’t get caught up in situations like this any longer.

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  • Oldhead and Acidpop, great points, thank you.

    From both your posts, the words that stand out to me are ‘coercion’ and ‘scapegoating.’ I believe these are the relevant universal social ills completely related to the social stigma which I, personally, feel is highly relevant—scapegoating creates it and coercion is the result of it. Social bullying can be subtle and insidious because it is based on our way of life these days, it is the norm. This creates a society of utter madness a need to awaken, hard to see it any other way.

    Oldhead, I know how you feel about this concept of ‘stigma,’ but I stand by it as the culprit at the root of the injustices and social bullying perpetrated upon, at least, those who wind up diagnosed in the system and on disability. That is the marginalized population on which I focus, as far as the most flagrant victims of second class citizenship and the grave social injustice which accompanies this.

    This population is perceived through extremely negative fear-based filters (stigma) that affect every aspect of their lives. That is a 24/7 enormously stressful existence, filled with double binds and feelings of utter powerlessness. That creates internalized madness.

    Of course there is a lot of acting out in this community, but good lord, is it any wonder? That is not in the slightest a comfortable life, and the days of true social advocacy are either dwindling or entirely over, I think, it is war everywhere you turn, even among advocates. Everyone is clinging desperately to their power now, as threatened as it is by all that is coming to light now.

    “Yes, but herein is the ‘rub” — “getting the hell out of there” is not a matter of choice or self-growth when you are only there in the first place because of coercion. Hence the need for a political action movement.”

    I’ve nothing against a political action movement to represent and advocate for the rights of any citizen to be honored and respected. However, that is a complex process, lots of resistance and fighting, also splitting within the movement, then failed and frustrating attempts to reason with the oppressors. It’s a courageous endeavor and I believe people feel their power in that process, until they don’t.
    It’s an emotional roller coaster and those with the fortitude to ride it, more power to them, and support any endeavors to bring clarity and justice.

    I did the politics in San Francisco as long as I needed to for my own freedom via dissociation from this, and in the process created a bit of change via testimonial at city hall and legal action thanks to pro bono legal support through a non-profit.
    I wanted to do more and got myself way in the system with my film, and was suddenly curtailed from that path when they figured out that I was pretty much anti-system, proposing new and more progressive ways to heal. But I got far enough to have made it all worthwhile.

    I was on my own, however, in my battles, and I think that made it easier for me, because I was not having to defend my reasons for choosing the path I chose, I simply spoke the truth of my lived experience and I was heard. But not without tremendous effort and continually repeating what I’d experienced in the system.

    Finally I decided that, for the sake of my own well-being, it was best that I shifted my focus in all of this, which is why I’m doing healing work with others through music and the arts now. Politics makes me sick, literally, and I’m totally ok with that, and base my life choices on my preferences.

    So, overall, I think it’s wise for people to balance what they feel inspired to do and what is healthy and sound for them. That is entirely an individual’s choice of self-care while creating change. It is different for each of us. Those who are ‘imprisoned’ are challenged to discover their own power within themselves, because they are demeaned and made to feel utterly powerless. That is, indeed, a conundrum to which I have no answer at this time. Although I think about it often, how to get past the gatekeepers of injustice.

    “While I think we do create a atmosphere of bullying in this country, I think mental illness is more a scapegoat… Particularly for Western politial psychology or propaganda. You need a group that can’t defend itself, that is disliked or distrusted by the majority, and your want to keep them that way. If they become liked or accepted, someone will want to protect them. The mentally ill, LGBT, for years people of color have been used this way.”

    I agree, this is an issue of scapegoating. But that’s what makes one an easy target for social bullying, everyone kind of joins in, as a society. Lots of issues in that, alone, to be addressed—how we jump on scapegoating bandwagons, for political reasons, or simply because we’re angry and need a scapegoat. Sadly, that is supported and practiced at large in our society.

    I’ve been an active LGBT activist for a long time. My most powerful action was getting married to my partner, now 30 years together. Before we were married legally, we got married at SF City Hall as an act of civil disobedience, along with thousands of others, before it was legal, under Gavon Newsome’s general act of civil disobedience of opening those doors.

    I did a lot of work with Equality California (EQUA), too. It was cohesive, which made a difference, the focus was on marriage and the right to love and create a life together with whomever we wish. Unlike Act Up, which was always in disarray because they were angry and their protests were violent. But that’s a good example of divergent communities after the same goal. Each group chose their beliefs and process, but the goal was the same, equal rights.

    By the same token, I feel my most powerful act of activism as a psychiatric survivor was ditching their ways, flipping them off, and healing my way, naturally, and getting on with things. The lawsuit was good, and my film was effective, but healing away from all of this is what speaks the most, to my mind. I had been coerced at one time, but I managed to talk my way out of that eventually, most fortunately.

    I very much appreciate what you are both saying, I’m just not versed in political and social theory, so I’m learning about this as we go, here. But my personal experience speaks for me, so I let that guide me. Perhaps these are all parts of a giant whole, working in tandem on a macro level. I’d like to think so, in any event.

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  • Perhaps if we asked Congress to stop war and instead advocate for world peace, this problem of drugging people–soldiers and civilians–for the post-effects of war trauma (in various forms) would take care of itself. As would so many other stressors that make life so chronically stressful for just about everyone concerned.

    In how many ways can a person’s life be ruined by our current network of beliefs which are advocated by the norms of society? Society operates standardly in a way that makes people suffer.

    Two choices: keep drugging, or change the beliefs and practices of society. These are polar opposites. There seems to be no middle ground, I can’t think of any other option at present.

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  • I agree, Steve, letting go of primitive defenses would be what I’d call maturing. Although I do think it’s important to feel permission to have them if they pop up, perhaps as a reminder that we’re human. Perfectionism is a huge chronic stressor, and so is pretending we’re perfect. No one will believe it, anyway, because it is unrealistic, so that’s one good way to end up with egg on your face, making it a good defense to drop right off the bat.

    Robert, I’ve been checking out your articles online. Your work is great, filled with compassion in addition to great insights. I will look at these more this weekend.

    Thinking about all of this has made me realize the one big shift in belief from childhood that distressed me on a core level more than anything, a real game changer. A big part of my stress, worries, and anxieties that at one point felt crippling to me, was the belief that I had to be some major recognized important successful person in the world to be worthy. No mystery to me where that came from. That was a lot of pressure, constantly buzzing in my consciousness, wondering at all times if I was ‘measuring up,’ by these arbitrary and artificial standards that had nothing to do with who I was as a creative being. It was programmed into me, as is often the case. The alternative was shame and feelings of failure, no middle ground.

    My healing was based on a new goal–to be HAPPY in life, to feel relaxed and at peace. Well, from where I was coming, that was no easy feat, but I did make it my goal. It’s not always easy to feel happy, or even centered, as we all know, but at least these goals seemed so much more appealing and realistic to me than needing to “be somebody.”

    I think when we are ok with ourselves, in general, we don’t need glory and constant outside validation, that can be a trap. It is relieving and self-soothing to self-validate in such a chronically negative and invalidating society. We just need to be at peace with ourselves, regardless of anything. Something I never learned until I was in my 40s, this is not the example shown to me. Yet to me, that is personal security and well-being.

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  • I think this is going in the right direction. Painful and traumatic life experiences are par for the course. I’ve never known anyone to not have tough times to get through.

    I think that sometimes, like with childhood abuse, it’s not just the physical and emotional pain of the abuse that affects people. I believe on a deeper level, at the root of it all, are the underlying beliefs that are created from going through our early stages of human development in the position of family victim. Betrayal and sabotage are devastating feelings we carry around until we wake up to them and tell ourselves another story. Perspective is important to how we feel about ourselves, in our own skin.

    From the childhood trauma of growing up in a chronically unsafe and negatively mirroring environment, these feelings can become deeply embedded in our belief system, the neural pathways created from chronic invalidation and boundary invasion, which leads to feelings of powerlessness and utter lack of confidence, translating to despondence and rage. Indeed, this can haunt profoundly later in life, and most likely will. That would be our opportunity to heal it, rather than to continue repeating it. People do develop strong defenses, but they don’t hold forever. Eventually, our soul truth demands recognition, one way or another.

    So, depending on the example of our earliest caregivers, our ability to deal with crises as adults can vary quite a bit. Some are better prepared and can get through tough times with less angst than others, because they were raised with confidence, perspective, and permission to self-care. That is not universal in the slightest.

    We are born with inherent trust in our environment and intuitively seek good mirroring, support, and nourishment. When we do not get this, and instead become our parents’ emotional caretakers and the target of their frustrations in life, then we develop neural pathways which guide us to repeat these patterns later in unhealthy relationships, along with carrying around feelings of being unworthy and unsafe in the world. We also tend to self-punish a lot, there can be an inordinate amount of very toxic guilt to address and transmute.

    That can be extremely painful in our hearts, lots of anxiety from guilt that I feel we can release when we get a handle on our center, and know there is nothing about which to feel guilty. That’s a powerful double-binding tool used by abusive parents. Deep self-compassion is the best anecdote I know for this.

    These kinds of chronic underlying emotional burdens are the perfect recipe for mental confusion and emotional turmoil, what many people call ‘mental illness.’

    Thankfully, our neuroplasticity allows us to re-write this all in order to align with more affirming and self-validating beliefs. That’s good and hardy healing, and it significantly shifts our self-perception, so that we don’t repeat those early patterns, which always wind up being self-defeating. This is heart healing.

    I’m sure most of us know Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

    I like the idea that regardless of past abuses we tolerated, we can change all that in present time by being aware of our self-beliefs, and our choices.

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  • I’m all for neutralizing distress and treating it as a spiritual and emotional condition rather than as one of biological origin. And I can’t speak for other countries, but I do know that here in the United States, the system is rife with bully-victim dynamics which I feel is what is most avoided, and which is core to distress, fear, despondence, and rage building on a daily basis, leading to breakdowns in health and social functioning.

    The system bullies when it needs to, for control, and when you stand up to it, they 1) turn into meaner bullies and they bring in their minions, so it is an impenetrable bullying system, and then 2) they become “victims”–all practically at the same time. This is what I have found to be most pervasive, draining, and re-traumatizing for clients.

    Until this is resolved, I don’t see how anything will truly and authentically change of significance, because these relationship dynamics can permeate any modality and is actually the CAUSE of core, daily distress. I think that’s the loop here.

    I can’t predict the future, but it seems reasonable to me that this will be resolved when enough survivors stand up to the insidious bullying that permeates the mental health world, and then get the hell out of there. It can be a rough road at first, but it is courageous, clarifying, strength and power building, freeing, and thoroughly healing.

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  • Very revealing article.

    “Psychiatry is struggling to defend itself from multiple sources of critique, and to reassert its future role. One possibility that is taboo for any profession to consider, however, is that it has little or no useful role. That possibility must be contemplated by others.”

    Defending itself rather than looking at itself critically? How is that either reasonable or helpful? If it has to defend itself against “multiple sources of critique,” then, indeed, it is abundantly clear that something is amiss, and they don’t want to know it—aka denial–which indicates smoke & mirrors, so how can it be trusted?

    “Even more revealing than the survey findings was psychiatry’s response to it. The researchers themselves, including a former President of the World Psychiatric Association, wondered whether their colleagues’ opinions are ‘well founded in facts’ or ‘may reflect stigmatizing views toward psychiatry and psychiatrists.’”

    It is my experience that they will rationalize anything to fit their dualistic belief, rather than to question themselves honestly and humbly. This sounds like they are playing victim. “Stigma” is based on negative false projections. Those of us who believe psychiatry is an irreparable mess based on unethical and incompetent practices are not projecting falsely; these opinions are based on multiple testimonials from those with lived experience. These are evaluations based on true stories, and have foundation in fact. Stigma is based on fiction.

    “…instead of proposing efforts to address the problems identified by the medical community, such as having little scientific basis, they recommend only ‘enhancing the perception of psychiatrists’ so as to ‘improve the perception of psychiatry as a career.’”

    This sounds purely like propaganda. A profession should be attractive based on its merits, not self-perpetuated illusions. At what point is psychiatry going to actually be the example they should be, of facing the truth?? Until then, it is not only useless, it is only conflict-ridden, traumatizing, and therefore dangerous.

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  • Lol, I anticipated that question. Of course they’re not contradictory. But when it comes to manifesting what we want, we choose where we put our focus and energy.

    Personally, I’ll take world peace however it comes–with or without an MIA posting edit feature, and whatever it means to our political and economic structure.

    I’m no capitalist myself, I live a simple life and do most of my work for free or at very little charge, really just what I need. So I agree with you, and I try to set an example.

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  • Richard, not to perpetuate anything here (at your very reasonable request, imo) nor to speak at all for Katie, to whom your post is addressed and whose intention would be merely a speculative projection on my part, but for the purpose of perspective and hopefully a bit more clarity, I, personally, did not read her comment as specific to anyone in particular, but as a general dynamic that is perpetual in society as the norm, which, perhaps we should question, on a macro level, so that we can shift that same pattern, which I call ‘a program.’ That’s how I read it, in any event, as an astute observation to bring something important to light, related to any discussion on here.

    We learn this from politicians, the legal industry, it is our model. Kill their credibility, and we win. We’re all guilty at times of this and I think the point here is to simply be aware of our own negativity and try to not project it onto others–for the purpose of clarity regarding these issues. They are complex enough.

    I think we all make general comments that are hard truths, and we wonder if they are talking about ‘one of us,’ personally. I have a hard time distinguishing this, so I wait until someone addresses me directly, rather than to assume it’s about me, personally.

    I think it helps, here, to depersonalize, and not assume its meant personally as innuendo. I think this is a confusion, and perhaps insecurities, we all share. Again, part of being human, and I really like to emphasize that.

    Ok, I will cease on this note. Thank you again for all of this, an extremely enlightening and multi-dimensional discussion that I feel affects how we move forward from here, in terms of clearing a bit of buzz that undermines clarity. When we own our own static, the communication is much, much clearer, and this benefits the greater good in all ways.

    Peace.

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  • Oh, one thing I wanted to be sure to say to you here, Katie, is that you influenced me greatly in a comment you made I guess a few months ago (can’t remember the blog or discussion, but I remember your comment vividly)–“follow the information, not the people.” That is awesome wisdom.

    I’d also say, follow the energy, but of course, information is energy. I try to follow the ‘light’ energy, so as not to get bogged down in dense energy. That’s the distinction I make–light vs. dense energy, non-judgmental, it just is, as per the feeling of it. My intention is for my contribution to always be in the form of ‘light’ energy, to raise the frequency within the collective. At least, I try! Don’t always succeed, but my intention is heartfelt. Takes practice.

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  • Thanks, Katie, what you say is very clear to me. I do think working to discredit others takes us in a negative direction, that is the energy generated.

    I’m sure you know that the challenge here is keeping ourselves sane and grounded as the energy flies in all directions. As humans, we tip this way and that, but there is always a center to come back to, I think that’s what we’re after, to know when we are centered and when we are not, that’s all. It’s not about always being centered, that’s not human; but our own awareness of when we are there and when we are not is our salvation, I think. When we focus on others, we diminish our awareness of ourselves, and that’s when we can get caught unawares.

    Love the feeling, green is the color of healing 🙂

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  • I woke up with one thought I’d like to add to all this, that was really central to shifting out of the really intense anxiety that was the root of all this, and which the benzos, in particular, only added to, and which all surfaced like a volcanic eruption when I tapered from them.

    For me, personally, my worst fear was coming across as ‘weird’ or ‘different.’ I was raised to be a conformist, against which I did rebel, but deep down, I was too self-conscious to go against the grain in deed and action. I talked rebelliousness, but when push came to shove, I did not want to stand out, unless it was only in the most positive light.

    The combo of coming off psych drugs and the effects of that along with how I was made to feel in the mental health system was devastating psychologically because that is exactly what ended up happening, my worst fears became self-fulfilling prophecies,

    I was suddenly othered into being ‘weird’ because I was not like all those ‘normal’ people, as I’d once been (in my illusion of duality, this was my thought process back then, I was just as bigoted without realizing it).

    I was treated and spoken to like a child, a total loser without a chance in hell of happiness and fulfillment, and this after a 17 year successful career, a good education and training, I’ve also been married for over 30 years, and basically I had a normal mainstream life despite being diagnosed and on psych drugs, I was not disabled until it all crashed and burned inside me after 20 years of taking them.

    This was impossible to reconcile, and still, I walked around San Francisco, going to healing programs, doing volunteer work, and being extremely meek in the whole process, because my brain was fried from the drugs and I could not speak very coherently nor did I make much sense. It was obvious that something was going on with me, and people would treat me very strangely and often very rudely, simply because I was not up to snuff culturally.

    Of course I wasn’t, I was healing from something really strange that no one knew anything about. At that point, I thought I was stuck for good, and Iived with the feeling that I was ‘off,’ and everyone knew it, and it would always be this way.

    Well, even though I succeeded in my legal mediation against the system, which gave me credibility in the legal community and validated my truth–that I was being blatantly stigmatized and discriminated against (when others tried to tell me it was ‘paranoia’), and my brain and nervous system have bounced back and I can function like anyone, perhaps I can still come across weird in a culture which does not share my beliefs or which does not understand my language, and if I am overall not like all others.

    But the difference now is that this is ME, and it works for me, my life is full and joyous after all those years of suffering from medical and social trauma which I thought would leave permanent and irrevocable damage, it seemed that way at a few junctures.

    So healing wasn’t about becoming ‘normal’ again; it was about celebrating my weirdness! If I own it and celebrate it, then no one’s opinion of me can really get inside me, I just notice the energy being thrown at me. That can make me angry, simply because I balk at people being rude and disrespectful. I can sink that way, too, when triggered in just the right way, but I do my best to own it and make amends, and come back to a neutral, non-judgmental perspective. That’s a practice.

    Each one of us has a uniqueness that is our gift, which, in a judgmental culture, is perceived as weird or different in a way that people act averse, because differences scare us. Whereas if we were to celebrate our weirdness and differences in ourselves, then we would celebrate them in others, the diversity of our humanity. I can’t tell you the rush I feel in my heart when I see someone really sticking their neck out and being themselves in an uptight and stigmatizing culture.

    To me, that is the true nature of our spirit, to shine, regardless of what anyone else thinks. When we get that, healing happens, and it is so rich, I cannot even describe it in words. I would love for others to feel this, it is the most uplifting and clarifying transition one can make, to embrace their weirdness, celebrate it, and shine it for the world to see. That is the ultimate courage, to my mind, and in my experience, it is rewarding and freeing on every level imaginable–to be out of the clutches of ‘what others think.’ That’s like a psychological straightjacket, because we cannot control what others think, so there is a lot to accept about this before one can move on to their next stage of evolution. I learned to not get stuck there, that was vital.

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  • Thank you, Richard, for your thorough and heartfelt response. And thank you also for your kind words.

    There are a lot of layers here to consider, and I appreciate the complexities of such goals as to shift the world into a more livable place for all people concerned. At best, the world is hardly what I would call ‘a healing environment,’ as violent and corrupt as it is. So many smoke and mirrors to sift through, along with opinions and perspectives as varied as people on the planet, each of us with our own unique history and voice to interpret it.

    What draws me to MIA, despite my misgivings, is the opportunity to explore all of this, for the purpose of expanding our consciousness and awareness around these issues, for, in turn, the purpose of clarity–for, both, myself and as a collective.

    I believe we have all fought or are fighting our battles, and we each bring our battle scars to the table, that would be expected. My complaint has nothing to do with ‘hurt feelings’ or as a response to being thin-skinned. Being sensitive to energy is not the same as being ‘thin-skinned,’ which to me would mean someone who hides in avoidance because they just can’t take it, whatever ‘it’ is. I certainly don’t hide, and I’m most definitely not an avoider.

    Being sensitive means just that–sensitive to energy–which, as a trained and experienced energy healer, I know how to interpret my feelings as energy. I can let myself feel it, and from that, I get very clear information about it. That’s how energy healing works, by ‘reading’ the energy. I happen to do it on a body level.

    This is all stuff I learned as I healed far and away from mental health anything, and in which I subsequently trained and on which I base my practice. I’ve had fantastic results by learning how to read the energy on this level, but it does take training to focus it and practice to refine it. It’s also a delicate balance, I have to know how to transmute that, which I do, that’s how I learned to be a healer, to transmute energy and raise it in frequency.

    Following my journey through the system and off of drugs—which, indeed, left me void of defenses and quiet vulnerable—I took a singing performance class to address this very issue, and it led to my being invited by directors to be in their shows. I did not go after this career, I was invited in, and it scared me shitless. But it was an opportunity to get paid, which I needed at the time, and I grew in the process in many ways.

    I ended up doing 7 years of community and professional theater in San Francisco, a sizeable theater market, they take it seriously. I did leads, including musical leads, which was all new to me, at the tender age of 45, 10 years ago.

    No way I could have done that with a thin skin, I would have been eaten alive. Instead, directors sought me. It was kind of a miracle to me, a reward for the good healing work I had done. My first show came 3 weeks after graduating from a graduate energy healing program, where I shifted my energy at quantum rates. Then, came the manifestations. This is how I learned to work the energy, post healing.

    Making my film and telling my story for the world to hear, against all grains, also toughened my skin. I can’t even begin to describe the thoughts that occurred to me after having screened and published it, but I worked on that, part of my healing work. I’ve been in the public eye for over a decade and have taken a lot of hits.

    After viewing the film, I’ve had people argue with my personal story and the story of others, they’ve been invalidated right to my face. I did not know how to respond, we come from our hearts to share our struggles to help others, and this is what comes back from some? That’s hard to reconcile in this community.

    Not because it ‘hurts my feelings,’ that’s really kind of impossible at this stage of the game. But because I think it shows tremendous hypocrisy that undermines the very core of our goal to create a humane and sound society. I don’t know how else to see it at this point. I do have an issue when survivors invalidate other survivors and their voices, and call them ‘programmed.’ That is extremely judgmental and demeaning, and also exclusionary. I’ve seen very callous exchanges on here that make me shudder.

    In May is the local premiere of my next film, about bringing music to assisted living and other care facilities. I play piano accompaniment and am music director for a band. This is one way I am generalizing my healing work, to make it more as community uplift, in order to create a more healing environment. Joy and music are healing elixirs.

    I say all of this simply for perspective. My point is not to protect people, I don’t think that’s my role here, but, instead, to consider where dialogue gets muddled and away from the focus at hand, and the energy just drops like sludge into a deep well. I think dialogues and debates will naturally have tangents, and indeed we are human and naturally get triggered, these are tough issues which test our egos and which challenge our beliefs. I find it fertile with possibilities of healing on individual and social level.

    But when it becomes about alliances and individuals, pitting groups against others, slamming people publically, etc., that is where I take pause. Heated debate is fine, but personal attacks are not cool, I think we all agree on that.

    Still, what people seem to disagree quite a bit about is what is a personal attack vs. what is a projection and someone is just playing ‘victim.’ And the mental health system is laden with these dynamics, it is over the top. Some people (and I’m not distinguishing groups here, it is pan-cultural) can go from abuser to victim in the bat of an eyelash, it seems that some people have no center and cannot find neutrality, which does keep things off kilter and virtually impossible to navigate with any clarity.

    And by “neutral,” I don’t at all mean without passion and emotion, but it does mean that the focus is the collective, and not on specific individuals. Neutral in perspective, as opposed to personal. I think when we find that particular space, great clarity and progress will occur.

    Humanity is a great turning now, globally. I think we can either support it or resist it. But in general, as far as radical change goes, I believe it has begun and is mostly out of our hands—other than how we each navigate our piece of it.

    Thanks for indulging me on this, Richard, I know it is not exactly on topic, but in a way I feel it is. As I look back on my healing journey, especially from all the drugs, so much of what I was experiencing internally was more about my own discomfort in the world than anything else. Then, I realized that it was up to me to feel comfortable with myself, in my own skin, and not only would that guide my healing with relative ease, it would change the world around me. And it did, my life transformed radically. May the changes continue to ripple…

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  • Richard, thanks as always for the courage to write this article. This discussion has generated a lot of truth in the dynamics of this discussion that I feel are core to breaking up the toxic alliances that create oppression in the mental health system. I really appreciate how everyone comes to the table so authentically with their feelings and perspectives. One thing I do appreciate about this website is the transparency it generates, I think that’s vital to social healing.

    Katie, from someone who went through this with extreme consciousness (for better or worse), from various angles professionally and as a client-turned-advocate, it seems to me that you deeply understand the nuance which creates the division and separations which undermine, both, healing and justice.

    I’m also a proponent of unity consciousness because I feel that, whether we realize it or not and whether like it or not, we are all connected and we affect each other in profound ways. As I see it, our choice lies in awakening to that or staying in denial of it. The former brings clarity with ease, while denial tends to be a bit rough after a while. That’s one of the most critical things I learned as I healed from psych drugs toxicity, and all else that came with this particularly complex and educational journey.

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  • I was on Ativan and Xanax for over 15 years, and Klonopin for about 10 years, all 3 for several years. This was in addition to 6 other drugs. It was a hellish withdrawal as most people describe.

    When I came off all prescribed drugs in 2002, I had never heard of any of this about iatrogenic or dependence vs. addiction, etc. I did not know that I was on my way to becoming a ‘psychiatric survivor.’ I had yet to wake up on an intellectual level about what had occurred with me, here, but I knew intuitively that something was a amiss regarding the way I had been treated medically.

    I was still on the verge of waking up to the fact that I had been horrendously abused and drained to high heaven, from the very people to whom I’d turned in trust for healing. I suddenly felt as though I had been in a vampire den, feasted upon, unknowingly, for years and years.

    Mostly, I knew that I was getting sicker and sicker on these pills and no one in the mental health system felt I was worth a listen, that I could not know what I was talking about regarding my own self or my health. Imagine what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that kind of personal and spiritual invalidation, when already feeling chaotic, ungrounded, excruciating anxiety and worries about surviving in such a cold, heartless, and utterly bigoted and stigmatizing environment.

    I knew of no one who had come off psych drugs. I only knew they were hurting me and doing great harm, and I could not function on these. I went for what soothed and when nothing did, I’d cry, scream, and complain, overall doing the best I could to get though these extremely rough times and moments, trusting my process of healing. During this time, I learned tons and tons about energy and natural self-healing. I no longer feel the effects of any of this, as far as I can tell. It is all behind me.

    It wasn’t until I started arguing with people on here who challenged my truth as a survivor, that I’d began to feel off balance again. I thought perhaps something was wrong with me, that I could not keep a cool head when my truth was being challenged. I realized it was because I am continually reminded on here of my experience in the mental health system. There has been on difference in the dynamic, I have felt it here through and through, which has been terribly disillusioning to me, as far as any kind of ‘survivor’ movement or community goes.

    I continue to share because I feel it’s important, but it does not feel safe to do so. When a survivor’s truth is challenged or questioned on MIA, I feel very discouraged about this cause, because that is the #1 affront in the system which is what leads to confusion and instability. There is no fighting it, that is how energy works. As far as I know, healing requires peace, followed by peace of mind.

    I commend everyone’s courage for participating in these very challenging and thought-provoking discussions. However, I found it eye-opening to pay attention to how it was affecting my health to be so constantly invalidated and questioned on these very personal issues, which I think here of all places, is exactly the opposite of what I’d consider to be sound and appropriate.

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  • So disturbing to read this. Seems that disillusionment with all that we have trusted, and into which we have invested in heart and soul is the order of the day. I’ve no doubt there is more to come, we really are such a sick society, it’s so disheartening to know the truth, but necessarily to see it in order for healing and change to occur. Time to take off the blinders.

    This article is such a brilliant example of how far from the path and nature of humanity we have strayed as a collective. Great courage you have for speaking out about it. You are saving lives by doing so.

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  • Sounds like a wealthy cult militia, then, which yes, I think that’s a reasonable comparison in how it operates. And in this case it is government supported. That makes this especially challenging, because the beliefs of the government are the same as the beliefs of the psychiatry and the system. There seems to be no convincing either one otherwise, that this is all a huge scam, in every respect.

    However it occurs, I really do look forward to the day that it all comes to light, and everyone gets what they deserve–criminal punishment for some and restitution for others.

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  • When a structure has no foundation (other than deceit and illusion), then it can fall at any time. That’s how I perceive psychiatry to be. A lot of society already knows that the mental health system and social services–especially child protective services–are toxic. I see these opinions all the time online, people are aware of this.

    I really don’t think that everyone will wake up to psychiatry as corrupt and incompetent all at once, and witnessing a debate or discussion about it is confusing for most people, there are way too many personal issues, egos, and subjective opinions and experiences flailing about. It’s just as hard to imagine cohesion within the resistance to psychiatry as it is to imagine substance in psychiatry.

    But one person at a time waking up to what this is all about will be its downfall. People have got to discover this on their own. And I do feel people are wising up about all sorts of corruption and power abuse these days, and are voicing and resisting it.

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  • I thought about posting a comment from my own experience, but as a psychiatric survivor who has communicated these thoughts in meetings, in legal mediation, at City Hall, in a public service film, and online for years and years and years, I finally decided that this only keeps these toxic issues, as well as my personal issues, alive and active to continue to engage with this level of extreme narcissism. These are not healthy people.

    So I’m thinking at this point it is best to walk away and move on from all this. It’s a house of cards anyway, I don’t buy into all of that ‘power’ crap, that is their delusion, not mine. After all, what happens when there’s a tug of war, and one side lets go of the rope?

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  • Lol–in fact, psychiatric treatment for distress and the effects of trauma makes as much sense as anklets to protect a horse from sharks, as per The White Knight.

    Funny you should mention this. Since finding my way out of all that and clearing my head from having been ‘therapized’ for way too long, I’ve always said that entering the mental health world was like going through the looking glass. Then, I started referring to it as bizarro world.

    I love this definition of BW from Wikipedia, fits psychiatry to a tee–

    “In popular culture ‘Bizarro World’ has come to mean a situation or setting which is weirdly inverted or opposite to expectations.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World

    So in this analogy, he’s Bizarro.

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  • Scary article that Allen wrote. To a general lay member of the public without this experience, this would be persuasive, I think.

    This paragraph from it really caught my attention:

    “Dissatisfied patients portray psychiatrists as power hungry bullies trying to control their lives and ply them with poisons. In contrast, psychiatrists often experience themselves as powerless cogs in an inadequately funded and disorganized mental health nonsystem, trying to do their best, under very difficult circumstances, to improve the lot of people suffering from terribly painful symptoms and terrible life circumstances.”

    First of all, yes, this is actually how I would categorize all of my treatment teams that led me straight to catastrophic illness and disability and gravely interrupted my life, from which I had to go to great and very creative lengths to heal.

    And then, he describes THEMSELVES as victims of the “non-system” system, while we who were seriously victimized are blowing hot delusional air. Yeah, right.

    At the end there, he sounds exactly like a knight in white shining armor, saving all those poor suffering people. Pure martyr.

    I’m afraid he’s invalidated my voice and story, that would be exactly his response to my experience, as it has been to other naysayers. Hmmm, what would be worth my while, here, then? I’m casting pearls before swine when I share my experience, and the response is unequivocal stigma. What would be the point of repeating that over and over again?

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  • I think ‘psychological well-being’ is contingent upon how comfortable we are with ourselves, in our own skin, at any given time. This is where we find calm and peace of mind. This can vary within each of us, along a continuum, but it is possible to make it a goal toward which to practice, with focused intention. What could possible matter more than this?

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  • Yes, the devil advocacy approach is reasonable in its challenge and can fruitfully result in clarity with continued fair and reasonable dialogue, non-avoidant of anyone’s personal truth which may surface in the dialogue. That’s one way by integrity to reach truly inclusive realities to grow our awareness around these issues in favor of finding solutions that would be most relevant to those affected by the mental health system and its tangents.

    As an example of what I’m saying, however, in what would more than likely progress rather than regress a dialogue, how Bob reframes and illustrates the intent of his approach is open to further dialogue.

    “Okay, let’s say you are right. What are the implications of what you are saying?”

    “Okay, Dr. Pies and Dr. Frances, let’s agree you are ‘right’ about your categorization of when the drugs should be used. But then does psychiatry have an ‘evidence base’ for the use of antipsychotics that would support their categorization of when the drugs should be used?”

    The questions, based on what they, themselves—the Drs.–have said, are clear and fair, and one would, hopefully, be able to expect a direct and clear response, that would be for the benefit of the greater good; rather than avoiding the question because of what they might imply, which would be an example of ego over the greater good, (illustrated by avoidance or purposely muddling the arguments being made) which would be a wrong turn, imo, if we want clarity.

    Although any clear answer would continue the dialogue, whether acceptable or not, initially. But overall, the fruitfulness of the dialogue would depend on the openness of the responses, at each step.

    With all respect, frankly, I do think that when you focus on “illustrating conflicts in the person’s own logic,” then the focus is no longer on the issue at hand but on that person’s process. You are bound to put someone on the defensive, even simply from picking up that intention–that’s intuitive–regardless of whether or not they can provide a persuasive rebuttal. Right there is the risk of it becoming personal.

    How Bob phrases it are examples of reaching out sincerely for a response, not to make them feel attacked or defensive—at least that would be my read and intention.

    Emotion is bound to come up when we get to the truth of the matter, we all get triggered around this, it’s human. But how we own, navigate, and project that is, I believe, key to determining the ability of a community to achieve clarity on a more universal level.

    Logic varies from person to person, everyone has their sense of it because different frameworks of thinking dictate a variety of logical processes in how blanks are filled in. Not everything can be explained with intellectual logic–at least not past a certain point, that would be unnatural.

    Everyone has their own information, moment by moment, they connect the dots their own way, this is not universal. This is exactly what we are trying to communicate to psychiatrists and other clinical types–“you are wrong about people, you are projecting your own crap onto others, and this is what you are observing and on which you make your judgments.” At least, that is my message, along with the fact that if they were to own this, it would free them.

    When we know all the facts of another person (which we never really can unless we live with that person day and day out for years, growing together), then they are logical, we see this on the most profound level. You are logical to you and I am logical to me. We are not always logical to others, and we really don’t owe it to anyone to be so, only to ourselves.

    To me, that translates to peace of mind. And when we are at peace with ourselves, then we can get the clearest and best information for all concerned, rather than to get perpetually side-tracked by personal issues (either via conflict or complete and total avoidance, there is a middle ground here) as seems to be the nature of the beast in these discussions, and I believe that is a core issue. This is relevant on a clinical level and on an academic level, there is just too much suppressed there that matters, in the end, which creates a very tiny box in which no one can really fit without compromising themselves a great deal, that translates to ‘social acceptability.’ I believe the lines are being blurred here, as per the social revolution that is occurring. That’s the big change, as I see it, and it will shift the power in many ways.

    A non-conflicted mind is clear and leads to solutions.

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  • Yes, I agree, I think it’s all a defense response to a toxic society. We each have our own network of defenses to combat the effects of social trauma, which is how I would read to be the significant role of our unique genetic structures. How we respond, and that varies quite a bit from person to person and certainly from culture to culture, is unfortunately harshly judged, which I think is a big problem here,

    How we judge responses (and I will freely admit, it can be hard not to at times, we all have our triggers and biases), rather than simply respecting individual processes, neutrally and with curiosity, rather than with judgment– including, to great individual and social harm, trying to elicit shame in others for how they respond to toxic social dynamics–is what turns into labels with stigmatizing associations which leads to only bad treatment (in every respect) and a bottomless rabbit hole. The interactions between staff and clients speak for themselves, from my experience.

    I believe social trauma and the effects thereof (post traumatic stress) is more widespread and epidemic than we allow ourselves to believe, in general Some people respond by becoming mentally confused and challenged to focus on point, some people become ungrounded and lose emotional stability, while some become physically ill. I do believe that often, one can preclude the other, as an expression of imbalance occurring. That would be where we hold the anxiety, we each do this according to our own process, which I do feel is partially dictated by our genetic make-up, although I do not believe that is at all fixed.

    And some people’s lives become so catastrophic as the result of engaging trustingly with a toxic society that all sorts of illnesses and imbalance manifest on a physically perceived level.

    Some defenses are merely more socially acceptable than others. The rest becomes the target of stigma, marginalization, and social ills in general.

    So our dualistic other-ing society is, I think, based on which defenses are more vs. less tolerated, understood, and considered to be ‘normal’ (of the norm) as opposed to ‘natural’ (dictated by nature).

    Whatever our genetic make-up, this is our nature. I also believe this to be flexible, and that it can change over time, as people learn more about that which they have not heretofore understood–that is, expanding awareness and deepening empathy for others, mostly by seeing ourselves in those whom we judge and stigmatize.

    Hopefully, this becomes the trend, to achieve social healing, which, in turn, will benefit ALL individuals in society, not just a select few with the bucks, or “good genes,” or both…or whatever arbitrary standard used by the class which stands to benefit from the illusion–that is, those who resist change.

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  • Thank you for clarifying, Bob, I see from where you are coming here.

    Although I think that, overall, these discussions are deeply based on conflicting cultural perspectives, and I mean this within each sub-culture of the dominant narrative to which you refer. In this narrative, clients/survivors (those that are stigmatized and marginalized) are culturally influenced in an entirely different way than those who have not experienced this firsthand, in their own minds and bodies. And, within each of these cultures (as per the psychiatric narrative), there is way more conflict than agreement, even on the most agreed upon issues.

    The psych drugs issue is a powerful example of this. There is such a plethora of semantics, projections, and diverse personal experience, that it seems we’d need a broader sense determining what is truth vs. what is illusion, for the sake of individuals (and families) before they get stuck in the toxic quagmire that is the identity and seemingly inevitable fate of “psychiatric patient.” So despite evidence which surfaces to support our claims that these drugs are unequivocally harmful, they seem to be overshadowed by the clash in diverse thinking—which seems perpetually hostile to me–rather than supported by the goal of the greater good.

    Now, to me, that is the issue here: where does the greater good trump personal self-interest? That is where we find the core issue with psychiatry, which is supposed to be about the greater good yet we know that it is laden with personal gain at the EXPENSE of the greater good (individual health, family harmony, grounded communities, sound societies).

    I believe we are most persuasive and convincing when we demonstrate without a doubt that we support the healing and sound evolution of the greater good over personal gain. That is where anyone at all can show up psychiatry and set a much better example–toward the end of creating a healthy society in which none of this would be at all necessary.

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  • “Do we see, in their assessment of the scientific literature, evidence of the critical thinking that we want to see present in a medical specialty that has such a large impact on our lives? And if not, what shall we do?”

    What I don’t see is evidence of is the humanity that brings these issues to the forefront, but more so simply a game of “you’re wrong and I’m right.” Perhaps the issue is one of interpersonal dynamics and clashes of cultures not allowing for copacetic communication, which is what leads people to the system–and to the corresponding psych drugs–to begin with. Walking our talk is where we find clarity and solutions, and that seems to be sorely missing here. Practicing integrity would be a good start to healing this mess.

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  • I agree, it’s aggravating to see this repeating and repeating, to the point where it would appear that injustice and marginalization is the familiar dynamic in this endless cycle. That’s not change, but more of the same.

    As I navigated the advocacy world, it seemed there was more emphasis on conflict rather than clarity, as if people were simply looking for a fight. It seems impossible to avoid conflict and be wholly one’s authentic self in the mental health world–which is what actually leads people to seek support in the first place. That is the nature of oppression, and it seems hard to avoid this in groups. Bullies always seem to take over, and wear down everyone’s defenses that do not agree with them.

    Still, there is something to be said about being an example of standing in one’s truth despite the triggers and insecurities of others, and simply not responding to the false beliefs of others, but instead, using these opportunities to learn about ourselves by how we react to that with which we do not agree. Otherwise, how will we ever achieve peaceful diversity? We teach by example.

    Thanks for this very honest post.

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  • I totally get what you’re saying here, Bradford, that was exactly my experience with the system, merely a repeat of toxic dynamics.

    Indeed, toxic guilt and shame are the very powerful tools of oppression and cause a chronic internal traumatization to occur, like mental loops. They cause us to feel badly about ourselves, anxious, and conflicted, so that we externalize these in a way that creates insidious marginalization. Being second-classed is the essence of powerlessness, which is not a natural state of being. We are inherently powerful, unless we believe the lies that we are not (stigma).

    In a toxic system, those that march to the beat of their own drummer are devalued because they will not participate in the system–and for good reason, given that it is not healthy! It’s good self-care to refuse to conform simply from fear of rejection, that is totally compromising to our truth and integrity. If that is the kind of society we’re dealing with, then rejection is a merciful act, and we can be on our way to a better life and way of being. To me, that is transformative healing and personal growth.

    I invite you to check out a film I made a few years ago, where 6 of us share our journeys through family dynamics, the system, and our healing paths. I talk all about my relationship with my dad. From all that you say here, I’ve a feeling this film will speak to you.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

    My website with contact info is in the description. Feel free to be in touch if you feel so compelled. I really appreciate all you share here, we are extremely synchronistic in our experience.

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  • Ron, interesting analysis of communication dynamics between clinicians and clients. I think that’s a highly relevant topic when it comes to the overall social dynamic within the mental health field that we tend to deem as problematic with respect to the issues of healing and wellness, and also social justice. A lot to think about here, but a couple of things jumped out at me up front–

    “When people are ‘mad,’ they are often insisting that certain things are so, and frequently seem unwilling or incapable of appreciating or learning from other perspectives.”

    That’s an interesting take on what is “madness.” Aggressive and chronic narrow-mindedness does seem unnatural and overtly guarded, as if easily threatened by other perspectives. That’s a lot of intense fear people sit with, leading to chronic defensiveness. I can see how this is not only madness, but also maddening with which to attempt dialogue, one has to really be in charge of their agency to not allow enmeshment while giving permission for the process. That’s a highly refined delicate balance.

    One option which I always feel is sound would be for each party to own his or her differences, surrender the need to control, and go their separate ways. That alone would be healing, to my mind, in how we embody humility and surrender. No sense in trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, some things just can’t be forced or even analyzed, as that can so easily lead to oppression and judgment (stigma). It just is; each person has their story around their dynamic and intention, we learn this early on.

    “When individuals are facing situations where there seems to be a dire need to solve a problem, yet no solution nor path toward such a solution is apparent, the person naturally enters into a state of conflict.”

    Very interesting, makes me think of how when people go into the system for healing and solutions do not appear as they had been led to expect (and not only that but the issues only become deeper and more complex), they enter a chronic state of inner conflict, on many grounds. It’s why I call the system ‘toxic,’ in that it only serves to perpetuate and embed distress and suffering, where solutions should be appearing instead, but do not.

    Dialogue has, indeed, fallen short these days, in general I think. That’s why people are enraged, killing each other, and committing suicide. I feel there is a direct correlation to these with a total and complete breakdown in communication within societies, communities, families, etc. Repressed anger leads to shaming, and that leads to more rage.

    Right now I’m calling the world a tower of babel, that’s how it seems to me at this point. People have a hard time having their beliefs challenged, as it can bring up all sorts of issues of chronic invalidation and disregard. Personally, I think it’s an expansive exercise to see other points of view, on, both, an emotional and spiritual level, so indeed, it is healing to be open to other realities, there are so many perspectives to consider. To me, that would be the road to inner and outer peace, where we are open to new realities above and beyond our familiar. That would be hardy social (r)evolution.

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  • Hi Mariaelena,
    I hope you and the class found the clip/film meaningful and that it generated good discussion. These threads have become long and a bit tedious to navigate, so if you’d like to give me feedback on the clip–and the film if you watched the entire thing–you can write me directly at [email protected]. I’d be very appreciative to get your perspective on my work here.
    Thanks,
    Alex.

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  • Beautifully written exploration of personal truth. I do believe that regardless of any diagnosis or prognosis, we have the hope of inner peace, if that were to be a desired goal. Struggling with acceptance of what is can be a powerful healing journey, in and of itself. Thank you for sharing so openly your humanity, that is a gift.

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  • I appreciate your sharing this, Bradford. Yes, making good here was vital for my clarity and grounding, I could relax from all that finally; and indeed, I could also see how meaningless it was–and in fact, needlessly catastrophic–going the ‘psychology’ route to heal from all this. I found much better and effective support going the alternative and spiritual route, there is more neutrality here around these issues, not all of this personal opinion and defensiveness. What is, is what is, and we go from there.

    Although I will, without hesitation, admit that learning about the psychology of family dynamics and applying this was supportive in the family healing process. And one adept therapist recognized the boundary issues which were being violated, which, boundaries were not a concept in my family, of course, so this was new and valuable information for me. Setting boundaries with my father would be impossible, but with my mother, albeit challenging because of how she reacts to being challenged, it was totally necessary and appropriate, and it shifted the family significantly.

    And yes, the significant and relevant point here being the travesty that occurs when we turn to the mental health system for support around the family trauma, and they respond with diagnoses, drugs, marginalizing, victim-blaming, and overall repeating toxic group dynamics, with nowhere to turn for advocacy, because by this point the STIGMA runs so deep.

    Why I had to go through that to heal with my family, I have no idea. I’m sure there is a purpose and meaning to this, on a spiritual and personal growth level, but as far as healing at the core with my family, the answers came from elsewhere, from other healing avenues I took, an alternative perspective. And that’s what led me to forgiveness as a healing path, and it has served me universally.

    Then, with my head finally cleared and my feet on the ground, I turned my attention back to the mental health system to say, “What the hell is going on in here??” What a stupid mess that all is, I’m sorry to say.

    Glad to hear you got some good years in with your dad, too, Bradford. I found it released a lot of my own stress, from resentment and blame, to really and truly forgive, lightens the load. Grows us up quite a bit, too.

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  • Interesting story. My father was the central figure in my life tribulations, too, but he was not a typical man in many respects. He hated sports and loved theater and the arts. He was a very humanitarian physician, worked for the county and taught medical school, and, being Latino (Argentinean) he was extremely passionate and on his sleeve with his feelings, no stone unturned there, that’s for sure.

    I inherited a lot of his qualities but we butted heads because he wanted me to a be a scholar (influenced by our Jewish-intellectual roots) and I was more interested in simply working full time and enjoying life, creating as I go. And it wasn’t simply that he did not appreciate my life choices, he was chronically and unambiguously shaming about it. I had to learn that his issues and shame were not mine.

    The hard part was that I was expected to appease my dad (don’t poke the bear!) as far back as I can remember (around age 4, something like that) and I honestly did not know how to do that and be myself. So I grew up straddling between my dad’s demands and expectations vs. my natural desires and preferences, as these were quite divergent. That was very anxious making, and of course, complaining about it only made things worse, so it was quite double-binding, until I could finally afford to live on my own.

    This rippled well into adulthood until I could recognize the family dynamic for what it was, and heal what I had taken on from this. In that process, I had to forgive my dad, to the point where I attended a workshop on forgiveness, and we did a ritual, etc., very in depth.

    Then, I re-connected with my dad and we became very close. He’s had a stroke by that time and was debilitated, but I visited him often and we’d go for coffee and share whatever was on our minds. I learned a lot about him and how he felt about certain things, and could really see the good I got from him. It was a nice time for me, and for us.

    He passed away about 7 years after I did this particular healing work, so I was fortunate to have established a heart-based connection with him to heal our relationship before he passed. I feel extremely connected to my dad now, almost as though he is guiding me from ‘the other side.’ I imagine he just may be. Abusive or not, I do know he was extremely dedicated to the well-being of his family. Ironic, but true. Go figure…

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  • “Political correctness should not be allowed to stand in the way of walking with people in their search for healing and well-being.”

    Nor should anything stand in the way of a person’s healing and well-being. When it does, it is likely to be crushed, one way or another. I believe that the heartfelt desire and intention to heal is so powerful in its authenticity and momentum, that it will trump any resistance.

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  • “In holistic medicine, there are no specialties. It can be quite basic. It’s about mindset, readiness to shed fear, and trust in the body’s capacity to heal when properly supported. For my patients to be well, I know they will need to approach their health with an extreme commitment to the integrity of their mind and body.”

    Very nicely put. I believe “integrity” to be the key word here. I think that a lot of anxiety is caused by our own duplicity, not walking our talk. When we align with our truth, we calm down because we see the totality of everything, and not merely a fraction of it.

    “First, let me tell you that I was once a typical doctor…”

    And I was once a typical human being, until I went through the mental health system, psych drugs withdrawal, healing and transformation. Now, I’m someone I never expected to be, but which has always been me. It takes some getting used to.

    One thing I’ve learned is that healing, change, transformation, and evolution is not for the faint of heart. Aside from integrity, it takes a tremendous amount of trust in our processes, and faith in our higher selves/inner guidance, once we connect with this. It’s a whole new way of living and being, quite rewarding in many interesting ways.

    Thanks for this soul-nourishing article.

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  • Hi Kayla, first of all, I tend to agree very much with your perspective of the system and these issues, that I’ve seen expressed in all of your posts. I think your assessment is right on, you know the truth of the matter, to my mind.

    And I agree that it can be maddening and discouraging to continually run into power struggles when attempting to offer reasonable and appropriate criticism, for which there is tons of evidence.

    So why the resistance? I imagine this happens for a variety of reasons, but mostly, I feel that resistance to feedback has become the habit of our society, because it means that we have so face changes, somehow, that we really don’t want to face–that is, hard truths. Well, that can only go on for so long, please keep the faith. So many of us are speaking out clearly and adamantly at this point, there’s no turning back.

    Regarding James, we’ve dialogued quite a bit on here about these issues over the last couple of years, and I do feel he is ahead of others in his perspective. James is heart-centered, I know this, very loving man, and I imagine, fair and just professional. As he stated above, he cannot have the perspective of a client/survivor because he has not experienced this aspect of living and of humanity.

    I went into the system right after graduate school, and I realized how utterly naïve I’d been. I thought I knew it all and had the objectivity, and my new peers had me for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That was quite an eye-opening experience, mostly toward myself! I grew so much in my awareness, and in fact, changed my attitude and perspective considerably after this experience. It was extremely humbling.

    All of us are evolving, and in a learning curve in that process–you, me, James, and everyone who reads and posts here, as well as everyone in the world. We live in a time where extreme change is on the horizon–it’s already started–because society can no longer support these oppressive dynamics, they are killing us all.

    People in all corners of the world, from all sorts of toxic institutions–not just the mental health world–are speaking up while not only standing their ground, but breaking new ground as well. This is where we belong, on a new earth, and that is what is being created now. Look for it!!

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  • Thanks for your thoughtful response, James.

    “The purpose of recognizing and discussing this matter is understanding that positive growth must occur from within the flawed system (in whatever way it is flawed) and from beyond the flawed system.”

    From my experience, only downward spiraling occurred in the system, and the bulk of that was not from psych drugs, but from extremely aggressive and relentless stigma. I have concrete examples of this which I’ve shared on here and in my film posted on YouTube, Voices That Heal, so I will not waste anyone’s time repeating that here.

    And for sure, without a doubt, my health and life began to take a big turnaround and followed through on that completely, when I not only ABANDONED the system and so-called ‘mental health care,’ altogether–after having trusted it for so long only to be disastrously failed by it, with no responsibility taken for that (I, like so, so many)–but also when I gave it a good what for with the power of my voice and truth, from the lived experience of having fallen into marginalizing hands of power.

    I found my way back, but it was not without speaking my truth to every community which I knew without a doubt had failed me, and which were supposed to have been supportive, by contract and by law. Not only the mental health system, but in a way, my family as well. The system was merely a repeat of trying to be forced into a little tiny academic box.

    My family has healed by leaps and bounds since I showed them my film and spoke my truth about what happened to me. They had a lot to own up to, but they did, and for that I’m extremely grateful, and I also admire that, especially my mother who had a hard time with this, but she finally got it, and it brought great relief to us all.

    The system, however, is impersonal, so I can’t really get myself to care too much about that. I’m one of the ones who feel it should be scrapped altogether. We don’t need it, and in fact, it is purely vamipiristic as an institution, so as long as it exists, society is being drained.

    There are much, much better, effective, and totally affordable ways to heal, that are prevalent these days. The mental health field is becoming passé, and a large part of that is its failure as a discipline and institution. It has only split society into pieces, from what I can tell, and has caused a lot of rage, in addition to suicide. It is too corrupt and misinformed to be healing. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I think that is the reality of the situation.

    Turns out I’m a full-fledged artist–musician, actor, filmmaker–and have produced and continue to produce successfully here. I would never, ever have discovered this in the system, they thought I was the one “flawed,” whereas we all know, even by your admission, where the flaws really reside.

    I was told I “lost my dreams” by a psychiatrist, while I was in the throes of the nastiest drugs withdrawal you can imagine, and I’m not talking about recreational drugs. I was extremely confused and vulnerable, and his words, which he repeated often (I kid you not) echoed in my head all day and night for weeks, until I could stand it no longer and I took a bunch of pills to end it all. I’d worked so hard to get my education and training, and then, in turn, to come off psych drugs so that I could heal fully and completely, and this is what I’m offered? Dead end.

    Ok, so this is one psychiatrist in an ocean of them. I’m certainly not the only one with stories like this. And for me, this is merely the tip of the iceberg. It really can be quite shameful what happens in private 1-1 therapy meetings.

    Point being, regardless of a few needles in the haystack who can rise above this, we are talking about systemic abuse and oppression on a grave level. I honestly do not care what anyone’s book says. I know what I’ve lived and learned, and the countless stories I’ve heard. There is no restitution for what they’ve done to people. The only way to heal is to GET OUT. The system is stuck, and it will get everyone attached to it stuck. At this point, I’d call it “The Titanic.”

    Whatever history to which you refer is not relevant, I guarantee it. This is a new phenomenon. When in history did we ever have a population of people who healed from psych drugs toxicity and this kind of institutional abuse, leading to a rather hefty dark night of the soul, and then transformation. We are among the crowd now, and our voices matter way more than the system would have us believe.

    Currently, my new film about bringing live music to healing and care establishment is almost complete, and will premiere locally on May 14. The next day, I’m hosting a meditation and healing workshop, to which anyone who wants to come to Eureka, CA is invited, no charge. (although I can’t provide lodging, but there are a lot of cool and cheap places up here). I accompany, on the piano, vocalists in a band which performs for an assisted living facility. This is my new life which I adore. I could only find it after I HEALED from the atrocities of the system.

    Life goes on for me, transformed in every way. I found my healing with means called ‘alternative’ but to me, these ‘alternatives’ should really be the mainstream, because they encourage and support change and individuality, unlike the system, which is intent on producing sheeple. This is my personal example of creating radical change.

    Please reconsider your tendency to invalidate survivors’ voices in favor of books and studies. These are also filtered and flawed. As I know you know —which is why I’ve admired your work—the truth of the matter lies in the heart, and that’s from where I’m coming now.

    Thanks, James, I appreciate this honest and open exchange.

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  • Mariaelena said above, with which I totally agree, “Anger is not welcome in academia.” To me, this is a problem for many reasons.

    First of all, I grew up in a family of hard core academics and I also have a couple of degrees. And one thing I can say with certainty is that I know A LOT of angry academicians, and they project, project, project like nobody’s business. The passive-aggression and lack of transparency for the purpose of staying ‘in control’ is rather insidious.

    This is extremely dangerous for clients, who tend to be sensitive, vulnerable, and unsuspecting.

    So I believe that instead of tempering our emotions, perhaps the academic world should learn how to embrace emotion and not be so put off by it, as emotions, including anger, are the indicator that we are human.

    That is my personal challenge to the academic world: learn tolerance, transparency, authenticity, permission, and courage. Clients/survivors, who tend embrace emotion and even revel in it, can be excellent examples of these.

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  • I’m not talking necessarily about ‘starting off’ with emotion, although I’m not discounting that as also being effective and honest, either. But in the course of such discussions, they are bound to come up and I feel that what sabotages a dialogue most is where we discourage that. Respect and personal boundaries, yes, but discouraging emotional expression regarding these troubling issues, no.

    In a professional setting, we do tend to be rather ‘polite’ about disagreements, in order to gain acceptance. I believe people are heard when they communicate with emotion, but that emotion can be off-putting to some people, which I feel is neither fair nor sound. Sometimes people shut down the conversation by abandoning it because the emotion overwhelms them, and then where are we left? Do we blame the emotion or the resistance to emotion for the shut down?

    The reason I feel this is so important in this discussion in particular is because we are talking about issues of mental health and well-being, as related to clarity. I feel this requires a tremendous amount of permission to be as we are, emotions and all, even in professional dialogue, as this is how we can avoid duplicity and gaslighting. When there is no display of emotion during disagreements, I have to wonder who is and is not telling the truth, as I would question integrity here.

    A big problem in the mental health world is the expectation to suppress emotions, which is what the psych drugs are about, for one thing. Passionate emotions also bring on stigma from the professional’s world. I think this really puts people who’ve been traumatized by all of this at a severe disadvantage, because the role of emotions in our well-being is exactly what I feel could merit deep discussion, as far as how healing occurs.

    I agree with you that there is not enough explored here, and I feel that it’s mainly because people who work in the system are really are intimidated by emotion, in general. That’s my intuitive hit, based on my experiences as a clinician, social worker and as a client in the system for quite a long time.

    To my mind, this would be why the system has failed miserably–it just HATES human emotion, to the point of marginalizing people for displaying them. How does that make any sense at all in a community which is supposed to address severe personal trauma? And yet, that is most definitely the case.

    So sensitive and emotional people who’ve more than likely been traumatized by the DSM culture are not allowed in the discussion because they will make others uncomfortable? And the onus is on whom? I believe this is where a good hardy discussion would be appropriate, between sensitive and well-defended people. That would bring about a whole new truth, I would bet the farm.

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  • Right here is the core problem, from where I sit–this hyper-sensitivity to appropriate feedback and criticism, how is this mentality either safe or sound for a client in a private meeting, going to such great lengths to actually launch a campaign against THE TRUTH!? And basically, becoming “victims” by mentality. How is this an example of anything good, and most of all, character?

    One-to-one meetings with such thin-skinned AND prejudice people that are so terribly taken with their “power & authority” (sorry, both illusions to my mind–what I guess is called in some circles as ‘delusions of grandeur’) makes me shudder. Been there, done that, and I don’t at all recommend it if you at all value your dignity and sanity. Seriously.

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  • The lack of perspective is mind-boggling, isn’t it? What is it that psychiatrists are defending? Their right to continue malpractice, despite the plethora of grievances? And they want to insist that people continue to utilize these “services” that are destroying lives, families, and communities who turn to them for help?

    “Stigma” is based on fictitious projections, illusions. This is not an illusion, our claims are based on the experiences of tons of people, all very similar accounts. And there is tons and tons of evidence for these claims. If it is true and factual, it is not stigma, by definition.

    This is beyond absurd.

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  • “But I also witnessed a number of individuals who really did work hard to do the right thing by the patient and themselves. These are the stories that almost never get told as certainly they do not draw the attention that stories such as you mentioned. But I think it is important they are recognized, whether it is a mental health technician or a psychiatrist. Otherwise, it makes it appear that simply by working in these facilities (prisons or psychiatric units), you are an uncaring person. And this mentality only serves to further divide people, and not provide discussion about how we improve care in an albeit flawed system.”

    James, the system is not simply ‘flawed,’ it is ill-making and corrupt, so working for it is divisive, in and of itself. I don’t feel that survivors’ well-founded and vividly illustrated grievances against the way the system impacts the clients so negatively are necessarily about accusing people of being uncaring or unfeeling (although as we all know the system is filled to the brim with cold and calculating individuals who wouldn’t know the needs of a client from a hole in the ground), but more so about the false beliefs and inherently demeaning and disregarding attitude that drive the system on the whole.

    Many people who work in the system will agree with this, perhaps, out of their own compassion, but still, the situation does not change despite being constantly challenged for its crimes against humanity (and I do mean that literally), and the system only digs in its heels, as per the system being closed to grievance, despite there usually being some kind of grievance protocol. It does not work. Clients have no credibility, the system will find something to pin on the griever to which they will alert the entire community, like spreading viscoius gossip in the guise of ‘case notes.’

    This is how stigma is used as a tool for oppression. It happens repeatedly, I saw this a lot when I worked in the system. They will make up a reason why the client is not credible in their grievance against staff. It’s not that hard to stonewall a client–they will be described as manipulative, controlling, divisive, angry, etc., even when there is no foundation for this, blatant lies. From what I witnessed, I am not exaggerating.

    It’s really hard for me to not say something here when the system just continues to hurt and drain a lot of people while paid professionals are having discussion after discussion, complaining of not being recognized for being one of the ‘good ones’ and above the fray.

    in all honesty, I think these are issues of personal ego, which can never trump what those that are marginalized feel as the result of stigma. When a client complains or gives negative feedback, t’s not about ‘what do you think about me?’ but more like, “Will you please listen to what my needs are so that you can do your job properly?” I don’t know how else to say it. For those marginalized by the system, it is a matter of survival, and that is immediate.

    Mental health professionals should have a much stronger sense of self than caring what other people think about them, otherwise they will not be good examples to clients, and in fact, they will project all their own issues onto them, which is what happens when lack a grounded sense of self. If we care about what others think, rather than to simply live our truth, then we lack sense of self, I can’t see it any other way.

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  • “Just as I was finishing this installment (on February 29th), GD’s father rung me to tell me that GD had just been tied to his bed yet again and that the psychiatrists have re-applied to the MHT for permission to restart the ECTs. Words fail me sometimes.”

    I do feel your utter frustration. I went through a variety of grievance processes as I traversed the system on my own, self-advocating while getting back on my feet from disability, and it was nothing short of maddening. I had to consider on a daily basis standing up for my rights vs. healing, because it so often seemed felt defending my rights as a citizen within the overly controlling system would drive me back over the edge–all power struggle and no reasonability or even the slightest hint of humanity. It was like the movie, Brazil, total bureaucratic nuttiness.

    In the end, however, staring down the abuse with my own truth, regardless of the constant enabling cover-ups and stigma/insults that came flying at me–systemic oppression and discrimination, of course–is what did lead to good healing, because I took back my power. That freed up and cleared my mind considerably.

    Great luck on getting through.

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  • “But I think that expressing my anger, frustration, or sadness is not effective in reaching my goal. So, I try to write in an empathic, even tone, in the hopes that people who disagree with me will feel less attacked and defensive, and will engage in discussion.”

    Thank you for your comment, Amber. I feel that the expressed and embodied emotion is highly relevant and necessary for clarity, so perhaps our disagreement here is because our goals, while similar regarding achieving clarity, would be met via different avenues–that is, I imagine we’d be focused on divergent aspects of the communication.

    For me, in dialogue, emotion is everything, because that is what is real and true, and where clarity is achieved, rather than intellectual clarity, which can be specious. My goal is clarity of the heart, and following that would be clarity of the mind, not the other way around. How we navigate and express that emotion is what determines the level of clarity achieved, to my mind.

    Awesome and extremely relevant discussion, thanks so much to you both for your openness, creativeness, courage.

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  • Hmm, I think I perceive the opposite, that’s it’s NOT about authenticity, in practice, but about manipulation. This ‘bond’ has a price tag on it, so it is not really authentic in the truest sense of the word. If it were, psychotherapy would not be as outrageously costly as it is, for one thing.

    A clinical director where I was doing my MFT internship once said to our training group, “Don’t give your client too much power,” which was pretty much the norm of thinking in the education I received to be a psychotherapist. That was part of my training, learning how to keep the control and power in the sessions.

    I was not comfortable with this and did not feel it was sound supervision (having seen this in practice and finding it very uncomfortable and counter-healing), and I eventually defected the field of psychology in order to pursue other healing and training, with which I’m more copacetic. That would be a combo of energy work and spiritual counseling, based on the principles of Chinese Medicine.

    These are not academic in nature, and so the communication tends to be direct, clear, and no-nonsense, at least in my healing community. It is not about power, but about balance, grounding, and achieving harmony within ourselves. The healer does not intend to make a client see things ‘their way.’ How does that help anyone? We all operate in our own personal realities, that’s natural.

    The healer is there to simply detect where an imbalance is causing anxiety or whatever network of symptoms is the issue, and then prescribe a healing plan to address it, based on natural healing practices which can safely and naturally correct imbalances at the root cause. There is not even nearly the ambiguity that exists in the academic mental health world.

    Clarity is key to healing, and not necessarily intellectual clarity, but simply a knowingness in the heart that one is doing in the right direction for themselves. If there is one thing we want to trust, it is our own process. If not, we suffer with chronic anxiety, which to me signifies something needs to change, internally.

    Language is very important energetically, but most important, I feel, is our intention behind the word, and the meaning we, ourselves, attach to the words as we utter them. I think it’s vital to mean what we say and say what we mean–to speak mindfully and with conscious intention–but that can also be hard to come by, if we are talking strategic communication. I think that’s the exact opposite of authentic.

    When I communicate, it is because I feel the need to express something–my truth–not necessarily to convince anyone of anything, but to feel my truth move through me, that’s one way we flow our energy. Authentic dialogue is organic and present time, not planned, and that makes us vulnerable, which is where we find healing.

    How words and phrases are interpreted is on the hearer, that would be a reflection of THEIR energy, beliefs, and perceived reality. And of course, further discussion might find an intersection here, where a new reality is created.

    It is interesting to see what happens when what is said and what is heard are completely different in meaning and intention, which is quite often these days. I feel that we have a tower of Babel situation going on here. This can be worked out and mutual understanding achieved; however if we are rigid in our beliefs, this will be virtually impossible to resolve, imo. It is our beliefs which dictate our personal reality, so if we are rigid in them, we will not expand to understand respectfully another’s point of view, which is what keeps things either stuck or split.

    I really like the idea of being flexible in our beliefs during dialogue. I find this to be very expansive in terms of understanding a greater breadth of humanity, including our own. When we are self-accepting, we tend to have a more compassionate understanding of others, and I believe this would lead to greater peace.

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  • Mariaelena, I was up early this morning so I took a gander at your paper. Again, thanks so much for offering this.

    Overall, I find this to be a very explicit account of how psychotherapy can be such a disservice to clients, and draining, due to its dismissiveness/invalidation of the client’s perspective. To me, it describes how we lose ownership of our stories and allow others to meddle in them, which I feel is fertile ground for projection and stigma, not to mention trauma or at least rekindling of trauma—e.g., “”the disclaiming of a client’s everyday talk as ‘communication,’” and as you say, “…how the therapeutic exchange works as substitution, where client talk is replaced by therapist talk.”

    Just reading this makes my stomach churn, from the sheer arrogance and presumptuousness of such a practice, as it suits the needs of the clinician while disregarding the client’s truth. Given that the client is paying for this, I’d call this 100% ‘vampiristic.’

    “But for clients to authorize therapy’s construction of ‘communication’ is to agree to its prescriptive version of pathology and responsibility, that is, to see a causal link between their own talk and someone’s mental illness.”

    I’m wondering here if you are talking about Munchausen by proxy, which is how it reads to me, that simply with language, we can draw an ill-making picture of someone; whereas more thoughtful language would actually neutralize the situation, because language influences perspective and perception. I believe MbP is quite common, and criminally abusive.

    “As part of the helping relationship, therapists are pre-authorized by clients to teach them about a new way of seeing and ‘hearing’ things, and new ways of talking.”

    When I went into psychology, what attracted me about psychotherapy was the idea of putting together a puzzle to help a client figure out where they are feeling undermined or made anxious, and then work together to help a client make desired changes. Otherwise, why are they there?

    That’s how my early psychotherapy went, and I loved it. It was not a substitute for a relationship, nor was I looking to be ‘taught how to live.’ That’s what came later, as I plunged into the world of counseling psychology—suddenly, it was up to the therapist to teach others how to be, how to talk, how to live, etc. I believe this is way beyond the scope of practice for what I consider to be sound ‘psychotherapy.’ That’s more like some kind of ‘possessiveness,’ which I don’t feel is healthy at all, and this would not foster anything at all healthy for the client, and especially not in the long run.

    “The idea of clients contesting the therapist’s authority presents a fundamental paradox in a helping asymmetry, for receiving help means authorizing the helper to give it, but what to do if what is given does not feel like help?”

    “Find another therapist,” would be my answer to that question. If one is not happy with services received by someone they hire, we do have choices. If this is in the public system, where choice is limited, and challenges to a therapist’s authority are met with resistance, then that is called ‘oppression,’ which, indeed, is systemic. Not good.

    “Rather, it may be more interesting to see how clients grant authority and, in doing so, co-construct institutionally authorized versions of their own troubles.”

    Were clients to be made aware of what they are walking into, then perhaps they would not so readily trust a stranger with their intimate and personal inner world. With an un-evolved therapist, of which there are plenty, this is a recipe for full on trauma.

    Overall, I believe psychotherapy can be insidiously toxic in the wrong hands. And how do we know whose hands we’re in? We don’t, but we can learn from the personal accounts of so many others, who have been woefully traumatized by an over-controlling and highly presumptuous therapist. That can take a good long while to heal. I’d suggest not even getting started with this, and going another route for healing. There are plenty of healing avenues.

    I don’t really believe in this model (psychotherapy) for healing, although I do know some people benefit greatly. And, I suppose it can be a good adjunct, but I don’t feel core healing is found in psychotherapy, at least not how it is being practiced these days, in general. I appreciate what you outline here, in this close up examination of therapist-client ‘dialogue.’

    I believe that, perhaps, we could have a really powerful and lengthy dialogue regarding what exactly IS the job of a therapist. I have a feeling there would be myriad versions of this, and not all of them copacetic. I bet there would be a lot of personal feelings that would come up in such a discussion that would be quite revealing of why people go into this field. I’m not convinced it is altruistic.

    Thanks again, Mariaelena, for sharing your work. This has been very beneficial to me, and I hope supportive to you, too, in bringing further clarity to these issues. Like anything, it really is a matter of personal perspective, isn’t it? And while always flexible, that comes only from the experience of living.

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  • Love this, Mariaelena, thank you so much for posting your paper. I took a glance at it just now and indeed, I’m extremely interested in what you have to say here.

    I’m closing up shop for the evening, so I will give this a thorough read within the next few days and I’ll be happy to give you my impressions.

    Very exciting work you are doing, I think this is so central to the core problem/solution, these relationships and communication/non-communication. I’m quite tuned into the quality and energy of communication, been my focus for a long time, also. There are multiple layers of energy there, we communicate in so many ways, subtle and overt.

    I really appreciate all of this, and your blog. To be continued…

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  • Ah, I’m glad to hear that. I agree many ways to express it, I think that’s our human beauty. I picked up the civility in the above discussion but the passion eluded me, but of course, I’m reading on my screen, which can be limiting.

    And I PASSIONATELY agree with you that ‘anger is not welcome in academia.’ I have close associations with this, and nothing can be truer, and more toxic, to my mind. I have deep grievances about this because I don’t think that is sound at all and causes a great deal of problems that undermine the credibility of academia, to my mind, and of course, the mental health field is academic.

    I’m an energy healer, we work with nuts and bolts of the person and their energy. Nothing academic about it, it’s grounded in natural reality, which means the totality of our being, light and shadow and all emotions included.

    Which leads me to your question, re ‘therapeutic dialogue.’ What I mean by this is that the core of psychotherapy is ‘dialogue,’ and so often the quality of this dialogue can be extremely problematic. Some people love therapy and their therapists, so this does not apply to them. I had one a long time ago who was wonderful, I saw her early in my life, and for a while, that was extremely productive and healing.

    But starting in the late 90’s, I came in contact with a slew of therapists, first, in graduate school where I got degreed in counseling psychology, and then, I happened to go into the system right after, to come off a lot of psych drugs which were breaking me down internally and suddenly disabling me quickly, after 20 years of taking them. I saw a lot of psychiatrists, therapists and social workers at that time, from the other side of the fence, as they had been my colleagues, partners, and supervisors before this.

    What struck me being on the client side was how dialogue was often seriously weird, in that it was slanted, controlled, tons of innuendo, not straightforward but more ambiguously suggestive, and if questioned or criticized–which I think is totally fair and natural–it could easily become quite demeaning and crazy-making. It’s enough to make anyone feel enraged from powerlessness, because the grievance process is futile, people tend to band together in the system, it’s not neutral. It’s about alliances, which I believe is more regressive than progressive.

    That’s what I found over and over again as I made my way through all of this, which was really, really hard, even included a law suit, because dialogue with anyone in the system, including the managers and CEO of a social service agency, was IMPOSSIBLE! I am not exaggerating, they forced my hand.

    This gave me the best glimpse ever into the avoidance of clarity which permeates the mental health world, for whatever reason, and it was most evident in the one-sided conversations which only led to chronic power struggling. This is what people are trying to get AWAY from in order to heal.

    In short, my question is: if psychiatrists and clients have trouble dialoguing effectively in sessions–which, at least from my experience and a plethora of testimonials I’ve read on MIA and elsewhere seems to be the case–then I’m wondering how to ascend this very blatant communication gap that exists between the two groups. There seem to be conditions on being acknowledged respectfully and eye to eye in the conversation, and one of them appears to be not disagreeing and thinking independently. To me, that is a blatant paradox to healing.

    That’s why I was happy to see this addressed in your dialogue above. We often get triggered when disagreed with, but that’s one’s trigger to deal with, not to project it onto another. I think dialogue in psychotherapy can often fall short of this. We talk quite a bit about clinicians not taking responsibility for their own stuff, which is how it gets projected onto clients, and I think this happens readily, and causes a great deal of harm. That’s the stigma, the clinician’s shadow. It can be tortuously traumatic for a client, even long term, if they are not aware of what they are taking on from a therapist.

    Long answer, didn’t mean to ramble, but this is what came to me when I saw your question. Thank you for prompting me, I appreciate the question.

    And many thanks for your interest in the film clip, I hope you find it valuable!

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  • Just occurred to me that I have an example of what I’m saying, I have this 10 minute clip from a film I made a few years ago, exactly about this topic of psychiatry, mental health system, psych drugs, stigma, and discrimination, and we talk about our experiences amongst ourselves, while also sharing in public presentations, we were all part of a speaker bureau, although we’ve long moved past this since then.

    This clip is largely our discussion, with a few other clips in between to support what we are saying in conversation. But I think it adds up to a lot of what you’re saying, here, about these particular conversations, and as you’ll see, it is with plenty of passion. We are all survivors.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN0-m6nhUIE

    There is more of this conversation in the film, which is posted in its entirely on YouTube, I posted it as a public service. If you’re interested i seeing it, please search “Voices That Heal.” (Since I’m posting the clip, I’m not comfortable posting the entire film also).

    We are not of one mind, we each have our own perspective. Two of us totally disagreed, but no one was disrespected yet we were truthful and direct with each other, and all voices were heard. We all grew and healed a lot from having made this film.

    I hope you find this relevant, meaningful, and supportive to your goals.

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  • Very creative approach, I appreciate this dialogue model and highlighting all the forks in the road where we could always do better in terms of bringing clarity. We do learn as we go, if we are listening to ourselves without judgment and are ok with not being “perfect” all the time. We are works in progress.

    To me, that’s the goal in such dialogues, to achieve universal clarity. Personalities, beliefs, and opinions are as diverse as personal experience and individual process, and indeed I agree it’s vital to be 100% inclusive here. After all, we’re talking about the whole of humanity, so how is it possible to leave anyone out of that group? Everyone who is alive belongs to it.

    Needing to be ‘right,’ however, is a dubious inclusion, imo. There is no right or wrong here, as I believe it is the energy of dialogues such as this which creates the next level of reality, at least to my mind that is the case. Respect, curiosity, and authenticity can lead to all sorts of good things, certainly better than what we have going on now, in a society which sorely lacks these qualities for the most part, from what I’ve witnessed in any event.

    Although the one thing I find glaringly missing in this dialogue is passion. I think it’s ok to get angry and embody our emotions–not demeaning to others or digging in heals, but really so that we can feel comfortable embodying our emotional truth, I believe that is healthy and healing because it is, in fact, truthful.

    So many of us have been so extraordinarily negatively impacted by psychiatry and the mental health system, that I believe that being passionately indignant about these practices is not only real and authentic, it is also valuable information, perhaps even pivotal. Many of us have been really, really pissed off about all of this for a good long while, and for a variety of very good and overwhelmingly evidential reasons.

    And mostly, because it is NOT being rectified! And I see that it’s because clarity cannot seem to be achieved, despite all of these valiant efforts at ‘civil dialogue,’ which to me begs the question: WHY NOT? After all, aside from medication, ‘therapeutic dialogue’ is the other major practice we’re talking about.

    I believe this should be factored in, if you want a comprehensive big picture.

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  • Thanks for this nutshell explanation, Steve, sounds very interesting. I like the idea of transparency among the therapists–that’s certainly novel and, I think, important in general.

    And the idea of everyone vulnerable to the process of the “identified patient” really gets my attention, as it suggests that the IP is leading the healing, which makes sense to me. Given these are generally social issues, the one ‘carrying the ills of society,’ so to speak, has an opportunity to give them back as a way of healing and releasing, which seems just and appropriate to me.

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  • Great stuff, as usual, Dr. B. I imagine Eddie could not feel safe anywhere, given that his developmental life was chronically dangerous thanks to what seems to be sadistic mothering. How on earth could he find safety with that program in his head? And in his bones, too, that stuff really gets into our cells, like radiation.

    I could see how that would create enormous chronic anxiety that would screw us up in every way, including physically. I just recently became aware of role of the limbic system in all this, a client brought it to my attention. I thought it was extremely interesting.

    Over-the-top anxiety, which peaked and undermined my functioning in the middle of my college years, was my primary symptom which signaled to me that something was amiss. I went to see my first therapist at the campus counseling center and mostly I talked about how I was at that college to please my dad, and there was really no way I was comfortable dropping out, even though I was not a good match for this school; nor did it have the program I wanted to study. This was all a very big deal in my family and a lot of focus went on it while I was in high school.

    She asked if I wanted medication to alleviate symptoms! Seriously, that was the first thing she thought of to say to me. I turned that down, and at the time I did not know what to make of that, but it made me feel as though something were wrong with me, like a permanent deficiency or something, which took the focus off my family issues–which was way too bad, it turned out.

    I believe someone with your perspective would have gotten right to it and I more than likely would have avoided 20 years of ultimately disastrous psych drugs, and temporary disability.

    Indeed, it was my play that needed rewriting, along with the role I was playing. Instead, I had years of attracting the same dynamics time and time again, and I believe that having masked and suppressed with psych drugs all of my post traumatic stress from toxic family dynamics is a huge part of that reason.

    I was not working through anything nor growing spiritually, and even hardly emotionally; I was merely taking psych drugs so that I could function the way I was expected to function–which I did, totally disconnected from who I was. I had a life, but it felt as though it had nothing to do with who I was spiritually, so it was compromised, one way or another.

    And I was poorer for it, this was costly care, but I thought I required it. Certainly, was I was led to believe, and I didn’t question it for a good long while–not until the drugs completely disabled me, after 20 years of taking them and functioning well enough.

    Finally, I broke the spell, and it was as you say, by rewriting it all, starting with tapering from all 9 drugs–which included Ativan and Klonopin, the K being the roughest and toughest of all to release, but I finally did it. And then also by refusing to buckle to the outrageous stigma that came flying my way as I entered the public system. That started in my 40s, so the issues were hefty by then, lots had accumulated, including a damaged brain and other organs, which regenerated through excellent herbal care I found. Overall, I challenged myself in many ways because I was desperate to heal and get on with things. This was the time to bust through all of that anxiety, once and for all. I had to take a lot of risks, which paid off rewardingly, but not without transitional growing pains, naturally. Part of the process.

    It’s an incredible feeling to find that power and sense of personal creativity. We really can design our own reality with this awareness. Thank you, as always, for your very inspiring and, obviously, truth & passion-driven work.

    A client has shared links with me that speak to the biology of trauma, and these offer a vast array of healing pathways, thought I’d share here, I found that, while doing all of that core shifting of my reality, it was vital to have support on a physical level, as so many changes are occurring at all levels. It’s such a re-birth, down to our cells. What we put into our bodies, as well as to where we direct our focus, can support our inner harmony, and this translates to inner peace.

    http://www.dnrsystem.com/

    http://www.amazon.com/Codex-Alternus-Complementary-Schizophrenia-Drug-Induced/dp/0692532439

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  • “Some deal with this by saying ‘Well, they didn’t really have schizophrenia.’ That is a meaningless statement when the way to prove it is for someone to reject the recommendations of the profession and go on to do quite well. But it happens the other way when someone says they find benefit from the drugs and are told they have just been co-opted by the system.”

    This is a brilliant statement, Sandy. We do tend to rationalize a lot when looking for a specific outcome, rather than simply letting the outcome speak for itself.

    I agree that when we find effective healing away from psychiatric protocol, which as we know has proven to be quite harmful for so many people, that is evidence of there being ‘something more’ out there, in terms of helping people to alleviate their suffering and become aligned with themselves in a more comfortable and grounded way, where they feel their own value and worth as a human being. From that, all things are possible I believe, but most of all, full on transformational healing.

    I think it would be fascinating to study the healing processes of those that rejected psychiatry after becoming ill from it who then went on to other kinds of healing which worked. At least then, psychiatry could at least have the opportunity to expand its breadth of healing knowledge to include those that reject medication and even perhaps, psychotherapy.

    There are many things that can replace, or at least complement, these practices, so that force is something that never, ever has to be considered. There are other options, from an expanded perspective, if we were to honor and integrate what we are calling ‘alternatives.’

    Although I would suggest that the list of ‘alternatives’ is extremely vast and varied. It includes so much more than simply healing modalities. To me, ‘alternatives’ is really about seeing things differently, considering a bigger picture, for example.

    There is a lot that can be created by considering how different tools and perspectives can work together in a way to broaden our perception of human processes.

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  • “I love that you had a family who saw the potential in you and not what you could not do. Why are we not doing this with everyone?”

    That is my burning question, always. I can’t help but to get inscensed when I hear a prognosis of “you will always be limited.” If anything causes chronic disability and does equally great harm to families and to the fabric of society, that has to be at the top of the list.

    I believe it merits repeating, “Why are we not doing this with everyone?” From your lips to God’s ears.

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  • I agree, BPD, that the system operates as one big sitgma machine. I believe that’s the problem, too many false and negative associations simply from our diverse nature. I also believe that class division is, in reality, a hologram. Indeed, the system operates via class division. What I’m saying is that many people lose everything after a diagnosis because they become disabled from the treatment. This would not be necessary, exepct that the system has become a corrupt circus and one deceit and betrayal after another. This is costly for everyone concerned.

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  • “People who are labeled with psychiatric conditions are often poor and less well-educated than the doctors, lawyers and judges who hold power in the system.”

    I was not aware of this. My impression was that going the psychiatric route for support is what made people become poor. I also knew a lot of people in the system who were extremely well-educated, as I was when I was going through all of this. And the ones without formal education were still well-informed, and in fact, quite brilliant.

    You’re right, however, a power shift is sorely needed. I believe this is why we are telling our stories and finding our voices. Personal empowerment goes a long way in getting past the economic and other personal agendas of powers that be.

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  • My mother once said to me that if I were to tell her that she, in any way, harmed or wounded me unwittingly, she would die on the spot. And she said it angrily, basically warning me to not ever blame her for anything. This was years after I had come off psych drugs forgave my dad for his abuses and re-established a relationship with him.

    So, despite the obvious double-bind I faced, while also realizing how this mindset must have affected me when I was growing up, I thought eventually, “Hmmm, how am I going to be able to communicate the complexity of how the family dynamic affected me, based on who I am and my own set of personal sensitivities, as we all have, while getting across to her that there is a very good reason in present time having to do with my self-care that I don’t attend family functions?”

    That’s when I decided it was time to make a film about this, so that I could provide her with a context for my trajectory involving mental illness and healing. I brought others in, too, who felt their family issues were highly relevant to their journey through the system, so that she wouldn’t feel alone in this, as though I were targeting her, personally, but, instead, to show that this is a pattern in society, where family issues lead to scapegoating and once you’ve turned to the mental health field, you get diagnosed and drugged, and pretty much get stuck in that role. So it becomes layered trauma, very messy, and one can easily start to feel powerless and hopeless because it is never-ending in that particular journey.

    Suddenly, it seems impossible to know what caused what, what is and isn’t ‘normal developmental growth process,’ and most importantly, how to find the light at the end of the tunnel and get on with things, moving past these primitive family issues. They don’t have to affect us adversely forever, if we don’t allow them to. In fact, it becomes guidance to our path, beliefs, and often, our purpose in life.

    I work with families, now, in my practice, thanks to how my own family dynamics took me through a fascinating journey of healing and awakening. First thing I do is to introduce the perspective that the ‘identified patient’ is the healer, and the family healing is guided by the evolution into wellness of the one who has been diagnosed. To me, this is the most reasonable and effective way to reverse the damage from family trauma–shift the roles. A lot of truth comes to light in that process, for everyone to face and deal with, one way or another. Of course, some choose to avoid, but some do not, so there is hope.

    So I made Voices That Heal and sent it to my mother and to the rest of my family, and that brought more clarity, and then dialogues ensued between us. Some went better than others, there was some defensiveness, but it’s always a work in progress.

    Overall, now years after all of this, my family has evolved well and continues to be doing so. All except one family member who refuses to change in any way, and who continues to try hold me in a stigmatized role, albeit unsuccessfully. He does this of course because my wellness is very threatening to his ego, and to his self-identity. That’s common as we heal.

    Yet, he has no evidence of his particular construct of reality regarding me, while I have all the physical evidence in my life, and all around me, of transformational healing. Busted right through that family stigma, and now the reality of the one continuing to cast stigma is the one that is held in doubt. Been incredibly fascinating to experience this core family shift.

    So, indeed, the roles have changed, and everyone has made their choices. Some took the healing, one did not.

    And my mother is still very much alive, doing well, happy and healthy at 83. So she learned that not only would the truth NOT kill her, but that instead, it would lead to her health, happiness, and, finally, a sense of freedom–all of which had eluded her most of her 55 years of married life with my dad.

    And so it is…

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  • Extremely inspiring. Your video is wonderful. You had some great guidance, your parents sound very wise, and wonderful role models and teachers in how to deal with an often cruel world.

    Thank you for demonstrating clearly that with the right attitude and encouragement, we are truly limitless human beings; and for being such a shining example of “originality, passion, and care…”

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  • “What chance would a service user, or family member, or a whistle-blowing nurse, have of getting a genuine response from this Office, I wonder?”

    You ask the magic question. How on earth, indeed? There is no listening or dialogue, it is merely one power struggle after another. Begins with responding to what is not asked and avoiding the issue presented, then you get ignored altogether; or if you get a response, it may be something like “I don’t have time for this,” or perhaps it is with attitude, mind games, and putting you on the defensive–again, to avoid addressing the actual issue at hand. I’ve found these to be quite common in the mental health world.

    This is how psychiatry, the system, and its tangents are, literally, insane-making. ADA law actually protects people on disability–reasonable accommodation for reasonable request. But apparently, having a direct, clear, and neutral dialogue is not considered to be ‘reasonable.’ Having grievance responded to in a fair and just matter in the mental health world is something I have yet to run across.

    Best of luck on your quest for reform. I hope your grievance can make a difference.

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  • Narcissistic parents can be a problem for the kid, because the parents’ needs will always overshadow the child’s and the parent will expect the kid to satisfy their emotional needs, usually by demanding their child ‘be’ a certain way so as to not inconvience or embarrass the parents. I believe this is rather common.

    Sometimes it is appropriate to blame the parents becaue they can be obvsiously at fault and refusing to go there just translates into denial, so healing will never occur because clarity is never reached when in denial, Plus, that is where repeittion occurs, so the trauma would more than likely continue.

    But it is never necessary to get stuck in blame and resentment. One can forgive and distance themselves from narcissistic abuse, and one can also take responsbility for their lives, regardless of anything that may have occured in the past.

    Once you know the core cause of social trauma and negative self-image, you can heal it. But not if you’re stuck in blame, then we render ourselves powerless. At some point, we, ourselves, need to take over and correct what needs to be corrected, internally. Then, our reality can shift into a more clear, grounded, and present time reality.

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  • “Instead of splitting dissenters off or leveling resistance, how about this time we stick with imagination and empathy and learn to create a workable, honest fusion?”

    I agree that utilizing wisely our creative imagination is the key to manfiestting what we most desire, inlcuding a peaceful and harmonious healthy glogal society. If we can imagine it, we can create it.
    I think the problem is that we have diverse imaginations, the desires of which seem to clash, and pretty ruthlessly at times.

    True empathy is a rare gem these days, so I’m wondering how each of us fits into this giant puzzle we call “the collective?” I sinceredly believe that it was not the universe’s intention to leave anyone out of this. Society, however, seems to be playing a different game, in its tendency to run on insecurities and fears. I believe the universe, in its inifinte power and wisdom, will win out.

    So what will become of our dualisitic, marginalizing society as inclusiveness is enforced, simply by nature? I’m thinking it will cause a social split of a different nature, more self-imposed this time, because some people seem wired for hostility. Or is that the result of trauma? Or simply, maybe just the role models one has had. Hard to say, but I do wonder how this social change will look in its trajectory as we move along in it. Roles will shift, no doubt, and that will be so interesting to watch how this unfolds.

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  • I would respect that as your personal choice, Sera. Although from where I come, that is censorship. People do have prejudices, we all do, and we’re all entitled to them, and to express them artistically.

    What this woman has explores through her art is perhaps one way to address them, work through them, even maybe as a community, I don’t know. Besides, many of these are opinions and perspective–what is racist to one is not necessarily racist to another, there is a lot of gray area here in many cases.

    We’re bombarded with all sorts of perspectives and opinions, I feel people sort through them in their own way to come up with what works for them. And if not, then they should focus elsewhere.

    In any event, to me this is about an individual’s voice, and sabotaging their platform boils down to censoring their voice, from my perspective. Society is in a learning process around these issues, all voices matter, to my mind.

    I’m fine agreeing to disagree. Thanks for the hardy dialogue.

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  • Yes, I believe internal change does trump external change, this is where true and real change begins, no backsliding. Internal change is real and authentic because it is change at the core, from which we create a different reality, one more desirable. That’s the essence of transformation–individual change leading to social change.

    When you change the external before making internal change, you are only creating another illusion through which you will repeat the same dynamics that you were trying to get away from, so you repeat, repeat, repeat social trauma. You only think that external change will bring relief, but when it is not accompanied by internal change, it will not, and the same strife will ensue. That’s happened repeatedly in history, and people keep falling for it.

    A socialist system can be just as power abusive as a capitalist system, it’s just a different economic framework. Dictators rise from the oppressed masses all the time, only to become oppressors, themselves.

    Only the illusion of change happens, in this case, because in reality, the people face the same oppression, it is felt internally. This is where we feel unstable, unsafe, and in perpetual mental and emotional turmoil, never-ending–aka social trauma.

    When we heal internal oppression (how we oppress ourselves and create our own suffering with our own inner voices of fear and judgment) then, we have a different experience of life, which leads to different thoughts, actions, and relationship dynamics, which leads to a new reality/society, one that is a bit more amenable to joyous living and flourishing creativity, rather than perpetual suffering.

    That is core change, and it begins internally, so there will be no repetition of old oppressive dynamics (either internal or external), and instead, a person will experience an entirely new and improved reality, inside and out.

    If each person were to take care of their own shit and not expect others to fight their fight for them, that would be mass core change that would transform society in the most awesome way, I’m sure of it.

    But we each choose how we fight our battles in life, and we can measure the effectiveness of our choices by the outcome of how we experience our lives. Is it joyous or miserable? Only we can decide for ourselves, and that is based on our beliefs, also internal. And beliefs are malleable, they can shift as we experience more and more of life, shaping and refining our reality as we go along…

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  • “It is a strange irony that being aware of what is going on, while extremely painful at times, appears also to be the only pathway to transcend them.”

    Beautiful, Steve, indeed, awakening=expanding awareness=transcendence. I agree, it’s the only way. No one is going to transcend another from their issues and double-binds, we can only do that ourselves.

    Takes courage to wake up, recognize and own our blind spots, and walk a new path, but that is the only thing that will bring change with relative ease. Personal empowerment comes through humility, of owning our shadow fully.

    It’s more painful to not wake up and keep living the same nightmare over and over again.

    Growing pains are an inevitable part of life, and when we accept that with grace, we find relief..Suffering happens when we refuse to awaken to the truth, because it is always knocking on our door one way or another, louder and louder when we don’t acknowledge it. We are responsible for our own lives, and for our own justice, I’m afraid. Society sure isn’t going to hand it over on a silver platter, that’s for sure.

    I’d always prefer to know the truth, regardless of how hard that truth is, because only from that truth can we ever be free from oppression. “The truth shall set you free” rings more than merely platitudinous to me, I find it to be accurate.

    Personally, I think we’re all wizards, we simply have to discover our true nature to become aware of this and use it for the greater good, which inherently nourishes us, individually.

    What I think is an illusion is that there is one and only one wizard. That, I would call ‘a false prophet.’

    Each of us embody our own power, and as we recognize this, we transform the world, because we see how utterly powerless society is, in reality, over our own loving, desiring hearts and creative spirits.

    Dark (oppressive) energy cannot hold a candle to the light, because the light conquers the dark, every time, and we are awakening now, following the light to the end of the tunnel. That should REALLY make the powers that be quite nervous!

    Whomever is hiding behind a curtain would feel fear, whereas some of us have absolutely nothing to hide and are purely transparent, for real, 100% on the up & up. That is freedom and peace of mind–my personal choices for living.

    Thanks, Steve, a lot of clarity and new info coming to light as usual when I dialogue with you, much appreciated!

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  • That’s what happened to me as I was exiting the system. And it didn’t even take anger to off-put them, it was my reasoning that frightened them. I was angry, but I can still be direct and reasonable, even diplomatic.

    But diplomacy is not an effective tool against oppressors, even when they say they are open to dialogue. They take advantage of attempts to be fair and reasonable by lying through their teeth in order to appease their dissenters, which of course is the epitome of being patronized–not to mention how it constantly makes one a chump to not see through that. I think they call it “CBT,” which is a form of programming the mind to fit the status quo, imo. When a person’s vulnerability is exploited like this, it’s all unequivocally oppressive, and this is system-wide.

    I feel that many of the professionals don’t know how to assess a person with neutrality, it’s all stigmatizing projections. They never, ever see the person in front of them, only whether or not they ‘fit the mold’ of mainstream, which is their litmus test for mental health. Again, Krishnamurti’s quote comes to mind, about being well-adjusted to a sick society NOT being a measure of health.

    Indeed, like you say, it is much easier to blame social ills on its victims, because they are so visibly “in the margins” of society, have little or no resources, and are therefore easy fodder. But it is not fair game, not in the slightest. They just happen to be carrying the ills of society, for whatever reason, but they are most definitely not the cause of them. That comes from the elite, that is the source of social ills, and they blame everyone else.

    It’s class-based because what good is a ‘poor person’ to someone, they don’t have money, other than to use them as pawns in taking money from others–government, funders, etc.–to “save the poor unfortunates.” What total rubbish, no one is saving anyone, the money is collected for whatever personal gain. That’s why I call it vampiristic, purely. I think it’s obvious.

    So while poor people don’t have any money and therefore have no value in a class-based society and therefore garner no respect (or the pretense of it, at the very least), they do have value to the system in their exploitation value.

    What makes me really angry at this point, is how readily poor people are taken advantage of in order to line the coffers of the privileged class–including academics and health care–in the name of ‘saving others.’ That’s a historic phenomenon, and it is still happening today.

    Awakening to how we have been and still are exploited can be quite challenging, but in the end, it is entirely freeing, and it brings much sought after clarity that will help bring change away from these maddening and extremely toxic social dynamics.

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  • Well, it certainly does create a lot of understandable rage to be treated like a second-class, marginal citizen. Standing up to this–what I call social systemic abuse–creates even more problems for the marginalized individual, including being labeled something. So it really is a very bad vicious cycle, what I’d consider to chronic social trauma, which, unfortunately, is the familiar to many people.

    I’d say the mental health system feeds on this population and exploits it terribly, with very little, if any, regard for them as actual feeling and thinking people. I’ve never seen such blatant disregard as what I encountered and witnessed repeatedly going through the system.

    So yes, discrimination can lead to a label of ‘psychosis,’ but it’s not accurate. That is the mental health system’s interpretation of repressed understandable rage, due to discrimination, marginalization, and blatant stigma, for which they set the example.

    If you don’t label it, it’s simply a natural and reasonable response to what the mental health system does to people, and how it causes people who are already feeling vulnerable and disadvantaged to feel about themselves. So where is the ‘psychosis’ here?

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  • I agree that if people are perpetually ‘in recovery’ then there is no end. I also agree that these issues of “healing” and “recovery” cannot be institutionalized, to me that is a given, it’s just all too personal. What is appropriate and helpful for one person may be completely off-base for another.

    I highlighted that particular statement because it spoke to me, personally, and it’s how I approach my own life and practice, and both have been successful. I don’t really connect with the phrase “in recovery,” that has no meaning for me, it’s abstract.

    One either feels in balance and content in life, or not, I don’t compromise this, either with myself or with clients. If you’re not happy, change something. And that always best begins internally. Once we learn that, then recovery will happen in full force, along with core healing. You only move forward after that.

    I believe that, in any event. It may not be the belief of another, and I would respect that. But I certainly cannot relate, nor would I be able to work with that person in any capacity, because we’d be at odds all the time about what is possible.

    But I don’t see the reason why they couldn’t have a reasonable and open dialogue, simply to develop a sense of compassion for and kindness toward the collective of humanity, regardless of our differences in belief.

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  • I’m chuckling a bit because I honestly don’t know what to say about this. I was simply expressing my perspective, from my experience. “Mincemeat of the English language,” hmmm. Can’t wrap my head around this, sorry.

    I am trying really hard to understand the hostility behind simple disagreements and differences in perspective. There’s not even an attempt to understand where a person is coming from before shooting them down. It shouldn’t lead to accusations of this and that, but it virtually always seems to around here. What on earth is the deal, here? It’s aggravating, but also fascinating to me at this point.

    I’d think about this when envisioning what is a healing environment.

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  • “Recovery has been defined as ‘a personal journey of discovery which involves making sense of, and finding meaning in, what’s happened; becoming an expert in your own self-care; building a new sense of self and purpose in life; discovering your own resourcefulness and possibilities and using these, and the resources available to you, to pursue your aspirations and goals.’”

    That’s a pretty good definition, imo. To me, aside from ‘recovering,’ I also found core healing by realizing how life education comes from our experiences, and how my experiences led me to realize that I was not the person being mirrored back falsely and negatively (stigma); but that, really, who I am inside–how I ‘work’–is really none of anyone’s business, other than, perhaps, those to whom I am closest and intimate, with whom I choose to have a personal relationship. Negative mirroring is always a projection, by nature, and in the case of mental illness, the system as a group projects negatively. We are never that, in our true spiritual essence, so the system is operating in full delusion, by definition.

    Once I got this, my health and life turned a big corner, and I was able to discern toxic vs. healthy environments, and I walked away from the toxic and started to create health in my self and in my community. I believe we all have this capability, if we learn to believe in ourselves, rather than to buy into what others project. Full ownership of one’s life is what heals us at the core.

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  • Ok, thanks for sharing this. Being a healer just happened, it was the path that showed up in order for me to get out of that quagmire. I disagree with you that this is not the way to radical change. I believe it is exactly that. When we change ourselves, we change the world, and that is not just a platitude, it’s real. Internal change= external change. That’s physics.

    I have created tangible change, like I said, with my work, repeatedly. I had to learn these things, I did not grow up in a new agey type of culture or environment, my family was totally academic and political, as was I for a while. I realized wholeheartedly that it was this culture and dynamic that was draining me, it’s vampire-like, totally energy sucking, gaslighting, and double-binding. That was what I awakened to, to find my clarity and grounding.

    The world from which I came, which I believed in, was corrupt and wholly abusive, nature of the beast. So I had to learn new perspectives. That was not easy, but I focused and it did the trick, my life changed. I tell this story for others to consider, that perhaps shifting perspective is what will bring change in a more peaceful way than simply being focused on sabotage and destruction. If you don’t agree, you don’t agree, but why insult me repeatedly, which I do feel you do, whether you recognize this or not. It doesn’t hurt me, contrary to what one person has said on here, I’m definitely not thin-skinned, I’ve been in the public eye for over a decade now, including theater, which is extremely vulnerable making.

    I’m pointing out what I feel is an important and significant irony here, survivor to survivor.

    When we heal, we rid ourselves of the undesirable, it goes hand in hand, by definition. I call myself a peaceful activist, because I like to create change by creating, not destroying. Although most often, when we are creating what is good, it heals the bad, but the purpose is not to destroy, it just shows what a house of cards it all is. It’s like turning on the light, the dark goes away.

    It’s a matter of subtle perspective, but I do have experience in this, it’s what my life has been about.

    I condemn psychiatry as much as you and others do. I believe, however, we have differences in opinion about how this change is going to come about. Perhaps if we all work on our little piece of it–without making personal comments as you tend to do with me (I remember recently one where you started with “Alex you are so full of yourself” to which I did respond, and they were both moderated–gee I wonder why?)–then perhaps we can get somewhere.

    I just don’t know why you insist on talking to me this way. The point of my survivor story is to emphasize that I’ve been through enough abuse and personal insults to last me 10 lifetimes, and I’ve gone to great lengths to heal this, while calling it out, in their faces, I’ve done it over and over again.

    It’s just sometimes mind-boggling to me that I have to continue to deal with it in here. Shouldn’t survivors, at least, be treated with respect in here, of all places? Otherwise, what kind of change exactly do you expect to make? That is most definitely more of the same.

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  • I’m responding to the double-binding mindset of “either you agree with us or you will be accused and marginalized.” That’s just a repeat of the system, how stigma, discrimination, and alienation happen, and I see it in here very often. I find it to be cult-like, and terribly oppressive. I’ve seen groups of people in here swoop down in unison upon dissenters, pretty cruelly, imo. That’s not productive to change, and in fact, keeps everything stuck.

    I like what you wrote, Kayla, you understand where I’m coming from. Thank you, much appreciated.

    (And I think you were right the first time, it will take lots of angels to remedy all of this).

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  • Hi Oldhead, I’m sorry you find me irritating. I’m a card-carrying psychiatric survivor and I was led to this website shortly after its inception because I was told there was a ‘movement’ about this, which I had not heard of before. I was relieved because I went through medical, social, and legal battles without knowing anyone else who had even come off psych drugs. I’d never heard of Robert Whitaker before this, others brought this work to my attention, when they learned my perspective and experience with coming off the drugs.

    I came off of nine drugs, many of which I’d taken for over 20 years while working full time, going to college, and then graduate school. It made me very ill as others describe on here, but I got my shit together eventually and healed from a lot of stuff, did a lot of extensive training which not only healed me, but certified me to help others, legally and legitimately.

    I’m also ordained as a non-denominational minister, which I take seriously in terms of a healing ministry.

    I also spoke publically all over San Francisco for a couple of years about what my illness was about, and how I healed. I also made a film while still on disability, with no resources of which to speak, which challenged the mental health field and which created positive changes in people’s lives. I bared my soul in that film, which has been my biggest act of courage so far in life. And I say this because people are not terribly kind, as we all know, but I felt it was important to do, and it began a healing dialogue in my family.

    I also went through a legal mediation which, in combination with sending my film through the system as I did, ended up taking down a corrupt agency.

    Currently, I’m making new film to be premiered locally in a couple of month, where I play with a band for an assisted living center, to bring healing through music, joy, and community.

    I know this is probably futile, given your negative opinion about me, and I don’t care one way or another about your perspective toward me, but still, just for kicks, feel free to check out my website and testimonials. They are 100% real and authentic, the two on top, just below the endorsement from one of my teachers, just came to me in the last two weeks. I’ve been in practice for over 10 years.

    http://www.embodycalm.com/Services-Testimonials.html

    I appreciate your honesty. I just don’t understand you. Maybe if you identified yourself for real, out of the closet, we could have a productive dialogue. Or perhaps that is not your cup of tea. Regardless, I appreciate that you have goals and intentions of your own. Although apparently, they do not match mine.

    At this point, I’m really not sure how this ‘survivor movement’ will ever survive.

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  • “I think there are a fair number of plants on this site (ooh, she’s paranoid! no, I went through the sixties and got educated about plants and other tricks) who will always shoot down any attempts at unity or action.”

    Perhaps we are of diverse opinions? Saying that “either you’re with us or you’re a sabotaging plant” is a classic double-bind. Where is their room for genuine differences of opinion and perspective, diversity in thought, not to mention neutral discussion?

    With all due respect, you are accusing people of something pretty harsh–of being saboteurs–without dialogue or exploration, which is exactly what people complain about in the mental health system. To me, that’s the essence of stigma, in general, which is what creates negative myths about people, setting them up to be marginalized from the community. Precisely what we are looking to reverse, imo.

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  • Well, like I said, I don’t share this perspective in the film, but it seems to me that the sister is trying to work something out for herself in a confusing and distressing situation, where really there is not consistent information, and in fact, the literature is rather messy on all this.

    I get it that your objection is not the making of it, but more so the promoting of it on this channel, but when you say, “It’s about telling the Mental Health Channel that they’re doing damage by promoting it,” I’m just not sure about that. It’s a powerful accusation. If it turns out that this is true, however, then more power to you.

    While promoting ‘incurable illness’ does create hopelessness, for some, that has been the reality. I certainly challenge this exact notion in my film and also in my healing practice, but some people insist on this as their belief. That would dictate their reality, not that of others. So I don’t know. Humanity is humanity, in all its diversity. Hard to say what actually does and does not do damage, but I’m not a big fan of sabotage.

    Still, I’m in empathy with the artist, being one myself. I know I’d hate to know that someone sabotaged my voice–or platform for it–because they disagreed with what I was saying. That would be rather confounding to me.

    I can see both perspectives, here.

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  • I agree about the pills being insult to injury–and injury to injury–been there. I’m doing everything in my power to educate others about how to get out of that toxic medical and social quagmire; but it does take a huge shift in perspective and new habits of thought and beliefs, which not all are willing to take on, so it does become double-binding for them.

    I hope with all my heart that people wake up to their personal power. That’s up to each individual, and it can happen regardless of their situation, as it is a very personal internal shift.

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  • While I don’t believe in incurable illness at all, I do believe strongly that every voice and every personal story matters here, regardless of whether or not I agree with them. In fact, it’s really not up to me to agree or disagree–that’s more than likely irrelevant to others, since it is not my life that I am commenting upon–but it is up to me whether I choose to respect all voices or not, and I choose to do just that, regardless of the story they tell. It’s their story and I feel humble to that.

    The range of myriad realities and perspectives regarding mental illness and what that means and does not mean (and for some, whether or not this actually exists), and how to address it, is on such a wide spectrum and is so personal, that I have a hard time invalidating someone else’s reality, even though it may not be concurrent with mine. I think of the heart and courage that went into telling this story.

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  • While this film doesn’t necessarily match my personal framework or experience, I find that, at the heart of it, it is about compassion, understanding, and love. We are all a work in progress. I don’t see how stifling the voice and art of others is conducive to progress in humanity by calling for deepener empathy for others and celebrating diversity of thought and beliefs. Quite the opposite, in fact.

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  • “I note however, that Whitaker turned up at a NAMI conference where he surprisingly delivered a very moderate speech acknowledging along the way that long-term use of antipsychotics is sometimes necessary and appropriate, and that open-dialogue treatment in Finland is still – for 20% of patients – supplemented by longer term psychopharmacological treatment. So maybe his position is not so far from mine.”

    Really? Is this true? I’m very confused about what this online community is about, then. I thought that the very least we were starting with the premise that psych drugs are high priced toxins that were being fed to vulnerable, trusting people looking for help, and that they do more harm than good, unequivocally. And that, as a result, people were being rendered disabled through a combo of these drugs used to ‘manage’ a mythical “chronic” illness, and social prejudice which only serve to undermine individual and social health, as well as basic human rights and dignity. I thought that was ‘the cause.’ Otherwise, I don’t see the cohesion or focus here.

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  • “My idea of “mental illness” or “psychiatry” is that they are indeed representative of our inherent sociallly stratification of people who are vulnerable, marginalized and disenfranchised men, women, youth, children, ancestors and affected tribes… the fire that burns in the belly of these raging psychiatric survivors, consumer’s, consumer/survivor/expatient is akin to a slave’s response to abusive acts of power multigenerationally.

    Excellent, I agree completely. It is human and reasonable to rage at being rendered powerless simply due to social agreements about on whom to project prejudice based on ‘social desirability.’ That is social abuse and bullying, and it is wholly dispiriting, to say the least.

    It would be enlightened to create a better world, having learned what it is like to feel marginalized and blatantly discriminated against, which is what greatly undermines mental and physical health and overall quality of life.

    John Howard Griffin developed deep empathy for this when he underwent changes so that he could traverse the deep South as a Black man, which he chronicled in his 1960 classic, Black Like Me.

    There is no way to experience and understand this very particular feeling of being pushed to the margins and all that this means to the mind, body, and spirit, without putting one’s self in that position and living it first hand. I had a brief dose of it for a few years when I went through the system as a temporarily disabled person, and it was more than enough to wake me up. Shifted my perspective on humanity and especially on our society 180 degrees.

    In the process, I completely relinquished the beliefs with which I was raised, in my professional academic middle class suburban family. They were pillars of society, and now I see how it was at the expense of others, a total and complete illusion, like a hologram.

    Stigma and prejudice are inherent in the fabric of that society, and it when it is not driving people insane, it is killing them.

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  • As with anything that is cost-free and universally available, I say try it and see how it works for you. I don’t understand why people wait for research to ‘prove’ something that is common sense and intuitive to most people, and which is easy enough to research experientially on one’s own, with a little initiative.

    Quieting the mind soothes the nervous system. Feels good in the body, calming, relaxing, and grounding. Brings clarity to complex situations, new perspectives, and relief to the mind and heart.

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  • “So what we’re seeing here is one more piece of evidence that depression is not an illness to which women just happen to be “prone.” Rather, it is an entirely appropriate and realistic response to an intolerable situation. And when the situation can’t be escaped, the depression becomes, understandably, an abiding and persistent sense of joylessness and unfulfillment.”

    I agree that depression is a reasonable response to discrimination and stigma leading to feeling less valued in society than others. After all, getting angry about it and fighting for equality tends to lead to more discrimination and even marginalization, it can get a person labeled and ostracized. So on top of being marginalized, one is shamed for being powerful in the face of it. Indeed, that would be intolerable, completely and toxically double-binding.

    Not being able to change it would cause feelings of powerless, I would imagine. Not having the power to change a bad situation can lead to despondence and very low self-esteem.

    I believe it would be beneficial to focus on how best and most effectively to change an intolerable situation. I believe there is always a way, but it can be a bit tricky in complex situation and delicate balance, one step at a time. Still, it is empowering and freeing to find the way out of toxic situations and environments, and in the long run, healing to society.

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  • Oh, and a big YES to this–

    “Artists are also wise enough to know they have to step back, and look at the bigger picture occasionally, rather than just dwell on the minutia.”

    What else can life be if not art, and we the creators of our own? There is no manual, really. We’re making it up as we go along, moment to moment, step by step. It’s good to have a broad perspective, to see the big picture as we go along–what I would call pure present time heart-mind alignment. Right on, SE.

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  • You made me think of one of my favorite quotes, Someone Else, by Marianne Williamson. I’ve posted it here a couple of times, and I think it’s relevant to what you are saying and often say.

    This feels sound to me in such a way that if each of us believed in ourselves to this degree, the world would HAVE to change, as it is the natural order of things to evolve, it is inevitable. I think this is a powerful and light-supported message that can become a widespread reality:

    “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

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  • I agree, standing firm and with certainty in our own beliefs–regardless of those of others and what the world may try to impose on us–is our integrity. I believe that’s why psychiatry is such a problem: they impose their belief and perspective on others, despite the fact that judgment, discrimination, duality, and stigma that is inherent in these beliefs and practices. Going by what works for us, which is personal to everyone, is the best example of personal freedom, which, to me, is exemplary activism.

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  • Rest of your post is excellent, too, btw. It’s just all so disheartening, that’s the very least negative thing I can say! This is where I’m really challenged to feel loving, thinking about this ‘mental health system journey.’ Nothing loving about it.

    I should put my money where my mouth is here, and stop thinking about it, and perhaps stop talking about it, altogether, at this point. I’ve yakked on and on about it for years, and very publicly. Only so much people can hear all at once.

    It’s a bottomless pit of disheartening, can’t reconcile it, other than to recognize it as my journey to have taken in order to find myself. Still, I don’t know how to think about that experience and not feel angry, and I’m so tired of feeling angry, it festers. Can’t be healthy to keep triggering it like this, so I guess it’s time to let go and move on. It’s been rather a habit, from lack of positive closure. I’m sure I should give up on that one, it seems impossible.

    Sorry to ramble, it’s late and this discussion got me thinking…

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  • “Then there are the support group (there is nothing like focusing on what’s wrong to make one feel better!)”

    I agree, that is a big problem that I don’t hear people call out enough, thanks for saying this, squash.

    I went through a period where I did several groups, both private and through social services, and every time we were starting to feel lighter and get a bit of good cheer going, the negative focus would come back like a lightening bolt, and often by the facilitator, but that could also happen due to chronically cynical clients.

    In fact, my journey down the rabbit hole started with a social service group therapy ‘complex’ as part of a day treatment center. This is where my head got turned around from overbearing chronic stigma and relentlessly negative focus. I found these groups to be so toxic, I got a lot better when I stopped going because first of all, I went back to feeling ok about myself, which was impossible in there, we were spoken to and treated like children, unequivocally; and also I also stopped ruminating about my past.

    Anyway, don’t mean to go off topic here, but when I saw this phrase, it brought this all back. Treacherous, disabling environment, no doubt. Thank goodness this agency no longer exists.

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  • Thank you all for the validation on this, much appreciated. I can’t say by any means that I am an unconditionally loving person, I think that’s hard, but I at least think about applying it when I’m not feeling particularly loving toward someone. Doesn’t always take, but I do my best.

    Every day that I interact with the world, I have opportunities to at least try, but admittedly, sometimes it’s just hard to muster that feeling of unconditional love when looking out into the world or thinking about certain people. I’m lucky to have at least a couple of people with whom I share this. But it is a practice.

    Definitely would like this to somehow get more into the world at large right now. Even as an intention, I see it as a healing elixir. I find myself quickly losing steam these days in non-loving environments, it’s just energy draining. There’s just no permission for anything like healing, growth, and creativity. Ends up being all sabotage. Guess that’s why they call it ‘the dark ages.’ Where on earth is the light switch??

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  • As always, Dr. B, I appreciate your perspective that heart and a sense of humanity easily trumps dangerous brain-altering chemicals when it comes to healing. It does seem like common sense, but at the same time, I feel we are a bit relationship challenged these days, in general. I’ve noticed a vastly decreasing capacity in society to deal with changes and challenges, especially in others. Sad but true, I think.

    I believe that, as a society, we have overall lost our sense of neutrality, reason, balance, and fairness, and even in the most sacred areas of life–such as being born and then passing on–it seems there is no longer perspective on these events, and so we are left with overwhelming fear.

    You write here about birth and death, our most mystical and emotional transitions in life, and all the changes and shifting that occur with these profound events. Within the span of our lives, we experience many metaphorical deaths and rebirths, as we shed our skin into new layers of personal evolution. These are all stressful and exhilarating, causing natural chemical changes, hormone shifts, emotional and spiritual challenges, and a big dose of embracing the unknown. Family and community support would be, I believe, our most desirable remedy for this level of stress, and from that, the unknown can be filled with excitement, rather than dread.

    With unconditionally loving support, we take comfort in our challenging and inevitable transitions, and can look forward to the next stage of our journey, including the ‘after-life, if that is what we choose to believe. When we are comforted rather than frightened and worried, we have a clear path to our own innate wisdom, and this guides us to healing the imbalances that can occur with such transitions. This is transformational, which is needed to embrace fully the next passage, given how we are led by our own nature grow through these transitions.

    Just a few thoughts generated by your passionate article. It actually causes me a bit of grief to realize and think about how far off the mark we’ve gotten when it comes to truly unconditionally supportive relationships.

    I very much appreciate that your intention is to create this level of authentic heart-based and stigma-free connection in your psychotherapy practice. We need more examples of this, so that instead of popping pills for stress because we feel neither natural nor relationship support, we can be comforted by the power of unconditional compassion, understanding, and loving support, which I feel we all crave, and which it seems fewer and fewer people are experiencing in life.

    Thank you.

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  • Just to add one thing–I believe we find our true creative path when we connect with and honor our emotions. If we’ve been wounded, we can refine our emotional responses as we go along, that would be part of our healing, for the purpose of clarity among those communicating in society. Healing requires a high degree of permission to work through our repressed emotions, due to trauma, so it can get rather volatile, but I feel that can be very temporary, if we allow it, initially, trustingly, and safely.

    However, when we are cut off from our emotions (such as with psych drugs or through stigma, by being shamed for having passion in our emotional responses –which I find to be alive and interesting, not in the slightest off-putting as long as it is not demeaning to others, which unfortunately is often the case), then we are cut off from our heart, spirit, and feelings, so how on earth do we know in which direction to go?

    This is where we become unnecessarily dependent on others. Those that have a habit of shaming come from dysfunction and co-dependence, I have no doubt. That would be their shame and control issues to address and, hopefully, heal.

    So regardless of autism or any other label given to a distinctly different creative process, and what that might imply–mostly through stigma, I feel–every single one of us has feelings and emotions, which is what dictates our path in life, as we walk toward our grounding, inner peace, and joy.

    Artists are extremely connected to their emotions, which is how we create, that’s where it comes from. Assigning stigma and judgment to emotions is what screws up society, because when we judge or discourage full passionate emotions, we are denying our spirit. I can’t think of anything less mentally healthy and emotionally sound than that. To my mind, it’s rather sinister and sabotaging to judge our feelings and those of others, at least in the outcome.

    So indeed, if society were to start hearing and honoring emotions, creativity, and heart-based consciousness–as opposed to intellectual academic brain-centered consciousness–then perhaps artists and others who cherish their emotions will not be driven insane by an uptight non-permission based society.

    I believe this is where we can make a huge shift in social consciousness, for those that can tolerate such a shift. It’s hard work, but from experience, I’d say it is so well worth it, to awaken to our emotional journey. That is our most reliable reality, because we know what we feel, when we allow ourselves to actually feel. This is universal, so there is not stigma in this paradigm. We are all emotional beings, that is where we find life. Labels are easily dispensable, but people are not–at least, they shouldn’t be, and wouldn’t be, in a healthy society.

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  • Ah, ok, I see what you’re talking about now–limited opportunities to be creative due to institutional oppression of our creative spirits. Yes, I agree with that, I experienced this myself going through the system, and even vocational rehabilitation, first as a client of this agency, and then a vocational rehabilitation counselor, for which I was eventually hired. They enjoyed creating their little empire, but they did indeed squash creativity in others (including me) in deeply stigmatizing ways. They felt really threatened by the individuality of others, they wanted sheeple on their staff, only, no disagreements, dissension, or discussion about it. Blech.

    I ended up winning a legal mediation against them, based on blatant discrimination, and they’re since closed due to loss of funding. What you say above was partly the reason that led up to all that, having to do with an arts program I was implementing.

    I’m long gone from the system and all that, and have been creating my own dreams for a while now, because this all taught me the value of standing in my truth regardless of social consequences. That was the most powerful experience I’ve ever had, and it led to complete transformation of my health, life, and consciousness, putting me directly on my creative (soul) path. Life has been fascinating ever since, to say the least.

    So yeah, I do get what you’re saying here, from my own experience. Thanks for clarifying.

    And yes, the public school systems are not exactly renowned for encouraging either creative thinking or being, and in fact, these can get kids into trouble for going against the norm, outside the box. Indeed, society aggressively discourages this via sabotage (squashing of dreams) and shaming (making others look silly).

    To me, that is institutional bullying, because these projections are insidious and can be rather harmful and traumatic, especially if one is vulnerable in the moment–either a developing child or someone recovering from disability, both dependent on positive mirroring from the environment, it is vital during these times.

    When I read, “living creatively” in your above comment, I wasn’t thinking about the environment and how it sabotages our efforts to create (which yes, in these toxic and oppressive environments, they certainly do). I interpreted this as living according to our own creative nature–our free will to choose our thoughts, focus, beliefs, and responses to the environment and events external to us, as opposed to attempting to apply someone else’s process and information to our own, which never works (square pegs in round holes), although that is what is expected in academic society, for one thing. To me, this is conforming to the norm, which is the opposite of living creatively, to my mind.

    When we live creatively, we explore our own spirits and get our own information, pertaining uniquely to us. No one else should have a say in this, we are our own beings. Even kids know their path, intuitively, if they are not derailed by sabotaging parenting, which, sadly, is all to often the case, from what I’ve seen.

    No matter who they are or with what unusual conditions they might be living, kids are not going to be what the adults want them to be, necessarily. They’re going to be their own people, whoever they are, and if they are not allowed to be, then it’s easy to predict a rough road ahead, until an awakening occurs to get people back to themselves.

    And to me, it seems that everyone has this particular choice: either to go along with society’s arbitrary rules based on research studies, what the professional ‘experts’ say, and what not (which I’d call living pseudo-scientifically); or to live by our own truth, regardless of what others say, think, believe, or how they judge.

    The latter takes great courage and fortitude because people who stand in their truth even when others are barking around them projecting shame or blame generate tremendous internal creative power, in that they are truly connected with their creative spirits–their TRUTH–rather than going along with others to avoid, as you say, feeling silly. When we live creatively, we don’t care what others think, that’s the power of it.

    Thank you so much, Lois, a lot of interesting things to sit with here. I think what you say is pivotal–why fix a person who is merely not like others? Let’s instead fix society so that it can accommodate diversity. That’s a lot of social healing waiting to happen.

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  • That’s so interesting, Lois, I’d never considered that there are unequal opportunities to live creatively. I’m curious if you’d be willing to expand on that a bit.

    It’s my impression that everyone has the equal opportunity to live creatively, in that we are all inherently creative beings, so simply from the intention of doing so and following that process, we create that opportunity.

    Of course it would never occur to some people, this being a foreign concept to some.. But that’s really a matter of awakening to our spirit nature, to which, again, I feel everyone has the opportunity to do as they traverse life, so it would be more of a matter of personal choice and belief than actually not having opportunities to awaken. In fact, we usually encounter multiple opportunities in life to embrace and embody our creativity and learn our unique processes, regardless of what social norms dictate..

    But I’m very open to hearing how some would not have this opportunity. What could possibly stop us, once we’re awake to it? That’s tremendous personal power.

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  • “…this [that those who challenge social norms simply from their way of being are society’s true teachers] is basically 100% the opposite of today’s psychiatric industry’s theology.”

    Yes, indeed. Which is why I’d call this a shift in paradigm and perspective. Aka, radical change. We could at least consider it. After all, we know that psychiatry is, BY NO MEANS, the path to healing, personal growth, and enlightenment, but more so, the road to chronic illness, disability, and total chaos.

    Perhaps we should think about a 180 pole shift at this point. Seems the wrong people are at the top, providing horrible examples for society. I think we need to muster up the collective courage to take this journey of social transformation.

    For example, I think you have the exact right idea, Someone Else, regarding art. You are one of the leaders of radical social change, to my mind, because you are tapped into truth, creativity and light, and you stand by that so elegantly, with passion. I believe this is what we crave, whether we know it consciously or not.

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  • I believe there is a way in which we are all ‘different,’ that is our uniqueness. If, for whatever reason, we feel ashamed for our differences, then it is the shame which will cause us difficulties, not the fact that we are transparent and on our sleeve in our differences.

    Whereas a culture which celebrates diversity and which sees the brilliance in each and every individual, however it is embodied and expressed, then we would not feel shame, but rather confidence in how we are different than others. Our differences are our gifts.

    Daring to be different is what brings change, not being the same as everyone, for the sake of ‘safety.’ That is an illusion. The ‘norm’ as it is today in the mainstream, is not the norm of nature, it is the opposite, which is why we are in such chronic and expanding social distress. Abuse, oppression, stigma, discrimination, and marginalization are of the norm. Is that what we want people to conform to, to be accepted into the norm? I think not.

    There is a school of thought which teaches that those whose differences are inherently visible and which challenge social norms, and therefore making a person vulnerable to social stigma and marginalization (via shaming), are old souls who are here to teach understanding, diversity, universal compassion, and unconditional love to humanity. No doubt, we need these teachers, very badly.

    This teaching rings profoundly true to me.

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  • Very moving story, Naas. During the depths of my psych drugs withdrawal and social stigma induced disability, I was told by a psychiatrist that I had lost my dreams. But lo and behold, contrary to this negative prophecy, I found them anyway and am creating them now in my life on a daily basis. Congratulations on your fortitude, faith, and courage to heal and pursue your dreams.

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  • I think I’m more of a “transformationist” than saboteur. Although, admittedly, I did leave a trail of dust as I exited the mainstream, where I had to knock down a few things in order to make my way out. It was unavoidable, they put themselves in the way and block the path! It’s certainly no easy walk to freedom, but it sure is interesting (and eye-opening) what you learn along the way.

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  • Truly a brilliant comment, lily.c, so spot on.

    “Ah, but maybe us outsiders and commoners are better-positioned than academic elites, in terms of respecting and supporting each other through “fringe” states of consciousness?”

    Yes, academic mindset is overall narrow, cold, and analytical. Multi-dimensional heart based reality is not in this little box. It’s an uptight culture, not one of permission and creativity, but more so one of hierarchy, division, judgment, and snobbery, and therefore cut-throat competitive.

    So how can it solve any problems? It can’t, it just creates them, and then blames others through a game of smoke and mirrors to create confusion and illusion, to substantiate some “costly” research project or another.

    “The assumptions that come out of the well-off hivemind can really wear ya down.”

    So true, it’s very double-binding: either compromise your integrity and ‘play the game,’ or you will feel it, without mercy. When they start calling you ‘thin-skinned’ for calling out oppressive stigma and negative projections, then you know you are right about them, because that indicates that insidious social bullying is taking place.

    Indeed, it is wearing, and I agree, best to walk away and not look back. To me, that would be good personal growth, to get away from all that. It can be hard to identify when in the midst of it, but our guts usually know.

    “So I consciously started seeking out the cracks and margins more, where there’s a common understanding that we’re all mad here… and less of the illusion that cops, doctors, and other powerful institutions will help us…”

    Good for you, I’d call that going in the right direction, away from social insanity. When we don’t buy into these illusions, we are taking the steps toward personal freedom. Old habits can die hard, but seeing past the illusions of a sick society is what truly heals and transforms, and allows for something new and improved to be created in its place–which, to me, would be a society which really and truly celebrates its natural and inherent diversity, rather than to sabotage it, and in turn, sabotage society at large.

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  • Lovely call for unity consciousness. Indeed, we share it all, one way or another. We’re a global collective.

    I think this business (literally) of assigning such drastically misguided and misleading labels to folks dealing with distress from life trauma is what brings about such marginalizing stigma, which, in turn, is what feeds not only personal trauma, but also the corruption, through social vampirism.

    To me, it seems that clinicians and the like, social services, etc–those who subscribe to the DSM school of thought, and what it is based on, fundamentally–are in the habit of creating such duality by insisting that their shadow is ‘out there,’ on their clients, rather than as a projection of their own stuff. That’s one way I’ve learned to see it. Absolute and complete lack of personal ownership. Whereas they should be the one’s modeling it. It’s totally backasswards.

    I really would not choose to have any kind of relationship–either socially or professionally–with most of the clinicians I encountered because they so aggressively and relentlessly project falsehoods onto others, wreaking havoc on people’s psyche and overall health, including social health. This stuff ruins lives and families, without a doubt. The evidence is staggering.

    If this is the personality dynamic professionally, I can only imagine how these personal relationships go–where we are even more ourselves–in terms of control and power struggle. This is not my cup of tea when it comes to personal relationships. I prefer ownership and reasonability in people with whom I associate, not mind games. To me, that is sinister, and sadly, epidemic in academic society. This I know from experience.

    That Upton Sinclair quote says it all. Brainwashed by $$ leads to bad medicine, because the agenda becomes personal and self-serving, ceasing altogether to be for the greater good. That is not a sound system, not in the slightest. Everyone loses, because that money is meaningless given the circumstances under which is what acquired, which I perceive to be nothing short of crimes against humanity. What a mess it all is.

    Thank you for sharing your inspiring and brave story, and your beautiful dream. May the awakening ripple and continue to expand us all into a transformed social consciousness. That would be my dream.

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  • Mr. Whitaker, thank you for having provided this space to use my voice, and to hear those of others, for the purpose of supporting the sorely needed radical social change which I believe most of us seek. Indeed, I’ve paid my dues, along with the rent.

    While it seems to be part of our collective process of healing to wake up to and acknowledge this dark age in our society and times (which I believe is spearheaded by the industrial complex of ‘psychiatric and other mental health services and practices’) in order to discover our personal truth and enlightenment, it is also a daunting task, and I applaud your initiative and courage.

    Thanks to my 4+ years participating in the discussions on this website–including with you and your staff, personally–I have learned a great deal that has brought me tremendous clarity about many things vital to my growth and personal evolution, while greatly deepening my understanding of where we stand at this time, as a collective. I have also made some extremely heartfelt and spiritually valuable connections, for which I’m extremely grateful.

    As a full-fledged survivor of psychiatric atrocities, this experience has been most valuable in raising my awareness around the nature of the clinician-client relationship, which is where I feel the real problem is here, on the human interaction level. There is no true connection between these two groups, especially if they are separated by class, where one is dominant and the other is marginalized.

    Given how oppressive our dominant middle class (money) culture is—which we’ve often recognized in depth on this website–of course, services would be an enormously high risk endeavor for the client, and where stuckness and downward spiraling occur regularly; which is exactly where we encounter the myth of ‘chronic mental illness,’ as created by the system, and by psychiatry within the context of its profound myopia along with misguided training and education.

    This is the conclusion I’ve drawn after over 20 years involved with this field on every side of the fence, and where I feel the landscape of healing and personal growth can shift in a significantly supportive way. Merely my personal perspective only, of course.

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  • “My point is to highlight the stark contrast between how privileged and affluent the psychiatrists are relative to the people who’ve been harmed by them and want justice.”

    I agree with the significance of this statement. It’s as though poor people are expected to support the rich, so that they can continue to exploit them. That’s called ‘vampirism,’ and is exactly the indicator of a sick society, as we often talk about in here.

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  • All that you say here, Stephen, is exactly my understanding, too. Beautifully stated.

    I think it’s the crux of change and transformation, starting with the individual (through neuroplasticity work, just like you say), and this, in turn, will ripple outward into social healing, because the ones who have experienced and then healed from the trauma will know self-care and healthy boundaries, and that can challenge others that are used to being in full control of relationships due to the vulnerability of others. That’s a huge shift in power dynamic, and will change the landscape of society.

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  • I wanted to add briefly, from my own lived experience, that I feel that prolonged disability is more a issue of stigma for the sake of getting away with corruption than anything.

    I had healed and worked hard to transition from disability for a long time, and each time I was making strides and about to cross over that bridge, my transition was literally sabotaged by a tangent of the very system from which I was trying to transition.

    Eventually, I’d be alienated one way or another, first, through a wrongful termination for which I rightfully won a legal mediation, proving blatant discrimination (I had a successful caseload, but being client-centered was not their agenda, which was unacceptable to me, and of course who was I–a person on disability–to offer a perspective?); and then at other agencies, simply through gossip.

    I was moving along well each time, and quite humble about it as I had been through quite a bit up to this point and was not looking for trouble, but my truth about the system and what I knew about healing was terribly threatening to the system and status quo–even though I was working for an advocacy agency eventually, but that was in name only I discovered down the road, the corruption continued–so they’d find a way to give me quite a hard time, despite my obvious and sincerely dedicated contributions to the agency at hand. Who needs that??

    Point is, I got stuck on disability a lot longer than I had planned and intended–thanks to corruption and incompetence on the part of the system and its ‘transitional’ services–and I made the best of it, furthering my training as I healed–including healing from betrayal and sabotaged from the system–doing trade for healing work, teachings and a healing internship when I could not afford it, and eventually creating a healing business from scratch, along with a no-budget film about the destructive nature of social stigma and marginalization, all of it on faith and trusting my process and hoping for the best. I made leap after leap of faith, embracing the uncertainty of it all. Thankfully, it all worked out.

    What else was I to do, if I wanted to be happy and fulfilled in life? Sit around all day complaining and wringing my brain about how life had dogged me? No way. A time came when it was vital to seek new perspectives, so that I could move forward rather than getting stuck in my own quagmire of victimization.

    The world doesn’t change for us, we have to change the world by changing ourselves. Change means letting go of the old to allow for something new. That’s very challenging, although it’s quite an adventure of living. Only way to know how to receive it is with trust, one step at a time.

    Change is also inevitable, that is the nature of things.

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  • “I agree that a job is not the be all and end all of life, but I think that most people benefit from being able to contribute to society in some way, and by being rewarded and respected for their contribution. This does not need to be through paid work, I acknowledge, but it would be nice if there were more jobs out there that gave people a sense of satisfaction and pride.”

    Dr. Moncrieff, on the surface, I would agree with this statement. However, there are a lot of phrases here which I feel are significant in their various interpretations.

    How many ways are their to be contributing members of society? So, so many, and not all of it involves even remotely some kind of ‘work,’ but more so, a way of life. Someone who is committed to providing a daily random act of kindness certainly contributes greatly to society. And usually, people that do this prefer anonymity, and feel their own sense of self-respect and self-reward, from an internal space.

    Respected and rewarded by others? In a competitive society, that can be hard to come by for anyone, but certainly a population treated second class will be hard pressed to avoid exploitation, as marginalized citizens are so rarely treated with respect, and as well, can have a hard time feeling self-respect, as a result.

    Healing is considered to be one of the highest contributions to society, yet there is rarely respect and monetary reward; and of course, “disability” can be prolonged regardless, because healing doesn’t necessarily mean meeting society’s criteria for how ‘to be,’ and most often, it is the opposite. Healing often means individuating from society, and finding one’s own path on one’s own merit, not as defined by a ‘society.’ That’s true freedom.

    I believe a lot of people receive disability benefits not because they are unable to create, produce, and contribute, but more so, simply from savvy and sound self-care of not wanting to drain their energy by working to ‘fit in,’ (which is great effort we don’t even recognize often). I think respect and reward come from our sense of power to create on our own terms, rather than to go through life working for others.

    Were workplaces to be more just, class-less, and conducive to unity and truly working toward a common goal while being able to balance employee needs, then yes, that could be quite rewarding and fulfilling. But the sad truth is that this is most often not the case, and instead, employees are left to fend for themselves, if they are not into appeasing ego after ego, in order to survive. That’s not at all healthy, and, in fact, is chronically stressful, yet it is commonplace.

    I can’t think of a more prevalent cause of baseline distress in society, at large, than having to rely on employment by others, if they are to feel satisfied, respected and rewarded in life. That is really giving away our power.

    What I feel would be nice, and quite healthy for people, is to find life rewarding and fulfilling, through the power of knowing our freedom to create what we most desire, and of course to me, that would always include for the greater good, given that we are part of a global collective. I, at least, feel we are all connected, whether we like it or not.

    If we’re doing it ourselves, our way, that alone is fulfilling and rewarding, regardless of outcomes. It’s the process of our own creativity that is most rewarding. In turn, we, ourselves, generate that self-respect and satisfaction we crave as humans, without having to rely on others (give them our power) to provide this for us.

    Respect and reward are best served by our own sense of it for ourselves, not on dependence on others to provide this for us.

    Thank you for this very stimulating discussion.

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  • “Our biggest challenge is to find new interest in the philanthropic world that will support our work.”

    I’m sure you are not alone with this!

    Sounds like quite an operation. Looking at your board of directors, however, I’m wondering if this is really the kind of profound change we’re seeking–which, to me, would be like a pole shift, in that society would need to do a 180 in perspective. Quite challenging, of course, in many respects; but to my mind, that’s the journey to take, individually, in order for it to translate, at large, into society.

    In any event, I wish you great luck with this, looks very ambitious.

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  • Excellent, I completely agree.

    I’m once again reminded of the Krishnamurti quote. It’s so relevant to all of this, continually, and especially to your statement, lily.c–

    “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

    I believe lily.c is correct, that workplaces tend to be toxic, more and more, and people put up with it because they perceive no choice in the matter. I will argue that this is merely a perception based on feelings of powerlessness to create what we need and want for ourselves. That can shift, with good healing work.

    Social change would mean that we put this into perspective and make appropriate changes to our social, professional, and healthy systems, and this will challenge us into a new way of life. It’s the only way, imo, if we want a balanced society that will positively affect our health and well-being and be supportive, rather than challenge it relentlessly to the point of making it practically impossible to be “successful” (as per mainstream definition) and healthy, grounded, and generally at peace. For starters, the cut throat competition alone leads people to be all kinds of underhanded and back-stabbing, it’s a way of life for some very ambitious people of the mainstream culture. And sadly, it seems to work for them, at least it has been. I’m counting on the idea that people are finally waking up and taking a stand against this kind of unjust and unhealthy daily oppression.

    A ‘decent job’ is most definitely not the key to happiness of any kind, it’s merely something we do to pay the bills, and so often we are forced to work with people we don’t necessarily care for, up to and including employers that can be hard to respect, due to their power issues.

    Being able to create what we most desire is what brings us joy and inner peace. Working for others who give us a paycheck merely keeps us enslaved and drained of energy. Everyone should be their own boss, that would be the first step toward a healthy society. Then, of course, that means taking responsibility for ourselves, which is a whole different matter. Change comes layer by layer.

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  • For example, my own personal narrative of what I, myself, considered to be my own mental illness–which is what it felt like, not via a ‘disease,’ but by virtue of the fact that my self-perception was way off, very low self-esteem which caused me terrible anxiety and insecurity, even though I was out and about in the world, trying somehow to make it work–is due to my upbringing, which was very strict middle class blend in and don’t embarrass the family, which came with a great deal of control and abusive oppression that stifled my voice and spirit.

    My family is very academically oriented (father and brother both professors) and I am artistically inclined, and that was a huge problem for my dad, and it became very personal and demeaning, as a result of my not wanting to follow his directives. That was quite scary for me, given that at the time of my youth, this was the template of my personal universe.

    I wasn’t aware of this on a conscious level, I thought it was this way for everyone.

    Only when I was growing into an adult did I realize that I had some pretty dark feelings which made me feel very confused, extremely anxious, and emotionally unstable (ungrounded).

    Then, instead of simply hearing my woes about my family issues and offering me perspective, I was, instead, offered ‘medication’ by the “mental health establishment”–and a diagnosis–which I eventually accepted, and I went on to have a life, medicated and diagnosed, but still, with a career, formal education, and a long-term relationship which is going stronger than ever after 30 years now.

    20 years after receiving my initial diagnosis and scripts, just after finishing graduate school, the psych drugs broke down my system completely, and to me, that became severe mental illness, in that I could neither function, think, speak, nor hear with any clarity at all, and I became completely disabled for a good long while. My brain was cooked and burned at that point.

    So I ditched the drugs (long, complex process) and worked with what I had internalized from my family–and brought in a lot of self-compassion, along with forgiveness to release resentment and blame in order to take control of my own life and well-being.

    Then I did a variety of healing practices having nothing at all to do with the mental health community but with other modalities of healing, in order to re-route my neural pathways to create new and better, more neutral responses to life’s challenges, from an expanded perspective and awareness which I learned through spiritual and energy studies. This was a completely natural process, with self-agency being the priority.

    And, most importantly I made peace with and accepted my family dynamic and learned to operate independently of it, while continuing to have a relationship with them, although now it was on my terms–that is, I confronted them about their oppressive ways, as well as their blatant stigma, and set a firm boundary around this. As a result, they had to face their own fears and other issues.

    My family has healed in many ways, as a direct result of my healing and truth-speaking. I sent them my film where I tell my family story, and that began our dialogue, which before then, was impossible to instigate, they would get extremely defensive.

    They understand this all much better now, which is a relief for me, and which allows me to continue my life upbeat, optimistic, and centered in my own reality, healthy, grounded, and clear. These days, I’m simply creating to my heart’s content, which is my freedom now.

    So that’s my personal narrative of how I became what I have no problem referring to as ‘mental illness’–first, from family oppression, stigma, and abuse, and then from the same treatment by the “mental health” community, 100,000 worse and totally systemic, via drugs and blatant stigma and discrimination; and subsequently, how I healed from it, after a long bout of disability, via forgiveness, truth-speaking, heart healing, expanded awareness, teachings in perspective, creative endeavors, and natural remedies which supported my body’s ability to heal on its own, with good self-care. That was the clincher.

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  • Seems to me that we all have our own personal narrative, that’s our story, which can evolve over time, with new perspectives.

    I don’t see how something like this could be universal. I think the mainstream narrative is based purely on stigma, in that is the illusion of speculation from superficial observation. The solution would be for people to own their projections, but I don’t see that occurring a lot.

    In the meantime, what can we learn from a sick society?

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  • “I contend that we are discussing a social welfare problem that is created or worsened when politicized as a medical problem.”

    Yes, but our internal landscape is what translates into our external reality. If we are predominantly focused on shadow, then that is what we create for ourselves, in and around us. Not at all to judge where anyone’s focus should be, we all choose our focus and how we navigate that, that is personal and we all have a right to choose this.

    But energy works on a cause-and-effect basis, and we are energy as is the world around us. How and on what we focus is what we end up projecting outward, as our personal reality.

    So if we want to change what is outside of us, we have to, first, make internal changes that will inspire us to shift our focus, and therefore, our energy. In turn, that changes our internal landscape to something lighter and more desirable, which will translate as such outside of ourselves.

    I believe that we sink into mental distress and despair when we feel powerless to make the changes we so desperately desire. Feeling powerless takes us from angry and enraged to despondent and hopeless. Knowing our power to create internal change so that we can create social change is what relieves that distress, because we become acquainted with our power to manifest what we need.

    My experience, in any event.

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  • “My position is that society start listening -– REALLY LISTENING — to ex-patients of psychiatry who have been horribly failed by psychiatry and for society to fund very different alternatives that have nothing at all do with psychiatry.”

    Wow, thank you for this very clear and directly stated position, Bruce.

    As an ex-patient of psychiatry who was horribly failed (to put it mildly) by psychiatry, with a fully documented resume to prove it and a loud voice, and also a film with a choir of survivor voices, to sell it–and also as one with a well-established and generally acclaimed healing and teaching practice that has nothing to do with psychiatry, and which I’m looking to expand into a healing arts center featuring healing through creativity–I say, “From your lips to God’s ear!”

    I appreciate the virtual support, very powerful. Thank you, again 🙂

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  • I think it’s apt, sadly. I certainly felt terrorized at their hands. I think you say a key thing, “Maybe to people who have never been subjected to their ‘treatment.'” Nothing safe, fair, just–or even in the slightest warm and empathic–or in any way healing about ‘the system.’

    Yes, to those who have not experienced this, we may seem to be exaggerating or catastrophizing, but I know this is not the case. I experienced and witnessed it as pure barbarism, seriously. This is supposed to be healing, and it’s the exact opposite, in the worst way possible.

    I agree, there is no reasoning here, as long as these practices continue to be employed, continue to do harm, and continue to be justified.

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  • True, Someone Else, and even though people are justifiably angry, we can show compassion for the unwitting perpetrators of systemic harm—iatrogenic and otherwise–knowing that they were doing what they were taught and trained to do. Everyone deserves a chance to awaken, heal, and make amends for their mistakes and misjudgments. No one on the planet is perfect, and we all have learning curves.

    And many of us are hit in mid-life with hard truths, realizing that we’ve been living inside an illusion all along. That’s a big challenge, but it’s called growth and evolution, and we all face it. It’s extremely humbling.

    For me, that’s what going through the mental health system was about, facing the hard truths of my own life, and how I create my own reality. Once I got it, and it took some work to shift my consciousness to that degree, I was free.

    However, when a significantly large number of people with lived experience through all of this harm, and who are trying very hard to recover from all of that, say in just about every tone possible up and down and in between, repeatedly, for years and years, in print, in person, or on film,

    “Hey, you guys are doing tons and tons of harm to people, and this is how, and here is a lot of evidence, especially our myriad voices of experience, those of us who were seriously injured and derailed from our lives because of this most unfortunate detour through the ‘mental health’ system and its many tangents,”

    and they keep coming back with one bullshit response after another–and I call it ‘bullshit’ because it is always heady, vague, speculative, sometimes demeaning (you take your chances there) and completely dismissive of the client/survivor, one way or another, including saying ‘we need more research’ and ‘what about our feelings?’–at what point will everyone say, “Enough already! It’s so obvious! And you’re just postponing the inevitable, while dragging others down with you, because you are stubborn as all get out.”

    It’s hard to hold compassion when you put reason AND evidence in their faces and they continue to ask for their feelings to be included. Would that they only knew and felt what an over-drugged, blatantly stigmatized, marginalized, second-class citizen feels, and so, so often, at THEIR doing, via their so-called ‘treatment.’ Then, I’ll be ready to talk about empathizing, when it goes both ways.

    There is no compromise, here, not if we want healing and justice to happen, both individually and socially. Sorry to be so blunt and clichéd, but it’s quite clear to me that the insane are running the asylum.

    People really need to wake up in order for all of this to go away, which is what I would like, as well, for the greater good of society. It is not a healthy field, not in the slightest. In fact, it is pure toxic. Isn’t that hella obvious by now?

    I feel strongly that it cannot redeem itself, it must bow out of the healing game, because there is not healing here. That is fraudulent advertising, from where I sit.

    ADA says, “Reasonable accommodation for reasonable request.” I don’t see that happening here, not at all.

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  • Definitely the million dollar question, Stephen. I’ve had the exact same experiences as what you describe, at staff meetings, as well as at a NAMI conference to which I scored a free pass, and I very mildly challenged all of this. In fact, I really just questioned that perhaps, we are being a bit over-zealous with ‘medication’ (my feelings and opinions were much stronger, but I knew I’d encounter hostility if I went full guns), and I STILL got hostility thrown at me! As well as some very unkind words from the psychiatrist who was taking questions from the audience, when I went up to the mic. The fact that he attempted to make me feel public shame was my best insight into his toxic personality. Shame, shame.

    I also cornered the APA prez at the time, in the corridor, and asked him about the harms of medication, which, of course, led to some vague and dismissive statement before he ran off in the other direction. Seriously.

    You are correct, they will not hear a thing, and woe to anyone that even hints that something may be off here. That is very deeply entrenched brainwashing and indoctrination, akin to cult-thinking. Those neural pathways seem to be set in stone.

    So, what is to be done? Again, the million dollar question–in that, whoever cracks this code deserves that million, and much, much more.

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  • Btw, we plan to have healing classes, music classes, performance classes, filmmaking classes, and all sorts of opportunities to put these into action, to create and display our art together. Support all along the way.

    Any teachers, healers, and artists, I’m always on the lookout for anyone interested in participating in something like this. Those of us involved so far have taught all of this elsewhere, and I’m bringing everyone together so we can have a teaching, healing, creative arts community. That’s the plan! God willing…

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  • Yes, indeed, it’s focused, engaging, grounding, and fun to create art. And it engages a community in just the right way, from the heart. The arts is what brings people together in a fun loving way.

    My transition and personal transformation was based exactly on this. I had never done anything like this and as the result of doing volunteer work while recovering from disability, I took the plunge and started taking a singing and performing class, because I was sick and tired of the mental health system that wasn’t getting me anywhere other than on a downward spiral. I wanted to have some fun, not to continue hashing and re-hashing my issues. That just served to keep me down and feeling bleak about everything. I was really over looking back at the past, and chose to deliberately start planning a better future.

    Turning to the performing arts WAS my healing, and it set the stage (so to speak) for the rest of my life. My partner and I are creating an arts and performing arts healing center, which would include natural healing, meditation, qi gong, etc., all under one roof. It’s been our dream vision for a while now, and so far, it’s looking pretty good, the pieces are actually coming together! I have healers, teachers and artists of all kinds lined up, and our film about performing for residents of an assisted living facility will be finished soon, hopefully for summer release. This is one plan for raising funds to make this happen.

    Here’s a brief trailer to my film on healing and music. It supports well what this article is saying:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khwFWx75m94

    This is a work in progress, and I consider it universal, for anyone in any part of the global population interested in purely creating. To me and to my partner, creativity is a way of life.

    Anyone interested to know more or would like to be part of this, please feel free to inquire by writing me at [email protected]

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  • So many of us have told our stories of having gotten so ill on the psych drugs, the trauma of coming off of them, and the subsequent clarity and well-being we experience AFTER ditching them. Many of us can look back with clear insights regarding our experience, and it is not favorable at all to psychiatry and its practices. It’s a shame these stories are not more highlighted and explored, for the sake of the clients and others seeking relief from severe distress, disabling anxiety, and perpetual confusion.

    I believe the needs of the clinicians are being more reflected here, and they are hard to budge from their beliefs, because it really throws a wrench into their reality, in many ways. That is something they need to face, I strongly believe. Too many of us understand this all too well, mental health practices as a political tool, rather than as a pathway to healing.

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  • I can only say that his perception was distorted and he filled in the blanks of who I was with his own projections. Pure, unadulterated stigma, and it almost killed me.

    Perhaps his dreams had never truly manifested on some level, and projecting that onto me made him feel better, more ‘powerful.’ His prophecy of doom for me was completely unfounded, so I’m not sure where his very distorted information about my future was coming from, other than from inside his own mind. I can only gather that he could not see, feel, or hear my spirit, even though I showed up authentically. His focus was elsewhere.

    I first began to work with him as I was coming off the drugs, so he thought that would be me forever, in that state of confusion, anxiety, disarray, and terrible self-image. He did not understand ‘process,’ apparently, and especially, the process of healing. Go figure.

    When finally woke up to the detrimental effect he had been having on my thought process and also on my self-esteem, I told him that I was finished with him, and of course he gave me all these reasons why that would be a bad idea. Ha!

    That was the last I communicated with him, other than my one-star Yelp review. Which, incidentally, after which one of his clients whom I didn’t know from anyone, wrote to me via Yelp to call me a ‘psycho,’ because I had not like his psychiatrist. Good grief, not exactly a sign of anything good, to my mind. Glad I got away from him, and that bizarro world.

    Weird stuff that goes on in these 1-to-1 meetings, I recommend that people be really cautious about this if especially vulnerable.

    Thanks for the comment and article, Sera, I appreciate being able to speak out about all of this. I’ve moved on in my own life, but I would still like to see all of this corrected, somehow–this practice which I can only call ‘vampirism,’ for the sake of our collective well-being.

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  • I should actually correct that last statement, to say that it was MY salvation to find my soul path and purpose, because it led to fulfillment.

    It was the hardest work I’ve done in my life, to shift my perspective and consciousness this way, after having been a card-carrying member of mainstream society, but it is, indeed, what brought me fulfillment, and that made everything else much, much easier to handle, it was a game-changer.

    The folks that are drawn to my practice are after just that, feeling fulfilled. So I point them to their own inner guidance, and help them connect with that and practice it with trust–living their truth–so they are no longer dependent on anyone but themselves for their information regarding their life path. I find that freeing, in every respect.

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  • Thanks, Someone Else, I was relieved to learn of other perspectives and avenues to healing. The whole experience was totally meaningful, in the end, and has helped me to be a more conscious and mindful person, in the moment with focus and awareness.

    I also learned that increasing my capacity for true and universal compassion–expanding my heart–was the way to healing and authentic personal power, in that it connects me with God/the light/the universe/inner being/inner guidance, etc., so not only do I feel better physically and emotionally, it also helped me to repair my life and keep focus on what it is I desire from life.

    My healing and teaching practice is based on all this, so I’ve been able to help others as well, on their spiritual awakening and soul journey. I’m sure I’m living my soul path and purpose now, thanks to my experiences. That’s what brought the most relief, and why I try to recommend to others they do the same, for the sake of their health and well-being, via feeling fulfilled in life. That’s what had been missing, and what I was led to believe would never occur.

    I give the opposite message to people: that in our darkest hour is when our soul path and purpose are most ignited for us to learn. For me, that is our salvation, to learn our soul path and purpose.

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  • My suicide almost took, I had left my body but I came back. It was mystical, I remember every moment of it, and what I learned in those few seconds will serve me for life. This was 14 years ago. Since recovering from this period, I haven’t had that thought again.

    What led up to it was as I had just started detoxing from having withdrawn from all psych drugs, last one being the dreaded and excruciatingly painful benzo withdrawal, I was seeing this psychiatrist twice weekly, and he kept telling me, “You lost your dreams,” as his response to my feeling so incredibly badly and in chronic debilitating anxiety. He must have said this to me 5 or 6 times during this one session.

    I had already had a successful first career and had just finished graduate school to start the second part of my life, when it was clear I had to stop the drugs, as they were breaking me down, causing all sorts of problems in functioning and clarity of thought. Coming off the drugs, to my mind, was supposed to make me healthier and clear, I had not expected my ability to function to go down the toilet as it appeared to be doing. I was also having difficulty speaking.

    My partner was beside himself, and taking it out on me, while I was rendered defenseless. I was being blamed for all sorts of things about which I had no control. I had done everything in my power to find appropriate support (I had been in graduate school and was surrounded by ‘mental health professionals’), and it all led to a big dead end, where I was feeling more and more marginal to society. My friends and colleagues from graduate school began to avoid me for the troubles I was having.

    So one night I went out and bought a pack of cigarettes (I had quit smoking, but I felt entitled to a ‘last cigarette’), came home, and as the phrase ‘lost your dreams’ echoed in my head, I poured a bunch of pills into my hand and I remember saying to myself, “If this doesn’t work, I am screwed!”

    Well, it almost did, but it didn’t after all, and I was screwed for a while; people were so pissed at me, and every clinician whom I saw while in the hospital was cold and blaming, accusing me of being manipulative, etc., and I just sat there, mute, thinking about how the next time, I was determined to succeed at this. I did not have the energy to be angry and fight back, so I remained despondent for a good long while after that.

    Fortunately, I found my healing elsewhere and so did my partner, and everything turned around, and of course this ‘psychiatrist’ was wrong about everything.

    But looking back, I can easily say that my suicide attempt was a combo of a really messed up brain due to 20 years of psych drugs and then withdrawal, rendering me no defenses of which to speak, and a psychiatrist (whom I consider now to be a sadist) insisting that I accept my fate of having lost my dreams—which now, could not be further than the truth, I am living inside of these dreams at present and I feel joy in my life every day.

    This guy was so toxic, and of course at the time I felt I had no choice in the matter, I thought I was stuck with him. All of that stigma, defeatism, and messages of being ‘permanently damaged’–despite my very hard and diligent work to heal–really did a number on me, as I imagine they do on a lot of people, leads to hopelessness. That’s what I found trying to find healing in the mental health world.

    Thank God there are other avenues to healing, because this is not a good path, from my experience. At least for me, it was almost fatal and it almost destroyed my partner’s life, too, along with mine. I found it utterly and endlessly cold, with a serious lack of empathy and perspective, like a black hole. That’s not healing in the slightest, quite the opposite.

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  • One thing I discovered as I came off of a plethora of psych drugs after a number of years believing that I’d be dependent on them for life, is the my anxiety decreased tremendously as I allowed myself to actually embody my emotions, to actually be expressive, rather than always talking as though I were walking a tightrope–not too much expression in either direction, or you will tip the balance, so to speak, in the environment. Being myself in my real and authentic emotions was vital for relief in my body, mind, and heart from terrible and disabling anxiety.

    It was actually rather a double bind at first, however: if I expressed my emotions authentically, I felt so much better and centered, as though I were being true to myself. Yet, in the mental health system, that was actually grounds for being blatantly stigmatized, if not diagnosed. At the very least, I felt as though some were embarrassed or uncomfortable by my emotions, and perhaps, that I should be, too. This was my experience as I was healing, the emotions that were finally being freed up were actually invalidated. This seemed like a cultural standard to me, got my attention big time.

    As an actor, filmmaker, and musician, I can’t even imagine being uncomfortable in my emotions, and they range pretty wide. I found it impossible to be an expressive and spirited human being within the vicinity of the mental health world, without feeling somehow marginalized and ‘othered.’

    Fortunately, that was not my dominant community, I’ve always belonged to a variety of communities, but the mental world and its drugging ways of zapping emotions (and creativity) as the means to suppress anxiety is what I really find to be utterly confounding and disheartening. I think there is an awesomely powerful and brilliantly creative world underneath all those drugs. I wish we could tap into it, rather than demean and repress it, for the sake of…I really don’t know what anymore. It’s just a dark age until we turn this around, imo.

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  • “There was no real drama attached to it, I just needed to see how my anxiety operated and then how to do something about it.”

    LOVE this statement, Fiachra–taking control of our emotional responses, learning our ‘self’–our own unique process–how we operate and how to self-soothe and come back to center. That is the essence of self-agency and self-healing. Beautiful! 🙂

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  • “Maybe so many people figuring out this is the only way to get off the psych drugs, is part of why the psychiatrists have delusions their drugs are beneficial, though?”

    I think that’s a great point to consider. I totally understand the need to lie one’s way out of a dangerously oppressive situation, but I actually was honest down the line as I tapered from nine psych drugs.

    I was very clear about how sick and disabled they were making me, and how long they’d been breaking down different organs in my body (including the brain, of course, but also liver and kidneys) without my even being aware of it, because any sign of this as I went along would be totally inaccurately attributed to some other factor, whereas all along it was the drugs.

    I know this for a fact because since I stopped taking them about 15 years ago now, I’ve gotten only healthier and healthier since that time, all in balance, not to mention I have my clarity now, and the life I’d always intended to live. This never would have been possible had I stayed in any way connected to psychiatry, drugs, or the mental health system. That was all leading me down a very deep and dark rabbit hole. Thank God I woke up.

    But indeed, one of the pitfalls of lying to clinicians about this is that then they will feel they have even more proof that the drugs work, because that is what clients are telling them, regardless of whether it is true or not. So it does confuse the situation, no doubt. Quite a conundrum.

    I guess it would be a matter of discerning what is for our own good vs. what is for the greater good. My way of seeing it is that if it for the greater good, then that includes us, because we are all part of that collective. Still, we all choose based on what we know and feel in that moment, which is how we exercise our free will and self-respect.

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  • You know how the internet works and you did post this here, so I think it’s fair for you to hear the feedback as it is offered, which seems to have been done respectfully and clearly for the most part. Otherwise, what on earth is the point of this website, to agree with everyone? These are very charged and controversial issues! On top of that, our way of being is personal, not up for evaluation and judgment by others. I wish people would understand that, if nothing else.

    I think the lesson for us all, here, Rufus, is that people are going to be who they are at any given moment–via their expression of truth, however that comes–rather than being what and how anyone would prefer another to be, regardless of what process is taking place (e.g. coming off psych drugs). I believe that is the big protest against the mental health system, given how it tries to change people from their natural way of being and processing, rather than honoring them for who they are, all for the comfort of mainstream society (and the clinician at hand). That’s how people stay split, confused, and feeling powerless, leading to despondence.

    We are who we are who we are who we are… period.
    Peace.

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  • How about if we were to just communicate directly, no frills, to the point–say what we mean and mean what we say. Aside from being responsible for how we communicate, we are also responsible for how we hear feedback and respond to it, emotionally. How we respond internally to feedback is a reflection of the one being reflected back, not the one giving the feedback.

    I think when you ask an abused or oppressed person to ’empathize’ with their abusers/oppressors, you are asking the receiver of that abuse to be responsible for how their abuser feels. That’s neither fair nor just, from what I can tell. People in positions of authority have a responsibility to those they serve, not the other way around.

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  • The above URL is accurate but it doesn’t seem to want to want to work on here, so I’m posting the relatively brief content below. It centers around the issue of ‘divorce,’ but I think it’s relevant in general, especially with regard to family. Point being, of course, that where there is guilt–of any kind–there is also forgiveness. That’s the healing.

    Forgiveness and Restoration
    By Rose Sweet

    Why Do We Find It So Hard to Forgive?

    One reason we resist forgiving is that we don’t really understand what forgiveness is or how it works. We think we do, but we don’t.

    Most of us assume that if we forgive our offenders, they are let off the hook — scot-free — and get to go about their merry ways while we unfairly suffer from their actions. We also may think that we have to be friendly with them again, or go back to the old relationship. While God commands us to forgive others, he never told us to keep trusting those who violated our trust or even to like being around those who hurt us.

    The first step to understanding forgiveness is learning what it is and isn’t. The next step is giving yourself permission to forgive and forget, letting go of the bitterness while remembering very clearly your rights to healthy boundaries.
    Granting Forgiveness

    • Forgiveness is not letting the offender off the hook. We can and should still hold others accountable for their actions or lack of actions.

    • Forgiveness is returning to God the right to take care of justice. By refusing to transfer the right to exact punishment or revenge, we are telling God we don’t trust him to take care of matters.

    • Forgiveness is not letting the offense recur again and again. We don’t have to tolerate, nor should we keep ourselves open to, lack of respect or any form of abuse.

    • Forgiveness does not mean we have to revert to being the victim. Forgiving is not saying, “What you did was okay, so go ahead and walk all over me.” Nor is it playing the martyr, enjoying the performance of forgiving people because it perpetuates our victim role.

    • Forgiveness is not the same as reconciling. We can forgive someone even if we never can get along with him again.

    • Forgiveness is a process, not an event. It might take some time to work through our emotional problems before we can truly forgive. As soon as we can, we should decide to forgive, but it probably is not going to happen right after a tragic divorce. That’s okay.

    • We have to forgive every time. If we find ourselves constantly forgiving, though, we might need to take a look at the dance we are doing with the other person that sets us up to be continually hurt, attacked, or abused.

    • Forgetting does not mean denying reality or ignoring repeated offenses. Some people are obnoxious, mean-spirited, apathetic, or unreliable. They never will change. We need to change the way we respond to them and quit expecting them to be different.

    • Forgiveness is not based on others’ actions but on our attitude. People will continue to hurt us through life. We either can look outward at them or stay stuck and angry, or we can begin to keep our minds on our loving relationship with God, knowing and trusting in what is good.

    • If they don’t repent, we still have to forgive. Even if they never ask, we need to forgive. We should memorize and repeat over and over: Forgiveness is about our attitude, not their action.

    • We don’t always have to tell them we have forgiven them. Self-righteously announcing our gracious forgiveness to someone who has not asked to be forgiven may be a manipulation to make them feel guilty. It also is a form of pride.

    • Withholding forgiveness is a refusal to let go of perceived power. We can feel powerful when the offender is in need of forgiveness and only we can give it. We may fear going back to being powerless if we forgive.

    • We might have to forgive more than the divorce. Post-divorce problems related to money, the kids, and schedules might result in the need to forgive again and to seek forgiveness ourselves.

    • We might forgive too quickly to avoid pain or to manipulate the situation. Forgiveness releases pain and frees us from focusing on the other person. Too often when we’re in the midst of the turmoil after a divorce, we desperately look for a quick fix to make it all go away. Some women want to “hurry up” and forgive so the pain will end, or so they can get along with the other person. We have to be careful not to simply cover our wounds and retard the healing process.

    • We might be pressured into false forgiveness before we are ready. When we feel obligated or we forgive just so others will still like us, accept us, or not think badly of us, it’s not true forgiveness — it’s a performance to avoid rejection. Give yourself permission to do it right. Maybe all you can offer today is, “I want to forgive you, but right now I’m struggling emotionally. I promise I will work on it.”

    • Forgiveness does not mean forgetting. It’s normal for memories to be triggered in the future. When thoughts of past hurts occur, it’s what we do with them that counts. When we find ourselves focusing on a past offense, we can learn to say, “Thank you, God, for this reminder of how important forgiveness is.”

    • Forgiveness starts with a mental decision. The emotional part of forgiveness is finally being able to let go of the resentment. Emotional healing may or may not follow quickly after we forgive.

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  • “But I think you paint an exaggerated picture.”

    I have to disagree here, Ron. Someone Else’s insights ring completely true to me. I and so many others who have relayed their stories on here and elsewhere have had this same experience.

    I also found a tremendous amount of blatant gaslighting being the crazy-making and shame projecting tool used to silence people. My lawsuit was all about this, and I proved it with success. It was obvious that the folks who ran this agency were way out in left field, whereas they were trying to convince others that I was the one who did not know of what I spoke.

    In the end, I was the one validated for my truth, and they shut down, because they were ignorant and stubborn in their pure bigotry.

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  • My way of defeating psychiatry was to:

    1) see it for what it was and call it out as toxic and dangerous,

    2) get away from it altogether by finding an alternative route to clarity and well-being, of which there are so many readily available and effective,

    3) creating a healing and teaching practice, based on the education and training I received as I healed from my own inner chaos, where, for the past 10 years, I’ve worked successfully with individuals and families in a way far removed from anything resembling the mental health system and all that crap. I’ve helped successfully divert a lot of people from the system, getting DSM diagnosed, and from medication.

    Aside from bringing down a corrupt social service agency by filing a legal grievance and providing a platform for others to speak their truth, their way, without apology, as I do in my films, I’m not sure what else I can do, that is in my power at this time.

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  • Hi Sa, not in the slightest offended, not sure what would be the offense. On the contrary, I very much welcome your perspective and insights, as well as your challenges, I think that’s important for a healthy and productive dialogue. I totally respect your experience, like I do all others.

    Although, please, I’m not out to win a war of words or anything of the kind. For me, this is all about clarity for the purpose of supporting positive change in society, truly; and healing, as that is my passion. If that weren’t the case, I would never have made a public service film which was truly a pain in the ass to accomplish from within the system. But I knew it was important, even though I didn’t totally have the big picture at the time. But intuitively, I knew this was going in the right direction, and 4 years later, after having all these discussions, I find that I continue to stand by that.

    I would have also never risked taking legal action against the system for discrimination and retaliation (which I won). It’s hard to take care of one’s self when being an activist out in the field, but for sure, needing to be right for the sake of it would be one way to sabotage self-care.

    But I’m extremely intent on helping to bring clarity we so badly need, and what’s particularly challenging to that is the ambiguity cast by the dismissal of the perspective of the ones abused and crying foul, as per the many methods described all up and down this discussion. This is what I and I know many of us are trying to get across.

    For me, this is about the survivor’s voice, which continually gets drowned out by all the ‘authority’ around them (parents and the system), whether the latter are in agreement or not.

    A bit of copy-pasting here in my response to your very thoughtful post, for clarity–

    “The problem seems to me more to do with outsiders looking at a person in extreme distress and then deciding that THEY KNOW what is the root cause of the problem for their particular situation. (In other words ‘too simplistic’ or ‘inaccurate’ blaming) It is the looking at “symptoms to determine the cause” problem which we all know so well from traditional psychiatry. (A professional on this site have even gone so far as to equate ‘severity’ of ‘psychiatric disorders’ as a way of determining the extent and timing of trauma from parents- These are things someone can not possibly know, yet their opinion on this matter could carry a lot of weight due to their position.”

    I agree completely with this. In every case, dialogue must occur and from that dialogue and interactions, the truth of a situation tends to be revealed. Otherwise, it’s called ‘a cover up,’ and we’ve seen plenty of those come to light recently. It can be many kinds of truth, not just pointing to the family dynamic.

    To me, problems occur when that truth is diffused due to resistance to self-ownership, meaning someone or the system is trying to deflect and distract, that’s a common strategy in a toxic system.

    I’m not at all saying this would be the case for you or for anyone in particular. There are many stories out there and I honor them all, always have. But I know that this particular truth is widespread, this denial of family impact on a child’s mental well-being, emotional balance, and self-perception, regardless of what the issue is. How we address our life challenges is modeled by the family, we learn by example. I don’t think that’s a generalization, I feel its universal truth. If I’m wrong, I’d love to know what the truth here is, but I do feel we teach and learn from example more than anything.

    My one generalization from what I’ve written on this blog is that I do feel where there is child abuse taking place, whether blatant or subtle, there is some kind of mental health issue to address—in the abuser, the originator, and then in the recipient of that abuse. I don’t see how there could not be a distortion of self if your inner world is filled with betrayal abuse from a needy parent. That’s not so unusual.

    And, indeed, both can heal with the right kind of inner work, but I do feel it’s most likely to be the one abused rather than the abuser, as the one abused tends to carry a lot of humility, inherently. That’s a really long rigorous journey to take, for a chronic abuser to be humbled and see themselves in the mirror. I do have compassion for that, but its best they do their healing before being around kids, I think.

    But no, I would never say that in every case of ‘mental illness’ or what have you, there is child abuse involved. Social abuse, perhaps, because that always makes matters worse and our world is rife with it, and that would be an issue of marginalization, which is extremely traumatic and distorting of reality.

    But I agree with you that it is unjust and unfair to call out a family simply because someone has such challenges. Although I will say that families are truly supportive when, and only when, their attention to the one with challenges is dominantly positive, rather than judgmental, alienating, and stigmatizing—aka ‘othering.’

    “One thing you say is that ” Parents have got to know that they are the universe for their children until a certain age.” I agree with you, but remember that it usually when people are young adults that they experience extreme distress, and at that time, children do not believe their parents are the universe but rather are trying to find their own reality in the world (so many influencing factors to consider at that point,,,,)”

    Yes, but breakdowns don’t happen overnight, there are powerful signs that people tend to be in denial about, because it means some kind of change to the power dynamic of the relationship, and that is challenging for the one who feels they hold the power, if only financially.

    The imprint of the parent from those formative years is there, until the adult child learns to separate out their true selves from is not relevant to them, that which came from the family (values, perspectives, etc). That’s a normal process of maturation and individuation, but it gets messed up when we can’t see the forest for the trees, simply from blind loyalty to our family.

    Criticizing the family should be ok, and the family should be able to hear it without scapegoating and turning it around to be about something ‘sensitive’ about the child, that’s horribly demeaning and dismissive, all at the same time.

    And leading our own lives our way should be ok, but often the parent imposes their values on the kids in such a way that the kid is left double-bound, because if they go by their own values and not the families, the family can easily guilt, shame, and blame the child for their own (parents’) discomfort, simply because the nature of that child does not fit into the norms of the family. This is where families can learn to respect what they don’t understand, rather than to condemn it, off the cuff, simply because it is outside the norm.

    I believe we should be allowed to be different. Doesn’t at all mean something is wrong with a person, it means they are brave enough to follow their own truth, and to me, that is an example of virtue and integrity. Of course, when people feel it’s wrong that they are outside the norm, then they will suffer internally. From where do they get that message? Sometimes from the family, and sometimes from society. The trick is to flip the bird to that message, because nothing can be further from the truth.

    “The reason why this is issue is so important to me revolves around the issue of ‘forced treatment’ which I know you also feel strongly about. If families are made into ‘scapegoats’ by being blamed for things that might not apply to them , then it becomes harder for families to stand up against the treatment recommendations of traditional psychiatry that they feel (and their loved one feels) are harmful to their loved ones. If families are ‘blamed in an ‘inaccurate’ way, it is sometimes impossible, and is certainly made much more difficult to be advocates for their loved one.”

    Absolutely, and when discussing these issues broadly as is all we can do here, since this is not group therapy but a discussion board, then people have to be able to separate what does not pertain to them, it wouldn’t trigger in the same way.

    But it applies to so many people whose voices have been curtailed and dismissed so readily as ‘psychotic’ ‘distorted’ ‘paranoid’ ‘angry,’ and as a result, those voices are truly not being be heard, not as anything terribly significant, at least that’s how it seems.

    This is all I’m saying. I don’t know why, but there always seems to be some caveat to a survivor’s story, from the outside, some adjective or wording which seems to instigate doubt—‘paranoid’ is one of the most common I can think of right now, and there are other ways of phrasing things to tilt the scale in favor of the abuser, for the purpose of cover up, just like Someone Else describes.

    I think that’s grossly unfair to survivors, and totally devalues these amazingly courageous stories, and even more courageous, our telling them in the face of doubt from others. Sorry, but to me that is nonsense, in that it makes no sense to invalidate another’s truth, that is no way to find our own truth.

    At least to me that feel’s unfair and just plain wrong, others need to speak for themselves. It is harmful, though, it’s mental cruelty in my book.

    Thanks for being so direct, Sa, I hope my response is aligned with my intention of seeking truth, for the greater good–not to argue about anything, but to collaborate on finding clarity. That takes some tough talk about tough issues, but I always try to be direct. That is my only intention and agenda here. I have nothing else to gain from these dialogues, other than clarity, which to my mind, is extremely valuable when trying to create radical change for the good of all. That’s a daunting task, but that is what we’re after, isn’t it?

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  • I want to add–this issue of ‘to blame or not to blame’ has me a bit confused. Ok, so we don’t like the word ‘blame’ because of the connotation of not taking responsibility for one’s life.
    But in the spirit of science, even, don’t we find root causes by seeing where something originated and how, perhaps, there was fertile ground for imbalance to occur? Wouldn’t that be necessary in order to correct the problem?

    It isn’t about making someone feel guilty or to take responsibility for another; it’s about knowing the truth so that we can heal, and that might mean making a change away from toxic people and environments. If we keep saying ‘don’t blame!” then are we not diffusing clarity on the issue of cause-and-effect? That’s neutral, without judgment.

    I believe, at least, that we live in a cause and effect universe, without exception. If the cause of our distress has been another person all along, then we can learn to forgive, that is healing. Not to let anyone off the hook, that person (abuser) needs to grow a great deal in self-awareness, and that can be quite a challenge for them; but to release our own resentment, which is not a healthy energy to carry around. Forgiving others is an act of self-compassion and self-healing, because we release our own stress and can, therefore, achieve great clarity and insights regarding our challenging experiences, without all those filters from feeling like a victim.

    I like how Steve discerns between blaming and assigning responsibility. What’s been glaring to me is that it is easier for some people to scapegoat, project, and stigmatize rather than to take full responsibility for the power of their influence over another. Parents have got to know that they are the universe for their children until a certain age. That is POWERFUL, the ultimate.

    Yes, it’s a lot of responsibility, but that’s what they signed up for. Just like mental health clinicians and social workers, et al, sign up for what they sign up for. It’s their job to support very challenging situations. I don’t understand why all the complaining, what do they expect? It’s not an easy job, but it’s what they chose. If you can’t handle the job, take another one, with people who aren’t so challenged in life.

    No one ever said that parenting is at all an easy job, but I’m sure there are some cultures and at some point in time where this is a totally naturally intuitive process. Somewhere along the line, that wisdom seems to have gone by the wayside, if we have to read so much about how to be a good parent. If we are in our hearts, we just know when we are being kind vs. when we are being cruel. We may not intend to be cruel, but in defending our own egos, most–if not all–of us have been, at one time or another, and hopefully, we snap out of it and realize that there is a better way to think about treat people. And that, perhaps, our own desires to be cruel stem from our own issues and inner conflicts, not to be put upon children or clients (!!).

    Do people know how to best utilize their power, to maximize the effect of their influence over their kids (and clients) in the most positive way possible? That doesn’t mean being perfect, we’re all imperfect human beings, but that doesn’t mean we can’t always improve, I think that’s never ending. We are all in a process of continual evolution, but it’s easier when we can actually navigate it will full awareness.

    What it does speak to, however, I believe, is to the notion of being aware, living consciously. Frankly, I wouldn’t rate a lot of people as high on the awareness meter, that’s the problem. We are a myopic society. How about we broaden the perspective, somehow, someway. I think too many trauma survivors are suffering needlessly.

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  • The_cat, your post is very powerful.

    It seems pretty clear that there is an enormous amount of evidence that a vast majority of clients of the mental health system have experienced some kind of family abuse, blatant emotional neglect and abandonment, and/or some kind of oppression that would not allow them to be who they are. Many, many people have been just plain battered throughout their childhood, at least emotionally. AND, an equal amount of overwhelming evidence that this repeats in the system, via further scapegoating, stigma, and marginalization, that it becomes a great big ol’ mess of gargantuan proportions, as we see evidenced daily all around us. I believe this has become epidemic in our society.

    I’m not into self-promoting around here these days, but this is precisely what I realized as the film I made, Voices That Heal, came together, while working with professional advocacy (which I naively thought actually advocated for clients, whereas I discovered otherwise later, but at least I can still stand by the premise of my film, which I continue to feel is representative of the truth of the matter).

    There are six of us, here, who speak candidly about our experiences in the family, in the system, offering our reflections of it all. We are transparent, and we ALL speak for ourselves, and a couple of us with our spouses. There is no one else in this film, just us, as our the experts of our lives, thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

    We are diverse in many ways, not of one mind and perspective as we dialogue with each other, as well as relate our stories to an audience, but we do have overlap. One cast member supports the system, and he speaks his truth here, although he’s aware of how his family drove him crazy; and another one felt supported in her family, faulting the system for its shortcomings. For the other four of us, we saw the patterns repeating, as many have spoken about in this blog discussion as well as in others, all over the internet. This is about a system whose goal it seems to render its clients powerless. That is not healing in the slightest, quite the opposite.

    I will post it here again, for anyone interested. Repeated abuse patterns leading to, both, complex and extreme mental distress, as well as the many destructive myths about mental illness, is EXACTLY the point of this film–in addition to the vital message that whatever it is that occurs with us as a result of this chaos, we CAN heal, and there are many avenues to achieve this end safely and naturally. I really hope this comes across–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

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  • I think my final point here, Ron, is that, even though I am no longer in any way affiliated with the system, and MIA is the absolute closest I get to it because I really cannot tolerate that energy and dynamic–been there done it–the reason I’ve been speaking out about it as I have is because after what I learned, one conclusion I came to is that, regardless of anything, I do feel very strongly that this particular system is a true blue social vampire–again, of course, my opinion and perspective, but I’ve read that a lot on here from others, and I do agree without a doubt. I feel it is sucking the energy right out of society, with it’s lethal combination of political power, criminal incompetence, and its largely indifference to the personal truth of its clientele, not to mention feedback and personal grievances. That never flies, because it is not welcome. That’s toxic, through and through.

    Yet, it is relied upon by the mainstream, and in truth, it is lost in the wilderness, from what I can tell, eternally loopy. It sets the worst example I’ve ever seen of what is compassionate, sound, and just.

    That’s the most direct and neutral assessment I can give it from where I sit.

    I appreciate the article and dialogue. Best wishes on the meeting. I hope it brings clarity around family and mental illness, and how it is related.

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  • Agreed, it’s a multi-dimensional effort. Lots of bases to cover in healing.

    My concern is always when the system serves to sabotage healing, and people. That’s what drew me to MIA, those stories, because they matched mine. I was blown away when I read all the negative testimonials, and ironically, took a big sigh of relief because it woke me up completely, to feel that validation.

    Since that time, I feel as though I’ve gotten a great deal of clarity about the system in every respect, as I traversed a variety of levels of it on both sides of the fence, for over two decades. At least California mental health system and its tangents are thoroughly familiar to me.

    Although of course, I only know my slice of experience. Still, at some point, these negative experiences really need to be heard for the priority that they are, and not so readily dismissed because it is not universal, because what occurs when the treatment and staff are NOT competent is atrocious.

    Certainly, to all that feel helped by the system and not harmed, more power to them.

    Although at this point, I’m pretty sure that no one would have the power to convince me that the mental health system is EVER better than natural healing, for anyone. But I do respect that everyone walks the path of their choosing, as much as I hold firm to my personal opinion of this. I earned it, exhaustively .

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  • “Of course, I understand there are also individuals who have received nothing but harm from the system, I’m not arguing with those stories and I think we need to learn from them, it’s just that I also don’t want to assume that everyone’s story follows that trajectory.”

    True that some report they are helped in some way by the system, managing symptoms and what not. However, I’ve never heard anyone claiming to be healed from mental illness thanks to the system. Whereas outside the system, many of us have, including form the harm done by the system, and we’ve moved on from all of this, awakened to what the system is really all about (corporate greed at the expense of vulnerable people kind of desperate for help).

    Moreover, from what I’ve read online and especially on MIA for the past 4+ years I’ve been posting here, so, so, so, so many people have been incredibly harmed by the system, including lethally. Families have been destroyed, thanks to the system.

    When I allow myself to think about it, I find it rather overwhelming the extent to which the system harms, and to keep on topic with the article, it’s equally mind-boggling the extent to which it re-creates trauma for victims of child abuse. Now that is true madness. I’m sure quite a few of us find this totally unacceptable.

    At one point do we call the system ‘incredibly dangerous,’ despite the validation of what I feel is a minority of people?

    There are sooooo many alternatives available and growing now. I think it’s time for mass education in what they are. I don’t see how this system can survive much longer, at all. It is a house of cards.

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  • I’m thinking of the wounding that comes from family abuse–betrayal. Also, abusers, to my mind, have something going on that I’d easily call some kind of mental illness. Certainly there is distortion of thought and lack of control going on, especially when adults abuse their children, which seems to be quite common.

    For clarity, I don’t believe that mental illness is chronic, that’s where the system’s influence is so detrimental. But I do think that mental illness occurs temporarily when we are betrayed by abusive family members, mainly because the one being abused is taking on their stuff at that moment. Of course, those neurons can be re-written and our hearts can heal.

    It’s temporary, because indeed we can heal from all wounds. But I do equate family abuse with mental illness, one way or another, originating with the abuser, then being passed along generationally.

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  • Yes, this is exactly the problem. And it does totally repeat abuse trauma, it’s a double whammy, at the very least. Makes healing seem even more remote and hopeless, rather than possible. I believe this is where ‘chronic mental illness’ happens, totally fabricated from these types of very common and dangerously enabled abuses. Leads to feelings of utter powerlessness, which is not at all a good thing.

    Someone Else, I’m 100% behind you on the gas lighting and double binding. These are the hard to detect abuses that to me have become more flagrant and common place, almost unconscious, part of the culture as a defense, on the part of ‘the powers’ at hand.

    This is what I mean by insidious. This kind of abuse gets under one’s skin, in our cells, and calling it out is next to impossible, that’s why they call it ‘double binding.’ Leads to even further abuse and retaliation. It is downright crazy-making and draining. Best to abandon these environments, for the sake of one’s health–both, physical and mental. That’s what I learned.

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  • I agree that not all families are abusive and/or dysfunctional. But I’d be willing to wager that where there is family abuse–including covert dysfunction, like families who double bind and gaslight, often quite cleverly–there is mental illness. The problem, as I see it, are those who are in blatant denial of it, and trying to scapegoat others through provocation and appealing to the system as a victim, stuff like that.

    Abuse comes in a plethora of forms and manifestations, and can be so intensely insidious. In addition, it is very often so much our familiar world, that it can be tricky recognizing it happening around us and through us. Waking up to it is the first step in healing.

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  • Rossa, I came back to check out your comment and glad I did. I like the point you make, that these are different worlds we’re talking about. I guess we’re trying to bridge them, for deeper understanding of each other, and our realities–which is great of course to aim for, but indeed, there are challenges along the way.

    I’m from the world you describe, the mundane world of debt-slavery (as I’ve heard it referred), and all that. In my case, when I began to experience other dimensions of reality, it was a shocker, because I knew that I was on my way to transformational healing, but I did not know how to let go of all that was familiar to me. That’s quite challenging to face the void of the unknown like that. I had to learn to embrace uncertainty and unfamiliarity more than ever before.

    That was a several years’ journey for me, that involved coming off psych drugs and all the rigorous and wondrous after-effects of such an unfamiliar and non-understood process. This was in 2001, so I did not know of anyone, anywhere who had done this before, so I was on my own with coming off nine meds. Whew, that was a whopper.

    I faced learning a whole new way of being and navigating the world.

    And yes, it connected me with my artist self, through and through. For that I’m very grateful. I’d been a retail manager for almost 20 years, with a lot of material things, and a stack of credit cards, to show for it. And, of course, a lot of stress, that came with the territory, it seemed. The healing journey I took was most meaningful because in the end, it meant absolute freedom, in every respect.

    I’ve had these conversations with my mother, who sounds a lot like you and some other mothers on here. We were totally suburban, she drove the carpool, my dad was a physician, pillars of the community, yadayada.

    She told me that her worry and frustrations with me while I was attempting to heal were burdensome for her. Of course, I told her that I felt oppressed, unsupported, and judged by her, and that she was seeing me in a way that I neither wanted to identify as, nor did I feel compelled to. It was not me, but a fabrication of what she needed me to be, to play the role in the family she had intended for me, to fit the schema (which was extraordinarily dysfunctional).

    So we had it out, forgave each other for wherever we felt the other was out of line, each of us owned our part in it all, we came into present time with each other. And now we’re good. I went to see her last summer for the first time and years, and we had a blast together, as we can sometimes do, when she is not angry and as a result, being kind of demeaning to me, which I don’t tolerate, and she knows it. I set boundaries with her all the time.

    It’s not that I really care what she thinks–at my age that really can hardly affect me any longer. It’s just she’s really an extremely judgmental person and I like her to know when she is projecting, so that she can align herself with reality once again. She’s been really good about it, very open, for which I’m grateful.

    That was after years of her resisting and resenting me for calling out abuse in our family. But I was right, and we all know it now, so each of us has been able to heal.

    Except one family member who absolutely refuses to see his shadow and can only project, project, project, so he’s quite stuck, but the rest of my family has totally come on board with all of this. That’s the result of having made my film and sending it to them before publishing it. I wanted that highly avoided conversation to happen once and for all, and it did, whew.

    Families heal when we allow truth to come to light, as hard as it can be to face our shadow. But I do think it’s a family effort to be made, not just one person. We all have a path of evolution for ourselves, regardless of our personal reality. That is universal, I’m sure. When we each take our journey, then other are free to take theirs in peace. That’s my take on it, in any event.

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  • I wonder if this video I’m posting here will speak to you, Someone Else. This is my new play of consciousness, applying Dr. Berezin’s framework, which allows for never-ending growth and evolution through one and only one thing: awareness. I learned this as I grew from my adversities, and I discovered that this is the thought and belief now, that we are ascending into this new consciousness.

    For those of us who choose this direction, it is available en masse now, not just for ‘the masters,’ it is universal, in all of us. There are tons of videos and blogs out there that talk about this in a plethora of ways, but I happened to catch this one this morning, and it seemed very streamlined and accessible, straightforward, so I thought I’d post it here and see what happens. It’s not the kind of thing I would normally bring to a predominantly academic crowd, but everything you say resonates beautifully with me, SE, and when I saw this video this morning, made me think of this exact exchange we’re having.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT-IgX8jzL0

    From our expanded consciousness, we know our power to manifest. I believe this is how we change the world, by opening our hearts and minds, and at least striving for joy and inner peace. I believe that’s what is on the other side of that grief we feel from letting go of the old, which drains us from perpetual loopy struggle, conflict, and war.

    We can’t expect ourselves to be always in joy and inner peace–we are, after all, human with myriad emotions, and we can enjoy the entirety of our humanity, shadow and light, that would be normal, to my mind. But if we make that our goal, then not only are we *practicing* joy, but we are also offering it as our contribution to the collective. Energy ripples outward, as if throwing a stone in a pond. I think we help ourselves and others tremendously, the more we can practice this, and influence others to feel these good feelings. That is healing, and definitely the opposite of suffering.

    Dr. B., thank you for this opening. To springboard from your extremely deft conclusions, this is what happened next for me, what is depicted in this video, and a whole new world opened up.

    Finally, it is a joy to heal and grow. That’s what made the difference, actually enjoying the process—finding wonderment in the exploration of energy, humanity, and consciousness, via my own experience and observation, because it felt good to experience. That’s how I found healing.

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  • Do you know what I’ve read and heard a lot online, SE? That we are, indeed, in the early stages process of mass awakening and transformation, in that all you speak about here has come to light, and that is rippling. All systems are challenged now, and it seems they are at a dead end, backed up against a wall. People like you and others on here, I believe, have instigated this with your beautiful and courageous truth-speaking. I see this spreading.

    I believe it IS the end days of our society as we know it now, it is happening all around us. The good news is that there are new things coming into place, and we will continue to create them. A new world is birthing.

    My impression is that you are picking up a collective energy, as I am, too. We are sensitive to this, as are some others. And you’re right, some aren’t quite ready for this, they’re struggling with other issues.

    From where I sit, you’re ahead of the game with the awareness you have. You’re tapped in. Personally, I don’t believe there is anything to fear, if we trust and go with it, like you are doing. Things lighten up as we let go, let go, let go.

    We all have our processes to engage in this, and each one of us will make choices based on what we feel is right for us, moment to moment, based on what is happening at that or any time.

    I think you’re aligned with truth, so you’ll be fine, and in fact, more than likely, one of the pioneers, as the smoke clears from radical change.

    At least, this is how I’ve been thinking about all of this, from a broad perspective. I find it totally fascinating–and yes, disorienting at times. But hey, it’s radical change! It’s what we wanted, so let’s see where this takes us.

    We are most definitely not standing still at this time, and in fact, are moving forward pretty quickly at this point, I think. Information is zooming.

    I’m fascinated now with the changes I see on a day to day basis at this point. I’m pretty sure this is new territory for humanity, this level of consciousness on such a large scale, indiscriminately. At least, that’s the buzz I hear on the ‘net.

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  • I agree, Someone Else, we’re definitely in an age of systemic abuse and monster bullying (as I’ve come to call it), and it has had devastating effects on our society, as well as all of us, individually.

    Once I got out of all those situations for myself, I certainly did go through a period of grief as I was letting go of so much–not just people, but also what I had thought was my ‘identity,’ to take on others’ stuff, that it was my responsibility to do so. (Thanks to what I learned as habit in my own family).

    In that process, felt my past melting away, like water colors running in the rain; and while it was definitely a relief and worthy of celebration, it was also a process of letting go, detaching, and making for myself appropriate separations from certain relationships and environments. Suddenly, I was in no person’s land–if I was not that overburdened victimized person, then who was I?

    To fill in the blanks, I learned that if I were to stop staring at the shadows of my life and instead, to intend to come into present time and see the good in and around me–even as slight as it could appear to be at times, but still, there is always good somewhere in our vicinity, if we take a moment to focus–then I could amplify this and my body would fill with new light and better feelings to replace the old gunk. So I began to shift my focus and what I chronically thought about.

    After practicing this tons and tons (had to break old negative thought patterns and habits, that took some work and diligent focus), my consciousness eventually shifted into what I would call ‘light,’ by which, in essence, I mean, to a more positive, open, relaxed feeling in my body, leading to a more positive self-image and a more positive experience of life–better outcomes and manifestations. Eventually, joy.

    That is continuing to this day, expanding as I move forward, because I more and more train my mind to focus on light energy, as opposed to the extremely dense energy of abuse and other social crimes. That on which we dwell becomes energy in our bodies, from the feeling of it. It’s actually good medicine to dwell on good feeling thoughts and images, it totally impacts our internal vibration, which influences everything about us and our lives.

    Indeed, like you I feel that these folks should be called out and brought to justice, and I believe this is starting to happen. Bill Cosby is not getting away with it, his life and career have been permanently tarnished and he’s being publically scolded and abandoned. I believe he is suffering from his own crimes and deceit upon certain individuals, and also to society at large. I believe this will happen more and more, which will be a tremendous relief in our society.

    Although, indeed, it will cause many people quite a bit of grief to be so disillusioned with those whom we had respected and trusted to such a degree. But I think it helps to know that this is a very powerful sign of significant change happening, the kind we’ve been instigating ourselves, to a more compassionate and creative world, of equal justice.

    In the meantime, we can still choose on what to focus predominantly, and I believe that will help us get there faster and with greater ease. I prefer feeling good to feeling badly, and I also prefer to create positive experiences in my life, rather than negative. So I think eventually this focus will outshine all the crap, while these spurious ‘kingdoms’ fall and go out of business, but it will take some time. They are in the shadows, can’t help that. It is catching up to them fast, I truly believe.

    We are certainly in store for some mass grieving, first, however. As that clears, then, society will be able to transform, and the world will became a new stage for our personal theater of consciousness. That would be how I envision it, in any event, like a Renaissance . And I really think we could really use one of those about now!

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  • “To review, the issue is not in the neurotransmitters, but the mappings of experience that generate problematic plays. Serotonin does not exist in some stand alone way. It is merely a substance that specifically glues sadomasochistic plays together. The only issue is, in fact, the problematic sadomasochistic plays which come from trauma. This is what creates psychiatric symptoms. The treatment for problematic plays is psychotherapy. When we mourn the trauma, the sadomasochistic play is deactivated. The neurotransmitter glue is also deactivated. A new and loving play replaces the problematic play. There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance which needs to be fixed with extra serotonin. There is a traumatic play that needs to be mourned.”

    This is excellent–and true, to my mind.

    Although I think it’ll take more than just psychotherapy to make this transformation from self-splitting/inner chaos to self-loving/inner peace. I’m thinking that some kind of multi-dimensional healing is required for such a radical shift; that’s a lot of parts changing and integrating, creating a whole different world and reality for ourselves, from cellular to psychic. There’s a lot to which to adjust in core way, whole new habits of being and relating.

    I see it as a pole shift, in that our point of personal power does a 180, internally motivated, through humility, self-responsibility, and trust, rather than externally, via controlling others and cohersion.

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  • So I have a question in complete alignment with the title of this article:

    If a tree falls in the forest and people go out of their way to pretend they didn’t hear it, does it make a sound? Oh yeah, like a sonic boom.

    I’m having a vision: prepare for change. The trees have been heard. And they are nowhere near fallen.

    Thanks, Sandy, for this amazing blog & discussion. It did not disappoint!

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  • Sorry to keep jumping in here where I’m not feeling terribly welcome, but oh well, this is activism, so that comes with the territory.

    I just want to say, Rossa, that in my experience, the really bad and destructive stigma comes from a person speaking their truth, and it rubs others the wrong way. That is, by far, the most powerful stigma I’ve experienced and witnessed, and it’s experienced by those who stand in their truth regardless of the resistance around them.

    That’s when all the mind games start, and it’s really tough to discern what is real and what is illusory projection. And it’s extremely stressful, this is born from stress. Everyone has to shift, without a scapegoat, for healing to happen.

    The IP (for lack of a better term, so this is my identifier) is leading the healing, because they are coming from pure authentic spirit, and not from fear or victim identity. They are trying to walk their path of truth, but it keeps getting sidetracked, for any number of reasons.

    When I work with families, I look to see where the ‘family patient’ is encountering resistance to their own healing. Sometimes, it is inside of them–their own habits of self-sabotage (which can heal and shift) and sometimes, the dominant force of resistance in the family dynamic fearing change. That is vital to discern for things to get unstuck.

    Regardless, however, it is vital for the one who is IP’d stigmatized, and scapegoated to assert themselves and follow through. It is critical for them to know their truth. Often, families cannot tolerate such independence of thinking, for reasons having to do with surrender and letting go, giving others permission to have their own experience.

    As the first slate in my film, Voices That Heal, says, “Stigma is born in the mindset of fear and discrimination, and occurs when social norms are challenged.” A person’s ‘different’ way of being, believing, thinking, acting, and talking is what challenges the social norms, and when hidden feelings and beliefs of others come to light, usually in the form of discrimination.

    How do we respond to this challenge of our beliefs? And how do we embrace change? These are all questions we can ask ourselves, and that will bring us a higher degree of self-awareness, that can then translate into healing for all concerned, for the entire system.

    I only could follow through with my healing when my partner faced himself, saw his contribution to my stress (his projections and double-binding), and finally cut the crap and shifted into his real self, rather than his defensive self. He took his queue from my healing, and now I am his teacher and guide. He loves it, feels well cared for and partnered with.

    Takes two to tango, and it takes more than one person to create what we are calling ‘mental illness,’ ‘psychosis,’ whatever. I think it comes more from people driving other people crazy, literally, rather than from isolation. People can exist very peacefully in solitude, if they are comfortable with themselves.

    Transcendentalism is for real–nature, solitude, communing with God, etc. It’s a really nice respite from having to deal with others’ projections, and only focused on what we desire to create. Seeing ourselves through they heart and mind of God is quite revealing, and we all have this power, because we are all part of that God-energy that is everything, like it or not.

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  • If one person who is comfortable with themselves and how they are taking their life journey is making those around them uncomfortable, to me, the meaning here would be that the designated ‘scapegoat’ (in that they are targeted as the source of discomfort in others) exists to make others take responsibility for their own feelings, and not put it on others. That is growth and evolution, through deeper understanding of ourselves and the reality we project onto others.

    We can only make ourselves uncomfortable, with our thoughts, projections, and introjections. Therefore, we can only heal ourselves by changing our thoughts. That’s always in our control, to choose our focus and perspective.

    Families and communities are being called upon to shift perspective in a pretty radical way now. Why should one person be held responsible for the feelings and reality of an entire village? Truly, that is giving one person tremendous power over the entire community.

    No one can control the worrying of another. People can learn to trust rather than worry about others. That’s a huge shift in our energy, and eventually brings relief. Worrying is like praying for that which we do not want to happen, because we dwell and dwell and dwell on it, creating fear in our minds and bodies. That’s not at all healthful, nor conducive to a positive experience.

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  • “The challenge seems to me to bring professionals, members of the community, and self-help groups together in support of those who suffered discrimination and maltreatment within the “mental health system,” including over-prescription of psychiatric drugs.”

    Yes, I agree. I’ve found that those that place themselves around people who have gone through this have a hard time being humble—and even respectful—to the personal expertise of those who have the lived experienced. The projections, conjectures, stigma and discrimination just go on and on and on, layer after layer, generation after generation.

    I believe it’s a matter of those who have been through this particular dark night of the soul to assert themselves and trust their information, in the face of resistance from those around them. That’s healing, and changing the system. Courage, fortitude, and self-insight are exactly what are gained when one takes the journey, that’s the whole point.

    As it turns out, I’m now supporting others and their families, having transformed my own family system thanks to the healing work I did. It’s amazing the effect that simple truth-speaking can have on a family culture and dynamic. So I found justice, after all.

    Thank you for your meaningful words of validation and recognition, on behalf of psychiatric survivors (well, on behalf of this one, at least, can’t speak for others).

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  • Been thinking about this one today, I did a good long meditation around it.

    To me, bullying is exactly what is wrong with society, where society has become ‘sick’–we’ve forgotten what it’s like to actually be appalled by overtly childish behaviors by adults. Screws things up, every single time.

    Adult bullies, to my mind, are walking talking toxic, and catch me on the wrong day, I’m not averse to being more specific.

    Personally, I’m so damn sick & tired of seeing it. Fortunately, I don’t have to. One thing I’ve learned, and which I always recommend to those who find themselves in stubbornly narcissistic bullying communities to RUN in the other direction, and don’t look back. There’s a better world out there, not all communities are like this.

    But I’ll be damned if not every single time I got even close to a mental health ANYTHING, there they were, the bully ring, saying one thing, but in reality, sabotaging anything that rang of truth. Their relentless ferocity and aggression about it (either overt or silently implied) is always palpable.

    I can only shake my head when I see this, because I know, in the end, what it means for that particular community. That kind of crap just can’t go on forever. Eventually, people wake up and speak out, and then change can FINALLY start to occur. Can’t be fast enough, as far as I’m concerned.

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  • I also went through a year long legal battle with the system, but I never even considered relapse, I felt empowered for the first time since having entered the system. That was enough to keep me in balance and on track. I was pissed, and that was normal. No one questioned me about it, nor blamed me. It was completely reasonable and justified. Thanks to being credible, there was nothing to stress about, really. Finally, I was heard, and that was enough to uplift me. I never doubted my reality again after that, and woke up to how people cause one to feel doubt. Pure stigma.

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  • My very best example of a ‘relapse’ would be just a few years after I got off the meds, and I started doing theater. I was working during the day, and rehearsing at night. I’d never been an actor, but this was my way of growing, and fortunately, people did enjoy my work on stage, so I was lucky in this regard, and this became my way to apply all I had learned, to be face first in the world, and to heal all those triggers, naturally.

    Just as I started this big musical in which I had a lead part (and I was petrified, but determined), I had a bad rift with my church, and my mother in law passed away, which really hit my partner hard. I was very sensitive, just coming back to life, and it all exploded and I wanted to drop out of the show, it all became so stressful.

    Long story short, I did not drop out and went on to get great reviews. I also did NOT go back on meds, nor to therapy. I called one of my teachers and she did a 30 minute reading and healing, and then I went back to rehearsal, dazed but good enough to continue. I just kept applying all the new stuff I had learned, kept grounding, coming back to center, doing my Qi Gong, etc. By the end of the run, I was in great shape, clear, happy, and on to my next show.

    That was my one ‘relapse’ (about 8 years ago) and since then, I haven’t had to worry about it because that whole experience re-wrote my neurons, to where I began interpreting everything very non-personally, from a neutral space (not past time trauma) and from a really high spiritual perspective, present time. And that’s it.

    Not only does it work every time, but those experiences have really dwindled because I lighten my energy on a daily basis. That’s my framework for living. Same with my partner, we both apply this and we’ve been doing great for a long time now, normal ups and downs notwithstanding.

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  • The way you want to turn it around is actually what I did say–again, “I think we get distressed when we can’t figure out a framework for living…” in that having a framework or philosophy by which we live reduces stress (stops downward spiral and stuckness) because when we do get stressed out, we apply that framework to our situation, that’s what it’s for. So as long as it is working for us, it is like a net, so we feel safe and connected, no matter what happens. We can always apply our truth to the situation for clarity and grounding.

    If it doesn’t fit or work out that way, then it’s time to expand our framework, shift perspective. Otherwise we’re trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. That would mean healing and personal growth, letting go of something that no longer serves us-beliefs, resistance, blame, anger, etc. That lightens us up considerably and takes us to a nice shift in perspective.

    As we grow and evolve, our beliefs are challenged, so we want to check in with them. That’s what I would call having a framework for living. I think that’s a really powerful and all-encompassing tool for support in healing, personal growth, change, transitions, and transformation–including manifesting good experiences for ourselves.

    So when we are in distress and don’t have a framework to apply in order to make some kind of sense or meaning from a challenging experience, then it is time to explore new beliefs, perspectives, philosophies, etc. I believe that’s how we can best streamline chaos and achieve clarity for the purpose of moving forward. Otherwise, we get stuck in that distressful experience, without direction, which is EXTREMELY stressful.

    Life frameworks and philosophies work if we actually apply them to our experience, rather than simply live with these teachings in our heads. We have to live them, to achieve physical cellular resonance with our philosophy–aka walking the talk. That’s how we achieve synchronicity.

    I do a lot of research and learning about this on YouTube. There are tons of teachers out there who talk about this, with their own particular spin on it–Matt Kahn, Esther Hicks, Amanda Ellis, Kimberley Jones, et al, to name a very few. If you search Law of Attraction or Ascension 2016 or Galactic Federation of Light, there is a lot of channeling of these issues and frameworks.

    Eventually, we all personalize what we might learn from others, based on our individual and unique experiences, if it all rings true. So really, it is our own framework we discover and define, as per our spiritual individuality and desires in life, but at least we have many examples from which to choose, to check out their resonance.

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  • “…we expect authority to be abusive in our society.”

    Powerful statement, Steve. I actually don’t expect that and not what I found when I was working in the mainstream. There was some of this, of course, over the years, but definitely not the rule in my environment.

    I was part of a management team for several years, and we would focus on morale, and keeping employees needs well met. They are the front lines of the operation, and if they are not happy, the business will suffer. So keeping them happy is win/win–not only is it humane and fair, but it is also good business.

    As a result, we had an extremely successful operation and hardly any turnover. Everyone was pretty happy at work, which was kind of a miracle, but this is one area where did succeed well, and it was specifically because we took into account employee needs. No one was out to use others for their personal gain and agenda, and to suck the energy out of them.

    Otherwise, I think you hit on a bit problem in academia and in health care–extreme narcissism does rule the roost. What you describe as the way some abusive adults can treat kids, when adults to this to other adults, it can be very tricky and clever, downright insidious, because the legal guidelines for this are quite vague. All the gaslighting and double binding that occurs, and outright deceit, just because one can get away with it. No moral compass, and they HATE to be challenged, or worse yet, to be wrong–about anything!

    Much of adult-to-adult abuse is also well-hidden, because it seems like standard procedure these days to humiliate people, shame them, and marginalize them, and overall provoke them to the point of driving them nuts, then saying, “Oh wow, you’re angry and crazy!”

    All of this is systemic bullying and it is an everyday occurrence now. Seems that people just love to shame others publically, makes them feel powerful, pure illusion of course. It’s actually the opposite, public shaming is the act of a coward.

    Power is found in humility and self-reflection. When we dog others, we can’t at all be happy with ourselves, wouldn’t make sense.

    Perhaps we should hold authority figures and leaders to the highest standard of humility. Of course, people would have to agree on what that means. Narcissism vs. humility can be so easily misconstrued, from our own wounding combined with the social distortions with which we’ve lived for so long. Hard to tell what is real and what is illusion. I guess time will continue to tell….

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  • Great topic.

    Communication has become challenging these days because people are so angry and looking for where to project it because it can be so painful to carry around chronically and a lot of people really have trouble owning their anger, from their own self-judgment.

    In addition, we tend to shoot from the hip, without taking a moment to feel what it is we’re about to say. I like the idea of mindful and compassionate communication, but at the same time, we do have a need to be authentic, if only to avoid supressing our emotions, which can make us ill. So I see it as kind of a delicate balance.

    Overall, my impression of the times is that we are in a bit of a Tower of Babel situation. Between communicator and communicatee, so often meaning and intention is lost translation, and in general, people do not ask for clarity; they assume that what they are hearing is exactly what another person said, without taking a moment to consider multiple meanings.

    I find it fascinating how we, both, disseminate and receive information. Both are fraught with all sorts of filters and other defining factors. Probably where we most likely need to grow, collectively. We are not at all in good communication with each other. I think the proof is in the chaos around us.

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  • Perhaps the terms ‘relapse’ and ‘extreme states’ are just too highly subjective to really ever be universally in agreement about. Different cultures and sub-cultures (including family cultures, as well as medical and psychiatric cultures) would have different takes and meanings regarding what constitutes a ‘relapse’ and what constitutes ‘an extreme state,’ all totally dependent on the standards of that particular culture.

    Some cultures have more permission for personal exploration than others, without being averse to any aspect of it, and would in fact validate every single experience of a process; so that would be more inclusive than considered ‘extreme,’ which tends to be a marginalizing term.

    We can certainly choose which culture is more aligned with our sense of self, as it is our sense of self which will always trump cultural norms. Otherwise, communities will never evolve forward and grow. We tend to get stuck in our old beliefs when we don’t understand others, and tend to go into judgment, rather than learn and grow from that which we do not understand, which I think is too bad.

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  • One last thing for now (my spirit does rev up when I’m talking about healing)–you said the key thing, Rossa, to my mind–“does not FEAR relapse.” Fear-based living is self-fulfilling. Faith and trust is a different fuel, and changes our experience.

    The spiritual masters discern in two categories: fear-based vs. love based. Can’t be both, they are opposites. And each comes with its set of disparate experiences and outcomes. We have a choice, here.

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  • And btw, I don’t mean at all to imply that I don’t get tested, that happens all the time. However, now, when life challenges me, I feel prepared, even if it’s from way out in left field. My vantage point is present time, a whole different perspective than when we are loaded with baggage from the past. We can release that, and everything changes, including our resilience.

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  • Oh yeah, I left out the most important ingredient–I learned that personal growth is really about increasing our capacity to love, forgive, and feel joy. Despite anything, I learned to be in love with life, warts and all. Life is a highly creative adventure, if we can allow ourselves see it that way.

    Really, we each choose how to fuel life, the energy with which we drive it. That’s based on our emotional landscape, how we respond to things. We can experiment with this, see what works best for us. Different responses will bring a variety of experiences and outcomes.

    I think we get distressed when we can’t figure out a framework for living, that can be chaotic for us. Learning our own truth and how to live by it is something to strive for, imo, as it is what gives us our personal power, and also what brings inner peace.

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  • I like what you say, here, Rossa. I learned to see our evolution as a spiral–we, all of us, come back to our issues, inevitably, as we grow, but in an at least slightly different way. Creative (healing) processes are not linear.

    Years after I cleared my head and found my grounding, I’d tell people (this is how I put it for myself), “I healed from the mental illness I was experiencing and no longer live with a diagnosis and medicated.

    One person said, “How do you know it won’t happen again?”

    And I said, “Because I changed my entire perspective about myself, my environment, and my life. I changed my neural patterns, strengthened my nervous system, and I no longer believe what psychiatrists had concluded about me when I gave them my information. They were wrong. I see that very clearly now, and waking up to that is when I started to heal.”

    This conversation took place about 8 years ago, which is 5 years after coming off the drugs. The effects from the drugs lingered for longer–on and off, also in a spiral–but eventually that morphed into simply releasing toxic energy from my system. Detoxification is a normal and necessary process for us, in general.

    In addition to the drugs, I had to also detoxify from the effects of being stigmatized and discriminated against. My solution to that was to be WAY more discerning about the people I trusted and hung out with.

    I’m out of the mainstream now, and never been healthier. A toxic world makes people sick. I found it necessary to make changes in my location. Rural, natural living is much more desirable than the urban jungle I was in. That’s a sick society, draining for all concerned.

    Healing is about change. So if we are really healing, things are changing, and it is evident. No guesswork involved.

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  • At the end of the day, it’s probably one of the biggest challenges in humanity for one person to say to another, “You really, really wounded me, and I suffered for it. I’m better now, but I think you need to grow.” That’s about the most neutral and direct way I can think of to say it, for better or worse.

    It’s hard to say it and it’s hard to hear it. Especially when it is family. And also, when it is a health care provider, etc. People get angry and defensive, and can say even more confusing, demeaning, and stigmatizing things. If they have some kind of financial or political power over you, things can get rather nasty.

    These are major double binds. What is the best way to confront abusive, crazy-making, gaslighting, toxic people? The answer to that question would solve a lot of problems, because they can really mess people up. Things never get resolved, they just go on and on and on…draining everyone concerned.

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  • “Considering painful emotional suffering to be a medical problem causes much suffering in our culture and is a leading cause of suicide.”

    Yes. It is cold, empty of compassion, and drives people to the brink. That level of dismissal and emotional abandonment leads to utter hopelessness on top of chronic wounding.

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  • I was stuck with a psychiatrist once, for two years. For insurance and location reasons, he was the only option I had (or so I thought at the time, as per what I knew). I began to see him as I was tapering from nine medications, because, at least, he supported my desire to be off psychiatric drugs.

    I had started on my herbs, as per a highly experienced herbalist, joined a Chi Gong class as was recommended to me, and I began a healing meditation program which took me through to new dimensions and perspectives, until I was able to get my head on straight, ground, heal, and move on from all of this, which I long have.

    During my withdrawal process, I was extremely anxious, paranoid, dreaded every moment I was awake from chronic physical pain and emotional anguish, crying a lot, feeling so much grief, fear, and worry of permanent damage and a lifetime of disability and either homelessness or institutionalization. I have family, but that would have been out of the question, on my part.

    The psychiatrist continually reminded me that I had lost my dreams, that this is why I was grieving, and that I had to accept my fate. I told him that I wanted to commit suicide because I had lost all hope, that I had been in psychiatric treatment for 20 years, and despite that I had a 17 year career already under my belt and a couple of degrees, including my graduate degree in psychology, He kept telling me that I had lost my dreams, and he called me a liar a few times, and he yelled at me once because he was frustrated with my chronic anxiety. I ran out of his office while he sat at his computer, looking very angry. I looked back at him as I opened his office door, totally shaken, terrified (triggered to high heaven, of course) and he just started at his computer screen, looking really angry.

    I’m a child abuse survivor, then I felt abused by this ‘medication’ which temporarily (and extremely) disabled me, and then I had to deal with psychiatric abuse, as per what I describe above. I have way more stories, this is truly the tip of a very large iceberg, but this one is my most powerful, because I had kind of a relationship with this guy, unfortunately, and I thought at first I got lucky because he was fine with my tapering. But that was only a superficial assessment, I soon found out.

    Can you imagine how challenging it was for me to around this person? And I really felt I had no choice, I had exhausted the resources of what I was aware at the time.

    Looking back, I’m wondering if he had some kind of ‘psychosis’ going on, and I very sincerely don’t mean this to be glib. Whatever you want to call it, to me it was toxic and dangerous. I finally learned how to extricate myself from the situation, without causing myself trouble, but that was a trick, especially after what they had done to my brain and nervous system. Fortunately, I was able to reverse and heal all of that, but it was rigorous. That was my journey of healing.

    My point, of course, is that madness, psychosis, crazy, out-of-control narcissistic rage—whatever anyone wants to call it—is in the eye of the beholder. We might want to consider that society is psychotic, and perhaps those that look more “insane” to the mainstream, are actually the ones who are more evolved, tuned in, and aligned with truth—and, perhaps, EXTREMELY frustrated about how they are treated, disregarded, dismissed, stigmatized, discriminated against, second classed, spoken for, and on and on.

    That would mean that the “identified patient” (to use the lingo) is, in reality, the true and authentic community healer, in that they are expanding the consciousness of the community, forcing us all to struggle with our fears and challenges. We all have them, 100%. Why scapegoat people who are justifiably angry, to the point where we all just want to tear our hair out, because the ‘other side’ just won’t listen?

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  • This article inspired me to go to my book shelves to check out which books are more worn and tattered, and of course they are the books I’ve enjoyed the most repeatedly over the years. What was really interesting is the dichotomy between the two books in most disrepair–one was Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl; and the second one was Lenny Bruce’s autobiography, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. Both, remarkable and valuable stories. The condition of the book covers came across suddenly like battle scars, interesting. I cherish these.

    It’s cold and drizzly this morning, and I suddenly feeling like getting a fire going in the fireplace and picking out a good book to enjoy today. Thank you so much for the Sunday inspiration 🙂

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  • This is a delightful read. Brings to mind the stories and sub-plots that make up our lives. We read stories to get inside the author’s reality, and when the book is told in an interesting, forward moving way–and we are interested in what the author has to say–then we become engaged with that world, and it becomes part of our feeling experience via our imagination.

    And I think ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover’ is more applicable than ever in this particular analogy. Yet, that is what is most commonly done! I say, read the book first from cover to cover, and engage with the story. If you don’t like it, then it’s not for you. So many books, so many stories, so many choices. Vast diversity here, seemingly endless.

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  • “…they survived by repressing their emotions, and that suppression of emotion was tied to their development of disease.”

    I agree with this, in particular. Once I separated from the system, I had to work through, purge, and transmute a lot of suppressed emotion, given how expressing anger only leads to trouble for clients. As I resolved the inner conflicts and splits caused by this, my physical health improved steadily. Definitely a direct correlation, it was totally synchronistic all the way, really easy to track day to day.

    The more I resolved and released and healed my mind and spirit from having been chronically stigmatized, gaslighted, and blatantly discriminated against, the healthier my body became. Moreover, ever since I started being authentic in my emotions, regardless of outside judgment or projections, I’ve maintained my health perfectly, so I find this correlation to be really good natural medicine.

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  • And I just realized, to come back around to what you said, about teachers–wow, some of those psych professors, can we say, “Taken with themselves?” Oh yeah, bullies in so many ways. Controlling, dogging each other’s modalities, wielding power, avoiding students, yadayada.

    I even co-facilitated a mental health support group for a short time there, long after graduating, and the stories I heard made me really angry. Students were extremely confused and frustrated, and for good reason, from what I gathered. That was some serious narcissism leading to power abuses they would never recognize, it was so sop–how to stay in control ALL the time.

    I know I’m being very blunt, here, and I’m sorry to anyone in the field reading this, I don’t mean anything personally. But my experience was so brutal, due to the level of adult bullying I experienced and witnessed. This should never have happened, I navigated it all the way responsibly and aware, and with each step, came a few whacks or more. It was impossible to stay sane while I was trying to become healthy.

    And I knew the protocol, but the rest was chaos. All because of the systemic bullying, when trying to get your simple basic needs met. It was truly relentless.

    And yes, it was the catalyst for the second crisis, the one which I finally took to the end, into my wellness–20 years after it had begun, which was thwarted by psych drugs. Classic story.

    I had to forgive myself for giving my information so freely, I realize that was my mistake. I had no idea it would twisted around so cynically, so they had ‘power’ over me. I was naively trusting, as others have said remorsefully. That’s the category I was in. To me, that is professional bullying. Very clever.

    How on earth is that healing for anyone? It’s not. It’s atrocious. It’s deceitful. It lacks integrity. And it makes people sick. Live and learn. And that’s what I learned. And I know, with a certain amount of relief, that so have many others.

    When a bunch of people gang up to force someone to do things against his or her will, that is bullying in my book. Shoving or shooting drugs into someone’s system against their will is also bullying, to my mind. And, it’s legal, so add that field to the list of bully enablers.

    We should not have a high bar on what bullying is. That’s how it gets enabled and goes out of control, until people get really badly hurt, to the point of wanting to kill themselves. That’s pretty much what I’ve put together from my experience of this.

    Addressing the issue of bullying in the system, I believe, will save many lives.

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  • In fact, I remember when I was in graduate school, several of my classmates had younger siblings with a lot of issues, some even ‘marginalized’ (for lack of a better word, but they were definitely described as ‘fringe’)–which they talked about constantly, as their burden.

    So I started wondering if the family bullies go into the field to become martyrs. That’s how it felt, in any event, I remember how it really got my attention at that time. Now that I know more about the system, sure explains a lot.

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  • For a lot of people, the worst childhood bullying comes from within the family. When that happens, then add fear, panic, rage, despondence, confusion, and chaos–to say the very least– to the list of after-effects. That really leaves a person in no person’s land because what internalizes is an utter lack of safety everywhere, inside and out, chronically. So of course it will be re-created, until the abuse cycle is broken, which takes a great deal of challenging systems, given how stubborn they can be to remain static.

    As an adult, the worst bullies I ever saw were in the mental health system. Abuse of power is over the top, the order of the day, to the point where personal information is used against a person, like gossip, to create shame or the like, which, of course, disempowers a vulnerable and trusting person, trying to do the right thing for themselves.

    I think that’s where the stigma issue is most relevant. Systemic stigma is systemic bullying.

    What do we do when the mental health system–where people who’ve been bullied as kids go to heal from such things–are actually THE bullies? That’s the first place where it all repeats, and clients become victims of systemic bullying.

    No wonder it is a messy, messy field. They’ve gotten away with it for so long. I hope not for much longer, that people wise up to how it’s creating and embedding illness with its seriously bullying ways.

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  • I agree, Steve. I stopped using any kind of conventional medicine as healing support over a decade ago. I turned to all the alternative stuff years ago, and eventually just stuck to these practices and philosophies.

    Eventually, it led me to learn how I was my own guide and healer. The internet really does help in this regard, so much diverse information, it’s really a matter of what rings true to each of us, personally. I think healing anything–physical or otherwise–is ALWAYS a personal and subjective process which we learn as we go, that’s the nature of healing, to my mind–creative, unique, and in the moment.

    In this age of distrust and trauma from betrayal of our current medical system, I think it’s so powerful to consider that, perhaps, we are on our way to no longer needing an outside practitioner in order to heal; we can learn our own healing process and take full control of it. That’s more empowering than anything I can think of.

    There are ways to make the ground fertile for healing, and that would be about a community being open to new things and humble to the process of learning, we all have our learning curves. So once we learn how to support our natural self-healing mechanisms and process, then we can influence to community at large in the most positive way (even though it will squawk and squirm, because healing is change and change is not easy for most people). Still, change is inevitable and ever-present, so I think the best way to go is to embrace change. That’s my personal opinion, others are free to disagree of course. But it rings true to me.

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  • Lol. yes, I’ve noticed that about mindfulness, and other things related. Seems that a lot of the good stuff has been corrupted, one way or another.

    I totally agree with you, of course–to me, actually ‘practicing mindfulness’ is what cultivates living mindfully as second nature, which in turn translates into being grounded and aware in pure present time. When we are in pure present time, we are not at all attached or even thinking about the past, it’s not an issue, it’s the past, regardless of whether it was traumatic or not. When we are in pure present time, trauma is neutralized, so it is not part of our experience.

    We are simply mindful/aware of where we are in the moment–tapped in–so our choices are conscious, and not so unconsciously driven, so we have more control over our experience from this very different perspective. It’s an entirely different state of consciousness than is ‘suffering.’

    That’s our most powerful vantage point, as far as self-care and creating desired changes. I’ve been practicing all of this for a very long time, and as a result, I shift on a daily basis, along with the energy in general. Makes life sooooo much easier, continually, and a lot manifests from it. This is where I found my peace–being completely mindful of my choices, feelings, responses, and experiences, and taking full responsibility for them.

    Thanks for sharing this Fiachra. I know that mindfulness, grounding, et al, can get a bad rap around here, but ironically, I think it’s fundamental to everything we seek in life.

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  • Hi Fiachra, I love your ‘simple but true’ statement, because I think that’s key to healing–simplify, simplify, simplify. We do tend to way over-complicate things–which can be vague and confusing–and when something sounds ‘too easy,’ then we become skeptical, before even trying it. Kind of a self-double-bind if you ask me. Ease is desirable and brings relief and clarity. Effort is merely a habit we can break if we want to.

    Curious what it is your doing that is similar to grounding. Are you referring to ‘earthing,’ by any chance? Which I also really enjoy doing and it’s probably the single most healing and energy-nourishing thing one can do.

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  • Love this, a level playing field. I see heart/spirit/mind alignment as the goal universally. That’s how we achieve clarity, grounding, and the wisdom to manifest our desires, the life we most want, for which we feel the best for ourselves. The process to get there, practice it, embody it, and expand it is our remarkable and unique personal journey. So much to discover there, including how each of us, specifically, is gifted. We all bring them into this lifetime. When we align with ourselves, then we learn how to apply them.

    Diagnoses for imbalances or internal blocks can be so neutral (non-DSM) and indicative of a specific process of healing that is not terribly complicated. No stigma required or generated. The idea is to move forward, individuated on one’s own terms, and not get stuck in the past. Then, we are free to create and manifest what we most desire in life.

    Thanks for a beautiful TGIF post!

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  • Yeah, until one learns to either fight back or simply see that ‘bullies’ are very insecure cowards who will always be stuck and going in circles until they learn how to get along in society without bullying others.

    Standing up for one’s self and gaining perspective is what heals post-traumatic stress from chronic bullying. These actions of self-compassion rewrite the neurons, naturally, and shifts a person into feeling their power. That’s great healing, all around.

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  • “But that day of insight isn’t counted by the powers that be as a day of personal liberation and celebration…”

    Michael, thanks for saying this. I encountered very disheartening cynicism pretty much all the way through, as I healed and found my grounding. Fortunately, many people witnessed my changes over the years, and cheered me on with only validation and encouragement. But it was eye-opening to witness the response of others, who were not so kind.

    I found there to be an insistence from some on conforming realities, and if not, here come the labels and projections. Diversity is what leads to marginalization in a stigma-oriented, discriminatory society. I find this to be such a tragic paradox that undermines the community at large a great deal in so many ways, and keeps it stuck in a downward spiral. We really need to honor that diversity, imo, otherwise we will never expand our potential as a society. At least that is within each of our control, how we respond to differences in others.

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  • Thanks for clarifying, Kallena. I think what you’re describing with regard to reframing and checking it out is actually really *great* communication, responsible.

    In general, I’ve noticed that we do tend to make a lot of assumptions without checking it out, which I feel is what creates the stigma in the first place. When we assume without going for absolute clarity, then we wind up projecting, and it tends to not be a very positive projection. (Shoot first, ask questions later–or worse yet, ask no questions at all, just shoot).

    I really like what you’re offering here, good stuff!

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  • I like your comment, Kallena, and agree overall with what you say. However, this one phrase caught my attention–

    “Without them [words] we can’t communicate anything at all…”

    I feel that words are a mere fraction of our communication– that our behaviors, actions, emotions, facial expressions communicate a great deal with no words at all. Silent films are a good example of this, for one. Music communicates a great deal without necessarily having lyrics. Avoiding, ignoring, shunning–also very strong communication using no words.

    Many people can’t speak and can communicate a great deal with no words. I think we feel this level of communication much more powerfully than words. We all feel it, then it becomes a matter of interpreting, and learning an individual’s personal wordless ‘language.’

    Different people can use the exact same words and mean completely opposite things–being direct vs. being sarcastic, for example. Again, we feel the energy more than hear the words, and as a result, we associate the words with certain feelings, and this can be divergent among people.

    We all interpret, associate, and give our own meaning. Again, not with words, but with the energy with which we speak them and hear them–or not. Flipping someone off has a very definite vibration that is felt by the person getting flipped off. Plenty of communication happening there.

    To me, this is important when talking about such issues as stigma and discrimination. Most often, these are extremely powerfully communicated with no words whatsoever. In such environment, one can feel it, doesn’t have to be spoken directly. In fact, discrimination is most often beyond language, and communicated solely by how people are treated. Discrimination is about behavior, and that communicates everything.

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  • “As Aristotle pointed out, we are social animals who can be fully human only when interacting with others.”

    Not sure I’d agree with Aristotle, here. Being with ourselves, in solitude, is, indeed, to be fully human. Social interaction is good and so is our ability to be with ourselves, without being haunted to the point of sinking from overly stressful and chronically painful thoughts. We tend to avoid our undesirable thoughts and feelings in the company of others, while they still fester and impact our lives. With ourselves, we can actually address our issues in a way that is uplifting to us, rather than relying on the mirroring of those around us. That’s balance, and how we heal dependence on others.

    “In the US, we worsen the symptoms of our mentally ill by neglecting their needs and excluding them from society.”

    Actually, society is what makes people ill, the way it functions at present. We live in a sick society, so I think it’s more healthful and sound to separate from society as a whole, and take some time to redefine ourselves, look at our goals, our nature—i.e., individuating and aligning with our own creativity. The more people that do this, the more individuals and society in general will heal. To once again repeat Jiddu Krishnamurti’s wise and, to my mind, true words, “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society”

    “Fortunately, the reciprocal is also true — we can heal by simple human acts of caring and inclusion.”

    We can best heal by feeling good about ourselves, by defining our lives on our own terms, and by not being dependent on others. If we depend on a group to ‘include’ us, then we have completely given our power over to that community. ‘Inclusion’ is an illusion. Everyone is part of the global community, like it or not.

    “Virgil Stucker has spent almost his entire adult life in therapeutic communities that encourage the resocialization and recovery of people with severe mental illness.”

    This is ironic for me. I’ve been in a variety of communities in my life, and I feel good pretty much anywhere. EXCEPT, whenever I get near anything that wreaks of ‘mental health’ and all that stuff, I notice a big change around me, way in the negative.

    Suddenly, it is controlling, oppressive, chaotic, conflict-oriented, and pure madness like I’ve never seen before. Clients vs. professionals—I see no distinction, here, as far as energy goes.

    From grad school to day treatment to voc rehab to professional advocacy and activism, there is a specific energy in this ‘mental health’ world that permeates it in an extremely divisive, dualistic, very harsh and rigid way. I can hardly wrap my head around it; it is so strong, and so distinct from anything I’ve experienced in my life, in other professional and social communities.

    I just don’t get why it is so damn stuck! It’s like nothing will budge it. Feels like a lot of rage to me, just from my hit when I put it all together, from the last 20 years I’ve been active in that world. I actually find this particular ‘mental health society’ ill-making, rather than ‘therapeutic,’ that’s the irony I was noting.

    This is one stubborn aspect of society, of that I have no doubt. I think it’s at the brink, and on the verge of serious transformation into something totally new and different, based on heart energy. That is my very sincere wish and desire. THEN, socializing might be more therapeutic than not. At this point, I’d simply call it “crazy-making.”

    That’s been my experience of this whole thing.

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  • “Choosing one over the other is erroneous.”

    It’s not about choosing, it’s about integrating. What we perceive outside of ourselves is the direct result of our inner world. It is a projection, always. That’s the nature of our personal reality, how energy works. Ask anyone who understands energy, it is a common study these days, all over the internet.

    We live in a multi-dimensional universe, we are multi-dimensional beings. New perspective, new paradigm, radical change.

    “Do people argue over whether yin or yang is superior?”

    One aspect is not superior over another, they work in unison, integrated. Each one has a specific frequency and set of characteristics, which work together as complementary frequencies, for the purpose of creating–either in harmony or not.

    When not in harmony, there is imbalance leading to chaos, and something needs to be corrected. There are many ways to correct an imbalance, based on the unique particulars of a situation.

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  • Granted, but my focus continues to be on judgment toward vs. compassion for others, regardless of where they are in the moment. I believe that’s on topic for this particular blog, and vital to a sound society–which, indeed, we are far from having. Still, it has to start somewhere, can be anywhere anytime.

    That’s mostly what I’m wanting to emphasize at this time, so I’ll stop here. I appreciate the dialogue, Frank, and what you’ve shared. For me, the paradigm shift is about focusing inward rather than outward, as the way to create change.

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  • “Much of what is called disability in psychiatry has to do with excessive and unnecessary drugging. I don’t think even that excuses a person from throwing hay-bails into the back of a pickup.”

    It would be totally unreasonable to expect a person to throw hay or anything of the like while dealing with the myriad pitfalls of psychiatric drugging and withdrawal. It is, indeed, extremely disabling, and it can be excruciatingly painful and disorienting for a long period of time.

    The problem is that healing can be a needle in a haystack. Healing requires focus, discipline, and also rest. Core changes need to happen, and space and time are needed for that to happen.

    Many of us are trying really hard to make this information more accessible and available, naysayers aside. Fortunately, it’s reaching people now that they’ve run out of traditional mainstream options.

    Perspective really matters here, without judgment. That’s the only way we’re going to break the cycle of abuse and unreasonable expectations, which inevitably lead to hopelessness. New perspectives generate hope.

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  • Frank, we’re in agreement about many basic things. I don’t believe in the ‘chronic mental illness’ racket, either. To me, that is exactly what I’m calling dangerous stigma (yes, I know it’s the word du jour, but personally, I feel it covers it well–at the very least, we’re talking about negative false conclusions which lead to no choices for the individual, whilst being marginalized).

    Based on that false assumptions, a lot of bad decisions are made by all parties concerned and end up creating this reality of ‘chronic something or other’ when it needn’t be, there are so many options for how we address our issues and the effect that life has on us.

    Psychiatry and the mental health field, in general, would not be an option for me, either, based on its past failures with me which led me down a very dark road, like others describe.

    While the effects of such a vampire-like system in the name of ‘health care’ does concern me regarding our society in general, I’m not sure I can afford to worry about others, until they contact me to help them make the transition from ‘mental patient’ to free citizen. That’s a big internal leap, which is the path I took, to get out of all that. I was deeply embroiled in the system, until I finally woke up to what it was all about, in reality. That’s when I began to shift my perspective about how we create our own reality, and this is what freed me completely.

    In the meantime, everyone has their path to take, however that occurs. Our choices lie in how we respond to that which we cannot change in the moment, and once we own that, then we can actually create the change we want, overall.

    The mh field perceives people so dualistically and is so extremely class conscious on top of it. I think this field is a dinosaur at this point. There are so many ways to heal and grow, if that’s what one desires. This is a matter of keeping up with the times. The internet, especially YouTube, is filled with a plethora of ways in which to approach our lives, always in process. Lots and lots and lots to explore, above and beyond any of this “mental health” stuff…

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  • And again, my flag for illusory projections is when we turn to academics for our truth. I believe our own personal experiences and the observations and conclusions thereof, trump impersonal and generalized research. We are our own beings, with our own truth to either follow or not. Academic research can either support our individual truth or not, but it can never dictate it. I think that’s where we err, when we look to others for our own truth, rather than looking within ourselves, which is where all the answers are to begin with.

    Our relationship to our families are only personal, subjective, and intimate, each and every one of us unique in this regard. When we walk our talk, we discover the truth of our own experience, without judgment. We are all the authority of our own experiences, solely, and I firmly believe the buck stops there.

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  • I don’t disagree with any of this, BPD, but my point is that this balance will be and look different in every single case, as per not only our individual nature, but also a network of unique circumstances, mostly converging into how we walk our talk, regardless of individual and cultural differences. What we learn in our families is either in synch or not with our nature, and when it is not, that will change the landscape of our development into maturity.

    Our well-being is determined by how in synch we are with ourselves, because when we are, we will know others of resonance, family member or not. But if we go by how others perceive or feel about us, then we are distracted from our true selves, and give others power over us.

    To me, learning our personal truth above and beyond family or community norms is a determining factor for balance and well-being as transition into adulthood. At what point do we take the reigns ourselves, and stop depending on family–or anyone–to guide us through life?

    Bottom line is that in the end, we are our own guides and healers. Family is what it is, and that’s different for everyone–including for people within the same family.

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  • Really, I guess what I’m looking at is when families take on cult-like characteristics, which I actually feel is pretty common. When one goes against the grain, a mass projection can occur where everyone swoops down to shame that person, in an attempt to keep the system status quo (and usually, the secrets, secret). I think it’s a fascinating phenomenon to witness, and way more common than not. That’s the product of living in a fear-based and stigmatizing/scapegoating society.

    To change or not to change? That is the question…

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  • What I’m intending to emphasize here is that a family system can have certain values that do not apply to some of its members. Our spirits function as they do, each one of us unique in our unfolding and development. Our families are reflections of what we need to work on, they mirror our shadow, as well as our light.

    When only one member takes on and lives by different core values than what the family culture dictates (by actions and implications of behavior), then that is when stigmatizing and marginalizing scapegoating can happen (interpreted as rejection, alienation, abandonment, etc.).

    Not always, perhaps–sometimes a family system is open to evolving and taking their cue from a growth-oriented perspective, which to me, indicates unconditional love–which I think is pretty rare these days, to be honest. But in any event, that would be part of the value system by which it operates, simply from habit of beliefs.

    So when an individual’s values and ways of being are judged by the family, simply for reasons having to do with control due to fear of someone going ‘outside the box,’ (fear because it tests the environment), then the dissident member of that system can internalize all sorts of negative beliefs, feelings, and energy–e.g., guilt, resentment, feeling disconnected and alone, etc.

    When negative voices come in unison from a group, it can be extremely challenging for that person, to the point of trauma, especially if there had been emotional enmeshment, which of course with families, is way more than likely the case.

    I think this is where standing in one’s truth is empowering, healing, and groundbreaking. In general, systems fight hard to stay status quo, unconsciously. When one person challenges the norms of that system (starting with family), that’s where everyone’s true colors come out, and members of that system are faced with discerning–and accepting humbly–what is in their control vs. what is not in their control, in addition to being faced with choosing how to respond when a member of the family challenges the system.

    In the end, people cannot be controlled, we all have free will, so let the chips land where they may. These will be our families of resonance, regardless of our families of origin. These can be a bit of an illusion, when we consider the most powerful spiritual nature of our reality.

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  • Frank, what you say about others is merely projection on your part, you can’t know what goes on with another person, especially if your projections are laden with judgments, as they seem to be here, by what you express. We can only know ourselves.

    That’s exactly what is wrong with current ‘mental health care,’ at the core–they assume and project their personal and subjective reality onto others, and call it ‘truth,’ while all the while it is pure judgment. That’s why the field is a fiasco, it’s all based on conjecture, speculation, and dualistic projections. There is no truth here, just meaningless babble–lucrative for some, draining for others.

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  • Beautiful exploration of a complex and highly personal subject, James. Our perception of ourselves certainly does drive our reality, imo, so when we eschew negative projections and refuse to identify with them, regardless of how aggressive and systemic they become, then I believe we are taking the necessary steps toward a sense of personal agency and freedom, which to my mind, is where we find well-being and inner peace.

    I like to discern stigma by saying there is an ego side to it and there is a practical side. While I was going through the mh system, the stigma which I encountered, which could be quite thick and brutal, temporarily undermined my ability to make a living and extended my period of ‘disability.’ It was all politics, that is for sure.

    It had nothing to do with ‘hurting my feelings,’ even though it felt more like vicious gossip more than any kind of fair and neutral professional assessment. In fact, I was extremely successful with clients. They, however, had another agenda, so this is where we clashed.

    But it was admittedly extremely annoying, distracting, and downright crazy-making to listen to projection after projection, personally unfounded and all based on stereotypes and myths, as a way to malign my character and try to make me feel some kind of shame, to which they did not succeed, that’s not part of my make-up and I had absolutely nothing to feel ashamed about, far from it. I’d been healing by leaps and bounds and it showed.

    I was vindicated in legal mediation, but my employability was completely compromised. That’s what happens when you challenge the status quo–blatant stigma, totally political, intended to cause ‘shame.’

    I would not accept the view of me they were dishing out, so I continued my training and began a healing and teaching practice that continues busily today. Plus, my experiences with all of this led me to make a film about stigma in the mental health system, which changed my life. I’d like to think this is because I would not in the slightest buy into their fictitious (stigmatizing) version of who I am, and stuck to what I knew about myself.

    When we observe others without experiencing what they have experienced, then we are bound to project, that would be natural. I’m not sure why some people continue to insist that they project negatively onto others, however, rather than with respect, neutrality, curiosity, and affirmation, but they do. I don’t know how to stop that from happening, not sure anyone can. People are enraged, cynical, and fearful, and that’s the way it is right now, until people wake up and heal.

    But we can know the truth about ourselves and be firm in that, and this will render stigma completely powerless. Our true nature always wins out over the fiction of who we are, projected onto us by others. That’s how I busted through an extremely stigmatizing, second-class making environment and found my life again, on my terms, mirrored only by my own heart, spirit, and experiences.

    Wishing you a peaceful New Years, James. Thanks for your extremely thought-provoking work, you know I enjoy your angle on things, and I resonate with the spiritual essence of your work.

    Peace to all in the New Year.

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  • “After 30+ years in the mental health system, I am well accustom to being talked about in the third person. It is extremely off putting, but more so, it’s the tone… as though you are something someone stepped on and trod through the house.”

    As an aside, thank you for this. Couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but yes, this is disturbing. I’d noticed this and have thought to myself how I could never do this intentionally to be demeaning and it just seems so rude and ill-mannered in general. Like telling secrets about someone but out loud because their feelings aren’t part of the equation, here. Totally stigmatizing projection in action, imo.

    And yes, it’s purely the dynamic of a toxic system, to make others feel like shit, on purpose or merely without any regard whatsoever. Thank you for pointing this up, I think it’s a valuable piece of the puzzle.

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  • Hi Paris, I’ve been enjoying your series and it’s been extremely thought-provoking while shining a light on vital matters concerning our mental health, with respect to family relationships.

    However, part 3 I’m finding to be more academic than truth-ringing on a practical level. While I can see how your model perhaps reflects some general patterns, families are as unique as individuals. Plus, there is something about this installment that reads as a reflection of a specific culture (middle class white American), whereas families of different cultures would have extremely varying points of view, patterns of communication, expectations, judgments, acculturation processes, etc. Being the son of immigrant parents and growing up in the deep South had a huge impact on my perception of myself and my relationship to my community.

    Sometimes communication by language is just futile, and it’s important for a person to find their own way in order to feel whole, healthy, and empowered. Solitude is a necessary step for true freedom, to define ourselves outside of any human mirroring, and just know ourselves as a reflection of our own experiences, and what we manifest on a daily basis. That’s a true reflection of our spiritual nature, and where healthy, self-nurturing individuation can actually occur.

    We are, indeed, social, but we are also in relationship with ourselves, and this needs to be developed to avoid chronic dependence. There is balance to be achieved, here.

    Sometimes, there is nothing to reconcile, and it’s just a matter of moving on, to create a new set of experiences, and a life away from the shackles of the illusion of emotional debt, which can be very manipulative and controlling in a family system. Being made to feel guilty for individuating is not terribly uncommon, and indeed, it can fester into chronic inner conflict and dissociation.

    What we seek, I believe, are examples of personal freedom and inner peace, because from there, we have unlimited power of creativity. Those with whom we authentically resonate will more than likely NOT be our family of origin, so our communities will look different than our initial family dynamic. To me, that is a step forward. How we get there will be a wildly different journey for each one of us. And how our families contribute to our journeys is just as wildly unique.

    Thank you so much again for providing such food for thought, really good stuff.

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  • Imagination, creativity, multi-dimensional perception–that’s our salvation. When we interpret this as ‘pathology, we’re in big trouble. That’s the biggest double bind I can imagine.

    Life is not linear, nor are human beings dull and powerless. That’s a tiny little box with hardly any air to breathe, into which no one can really fit and stay sound and sane, imo. Life is filled with magic, if we allow ourselves to believe it, see it, and experience it.

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  • While comparing brains of people can so easily lead to stigma, duality, marginalization, we do know that childhood abuse in the family does, without a doubt, lead to heart wounding, which will most likely lead to challenging relationships with one’s self and with others..

    The heart can heal, and when it does, than a pathway opens for core changes. Any adverse effect on the brain that occurs during any kind of stress can be reversed. Then, there is the matter of the environment being called to make changes in how it operates as a culture. That is often where we get stuck and extremely frustrated, but that can change, too, with diligence, focus, and a tremendous amount of faith.

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  • And, from what I understand, another way to define what we call ”God” would be a perfect integration of masculine/feminine energy–yin/yang, anima/animus, in Jungian terms. I believe it aligns across the boards. We can achieve this, in human form, via inner work, and be a channel for bringing light to the planet. I find that very exciting, and rife for potential to create healing en masse, and significant social change.

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  • Rivka, what you say resonates with me 100%.

    First of all, I agree this is the most powerful series of articles I’ve read on MIA, and I’m excited about the prospect of greater clarity coming exactly where it is needed, in a way that is compassionate to all parties concerned. Hopefully, finally, we’ll get some clarity on what the family role and issues are all about, here, for the purpose of healing and evolving forward as a society.

    I checked out your website and again, totally in synch. This is all that I learned and which healed and transformed my health and life, exactly. Aside from a variety of spiritual perspectives, I did study Kabbalah for a while, and again, it all synched up with my journey, healing, and learning how to address my shadow (Tikkun) and ‘co-create with the light,’ made all the difference in how I approached life and it changed all my experiences for the way, way, better, from night to day. Rippled out to my partner, too, so our lives seriously transformed from learning and applying all this.

    More than ‘believing’ in God, what I discovered was how to use this ‘God-energy’ to my advantage (which includes the greater good, otherwise what advantage would that be to anyone?), but really, to apply it in a way that is so practical, really eases up the stress and overburden of life, brings so much clarity and grounding, knowing how to connect with our own inner guidance and light. I learned to navigate everything from a much more clear perspective. Big changes.

    What I’m aware of is that the word ‘God’ is off-putting to many. I’ve no problem with it, but when I say it, I’m thinking of ‘all that is’ the energy that binds everything together, like an energy field. I believe it would be measurable in wavelengths, as a frequency of energy, but I know I feel it and others can too, when they are attuned. Takes practice, and applying lessons of course, diligence and commitment, and coming into present time with ourselves.

    I also say ‘universe,’ ‘spirit,’ ‘the light,’ ‘source energy,’ et al. It is in all of us, primarily what we are, higher consciousness, with a body to experience physical life, the journey we take as human beings. To me, establishing clear communication between these two aspects of myself is what did the trick. That’s what years of teachings and applying lessons added up to. From there, absolutely everything lightened up considerably.

    In addition, from such clarity, we really know the power of our hearts, and manifestation can be over the top. I think we can create a much better world from this foundation, one that heals and brings authentic, bold, and groundbreaking creativity back to the planet. That’s one thing I feel is flagrantly missing, in any event, that would make a difference in our mental, physical, and social well-being.

    Thanks for your post, very meaningful and validating to me. It’s a tough topic to broach, and I’m all for learning how to integrate this in a way that it can be heard. I’ve a lot to learn in this regard, but at least I do know how to practice it, and for that, I’m truly grateful.

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  • Profound and true. As a society, we’ve traded character, compassion, and integrity for utterly superficial values amounting to who has the most money, titles, and “followers.”

    I’m not sure, however, if I’d agree that those with character, compassion, and integrity are the “losers” in this particular divide. While I don’t actually perceive people as ‘losers,’ ever, I just think that those in the latter category are not quite as settled and at peace as they’d like for people to believe. That’s one of our biggest illusions, which I’d love to see crumble, because imo, it sets a really terrible example, and has been for quite a while.

    For social change to occur, that pole must shift. To me, that would be the social revolution we’re looking for, to end the needless suffering via marginalization which is what occurs in a ‘sick society.’ It’s not necessarily a ‘war on the rich,’ but I do believe it is a call for integrity. I think that’s what has gone missing the most, and what I feel would be the exact foundation of a sound, balanced, and just society.

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  • To me, it stands to reason that our brain chemistry responds to environments, as our chemistry is not fixed, but fluid and ever changing. It’s how we adapt (or not), biologically and emotionally, to circumstances and change, and we can feel this, physically, if we don’t dissociate, and stay attuned to our bodies during such changes.

    I’m fairly certain that our brain chemistry will more than likely respond one way to a violent, oppressive, judgmental, marginalizing environment, and respond quite differently to a calm, safe, grounded, lovingly supportive environment. The latter, I imagine, can lead to balance and clarity.

    Same goes with people, whether therapists or not–we can elicit divergent chemical (and emotional) responses from people, depending on our own energy and mindset.

    If we’re conflicted and struggling, the right kind of dialogue–engaged, respectful, open, focused, authentic, non-biased–can, indeed, heal our hearts, minds, and spirits via chemical shifts. It’s all part of the same unit, attempting to work in tandem.

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  • One thing I want to add here–I think it’s pretty much the rule of thumb that that which we avoid from denial gets bigger and more louder until we address it. We humans have powerful defenses, but when we look at the state of the world and of humanity at this point, it is easy to see that collectively, we’ve been avoiding quite a bit, and the shadow is now looming outside of us, quite dramatically, in fact.

    Addressing our own pain head on without projecting it onto another is what will allow us to find inner peace and social balance.

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  • I agree that we’ve become an avoidant culture. We avoid in many ways, including by judging ourselves and others. I think we avoid emotional pain because we often attach it to judgment and blame, which only serves to magnify whatever is at the root of our pain. That’s when we go from being in pain, to actually suffering.

    Judgment, blame and guilt can be excruciating to our hearts and minds, and can cause us to dissociate and shut down emotionally, causing us, in turn, to not be in control of our actions. We hurt ourselves and we hurt others when we are in judgment.

    “Amazing things happen when people have the tools to open their hearts to the world.”

    Amen to that, my life transformed dramatically when I did family healing work in order to bring my heart energy back into balance. I became a whole person, healing rippled out to my partner and family, and I found peace. Until then, I’d lost all sense of joy in life. But once my heart healed from wounds which had been festering, life became joyous again because I found the clarity of my heart, which is where we find our deepest truth and live by it. Heart healing was the turning point.

    Thanks, Deron, for sharing your wisdom.

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  • “Looking for absolutes? Not likely you will find them in any endeavor that deals with human beings– no two of us are exactly alike. The more one tries to fit us into categories or affix labels to us, the less likely one will see the human issues in front of his eyes. — And miss the boat entirely–”

    Nice, Katie– yes, I believe that’s a bottom line here.

    And I’d extend that a bit to say, for myself, that the more one tries to analyze and ‘figure out’ others, the less likely we will perceive, on a felt sense, a person’s heart and spirit–unless we are specifically tuned into that particular frequency of energy.

    Although admittedly, when we are aware that something is amiss and people are being negatively impacted chronically, then of course, one needs to figure out where the problem is, and it is often with a particularly influential person, and/or a group mindset and standard, that is not well-balanced.

    Still, resolving issues continues to be a matter of tuning into the heart’s wisdom, not primarily our analyzing intellect. Not only is the intellect where we’re most capable of projecting stigma and other unfounded negative qualities that undermine an individual’s healing and self-confidence, but also, the intellect can only support or not support what the heart establishes as truth in any given moment. When the heart and mind are not in agreement, then we experience anxiety from a split consciousness.

    So when it comes to personal growth and evolution, is it easier to change our minds or our hearts to come into synch with ourselves? For me, my heart is pretty constant in its desires, but my mind is malleable, I learn new things daily that prompt me to expand my awareness and align in a deeper way with my personal values.

    So I think it’s easier to change our minds and shift our beliefs than it is to challenge and shift our heart’s desires. Perhaps others have a different experience.

    If we’re looking for ‘what’s wrong with that person’ then we are well-poised to project all sorts of things onto a person, and call it ‘their issues.’ If we are looking for what we can admire and respect, then that is what we will discover–not just in others, but in ourselves. Where is our focus?

    I think it’s really about our intention, when we assess others. So indeed, we miss the boat: the humanity of an individual.

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  • Paris, I appreciate your exploration of mutual perspectives, and also regarding the complex and transformational passage into adulthood. Even though it was almost 40 years ago for me, I can still remember vividly sorting through that exact struggle of desperately desiring my independence and at the same time wondering if I could hack it. I was terrified of life, which is what initially sent me into counseling.

    Your series reminded me of one of my favorite passages by Kahlil Gibran, from The Prophet. It’s a hard teaching, but I think a good one for parents to ponder, and also for children (whether youth or adult children), to consider, about themselves.

    “Your children are not your children.
    They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
    They come through you but not from you,
    And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

    You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
    For they have their own thoughts.
    You may house their bodies but not their souls,
    For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
    which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
    You may strive to be like them,
    but seek not to make them like you.
    For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

    You are the bows from which your children
    as living arrows are sent forth.
    The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
    and He bends you with His might
    that His arrows may go swift and far.
    Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
    For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
    so He loves also the bow that is stable.”

    To me, it speaks of our inherent freedom, so it makes me think about how we develop the illusion that we are NOT free. Where does that come from? And how can we heal that illusion, so that we actually can embrace our freedom without all that insecurity and fear about it bogging us down to the point where simply cannot enjoy and be more relaxed about life? I’m thinking that to be happy and at peace with ourselves, we need to feel in control of our own lives. And that would include children.

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  • While I’m not convinced these are ‘fixed,’ but rather along a very flexible continuum, I do agree that the discussion of ‘predisposition’ would be most relevant. There are so many factors that define our individuality at birth, and this continues on in life. Fragility can be strengthened and resilience can be tested. That pole can shift at any time.

    Resilient vs. fragile is a dualistic perspective which can so easily tilt into judgment and evaluation, that can in turn, tip into stigma. I feel this more than likely an illusion.

    “Sensitivity” means ‘easily picks up energy,’ which is not necessarily a bad thing, and in fact, can be a gift and extremely valuable and powerful tool in life, yet we tend to project it as being a weakness that doesn’t allow a person to ‘measure up.’ This is where I get stuck in the discussion because I don’t at all accept that.

    In my practice, I help people to navigate their sensitivity to their advantage. It’s pure inner guidance. Clarity.

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  • I don’t see how we can compare people, cultures, and generations, as far as how people respond to various degrees of life’s hardships. That would seem rife with projection and conjecture. We don’t know another until we walk around in their skin.

    And when comparing in terms of who becomes or does not become ‘mentally ill,’ is vague at best. No one can even agree about what mi is or is not. This is all so subjective and in the eye of the beholder.

    However, when we discern by when we feel inner peace vs. when we feel internal chaos, then there is a bit more clarity about what this means.

    Discrimination and neglect, indeed, can cause serious mental chaos and emotional upheaval, especially if it is a repeated pattern since childhood. That tends to pile up and become rather dramatic in our minds as it snowballs, until we shift our perspective to present time and address the post traumatic stress head on.

    I imagine Holocaust survivors experienced extreme post traumatic stress that manifested in a variety of ways. A lot of successful people can be suffering from many things, and keep defenses high out of survival. I think it’s remarkable what humans are capable of doing and overcoming, when the chips are down.

    Different people, different generations, different cultures, different social influences, different individual personalities, perspectives and beliefs, all influence our internal experience. I believe the goal is to alleviate suffering by increasing understanding and awareness of others, without judgment–including of self. That is what will move us forward as a humanity, to my mind.

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  • I definitely feel that, indeed, self-responsibility is what we’re talking about here–which is what adults are in the position of teaching their kids, by example.

    But I think that, more than ‘improving behavior’ (which can be a sticky issue, because off-beat behaviors may be justified by a situation or simply how someone expresses themselves, we just never know a person’s process until we explore it with them), I believe it’s about examining our thoughts and beliefs. This is where reality can shift, when we understand that what we think about and what we believe is exactly what creates the energy that draws any experience to us.

    Healing is about shifting beliefs more than anything else, to my mind. Which, indeed, can be challenging, because it puts our entire reality into question. But that’s the only way to create change (aka healing)–whether internally or externally–out with the old and in with the new, and that pertains to belief systems, perceptions, and paradigms.

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  • These numbers are staggering. I think you’re right at the edge, Dr. B. When what seems so obvious–that giving such powerful and brain-altering drugs to kids as they are at their most tender age of development is going to do serious harm to them and their processes–is overridden by academic jargon intended to justify such actions, something definitely stinks.

    When will this stop, indeed?? I’ve been wondering this, myself, about many of our seemingly sabotaging and self-sabotaging choices and behaviors, which, for my taste, are a bit too prevalent in the fabric of our society right now. What you write about here sure is at the top of that list.

    Thanks, as always, for speaking your truth with such clarity and passion. You know I really love your work. As a former client of the system which grew me great disdain for the field in general, I like your approach very much, always rings true to me, and would consider it to be very valuable in the field of personal growth and healing. My guess is that you walk your talk, which is always great to see integrity like this.

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  • I think what some people call blaming can really be just to identify the root cause or network of issues due to trauma that is keeping a person weighted down. The resistance to identifying this is usually related to judgment, which we needn’t have, we can shift out of judgment.

    From these core causes, usually there is a false belief–or more–that became internalized, due to repeated trauma, as a defense mechanism. Up to the time we awaken to this, we are unwittingly operating on a false premise, which is how we repeat negative patterns.

    In later years, however, as post traumatic stress flourishes, I think that’s the time we can do present time work to actually shift those beliefs and perceptions, changing our internal relationship dynamic, that is, our relationship to ourselves. That actually releases the energy of the trauma, which pings our nervous system, making it particularly sensitive to certain triggers. Our nervous systems can be strengthened in many ways, very naturally.

    So if we can shift our beliefs, release past time energy, strengthen our nervous systems, and come into present time with ourselves, we will undoubtedly make wiser choices for ourselves and our life will unfold in an entirely new way.

    This is my practice, both personal and professional. Indeed, it’s my intention to help others have an easier time of it than I did. I learned a lot doing family healing work.

    Thanks for your great comments, firewoman! I think they’re spot on.

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  • “I do like the idea of framing it more along the lines of taking some personal responsibility for not passing on the effects of bad things that happened to you.”

    Yes, totally agree–to stop the generational abuse. That’s where our personal inner work comes in handy, rather than to try and change others, or anything outside ourselves. In the moment, we can each be responsible for what we put out into the collective. Is it helpful? Necessary? Truthful? Harmful? Sabotaging? etc. Each one of us can take personal responsibility in present time, for what we offer to others.

    Whom do we blame when we, ourselves, hurt others? We can also forgive ourselves and know we’re human, and we can make changes within ourselves, to ease up and lose judgment, to be more understanding and compassionate, more in control of ourselves when we feel conflicted or angry, we can all make that intention…or not. It’s a choice.

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  • I totally hear you, Rossa, it’s overwhelming, confusing, and terribly frustrating for all concerned. And indeed, the support can be dismal and leave us all feeling rather abandoned.

    Whether we call it ‘demeaning and stigmatizing’ or just plain judgmental, I do believe we’re talking about family cultural norms. I imagine most families are a mixed bag of compassion and judgment; for the most part we tend to vacillate based on how we feel at any particular time.

    But some families can be rather extreme in their snobbery, which is from where I come. I had to shift a lot of false perceptions to find peace with myself, but I let them be who they are, too. I just have to set boundaries when they start projecting that crap onto me, and they take it…begrudgingly, of course, but they’ve learned to be more respectful, which is what I wanted from them. Self-respect was vital to assert after traversing the system.

    And I 100% agree with the goal of family healing over giving it over to professionals. As I know you know from having read about all that you yourself have discovered in this journey, there is so much to learn ourselves which are simply not part of the ‘mental health professional’s’ schema–perspectives, tools, and outlooks which make all the difference.

    I think it’s so beneficial to explore the healing world at large when seeking healing of any kind. There’s a lot of stuff out there now which is clearly replacing the old, for all the right reasons. And it’s working for people, that’s the main incentive.

    And thanks, Rossa, definitely ok to post and share Voices That Heal anywhere, thank you so much. I’m so happy that you are enjoying it! Speaking my truth like this, from the heart and so front and center, had a miraculous and transformational impact on my life, so I figured it was the way to go 🙂

    Thanks for the fantastic exchange, this was very rich for me.

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  • Paris, thank YOU for the opportunity to get further clarity here about cultural dynamics vs. individual process. Of course this is going to start in the family, our first culture. Such subtle yet powerful information, which, personally, I feel is the key to evolving out of stuck situations and perpetual inner conflict.

    I think we all have our cultures and preferences which, when we follow our truth, can unfold in a way that we feel copacetic with ourselves, our environment and our community. I believe it’s that synchronicity which we seek, to feel part of and valued by a culture, rather than driven to the margins via stigma.

    I think It’s really a matter of knowing ourselves, and having the courage to pursue happiness and inner peace over anything else. Again, as always, that’s a matter of choice, discernment, and personal preference.

    Best wishes on your important research!

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  • Btw, the update of my story of healing is not about my family of origin but about my relationship with my partner of 30 years now. By the time I did the family healing work, I was an adult, living with my partner, so a lot of that was long distance, and also through the voice of my film, that was central to it.

    But my partner was my family during my time of disability from the psych drugs withdrawal, and still is. We’ve had dialogue after dialogue about this over the years, to get straight on exactly what happened, it all became such a mess so quickly, and I knew it wasn’t just because I was ill and disabled. People around me were literally driving me to the edge with their suddenly overpowering, insensitive, and controlling behavior–which is what I discovered from the inside, is what happens toward people who are obviously having some kind of challenges, even when they aren’t doing any harm to anyone.

    But apparently, we confuse people, or perhaps make them strain to actually pay attention to what we are trying to communicate, and they resent that; and perhaps we frighten them from the unfamiliarity of it, or worse yet, the stigma of it, and that’s enough to make people be harshly impatient and downright mean to people as they are trying to recover, being blatantly and utterly disregarding.

    I wish I had had a video cam attached to my forehead during this time, I’m sure people would be shocked at themselves with how their attitude and demeanor changes to utter lack of regard and respect when it comes to someone who is hard to understand to the point we call them ‘psychotic,’ especially if they are marginalized. That would be a mirror of truth that would horrify.

    Respect these days seems to come with the expectation of something, not for the sheer social grace of it. I think that’s way too bad, makes a difference in our society, to all of us, collectively.

    Point being, my partner had to find his healing path for me to continue on mine to fruition. He became kind of a monster at the time (let’s say his shadow emerged and he had to deal with it) which he readily admits. He was scared to death and the doctors and therapists had us both extremely confused and despondent. Being alone with this in San Francisco, one of the homeless capitals of the world, was, indeed, scary as all get out. We were wracked with worry, uncertainty, and desperation. And this was just after I finished grad school, so it was the last thing we expected.

    As you know, Rossa, I eventually turned to energy healing and chakra work, and my partner followed in my footsteps when he saw the result this was having on me. It was night and day. I’m the healer in the family, now. Textbook transformation, and it just unfolded that way, the most obvious path to wellness. We really had no other choice if we were to survive this and get on with our lives without this albatross of ‘mental illness’ around our necks.

    We both had to take full responsibility, and in so many ways, he was suffering from his own ‘mental illness.’ Again, he’s be the first to own that, that’s our story. His healing has been as spectacular as mine, his changes have been remarkable.

    In our case, we discovered that it wasn’t about one person to scapegoat, it was the relationship system which is off kilter–as there were power, control and fear/panic issues there. Same with my family, exactly. So much filtering of reality through personal issues, it was just so dense, and I could see right through it, being the visionary that I am. But that didn’t help me until I learned a lot more about communication and energy.

    I spoke my truth, my mother resisted and felt guilty at the same time, to be expected. We discussed it as best we could, let some time go by, she learned all about forgiveness, self-forgiveness, self-compassion, and is now, at 83, quite healthy, totally independent as she’s always been, and with a new boyfriend after my dad passed away 7 years ago, having the time of her life, which she well deserves. Between an emotionally abusive husband (who later in life had a debilitating stroke, and she had to take over and care for him) and a mentally ill son, my mom carried quite the load for a while, got through it, learned, grew, and rose above it all. I couldn’t be happier.

    But it wasn’t easy for her, and she didn’t make it easy for me, either. Ok, so we have a feisty relationship. I still love her and we talk about once a month. I admire my mother very much for how she faced life like the tough cookie she is. We come from strong stock I guess–Russian-Jewish-Argentian, we’re not kept down easily!

    My partner is also happier and more grounded and at peace than he’s ever been. We’ve all grown and found our peace. And they all took the cue in my healing from what I was calling “severe mental illness,” sure is how it felt to me. That part was caused by the drugs and the subsequent withdrawal, from nine of them.

    But the issues of my extreme anxiety and deep depressions most definitely started in the family, because my mother was angry most of the time, and quite judgmental, and rather ruthless about it. It was still the whole family group dynamic in its totally, though, which was the problem. Everyone enabled my dad’s rage because of fear and dependence, so when I spoke my truth, they all came down on me. That started when I was five, and I never gave up on standing up for myself, and I always paid for it, until I finally took myself to a shrink, which is where all that began.

    I thought it was me, and the whole time, it was them. I realized this 20 years later, and took steps to resolve this internally, and shift my beliefs about virtually everything. That dynamic really did a number on my consciousness, and waking up to it was tough, but necessary for healing.

    My partner had his own issues which he had to face, that he’d been totally projecting onto me in ways that became oppressive and abusive. We were both repeating family dynamics, we finally got this and came into present time, transforming all of that energy into all we have now, which is abundant, on a spiritual level.

    So along with me, they’ve both transformed and found peace and happiness. My healing was their cue. I’m so grateful for their courage and authenticity, and their heartfelt desire to see me well. Humbles me to no end. I learned a lot from this, more than I could ever learn in any kind of school.

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  • But don’t you think that, regardless of what causes the ‘psychosis’ (which I view as an initiation that is intended to awaken a person to their spirit and spiritual path, and after that, integration and grounding, then they’re on their way), if the family, itself, were to take a neutral-positive view of things, that would be the most helpful and supportive thing for the kid, and would help them greatly to integrate all of this in a productive way?

    Whereas when the family is demeaning and stigmatizing, just as we know the system is, then the chance for integration is pretty nil, unless the kid wakes up and takes the path of Siddahartha, leaving family and all else behind, in search of meaning.

    What I want to get across–and this is from my experience, and also from what makes logical and reasonable sense to me–is that whether a family causes psychosis or not, either way, the family can be INSTRUMENTAL in the healing, if they were to choose to seek healing and integration, too, we all grow and when our children experience something like psychosis or anything that presents itself as dramatic and potentially threatening to their well-being, that’s a perfect opportunity for personal growth for everyone concerned. Whether or not it’s a ‘family illness,’ it can still be a family healing, and I think that’s a more productive focus. I think the question of root causes emerge naturally, when everyone is on their rightful healing path, and then it’s not so resisted, if it’s a challenging discovery of truth, it just is and from that awareness, we move on a different and more enlightened way. That is spiritual growth.

    Families can heal together, or they can be divisive about the whole thing. I believe those are two ways of responding, and it makes a difference in how well the child can heal, and clarity is achieved all around.

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  • Ah, ok, thanks Rossa, I did misinterpret, thanks for clarifying and of course I totally agree with you, that there is a wide spectrum here. Indeed, all voices need to be heard, from these different perspectives and experiences.

    I’m kind of chuckling to myself, here, because I can have trouble discerning here online whether I’m being accused of being or saying something, or if something is being added to the conversation in a neutral way. I’m just so accustomed on here of being called out for something. Especially this topic, regarding families and parenting. I totally understand the challenge of that.

    I guess some people know I made a film about stigma and discrimination. My assertion is that, for a lot of people, (not all, but still common, I think), this begins in the family. So for the film, I asked everyone about their family relationships (given that my family dynamic was totally instrumental in my falling into the psychiatric pit), and I got some very interesting answers.

    These are 6 diverse voices–different walks of life, different personalities, different experiences, different perspectives– and in fact, one of the women in the film was what you are calling ‘the quiet one,’ and she talks about what happened to her when she was hospitalized in a very articulate and moving way, I think.

    Our experiences of childhood turned out to have some overlap and also a lot of differences, we were on a continuum.

    Check it out if you wish, this is all about family influence on our mental health, and then what happens when we give it over to the system. And yes, some people have trouble sitting through this, specifically because the family issues make them uncomfortable. Still, it is without a doubt vital to explore this, so I broached it without apology, as directly and sensitively as I knew how–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

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  • And not just a different path, come to think of it, but who develop different values, etc. Really, going against the grain of the family value system and choosing one’s own way of doing life, is really what I’m talking about–being made to feel guilty or selfish for being independent from the family. That’s a very common double bind which, indeed, causes internal emotional conflict, and potential suffering for the adult child, until they claim their freedom by simply not caring about the naysayers.

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  • Point taken, Rossa.

    I guess I was talking about kids that do challenge their parents–not just with aggressive behavior and the like, but simply by choosing a different path than what parents intended and expected. That was my situation, and I speak from that experience. I also know a lot of people–both in person and also a lot of people that I’ve read about, famous people–who tell about going against the grain of their parents’ wishes for them, and the problems that it caused in the family.

    Am I saying this causes something which could be DSM diagnosed? Not necessarily, but often it is, and at the very least it causes distress that can manifest and play out in a variety of ways.

    I hear this is not your experience, that you are coming from a different dynamic. I appreciate your experience.

    I don’t feel I’m blaming anything on anyone, simply providing a perspective from my own experience and from what I know about others, my work with clients, my friends, etc. Sorry if it comes across as blaming. I do feel parents play a role in how their kids embrace adulthood, but that is a long and complex discussion of generational patterns and contracts, cause-and-effect, and how we influence each other energetically.

    Thanks for your feedback, I’ll keep in mind how I express myself.

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  • “Sometimes kids with autism have unloving or neglectful parents. Sometimes kids with cancer have unloving or neglectful parents, too. That’s just life. Bad parenting doesn’t cause either of these things.”

    Not only do I agree with this, but I think it’s also a vital statement. Kids come into this world in all sorts of ways with all sorts of differences.

    A nurturing parent will teach by example and presence how to integrate anything with self-compassion in order for the child to grow and evolve along whatever his or her natural path is, with unconditionally loving support all the way (which includes healthy boundaries, I like to always include that, no one should be a doormat) . Not perfection, of course, we’re all human–but at least with that intention and growing in that direction. And certainly letting go of the need to ‘control’…well, eventually in any event. I know that’s a hard one!

    We all discover our balance of this as we go along, and that is how we adjust to the normal rites of passage in life, as we assimilate to whatever it is we face as we go along in life. We are all tested at times in our lives, that’s how we grow and gain wisdom.

    I think problems are most likely to occur when a parent is in fear, judgment, shame, resentment, and/or guilt, and their actions are motivated by these negative and self-recriminating feelings. THAT’S what will get passed along to any child to internalize, if that is the environment in which they develop, and that is never helpful nor healthful, quite the opposite. This can be shifted in present time, though, we all go through learning curves.

    I can’t imagine autism being caused by ‘poor parenting,’ just like I can’t imagine many things being caused by this. But the parent sure does have an influence on how a kid perceives themselves, despite anything. I think that’s always valuable to keep in mind.

    I’ve even heard that autistic children are lumens, guides, and healers, that there is some kind of ‘truth-connection’ here. I can’t speak to this myself, because I have no experience with autism, but I’ve heard this quite a bit and have wondered about it. Something about it rings true to me, not sure why, but it does.

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  • I think you’ve got the right idea, Fred, when you talk about boycotting services. I’ve always believed that’s the most powerful activism, simply to stop using toxic products and services, and go in the direction of self-reliance. That’s how we take back control of our own lives.

    These days, with all the stuff you mention, which is all over the internet–how to live off the grid–we have ample opportunity to learn a new way of living, so much more healthful, natural, freeing, and with control over our own destiny, day to day. It’s pretty much the new road, for those of us who’ve really finally had it with mainstream academic society, after all that fighting and struggling with it, complaining about it and trying to change it. And still, the wars continue, both global and social, with no end in sight. Many of us are exhausted simply from the sheer effort of fighting a cement wall. Makes people sick to be always fighting.

    There is a better way, and it’s doable, many are doing it now.

    And of course when it comes to our physical and mental health, there are already tons of alternatives in place and up and running. It’s just a matter of being open to exploring new options. Were everyone to go in this direction, I’m positive that we’d discover there is no need whatsoever for psychiatry.

    Of course, in this case, that is a long haul for some people, it would have to be done in increments, because some people are heavily dependent on these products and services, which, of course, is how it is set up and intended to be, which is the problem here.

    Still, there are a lot of people who fight against the system, and still use it, work in it, or are connected to it one way or another (meaning, financially). That’s a split which will keep things stuck. When people boycott something, it has to be 100% or it will not be credible or effective because that is hypocritical, not walking the talk.

    But when we do follow through with our own values and intention to turn our backs on the industry we condemn as harmful and socially irresponsible, then we take away the life blood of the beast and it will dwindle and eventually die off on its own. Gotta start somewhere to trust away from this obviously malignant industry.

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  • I experienced social bullying in the system, because I genuinely shared my authentic feelings. I thought that was how it worked. I had no idea that my vulnerability would turn against me among ‘compassionate healers.’

    What I realized is that I was surrounded by neither compassion nor healers, but by extremely narcissistic bullies who called themselves either ‘therapists’ or ‘social workers.’ As I always like to say, it wasn’t 100%, but it was a big enough pocket for me to call it, undoubtedly, systemic. Not enabling the abusive authority would be considered dissidence and seemed practically unthinkable to staff, so, really, it was a bullying system.

    Indeed, it took a while to get over this, mainly because it was insidious and I wasn’t altogether aware of what was happening in the moment. Last thing I expected from ‘mental health’ professionals and social service staff was this kind of blatant and reckless emotional exploitation.

    Eventually, I realized it was standard procedure, to keep people in line and compliant. I was independent and transparent, and that made me a perfect target for social bullying. After all, I was a client of the system. Who did I think I was, an actual thinking person??

    But once I got perspective on these dynamics and learned how we attract this, as well as how it is a clear reflection of a toxic society, then I became resilient to it. In fact, it explained a great deal of this ‘mental illness’ thing to me, I got a lot of insights about my own issues with family, and how this was translating in this environment, that same feeling of powerlessness and disorientation.

    So really, it was healing at the core, when I got the meaning from my experience playing the ‘victim role.’ I didn’t identify with it, but I did play the part, no doubt.

    I may still feel a bit ganged up on, on occasion, when I stand alone in my truth, but I expect that as an activist. Perspective and resilience makes it easier to take risks. I’ve been putting my voice of truth about the system and mental health/illness out there for a long time, I’ve taken a lot of hits for being so open, despite the fact that it’s always moved me forward at quantum leaps. So it’s been a big lesson in seniority over the judgments of others, and also in trust.

    Bullies are incredibly insecure people who act tough, because they want others to see them that way; but in reality, they are scared to let their guard down for fear of feeling their own vulnerability. And they hate truth, light, and the courage to be humble. Takes courage and humility to face bullies and bullying systems with truth, but it’s vital to do so in order to disempower these saboteurs of progress, healing, and social change, in favor of maintaining their own power over others. When we face the bullies, we invite radical change to happen.

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  • Thanks, Paris. I definitely look forward to the next parts.

    Family healing was core to my own healing and personal transformation. I was the ‘truth-speaker’ (and forgiver) who challenged the family system in every way, and for a while, it was hell to pay, and, indeed, it was literally crazy-making.

    But I worked with these issues for years to find a delicate balance, where I honored from where I came without giving myself over to values which were not meaningful to me–and which in fact, were stigmatizing and wounding to me, as a child–and I was finally able to unearth and dismantle what I had internalized from the family dogma, so that I could achieve the emotional freedom to walk my soul path of truth, which has proven to be extremely beneficial healing in every way imaginable.

    Family healing is a remarkable and enlightening journey of personal discovery and integration. I’m so happy you are writing about this, specifically, I feel it is extremely valuable and supportive to changing the world. It is the core of our society.

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  • Yeah, we need to stop scapegoating our kids for the mess we make, as adults. One we reverse this trend and take responsibility for how we react to life–and know that there are worse and better choices to make, here–then we might get somewhere as far as healing ourselves while at the same time creating a safer, more nurturing, less anxiety-driven society. One would hope, in any event…

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  • “Currently our country’s psychiatric industry is technically functioning as a gas lighting industry, not a “mental health” industry.”

    Beautifully succinct. You nailed it, Someone Else. Thank you.

    “We’ll tell you your mentally ill, we’ll prove your mentally ill, and if it doesn’t add up, we’ll make something up, because we want your business and we are always right because you will never be believed.” Gets right to the heart of the civil and human rights issue.

    Especially when I legally challenged authority–gaslighting abounded because they were panicked and wanted to sabotage my credibility. Fortunately, it only made them look bad in front of the mediator, so that was the last time I fell for it. But it did its post traumatic stress damage due to how long I had experienced this before waking up to it, so I did have to take the time and focus to heal from doubting my own reality.

    It’s confusing and disorienting to be gaslighted and knocks people off kilter. In the mental health system, it should be an out and out crime, because it is purposeful and meant to discredit and discriminate, as opposed to supporting and empowering. Exactly what is wrong with the entire system, and how it keeps people feeling chronically ill and dependent, because, in the system, the clients are programmed to doubt their own truth, relentlessly.

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  • Actually, regarding the personal issues of the parents, when a kid challenges them and they feel angry and blaming about that, that is a PERFCT opportunity to work on their issues. Blame the child for challenging them? I don’t think the child is at all at fault, no way they can be. It’s their job to challenge parents.

    Great growth and healing opportunities for all concerned, if we stay out of (or work through or ascends, however one wants to put it) judgment, blame, and guilt. Everyone makes mistakes, we needn’t punish ourselves for them, nor punish others for making them. Better to simply correct them and move on in a new way. That’s how we evolve forward.

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  • I think when a child’s natural behavior indicates that they are challenging the norms of the family, how parents react and respond to this makes all the difference. If they shame, punish, or guilt the kid for going against the grain in a way that does no one any harm–and in fact, which gives opportunity for growth in the family– but it’s simply different than what the family dogma would dictate, then there will be rebellion and power struggles, perhaps leading to depression and anxiety, at the very least, due to feelings of being emotionally coerced into compliance. Families can be like a cult, if the dynamics exist to appease abuse and dysfunction. We need permission to be ourselves, for health and well-being to occur.

    However, if parents can welcome the challenge because they expect to be challenged by their children, and they know how to set healthy boundaries while giving permission for the kid to explore their nature, even if it goes against their grain, then I feel there will be a better outcome in the clarity and confidence of the child. The child may fall and have to get up again, but that’s part of growth and learning self-resourcefulness and self-care.

    I’m not saying it’s not a challenge for parents, who are also human and who come with their own baggage. But I think there is a clear line between a child who is allowed to explore their nature and one who is shamed, demeaned, and ostracized for being themselves, or even for having a need, when these should be totally expected. Parents may have issues, but they are the adults and influence kids in every way, first and foremost. How they set the example for how to deal with their personal issues and the shit in the world is what the kid will most likely internalize and repeat, when they experience life’s challenges.

    It’s a delicate balance, but I think raised awareness around the issues of parenting and control are always helpful to all concerned. After all, what we learn in our families is what we bring to our communities, these are direct reflections of each other. Social healing is the order of the day, imo.

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  • Also, Prickly Pam, as a healer, myself, I’d never, ever say to a client, “You need to rise above this,” nor would that be my intention, to tell anyone what they ‘need’ to or ‘should’ do. That’s only detrimental to a client and would set them up for failure.

    However, I would hold that space of ‘rising above’ as a healing goal, and I would support and assist in that process–however it would uniquely look for any individual, we discover that as we go along–however it feels most effective to do so.

    Looking back on my experience a former long-term client in psychotherapy (which took me down a rabbit hole eventually), one thing I can now see was extremely harmful to me was when a clinician would collude with my feelings of self-pity, and not challenge me on them.

    Clients can sometimes feel as though I don’t have empathy for them, because I will not feel sorry for them, the way they feel sorry for themselves. They thank me for that profusely, at the end of it all, and see that, indeed, I did get where they were, I would just encourage a step forward, which was enough to set some people off.

    If someone wants to feel permanently damaged and stay angry and resentful about it, and only wants people to agree with them about that, then I would not be a good match for them as a healer or counselor because I would challenge those beliefs every step of the way. If you don’t like your negative self-beliefs challenged, then don’t share them with me, because I’ll have another perspective to offer each and every time. It may be our experience in the moment, but I feel it is never truth, just more of a pit stop, which we all take. But we don’t want to stay in the pit!

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  • Someone Else, I want to highlight what you say about gaining wisdom from our traumatic experiences, I totally agree with you that this is a key element for us. That wisdom is unique, and I feel it is a gift that can serve humanity profoundly.

    Having gone through all of this, we know things others could never know until they experience the kind of dark night we psychiatric survivors have experienced. I think this wisdom we gain is the ticket to our freedom, and also to a new and improved society, if we apply ourselves.

    Even if we are partly impaired physically, we can still heal our hearts and spirits through that wisdom, and find our power again. From that, anything is possible.

    We are the pioneers that can replace the charlatans of which you speak, as social pillars, simply with our deep wisdom from these crazy experiences we’ve had.

    And thank you, always, for your wisdom. You express it with a lot of clarity and power, which I so appreciate. Your truth speaks to me quite often.

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  • By the terms ‘buckle under’ vs. ‘rise above’ I mean specifically ‘to be negatively impacted to the point of disability’ vs. ‘gaining wisdom from our experiences for the purpose of moving forward.’ Feel free to insert your own words. I have a hard time pleasing everyone with my language, but I’m always happy to elaborate for clarity.

    I mean these terms and the language I use to be only descriptive, totally neutral, and without judgment. They are simply to distinguish two divergent reactions to life experience. I have experienced multiple traumas which almost killed me (I’m a psychiatric survivor on every level–meds, discrimination, legal battles, debilitating stigma, all stuff that repeated my original family abuse issues. I have a list of abuses if you’d like my trauma resume.

    The healing goal was, specifically, to rise above it and learn from it all. That’s a very hardy healing process, to gain meaning and wisdom from our experiences. That creates a lot of positive shifts–aka healing via rising above the trauma.

    No judgment whatsoever intended, just options of perspective. Thanks for the heads up about this.

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  • Truth, I’ve never experienced ECT so admittedly I cannot speak to healing from the effects of this on the brain. While I can stick to my guns about everything being healable, I totally understand that when I make these comments, it must be quite irritating to you, at least, and for that I do apologize, that’s certainly never my intention to insist on something when it is not the reality of another. As I say above, I do have that one exception where I tend to insist on keeping hope alive, but I understand how that could be quite annoying when it feels so far from your own truth.

    With that said, I guess I can elaborate on this a bit–given what you share above and I’m sure you’re not alone in how you feel, from what I’ve read from others–to say that when I say ‘heal,’ that can apply to on many levels, but overall, I mean to shift or change. And I do feel there is always one step forward you or anyone can take from wherever you are. And then another, and then another, until at some point, you realize that things have improved significantly. At least that’s a start, and you just never know. If it’s not compelling to try, then don’t. We have the choice.

    You mention a lot of complex issues in your narrative, including physical damage mixed with a lot of understandable anger, despondence, and other really heavy negative feelings. Again, all very understandable and they seem totally justified. Still, they’re burdensome, and this is where you have the opportunity to explore a bit, at the emotion feeling level. That affects us physically in every way.

    Off the cuff online, and not knowing you, of course, I wouldn’t know where to begin, but I imagine if you sit with it a bit, you can figure out what tiny thing you can shift–even a perspective, maybe–that would help you soothe or get some kind of clarity or anywhere that you can access where you can make a change pretty easily, in the moment, that would bring some kind of relief. Once you get that process rolling, it gets a bit easier, and the relief comes a bit faster. It’s a practice. I don’t know your situation, condition, nor what support or tools you have around you, but I’m hoping that something might occur to you.

    If not, then perhaps you are correct, and I’d admit that, I don’t mind being wrong. I might be wrong that everything is healable. But really and truly, I’d prefer to be right, that you or anyone can heal even just a little bit from where you are now. No one can predict an outcome like that, when it’s never been done before. There’s always a first. I think healing from psychiatric torture and mistreatment is a new frontier.

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  • I think as long as we are not made to feel crazy, ashamed, or guilty when we express our authentic feelings, then talking about our anxieties can be very relieving and clarifying. And, indeed, the people contact can be extremely beneficial if one is isolated otherwise. I consider all that to be very sound healing.

    While I did have trained and seasoned actual healers and teachers to help me shift into a new paradigm and find my grounding, I’ve always maintained that my most influential ‘healer’ was my musical performance teacher. That was a whole different kind of healing, embodying present time with complete trust, despite anything that is happening outside of myself, especially knowing that there are real live critics in the audience, whose job it is to evaluate my every move. Those were some lessons in developing sense of self, like I’d never before experienced.

    I believe those that we can call our “healers, teachers, and guides” can be anyone in our lives who influences us to grow comfortably in our own skin and be who we are meant to be. I guess our influences tend to be a combo of people, both whom we know and those we don’t know, that we read about. We’re influenced by different people at different times in our lives, that would universal. Can be anyone, really.

    I think when we care about others, then we are naturally ‘guides’ for each other, simply because we respond with kindness and compassion. I believe that is what is most strongly felt.

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  • I totally agree, Fiachra, there is no one path, people have all sorts of different journeys through life, including recovery paths. What I like to encourage is for people to find theirs, whatever it is, and to not lose hope. That’s always what I try to get across by example, for better or worse. My intention is always to inspire hope where I know hopelessness lurks. I’m quite familiar with hopelessness, and it’s one of the scariest feelings ever, a real killer, and I mean that literally. Makes all the difference, I think, when we can take in even a small ray of light and hope.

    I’m aware that you credit psychotherapy for your recovery, which I think is wonderful of course. You seem very together and well-spoken, kind-hearted. And your posts speak to me as well, you have wonderful insights from your lived experience. You know I had very bad experiences with psychotherapy, in ways that I hear echoed a lot here in the USA.

    I’m really wondering about the cultural differences, in that ‘psychotherapy’ is such a product of the cultural norms, especially in family, relationship, and community dynamics.

    I’m always really happy to hear about your good experience with this, because I do think at the core, psychotherapy can be extremely helpful in recovery. I just wish we could weed out all the toxic ones we have here, because it spoils the field, and very sadly and unfortunately, there are many, I think it’s the norm. Not 100%, so I’m not saying it’s everyone. But I think it’s a critical issue because it’s quite damaging to people when this happens, obviously.

    Just food for thought, regarding the issue of what from this practice does helps vs. what actually hinders recovery. You’re obviously a great example of what happens when it is practiced with competence.

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  • Yes, Fiachra, I had wonderful support and guidance along the way for which I’m always extremely grateful.

    But what’s most interesting to me that I keep coming back to, is that the ones who actually were able to reach me and help me came after a really long slew of professionals in the ‘field of mental disorders’ (as I’ve come to call it) that only made me worse and worse, until my system finally broke down completely, into disability. So aside from the physical and emotional injuries that came from this, I also felt extremely and chronically betrayed, so that became a spiritual wounding, as well.

    My own personal search for meaning was the result of not wanting to end up homeless or permanently disabled and institutionalized–which, at one point, these looked like the most likely options for me–and of course, the option of suicide was one path I tried in order to alleviate the overwhelming pain of it all, which I was told I would have to accept and get used to my ‘lot in life.’

    Which, of course, I’ve since gotten rid of that lot and bought a much bigger and more fertile one, and have built metaphorical houses and other things on them, which have been of value to me and others, in a pretty profound way. So they were, both, wrong and mal-practicing telling me this.

    Coming back from the near dead was revealing in many ways, and this is when I began on my path of heart, light, and soul, which is what led me to the guides to which you refer. Somehow, in my extremely clouded, confused, and foggy thinking and sunken, anxious heart, (thanks in large part from massive psych drugs withdrawal), I found my way to exactly what I need and to what worked for me. Must have been something greater than my own consciousness guiding me because I had no clue what I was doing, and in fact, was pretty convinced that I was doing everything wrong, at least that’s what I was continuously told, whenever I would have a need. And up to that point, everyone around me had been just as clueless.

    Thank God I met the healers, teachers, and guides I did. Almost dying from suffering was the big turnaround.

    As the Buddhists say, “From the mud, grows the lotus.”

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  • Those who have suffered the worst hardships in life are the ones who typically rise above it to be an example to others. Victor Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning) is probably the most famous example of grace, values, and integrity serving to rise above such suffering, trauma, and post-trauma.

    Many people have suffered what you describe above, and their lives become motivated by a deeper understanding, which eventually brings clarity, healing, and some inner peace (with practice), from the sheer desire to be well, and to be a contributing member of society. I’m one of them.

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  • I’ve no doubt kids are more stressed at an early age these days, thanks to the incremental increase in the stress of life over the last decade or so, rising pretty sharply daily now, I think, along with all sorts of fear and anxiety. I’m also fairly certain that a diagnosis is totally irrelevant and will always only result in totally avoiding the real issue(s). But I’m also sure it’s good for business, which, to me, would explain the increase in numbers of those diagnosed. It’s a money thing.

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  • I worked as a ‘peer specialist’ for a couple of years in San Francisco, as part of an ‘anti-stigma’ public speaking program, and indeed, it was a valuable step in my process of moving forward because it allowed me to process my extremely challenging and eye-opening experience of going through the system, where for the first time ever I experienced professional discrimination to the point of having to involve an attorney.

    I also got a film out of it, which has done well, where a few of us share our journeys of healing, and thanks to that, I was catapulted out of the mental health world in order to get back to a more integral and well-balanced sense of myself, outside of all that. That was the biggest relief of my life, to finally be done with all that. So it was definitely a very valuable and vital experience for me, and served as a bridge from the system and disability, back to my well-grounded real life.

    The only problem was that I discovered that this ‘anti-stigma’ program was, in reality, just one more cog in the wheel of the mental health industrial complex, and once again, the discrimination based on the very same stigmatizing and discriminating attitudes and actions continued without apology. They called it ‘advocacy,’ but I would beg to differ. I felt that word is a terrible misrepresentation of the actual work done in these agencies. I don’t see “advocacy” as much as I see corporate-like run agencies perpetuating the same old stigma and discrimination as is found in the system itself, and supporting merely self-interests.

    I like the idea of supporting others who have been through this, but at the same time, the politics and social programming of the system runs very deep, and can repeat as generational oppression and inherent discrimination, as we learn from the example of others. Somehow, it also seems to be a survival tactic, to pay forward the stigma, as this is inherent in the spirit of these agencies, that same dualistic perception of people and what mental illness is and is not.

    These are well-funded programs which, to my mind, are questionable in terms of allowing people to really find their own voice, path, and freedom. I think a lot of it is political smoke and mirrors, so I found it very difficult to trust what I was being told. In fact, deceit and avoidance was not uncommon in this environment, just as I had experienced in the heart of the system.

    At least this was my experience in the ‘peer’ world.

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  • Thank you for this very enlightening article.

    Absolutely retaliation for calling out abuse is the modus operandi of a bullying society. And when the authority looks the other way, it becomes a downright toxic society. This was my story going through the mental health system, exactly.

    I agree with Steve, this is about who is in charge, because it is a big and very dangerous mess of a culture that happens under their watch. I’d call that extreme negligence; and if hate and victim crimes are being perpetrated right under their noses, then it is criminal negligence.

    Courageous voices of truth are needed, here, to bust up these toxic systems of abuse and cover-up. I don’t see any other way. The legal system sure doesn’t help, it’s part of the closed toxic system.

    Speak up and wake up is the answer, to my mind. Courage now needed more than ever.

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  • I’m no fan either guns nor The Murphy Bill, but this issue of a murderous mindset not having some kind of alarming mental or emotional instability or distortion going on is hard for me to swallow. No, I don’t equate mental illness with violence, never have. I know that many people who live with diagnoses are extremely gentle and kind–except, perhaps, to themselves. But while there are violent people on the planet, there are those that wouldn’t hurt a fly. Some are diagnosed and some are not. I don’t think this is the dividing line for defining ‘mental illness.’

    But still, with that said, unprovoked murder–whether by an extremely alienated, bullied, and enraged individual or by a trained terrorist–can only occur when there is absolutely no regard for human life in the wake of some other agenda–an agenda that disregards life.

    I would not want to believe that this is acceptable, because to me, it wreaks of insanity. You can take away the guns, but that murderous mindset remains, and will continue to sabotage others when they feel inclined to do so, because a moral compass is missing. The planet is way off kilter and needs healing, not further curtailing of personal liberties. That’s only making things worse, and more contentious. At what point do we find unity, away from all this us vs. them duality?

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  • “…they are more likely to view their psychological states as predetermined and outside their influence or control. This is important because clients’ beliefs about their prognosis can have significant effects on their clinical outcomes.”

    Absolutely. Thanks for posting this.

    Some say that ‘worry’ is like praying for what we don’t want, because we put so much attention on what we worry about, that we create a self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, we experience that on which we put our attention, because on what we focus is our reality at that moment. Where we choose to focus is, indeed, in our control.

    By the same token, pessimism is purely a focus on negative outcomes. So, by virtue of our creative imaginations, this is what we will create if we continue that focus.

    To believe that our life experience is out of our control and only physically-oriented is the death knell to our quality of life, inner peace, and personal power. One way or another, I think it’s vital to realize once and for all that we influence our own life trajectory with our focus, attitude and outlook. This is how we influence the physical, from a broader perspective.

    When we know this, we are empowered; when we do not, we not only render ourselves powerless, but in addition, we give our power away to those who then have the power to control us, because we unwittingly give them that power.

    Our perspective, focus, attitude, and beliefs make all the difference, and is exactly where we have the power to heal and make changes…or not.

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  • Oh, and btw, probably the most empowering and self-loving lesson I learned in all this, and one that will serve me wildly for the rest of my life, is that the messier, least perfect, most ’embarrassing’ and self-conscious making parts of the journey are my BEST opportunities for remembering self-compassion, self-respect, and self-love. After all, nobody’s perfect, and we’re all messy at times. Otherwise, we would not be human.

    I really learned to most love the imperfections that are me, and all that paradox and contradiction that make us human, because they are authentic and true. Such is life and humanity…

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  • Love it, Michael!

    I was raised to be extremely respectful to ‘authority,’ at all cost. So when I began to encounter oppression and discrimination as I journeyed through the mental health system, I had a really hard time knowing how to address the perpetrators, given that I had this program in my head that said, “Suck it up, they are your superiors.” That’s what I learned in my family.

    And of course, it’s that mental program which made me feel split and ill, because in reality, I was not showing myself and love or self-compassion, and therefore, lacked self-respect.

    So when I finally took an agency to legal task, that was my way of saying ‘fuck you’ in a “socially acceptable” way, via legal protocol, and it felt good. And still, metaphorically, it led to my ‘death,’ as word did spread and I was blocked from the professional community because I had gone against authority in a legal way.

    The good news of course is that it was not a death, but a re-birth, which led to everything good, grounded, and aligned that my life is at present. I believe it was because I spoke and embodied my truth, regardless of to whom I was speaking, and I acted out of self-love over some stupid and self-sabotaging family programming that would not allow me to take care of myself appropriately. As a result of defying that programming, what had ailed me disappeared, and my life transformed.

    So it must have been that damn program that ailed me, the one that made me feel as though I were neither worthy nor deserving of respect. That’s what I really to what I said, “Fuck you.” I know I deserve better, and I start with giving myself the respect I deserve. That, alone, is enough to bring about good healing.

    Thanks, as always, for the inspiration.

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  • Oops! Wrong link, here’s the link to The Front.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE5rvXn9Wkc

    Regarding the first link, that was something I was watching this morning and it copied by error. Interesting though, because it’s a spiritualist that I bet a lot of people would more than likely think was a ‘witch!’ (She may be Wiccan, who knows?). For others, feel free to enjoy it, there are some powerful meditations in this lesson. (Sorry about the confusion).

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  • Speaking of witch hunt, I remembered the ending of Martin Ritt’s wonderful film, The Front, starting Woody Allen, about The McCarthy Era blacklisting. Makes me think the suits and the current political situation regarding targeting those with DSM diagnoses.

    In this scene, the character is at least speaking his truth very clearly, calmly, and directly, directly to the source, which seems to empower and free him. This is less than a minute (warning: harsh language)–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTUikfU1V8I

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  • One last thing about DSM diagnoses that I wanted to mention for the time being–

    For the majority of these diagnoses, my feeling is that, in spirit at least, it’s pretty much saying that one is ‘too sensitive’ or ‘too thin-skinned’ to deal with life and its many challenges, which is why one would require “medication” (or some other form of lifetime dependence) to compensate for this.

    Whereas I feel the reality is that we’re all sensitive beings in an evolutionary process, for the purpose of knowing how to feel so we know when we feel relaxed and at peace, as opposed to conflicted or depressed or in some kind of mental chaos from high stress and trauma.

    Regardless what one calls it, I think that simply the idea of going from feeling bad to feeling better would be the goal, however that is best accomplished. Otherwise, we’re just spinning our wheels in costly academic and political exercises which do nothing whatsoever t0 serve the public in any way shape or form.

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  • In addition–aside from the harms done by these specious DSM diagnoses, I do believe that a diagnostic criteria can be used safely and with the intention of bringing healing, as is what occurs from healing perspectives.

    For example, when I sit with a client whom the psychology framework would call ‘manic,’ when I see this, I would call it ‘ungrounded,’ which is remediable in the most natural way, and with the practice of disciplined focus. Grounding solves many issues at once, in the way of bringing balance, clarity, and relief. Anyone who applies themselves with intention can accomplish grounding after long periods of being ungrounded–which is what leads to things such as ‘psychosis,’ rash actions, chronic fear and agitation, etc.

    A ‘diagnosis’ should be used as a way of identifying an imbalance for which there should be a concrete treatment plan. The course of someone’s healing is hardly predictable because everyone is different, and we learn from each others’ processes if we are can observe others without judgment. More often than not, however, this is not the case.

    But knowing what is causing chronic pain or discomfort (either emotionally or physically) for the purpose of healing it at the root cause would require some sort of diagnostic identification. I just think it’s more sound and effective in a healing way to apply neutral and universal diagnostic criteria that does not malign one’s character, by implication. Most unfortunately, this is what the DSM has become, to a large extent–merely a book of insults, division, and marginalization.

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  • Very thoughtful and clear article about an important topic, thank you.

    I think one of the of the many harms of DSM diagnoses is how they have infiltrated popular culture as ways of putting down people (stigma). I hear people all the time saying things like “they must be borderline” or “what a narcissist” or “you’re being manic,” etc., without even knowing whatsoever what they are saying.

    Usually, people who project these ‘diagnoses’ onto others as ways to insult or demean someone during a disagreement or what have you are not even matching up what that means even according to the DSM, they’re just generic put-downs–which I interpret as purely name-calling, of the schoolyard variety type. (They may as well be saying, “You’re mental!”).

    I’m afraid, at least in the USA, this has infested the fabric of our society. Everyday people are using these terms to insult others, with no foundation whatsoever, other than they are angry, fearful, insecure, or cut-throat competitive.

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  • Great comment, and this especially lit up for me:

    “I absolutely can look at my periods of depression and link them to life’s events and my poor response.”

    Me too. And not just depression, but anything negative happening to me. Somewhere, I began that process, and when I can tag it, I can shift that, and change my experience. Takes a bit of introspection, humility, and ownership.

    I can blame, judge, stigmatize, label, and name-call those around me until the cows come home, but that’s not going to shift anything or anyone–that is, no CHANGE will occur, inside or out, without some kind of catastrophe happening to wake people up. From what I understand, that’s how it works. Whereas when we take responsibility for ourselves and our life experience, rather than to project it outward, then we can avoid worse disasters, and start turning that trend around.

    When we take responsibility for what life dishes out and do our inner work around that in a self-responsible way, then we find not only the power to move forward, but also to create authentic core change. I just can’t see any other way. Force works in no direction.

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  • Of course, I mean “my thoughts and prayers are with..” not ‘with are.’

    Really, I just came back to this to add one thing that this tragic situation makes me think about, a quote I’ve heard attributed to Harriet Tubman (given that we talk so much in here about the underground railroad) which I’m intuitively feeling is relevant—

    “I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”

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  • Although I do wonder why some people seem to rather easily buckle under to life stressors and become depressed–or in some other way feel beaten down by the stress–while others navigate life stressors with relative grace, growing and learning from stressors (and therefore relieving the stress and evolving in the process).

    That would speak to variations in nervous systems as well as how we interpret and navigate life experiences. I believe this is where personal values, self-beliefs, and integrity play a huge part in the quality of our mental health and processes, as well as in our general outlook in life.

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  • This relatively brief summary and critique of the bill gives a clear and concise overview I think–

    https://medium.com/harvard-public-health-review/the-murphy-bill-ethical-considerations-for-the-state-of-mental-health-care-and-its-consumers-ae08ead77a3f#.fv2pyar1t

    especially in the conclusion, where the issues of ‘neglect’ and ‘stigma’ are applied most accurately and significantly, imo–

    “”The Murphy Bill neglects patients — a critical and, arguably, the most important stakeholder. Consumers of psychiatric care should be at the forefront of this conversation; intimately involved in the research and creation of programs and policies. Though the Murphy Bill would create an advisory committee comprised of law enforcement officials, representation by service-users themselves is not mentioned. While it appears clear that we must reform our fragmented mental health care systems, our policy efforts and mainstream discussions are being filtered through stigmatized and stigmatizing lenses, and are thus misguided on what aspects need reforming and who we should be listening to.”

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  • We can discern states of being in a variety of ways without even using the ‘m’ word:

    Calm vs. anxious
    Confident vs. insecure
    Grounded vs. volatile
    Joyful vs. enraged
    Clear vs. confused
    Kind vs. confrontational
    Love-based vs. fear-based
    Trusting vs. paranoid
    Fulfilled vs. empty

    I believe we can go in and out of these states of being all our lives, for a variety of reasons. In fact, it seems human to experience a wide range of emotional states, however they occur, especially given that we exist on a continuum. If we didn’t know suffering, we wouldn’t know joy.

    However, I suppose that if we spend most of our time in the latter states, this will eventually cause chronic suffering and will reflect profoundly in our physical health as well as our overall experience of life, particularly in relationship to others. Moreover, I feel we have more control over how we feel than we can sometimes perceive, by how we interpret, respond to, and navigate our lived experiences.

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  • I think when people are raised to feel powerless and undeserving of love, warmth, nourishment, etc., then they seek to feel empowered any way they can. This would seem like a natural response to me.

    Although some seek to feel power over others (starting with instilling fear, bullying, etc.), regardless of the consequence to others, rather than simply empowering themselves personally, with their own self-awareness, personal creativity, and sound evolution.

    There are many flags to indicate this need to have power over others, way before it escalates to anything either emotionally or physically violent. People with absolutely no regard for others are often appeased by those around them who simply want to avoid being demeaned, stigmatized, and marginalized. (Which, of course, the appeasement of such behaviors already indicate a lack of self-regard and/or fear of consequences, which is a terribly oppressive and double-binding reality).

    When this is challenged, the conflict gets worse and the stakes go up, as far as who has power over whom. That becomes a mine field. This happens a lot in the ‘mental health’ system, power is appeased out of fear. What if it were to not be?

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  • “I have plenty of outrage – my question is, where do I direct it? There are some gigantic social forces at work to keep these outrages “hidden in plain sight.” How do we, such a small and easily marginalized movement, counteract such massively funded antagonists?”

    There are many schools of thought that begin with the premise that we create our own reality. A lot of people get angry when they hear this, because they interpret this as self-blame, which, in reality, it is self-responsibility which, in turn, is self-empowerment.

    If we, as a collective, were to recognize that we created something we hate, then of course we can have the power to destroy it by creating something better in its place. If nothing replaces the old, then the old will keep coming back to fill that void.

    It is never about who has the most money, that is pure illusion. Power is not found in money, but more so, in our ability to trust our vision and intention.

    David beat Goliath not with a sword but with a simple stone, right in the middle of his forehead–his “third eye.” The giant fell, and David beheaded him.

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  • Well, yes, corruption is the mastermind of a person who, one way or another, influences others to join him or her in deceiving others to gain wealth, power, and influence/control. Together, they create a ‘system,’ which includes a fierce and electrocuting resistance to opposition and dissidence. Disempowering and eventually busting up a system would mean isolating the perpetrators from their protection. That would mean waking up the enablers who are unwitting slaves to the system, out of fear of going against the grain of power.

    Who is really supporting a corrupt system, whether they know or intend it, or not? (Hint: “I was just following orders.”)

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  • Yes, I believe that as well–blatant stigma, no discernment among people and their individual issues. To them, anger, even the most reasonable which of course I feel it is here, is dissension, and simply tagged as a dangerously volatile powder keg. Complete disregard.

    And yet, ironically, this is *their* genocide. That’s quite a projection.

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  • David, this is brilliant as usual. Mental illness nervous system–YES!

    When I was going through my trials in the system, I kept telling my partner I wanted a nervous system transplant. I knew that energy was pinging it like mad, and I’d feel everything. Where were my defenses? I wondered.

    Then, I realized it was a matter of shifting my perspective, to where ‘the art of feeling’ was actually a gift of being, and also of guidance, rather than the burdensome curse I was believing it was, simply from how my feelings were making me feel!

    By this time, however, my nervous system had been quite tattered by “psych drugs” and also by living and operating in a highly stigmatizing, discriminating, and bullying community. So I did a lot of healing and grounding in order to regenerate and strengthen my nervous system, and it shifted so drastically that I actually felt as though I had a new nervous system, so in a way, I got my wish.

    Life is way better now, with this level of freedom to roam around in the world as I please, without the fear of being dragged down into the mud once again, traumatized by normal and to-be-expected life stressors. I can hold my own now, I always know my way back to center because my nervous system (and heart) guides me there.

    “Although, here on MIA, folks would have to loosen their “paternalistic” projections onto the nature of God, to discover the reality of a 3 letter word for Ultimate Reality, Within?”

    Haha, well that’s a good point, about projecting paternalism. And yes, I agree that the entire universe is within us. If we could only see this and own it, then we’d see our power to change the world. At least those of us who can make this inner reality-outer reality connection have a good broad perspective about how change occurs. So it’s completely true, that to create change around us, one has to BE the change. It’s the only way.

    Thanks, always, David, for your extraordinary insights. Your lived experience and gained wisdom as a result are true gifts. I hope you experience them this way.

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  • One last thing before I get my turkey out of the oven–

    When you go against the mainstream, they are going to make you feel like a weirdo, that’s par for the course. Being a long time activist has grown me accustomed to mind games and power plays of all kinds, it’s sop. The trick is to be comfortable enough with yourself to not fall for it, and keep your eyes on the prize.

    From Harriet Tubman:

    “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”

    Happy Thanksgiving!

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  • I, too, believe in helping others in any way we can. This is a new journey to take, out of the system. We are pioneers in a new frontier.

    “They probably experience you as an alien creature from another psychic planet.”

    Lol, indeed! While I can take some pride in having earned this alienating projection by challenging them with absolute truth, I’m grateful that neither my husband, friends, and family feel this way about me! Or perhaps, I’m just part of an alien community, at which I wouldn’t necessarily scoff 🙂

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  • Yes, my experience, too, going through it to get past it. It gets beyond tiresome.

    A new ideology or paradigm would ascend us from the perpetual systemic abuse/victim cycle because it would not be based on this dualistic power differential, but instead would inherently acknowledge the natural connection between all human beings on a continuum as opposed to ‘us vs. them.’

    I think this achievement would inherently kill the system, because it could not survive outside duality, as it is entirely based on it.

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  • No argument from me, that it needn’t be the case, if these were reasonable people. To reasonable people, there would be an in somewhere.

    I’ve gone against a lot of agencies and have filed grievances far and wide while I was going through the system, as both client and employee, and I followed through on every last one as far as I possibly could, including up to the CA Office of Civil Rights, against the CA Dept of Rehabilitation, with which Disability Rights CA (then, Protection and Advocacy, Inc.) would not help me, once OCR denied my claim because I had a psychiatric file which said such and such about me, so I had no credibility. DRC/PAI, which is a legal advocacy agency for people with disabilities, gave me a crazy runaround, amounting to ‘there’s nothing we can do.’ Then, who??

    And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I hit up just about every agency along my journey with a full grievance, I went through protocol 100%, and was responded to each time, which led me to the next level.

    You are right, however, because I did get through to the employment attorney (non-profit) who did help me with my discrimination suit, and I did get through to the mediator, because I won the mediation, so there is hope there. Of course, they were very small needles in a big haystack, hearing me out completely before forming an opinion, not cutting me off after 10 seconds because they had no attention span, which is what I hear often in politics and in the mental health system—keep it short or we’ll stop listening. And it’s true, they do.

    But even after I won, this voc rehab agency kept doing business as usual, rather than making the core changes needed. I know this because I remained in contact with a few people from there for a while.

    I had proven in mediation that they ran their operation on a totally discriminating and stigmatizing philosophy, even their training manual showed this, it was amazing. They would not hear me out when I began to protest—I had just gotten this job and was about to transition from disability–and instead, they preferred to fire me and get beaten in mediation. I tried to reason, they’d use force and stigma, every single time.

    They had no reasonability about them, not one shred. They even kept postponing the legal action to a year from the time I filed it. By the time we got there, the CEO had resigned just a few days prior. Couldn’t even face me, or the truth.

    Finally, after my film came out and I sent it through the system, several years later, I heard they closed down not long after. I can’t say for certain that it was my film that was the nail in the coffin, but the timing was pretty uncanny, and it would make sense. After all, they lied through their teeth about me, and my film proved that.

    My point is, they prefer to close rather than to listen to reason—or anything!—and change their way of thinking. Getting angry only meant, “You see, I told you he’s ‘mentally ill.’” And they’ll throw in other terms, like paranoid, rageful, ‘has anger issues,’ anti-authority, yadayada. That’s really to what I’m referring in my statement above.

    I’ve got more stories about going against the system and seeing that through, and how that turned out, than I could possible write here, one agency after another, it was like I was digging my way out of the center of the system, layer by layer, which is how it turned out to be. Each time was a new adventure, and added up to the same thing. It got pretty brutal at times, I was floored by what I faced time after time.

    These f*ckers just don’t give up! They’d rather perish than change. I think if they change, they’d perish, anyway, so it’s kind of lose/lose for them at this point, at least that’s my hope.

    I’m all for standing up for ourselves, I’ve made a career out of it. It was really rough at many junctures, but overall, totally rewarding and I was able to work with it all as part of my healing. I feel good about having faced these assholes, even though at times it tattered me beyond the pale. So by all means, go get ‘em!

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  • “Experience and attitude are factors even when your brain is dying off.”

    Indeed, I believe they are critical factors in adapting to any kind of change, which of course, is inevitable. I’d also add that how we apply our wisdom factors in here, too, which I guess is related to experience. That’s exactly what heart consciousness is, which is what dictate our desires and our capacity to love. It is also how we heal from trauma–through the heart.

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  • I agree with all you say, Steve. Systemic and social abuse is, indeed, the norm, and I find that totally unacceptable.

    I think it’s pretty clear that if a person doesn’t own and address their issues, then they are most likely to project them onto others in a very negative and judgmental way. That’s what comes from not owning one’s issues/shadow, and I think this is also the norm now–which is the blatant and chronic stigma that screws up progress, clarity, and communities because nothing is real, it’s all smoke and mirror illusion, and extremely divisive rather than unifying.

    So how does one reconcile differences of perspective regarding abuse and bullying in a community of adults? There would still need to be some kind of agreement here, otherwise, you’ve just got a community of bullies and victims. I believe this is what we’re trying to ascend, from a sick society to a balanced and just one.

    There can be no harmony whatsoever if there is a split in the issue of what constitutes abuse and bullying and what is the result of someone projecting because not dealing with their issues. That’s still extremely ambiguous, and I caution anyone that judges another as projecting when calling out abuse. That is very edgy territory, and yes indeed, the norm in psychology. I call that, both, ‘victim blaming’ and gaslighting, and can really come back to haunt, in a humbling sort of way.

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  • I believe the outrage is quite apparent, at least from reading all the testimonials from survivors over the years.

    Still, displaying it can undermine one’s credibility on the spot, especially if they have a history of diagnoses. So it really is a fierce double bind. Politics, academia, “mental health” field programming–all of them easily twist words and interpret behaviors rather cynically, and to mean something not at all intended, often quite the opposite. So basically, we’re speaking different languages, making it a true tower of Babel.

    I believe outrage is reasonable and justified here, but expressing it can result in feeding the beast. And while I’m a big proponent of truth-speaking as sound healing and effective activism (it worked well for me, in any event) it’s still hard to say how to address these issues, on the whole, without self-sabotaging.

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  • I agree, the system repeats the abusive dynamics often found in families, with clients playing the same role, only to deepen the feelings of powerlessness.

    What’s unclear to me is whether they pretend to not recognize abuse as some of us might (which is abusive in and of itself), or if some of us really have different definitions of what is and is not abusive. To me, what is obviously abusive is often denied as abuse by others, whether I’m experiencing it or witnessing it. I’ve actually seen a split with this issue, where what some call abuse others call benign. That always leaves me a bit baffled. Seems like it would be important to the cohesiveness of a community to be in agreement about this.

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  • I agree, the negative programming runs deep. Getting away from naysayers when possible is a good start to healing through empowerment and self-compassion. That can be a process, sometimes, not so simple. But I think it’s a good goal.

    The next stage of healing would be to shift into a more positive self-belief, even if it is slight at first, at least that’s a good shift for starters. It can be challenging to shift from feelings of disempowerment to knowing our personal power, and confusing at first. Takes practice to see ourselves in a new light, but I agree, Steve, that’s how we heal.

    It is relieving and clarifying to be aligned with ourselves, rather than to be at odds with who we really are. That’s what creates a lot of grief and anxiety. People deserve better than to feel condemned to a lifetime of limitation and marginalization. That belief doesn’t exactly whet one’s appetite for living.

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  • I was reading this article with great interest and when I got to this, it turned to grand enthusiasm:

    “It is the experience of being a part of something bigger than me that is the basis of the spiritual experience, the feeling of being loved by the world I live in.”

    So perfectly stated and to the point. I’m really glad you highlighted it, too, in italics. The feeling of being loved and valued in the world is paramount to our sense of self.

    And of course, it starts with knowing how to love, value, and appreciate ourselves with self-respect and self-compassion, knowing that we are, at the core, love and light in physical form (corrupted by a sick society with imposing false beliefs, of course, but that is what healing is about, imo, seeing past these illusions and achieving new clarity which shifts our self-perception for the better). All anyone has to do to spread love in the world is to be a an authentically loving person.

    This actually is a feeling of deep love in the body, which translates to loving thoughts and acts of kindness, rather than acts of hate and destruction.

    Friendships that breed love, trust, mutual respect, and authenticity are truly wonderful and special. And indeed, they are rare.

    I also appreciate friendships that allow people to grow and are genuinely supported without jealousy or malice, which I feel is, unfortunately, often the case.. I think often friendships are marred when one person feels threatened by another’s changes–for example, they are feeling ‘abandoned’–which is why people on a path of personal and spiritual evolution tend to be somewhat nomadic in friendships, until they find others who are of that same path of spiritual growth, which is humbling by nature. Here, there is no power struggle, because friendships are based on heart consciousness, and not on who holds the power.

    I do agree with Fred, that it is hard to know whom to trust these days. Lots of liars out there, trying to gain trust under false pretenses, only to end up being an energy drain. Our power of discernment, therefore, would be our best friend, in this case.

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  • Oh yeah, the other aspect of spiritual dissocation is that it leaves us only in communication with our ego, which is a fear-based perspective and reality (fear of losing, fear of failing, fear of erring, fear of coming across as less then, etc). Chronic fear leads to chronic distress from dread, panic, and paranoia.

    Stigma is fear-based an divisive, whereas mutual respect occurs when we have a sense of love about ourselves. Spiritual connection happens through the heart, which is a loving feeling, so via this connection, we are guided through love, as opposed to being guided by fear, which only leads to more darkness, that’s a rabbit hole, neverending.

    I think this perspective of spirituality aligns with mental illness and mental distress down the line: fear-based reality vs love based reality. The difference, I think, is indicated by our level of integrity and mutual respect–kindness vs. meanness.

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  • There are a lot of paradigms for how we perceive human behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and interactions that are not of any medical or pyschological paradigm or organizing principles. For example, spiriutal healing is about the path of unity consciousness, integration of yin/yang–i.e., masculine and feminine–for the purpose of healing social and pyschic splitting.

    From this perspective, what creates the illusion of ‘mental illness’ comes from existing in a highly competetive, materially-oriented, power-based dulaistic society, considered spiriually bankrupt, because this split in society is what generates the stigma which leads to marginalization–a core cause of exterme distress, rage, hopelessness, distortions of self, etc.

    The spiritual tranlsation for ‘mental illness,’ therefore, would be ‘spiritual dissociation,’ in that a person is not aware of their own spirit (above and beyond their physical body), and so they are missing out on their internal guidance and self-healing aspects of self. That’s quite a bit of darkness within the psyche, and is what makes us dependence on others–for just about everything.

    In spiritual healing, the intention and work is to connect with these aspects of self, so that people can know their own nature, trust their own process, and take care of themselves as they wish, independent of any school of thought, because it is their self-wisdom guiding them. This is the essence of awakening.

    I like this paradigm it translates into the power of trust, self-care, and ownership as, both, the tools and goals of healing and self-empowerment, and I believe it is also the path to personal freedom on all levels.

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  • Also, I know that kids can be bullied in the family, and part of that bullying is outright denying that abuse is taking place, and instead, they make the child believe that they are “imagining things,” which is not only neglectful to the child and dissmissive of their perspectvie, but I think that’s one of the most sinister abuses, and really cruel to a child.

    A lot of children who feel alientated in families have a “golden child” sibling who are part of the bullying system, and side with the abusers (by dissociating and kissing ass, basically) in order to protect their own interests, leaving the vicitmized child to fend for themselves. That kind of neglect-turned-gaslighting is sadly all-too-common, from what I’ve witnessed and experienced over the years, and is rather twisted and sinister, to my way of thinking. But it repeats at an alarming right, I think.

    Even if it is not clear what is occuring, to outright try and humiliate a child for standing up for themselves is madness in and of itself. I know that, as adults, victims of emotional abuse in the mental health system are often dismissed as ‘paranoid’ or some other label intentded to stigmatize a person out of credibility.

    Overall, I see this as how mental illness occurs–at the very least, a great deal of self-recriminating voices become internalized at this point, along with rage, despondence, hopelessness, utter lack of safety, and overall, terminal broken-heartedness per deeply embedded heart wounding. I think this is at the core of our ‘sick society.’

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  • I’m actually referring specifically to the stigma generated by psychiatrty as being the cancer. I see psychiatry as the creator of the stigma, as a way of separating themselves from their patients/clients; and I see the metnal system as the conduit to society via media, starting with ‘research published in journals, etc. Of course, the DSM is the stigma bible.

    And yes, Someone Else, I know you are very aware of the gaslighting and double binding tactics, good for you! To me, this is subtle awareness, and what gets so messy, of course, calling it out as the abuse that it is, it is all smoke and mirors to produce confusion and conflict. I think it’s really the most common and insisdiou form of abuse happening in general, because it remains a bit invisible to some, it creates a lot of ambiguity, that’s the point, so no clarity is achieved. Keeps things status quo.

    I believe blatant stigma is used as a tool to gaslight and double bind: “if you do or say such and such, it only PROVES your the crazy one, not me.”

    Total rubbish, and indeed, it is cruel mental abuse, it can be tortous for people, espeically if they are vulnerable and trusting. and it’s particlularly troublesome in the field of so called ‘mental health.’ This is what creates the illusion of ‘mental illness’ where it mostly likely does not really exist.

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  • In fact, Stephen, this got me to thinking. When we do NOT own our darkness or shadow, and instead deny our flaws, then it repeats over and over until we finally get the hint–that it’s ok to be human and it’s ok to be whatever it is we are, that we all grow and evolve from where we came. Life is a perpetual learning curve.

    That repetition, I imagine, is what eventually leads to either mental or physical illness, because no matter how we try to avoid it, it just gets bigger and bigger. That is, until we surrender to it, own it, and decide that we can love oursevles unconditionally, mistakes, foibles, flaws and all. Perhaps that is what few people are willing to do.

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  • To end the illusion of separation would certainly bring wonderful change, although no doubt it will throw a lot of people off because it is such a radical shift in paradigm and perception. There is a lot of resistance to Oneness right now, in favor of the familiar and programmed duality and power struggling; but I, for one, look forward to the perspective of unity consciousness catching on. As long as we are going in that direction, I’m on board.

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  • “Imagine if every child received this message from at least one adult in their lives: ‘I am irrationally crazy about you, because you exist.’ It would be a different world.”

    Yes, it would. The world would be filled with full and loving hearts, which would be a world of peace, joy, harmony, and unlimited creativity. I think if people were to turn inward and take the time and self-responsibility to examine their hearts, we could at least begin that journey, at any time.

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  • And, for anyone in a process of healing, I’d highly recommend getting away from people who send you messages that you cannot heal. That helps no one, and in fact, embeds the stigma, mythology, and chronically crappy feeling. In fact, I believe this strengthens the mental health system, by default.

    The idea is to create a community of yay-sayers, not nay-sayers. That will make ALL the difference in healing and personal growth, to where it is actually possible. Naysayers sabotage healing.

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  • This is spot on my conclusion, too, Steve, at the end of it all. I found the stigma and mythology which is attached to ‘mental illness’ begins and ends with the mental health field.

    What society at large picks originates there, these toxic and distorted messages about ‘mental illness.’ The main one being, “You are a chronically ill person who will be dependent and limited for life,” which of course inherently marginalizes a person from the get-go–not just from society, but from themselves, as well. That is a perfect split, a literally crazy-making double-binding, gaslighting message.

    And as you say, I do think it is self-fulfilling, until we wake up. That awakening is vital in order to effectively address those ingrained internalized negative messages. That’s what really screws people up, those constantly running programs of perceived dependence, limiations, and marginalization. That creates all sort of distorted and self-stigmatizing beliefs, to where if no one is around to put us down, we just do it ourselves, and then we imagine everyone else is doing us, too, that’s a common projection that comes from social stigma trauma.

    That’s what stigma does. I think the stigma is the root of this ‘chronic mental illness’ routine, and all of society’s fears around this. This originates in the mental health field. It’s like a cancer spreading.

    Ascend those false beliefs, see the truth of the matter–that we can heal, move on, and create our life and dreams the way we wish once we ground and focus, and this is universal, I firmly believe–and that becomes a new internalized program, sans stigma, based on personal truth and self-compassion, which will support healing. That was my experience, in any event. It worked.

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  • I had been on a vareity of meds for a while and functioning ok–I worked and went to school and all that. And when they started wreaking havoc on my mind and body, a psychiatrist began to experiment on me and before I knew it I was on 9 different meds! A cacophany of benzos, neuroleptics, beta blockers for pain management, etc. I was breaking down fast and become totally incapacitated and disabled, ended up in the ER 3 times one summer, from side effects. An ER physician finally said, “You’ve got to get off all of this medication!”

    This was right after graudating from graduate school and I suddenly found myself disabled, so I knew I was in for quite a ride. I was scared out of my mind, and I guess I mean that literally.

    So I looked around for answers, and eventually sought help from a medical intuit, who reads subtle energy of the body, and she gave me perfect guidance–for me, personally, and my process–about how to get off the meds. I found an expert 5th generation herbalist, started doing Qi Gong, which was vital because my energy was so depleted, and I began an intense meditiation program where I learned to ground to the Earth, and about how chakras work.

    That’s what saved me, learning about chakras and energy. This ascends our biology and is much simpler to work with, where energy is malleable and we can direct it with focus.

    I was a wreck when I started this program, could hardly speak and certainly not very coherently, and I was filled to the brim with anxiety and paranoid thinking. But I felt very safe in this environment and these were teachers who knew a lot of things about which I had no idea. They were really present and progress focused, and they were fully supprtive of my releasing all medications.

    They weren’t doctors, so they could not advise me about this, but the work I did there replaced the need for medication, because not only was I able to find my natural balance on my own, looking at my own energy and working with that in my life, but it taught me how to self-heal. Changed my perspective so much, that everything around me changed. I was a whole new person, integrated.

    I’d also been taking a singing and performing class to help me build strength and confidence, and right after graduating from this meditation and energy program, where I cleared a lot of my energy and brought myself into present time, I was offered a part in a play by a director who was taking the class with me. I was shocked and nervous about that, but it was the first paying job that came my way since I had become disabled. I did it, and from that came a career in theater which lasted 7 years until I moved away from San Francisco. I’m established in a small rural town now, very peaceful and grounded–the road I was always meant to be on.

    I tell you this to show just how much a shift can occur when we come off the drugs and let our nature run freely. A new path appears, and it’s quite remarkable. For me, it was literally a miraculous transformation. I have terrible stage fright and had never sung on stage in my life, but I faced it and it freed me, completely.

    So no, I did not go back and forth because my mind was made up to stay off of them for good, regardless of anything; but I did suffer through what I just kept tagging as withdrawal and also detoxification. I’d say it took about 4-5 years total to compeltely detoxify, this stuff really gets into us and affects our cells.

    But herbs are regenerative, whereas chemical medication are DEgenerative, so the herbs and qi gong helped me to rebuild what had become damaged inside me from the meds, while the chakra, grounding and energy work helped me to define myself in a new way, and how to maintain balance, center, and awareness in the midst of distress or chaos, so it was very empowering.

    Coming off these powerful drugs really shift our core, so one thing I always recommend is to embrace the unknown, and trust your process to take you to where you are the person you were always meant to be. The meds keep us from owning our true spirit, because we have trouble perceiving it on medication, it suppresses so much of our natural truth and rhythm.

    It’s a very challenging road, but keep persevering, holding steadfast to your goals, and there is a great deal to look forward to ,where it gets easier and easier. I’m of the belief that everythign heals, once we apply ourselves with focus and trust.

    You can check out my website, and if you want to talk more about this, please feel free to conact me. I’m always happy to answer any questions about meds, healing, transition, etc.

    http://www.embodycalm.com

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  • What elegant research! Congratulations on taking control of your healing. I did my taper from benzos (and others) before I ever heard of ‘iatrogenic illness,’ which, when I did become privy to it, I realized that this is what had occurred, that the medical treatment had actually made me ill. It was rough, especially since at that time, I knew of no one else in the world who had released all medication after a long period of using them (for me, it was 20 years before I got rid of them). But I did recover fully in time and found my grounding and health once again, as I know people can, with the kind of focus and diligence you are exemplifying.

    Very best wishes on your remarkable jouney. No doubt you will continue to help a lot of people by sharing so openly.

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  • “I suspect that psychosocial sense of self, is heading towards a realization of this phenomena, as myopically focused brain research, continues to fail in its utopian quest for the cause of so-called mental illness. Hopefully, the devil of self-interest or banality of evil, as Hannah Arendt calls the bloody minded mediocrity of the average human being, will come to a profound realization, soon.”

    Perfect, and so beautifully stated.

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  • Alright oldhead, I give in. What would I have to do to get you off my back, were I to keep posting here? We disagree on pracitally everything, inlcuding whether or not mental illness exists at all, we’re totally on the opposite side of the fence with just about every issue.

    I’m fine with whatever you want to believe about anything and whatever you want to discuss with anyone, and I will not bother with commenting to you any longer. I regret that I did that here, in this blog. Sorry about that, I’ll own that this was my error in judgment.

    But you are testing my patience now and I can’t guarantee that I can keep biting my tounge. You’ve made me angry with your false insituations and presumptions, you’re just so insitent on putting me down and making this personal. I don’t at all take it personally, nor is it triggering and pts, I’ve got all that under control.

    But not only do I find this to be particuarly crazy-making on a website like this, especially, but also I’m just finding your comments about me to be so obnoxious and uncalled for, and in fact, groundless and downright slanderous, if you catch my drift,

    Can’t you at least just stay away from me and stop talking about me in posts? Or is that not possible. I’m not even sure to what extent I’ll continue here given this experience, but at least for now, I’m trying to set a boundary with you. Can you accept that?

    You don’t have to respond, just please stop slandering me. Thank you.

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  • Uprising, not to dismiss your questions, but I’m not dialoguing any further on these issues regarding sexism and misogony until I see a blogpost that reads, “What Exactly is Abuse and Systemic Oppression,” relating universally and invlusively, and where ALL survivors are expressly welcome and encouraged to voice their experience and thoughts on these matters, without being driven to madness yet again by those who don’t like what they have to say. In the dialogue below, I felt literally pestered, rather than simply challenged. The latter is fine, I expect that and always respond in kind; the former just gets too obnoxious and draining for me, sorry.

    At this point, given the population that this website is designed to draw, I feel that a blog and discussion around what constiutes abuse and systemic oppression would not only be universally relevant and extremely clarifying and perhaps awakening to some, but it would also be socially responsible. Until some clarity about what is abuse and how to wake up to it when you’re in the midst of it is achieved, I really don’t see how it is safe for a lot of people to share here.

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  • Thanks Margie and bpd for your kind words and support. Truly, bpd, I’m totally fine, not down personally, but definitely concenred about a few things here.

    This entire dialogue has turned abusive and compltely unacceptable to me, as I wish it were to others. Ironically enough, this is precisely what I call systemic abuse and oppression! No way I will support this, nor further play a role in this online social system.

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  • Thank you, Margie, I appreciate that very much. I also notice that personal attacks on some are more tolerated than on others. It’s a rabiit hole.

    I believe a lot of truth has come to light, here, so I actually feel fine and pretty clear now, actually. Disappointed in MIA, no doubt, but I’m not attached. I’ve been at this for a long time, even before MIA, so I’m really used to these dynamics. I’m a bit taken aback at how deeply entrenched they are, at all cost.

    I was sad, however, as you say, when I wrote that post. It never feels good to be attacked for being open; and for sure, when there is no one censoring it, and seemingly by selection, in a community. Hmmm, reminds me of my childhood, go figure. At least this time it was only virtual, so I can get on with things now.

    Well, I guess I’m complete. Thanks again, Margie, you allowed me good closure, on a high note. Woo hoooo! 🙂

    Humanbeing, wow, what can I say? I really sorry I upset you so much! Whew, I certainly don’t want that to happen again.

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  • One last thing before I force myself to sit on my hands for a while as I simply read (or not). And I apologize in advance for any crowding, but I admit I feel double-bound all over the place here, which is fine, I’ve learned how to be Houdini in multiple-double binding after all is said and done. It grows me.

    But in reference to ‘being on the defensive,’ the one thing that I feel I’ve repeatedly been put in the position of doing on MIA is defending my character. I’ve disclosed all of myself here in over 4 years of posting, been extremely on my sleeve and authentic, feel I’ve grown thanks to all these interesting discussions, shared my film and some found it of value, others out and out dogged it–which is fine to have an opinion and give feedback, but the level of sheer cold insensitivity and dismissive-ness has been somewhat staggering and at first, so surprising because I felt this of all places people would kind of get it, and would want to work together.

    Instead, I found myself more under ‘hot lights’ than I care to say, and I was really taken aback by this at first. Then I got used to it, and learned to better navigate such a complex community. In the process, I’ve made some friends, and have also pissed some people off, which is fine, of course, that happens in life.

    But I thought that the common ‘enemy’ in here was the mental health system and the practices of psychiatry, and that we were out for social justice and an equal voice to all. After all, the bottom line in the mental health system is that we have no voice, period, and anything we say is turned directly against us—aka hot lights. I thought that was appalling and traumatic when I got it, and having to disentangle from all that was exactly like de-programming from a cult. I know what that is like, too, I’ve had that experience, which was the same as de-programming from family beliefs, etc., so that we can find our true voice. I thought the entire mental health world was a cult, all of it, inside and out, from school to advocacy and everything else in between.

    I felt that turning the attention to gender here powerfully detracted from the bigger picture. Do I not have a right to say this? Is this not a perfectly sound and reasonable thing to simply put on the table? The rest of the time, all I did was clarify, clarify, clarify, but it all seemed to boil down to the same response. “You’re being defensive!” Yadayada. And then outright personally attacked…which, whatever, but there it is.

    My point is that after such intense involvement with MIA, I am so incredibly disillusioned and disheartened and downright in a bit of grief over how divisive this community and efforts continue to be, and it feels rather cut-throat and downright nasty to me. What I’d call “A bad vibe.”

    In addition to become friends with, I have also worked professionally with many people in here, and these have been meaningful and fruitful relationships for me, on all levels. Not all have felt the same with me, but many have. That seems par for the course in life, and you all know how I value you, I’m on my sleeve about that, as well as whatever else. That’s who I am, and around here, I thought that eventually, after getting to know me, I’d feel as though I’d fit in. And guess what? I don’t!

    I feel so alien in here, just like I did in every other facet of the “mental health community” yet I do not feel that way in the world at large at all! I have more shared lived experience of social and medical trauma with people in this community, and yet I am told so many things about myself that I know full well are not true, and this is exactly what made me crazy in the mental health system, like everyone here talks about constantly. Doesn’t make me crazy any longer, but it’s never a nice feeling, and it always takes away from the issues at hand! It’s just incredibly ironic, and to me, extremely flagrant. Talk about generational abuse, jeez…

    Yet, the world no longer makes me feel this way, I learned how to transform all of that. Perhaps that was my error in judgment in here. That is what seems to not go over well with this crowd. I don’t know, it’s confusing, but certainly interesting to sit with and get clarity on, which is what I’m going to do. It’s what I love to do, in fact, experience life, then make some kind of sense out of it, in exactly the way that works for me, which is a generous reality, because I love sharing love. That’s my creative process.

    I’m here as a volunteer, purely, I have no stake in this. I’ve been told all these years that my voice is of value here, but I feel this is a mixed message. So I’m fine humbly stepping back, really. I no longer am doing this for myself, other than to feel good about giving back.

    But this, by no means, feels good in that way. My life is the world around me, which I love and cherish, and am grateful for that daily, after the long period of suffering I endured, which I thought at one time could be permanent. Thank God it was not, it is 100% behind me. I’m sorry this does not ring as hopeful for some, and I am so very sorry for the suffering of so many.

    Given the level of disillusionment I feel with this community, which in all honestly I find expressly and terminally cold, I’m fortunate to have nature around me so robustly, and a really good life. Which is all I wish for everyone. And I know some believe they cannot have that, and for that…well, I respect anyone’s choices and beliefs.

    I’ll stop here, not much else I can articulate now, this is all present time for me. I do appreciate everyone’s spirit, always regardless of where we stand on issues or even how we address each other. I just wish you all could see it in each other!

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  • And, perhaps you’re right. It’s probably time for a hiatus. I feel pretty complete with my own issues here, so I guess I’m done with all of this. The days are getting shorter and so is my stamina, along with that. A holiday retreat sound like just what the doctor ordered, so to speak.

    I’ve said this before and I end up getting drawn back in, because I thought I could be helpful and supportive to others. But for sure, I don’t want to for others to feel “crowded out,” by me, as everyone’s voice matters here. I’m sure this is a blessing and good guidance for me, I’ve been saturated with all of this for too long now and I’m sure it will do me a world of good to detach at this time. I feel good about that.

    So thanks for being completely authentic with me, humanbeing. It works! We are ALL on a journey, doing the best we can, this I know. I wish you many blessings and good healing.

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  • I’m not sure what you mean by this, humanbeing. I’ve read the article a number of times and I’ve been present with the discussion. If I’ve done anything unwittingly devious or have said anything offensive to anyone, I am truly sorry. I feel I have been straightforward and respectful; although this is an activist community, so I don’t see the point in walking on eggshells. I am direct and my intention is always to be as clear as possible. And I feel I am sensitive when it is called for. I’m never out to hurt anyone, as most people are not, I would hope.

    But Sera’s articles are often challenging, which is a good thing, we are challenged to think and find our truth around such issues. “Challenge’ becomes the catch phrase here, and I feel if we can dish it out, we should be able to take it, as well. Again, we are activists–a role which is not for the faint of heart.

    But sometimes perspectives conflict, which is always an excellent opportunity for everyone to get more clarity through good dialogue, which is healing for all concerned.

    However, whenever the response to most of what I say is, You this and you that, and you’re feeling this and you’re saying that, etc., I not only consider this to be not only an extreme violation of personal space and highly presumptuous, but I also consider it to be counter- productive to dialogue for the purpose of achieving universal clarity. Instead, it becomes more of a battle of the egos and wills, everyone out to prove themselves right while attacking the credibility of those who question or disagree. Power, power, power, that’s the goal. That is standard in society, and I see the exact same thing playing out here. Kind of frustrating, considering that this does nothing for those who are suffering now.

    I’m just one small individual voice, here, offering my perspective, from my experience in life, as is everyone else, I’m guessing. I feel I can balance my personal experience with what I’ve observed around me throughout my decades of living life and soaking it all in. At least in this discussion, I’ve felt clear in my truth at all times, while hearing others. I get that we’re talking about a generations-old trend of patriarchy which is still alive and well in many ways, but I feel that calling out misogyny exclusively blatantly excludes men who have suffered from such victimization, and in fact, seems to suggest how they/we should behave. I don’t agree with that focus as a way to achieving cohesion in community.

    I hear that not being a woman, I cannot understand this kind of oppression. And I say, being a survivor of the mental health system makes this statement entirely false.

    I’ve discussed these issues of gender and inequality with tons of people over the years, I’m familiar with them. Although we never got stuck on defining ‘sexism,’ and making it one-sided issue.

    I’m not clear on why this discussion has deteriorated into personal battles and insidious attacks, although it does seem par for the course around here. I felt this discussion was rife with possibilities for healing a big split in society, and which exists here in this community in many forms of duality. We have the opportunity to perceive and discuss from a variety of perspectives, feelings, observations, and personal life experiences, and yet, many of these are invalidated and dismissed–or what you did, to tell me what I’ve read or haven’t read, and to tell me what I’m doing wrong. I could get this from my own parents, thank you. That also seems to be the case way more often than not around here.

    I’m just saying, as an observer and participant, this is my perspective. Who else would it be about, if not me? I’m by no means isolated in the world, so perhaps others might share this perspective. Who knows? In any case, it’s my truth. Unless this is a cult, I would hope that my truth is honored around here. After all, I’m a survivor of psychiatric abuse, in many forms.

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  • Indeed, there is only so much people are willing to take before the gasket blows. Personal freedom vs. maniacal need for power is an age old battle, but hopefully we are more resourceful now and grounded in new awareness. Still, those buggers don’t give up without a fight, so it’s good to keep our sleeves rolled up for a while. This is one helluva battle going on!

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  • Whatever anyone feels “mental illness” is or is not, believing that there is no healing from this must make a lot of people deathly afraid of discovering their own mental confusion and darkness. We all have this aspect to ourselves, it is not a select population, it is universal.

    Pessimism means lack of hope, which, to my mind, is a precursor to the darkness of life. Good luck with that…

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  • Thanks, I’ve appreciate all of what you’ve offered. Again, I’m not feeling defensive, as I have nothing to feel I have to defend. I answered a lot of your questions directly and I found some of them to be irrelevant, misleading, and suggestive in a pejorative way. My truth is my truth, and I’m more than comfortable in it. My life works just fine, I’m happy and settled in it. I’m not as invested in convincing you of anything as you seem to be in convincing me to your way of thinking. In this endeavor, I have to say, I’ve found you to be rather relentless! Cheers.

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  • Oldhead, obviously I hit a nerve in you. I really don’t want to be perpetually on the defensive, so I’m going to end my part of the discussion at this time. I believe I’ve shared generously from where I’m coming. You are free to disagree with me, not at all a problem for me. But I don’t see the value for myself in continuing this, as this is not at all my idea of productive dialogue. Thank you for sharing your perspective and opinions. Best wishes.

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  • Darn, sorry oldhead, I replied to your post above this thread by error. Yep, it’s confusing. In the thread directly above this (I hope), I’m responding to this, where I say I’ll sit with it all:

    “Gay or not you are still male, and by definition you have not experienced sexism at the hands of women. You may consider homophobia a form of sexism, which is another discussion, but the examples you have used so far have all seemed to be in support of your claim that women can be sexist.”

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  • Ok, oldhead, I’ll sit with this and see what I learn from what you’ve expressed to me, here.

    True, I am a man, so I cannot know the internal experience of a woman, just as a woman cannot know the internal experience of a man.

    But I do know intimately the internal workings of an oppressed group. And not really because of my sexual orientation, that was minor compared to what I experienced as a temporarily disabled person, thanks to psych drugging and social trauma due to blatant stigma and discrimination. I had to use a lot of my inner resources to combat all of this on a health, and on a legal level. I succeeded at both, and got over it, for all practical purposes, and got on with my life completely. But it sure did wake me up.

    I am not versed on the academic subject of ‘sexism,’ I only know what my life has led me to believe through my experience. Language keeps getting protested and as a result, it changes as often as these tech upgrades keep coming at us, one after another after another. I can’t keep up with either. I rely on getting the heart and spirit of what someone says, rather than trying to analyze the language, that gets kind of cumbersome and distracting for me, and I think it strays from the heart of the discussion.

    I have new experiences daily, so I learn more and more as time goes on, and my perspective and beliefs can shift along with that, if it feels true to me to make this kind of shift. I’ll see where I am led on the topic of ‘sexism.’

    But regarding extreme social oppression leading to all sorts of suffering and precariously vulnerable situations, I know all about that. It’s exactly what led me to this website over 4 years ago. Finally, others who got it.

    I almost lost my life to all of this, because of this, came dangerously close!

    But, it turns out, regardless of the fact that my experiences jive with the majority on here regarding the “mental health” system and its tangents, I’m not in agreement with a lot of the general beliefs about life here in this community.

    I would never consider myself a feminist, nor a misogynist, primarily because these are just more labels, and I really do hate being labeled as ANYTHING. I feel that only leads to stigmatizing someone, because you can never really know a person until you walk around in their skin. That goes for everyone 100%.

    I can be many things, depending on what the occasion calls for, I’m by no means perfect and not without my own paradox. But I will say with certainty that I am always honest, authentic, and transparent, no aces up my sleeve in any way. I’m straightforward and straight up. You can call me anything you want, and I’ll decide whether or not it is truth.

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  • “The schizophrenia diagnosis gets put on anyone who is not “normal” enough. It’s entirely subjective and can be abused to violate people’s rights. It is often “used as a weapon by physicians or the legal or political system against individuals who are different, sound strange, or are nonconforming.”

    I agree with this statement entirely.

    And furthermore, I’d say that those who are deemed ‘different’ in this way are perhaps in some manner, through their own process, guiding society at large to change, and pretty radically, from what it seems. Status quo would naturally resist, because it calls for a new belief system.

    I’ve known a lot of people who have had all sorts of diagnoses and have lived really frustrated and feeling stuck because of these labels and all that goes with them. Whereas I’ve found some of the most brilliant minds and kind, empathic hearts among this group–and not only that, also quite tuned in and awake.

    The suffering inevitably comes from the stigma attached to these labels, and the maltreatment people receive as a result, medically and socially. Trauma, purely, and it internalizes until addressed in healing. So much mountainous frustration happens here, makes one’s head spin and heart sink into utter despair.

    Were it not for this, and we were to accept people and their process for whom and what they are while taking responsibility for our own experience of that, without generalizing it outwardly projected onto others as a ‘malady’ or ‘disorder’ of some kind, then I believe that not only would suffering be greatly reduced, but also, we’d evolve into a much more tolerant, diverse, and truly multi-dimensional society.

    Those we marginalize bring a lot of sorely needed gifts to society, without a doubt. It is a vital perspective to know and be heard. Deep understanding, I think.

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  • “Men are not oppressive as a reaction to women’s oppression, it’s a learned behavior based on institutions we have been brought up under.”

    So unlearn it. That’s what we do with all our social programming. We can rewrite this stuff, that’s a component of healing. We know it’s false, so don’t live by it. See the world differently, through fresh eyes, rather than programmed and learned from an unjust and bullying society.

    “What you describe as “oppressive” behavior by women “angry at patriarchy” sounds more lie a reaction to sexism, not an ingrained trait.”

    First of all, it is either learned or inherent, cannot be both. I don’t believe men are born oppressive, that would be a good example of stigmatizing generalization, that ALL men are inherently oppressive. I don’t believe that to be true whatsoever.

    Still, even if we’re talking about a learned false belief vs. a reaction to sexism (or any kind of discrimination), that would make no never mind to me. In either case, I’d discourage it greatly in favor of ascending this power struggle to heal this malignant duality in which we’ve unwittingly set ourselves up.

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  • “Incidentally, Nurse Rachet is commonly acknowledged as a sexist misrepresentation of the true psychiatric oppressors.”

    Not in my experience! It was spot on. I knew plenty of them.

    Oppression is generational, until one brave soul stands up to it, front and center to begin to diffuse it. When it is systemic, it takes time because it goes through many players. I believe many of us have done this already, called out systemic abuse in the face of it. It’s a daunting task, but the more that do take that risk, the freer we become as a society.

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  • “These things are hard to discuss until you define your terms, e.g. “oppression,” victimization,” & “gender stigma.”

    Oldhead, these are common and literal terms, used constantly within the context of these discussions. I believe the spirit of them is clear. It’s not up to any of us to judge or decide for others what is stigmatizing, oppressive, or victimizing in any way. That is blatant disregard of another, and all-too-common in the psychiatric world.

    I believe–at least it would be my hope–that we’re all talking about how to achieve equity, fairness and justice among ALL human beings, at the core. I’d hope every discussion of a social justice seeking community would boil down to this.

    This particular blog deals directly with inequality and oppression. Why not consider it from all perspectives of all oppressed people? Which would include a helluva lot of people, don’t you think? Of all genders and sexual identities, races, ethnicities, all people who experience labeling, disability, poverty, marginalization, etc. Like a diverse community with diverse voices, maybe? Just a thought.

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  • “However, if you are a man you have not experienced blatant sexism, unless it was empathetic.”

    Be careful when you tell someone what they have or have not experienced, oldhead. I believe that is out of bounds and inherently irrelevant, as we try to tell clinicians from their practice of telling others what their experience is or is not, over the client’s own voice.

    I’m a very out and married Gay man who lives in an oppressively male dominated society. Do the math.

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  • Truth in Psychiatry, thanks, I definitely see your point and I do appreciate your discernment between individual abuse and systemic stigma/oppression, and what the point is, here. I felt that balance was needed, however, and what I talk about is pervasive enough in mental health care and social services, where from my experience, the vast majority of staff were women and a large percentage of the clientele was men, particularly in the middle age range (40-60). So I feel that discrimination against men has become a system cultural phenomenon now in that world. I’d like to not see this spread, as though it were fair, because I don’t feel it is.

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  • What did Nurse Ratchet do to her patient when she could not control him? She reminded him that he feared his mother.

    I think she was based on a real character, or perhaps a composite, but I don’t think this scenario is fiction. While I will very respectfully reconsider how I use that word in this context, I do feel it is a tool commonly used for oppression in a sexist way.

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  • I’m not sure what ‘sidelining’ is, but honestly, I was just following the conversation and responding in ways that felt relevant to me. I’ll back off, however, and let the discussion unfold without me. I’ve said plenty and don’t want to get in over my head, here. All interesting stuff, though, and extremely relevant to social healing, imo. Thanks for the valuable feedback, humanbeing.

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  • Thanks, Sera, I appreciate your putting this on the table. I agree with your analysis completely. I had to address my own issues and dynamics around this since I come from very oppressive and bullying group dynamics, myself, I talk quite a bit about how the patriarchal hierarchy is what led me to seek mental health evaluation in the first place. I state this clearly in my film.

    So I had to scourge myself of what I had internalized and, in fact, do healing work to rewire my neural pathways out of chronic victim thinking and identity, and shift most of my self-beliefs as well as my beliefs about the reality of our society and the world at large. As you might imagine, that was a big core transformation, like a personal pole shift.

    My entire thesis of ‘mental illness’ is based on toxic power dynamics that can drive people to insanity because they are perpetually questioning their reality and never aligning with their own personal truth, because they are vulnerable to it being dismissed, disregarded, and/or demeaned. It’s a hard truth, and I know that most of us have been through all this, and have, indeed, needed to strongly assert ourselves in order to validate our own powerful voices.

    Interesting how in that process, comes the name calling–narcissist and the like, etc.,–which is yet another hurdle in healing from social trauma. In fact, it drives the healing, I think, because it is one’s opportunity to own one’s truth and newfound self-confidence, without sinking back down to that level of conflict and defensiveness. That’s an opportunity to stop caring what others think, which is where we find personal freedom from psychic oppression. We are vulnerable when we only look for approval, and I imagine that is rampant here, too.

    I remember when outside approval was everything to me, or I’d be crushed, blaming myself for being or doing whatever or not being or doing whatever. Of course, it’s easy to trace this back to never feeling I could get the approval I craved as a child; although looking back now, I did get plenty of validation.

    But there was a lot of trauma distorting my interpretation and limiting what I was willing to remember, to an all or nothing reality, which was not entirely the case, although it was powerful enough to punch a hole in my psyche for which I searched outwardly for it’s filling.

    In truth, it was only my own voice which could fill this gap, which was up to me to find, connect with, and use without apology. So again, I agree with the importance of owning and asserting our voices.

    Our guidance is found in our own truth, not in the truth of others. I think that’s where a lot of confusion happens, as well as power differentials.

    There is so much humility and healing in searching for our own truth; and, to my mind, the more that a society’s members can dedicated themselves to embodying their own personal truth and allow that to evolve as they walk their own personal path, rather than going by that of others’, whomever they are, then the more that our society, ripped apart by dueling realities, will heal into one of unconditional respect, putting us smack dab on the path to unity.

    So in here, given what you say about the pendulum swinging in the other direction, where power becomes, perhaps, an addiction after having experienced such powerlessness, we have an opportunity to bring this into balance, for the sake of everyone’s mental health, as related to a larger society. This is where the healing can happen because it is present time, moment to moment; and that is where the charge is, and the opportunity for healing to occur.

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  • “…it is only through our own humility and willingness to step out of power roles and create the space to be human that this can ever be healed.”

    This is such a beautiful statement, Steve, and I couldn’t agree more. Giving ourselves permission to be human allows us to extend it outward. In addition, when we allow ourselves to be in our enlightenment and to own it rightfully, we can extend this outward, as well, and see each others’ spirits as well as each others’ humanism, with full respect and honor, rather than fear and resentment. I believe this crosses all gender and class lines. Indeed, this would be healing such illusions of duality. Thanks, always, for your deep wisdom.

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  • Same thing happened to me, although I was never threatened; but I felt ganged up on by group think, that’s for sure. I keep going, though, because it serves my own growth and healing, and my own personal activism, as long as I don’t let myself get drained by the inevitable pitfalls of social activism. But I do understand the need to separate from it, at times, for the purpose of self-care.

    I’m male, however, so I’m not sure if it’s inherently a gender issue, but, I’m thinking now, more one of personality and a quest for power, then becoming drunk with it. I experienced this quite a bit going through the system, across the gender board, and I found it repeated when I started doing activism work.

    I believe this is to overcompensate for deeply embedded internal feelings of powerlessness–to which I feel we can all relate on some level– and when not owned and addressed responsibly, is what leads to bullying systems, imo, such as what I feel the mental health system is, for starters, just by analyzing the social and professional dynamics of it.

    I don’t feel bullying is done successfully by one person alone, it is the group think and blind loyalty of a community which makes it effective, and potentially dangerous to the psyche. I believe this comes from the need “to belong,” which is what disempowers us, because we end up giving our power to others, and allowing the community to dictate our thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

    Yes, it would be nice if this particular dynamic were to heal in this activism. Otherwise, it is no example to anyone, and this is how change is made, when we live the example of our talk. After all, oppressive professional hypocrisy is what we are addressing continuously.

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  • “Grof’s work, however, is so far ahead of anything else out there.”

    This is an interesting statement to me, Sean. I went to CIIS and Grof was certainly considered a ‘guru’ by a lot of people. Yet, no one was able to apply his work in a grounded and practical way. I understand your work is to do just that, which makes me interested to know more.

    In addition, I was able to heal fully from a long period of disabling mental illness, taking a spiritual and energetic perspective, by combining a variety of schools of thought and applying these specifically to my personal issues, as related to the universality of our being-ness, a network of energies converging into my own internal emotional guidance toward personal internal shifts which ended up changing my outer reality into something copacetic to who I am. That was the healing, to become in synch with my reality and environment, in a way that is real and authentic to me, no compromise of fitting into a ‘box.’ I simply gave myself permission ‘to be’ as I naturally am. That’s inner guidance and self-respect.

    What I discovered was that my ‘mental illness’ was the result of being in the ‘wrong’ community, at least for me it was not copacetic–that is, a community which did not speak to my soul, but instead, which resisted it. That drives people to insanity, until they realize through awakening that it is not them who are crazy, but the world around them is making them feel that way. It is a crazy-making world we live in.

    Shift that reality with consciousness, and you’re in a different game, one where the playing field is level, because it is based on conscious choice, and not victimization.

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  • This is beautiful. I like the idea of radical self-responsibility as the way to heal the root of issues.

    What I discovered as I healed from years of family, social, and medical abuse–until I woke up to how this all works–is that every physical symptom and imbalance I had was due exclusively to toxic relationships, by my not realizing how my energy was getting drained over and over by extreme narcissists.

    This is a recent revelation to me, narcissistic abuse. It’s insidious and horrendous, and it lingers ambiguously in our energy systems, and to my mind, in virtually every cell of our bodies. From experience, I know this to be an extremely irritating and chronically triggering internal dynamic, to have been on the receiving end of disenfranchisement, second class citizenship, and all that this social disadvantage entails. It made me good and sick on all levels, spiritually, emotionally, and physically.

    It was impossible to combat effectively without awakening to the social dynamics as they really were–which was waking up to hard truths–because it creates an internal loop of doubt, fear, and self-sabotage. So any healing advancements are quickly reduced to illusions, because our neurons take us to defeatism, from habit. I imagine this would wreak havoc on our cells, and even cause them to develop abnormally.

    Ever since I recognized this internal vibration I’d been carrying around, from being raised by and then having tried to argue with very narcissistic, un-empathic, and even rather sociopathic people, I was able to connect this with a flurry of physical symptoms I’d experienced for a while. As I rewrote all of that as healing, and since I’ve learned to better discern about the situations I’m walking into, I have felt this internal stress lifting, and along with it, my body has healed from all that had been ailing it.

    In fact, I’m 54, take no medications for anything, and I haven’t needed to see a doctor in almost a decade. I discovered that we self-heal when we heal our spirits from chronic wounding. As long as I self-care emotionally and spiritually, my body reacts by self-healing. I learned just how influential our emotions, attitude, and outlook are to our physical cells. That gives me a lot of power in my own healing and control over my life, in general, to know this.

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  • Margie, I’d have to know their side of the story, too, to form an opinion about what you say. Often, the two stories conflict quite a it, and the client was not really quite as out of it as has been described by staff.

    And in fact, there is something to which they are responding in the moment, which feels very unsafe, threatening, and oppressively dehumanizing, and which is not a delusion, as Katie implies.

    It’s impossible to tell simply from your testimonial. I’d have to actually witness the scene. I have, many times, and it is the staff version which is highly distorted. Just to be fair to the client, ya know?

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  • Exactly spot on what I see, too, Katie. This is why I say that the stigma is actually what is causing all the messiness, here, because it is inherent. I don’t see stigma as being altogether eradicated any time soon, but for sure, we can all own that we perceive through filters, that is human. And when we find ourselves judging, best to own it rather to be in denial of it, otherwise the universe will humble us, one way or another, and that can smite a bit. I think it’s a matter of self-awareness and owning our energy graciously.

    “Never recognizing negative feedback to the threatening vibes they (clinicians) exude; never owning their own personal judgement of the *patient* as central to the disintegrating phenomenon that supports their choosing to control rather than support a *patient*– .”

    The way I was trained by energy healers, we are taught that when there is something violent outside ourselves, that means there is something violent inside ourselves, for us to address within our own self-introspection. That is basic energy consciousness and simple self-responsibility. Boundaries for safety and peace of mind are totally reasonable and healthy, of course, but still, I firmly believe that what is inside of us is created outside of us. When we actually take this in and get it, that shifts the power in these clinical relationships.

    When a client becomes angry with me, which is perfectly allowed as long as we can still dialogue about it without power struggling and draining all energy, I know right away that they are responding to my energy, even though I may feel as though I’m being completely clear and reasonable.

    But clients come to me with issues, and I know I’m going to trigger than at one point or another, maybe right away. When that happens, that is MY opportunity for healing, as well as theirs if they choose to own their anger. But what is entirely in my control is ME, not them. Were I to make it all about them, I’d be scapegoating them and not taking any responsibility for myself.

    That is reinforcing trauma by overburdening a client with my issues. For most people, that’s simply a repeat of childhood family dysfunction. As a result, we grow up with a lot of confusion about to whom we are actually most responsible, when, in reality, I think it should be to ourselves. I don’t expect a client to behave in a way that keeps me comfortable, what on earth would be the point of that? There’s no healing or change without rocking the boat a bit. Healers need to know how to be present, grounded, and mindful in chaos, that’s called for in healing. It’s a practice, we’re all human. But a healing space is sacred, there is a contract here.

    This perspective works well for me because I think it is most respectful to any and all clients, while keeping my own boundaries clear; and it also brings me better and better experiences, because I’m healing and growing as I go along, taking full responsibility for what I’m feeling, and not making the client responsible for my comfort level.

    Although I do practice boundaries and am extremely respectful of others in this regard, which I feel is a healthy model of self-compassion.

    This was the biggest difference between the psychology world and the energy healing world, and how to work with clients. I preferred learning about how my energy influences my own experience, while others have their own experience. This gives a client permission to grow through their process, and not some medicated version of it. That’s my preference and opinion, in any event.

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  • “Not every psychiatrist, certainly, and not every therapist or licensed MH professional CAN support a person experiencing severe mental states without drugs– That should be noted well before saying that *not everyone* can come through psychosis safely w/o drugs– . The important message for the public is that seeking psychiatric treatment for first episode psychosis means you will not likely get the chance to come through safely without drugs–.”

    This rings true to me. The discrepancy in the perspectives here is regarding who is the one limited–the client who is deemed as the one “needing” drugs or the psychiatrist who is unable to relate to a client who is not on psych drugs. Personally, on an intuitive level, I’d say the latter would be most likely be true. I think often, the limitations and confusion of the clinician are easily projected onto the client. This is where things get stuck and go downhill, imo, because of these false and stigmatizing projections. Narcissistic abuse is very real for the client, and quite prevalent in 1:1 private practice. Please let’s not forget that, I think it’s a vital issue here, and why psych drugs are so often the crutch for psychiatrists.

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  • This blog and discussion regarding the root(s) of depression has really made me think quite a bit about all of this. I know one thing for certain—whether I’m feeling prone to depression vs. feeling good and upbeat can vary quite a bit from moment to moment, depending on around whom I choose to hang around. So I make it a priority now to refine my discernment among people and communities. Made me think of a quote I remember seeing quite a bit back in the day when I was on Facebook:

    “Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounding yourself with assholes.” Anonymous

    Then I found this video on YouTube about ‘narcissism’ that really rang true. It’s pretty hard-core and direct, just fyi, might be a trigger for some people, so I wanted to give a heads up. From my experience and so much of what I’ve read on this website alone, this seems quite relevant on many levels, particularly in the struggles with confronting the mental health system/industrial complex–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUvmWYWblnc

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  • Yes, exactly, we are set up this way from the get go, to struggle against our own nature. Aside from depression, it leads to all sorts of imbalance, distortions of self and reality, and a generally unhealthy society. Adapting has meant dissociating, becoming depressed, consciousness splitting, medicating, denial, dependence, etc.

    How can we not conclude, then, that if we are serious about actually resolving these issues of internal and external splitting, distress, and conflict, our entire social landscape needs to shift radically?

    We need a new way of living. The current one seems to be responsible for what we are calling ‘mental illness.’ I’m looking for pioneers with whom to create a new reality.

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  • “…the forgotten art of doing nothing at all for months on end.”

    Love this. When we go against nature, we are bound to become depressed. Our industrialized, over-achieving, and overly complicated, bureaucratic society has taken us far, far away from ourselves. Doing nothing for months on end is how we can connect to ourselves and to nature, our natural rhythm. That is uplifting, the opposite of depression. It also aligns us mind/body/spirit–the opposite of ‘dissociation.’

    Although in today’s society, we’re kind of in a double bind, here. How can we survive without doing anything other than meditating and communing with nature? How on Earth can this be reconciled?

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  • I’m glad you like that quote, Stephen. Ever since I started living by that– which I do, entirely–my process has cleaned up considerably, from complicated and effort-filled to one of simplicity and ease. Much more direct way of manifesting, that’s for sure! And it’s much easier on the mind and body.

    John, you’re right, I really like this perspective. It shows us that we have the tools, internally, to heal any propensity to become depressed over life circumstances. Not being familiar with her work, I checked out the link and read this blurb on Depression: The Way Out of Your Prison (2003):

    “Depression is the experience of a terrible isolation, of being alone in a prison. But by understanding how we build the prison of depression we can dismantle it forever. Dorothy Rowe gives us a way of understanding depression, allowing us to take charge of our lives. She shows it is not an illness requiring drugs but a defence we use to hold ourselves together when we feel our lives falling apart.”

    A defense, I imagine, based on the belief(s) that things will not be ok, that we are losing something or that we have something to fear or feel shame about, followed by what have I done wrong? am I bad? and on and on.

    I believe there are other options as a response to life’s challenges and calamities, antithetical to projecting fear and self-blame. Rather than feeling defensive, worried, fearful, or worse yet, deserving of bad things, we can always choose to take really good care of ourselves, which might include seeking safe and trustworthy support, while, more than anything, seeing where it all leads from moment to moment, as opposed to projecting some big life black hole coming up, which can paralyze us with fear.

    That certainly needn’t be the case, and we do create self-fulfilling prophecies, so I’d take the time to shift beliefs such as these, I think it’s worth doing that kind of internal work, to align with more empowering beliefs about ourselves. Then, life challenges become more interesting rather than something to fear and feel badly about. I think of them as guidance, under any and all circumstances.

    I think what is most depressing is believing that we have no control over our lives, whereas, really, we do. Finding our power is what comes from feeling powerless. We always have the power of perspective, that is inherent in everyone, and on one can take it away from us.

    Although it can be hindered by social programming. So one solution to depression would be to deprogram from false and misleading beliefs that have created the illusions of our society. I think without those filters, we’d have a much clearer picture of reality that wouldn’t be nearly as scary and depressing as the one in which we operate now. That’s my feeling, in any event.

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  • Oh wow, that’s interesting. I’ve not read much Jung, hadn’t heard this. Rings true, though, about madness and drowning in the unconscious. Change happens through perspective, not by changing what is outside of us. That only comes from our internal changes. Going from drowning to swimming would be a matter of shifting perspective. That changes our worlds, inner and outer.

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  • I think ‘depression’ has a lot to do with perspective. For one person, losing a job, spouse, and when things fall apart in general, it can lead to depression if we take it all as something we did wrong or something being done to us, etc., and if we deny our emotional response to these things, mostly out of self-judgment, I think.

    But some people know that this is the sign of a transition happening, and, even though these separations and losses do cause pain, in the end, they know the pain is human and temporary, and it will not break them; and they actually can become eventually excited about the prospect of evolving forward, even though it may involve some grief and letting go. That is great change happening, which are passages in life.

    If we swim in our emotions rather than drowning in them, we tend to not get depressed, because everything that happens has some kind of meaning to us, regarding our life path, and is not as random as we might be inclined to believe. That’s what I think, and what works for me, in any event.

    I can get depressed from time to time, if I think too much about the suffering in the world, but it’s always fleeting in favor of all the ways that I’ve used all that I’ve learned along my journey to help create healing and change. That keeps me from sinking altogether into any kind of chronic depression, and in fact, keeps me quite a bit in perpetual joy, which is preferable, to say the least.

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  • “…every human being, from womb to tomb, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, always wrestles with overwhelming, life-threatening mental and emotional challenges.”

    I think your work is beyond amazing, Mr. Oaks, and I admire you greatly. But that statement above is not my world. I believe we have many passages in life where we wrestle with tough issues, but I also believe many people get multiple and long-term reprieves from this. Otherwise, we suffer chronically.

    I think life teaches us to view experience from different perspectives as we go along, and this can change our relationship to the harder issues in life, to where they are more emotionally manageable when they come along. I’d like to think there is a learning curve here, so we are not doomed to a life of 24/7 “inner wrestling.” I’d like to believe that inner peace is possible, and a potential reality for anyone that desires to achieve it.

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  • I think conditional love from the mother can be insidiously traumatic, and creates internalized feelings of lack of safety, splitting mixed messages, and the belief that we always have to live up to someone else’s expectations, which is a bottomless well of dependence and resentment.

    It also can create this dynamic of always giving our power over to others, by habit or compulsion, because this is what many are taught to do, out of fear. Unfortunately, I think it’s pretty epidemic. Unconditional love is a rare commodity these days.

    But if we want safety, clarity, grounding, self-nurturing, and well-being, I don’t think it’s going to come from conditional love–that is, “I will (act as though I) love you as long as what you do and who you are make me feel good about myself.”

    That’s an impossibly tall order, yet I believe that, at least covertly, it is the message put out there in a lot of cases. It was helpful to me when I noticed this was true about my own upbringing, which had caused me a lot of anxiety and confusion in the world. Then I could re-write that false belief that my life was not my own. Of course it is. The only approval I need is mine and those with whom I lovingly share my life, and that is by choice and permission on my part.

    My expectation of myself is now the standard by which I measure my life experience. That was more healing, clarifying, and calming than I can say to realize this, and to start living it as truth.

    Indeed, my mother has had to adjust, and it’s been hard for her. But she’s hanging in there, bless her heart. That’s *her* healing and personal growth.

    I do love her unconditionally, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy for me to be around her, nor does it mean that she can get away with being demeaning and controlling. Probably why we live 3000 miles apart. But we definitely maintain a relationship. I’m just really good at setting boundaries with her now, something that led to having hell to pay when I was a kid. Who was I to have boundaries, and with my mother of all people?? She’s had to learn to accept that this has changed. Good for her!

    When I finally got grounded and clear after a long period of disability and confusion, the rest of the family had choices to make, because the play had changed, along with my character, whether they liked it or not. Most got on board, one can’t handle the shift. And so it goes…

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  • I like how you put this, Dr. B., I think it clarifies and rings true. I also feel pretty certain that you realize so many of us have been so very violated in psychotherapy, and in my case, I can see how the education can provide a skewed view of humanity, personality types, etc. quite fraught with judgment and duality. There is a lot of very judgmental blaming that, if not overt, is quite present in subtle but powerful ways in the world of psychotherapy and social services. I sense strongly that this is not from where you are coming.

    I’ve always liked your theater of consciousness metaphor, and agree with how you talk about following the story and mourning trauma–as long as this process transmutes that trauma story into one of personal enlightenment, leading to freedom from post traumatic stress in favor of finding meaning and purpose to the experience, and releasing resentment, so the healing process can make us feel whole again. I think it’s about feeling better, more than anything, relief from the stress of post trauma.

    In Shamanic terms, I’d equate this with ‘soul retrieval.” I think when we suffer from post traumatic stress, we are looking for a part of our spirit that became wounded, for the purpose of healing that wound.

    I especially like this statement: “People suffer because of how they adapt to trauma.” I agree, we can carry it a variety of ways, and it makes all the difference in how we feel, and in our experience of life.

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  • As far as language, with all due respect to you, Julie, I am going to continue using that word here because to me, it is universal, and not from the psychology world. I’m not sure what word would work for you–maybe ‘personal space?’ Something like that. But I take it from what you write that you get the spirit of what I mean, that translates into simply respect and conscientiousness, as well as self-compassion (over guilt) when I set them with others.

    I do agree with you that boundaries are learned, and we often learn by trial and error. I do think boundaries value from culture to culture, including family cultures, and are different socially than professionally.

    And you’re right, it is our experiences in life which teach us, and we all screw up with this. That’s one powerful learning tool, our own mistakes. I believe it is a lifetime practice and we refine as we go along, give ourselves that learning curve.

    I didn’t learn this in psychology, though. In fact, the issues of boundaries were sorely missing. I felt that boundaries were constantly violated, that this was part of the education. I’m not a big fan of ‘working in transference,’ as I feel this perpetuates an illusion. I know how it is supposed to work, but I feel it fosters dependence. I feel it’s presumptuous and extremely violating of boundaries to elicit a transference in psychotherapy, rather than dealing with the reality of a strictly professional relationship. That doesn’t mean cold, but it does establish what I feel is a healthy boundary, without which, healing is compromised, and in some cases, it can be double binding for the client, in that they are afraid to assert themselves or go against the therapist in any way.

    I think it fosters powerlessness, and that all sorts of delusions come from transference, which I consider to be a major boundary/personal space violation, and it is taught that this is the way to do it, it’s basic training in counseling psychology.

    I learned about boundaries, and their value and purpose, in the healing school I attended, where I first learned about energy. That’s where started working with boundaries, as a visual. Since then, it has served me tremendously to know this, life changing in fact. Really cleaned up my personal space so that I could focus on what I wanted from life, rather than worrying about what others were doing or thinking.

    After having had absolutely no concept of this, I finally learned what it meant to have good boundaries, and it starts with energy.

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  • I believe the issue of boundaries is an inherent and integral matter of personal growth and evolution. I don’t see how it cannot be addressed in matters of healing, and in matters of relationship, this seems core to me. Otherwise, we’re talking about some serious lack of safety within a community, I believe. That’s my perspective, in any event.

    I believe a lot depends on our sense of boundaries, at least having some sense of them. A lot of people don’t really understand them, our society violates them as a standard rule, that’s why it’s so damn oppressive. Having good boundaries is self-care and self-compassion. It’s also simple respect.

    I don’t think they’re fixed, nor do I believe there is one uniform universal rule of thumb around what are ‘good boundaries’–I think we can choose what is appropriate for ourselves from moment to moment. To me, that would be a matter of not having our energy drained by others, a common problem in the mental system, and in general, I think.

    I believe that some kind of practiced agreement about what are respectful boundaries would be important to cohesion and feelings of safety in a community. I think boundary issues are one of the core problems with psychotherapy, especially when assumptions are made about a client that are obviously not in a favorable light, I’d call that blatant disrespect for personal boundaries.

    Not saying what the answer is, but if we don’t acknowledge it, then this won’t change, and I think that would make things pretty stuck. I believe it’s a matter of awareness and education.

    When we grow up without boundaries, that makes life hard. Many of us had ours ripped away as kids in often brutal and disregarding ways. But at least one way to personal growth is through exploring boundaries. Personally, I couldn’t exist in a community where personal boundaries were disregarded as anything to consider. I think that’s pretty scary.

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  • “Sick people are vulnerable and generally have no boundaries. Sick psychiatrists prey on the vulnerable and are rewarded handsomely.”

    Yes, yes, yes, this is what I’d put a big red circle around. Anyone can argue that this is not universal, but indeed, a plethora of testimonials, including mine, tell this story so precisely, in various ways. That’s a pretty core issue, here, I’d say. This is not an acceptable reality. It is exactly wrong.

    I also think many feel they are, somehow, helping, when, in fact, they are exhibiting really bad dynamics, and unwittingly projecting it all onto the client. I think this happens more often than not, which can be disastrous for a client who has nowhere else to turn for support, and yes, it has ruined lives, and continues to do so. By the skin of my teeth, mine wasn’t ruined, even though at one point I seriously feared it had been; but it was sure made a helluva lot harder, simply because of these, at best, terribly counterproductive antics. At worst, they can drive a person to suicide, and that is no exaggeration.

    So we live in a criminal society, and this is part of it. Why is this protected by law? I imagine there are a lot of dots to connect here, but my best guess would be that it has something to do with money. Power, too, but I keep coming back to $$ as the driving force here.

    What I can’t imagine is anything changing here without a huge shakeup of some kind, it seems inevitable. This is one stubborn system, and a lot of very stubborn people run it.

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  • Steve, you’re making me think of this one therapist in this day treatment center I attended for a few months, and her response to an older gentleman in the group when he complained that these two guys were picking fights with him and stealing his stuff in the public housing where he lived, and he could not get any support, he claimed no one took him seriously. Her response was, “Take your meds and don’t make waves.” Seriously, Nurse Ratchet in person.

    Many of us left that session a bit shaken up by this, and several of us made issue of this and complained about her. As a result of this, she got even more power, and started running more groups. She knew we had complained, and threw attitude everywhere. These monsters are so well protected in their own element.

    Although when I left that place, I did write their umbrella agency and complained thoroughly about this woman and gave these examples, and next thing I knew, they had lost their funding. They could have owned up to this and perhaps made some positive changes, but they chose to be stubborn, instead, and as a result, they shut down.

    That’s the second time this has happened along my way, when I challenged a social service agency and was proven to be right. Each time, they’d rather dig in their heels and shut down, rather than to admit that, perhaps, they need to really look at what their doing and change their core way of operating. That’s always their choice!

    I include this phrase she uttered in my film, because I’ll never forget it. It became the anthem of the system, to my mind. Exactly what you say above. Can’t seem to exist any other way, even in the face of their own demise.

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  • In fact, Margie, I do talk about this exact issue in my film, Voices That Heal–how a culture of paternalistic authority impacted my upbringing, leading to forgiveness and boundary-setting as my pathway to healing from family/social trauma.

    With the system, however, I took them to legal task, which is how I set a very strong and powerful boundary, and found my personal sovereignty.

    Check it out if you like, 6 of us share our journeys here, in this 96 minute documentary–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

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  • I definitely agree that the mh system could use some basic universal lessons in respect and boundaries, as these seem to be null and void in that world. I believe this is why people suffer in its grip, it is exactly the dynamic reproduced which lead so many people into a psychiatrist’s office in the first place.

    And I do believe we teach by example, so the more of us who practice the art of respect and healthy, flexible boundaries, the more others will learn from our examples, or they will be knocked off our radar.

    That’s the beauty of compassionate boundary-setting, it sorts the wheat from the chaff in and of itself. Abusive people don’t bother with people who have healthy boundaries, they go after the ones who have no sense of boundaries, as these are the most vulnerable people.

    The one big difference between my family and the mh system, however, is that I have unconditional love for my family, so I will continue to deal with them no matter what, as this is my flesh and blood; and as I do, I will continue to model a healthy sense of self and authority over my own life. This will help them to grow in that same direction.

    Whereas I do not, in the slightest, love the mh system, nor do I feel any responsibility to it. I feel it is a cold, unfeeling, un-empathic, and extremely dangerous institution which serves no one other than a few people getting rich from it–which, considering that this is health care we’re talking about, I’d say that is criminal.

    I’ve dissociated from it, and my only message to it is: good-bye, good riddance, and mercy to you. Let that be the lesson…

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  • Thank you, Margaret. I’ve lived across the country from my family of origin for quite some time, but I never severed ties with my family, as much as I wanted to about a million times. Although in order to heal, I did have to distance myself and be the one to set boundaries.

    That was hard for all of them, and for me, too, We were a no-boundary family, at least the kids had no right to set boundaries with adults, that was considered ‘disrespectful.’ (What fertile ground for abuse!)

    When I started practicing boundary-setting with my mother, I’d feel some guilt at first; but if she wanted a relationship with me, this was the only way it would be possible, if and only if she could respect my boundaries, and with some grace, even. Otherwise she was just being emotionally manipulative, and I discourage that in my life.

    Been a great lesson for all of us! It was, indeed, an awesome process, totally new territory for my family, learning to respect boundaries and take ‘no’ for an answer. Everyone is doing well in their own lives, and the family healed from all that past time stuff at this point, so I figure I did the right thing by speaking my truth. I’m actually proud of my family for getting with the program, finally. When I healed the way I did, they certainly took notice.

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  • When we re-parent ourselves, we align with our true values, so we can heal from the split created by childhood trauma due to toxic community dynamics and mixed messages. I don’t feel we are at all necessarily stuck with the trauma or with a specific ‘personality type.’ We are so much more creative than that and can become any character we wish in our own theater of consciousness. I think it’s really a matter of flexibility, trust, and a sense of our own creative selves.

    For example, my parents drove me insane, literally. I forgave my dad and worked that all out with him before he passed away. That was phase I of my healing. My mother is still at it, being her usual judgmental and belittling self. Now, I set boundaries with her and stick to them (phase II), which she hates. But that’s too bad, she needs to learn respect and kindness.

    The roles have reversed, and I’m practicing tough love–phase III. New play, new roles, new script. That’s transformative healing.

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  • “Providers and staff are trained and regimented, expected to hold certain beliefs while those of us in emotional distress have to find our way to meaning and freedom often on our own.”

    What a simple and brilliant statement this is, Michael. This so perfectly clarifies the distinction between these two groups: staff is programmed (fixed) and clients are searching for truth (flexible). From where I sit, this enormously empowers the latter group because those who are searching and evolving and growing are the ones following their process while staff is simply following orders–that is, what others expect them to do. I think that’s an interesting and powerful discernment when it comes to healing and personal power.

    It also explains why the whole system is totally off. How much sense does it make for a fixed and regimented mindset, based on socially dictated rules and regulations, to support neutrally, compassionately, and curiously someone else’s creative process of healing? None whatsoever. We are our own healers.

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  • Michael, your story is synchronistic with an experience I had in graduate school with a psychodynamics professor. We had been assigned to write an experiential paper related to personality types using our own experience as examples. In that paper, I disclosed a diagnosis, which I felt was relevant to what I was writing about.

    I got the paper back with only a note written at the bottom, “Alex, please see me after class.” I did, and he proceeded to tell me that I would never have the “ego strength” to even complete graduate school, because according to him, based on what I had revealed in my paper, I would never have the capacity to work with people in distress.

    That, alone, tested my ego strength, and while he caused me a great deal of even more distress by going to my advisor and suggested I leave school, I stayed in his class (which was very challenging), completed the program with honors and a successful internship training practice, took my dark night journey through the system and off meds, and am now working with people in all states of distress, and doing a lot more than that. As for the professor, I just told everyone what he did and said, and many of us wrote negative evaluations. So he was not back on campus the following semester.

    That was my first stop on the ‘what the hell is this?’ train called the “mental health world.” My most neutral word for it is ‘dualistic.’ Purely. I think that’s the problem, not realizing that we’re all connected, all mirrors of each other, one consciousness divided up into myriad aspects of personality. At least, that’s my perception of humanity, and all that is. Sure levels the playing field, at least.

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  • Thank you, bpd, and no worries of course. I do hear you and understand your predicament, as well as that of others who wish to be more visible with their voices, but who feel double bound. I certainly know this well, over and over.

    I do feel that people are more aware than ever these days how economics and economic disparity has dictated us into such fear-based oppression, that we are sacrificing ourselves in so many ways due to survival fears. This is where our current society has taken us, one way or another. I think media has a lot to do with it, what information it channels, and how it does so, from what perspective this comes to us, the mass audience.

    This power of $ is something that really has to change, somehow. Hard to say how that will occur, given how rigid our beliefs are around the power of money. We’ve made that a pretty hard core reality. We attach so much to it, as you imply above. I believe this can be undone, if we allow our perspectives to broaden.

    This is where I go into a more metaphysical/energy realm, and perceive from that perspective. At least it neutralizes the issue of money, and equalizes all factors, rather than giving such weight to simply one energy, such as what money is, like anything else.

    I believe when our intentions are strong and authentic enough, pathways appear. No doubt, yours will too at some point. Keep looking forward!

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  • I certainly didn’t mean any disrespect, bdt, and I meant this in general. To me, these are good leadership qualities. That’s my subjective opinion, but I do stand by it, it makes sense to me.

    To me, leadership is by example, and especially in the case of what we talk about here. That does not at all imply that you do not have great value to this cause, which I know you have lived experience and are intelligent and articulate. But I still think leadership is about the things I talk about above, that is how change occurs, by taking risks. Your priorities are your priorities, though, we all have that prerogative and free will of choice there, I completely honor and respect that in anyone. We all have different paths.

    With that said, what you reflect back about me is not accurate. 12 years ago, I did risk my job to advocate, not just for myself but for anyone who wants to stand up for themselves against discrimination. I did not back down, which if I had, I would have kept my job as a social worker.

    But I did not cower, and stood up for what I knew was right. This was the first job I had had in a while following a period of disability, and I was still on shaky ground and not fully healed, but doing a lot of healing work on myself and getting better every day.

    My financial situation was precarious, however, and I was doing really great at this job, so I was on my way back to financial stability. But I got caught up in a power struggle with management over clients, for whom they did not advocate at all (only in pretense). And they were doing all sorts of tortuous things to me, the co-workers in my department all saw it. I’m an abuse survivor, too, and it was repeating big time, here. I was doing a lot of healing work to counteract this, but they really screwed me up a bit, from which I had to recover.

    I tried to transfer to another agency, but they would not help me and in fact did everything they could to sabotage me; and technically, I was still a client in transition, so I knew I had some legal protection. I was behind the curtain, and I blew the whistle. They fired me, I took them to legal task at Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and won–nothing earth shattering but enough to help me shift gears and get trained in alternative healing and other things that helped me to move along and set up shop.

    After this legal action, I would not be hired again in San Francisco in my field, which turned out to be the best thing ever and led to a very free and fulfilling life, outside all of that, including a life as a working artist, in addition to having my practice. I’d have been very satisfied and fulfilled as a voc rehab counselor, I enjoyed my work a lot. But my agenda was purely for clients, there’s was so not, so we were not compatible and they gave me the boot. As a result, I found out life had better things in store for me other than traditional employment.

    Looking back, I’d say, “What a relief!” Not then, it was painful and disorienting. But I got over it, and now I say that, thank God for fate.

    I’m not a psychotherapist. I studied to be one and used to be an intern, but I did not go that route, after all because I felt it was limited compared to what I wanted to do as a healer. I only gain clients from this film, which has been happening since I put it out there.

    I speak my truth very plainly because if someone is averse to it, I’m sure we wouldn’t be a good match. My work is not psychotherapy, it is about connecting with the truth of one’s heart and spirit. Starts with me.

    I advocate truth speaking as healing, not just for individuals but for society. I think one thing that makes this a ‘sick society’ is that we have too many secrets, that’s highly stressful and creates an illusory society. We repress so much—emotions, truth, our own light—that I feel it would be so much better if we came out of hiding. Chronic fear is not healthy, nor is living in shame, guilt, or self-judgment of any kind.

    But that’s just me, I don’t expect others to hold the same opinion, although perhaps some do. I know people who agree with me, and who live fully in view, despite anything. To me, that’s living our truth, and I don’t think anything is more freeing and healthful than that.

    It does require risk, and the ability to trust our process and intuition, which can be a process in and of itself to get there, but again, to me, that is freedom. I think it’s worth it. For sure, we will test those around us, who are prone to the status quo, but that is EXACTLY how change occurs, nothing less than that.

    I’m certainly not sitting on a pot of gold, I take risks all the time. That period of disability and living hand to mouth in a city like San Francisco taught me a lot. I took mega-risks while living there in order to heal and to be my true self, to create the way I had always desired. And now I do.

    For me, it’s not about money, it’s about living in present time and trusting one’s process, the universe, etc. That is peace of mind. Once we master that, the rest comes with surprising ease. This is all stuff I learned when I had to, when the chips were down, and it worked for me, it’s what I’ve been teaching for a while now.

    So I do respect your choice wholeheartedly, that is your path. But please know that I did, indeed, speak my truth and stand my ground against abuse and discrimination in the system, and I got sacrificed, just as I was about to transition from disability! These folks totally sabotaged my transition, and they got in big trouble for it, and eventually lost their funding. And for me, it led to the life of my dreams.

    I no longer see speaking my truth as taking a risk, I’ve been doing it for years now, never been in any kind of closet. It’s always liberating now. But for some, like you, I know it’s a different story, which is completely respectable as far as I’m concerned.

    But to be a leader in change, the change starts within. No way can change happen outside of us, without internal shifts, first. I firmly believe that. Be the example of change, and change happens.

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  • Interesting, Fiachra, I’d agree with that from my own experience. Although I don’t feel post traumatic stress is a disorder that we’re stuck with forever, I think of it more as guidance to what feels better to us. For me, that is how I heal pts, I look for what feels good to me, rather than that which gives me anxiety and fear. If I have a pts reaction to anything, then it’s not a good fit for me; and if I go in the other direction, I find my gold.

    Because of the pts from the medication toxicity, which makes me fear putting any chemicals like that in my body, I no longer take any chemical pharmaceutical or over-the-counter drugs, only natural remedies, which has been really healthful and beneficial for me in every way, so the post traumatic stress from the medication toxicity actually led me in the right direction for myself, and created positive core changes for me.

    But that’s just me. I not only respect anyone for how they choose to self-care, I feel people make the appropriate decisions for themselves simply from the virtue of it being their choice. I think everyone experiments with self-care, there are no universal remedies.

    What I appreciate here is the self-awareness and trust in her process displayed and exemplified by Corinna. This is pioneering stuff she’s sharing.

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  • Absolutely brilliant. This, especially, I feel is vital information, from the get go:

    “Just because there is a biological mechanism doesn’t mean that psychosis is a brain disease. Something causes that mechanism to kick in.”

    You are doing the most relevant and authentic research that brings truth and will benefit so many.

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  • Finally, some logic and common sense. And of course, we carry around these internalized bad dynamics until we wake up to them, own them, and then we can resolve them within ourselves, which changes our outlook and our reality. Our families of origin are not always the most safe and healthful communities for us, and the sooner we recognize this, the better chance we have to heal from these wounds and get back into our personal power. Healing should never be the burden of simply one individual, that’s a false premise. It’s about the entire community.

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  • Been sitting with this and thinking that ‘death’ is, perhaps, always healing. After all, we leave our bodies and become pure spirit. No burdens, illness, or worries, just awareness and light. Of course, it all depends on what one chooses to believe.

    But the idea that we simply are born, live, and die feels treacherous and meaningless to me. I believe we are on a journey of the soul, of which this lifetime is a very tiny fraction, although fraught with opportunities to learn, grow, create, and have some fun.

    In that perspective of our process, we stumble upon our soul purpose in this lifetime, and that’s where we find freedom, clarity, and relief. We also find where we resonate with others.

    So we can either wait until we transition out of our bodies to fine this freedom and relief, or we can own our soul journey, and find freedom and relief while we’re still alive in a body on the planet, and the clarity that goes with that. If we choose the latter, then our power of manifestation is unlimited, because it is from the heart, our integrity. Anything else is illusory and precarious.

    Awakening to our unlimited power of focus and belief is what the Shamanic journey is all about.

    Seems like a good note on which to end this very interesting week.

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  • It’s quite powerful how we can consider different perspectives in order to give reality meaning and purpose, regardless of the circumstances. I’m sure there are perspectives we have yet to consider, since we can never know absolutely everything.

    The journey of life is about learning and growing as we have our life experience. Hopefully, we can find some joy in the process. Otherwise, it is a rather painful journey, guaranteed.

    When we lose all sense of joy, we still have choices on how to address this, if at all. For me, that would be devastating, as it once was. But it was not permanent. That’s the best thing I can think of to say, here.

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  • In reality, I don’t believe any can make a generalization about this, because we each live our own beliefs and reality. So, for me, everything and anything can heal, because that is what I believe and what I know. My life experiences and how I have integrated them so far has led me to this belief about myself, so that will be my reality.

    What happens in the future is unknown, and I believe I can influence it, with my own personal power. I believe everyone has personal power, and we choose how to focus and use it. Some people use their power to create, and some use it to sabotage. Some use their power to create negativity, and some use it to create positive, life-affirming realities, beliefs, and feelings. We each choose how we focus our power. And if we believe we have no power, then so it is.

    Can you perceive your power, at all? If you can, then you can choose how you want to use it–to create and affirm healing, or to sabotage and deny it? It is a choice we all make, at least that is what I believe, and with certainty, I choose to create and affirm healing–and life–every time.

    Even what we call ‘death’ (which I believe is simply a transition into another state of being) is an affirmation of life. That, we can generalize. I do believe every single one of us makes that transition at one time or another, don’t you?

    How we experience that, however, is a choice, based on what we believe. How we experience anything is a choice, based on what we believe.

    If you don’t believe me, then ask yourself what you believe, and see if you have any other choices, perhaps something that might feel better in present time. That is how we have the power to alleviate our own suffering.

    Is ‘death’ something to fear? Or celebrate, like a graduation? Your choice, based on your beliefs, and what you believe about death and transition will affect how you feel now, in present time.

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  • We each choose what we believe, and from that, we create our reality. And you can choose whether or not to believe that. Under any circumstances, I always choose hope over defeatism, and I always see the light in any situation, and I go with that. But that is my choice, yours might be a different choice, what you choose to believe and where you choose to focus. Reality has various perspectives, aspects, dimensions, and layers. We have free will of choice when it comes to what where we focus, and what we believe and perceive to be truth vs illusion.

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  • Alright, I understand you reacted rashly and I do appreciate your acknowledgment here. I put that caveat because I’ve read your views on stigma and I know how you feel about that.

    What you say is par for the course for this particular audience (MIA). I’ve gotten some unilateral praise on it from a few, but mostly it is what you are saying, a mixed bag. So in a way, that does seem to be the dominant energy around here. Which is fine, I always appreciate candor. I’m glad there’s at least partly a resonance.

    The film has had a variety of audiences (first cut was 2011, this is a 2014 slight re-edit), and fortunately for my ego, all have been extremely favorable—all except for the mental health system clinicians, and MIA staff and film jury. That’s pretty clear cut. Most reviews have been highly favorable. So, take from that what you will. I have my own feelings and perception about this.

    Aside from it bringing some truth to light in my family, when nothing else would, and creating some much needed family healing, this film changed my life dramatically for the better to speak my truth this way, and to offer a platform for others to do the same. I sent an e-blast to the speaker bureau, and these are the folks that responded. We did not coordinate, everyone is speaking their truth, from their space and time in life and experience. It’s all real time.

    I don’t know how to respond when there is any judgment placed at all on the film, or on what any of us say (right vs wrong, good vs bad, etc). I thought it was neutral, just us sharing for the purpose of encouraging others to speak their truths and own their healing.

    Many people have said, “This is light.” That would be my intention, to bring light, from our heart’s truth. Does that make any sense at all to people on this website? I may be speaking a different language, I don’t know.

    For me, the film is about the human heart and spirit, and my hope is that people hear and see it this way, from their heart, a celebration of the human spirit, as we stand on our own two feet owning our lives with enthusiasm, after all we’ve been through. My intention was for it to be an example of hope and courage. To me, this is a powerful indicator of healing.

    Thanks for watching and commenting, Frank. Much appreciated.

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  • Let’s all please keep in mind that when we are sharing our personal information we are making ourselves vulnerable in order to heal ourselves and to encourage others and share what we know, think, and feel. And so many of us do this as a voluntary community service, there is no $$ involved.

    For me, it’s a choice to participate, because I think it’s important and I’ve learned my fair share in the process which I know is of value to others. If you don’t like it, I take no offense, and there is no reason to dialogue, unless you want to have one for clarity or perhaps to see if we can have a meeting of the minds. But I’m no longer doing this for myself, this is my volunteer work. My life is full, I’m not looking for anything here, other than to share. If it’s not a safe and reasonably pleasant experience, then there is no reason for me to be draining my energy as such.

    Healing is very hard work, and there is no payment received for doing that particular work. We have to rely on the kindness and generosity of the universe, which I do, and it never lets me down. People, however, are a different matter, I find myself constantly disappointed. I’m sure I’m not alone in this.

    I do wish an awakening would occur around all this, of one kind or another. How can we find that delicate balance between truth and empathy? Somewhere along the line, we just have to own our stuff, and quit dumping it on others. It’s hard to make changes, but what else to do? Otherwise, it’s just a downward spiral, of this I’m certain.

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  • Ok, I appreciate the retraction. I reacted emotionally, too. I guess we all have our triggers around here! Who doesn’t?

    Anyway, I look forward to hearing your perspective when you’ve gotten to the end of it. I appreciate honest feedback, but please keep in mind that this was my heart and soul, not at all easy to do. I was IN the system and got OFF all drugs. I do natural healing, and I hate the system and psychiatry. I’ve moved way forward and it’s all behind me. I’m here to share what I’ve learned for the benefit of others, that’s all. I thought people knew that about me by now, but I don’t mind repeating it if it clarifies my purpose for being here.

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  • Fred and all, have you seen the trailer to our new film? Callled Dreamcatchers Follies: Music for the Ages. A band I play with performs for residents of an assisted living facility, it’s fun stuff, and totally in the healing realm. My film partner, with whom I made VTH, are co-producing, directing, and editing this. Nice to be focused on music and joy for a change! Check it out–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khwFWx75m94

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  • Thanks for the reflections, truth.

    Our perception, perspective, beliefs, and reality changes significantly when we heal our psychic, heart, and spirit wounds. Healing happens in layers, it’s not overnight and when it is the kind of multiple psychic and physical trauma you talk about, it is complex healing.

    But it begins with the heart. Once we recognize the role of the heart in healing, then we can heal ourselves from anything. I firmly believe this.

    I experienced a lot of what you describe in my lived experience with multiple psych drugs and subsequent withdrawal. I was on a variety of things–neuroleptics, benzos, ssri, etc–for 20 years, ending with 9 that last year, before my system totally crashed from it all. I had all sorts of things going on with my body that I thought were permanent damage, including my brain and also my liver. I worried about my kidneys, too, because I’d been on Lithium for years, and all my panels were off. By the time I got off all medications, I could hardly speak and I had some involuntary movements that really worried me. Aside from that, a tremendous amount of physical and mental pain.

    I’ve never been one to throw in the towel, so I bit the bullet and looked for healing in every corner of my world, until I found what I needed. I rejected NOTHING that came my way, because I believed that if I persevered, I would heal fully and completely. Not that I didn’t go into doubt and desperation about a million times a week, but I’d keep going, regardless. Eventually, I found the exact right combo of everything I needed, and I’m 100%. Been healthy and grounded for years now.

    Maybe it’s just me, that’s been suggested to me. Wow, that makes me feel special. But I don’t think I’m special in the slightest, I believe everyone can access their healing–but if and only if they get over resentment, and start looking for what they need in present time, to move forward. Looking back only turns you into a pillar of salt! Look ahead, instead, and with hope. That’s a good place to start.

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  • Here you go, Voices That Heal–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

    Fyi, ‘stigma’ is the central theme, but I feel it goes deeper than that, and re-claims it from the politics of it all. I believe we apply it with relevance. Plus, this was the theme for the speaker bureau, so it was the only way I could have gotten away with using their platform to get these voices heard.

    Fred, Thanks for the vote of confidence. I’m done with submitting it anywhere, that was not a pleasant experience, to be perfectly honest. It did get picked up by Culture Unplugged for two of their film festivals and is archived there, which is extremely gratifying because I didn’t even go to them, they saw it on YouTube and contacted me. I enjoy having it on YouTube so anyone can access it, and it can be shared easily.

    Thanks also for the heads up on the other blog. I had not seen this and will check it out now.

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  • Correction: I want to say more accurately–the voiceS of survivors. We we bring together diversity in perspectives, but all from the survivors’ narratives, exclusively. We are not of one voice, but instead, a choir of voices. I believe we provide harmony in our film, from this diversity. This is what I am advocating, and it seems what is most challenging to achieve in this ‘movement.’

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  • Thanks, bpd, and it’s true what you say, the responses to this film have been eye-opening for me, and it certainly supports the premise of the film, so I know it is truth, which is extremely gratifying.

    It was embraced by a lot of people and the screenings were riveting. A lot of people in and out of the system really loved it and felt it was both groundbreaking and timeless, which is why I had been invited to present it to the Dept of Health & Human Services and an audience of over 100. After that, I was offered a series of workshops.

    Then guess what happened? Management nixed it all because they knew I was critical of the system and it would alienate their funders. I was told this directly. I was also made privy to how these grants work, so that’s when I discovered the truth about how professional advocacy works.

    Mostly, though, thanks to the film, because of the invitations I got initially, it guided me to my life transformation, so to me, it’s kind of a magic film. And to still be relevant and alive 4 years after having completed it is the best validation of all.

    I was also invited to submit it to MIA film fest and then it was not accepted, after all. I asked for feedback continually, because I was a bit surprised by this, I thought it would add to the discussion, this present time perspective, the voice of survivors. Plus, it was purely my self-advocacy, the only way I could get my voice heard. But I could never get the feedback. So, really I’m not sure what I’m doing here!

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  • Nice, Katie, I do agree wholeheartedly that we do have our resent buttons. In my work, we call that ‘coming back to center.’ It’s an all day everyday practice. It is human to go in and out of center, we all get triggered all day long, whether we are conscious of it or not. When we are conscious of it, then we can consciously practice coming back to center, which is the healthiest and most calming, grounding, and clarifying thing in the world. To me, that would be the reset.

    It’s such a catch-22 when one’s anger is triggered anywhere in the vicinity of the mental health world, as it often is by a clinicians words and deeds, because while most of us know it is healthy and natural to express anger when one is angry, a natural human emotion, there is always a blowback, mostly diagnosis.

    But there is also deep stigma, because immediately the clinician fears violence and gets totally rigid, controlling, and forceful at that point, leaving the one expressing anger feeling totally powerless and as if they were crazy.

    It has taken a lot of practice and focus to learn how to best express my anger when I feel angry, in an attempt to have good closure with the mh field, and I’ve shifted a great deal as a result, given that I had to work with my own perspective and issues in order to experiment with how I express myself to be heard and responded to in a respectful way.

    What I discovered is that, in the end, there is no effective way to do this, because it is a closed system with locked in strategies for dealing with dissension. I think it’s cruel.

    As a kid, I was not aware that I was being traumatized day after day, I thought it was normal to live in fear and feeling perpetually unsafe, as if the boom could be lowered at any moment, seemingly unprovoked, which of course often this is what would happen, and we all felt powerless to it. My mother was the only other adult in the household, and she chose to live in fear and anger, rather than to make another choice, so we were stuck with this as long as we lived at home.

    Otherwise, I was a perfectly normal-acting kid, high achieving and involved in all sorts of things, debate, theater, honor roll, etc. But inside was this horrendous anxiety that kept building and building, along with negative self-beliefs, which I hardly expressed, for fear of consequence for not being ‘happy’ all the time, and having any needs at all. My folks were extreme narcissists.

    After high school and going through all the initial diagnoses and starting with medication and weekly therapy, I worked for 17 years as a retail administrative and customer service manager and loved it, I did well and was very creative in my job, and well-respected in the company. I also get my BA in Film during that time.

    During this whole time, I lived with diagnoses and on meds, and all the while I had the belief that I had a chronic illness and would need medication for life. I adjusted to that and moved along with my health support in tow.

    It was during my years in graduate school, after retiring from retail, and intensive psychotherapy that the extent of the trauma from living in constant fear and dread–which continued with me internally, wherever I went, which was the reason I got diagnosed and medicated–was really profound, and explained a lot of what had seemed like ‘irrational feelings’ (I don’t like that phrase, but that is how it felt at the time) and negative self-image and self-talk. All of this had been suppressed by meds, and denial, for over 20 years.

    There began my dark night, and the transition period where I went from having a ‘mental illness’ to realizing that my troubles were really the result of childhood trauma, my energy sucked dry by needy parents. Although my dad was a well respected physician, they were ‘pillars of society.’ So it all went undetected.

    So for me, the challenge became all of the dissociation that occurred as a result of the medication, and simply not being connected to my feelings about it all. I kept analyzing my experiences rather than allowing myself to feel them, so while I may have gotten insights, nothing really changed because I could not be present in the moment with a narcissistic vampire (my preferred term for energy-suckers and those who demean and control). I’d walk away, and realize later that I got whacked or drained or demeaned or something like that.

    That was hard to deal with, because I was not present to stand up for myself in the moment, and the feelings of powerlessness from abuse would snowball.

    In this case, with this therapist, I had already figured out so much of these toxic mind games and had done a lot of work around this, but I figured face to face with a therapist would really make the closure authentic, rather than my going off and doing it on my own, forgiving, taking responsibility, etc.

    So by the time we go to this point, I was totally present and of course I’d long released all medication, and I had gotten myself back together from all that, grown in so many ways, and also I was not in fear of consequences, what could she do? I knew this, I had internalized my freedom.

    I believe my rush of energy did have a lot of fear in it, simply from the old tapes, but I don’t engage with that, I know it is an illusion.

    That’s the awareness that brings me great comfort and feelings of safety in life now. I’m the one in control because I’m in present time. It’s good to know I can stop a bullet flying at me now. That was the new trick I learned, and it is what keeps me feeling safe and confident to take risks needed to evolve and create.

    Thanks for sharing this Katie. Most interesting stuff, indeed!

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  • Oh yeah, and I was hired by directors too, as an actor. Everyone knew my story, I made no secret about it. But most people simply did not care about that, and in fact, they thought it was all really interesting, what they knew about me and my activism, and how this all came about.

    The ONLY community that had any issue with my history and factored that in on all counts, was the mental health community, including the advocacy and activism world, and I’m serious about that.

    I have trouble no trouble whatsoever navigating the world on my sleeve. However, the mental health world is an entirely different matter, in this regard. It’s just so obvious that the stigma and discrimination starts and ends with the mental health field. Insanity.

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  • “I want to know how you did it without risking your reputation or job.”

    I’d be interested in knowing this, too–not because I have any desire to work in the mainstream, but because I’d wonder how this is possible. I’m self-employed and I love it, prefer it to anything. Being my own boss after all those years of feeling controlled is Heaven on Earth.

    What I found, once my film was out there and I had started speaking about all the abuse publicly, as an activist, that I had no value for the mental health field, through their eyes. Of course not, I’d want to change everything. That had been my field originally, until I discovered what it was really about, I went deep in with that. Especially since I won a legal action, I was especially branded.

    While it frustrated me initially, I discovered that I had the tools to put something together, myself, and that’s when I decided to get advanced training and I did a hospital internship with a medical intuit (who loved my story of healing, she had no bias whatsoever, thought I championed my cause well), and then set up my practice.

    After that, the opportunity to make a film came, and I jumped at it. No money, no previous film making experience, just determination, something I wanted to say really badly, and a lot of faith and trust. The universe did not disappoint, and what I needed came to me.

    Since then, I’ve been creating one thing after another, really grateful that I had been blackballed by the mental health community, because it forced me to trust in my own vision and process, and it led me on my path of truth, which is humbling and totally fulfilling.

    So I don’t have that regular weekly employment thing going on any longer, although I do have a 17 year retail management career under my belt, from which I retired before starting graduate school. I tried, as a social worker in voc rehab, but I ended up suing them for discrimination.

    I found it impossible to speak out and stay employed in my field, but at the same time, I am so, so grateful for my new direction that came as a result of their stigma, discrimination, and fear. Now, I can live my truth. Before all this, I’d have had no idea what that meant. Now I see that it’s everything.

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  • I just thought of this, had forgotten about it and it’s relevant.

    The very last therapist I saw was in the private sector, and I went to her after having totally given up on the mental health system, after having felt literally brutalized by it for years, I walked in and told her specifically that I had post-traumatic stress from the system and wanted to heal it.

    I’d already transitioned in every respect away from psychology and even had had my own practice going for a while, which is geared toward natural, energy, and spiritual healing. But I really felt I needed closure with the mental health world, I’d been a part of it for so long and had all these unexpectedly wild and eye-opening experiences leading to really major transitions in my life and being. I’d already moved from San Francisco, to a progressive small rural town, where I live now, and I was hoping that I’d find someone grounded and open to listening with a respectful ear.

    I found a semi-retired psychotherapist who was a professor at a local college, and who was just a few blocks from me, I could easily walk. She advertised specializing in transitions and ‘practical’ therapy. I had just moved here, so it all seemed perfect, as I was setting up shop. This is all I wanted.

    I told her about my history, and about how I healed through alternatives and natural medicine and opened my own practice, made a film, etc. When I mentioned how now I wanted to address the post-traumatic stress–which I do not consider a disorder, but trauma which can be worked through with the right kind of dialogue, insights, and permission for shifting to occur–from what I went through in the mental health system, she said, “I’ll be the one that says what you have” (I’m serious!), and pulls out a pen and pad and starts asking me about my childhood!

    I took a really big deep breath to gather my thoughts and ground because my heart started pounding out of my chest at that point, and was kind of shaking from the rush of emotion I felt, and trying hard to keep my cool, which I managed to do only because I really felt suffocated and angry, and I wanted to get out of there asap.

    I got up and pulled out my wallet and fumbled it open, pulled out a $5.00 bill and put it on the table and said, “This is for your time,” and got the hell out of there. She was taken aback of course and was saying something to me as I walked toward and out the door, but I could have cared less what it was and just kept on walking, in a bit of a huff. By the time I got home and told my partner what had happened, I had steam coming out of my ears, I was so angry. Then I settled down and was absolutely 100% that I’d never again seek out a psychotherapist for any reason. That was that, after 30 years.

    That’s when my pts started to heal, once the smoke cleared. I just felt so free, as though I had communicated exactly what I needed to communicate, with that one gesture. And, as Julie says, I ran out of there and fast, and I’ve never looked back.

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  • I’ve had both private and public. I had private long term psychotherapy in my 20’s. I really loved my first therapist, saw her for several years when I first started looking at my issues. This was back in the 1980’s.

    In San Francisco, from about 1996-early 2000’s, I started out with private psychotherapy, had to shop around a bit, most were awful right off the bat, being incredibly patronizing and saying kind of dumb things that were irrelevant to what I was saying.

    But one of them was actually respectful and seemed intelligent, so I stuck with him for a while. We did some good work, but at the same time, he was trying to get me to ‘fit in,’ I see that now, in retrospect. I knew we had gotten kind of stuck, but I wasn’t sure why, then I got it.

    But more than that, by that time, I was on so many drugs that he was pretty helpless about why I was going downhill, despite having been totally responsible and perfectly compliant with all my therapies. No one had any idea of what was happening, that turned out to be really bad drug side effects. That’s when I chose to get off all medication, and I entered the system for support. I had graduated, and no more student loans, so the system was my only option at that point. That’s where I got a crash course in public psychotherapy, which still makes me shudder to think about.

    So my feeling about this is that 1) times have changed and people are way more uptight and anxious, especially in the professional community, and 2) I was really not impressed by the psychology community in San Francisco, starting with graduate school.

    I had had psychotherapy in Texas in the 1980’s and I have no complaint about that whatsoever. Although it certainly didn’t cure me of anything or resolve my issues, but it was nice to have an attentive and warm person listening to my troubles, and giving me intelligent and welcome feedback. She moved me along pretty well, and I’m grateful for that.

    So I don’t know if we’re talking about west coast culture or urban culture. But I do know that it was consistent in SF, regardless of public vs private. Before I moved to SF, I had no gripes about therapists or therapy, which is why I went to graduate school. That’s when the shit hit the fan, and I discovered a whole different side of things in the world of mental health.

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  • Even though I feel psychotherapy can be potentially dangerous, I also think it can potentially be a good tool for gaining clarity around confusing issues. If the therapist is present, authentic, neutral, and can own their issues as the client talks about their’s, then I think there is hope of achieving clarity, which to me, would be the goal in psychotherapy.

    But I also feel psychotherapy is limited in scope and can only do so much, and I feel it has over-inflated itself rather arrogantly and presumptuously. I think that’s a sign of the times. I think psychotherapy used to be practiced more humbly and with focus. Now, it seems like kind of a hodgepodge, with a lack of focus, at least that’s been my impression.

    I was in therapy for a long time until I finally stopped and did other healing work to get my head back on straight. I had developed all of these inner critical voices as a result of the last group of therapists I dealt with. It took a while to clear all that up, and I finally did, when I found my own sense of self and started living the truth of my own heart, with no one’s opinion in my head but my own. That was extremely freeing.

    It can work as long as it is neutral and respectful. Personally, I found that very hard to come by, and finally gave up. It was amazing how clear I got when I walked away from letting someone fiddle around with my mind, beliefs, and perception that way. And because of this, I chose another path to healing, and this time, it worked.

    I used to love psychology, even as a kid. I loved reading Freud, Jung, R.D Laing, etc., and people used to always tell me that I was ‘psychologically minded.’ I loved thinking about how we operate as human beings and as a society, I find it fascinating, always have.

    But I have to say, that ever since my experience in graduate school and then in the system, along with how my health so totally deteriorated for the time I had turned to the mental health world for support, and then how it totally turned around when I did other kinds of healing not recognized by the mainstream mental health industry, that’s when it dawned on me that this isn’t about psychology, but it is about how we run our energy, how we direct our thoughts, how we pay attention to how we feel above and beyond anything else. And how important it is to stay away from toxic communities.

    I’m no longer focused on the psychology of humanity because I realize now that this is mainly an illusion, our personal and subjective stories and interpretations. In psychology, we are at risk telling our stories, as our words tend to haunt us, personal stories are so often disrespected, as I’ve seen here. Why are we analyzing people, rather than loving their spirits? No way is this healing, in fact it is terribly invalidating to our hearts and spirit. That’s what I would consider to be ‘toxic,’ and it’s widespread in the psychology world.

    I mean no personal offense to anyone, we’re all human and we all have learning curves. But I do think this is a national emergency and no time to mince words. As far as the world of psychology goes, I just think there are too many filters that are not recognized when dealing with people, and it’s creating a big ol’ mess. I think it’s time to see reality through a different lens. That would be an awakening for the psychology world which I strongly feel needs to happen, and soon!

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  • Very movingly stated, yeah_I_survived, and you say what I discovered, too, exactly. Class snobbery and ignorance are exactly what I found in graduate school, internship, and when I worked in the system. It is an extremely elitist field with a one-sided perspective of humanity, which would make it not only useless to most people, but also harmful because it repeats these dynamics, creating only social pressure for clients. This is not at all a good thing.

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  • To me, this isn’t about evidence or proving anything. This is about our voices, our experiences, and our truth. Period. Personally, that’s where I find the value and spirit of life and humanity.

    Statistics dehumanize the experience, so they ring false to me. As does falsely projected analysis.

    I appreciate your comment, bpdtransformation, but trying to guess get inside my head like you just did ain’t gonna work, ever. Yet another reason I personally dislike psychotherapy.

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  • I believe there are a lot of people who’d make similar claims and what you describe would more than likely ring true to them, as it does to me.

    I’ve certainly had similar experiences, and even witnessed this during my MFT training. In my clinical training group, we were taught that our clients would be manipulative and deceitful, that it was up to us to discern this and not ‘let them get away with it.’ That was really off-putting to me simply in my training, but I thought it was, perhaps, this supervisor’s perspective. I wasn’t aware at the time that this is the actually the generalized belief, as I later discovered it was, when I worked in social services. So the education begins with stigma, right off the bat, and then continues to self-perpetuate and snowball.

    In training, psychotherapists are also taught to have very rigid boundaries for themselves, while pushing the boundaries of clients. As a result, I found the various one’s I tried to work with over the years to be extremely disrespectful of my boundaries, and downright pushy and insistent, while at the same time, having boundaries that would make anyone feel totally powerless. What I picked up is that they were very emotionally needy, and expected clients to play that role of fulfilling their needs.

    This is a generalization, of course, but I’ve worked with tons of therapists and they were also my classmates and professional peers. What I say above was pretty much par for the course. It was becoming apparent to me that this was a terribly misguided field. But it was hard to know from just this one perspective, as a clinician. To really get this, I’d have to experience it as a client.

    And when I entered the system as a client, just after graduate school, I did experienced this first hand, on the other side of the fence.

    It was 100% totally impossible to engage any of the therapists I knew in a normal adult-to-adult conversation, for the purpose of achieving clarity on an issue. The stigma of being a client in the system is so overpowering, it is such a thick and dense filter that permeates that reality, really overtakes it in the worst possible way.

    Having one’s truth challenged repeatedly when trying to gain clarity is extremely taxing and draining and, indeed, can create post traumatic stress. It’s such tragic irony.

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  • I agree that 1:1 psychotherapy is extremely risky and potentially very dangerous. You just never know with whom you are dealing behind closed doors, and a lot of therapists are extremely sensitive and get triggered very easily. That’s when they can start throwing your issues back in your face or trying to control your emotions, being manipulative (which is how a lot of ‘therapy is designed to work, e.g. CBT), and giving you rubbish about all sorts of things. Indeed, it can be very abusive and disorienting. Exactly the opposite of what one would expect were services to be rendered with competence.

    It’s good to have intuition, but at the same time, people who seek psychotherapy are generally feeling disconnected and troubled so they are vulnerable. I respect that some people feel helped by this, but I also know a lot of people feel very harmed by psychotherapy. I agree with Julie, it’s a crap shoot, and it could have devastating results on one’s psyche that can be hard to understand if one has not been through this.

    Be careful and stay alert.

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  • This is so powerful, Katie, it’s gratifying to know the profound value of this dialogue for you. Thank you for sharing.

    “It is only when somehow, the other becomes open to and then experiences this phenomenon that the lesson makes sense. And that, in my experience has always required life-to-life, real time connection, and my expending maximum energy to live the lesson– or rather, to maintain my own conviction no matter the opposition. It also requires skill in more than one area of energy healing– the actual thing that the other will benefit from most, or most readily and can use to further advance their own awakening.”

    So, so true. Conscious growth and evolution must be practiced with authentic intention and openness. It’s not easy for many, given our habits of belief and mistrust generated by a traumatic society. This is what I feel is being rectified. Heal the trauma, new beliefs emerge. There are teachers to help, until one gets it, then they’re on their path, awakened, whole, and self-reliant. Eventually, there is inner peace, but that takes time and practice, too.

    Life is a never-ending growth and learning process. I think the trick is to make it at least interesting, and fun when possible. And while I respect anyone’s personal choice, to go through life closed up, rigid, defensive, and angry does not sound like fun to me at all. That’s the ‘wounding’ to which I referred previously.

    “But, I wonder if the preliminary impetus for becoming open, can be described in words? or rather, if there is a discourse on a method for a dramatic shift in consciousness?”

    I think when we are our authentic selves and speak from our hearts, we witness present time truth, and this feels different than dry, emotionless discourse. This is the heart of humanity, our emotional selves, for all to witness.

    Other than that, we just have to learn to observe ourselves and our life experiences through the lens of neutral self-compassion, and when we do, we awaken.

    When we feel compassion rather than judgment, it is a totally different feeling in the body, more open, relaxed and loving, than when we feel judgmental, which is a dense and constricting feeling. Already, these are two different experiences in life based on perspective, and I do believe that will extend to our life experience, in general—one that feels good and one that feels bad, it’s a choice.

    “It is not knowing, in the sense of agreeing with a concept that is crucial to healing fundamentally, but the experience of feeling, sensing one’s own power that is both an awakening and the first step of what may well be a 1,000 mile journey –. Once awakened you make the journey that is uniquely yours, without judgment, because of the experience of the power of it being only yours. What a rush !”

    Indeed, what a rush!! I love taking this journey, even though sometimes it’s a total pain in the ass. Well, that’s life!

    Thanks as always for your brilliance and generosity, Katie 🙂

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  • First of all, I never, ever said that withdrawal issues are ‘so easy to overcome,’ in fact just above I said the opposite, that it was hard and rugged work. It took years to complete this process, and with a lot of different components. What I say is that it is doable, where others claim they feel defeated. My intention is to encourage, not to insult.

    AA, I don’t know why I have to keep explaining myself, you are turning around everything I’m saying in what I thought was plain and simple English. I’m curious about this gap in communication.

    Second of all, I don’t go to groups and say, “Hey, I can save you!” That would be arrogant and presumptuous on my part. I don’t even advertise, people know me word-of-mouth. This is the only website on which I post, I’m not even on Facebook, I’m not really a fan of social media.

    If you want to send anyone over for a free consultation, be my guest:

    http://www.embodycalm.com/

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  • We can shift our perspective about ANYTHING. That’s what solves all problems, eventually. At least, it’s how one gets unstuck and finally pointed in the right direction.

    Often, there is nothing more to do than just that, shift how we perceive something, and feel the difference. Some problems turn out to not be so much a problem as it is a gift. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes we need to apply a little extra elbow grease to our healing, and allow our creativity guide us. Each of us is an original, no copies.

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  • AA, I’m grateful for your response, thank you. I appreciate your truth, as I appreciate everyone’s truth. I just don’t always agree with it.

    However, that’s not the case here, I agree with just about everything you’ve said. Although I do believe you are not understanding me, so I’ll expound a bit, hopefully for clarity.

    I’m not talking about having ‘a positive attitude,’ I’m talking about how our beliefs affect outcome. That’s actually where we find our power, and that is a process of discovery. I don’t think it’s either natural or human to ALWAYS have a positive attitude, but we can certainly notice when we do and when we don’t, and how we feel and what happens around us when we do and when we don’t. I think that’s self-evident, if you practice this discernment consciously for a while. Then, we make a well-informed choose. I do believe we can choose what attitudes and beliefs to carry around with us.

    We have the freedom to choose whatever we want to believe about anything—positive or negative–and in addition, beliefs are malleable, we can change them when we experience and learn new things.

    No one can know another’s truth by simply observing, you actually have to communicate with a person and be open to what they have to say, and be willing to respond in kind. At least, that’s the way I see it, to me that is an open dialogue. I even asked Frank what he meant by something that confused me, and he said let’s not go there. Ok, but I still have no idea what he is talking about, so how could we possibly communicate further? I feel powerless in that situation, so I express my truth in response and I move on. What else to do?

    I’m certainly not going to become frustrated over that, that would be a waste of my energy; or insist, that would be a violation of Frank’s boundaries to my mind. I like to respect personally boundaries when I feel that’s what is being communicated, and in this case, it was unmistakable.

    “…having a positive attitude has not enabled me to be able to parallel park. By the way, I had trouble explaining that to someone who annoyingly invoked the Henry Ford quote, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.’ I wanted to slap her for that.”

    So would I, that’s not terribly sensitive nor helpful, kind of flip and obnoxious in fact.

    “All jokes aside, when I foolishly thought I could parallel park, I wasted a lot of time and energy trying to park the car when I could have used it to simply find a better space and walk a few blocks. Just not worth the hassle.”

    This is a perfect example of having choices—you can either stay frustrated, or free yourself in the moment. Sound like you got a little exercise in the process.

    “On a more serious note, psych med withdrawal has been very debilitating for many people. Kind of hard to be positive when you’re functioning at a very minimal level and wonder how the heck you are going to make it through a day.”

    Well, not sure what you know about me, although I’ve been on my sleeve on MIA for over four years now. I’ve told my story quite a bit, and I’ve been there, done it. I tapered from 9 meds after 20 years of one or more things or another. I had a helluva time of it, as others here describe. What I talk about is purely based on my experience, which was profound, and personal.

    That’s fine if you didn’t know this, but please do know now that I know of what you speak, from my own personal experience, trust me on this. I worked extremely and ruggedly hard to heal from all that, and I did, ok? My partner and my healers and a few others were right here along with me, witnessing in awe as I tumbled and swirled through a spectacular transformation. I was DETERMINED to heal, against all odds it seemed, and I do mean that; and my healing is real and valid. I don’t entertain any argument about that. That’s why they call it “the courage to heal.”

    “I know someone who is suffering with horrific withdrawal symptoms and it would be an extreme insult for me to tell this person that healing will happen if he/she lets it. Kind of like telling a blind person that they can read a book with a positive attitude.”

    What we communicate to others in a healing situation is a matter of timing and context. I don’t think it would be an insult, as it is truth and it is also where we actually have power and control over the situation, so to me, personally, that is fantastic news, and I’d deliver as such, that is a dialogue to happen, part of the healing process. But oh how I wish someone had communicated this truth to me at that time! Eventually, someone did, and it changed my life.

    But I do feel it could be without empathy and extremely irritating if ill-timed and spoken as if someone were doing something wrong. It’s a matter of growing in awareness.

    Aside from myself at one bleak point in time, I’ve known a lot of people who fit what you describe. They’ve been my clients. I’ve helped a lot of people, and still am. It’s my job and I’ve been doing it for over 10 years, learning as I go, always evolving as a healer and teacher.

    That’s not the case, here, though, I’m here as an activist, just like everyone else, equally. And my activism is around healing, I think that is completely relevant and sound. We’re talking about healing ourselves, and we’re talking about healing society.

    I know some people talk more about destruction, but I’m not in that camp any longer. I raged to that extent in the past, but I’m over it. I can still get angry thinking about these bozos and what they’re doing to people, but I’ve been vindicated. I’m all about healing now because what happened with me was that as I healed and spoke my truth, the right structures crumbled behind me, seriously! That’s another story, though.

    My main point is please do not reduce me to such black & white thinking such as ‘positive thinking.’ In a way, there is something to it, but isolated like that it sounds idiotic, and it’s neither accurate nor reflective to my way of thinking, per se. Living, creating, manifesting, healing, etc., is a bit more complex than that. Although not nearly as complicated as some would make it out to be.

    All good stuff, AA, thanks for your comment.
    Alex.

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  • Plus, it does take tremendous power to not heal. Healing is natural and inevitable if we allow it; and when it does not happen, that is someone using their power of resistance and negativity to stop healing and change from occurring. That’s a lot of power.

    We have tremendous power as humans, although some people are stuck in feelings of powerlessness. This is where healing can be extremely powerful.

    But of course, we can choose how we use our power: to heal and grow, or to stay stuck and bitter. That’s ALWAYS a choice.

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  • Sa, I totally empathize with what you’re saying. I don’t know how many times I thought I was kidding myself, it just seemed to be one thing after another, a bottomless well of anxiety and issues. My perpetual question became: where is my power here?

    Then, lo and behold, that feeling would pass, and the path would light up again. Those little moments of insight, clarity and relief as we go along are worth a lot, I think, each time reminding us of our power to heal.

    Frank, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Fictitious wounds?

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  • One last word on healing for today–

    It’s imperative to know that all wounds can heal. What undermines healing more than anything is our belief that we cannot heal.

    The fact that so many around here believe in “permanent damage” is a problem for me because that belief alone will sabotage healing as it is occurring, so it’s a constant hamster wheel, eventually downward spiraling. That is a negative and self-defeating belief which impacts everything inside and outside of us, it becomes our reality that everything is about trauma and personal damage.

    In turn, this belief makes us feel chronically anxious, despondent, enraged, and hopelessly frustrated, and it creates a reality, through this filtered perception, that supports these heavy and negative feelings–hence, a perpetually negative reality and life experience.

    At many points in our lives, we are given plenty of opportunities to totally let go of the past and move forward integrated and unfettered, totally aligned with our personal power, through our healed hearts.

    Our wounds have guided us on this path, to our healing and spirit alignment; it’s all part of our evolutionary process. Denying healing is denying ourselves of ever reaching our universally inherent potential for inner peace and joyous living.

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  • One thing I would add here, though, is that there are rites of passage to go through in order to be awake in our society–mainly, one has to really allow themselves to submerge into shadow, which usually happens as a result of trauma, that cracks the egg.

    As we follow that process, as scary, lonely, loopy, uncertain, messy, confusing, chaotic, and temporarily debilitating as that might be, we are fortifying our heartfelt faith and trust in our spirit, and connecting to our inner voice and guidance.

    Eventually we find the way out, from dark to light (this whole process can take years), and as we emerge from that phase of our lives, we have so much new awareness of ourselves, that we are in tune with the universe, at large. That’s when we can relax, heal fully and completely, and be free from the past. This is pure present time awareness and living, which is where our power resides.

    That’s what I mean by ‘transforming consciousness.’ That’s an integrated reality, which is a different energy (vibrational frequency, as in different colors) than before we go through this in order to heal and align all aspects of ourselves, into an integrated whole being in full consciousness. That’s a truly awesome shift in perspective and life experience, changes everything for the way better.

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  • Thanks, Fred. And I agree, being a ‘healer’ is in everyone, and we do it without thinking. Once we start ‘thinking’ about it, we shift out of healing mode. We are all, inherently, self-healers, and we can have a healing presence for others, if and when we choose to do so.

    Healing is about heart, truth, and light, which we possess naturally, we are born with it. Then what happens? In general, we are taught to suppress our light and truth from the get go, and do what we are told to do that would take care of others, rather than to follow our natural tendencies to grow ourselves, explore our humanity, and experiment with our creativity. That’s how people get sick, depressed, anxious, resentful, dependent, shut down, etc.

    I’ve also found that not only is about healing, but it is about transforming our consciousness. When we get that we are vibrational beings who put out a frequency like a radio antenna, and that that frequency–which we can alter at will when we understand how we operate as ‘energy’–is the basis for each of our personal realities, then we are awake to our own power as the creators of our own reality, from the inside out. When we get this, we can influence change in the best way possible, from our integrity. Walking our talk is vital in order to have a healing presence and effect on the world around us. Otherwise–well, you see what happens when a society is created from and based on deceit, illusion, and force. It’s not pretty, and in fact, terribly harmful for all concerned.

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  • I think this is really interesting, Alice, the idea that people celebrated that what they were experiencing was an illness, so “thank God, it’s not our fault and we don’t have to blame anyone. No one did anything wrong, whew!”

    I think that communicates interesting things about our society. Mainly, what I see is that we really hate not being perfect and making mistakes, don’t we? To the point that we can, literally, ‘drive ourselves crazy’ over that.

    Guilt is such a powerful emotion, although personally, I don’t feel it is natural. I think it comes from self-judgment, because we are taught that we need to be perfect, and to be perfect for others, or we will suffer consequences. I think a lot of families and teachers give this message, one way or another, and we can easily internalize that, and we end up with a committee of critics in our heads watching and judging everything we do. That’s incredibly burdensome and stifling, and can lead to terrible anxiety, depression, feeling double bound, etc.

    There are so many ways in which we drive each other to the brink, don’t you think?

    So maybe now it’s time for yet another evolution in thinking, the way you describe above. Perhaps it’s not an ‘illness’ after all, and maybe it’s no one person’s fault.

    But perhaps, generation after generation, we have created such a society, a “social system”–as you and both describe to be toxic–that actually breeds mental illness, simply from the accepted dynamics of the norm. Perhaps it is time to shift our perspective into something that we hadn’t thought of before. After all, there are always new things to discover. And if ever we needed to discover something new about our mental health and well-bring and emotional balance, it is now, because we are in an emergency situation around this. It is exploding.

    Alice, I so appreciate that you have kept coming back to this. I have to say, even though we have disagreed on a few things, we also have overlap in perspective, I see this. I think you have shown great courage, trust, and fortitude to have so thoughtfully fostered an open dialogue here. Nice job! Personally, I feel as though I, myself, have moved forward quite a bit since we’ve started this discussion. Thank you.

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  • I just wanted to add the core distinguishing features between what I learned in the world of psychology vs energy, as far as healing goes:

    In the energy healing world, we learn to focus on how we feel about ourselves, whereas I always felt that in the psychology world, the emphasis, at least by implication and sometimes more than that, the focus was more about how others felt about us. I can’t say how often I heard, “Alex, if you say that, people will just think you are…(fill in blank).”

    I find that focus to be oppressive and self-defeating, because it renders us powerless to others. That’s a terrible feeling, one of always having to appease others. We lose our own sense of ourselves this way, putting others’ feelings over our own. Often, they are just not compatible, and that’s the way it is. Why force it? Sometimes it can be worked out, and often it can not. When one doesn’t accept that, they can become controlling and manipulative, to force a square peg in a round hole, so to speak.

    Also, in energy work, we are taught to get our own information, which amounts to going by our own feelings and intuition to guide us, not by the information of others. Our paths are all unique, and going by the information of others (e.g. research studies and others’ processes) as our guide can really screw us up after a while, and it’s so subtle and we become so familiar with it, that we’re not aware of this insidious dependence that inevitably develops. In energy work, we are taught how to be personal sovereign and self-responsible, to follow our own path. While we’re of course willing and open to supporting others, in the end, we are ultimately responsible for ourselves.

    When we are not connected to our feelings and intuition (dissociated, out of body, in our heads, etc.), then that is the first order of business in energy healing, to connect with that emotional part of ourselves, that is vital! That’s how we connect with our own personal inner guidance, this is what is taught in energy healing, to heal dependence.

    Most often, this is where it gets really healing, because I can assure you that when a dissociated person (or society) starts connecting with its feelings after a long period of dissociation, well, that can be pretty rough as many things rush to the surface, and can feel very chaotic and painful in many ways.

    This is usually called a ‘relapse,’ or an ‘episode.’ In psychology, of course, we turn to medication and psychotherapy. In energy work, we turn to chakras and spiritual teachings in order to apply them. When I say ‘spiritual,’ I’m talking about the nature of energy. We go straight to discover our truth, and allow that to transform us into who we really are.

    So to me, these are two divergent paradigms, total opposite in values and perspectives. And I’m telling the God’s honest truth when I say that the psychology world tanked me in every way–and I was extremely dedicated to it and even compliant and followed directions, much to my regret; while the energy healing, also dedicated and with focused diligence, lifted me right out of it, and continues to support me, as it has become my way of life, from this perspective.

    That’s what happened as I healed, my entire world shifted because I learned this perspective that was the exact opposite of what I had been programmed with, from traditional mainstream culture, in which I was raised.

    That’s a hard gap over which to communicate. The ideals are not only opposite, they are not compatible, totally conflicted. It’s totally a choice, I know a lot of people in each camp, and I know what is compatible with me. My partner learned what I learned, followed in my footsteps and found his own chakra healing, and he transformed as well, he had to or else I would not have been able to heal altogether within the relationship, I’d have had to leave.

    I fairly certain that there is reconciling these two perspectives, each one creates a different reality. The psychology perspective is the basis for one reality and the energy world is the basis for another reality.

    I can assure you that the energy world is gaining fast. A lot of people are awake to this now, and are continue to see the value in it, as the old ways of doing things just don’t seem to be working out any longer. in fact, they are failing miserably.

    I find it interesting to have experienced both perspectives, as I was raised in an academic psychology based family and world. For me at least, where I am now is much, much, sooo much better. It’s freeing to have learned how to take care of myself to this degree, self-healing. I’m 54 and I take medication for absolutely nothing, completely healthy in every respect. Considering where I had been and how long I got stuck there, that is an absolute miracle. Thanks to energy and chakras, and many more interesting things I learned along the way. To me, that’s the new world, that’s the alternative waiting to spring forth. It’s growing in popularity, thank goodness.

    Ok, I’ll stop here, I’ve said a lot. But I wanted to see if I could drive my point home, here. Yes, I know that it is only my experience, and I’m so grateful for it all. But I still think there is something to al this, that could apply to more than just me. In my experience at least, it was THE paradigm shift that affected absolutely everything.

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  • Alice, I think you ask an excellent question and I hear you, because I went through my worst time while living in San Francisco, which, despite its reputation, is quite cold, competitive, and, as you describe in NYC, extremely speedy. The homeless population is out of control, and this is where I traversed the mental health world top to bottom, as student, intern, disabled client, social worker, advocate, activist—in that order. In fact, the mental health industry and system seems to practically run that city. That, and Google. There is no compassion here, just cut throat competition, all political, 100%. How can anyone in an extremely distressed state function in this, never mind actually heal?

    Well, I did, and trust me when I say it was so not made easy for me. I had to really humble myself as I went around town looking for healing, my entire mind, body, and energy a totally wreck from coming off nine medications, on top of being suddenly treated as though I were second class. I fought back, and even won a legal action for discrimination, so I never took on that identity, but on the most practical level, it makes life next to impossible. Certainly, the system felt that I was, in no way, entitled to a quality life.

    I had to fight so hard to get my voice heard and my rights respected, it nearly killed me, literally. I cannot understand why this would happen?

    I was most definitely in a very extreme state (not at all angry or violent, more so in fear, dread, panic, and paranoia), and I was clear enough in communication for my friends and my partner to understand me perfectly; but in the system, I could not engage ANYONE in a way where I felt they heard what I was saying, and their responses would make me feel terrible about myself, as though I did not deserve any regard or respect whatsoever. I had already been a practicing therapist, and never had this trouble with my peers.

    But just because I was ‘in the system,’ it was assumed that I was, somehow, not deserving to be well or to have a quality of life. I’d never felt so dehumanized in all my life! Of course, this was the motivation for making my film. It’s like, “Hello, I’m right here!” With the clinicians with whom I worked (or, tried to work), it was as though instead of hearing what I was saying, they were looking for things in my words, thoughts and manner that would trigger in THEM a diagnosis or something being amiss with me, just because I was there. It was frustrating and infuriating, to say the least. Overall, it was highly traumatic, because I was trying to heal and get back to work, I had no other agenda. What the system did to me totally undermined my attempts to heal and transition from disability status.

    In the end, I sought help from the alternative that worked for me, which was a community of energy healers and teachers, and that was the ticket for me. It was a meditation and healing school where I learned about grounding and chakras and how energy works, and I took their program for 4 years. When I graduated (which is how I also being an ordained minister and spiritual counselor, aside from a trained psychic energy healer), I was a totally different person inside, integrated and clear, and of course, as a result of that, my outer world transformed. Change starts from within, and then we externalize it around us. That’s how energy works.

    It was a fantastic and powerful program that not only led to some spectacular healing for me, but it also changed the entire course of my life. Those teachers were brilliant, and they knew about healing better than anyone I’d ever met. It’s where my world opened up–finally, the light.

    I took their program as I was healing from medication withdrawal of all nine medications, after 20 years of one thing or another, and discovered that clearing out our chakras and energy field covers a great deal of ground when it comes to healing. I took all their classes, including the 18 month graduate internship program, did many readings a week, and got healing after healing. It was an amazing program, and made all the difference. I was on disability at the time with no pocket change for this, but I made it work, much of it by doing trade and volunteer work in exchange. I was so desperate to heal, I was willing to create any avenue to make it happen.

    Aside from that, I think that if people would just be a bit more in tune with what another person is trying to communicate, especially when extremely distressed, that would go a really long way in alleviating the problem. But we can’t force people to change, and that kind of change is quite challenging. We’ve all been ‘trained’ by society to be way too speedy for our own good, that staying busy, busy, busy is the way to go.

    I would beg to differ. I think that’s exactly what has created a toxic, ungrounded, and totally dissociated and narcissistic society. People no longer have attention span for others, or so it seems. And when it is not communicated linearly and quickly, in short hand, then there is no hope to be heard. I think that’s a huge problem in society at large, but certainly in the urban centers, that’s what rules. How can ANYONE not be stressed to the edge, in that environment?

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  • Katie, this is so brilliant and so moving, thank you. You nailed it, spot on, as usual.

    You are so perfectly eloquent, I just want to highlight a few phrases which really popped out at me, and why–

    “How do these errors come to light? When those who have been stigmatized are ready to take center stage and clear up the confusion that their unique expressions of humanity have created.”

    Yes, indeed, this is precisely my purpose with presenting this film. We have a story to tell around the experience of being blatantly stigmatized, and the multiple negative effects this has had on our lives and well-being, for the purpose of healing ourselves and awakening society at large. There is no separation among the members of humanity, that is an illusion. We exist on a unified and extremely malleable continuum. Poles shift all the time, which is a heads up to anyone and everyone.

    “At the beginning of *Hot Stove* is the visual “coming out” and the voice saying “They are terrified”. Yes, “they” the hot stoves. And the voice of authority claims “they” are terrified of being “out” or visibly crazy. This is so wrong– or rather, the perception of what is terrifying “them” is clearly a projection and not even close to the internal struggle “they” are waging.”

    Yes, yes, yes. They’re projecting some kind of terror about disclosing and here we are with no apology, spilling our guts so that others can feel hope and encouragement. I was never IN the closet, so indeed, I could not at all relate to that. Entirely projected, a false reality and message that leads to pure stigma, nothing real about it. Fear- and shame-inducing messages are extremely harmful to our well-being.

    “But, there is , I believe, more scary truth in the narratives of a *mad person* than the mainstream can handle– even factual accounts of abuse by the healing professionals in the white coats, are apt to be blocked out of consciousness or rationalized out of existence by the MH professionals themselves.”

    Sadly, we have a bad habit in our culture of enabling abuse by denying it, and/or blaming the victim, often making the victim feel crazy or delusional, falsely of course. Admittedly, it is hard to face ourselves and our foibles, I believe we all share that, it’s not easy for anyone to humble themselves when they realize they have been operating from core misconceptions.

    But we all have foibles and we all experience awakening at one time or another. Facing our own shadow head on is what leads to healing and freedom. I think many of us have done this, as part of our healing, and I know we are here to help others do the same. We needn’t take ourselves so seriously, life is supposed to be enjoyable. Which leads to:

    “The Buddha also said that the purpose of life is to ‘enjoy ourselves and be at ease.’

    I agree wholeheartedly, this is the goal. It’s why I chose music and bringing joy as the focus of my next film.

    It’s amazing, though, how many people and institutions are, somehow, guided to sabotage the joy of others. To me, that’s what I hope comes to light, here, the saboteurs.

    Live and let live. If you don’t like how someone else lives, walk in another direction. No one is interested in another’s negative opinion of our character, that is for us to assess and own. It is we are who to be comfortable with ourselves, we are not hear to appease others, but to live our lives creatively, dictated by our heart’s desires. We are all entitled to peace and joy, and this is what we are reclaiming, and inviting others to do the same.

    And yep, we are the only authorities of our lives, period. At this point, it goes without saying, although some people need reminding to tend to their own garden rather than fiddling around in someone else’s, which usually leads only to trouble.

    A psychiatrist told me 14 years ago, just as I had come off all medications, that I had ‘lost my dreams;’ and I had a brief hospital stay which, upon release, the box checked on my release forms said, “Poor chance of recovery.” I believed them for a while, and it was so distressing, I can’t even describe the feeling of hopelessness.

    Then, thanks to the encouragement of a very gifted psychic healer, I found the healing community I was looking for, and now, over a decade later, I’m perfectly healthy, grounded, and living my dreams, purely.

    At this point, I guess I can forgive what happened to me, for my own sense of relief. But what continues to make me angry is that, despite all of these vivid testimonials of grave harm done by the industry in the name of “health and healing support,” they continue to do it, and stubbornly! It will be a happy day when this industry wakes up to itself, and once and for all, deals with it like mature and reasonable adults rather than continuing to rationalize, justify, and blame their extremely well-informed critics.

    Beautiful, Katie, thanks again for hearing the heart of our film.

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  • “I fear that if your message is that all psychiatry is destructive, period, your (sic) will remain more marginalized than you ought to be.”

    I believe you are making assumptions here, Alice. Who are you thinking is ‘marginalized?’ Perhaps that is a projection from your own mind, because you keep talking about ‘marginalization’ as though it were our (generalized) reality.

    I honestly do not believe that being opposed to psychiatry, based on our vividly horrendous experience of it, makes one ‘marginal.’ You are placing ‘psychiatry’ on some kind of false pedestal with this statement. “Psychiatry’ is certainly not the measure of reality, I think that’s our point around here.

    I can only hope that my film puts this illusion to rest, and leads to a bit of an awakening for you. None of us lives ‘in the margins.’ We are simply living our lives according to our paths. Why do you keep dividing people up in terms of being ‘marginalized’ and…whatever it is you are…what, incorporated? I’m not sure what the opposite of marginalized is.

    There’s the great divide to which you’ve referred, it’s entirely in your perception!

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  • To the issue of stigma, I used part of this quote by Marianne Williamson at the end of my film. This is the full passage, which I find so inspiring. To me, this is what leaves ‘stigma’—or anything of the like–in the dust. Shine on, everyone!

    “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

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  • One last conclusion–without a doubt, I am certain you are perceiving me through the lens of stigma, that’s what I find ironic and concerning. You speak in dualistic language, that of those that marginalize people.

    I’m a professional healer, extensively trained and with multiple certifications (including as ordained non-denominational minister and spiritual counselor), also an actor, and a teacher, married 30 years, living in bliss out in the country, with the Redwood forest as my backyard. I also am music director and piano accompaniment for a band that plays for residents of an assisted living center. My life is peaceful and fulfilling, joyous on all counts.

    That’s the reward for completing one’s dark night of the soul. Mine started in grad school and lasted through my period of disability, about 10 years or so.

    Uprising, thank you for the support. I believe this is THE problem. What do people expect to happen to all that anger that is being suppressed? I shudder to think…

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  • That’s fine, Ron, I appreciate what you did offer.

    In this conclusion of our open dialogue, I walk away with the awareness that you and I are totally not on the same page, nor do I feel you are reading me accurately. Oh well, par for the course.

    I also find your rhetoric vague and confusing, and your reasoning to be paradoxical. I guess we’ll see what happens with all this, time will tell…

    Best wishes,
    Alex.

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  • And when I say I feel that it is virtually impossible to bring a cohesive group together, it’s for at least a couple of reasons I can think of off the cuff that would be relevant here:

    1) most people have been wearing masks for a long time, living with no transparency or disclosure, and

    2) not everyone that would actually be harmonious has travel money, if cash on hand at all.

    I’m sure there are other reasons, but these are two of the most powerful ones, imo. Basically, that means that physically bringing people together simply to have some kind of ‘alliance’ would be a bunch of privileged, two-faced liars, and isn’t that what we’re saying about ‘the system?’ This is how it self-perpetuates.

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  • I don’t know, I think if I cannot create an alliance with someone or some group with my authentic voice, then this would be an alliance based on false pretenses, which is bound to have consequences at some point.

    I made it all the way through–off tons of meds, through the entire and wretched disability/social services world, relinquishing diagnoses, taking the system to legal task successfully, and getting on with my life, without any alliance, other than with what I knew in my heart and soul was the truth, and I never once wavered from it–emotional truth, as well as what I knew to be real and valid for me, personally. And in the process, I managed to take down a couple of corrupt agencies, for real.

    If each of us, individually, really walked our talk and lived our truth, change would happen in each of our corners of the world, and eventually, it would all come together. I firmly believe that, and to me, it is completely logical.

    Trying to appeal to others and bring people together as some kind of cohesive group is virtually impossible right now. I think that would be the universe’s job, that’s my personal belief.

    In the meantime, I, personally, feel it is most sound to live our truth, ourselves, and to have that inner-personal alliance, first, in order to best help those who request it from us. I not only think that’s the best we can do, I think it is everything good. I don’t see change happening any other way.

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  • Ok, thanks for the response, Ron. I posted my last one before seeing your response because, indeed, I am somewhat fuming, but I feel I am still clear on how I’m thinking and communicating.

    But I do feel a great deal of passion for this, and when I am told that I need to express my personal opinion in a certain way to be heard, then that is not my audience. I do not feel my anger is displaced, I am focused with it, and I’ve created a lot with it, including transformational change in my own life. I have no stake in having my voice heard, it is heard by those who hear it, and I hear myself clearly.

    Point is, I don’t think that caring about what others think is going to bring about any kind of change, but more so, it will keep people feeling powerless and oppressed. I think we need to be real, authentic, and heartfelt when we communicate our truth. If someone cannot take the heart passion of another, than that it their issue with which to deal.

    If it is a mental health professional, then they either need to grow or get off the pot. But giving directives about how someone should navigate their anger is neither helpful nor healthful, that is simply my honest opinion. It is merely status quo.

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  • “but so that we will come across as balanced and thoughtful to the people who are less polarized…”

    Ok, I’d like to have an open dialogue with you, here, Ron. Or maybe in the forum? I’ve never done that before, but I’m game. But I’ll start here:

    What do you mean by this statement above? It appears to me that you are advocating that people should “come across” as a certain way to appeal to people who are “less polarized?” Although that last phrase ‘less polarized’ is what is confusing me.

    Is this your strategy for bridging the gap in communication? I ask this because, to me, this feels polarizing in and of itself because it seems to me that you are wanting people to compromise their emotions and put on some kind of ‘mask’ that would acceptable in mainstream society, in order to appease someone in the establishment. Is that what you mean by ‘less polarized?”

    By polarized, do you mean something like, for example, mentally ill, psychotic, crazy, off balance, etc…aka a hot stove? How does ‘polarized’ translate into accessible English to you, I don’t think this would word would be at all meaningful to the general public.

    I don’t know, I’m just inferring, but if could you expound on this a bit, that would help me with getting clarity on exactly what you mean by this. Thanks.

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  • My film has also been shown in college classrooms and I also received requests for the film from family social service agencies. Although admittedly, it is exclusively the client/survivor voice, since this is traditionally what has fallen on deaf ears and continues to get twisted around and interpreted cynically (aka stigma), to avoid facing the powerful implications of our truth.

    I, too, think avoidance has been a major player here in the client/survivor vs. clinician dialogue, on the part of mainstream-oriented clinicians. Regardless, truth-speaking is healing and freeing, so I feel the truth will win out in the end, hopefully much sooner than later.

    There are all sorts of films about these issues floating around out there now. Some embed the status quo while others challenge it. It will be so interesting to see how this continues to unfold in the collective.

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  • Seems the smoke has cleared a bit here and things quieted down. At the end of the day (literally), one thing has become so very clear to me–if we criticize anything about psychiatry in any way shape or form, it is taken completely personally and we are called triggered, crazy, loony, aggressive, zealous, etc. That is a dead end to dialogue and a rabbit hole, complete communication shutdown. Not sure if there is anything to connect that great divide. Seems to me like two completely different and entirely non-compatible realities! Hmmm.

    Thanks for the extremely stimulating blog, Sera and commenters, I found a lot of clarity in this experience.

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  • Right on, Jens. I think ‘put up with’ is the operative and troubling phrase, here. How much more authoritarian and oppressive can it get than that? It is so obvious so many in this field do not understand process and healing, ironically enough.

    What I can’t figure out is what is the motivation for having such a job? People say they go into this field to help others. But I can’t help to wonder if there is an underlying need to feel superior to others. Cynical, I know. But that’s how it seems to play out…every single time.

    You sound like a gift to your clients, Jens. Good for you 🙂

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  • You’re right and I agree, truth is truth, and it sets us free. I was just being ironic, but, in the end, if you were to write this I don’t think it would be a matter of protecting them as much as possibly protecting yourself. Naming them is truthful and courageous, and is one way to go. And, of course, be ready for what happens next and the chips will fall where they may. That’s true activism, in my book.

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  • Brilliant observations, Jens. I could cc this to tons of clinicians I’ve known over the years. And we wonder why the field has failed? (I don’t say ‘is failing,’ I think it’s a done deal, just a matter of awakening, rude as it may be). What could be more obvious??????????

    I’m starting to feel that 1:1 private clinical meetings should be outlawed, due to danger of a client, literally, being driven crazy. Or at least a surgeon general’s warning….

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  • Thanks, Sera, I’ll post it here, Voices That Heal–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

    It’s by no means perfect and I had no resources nor model (I was alone in this in San Francisco, I did not know of MIA or the like at the time), this is a $0 budget film.

    I was also trying to invite dialogue, not slam anyone. Although most of us (not 100%, though), are extremely critical of the system and its power imbalance, and I think we provide a reasonable introduction to why this would be. I think these issues merit focused exploration. We are relating intimate, personal and emotional experiences in the process, so it’s kind of a delicate balance.

    But I do feel that my film is FAR more truthful, authentic, and diverse in perspective and experience than Hot Stove. Our film shuns stigma, simply from our presence; we plow right through it by showing up and speaking our truths, without apology.

    This business of the ‘terror and shame’ of ‘coming out,’ right up front in the Hot Stove film is, I feel, the epitome of stigma and shame, which is why I feel that film promotes it, as usual with this. Same with the title, that says it all. I made my film to take back this issue, because I do feel it is a real and present danger and is keeping things good and stuck.

    And in Voices, it is us talking about us, not others talking for us or about us. That is what I find most frustrating, stifling, and demeaning. Speaking for ourselves is empowering. Speaking for others can be terribly misleading and presumptuous, imo. I don’t feel second hand accounts and interpretations of others is powerful enough to create change. We each have to empower ourselves, individually, to make an impact.

    In this film, we are at different places on a continuum, along with all of humankind. I agree that we need to cover a range of perspectives, but I’m just not interested in the professional clinical perspective any longer, to me that is old news and totally irrelevant to, both, healing and justice.

    This is about experience and survivorship, that is our expertise. Professional are exploiting people, purely, when they use personal stories as ‘evidence.’ Our stories are sacred, and belong to the ones who live them, not to the ones that observe others. Really, I think that’s kind of a no-brainer, but in practice, we get sucked dry so others can make a few bucks and gain some prestige.

    I also made Voices That Heal 4 years ago (with a slight re-edit last year) just before I entered into any of these discussions and have learned such a great deal since. Still, I feel this film has enough truth to it to generate plenty of dialogue around the controversies, in a way that will lead to clarity rather than yet another rabbit hole.

    It’s been a while since I screened it, but when I was taking it around San Francisco, in and out of the system, and Humboldt County Health & Human Services, it was rich and hoppin’. It also played on Humboldt cable access for a year. I posted it on YouTube so that anyone can have access to it.

    Thanks for asking about it, Sera.

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  • “But when we claim that the only rights and the only pain worth talking about are those of people who have been denied power, we create a climate which feels very unsafe for the person who has had power, because it’s kind of like being in a car that has no breaks – there’s a feeling that things are shifting but they are being given no way to stand up for themselves if things shift too far and they start being the one who really being hurt, misunderstood, having their reality denied etc.”

    Ok, I see your truth. I believe you are perpetuating an imbalance of power, here, and a power struggle. If the clinician is so vulnerable to being hurt and misunderstood, then where is their sense of self? This is a safe clinician, a role model for personal empowerment? I think not.

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  • “for example one comment suggesting her film was “utter bs” and pure stigma comes to mind.”

    Given that this is my comment, I’ll say that I stand by that, I do think the film is deceiving, false, and completely stigmatizing, and I offered my film about the effects of stigma on all this as a rebuttal. I also have been in dialogue with Alice daily since this all started and it’s been extremely honest and 100% civil and open.

    You, yourself say that we should better understand those whose lives have been so negatively impacted by all this, and i’m one of them. Does your directive not go for you, too?

    Alice and I are in dialogue and have exchanged a variety of ideas, thoughts and feelings. What else can I say? I would suggest you stop taking it all so personally and being critical of others, and look at your own truth.

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  • So imagine in these 1:1 weekly or so meetings with a clinician, with no witness. I shudder to think. Well, actually, I know from experience how this goes, and we’ve heard the stories from many, and they’re so not hard to believe, we witness these double-binding and gaslighting tactics/dynamics publically, I’ve seen it on here repeatedly.

    We need to see them for what they are, when these dynamics appear in private meetings: mental cruelty and abuse–if only because of the power imbalance and the utter vulnerability of a client. I call this ‘clinical trauma,’ causes confusion and disorientation, as well as negative introjections.

    These meetings need cams or something, as back up. That is way too dangerous, when clinicians pull this kind of crap on clients, and personally, I believe it to be the norm. To me, this is the problem and why we have a perpetual tower of babel here. So, so many of these clinicians are hyper-sensitive and shaming, and they panic with truth, I’ve seen this repeatedly.

    I know I keep using us vs. them language, but at this point, I’m at a bit of a loss around this. I want unity, but first, we have to see what is constantly sabotaging the unity. I think it’s hunger for power, territoriality, and of course, we all know the greed involved. So much deceit and duplicity going on, it’s hard to know who is who and what is what.

    So much going on behind closed doors, how do we get beyond the point of speculation, and actually get it to light up for all to see clearly and unambiguously?

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  • “Many people think in black or white categories and their anger towards the prevailing systems of mental health preclude real dialogue or action.”

    That’s classic double binding, Margie. Crazy-making. THIS is the problem in these dialogues. The anger is reasonable.

    Perhaps you are confusing ‘anger’ with ‘digging in heels defensiveness,’ which, yes, can be problematic in a dialogue, but when this is pointed out in the moment, one can get past it (sometimes). At least it is telling where the stuckness happens.

    But what you say is what we’re all sick and tired of hearing, and what actually CREATES the big divide we’re trying to bridge. The anger is totally justified. You are talking about people who have been seriously violated and not vindicated, all in the name of ‘help.’ That is no help, believe me.

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  • “The psychiatric industry, no doubt, is stuck completely within the material world. But there are millions online now “awakening,” no doubt because we have freedom of speech, and so many can share their research and ideas. And we can hope, some day, the psychiatrists will also awaken, and realize that millions believe their is a higher spiritual dimension to life.”

    Indeed, SE, and I’d also say ‘stuck in the academic world,’ in that it is not real, it is illusion. That’s what makes it ‘academic,’ by definition.

    We are awakening to a new reality, and that will be a shock a lot of people, the ones digging in their heels not wanting change. Although I believe it’s for what the rest of us have been asking–desperately!–for quite a while now. In the meantime, it is good to know spirit at a volatile time like this, isn’t it? Great change is on the horizon, no doubt.

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  • I think any aspect of ourselves is subject to change and evolution. We’re not static beings, we’re ever growing, changing, and integrating, at least we strive to grow.

    Although it does seem that sometimes, our environments work to keep us stuck, I think that’s what we’re talking about with the mental health industry. That’s the oppression, keeping people stuck–whether intentional or not. But when they won’t hear feedback, one has to wonder.

    To me, being ‘spiritual’ simply means honoring the spirit of what we perceive to be physical–the energy of life, what is behind what we perceive with our five senses. Indeed, it can be light or shadow, good feeling or bad feeling. We are in flux 24/7, I think of ‘spirit’ as the river of energy that runs through everything. It is another dimension of our existence, subtle and powerful, from which we actually can garner quite a bit of control over our life experience. At least, that is what I discovered.

    Religion, to me, is more of a cult of people; whereas spirituality is all that is, it is energy.

    And I agree, when we deny our darkness, we are bound to be reminded of it when we least expect it, one way or another, and yes, it can be very toxic to others.

    Good to see you back here, btw. I’ve missed your voice.

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  • Hi Alice, as I said above in response to Sera, I sent you an email via your website, so I don’t want to overstate myself. But I’ll repeat here that I did make a film where the central thread is the role of ‘stigma’ in all of this, because that is a big part of my story, blatant stigma that involved legal action because my civil rights were blatantly violated.

    I believe stigma is vital to this discussion, but true, it has been co-opted and confused with something else by NAMI, professional grant-run advocacy, and the field itself.

    In my film, I attempt to actually make it true and meaningful, not a commercial for the system. I feel people are better off healing elsewhere, but I completely honor how anyone finds their healing path, on or off medication or whatever. Everyone has their path, but the professional class is seriously bigoted and carries so much prejudice, really makes a mess of things, to say the least. We’re trying to wake people up to this paradox.

    I feel very critical of the system, the field, and the medical perspective for a variety of reasons, and one of them is because dialogue becomes like the tower of babel. I think it’s futile to speculate whey this is because it inevitable turns to victim-blame, exactly the issues that take people into the system. It is an abhorrent and toxic cycle. I guess everyone and no one is to blame, but that’s the way it always seems to turn out.

    In my film, not all of us are critical of the system, and in fact one person validates it. I disagree with his position and make it clear in the film, but we all still stand by our truths, which I think is reasonable and sound. In the process of this, we offer our own healing perspectives, paths, methods, and information to inspire hope and to encourage others that there are many ways to heal.

    But we’re all survivors of the system, one way or another, and speak our truth ourselves. Aside from having our stories told by others–on our behalf or for ‘our good’– being, to be very frank, demeaning in and of itself, I also feel this can be easily exploitative of others.

    Our intention is the same, to create a dialogue that crosses the great divide. But where the conversation is weighted is important to discern. Why would we want any perspective other than our own, about ourselves–meaning those of us who experienced the system to our horror and did the healing ourselves? That is what is personally not sitting well with me, especially when my film starts the conversation directly from the voice of lived experience.

    I’ve posted the film here a lot so I don’t want to do that again, but I did send you the link so I hope you check it out and, perhaps, I will hear from you. For others who would want to compare these two perspectives on how stigma fits into this, Voices That Heal is posted on YouTube.

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  • Indeed, I did. And I started to respond below your response. But it got kind of long and it involved my own film about stigma, which I wanted to share that with her, as it is exclusively the voices of those of us who experienced this–and our spouses, the two of us who are married–and no one else. This was the best way I felt I could start a dialogue with Alice, a ‘filmed response’ that was already in the can.

    I did not, however, want to co-opt your blog and make it about me, so I looked up Alice’s contact info on her website and wrote to her. I figured she had read my comment and I referred to it.

    I’m happy to take it public, but my feeling is that we are all coming from different angles on this. I would very much like to have a clear and honest dialogue, I’m not convinced it would be satisfying in an online group setting. Although I’m interested to see what unfolds here. I’m grateful you posted this. I think it’s THE WALL we’ve been trying to knock down–hopefully.

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  • What angers me is that I don’t see how it’s possible to even have a discussion at this level. These are non-survivors who are trying to tell OUR stories. I don’t care how ‘compassionate’ (dubious word in this case, but I think it’s their intention) they try to sound, it is about as patronizing as it gets, and 100% FALSE.

    What is it going to take to get SOME people (take your pick) to get that we’re all our own people, regardless of ANYTHING. I get mad because it keeps coming back to this, and it is such a brick wall. I think it stalls progress, keeps us spinning in the mud.

    The conversation BEGINS and ENDS with the survivors of this madness. Everyone else can watch and learn.

    Sorry to rant, but this is a sore spot for me, how this ‘professional system’ has taken over the voice of others. That’s just pure vampirism.

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  • I watched the first 5 minutes, to the end of the intro, paused it and took a deep breath, as I knew this would be a rabbit hole. Then I went 2 more minutes and I was feeling so angry that I had to turn it off. What utter crap, total bs. This film IS blatant stigma, purely. This is either ignorance or dishonesty or both. I don’t see another option, other than totally insulting to humanity.

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  • “Those of us with a spiritual side just seem to have felt the true wrongs going on within our world, prior to others.”

    I think you hit on something important here, Someone Else. Being connected to our spirits does make a person highly aware of what is brewing, before it actually happens. It is a feeling that occurs before the event, knowing that there is something ‘in the air,’ so to speak. It is a broader perspective that includes feelings and intuition, more so than needing some kind of hard copy evidence to ‘prove’ a reality. Being spiritually inclined brings into focus subtle energies.

    However, try to convince someone who is NOT spiritually inclined, and I can guarantee you there will be some kind of negative projection or conflict or stigma or insult or patronizing or avoidance or distraction or something. The gap in communication between the spiritually inclined and the non-spiritually inclined (academic) is mammoth, like a black hole of communication. I think this may be where society splits off irreconcilably.

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  • Whew, I relate to so much of this. I had that same inner world/outer world split you talk about, and it caught up with me, too. Thank GOD! Before I awoke to that, even though I was reasonable successful in life, my life and energy were compromised, and I had no idea, although I knew I was not at peace. I just thought it was the best I/we could do, that life was not about inner peace, but about being ‘successful’ in the eyes of others.

    Indeed, it all led to healing my heart, learning my spirit, and embracing my soul journey, totally transformative. That’s a very humbling and exquisite life path. Far better and way more relaxing than worrying about ‘fitting in,’ which is how we end up living in a split and projecting falsehoods. This is why our society is a confusing network of holographic illusions. It’s also how we become powerless and prisoners of society.

    I find that our soul journey is where we discover our nature, our heart’s truth, and is what leads to healing, inner peace, and desirable manifestations in life. Definitely my preferred path.

    Thanks as always for sharing your light and truth, Lauren.

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  • Indeed, which is why I’m always careful to say ‘in my experience.’ And my experience is vast. I saw my first psychiatrist at age 21 and my last one when I was 44. That was 10 years ago, and I haven’t looked back (other than to relate my story).

    I went through several psychiatrists in the latter years, all in San Francisco, where the state of the ‘mental health field’ is truly beyond abysmal, just terrible, really failing everyone, including the city at large. The psychiatrists were HORRIBLE, one worse than the other, truly clueless, guessing, utter lack of empathy and even understanding of interpersonal issues, and not owning a damn thing.

    Plus, 3 of them were seriously abusive, gaslighting, sarcastic, and blatantly stigmatizing. If I wanted to not only heal but also to gain back my self-respect, it was imperative I take an entirely different route to healing.

    During my years working with professional ‘advocacy’ (I learned this was only a term with no substance), I did sit at the same table as psychiatrists, and as usual, they were maddening, dismissive of anything they didn’t like or which reflected that perhaps a shift be made in our approach to ‘mental health issues,’ without any further inquiry. They shut down dialogue quicker than anyone, all resistance. Talk with no substance, and no desire to listen to anyone else, they just get too triggered. Completely and totally UNSAFE.

    A few years ago, I spoke to a class of attorneys-to-be at Berkeley Law School, and when I talked about how the medication was so harmful to me, one of the students got really emotional and started reproaching me with this really defensive attitude, she even started crying from her anger and seemed quite overwhelmed and distraught. It was rather stressful for all concerned, and she didn’t even make an attempt at dialogue, she was just kind of hysterical about what I was putting forth, based on my experience of healing.

    Turns out she was a psychiatrist who was also studying to become an attorney. I went back for a follow up with that class a few months later, and she was not there. Go figure.

    In addition, I trained as a psychotherapist and in that process, I discovered not only how misguided this education was, but also how ‘controlling the client when they were exhibiting too much power’ was something my fellow interns enjoyed learning, and “practiced” on each other.

    While I enjoyed working with clients and was a well-regarded clinician, I defected from the field in order to discover what would really help people. I knew this because while the mental health field was tanking me, while the energy and spiritual work, largely through the philosophy and practices of Chinese Medicine (acupuncture, herbs, Qi Gong), my energy balanced out, my mind cleared, and I healed.

    So that’s where I’m coming from, here.

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  • One thing I wanted to add–

    I think that when we interpret what we observe with our brains, then we are apt to criticize, judge, project and inspire conflict which can easily lead to violence. That is one frequency of energy, where we exist now, in these times.

    Whereas when we interpret with our hearts, we are more likely to own, love, and be inspired toward inner peace, which is how world peace will eventually occurs. That is another frequency of energy. Evolution happens from the heart, and the mind will follow right on its heels.

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  • Groundbreaking post here, I appreciate how you talk about energy. I agree completely, it is the energy behind our words and deeds that speaks most profoundly to us. These are what really trigger our emotional responses, even it may be hard to pinpoint. I’m sure we’ve all had that uneasy and dense feeling of mixed messages during and after interactions.

    However, in general, our society is not attuned to energy, we stay on the surface with what we perceive with our five senses and how our brain interprets this. I think that is a really limited perception which begs expansion at this time.

    Seems to me you are talking about heart consciousness, which I feel is where we feel our truth, and from where this vibration of energy is most powerful–as you say, way more than brain consciousness. More than each others words, we feel each others hearts. If our hearts are angry and wounded, then regardless of what words we use, we can so easily project our wounds if we are not in ownership of them. Parents who were to own their issues 100% would, indeed, be truly wonderful parents, and model examples to their kids of self-awareness, self-responsibility and compassion.

    To me, this is the big shift in perception and paradigm, from brain to heart consciousness. That is how we expand awareness, because heart consciousness is unlimited. Our capacity to love is infinite, we can always be growing here.

    I believe this issue extends past children, though. I think we all pick up energy more than words and actions, and we find that they are often not aligned with each other. I think that’s why we’re so confused!

    Thanks for this article, I find it refreshing.

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  • Oh, and forgive me, Katie, for taking this out of context. But when I saw this phrase, something clicked and I ran with it. I actually think there is some deep truth to this, although not because we criticize psychiatry, that’s ridiculous. But I do feel we are dealing with rampant collective wounding, and this includes the shrinks and everyone, including myself.

    Perhaps we are on the verge of re-defining what is healthy and sound, for ourselves and the collective. While this is partly personal and subjective, I do think there are universal truths that we are not yet reaching. Were we to discover these, that would be a new world.

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  • “Many consumer/survivors who provide peer support recovery services have wondered about engaging a volunteer psychiatrist/psychologist or other clinical personnel as ‘supervisors’ to help with boundary, ethical or skill-based issues.”

    But their boundaries are rigid and unreasonable, which doesn’t allow for healing; their ethics are highly questionable because it is an unethical profession in practice; and from what I’ve seen by and large, their interpersonal skills are sorely lacking, which is how they drive people crazy. Quite the conundrum.

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  • “…a society that is somewhere on the spectrum of Axis II disorders–”

    Love this. I think that’s totally accurate. I believe narcissistic wounding covers it pretty well, but the collective certainly has branched out to other personality issues. That’s really, really tough to heal, but I know it’s doable. Takes faith and trust, though, as part of that healing process, given that severe control issues on the part of the narcissist make dialogue so challenging. Tough love. Don’t know of any other way.

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  • I find that psychiatrists are controllers, simply by personality. When a client gets powerful in their own skin–which should be what happens, that is healing–even the most focused, compassionate, and competent clinicians most often FREAK OUT and start pulling their power and control games. I agree, it may not be a conscious intention to dominate, but I think it’s inherent in these personalities. I wonder what their families and partners would have to say about that?

    It’s another reason I can’t sit at the same table as psychiatrists. They are not humble to the process, and will always want to control everything. I’ve never seen so many mind manipulating maneuvers when they get triggered by clients and survivors. That’s been my experience 100%.

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  • Otherwise, this conversation would have ended long ago because all the truthful information is already out there and being applied most effectively. Given their resistance to own their stuff, I’d say it’s more about leaving them in the dust, if they don’t want to listen. Humanity will evolve without the dualistic and utterly stigmatizing and discriminating psychiatric school of thought.

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  • I have found that the culture of the mental health industry is simply not attuned to the truth, they simply don’t want to hear it.

    I once gave a presentation to a group of clinicians and when I began talking about how the system is trapping people into a lifetime of dependence and ‘chronic illness’ based on stigmatizing beliefs projected onto them, a senior staff therapist became defensive, rolled her eyes, and walked out of the presentation in a huff. When I asked one of her colleagues what that was about, he said to me, “You hurt her feelings.” Apparently, she was not hearing that there is much more at stake here, in society at large, than her ‘feelings,’ but it just didn’t seem to matter to her.

    In my experience, this is pretty typical. I have found that most mental health professionals are not neutral listeners; they have a personal agenda and take things too personally. I have found it very challenging to have a satisfying dialogue with most mental health professionals, and usually find it to have been a complete waste of my time. There are exceptions, but I think defensiveness and demeaning projection are the rules in that culture–aka brick wall.

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  • If survivors are going to teach psychiatrists, two questions come immediately to mind: 1) why isn’t psychiatric training and education covering what they should know in order to effectively help people? and 2) would the teaching survivor/client be paid what a med school professor would be paid?

    How about the survivor apply their wisdom into their own personal and/or professional development. I’m tired of seeing our wisdom exploited and our stories used as evidence of someone else’s theory. That’s dehumanizing and is energy draining to people, to use their very personal and intimate information that way. Our stories are sacred. Healing is hard, rigorous work, and is extremely valuable to ourselves and our environment. Yet, we don’t get paid for doing it.

    “And there most definitely appears no to be no commitment to build capacity and independence for consumer/survivor organisations to build a business or a facility of their own.”

    Very, very true.

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  • One way to go after a corrupt agency is to appeal to its funding source, but of course in this case that’s just spitting into the wind, given the enormous financial gains made by both APA and pharma by this dark alliance. Hard to see one abandoning the other.

    However, I’m wondering if appealing to this PR agency would have any impact. Were they to hear survivors’ side of the story–via articulate personal testimonials such as given constantly on this website–to highlight the utter lack of truth of their campaign, perhaps that would give them pause about representing them. I’m sure there is tons of $$ involved here, too, but a PR firm has their own reputation to consider, as well. Might be worth a shot, and if it were to work, perhaps that would help to DISABLE psychiatry.

    I don’t think it has to be an angry appeal, but more so one of “Were you aware that psychiatry (fill in blank with examples)…?” Along with, “please reconsider this business association, for the sake of a sound humanity.” Something like that…

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  • “You’ve got this vast bureaucracy that while claiming to be about one thing is actually about something altogether different. All too often, the people gaining the most from these professions are not recipients. This sort of situation definitely makes getting out of need very problematic indeed. The crux of the problem often being the professions themselves. When their interests are in conflict with the recipient’s, the recipient must think about finding ways to circumvent their services.”

    And yes, I think this is spot on. It is not the generous, attentive, and humble community it needs to be in order to help people heal. It is a black hole, inherently.

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  • “There is nothing new about infanticide. The ideal family image that some people have is often at complete odds with the reality.”

    I know there is vast continuum between family murder and ‘the ideal family.’

    Lots of devilish things been going on for a long time that have cast violent shadow on our society, that have in recent years been coming to light, thanks to the supersonic social media information highway. That’s an awakening happening that is creating tremendous unrest globally. How else does radical change come about without severe agitation to motivate people to take risks and authentically, in person, challenge social norms? Now we’re getting it.

    We talk a lot on here about how kids are poisoned with toxic medication early in life. We want to know where to look to create some kind of healing change. We talk about bringing cohesion to community, for it to be supportive and welcoming of diverse personalities and processes. And yet, we can’t even achieve this within a family. Who is the head of the family, and what is his or her affect on others? That’s the seat of power in a community.

    Where are the role models of healthy community? I’ve heard people describing what would appeal to them and what sounds unconditionally loving and supportive, but do we have an example upon which to draw? Would you say this is ‘too ideal?’ I’m at a loss, here.

    When we deny where the ‘diseasing’ process begins, we avoid seeing where change can be most effective and far-reaching because it is at the root of the issue. Group dynamics begin in the family. This is our first community, so it makes a resounding imprint on our psyches, hearts, spirits, and I believe even on a cellular level, that most deeply affects our beliefs, perception, and choices. It also affects us physically, many things can go out of whack due to toxic dysfunction. That would be ‘a sick society,’ and many families are sick societies, so this is our first environment, which we internalize, whether we like it or not.

    This is our most powerful teaching example, if only through constant and highly interactive exposure. Kids learn from the adults around them this way. Addressing what we took on from a toxic family dysfunction (which can range from blatant to subtle and quite insidious) is where healing and integration can be most powerful, and permanent.

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  • “Not everybody, and that is the point.”

    Ok, perhaps wishful thinking, but it keeps me motivated to continue this work, otherwise it starts to feel like a black hole, and extremely discouraging.

    “I don’t think psychiatry is about health so much as it is about social control. Money and power have one more means of assuring their grip over the populace. The status quo must lower the boom. ‘Step out of line’, and they’ve got a place for you. It’s state power at, or down to, the familial level. People are howling about the urgent need to do something about a discordant family member.”

    Then the problem starts in the family, doesn’t it? The family situation has gotten extreme and horrific, because we have been in such deep, deep denial of just how toxic families have become. Just last week I read THREE stories of a parent killing their child. This seems to be a trend. Madness. Where is the community, here?

    “Now whether you’re dealing with police science or a branch of medicine has never been the penultimate question in most peoples minds facing it. The question is usually, ‘how do we deal with this specific disruptive person or that in real time?’ There is a certain amount of absolution seen in calling what is seen as misbehavior “disease”, and in leaving that solution to a profession that purports to be medical.”

    Anything that challenges our extremely narrow and rigid norm, as defined by the power & money elite (however this protocol works, via media, etc), is going to invite blatant stigma (e.g., creating the pretense of ‘disease’ for the child) and lead to oppression and control.

    Those who were wounded by family dynamics–and there are tons of us–are vulnerable to this, because family shaming, rejecting, ostracizing, demeaning, etc., create a template of post-traumatic stress, which, if addressed directly and with positive, loving attention, can heal. It’s not unusual to heal from our past, that’s really quite natural.

    However, this is not what occurs in the mental health and social service worlds. Instead, what I’ve mostly seen is a lot of professionals pushing these buttons in others to weaken, disorient, and control. I just find this so incredibly disturbing.

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  • Great answer, Fred, thanks. I can see that. Well, the honest truth is that, funding streams or not, they HAVE failed, it’s a done deal. At least that false belief is being challenged in so many ways, and loudly. Eventually, everyone wakes up, one way or another.

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  • It’s gotten so obvious that the psychiatry and its many tangents are based on PR aka illusion. Playing on vulnerability, gullibility, ignorance, using buzz words, holograms, projecting false benevolence, etc., all the while collecting money and intoxicated with power. This isn’t a rant, either; to me, this just seems like a very obvious, neutral observation at this point, it is so evident from all the stories I’ve read and heard which remind me in so many ways of my own story of traversing the mental health industry. From what I’ve experienced, there seems to be no truth or substance to uphold it.

    What I’m scratching my head over is how it seems to withstand the hurricane of ire, resentment, and disdain sent its way? What on earth is holding up this specious house of cards?

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  • Psychiatry is largely robotic, unconscious plagiarism. How could it ever have even been ‘sage-like?’ And ruler of what, vulnerable and wounded people? So they spend how much to ‘improve their image,’ while being only defensive toward their legitimate and reasonable critics, rather than improving their industry and services? Interesting way to respond to people calling the field corrupt and crooked. “Hmmm, let’s see how much we can fool people with a PR campaign.” Really, that’s kind of stupid.

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  • Where there is force, coercion, oppression, power imbalance, deceit, betrayal–and this includes via the ‘do-gooder syndrome’–there is no love. In fact, there is ‘mental illness’ (or whatever you want to call it) because there is social illness. The only way to break the cycle is being at least open to the idea of true, authentic, unconditional love. It’s a process, but it has to start somewhere. May as well start now.

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  • “The Big Difference Between Idiot and Wise Compassion”
    by Ed and Deb Shapiro
    Huffpost Healthy Living

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-and-deb-shapiro/wise-compassion_b_841019.html

    A couple of highlights—

    “Another way to see idiot compassion is when we give for our own benefit, not for the recipient’s, because we can’t bear to see them suffering. Our giving has less to do with what they need, but plenty to do with trying to escape our own feelings of inadequacy.”

    “Skillful compassion also means dealing with our own aggression, seeing the violence, anger, irritation and moments of closed-heartedness, fear and insecurity within ourselves. We can bring mercy and tenderness to those places, to the wounded parts, so that the war inside can stop. Compassion is not only our ability to be with another’s pain and suffering but also to see and accept our own pain.”

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  • “Almost all other oppressed groups in our society have been able to get themselves together, and have made tremendous progress in gaining their rights. Why can’t we?”

    Because there is really no permanent and culturally embedded unifying factor, here. Race and ethnicity are not flexible, they don’t change over time. And usually, gay is gay for life (although this isn’t always the case, but by and large, one politically aligns as gay-identified, as a lifelong lifestyle).

    Emotional distress, abuse, and oppression cross all the boundaries, regardless of gender, race, class, or sexual orientation. People heal from emotional distress, and that changes their outlook. That is in constant flux, so it is hard to identify one way or another. I think that’s why cohesion is so hard to achieve. At this point, it’s not clear to me at all who this movement actually represents, and whom it stands to benefit.

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  • You have a brilliant mind and a really beautiful heart, CatNight. You know truth, and indeed, that is for others to discover on their own. We’ve tried!

    I, too, am at the end of the line, here. Yes, health and safety now is our peace of mind as well as our joy, and from that we move forward in our own gentle, self-compassionate truth. Be well, and may life bring you all blessings and light.

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  • Katie, thank you, I appreciate that very much. Hearing this sure makes helps give my experience even more profound meaning. I believe as you do, that we assign meaning to our experience–good or bad feeling–and this is where our free will is most powerful, how we choose to perceive. I believe it makes all the difference. Lots to say about this, but for another time.

    I, too, am so tremendously inspired by you and others, and all that I’ve learned on here over the past 4 or so years. Although I will confess, I’m feeling strongly compelled to move forward at this point. This has been exhausting! The mental health field began challenging me in 1996, when I entered the field as a graduate student. Been going at it ever since on all sides and in all capacities. Being here on MIA is my last vestige, I’ve been through all the layers. Been very helpful in many ways, albeit aggravating at times, of course, which is fine, to be expected. Been a great experience and I’ve learned a lot about activism, especially. But I do have other things that I’d like to focus on, as well, my life is out here.

    So this is my conclusion, at the end of it all–

    I’ve seen the same pattern incessantly, these systems of stonewalling–and in this case like so many, after provoking–that allow for absolutely no negotiation of power. Gets ugly real fast, ‘they’ get defensive, demeaning, then feel victimized themselves, totally turn the tables, and that’s that, it’s a rabbit hole.

    I even remember this coming up for me in an internship group training, the supervisor said to one of the interns, passing along a client request, “No, we don’t want to give the client too much power.” This raised my eyebrows then, but now that I’ve been a client in the system as well as on staff at different agencies, I get how deep this goes, and what a toxic education and example this is.

    So this is the issue, let’s not give ‘them’ power, at all cost. That’s the agenda. Exactly the opposite of what a person would need, imo. To heal is to feel empowered, not blocked.

    I know we each have our own power, but for some, it’s been made virtually impossible to access–and I say it intentionally this way, because that’s where I think society has screwed us, it has actually *aimed* to disempower us, that’s the intention. And this is where things get complicated and twisted.

    For me, when I was in this position and feeling terribly disempowered, the best awakening came when I asked, “Where is my power, here?” Sometimes, it is to call it out and fight it out and see what happens, and I took that route on and off, had good experiences, but was left drained. And sometimes, our power is to walk away, and simply do things a better way. Be the example. That’s nourishing.

    The clarity from all this over the past couple of days feels really good, so thank you and all others. For me, at least online, I can finish a thought and not get cut off. That was the problem I had in any face to face group situation. Did anyone actually get to finish a thought before someone sabotaged the discussion?

    Regards,
    Alex.

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  • Ok, been obviously following here, and participating, and really processing it all, from Margie’s article to this one, obviously a continuum.

    I have this philosophy which I do try to live by and embody best I can to have deep and authentic compassion for anyone, even if what I’m observing elicits far less than loving feelings. That is thanks to the spiritual work I do. Well, I strive for this, anyway, don’t always succeed, but it’s my goal on a daily basis. It’s a practice.

    I also know that on an energy level, this is most sound, to keep myself centered, grounded, and in a relaxed space, even when I feel angry and triggered, which in many cases, is reasonable to the present time circumstance, and not merely a post-traumatic stress reaction. Suggesting that an angry reaction can only be pts, and therefore without merit to the present time situation, is nothing short of demeaning, dehumanizing, and gaslighting. It is also common in the mental health world, as blatant stigma, and used to discriminate and oppress.

    Staying grounded, centered and relaxed while not engaging dominantly with my emotional responses, but still trying to be reasonable and neutral while experiencing them, also feels better than getting caught in a power struggle and pitting my beliefs against those of others, or even my perception of a situation. What others believe or perceive is really none of my concern, unless those beliefs and perceptions lead to overstepping boundaries which is only harmful to others, not to mention a display of blatant disrespect to another human being. Then, we, as a society, become totally unsafe and vulnerable to systemic abuse, and something has to give.

    Norman and Margie, you, like any of us, are on your journeys of life, learning, growing and evolving your way, the way any of us heal, grow, and evolve to new levels of consciousness. This is called ‘awakening.’

    In that journey, we go through a lot to get to our truth and clarity, and this is where my deep compassion comes in, because I know that journey. It’s rich, enlightening, and leads to wonderful clarity and other things. But it is not easy to face ourselves when change is called for. Still, we do it because more than anything, we desire to grow. We have to, that is nature, never static. When we resist change, we suffer.

    With that said, are you aware that you are creating an alliance against survivors here? Is indignation and protest regarding abuse unreasonable rage and blame? Seems like, as usual, the two of you think you have clarity over others that we, ourselves, cannot possess for ourselves. I think that’s painfully clear by what I’ve been reading.

    Isn’t this what we are all here to protest and finally make cease? Is this not the nature of ‘oppression?’ Isn’t this exactly THE SYSTEM?

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  • And btw, do you know the effects on someone’s mental state when they know they are experiencing suffering at the hands of a professional, and the grievance is not only not taken seriously, but turned around to reflect negatively the one filing the complaint? Whoa, that is such bad news for the person being abused, really pours acid into the wound. That is pure torture for a person. It’s called ‘gaslighting.’ And it is so common in the mental health world, as evidenced here.

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  • I’ve been reflecting on this conversation and I have one last observation about all this, then I’m done with this topic. After all this, I continue to see absolutely no justification for coercion.

    One thing is clear to me: if I felt a staffer was being unfair, unjust, abusive, oppressive, or whatever, and I filed a legitimate grievance, way more than likely, I would be told to have empathy for the abuser, and that I am not seeing this ‘correctly,’ that I am, somehow, ‘in the wrong.’ There would be no getting past that, there is no negotiation at all, simply a wall.

    That’s what I experienced in the system, repeatedly, and that is what I’m observing here. Those in the system stick together and ask for empathy when abuse is called out. That is the apex of absurd, cruel, and a COMPLETE lack of empathy for the situation at hand. This is why the system is failing–it’s a SYSTEM of abuse and personal torture for which we are asked to empathize, even when we are the ones experiencing it! I don’t think so…

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  • I meant to include this, as well, probably more than anything, come to think of it–

    “…it is not a discussion on what would allow Mary to survive, either emotionally or physically. It is a political discussion that various people have strong opinions on, based on their own experience of the mental health system.”

    This quote here I find to be typically dismissive of a psychiatric survivor’s perspective, and downright patronizing.

    I beg to differ. I think, perhaps, those of us who experienced this and have healed from the trauma of it have a clarity like no one else. Perhaps we CAN help someone with our experience, and perhaps more than someone who does not get it, because they haven’t been on that side of things. This is a dark night of the soul. Those who have gone through it perceive things differently than those who have not. Some actually consider it to be a broader and clearer perspective.

    I believe the implication of your statement is terribly misleading.

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  • “Like everything else involved in learning to walk in concert with one’s basic values and beliefs, faith requires courage and practice. It is never a one shot deal. It does not come with guarantees — (hence, the term, “faith”)– what it does offer is a means for actualizing human potential and negotiating the reality of being so many Who’s in Whoville. We are stronger together, but we are only as strong as the individual expressing faith in herself and others to create value under any circumstances.”

    Amen, Katie! Perfect.

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  • “The sad truth is that it is highly likely that Mary, and many like her will be dead within 3-4 years, because our society will not help her, advocate for her, protect her, or get her into the position where she can have the free choice of how to best live her life. She will end up dead under a bush, killed by exposure, violence or malnutrition.”

    Norman, this is what I consider to be blatant stigma. I know you are not directly judging Mary, but you are giving up hope on her, based on this snapshot in time, and based on second hand information on top of it. To me, that is what kills hope for people.

    There is no way you could know this to be true, even it has been true for others. This is dehumanizing and disempowering to Mary, altogether, this kind of cynical prediction. I was told similar things years ago when I was at my low, and nothing was further than the truth. Although the mental health system sure thought it was the end of the line for me!

    Honestly, I’m so enormously grateful that there are other schools of thought on how we perceive people, healing, and our spiritual journeys through life. Psychiatry almost killed me directly, and then it gave me up for dead. 12 years later, I’m not only alive and kicking, perfectly grounded and healthy, I’m thriving.

    “Mary’s outcome is unlikely to be affected by Margaret’s choice.”

    Again, we have no way of knowing this and putting out this conjecture is no argument for the action of forcing confinement on someone, when that is the issue at hand.

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  • And btw, I do very much respect your talking about this decision that way you have, I also agree with CatNight that this is a critical discussion, we’ve been waiting for it. You have courageously given us this opportunity, and I really do mean this. THAT is one of the nice things about this community. We are a courageous bunch, I will say that. These are not at all easy topics, but so necessary to unravel. Thank you.

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  • I imagine you would have expected a variety of passionate responses to this post, given that this is the core issue around here–forced ANYTHING.

    I don’t think this website is conducive to a thorough Q&A, so I know I’m going by what you have laid out, here. Many of us have responded with our reactions to witnessing this, through your telling of it. If there is anything you want to clarify or add about this particular case that might be persuasive to your way of thinking, then by all means clarify.

    From what I see from the information offered, I continue to feel critical of your decision for all the reasons stated in these comments, particularly that it is a violation of a person’s freedom to do what you did.

    Like CatNight says, “No means no!” I believe that is a golden rule when it comes to avoiding personal violation.

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  • “For 20 + years, I was eye witness — on the front line, in the trenches, watching highly educated, credentialed professionals become dissociated in every way from the work of their profession– . Authority without substance, arrogance without excellence– talk, talk, talk, — until it seemed that they created their reality based on words, language, a lexicon of psychiatry.”

    I’m no longer associated with the mental health field, but I was deeply entrenched in it for years, as well, as both a client in the system and also a professional. Before that, as a very dedicated student and intern, and later I was a social worker in San Francisco. I’ve moved on, but I still keep my ear to the wall, and try to add whatever I can from my experience that will help bring clarity and movement to all this. I know it is affecting the world at large, perhaps more than we even realize.

    I think what you say here is exactly right, that was my experience and observation, as well. No one is walking their talk, it is either deceit or dissociation (or both) of the grandest proportions. All feedback is taken so personally and with such defensiveness, that there is no way to challenge this without precarious power struggling leading to some kind of abuse and retaliation, it’s just impossible, total oppression. And a big YES, it is created intrinsically subjectively to suit personal agendas, rather than being in the best interest of the client. What more to do other than calling it out whenever possible?

    I’m in awe of your clarity, really speaks to my own perception, here.

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  • Also, regarding this statement,

    “…parents/families struggle with guilt even thought it is often not their fault at all.”

    It’s not so much about ‘being at fault’ as it is taking responsibility. It is a family SYSTEM. Your perspective is what creates the illusion of IDENTIFIED PATIENT, which is a toxic concept and only serves to keep a system stuck in injustice and imbalance.

    If parents react defensively to their child being homeless and at risk with ‘It’s not our fault!” then they are most definitely in denial of something. We all make mistakes, and sometimes we awaken to our mistakes after they have snowballed. But at any time, we can own, shift, and correct. If we stick with ‘It’s not our fault!” then no one grows and nothing at all changes. Things just continue to get worse, despite any thinly-veiled illusion to the contrary.

    Of course they have some kind of responsibility, here, people don’t evolve out of nowhere. Somewhere, communication was not clear and the neglect turned into trauma. Someone was not paying attention.

    Self-compassion and self-forgiveness allow us to correct our mistakes, rather than to continue perpetuating them, while being racked with guilt the whole time. That just continues the cycle, and the guilt never stops. Lose/lose.

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  • I’m sure I would try all sorts of things and be desperate about it, but in the end, I would neither force nor drag anyone anywhere against their will. I’m sure I’d try to get all sorts of people to appeal to her and reach her. But I would NEVER turn her over, willingly, to a corrupt and dangerous system, under any circumstances! No way.

    I trust that which is greater than ourselves, and often, that is a hard choice, but I always find it to be the best and most wise path to take, as opposed to being controlling. People are inherently free, that is my belief. What you do is unnatural in that it literally goes against nature.

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  • Then, my desire would be to lovingly and sincerely invite her back home, where I’d want to make her feel like the most loved and treasured person in the universe, as the path to healing. We’d both have a lot of growth and healing to do. Hopefully, she would trust me at that point. If not, I’d struggle a great deal with that, but I’d have to let her go, and trust her own spirit to guide her. That would be hard, but I feel it would be the wise thing to do. Then, I’d learn to forgive myself. And in the process, I’d have learned unconditional love and humility like nobody’s business.

    Ok, I wanted to complete the story. Thanks for asking.

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  • AND, I would not in the slightest blame this woman, if she were my daughter, for my mistakes. Anyone who ends up in this state has lacked love in their life, and if I were her father, I could only look to myself for why this would be. After all, from where do we expect the love to come, if not from our own families? This would be a rude awakening for me–about ME–were I to discover that my daughter is sleeping under bushes and allowing herself to be abused.

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  • If that were my daughter, I’d wonder where the hell I went wrong, and then proceed to understand exactly why this situation would have manifested in my family, as it would OBVIOUSLY have been something I had neglected to see or whatever. Id’ want to correct this immediately, although I’d shudder to realize that it had gone that far. I’d need to do my own personal growth in a awareness at that time, to correct my perception. That’s called “taking personal responsibility.” I would, indeed, not expect others to take charge of my family!

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  • I disagree. Perhaps that is a long term issue and one that will require many things, including funds.

    The immediate and most relevant issue here is the taking away of another adult’s free will of choice. To correct this, the only thing required is humility, in the moment. Otherwise, one is playing God, and personally, I don’t ever feel that is a very wise choice to make, as it will inevitably boomerang.

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  • “And that industry needs to overcome their delusions grown adults suffering from adverse effects of wrongly prescribed pharmaceuticals, or even street drugs, are incapable adults. Overcome your own delusions of grandeur…”

    I agree. What we’re witnessing here is ‘nanny state’ thinking. I thought that was what this website is advocating AGAINST.

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  • I agree with B. If you say we have no right to criticize something like this, then what on earth are we discussing here? This is EXACTLY the point of these discussions, to point out and criticize the actions which undermine a person’s human rights and freedom of choice. Or so I thought.

    Honestly, at this point it feels a bit like quicksand in here. I’m hearing rationalizations and defensiveness on the part the system. This is the problem.

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  • Actually, to avoid possible confusion, this version was posted in 2014, after I made a few re-edits and took out music due to copyright expenses (and instead scored the end credits myself!). But there was an earlier version posted in 2011. It was after I posted the first version that I began commenting on MIA, and it is since then I’ve learned such a great deal more about these issues, thanks to these conversations.

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  • Thanks so much, B, it means a great deal to me to read your comment. “Managed” is a good word, this was by the skin of my teeth! Seemed necessary to find a way, though, and it proved to be a gateway for me, thankfully.

    I’m always happy to share this film. I’ve shared it here a few times in the past, and I got some very supportive and encouraging comments. Although overall, it did not seem to move this crowd very much. It has been appreciated in other communities, however, and it made an impact on the system here in Northern CA, I know this with certainty. Glad to post it here again, in case it speaks to anyone at present.

    This is a 10 minute clip if anyone wants to just check it out briefly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN0-m6nhUIE

    This is the complete film, Voices That Heal, 96 min: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtDGxJWmj5w

    While we center the film around stigma and discrimination from within the system, my intention is also to show the diverse perspectives which exist on the topics of ‘mental illness,’ and ‘healing,’ as well as a range of experiences with family and community support, which of course impacts our healing and well-being a great deal, not to mention our self-perception.

    I’ve learned a lot since, given that we filmed this in 2011, before I even heard of MIA or the like, I had no idea there was a ‘psychiatric survivor’ community as I was going through all of this. I was led here right after I posted this film on YouTube.

    More than anything, my hope is that this film would encourage others to tell their stories their way, as an expression of personal freedom. That’s exactly how I finally broke free of the self-identity imposed upon me by the mental health field, and found my way out of all that crap. It was without a doubt my bridge to freedom.

    Thanks again for the kind words and the prompt, B, much appreciated!

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  • Dr. Berezin, I really enjoy how you explain ‘plays of consciousness’ as how we project our reality. I enjoy being able to perceive my ‘storylines’ apart from who I am as a person/spirit/energy. Certainly makes me feel as though I am in the driver’s seat, rather than being controlled by external factors. At least, that is the goal of my personal growth, along with, as you say, increasing my capacity to love. I do feel that is ever-relevant to creating positive change as well as our own inner peace and well-being.

    What occurred to me as I read your article is how we, as a humanity, have been collectively traumatized, at least this would be my play at present, how I am interpreting what I observe and feel as I interact with the world. It seems to be so common now–daily, in fact–to read about heinous, violent, unthinkable acts causing trauma to multiple people at once. It’s really out of control, in my estimation. “Flashbacks, paranoia, distorted reality, the nightmares…” seems to describe the world at this point.

    I don’t see how we can any longer separate from each other when it comes to life trauma. We’ve all been duped, one way or another, to believe such negative things about ourselves and to fear our own thought and emotions, dissociation has become the standard for survival.

    Not sure what my point is, here, other to make this observation. Perhaps there is a process to go through together, as a collective. Yet, we keep each other at a distance now, from suspicion–direct result of betrayal trauma, which is epidemic. Seems there would be a new play written here.

    Thanks for your very interesting and though-provoking work.

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  • Really interesting and insightful, James. Having just celebrated 30 years being with my partner, I can personally vouch for all the passages we go through in order to have a meeting of the minds and hearts for the purpose of achieving unity and cohesion. That’s hard work!

    What’s most interesting to me is how we do carry over what we learned in our families, and when people come together, internalized family cultures come together. Whether they merge harmoniously or discordant is going to depend on how willing each person is to own vs. project the discomfort of those differences. Personally, I think that’s really valuable awareness which can make or break a relationships and communities.

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  • Yes, that’s exactly how they worked for me, they restored gut health, the baseline, so that other healing process could happen. The meds did, indeed, destroy my inner ecology, and the probiotics were essential in restoring this. After 10 years of making them part of my daily diet, my gut health is excellent, as is my overall health. I credit the probiotics for the upgrade in physical health, no doubt.

    There is no ONE THING that works, it is a network of healing that occurs. The probiotics restore gut flora/inner ecology to a healthy and nourished state, which leads to a cooling of the system (Chinese Medicine), and this relaxes the heart and mind. It also boosts autoimmunity, so we go into self-healing mode with a healthy gut.

    There is more work to do in healing, aside from this, but the probiotics really took it up several notches, so the healing path became much clearer.

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  • I think, in reality, research of any kind in this field is completely secondary to individual needs. Healing is based on how each of us responds to anything.

    True, love is a universal healer and loving support is vital to allowing healing to occur for just about anyone, but human relationships cannot be forced, and certainly, we cannot manipulate people to love us, trying to do so is one of the things that leads to madness. Right now, loving support in any capacity is what seems to be more scarce than anything in the world.

    We can show ourselves loving support, however, by taking care of our own bodies. That will be different for everyone. And I agree, research for how each individual takes care of their body is a rabbit hole of wasted energy and resources. Not only are we each different, but we also change constantly, so what was relevant yesterday may no longer be relevant today.

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  • I believe it is not possible to eliminate one without the other. We’re talking about a seriously narcissistic culture and mindset. That is by far the most challenging, toxic, and downright dangerous dynamic of all because it is highly unsafe and inherently betraying if one deviates from the narcissistic system and don’t play the role they intend for one to play.

    I have found that it boils down to all rationalization and justification to suit their purposes and way of thinking, and when that doesn’t work, they resort to force. There is no logic, flexibility, or humility to be found. This permeates the entire field and is terribly harmful to people until they wake up.

    It’s hard to recognize abusive dynamics when one has been accustomed to being abused via mental torture, which is what leads a lot of people to seek support in the first place, although they may not even recognize this as the origins of their anxiety. Psychiatry easily repeats original trauma, as a result of these narcissistic dynamics, and not just ‘forced psychiatry.’ I think the way to beat it is to understand how these narcissistic bully systems operate and then to distance ones self from them. They’re impossible to reconcile, by design.

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  • There are myriad alternatives to psychiatry, have been since before psychiatry. They are here, all over the planet, up and running, and successful. Not a big PR machine, though, so it’s a matter of intuition, inner guidance, and trust. Also, the internet, so much information on what is true healing and all different ways to find it.

    It also requires considering a variety of perspectives beyond mainstream media and academic society. Our beliefs are challenged when we heal, that is what allows the healing to occur, raising consciousness.

    Here’s just one of many examples of where to find a variety of avenues to true and authentic healing, above and beyond anything remotely close to psychiatry–

    http://beyondmeds.com/category/alternatives-to-psychiatry/

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  • One thing I wanted to add–

    Having felt victimized and betrayed repeatedly throughout the system–as opposed to being supported, encouraged, and my word being trusted–it was vital to my success in my own multi-tiered self-advocacy and activism to lose the victim identity and to start perceiving myself as someone deserving of much, much better, simply from being a self-respecting human being. We each play a role in the system.

    If a system is to change, our roles need to change; that is, how we self-identify. Leaders who are oppressive/deceitful/abusive/elitist will not change voluntarily, however enablers can wake up and find their integrity while victims can shift into social healers, leading society as examples of courage, fortitude, and healing. That would be the shift needed to turn this all around.

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  • Beautiful comment. I agree that people are responsible for their actions and have free will whether to defy or enable a corrupt system. In the Nuremberg Trials, :”I was just following orders” didn’t cut it for a reason.

    Systems are made up of individual people and corrupt systems are made up of power abusers, victims, and enablers (turning a blind eye, protecting the power, maintaining the system), while projecting a blatant illusion to appease the public. Truth speaking inside such a system is a necessary leap of faith for change to occur, imo, because it shakes up the system and the abuse/enabling dynamics of the system comes to light. The brave ones step up, speak up, and trust the process.

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  • Philip, thanks for this information. I looked it up and found the APA portfolio on the Porter Novelli website. There’s a YouTube video posted here of commercial for APA. What a superb example of blatant manipulation through groundless, misleading, and deceitful propaganda. “Repositioning American Psychiatric Association from wise sage to caring ruler.” So that’s how they want to be perceived, eh? Good luck…

    http://creative.porternovelli.com/portfolio/american-psychiatric-association-rebranding-to-move-the-field-forward/

    “Psychiatry…tearing down discrimination in all its forms…highest quality care…inclusion…better life for all…”

    I wouldn’t know where to begin, this is beyond the pale. Obviously, this PR firm is not aware of the psychiatric survivor movement (or are they?). We have different claims.

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  • AA, I think you have a point, that it’s not about psychiatry per se, but about a way of thinking and perceiving, which is spearheaded by psychiatrists, that has proven to be toxic for the community at large. Unfortunately, a lot of people still look to psychiatry for answers regarding human suffering, even though it doesn’t seem to know the first thing about alleviating suffering, and moreover, causes it more than not. It’s an embedded social system. How to break a system? Keep speaking one’s truth, move forward, and let the chips fall where they may.

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  • “The problem of psychiatry, as it stands, is it isn’t merely an idea, it’s a practice, and a destructive one at that. I’m not sure the profession could survive the truth even if we didn’t mean to eliminate it.”

    Yes, I agree with both statements, but the second one especially rings true. As is it practiced, psychiatry does seem to work against truth, seriously resistant to it. I think ‘the truth’ would undermine its power tremendously, and the field couldn’t survive this. I guess we’ll see as the truth continues to come to light, but honestly, I don’t see much hope for it ever being transformed into anything useful at this point. It’s been way too steeped in corruption and is associated with torture.

    At this point, many of us who have had our experiences with psychiatry can see how this is the truth, I’m sorry to say.

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  • It is extremely risky to call out systemic abuse from the inside, and I’ve done it several times–and each time I was met with the exact same stigma and consequences, of being ostracized from that particular community. All simply because I questioned actions that were totally discriminatory, there was no question about that. Rather than investigating, which would have been the responsible, legal, and INTELLIGENT thing to do, what I got instead was pure retaliation.

    I got no support from client peers, even though they felt just as oppressed as I did, because they were so scared of ‘getting into trouble’ (flashback to childhood trauma); and of course any clinical or social service staff anywhere banded together to make me look…well, like someone I am not. They literally spread lies, but I caught them at it, proving that in no way could what they were claiming be true. Aside from being liars, they weren’t terribly bright, either.

    However, I won my legal mediation and I got my film made and shown within the system and several of its tangents, calling out the system from within the system. Thanks to one miracle door opening after another once I took this particular risk, it all led to my absolute freedom. I credit my ability to not take any of this personally, stay neutral in my perspective, and to see that it was all symptomatic of an imbalanced, fear-based, and discriminatory society. This is how the system operates. If you call them on anything, they will literally drive you crazy, or at least try to. We can certainly have solid boundaries around them.

    In my experience throughout all of this, dialogue never led to anything of substance, it was all merely an ego battle, and a costly one at that. When I speak my truth now, I speak it with no expectation at all from others, and only ever look for the feeling of being just that more free, which always occurs when I speak my heart’s truth with ownership and self-responsibility. From that feeling of freedom, new and more desirable manifestations occur, and all sorts of new pathways open up in life.

    That’s been my experience, in any event, ever since I woke up to what was happening in the system, and challenged it every step of the way.

    So even though it’s a risk to advocate for one’s self, I believe this is the only way we will feel our true inherent power over our own lives. Our freedom resides in our own ability to take back authority over our lives.

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  • “NAMI gets a lot of media attention for it’s hypocritical ‘stigma busting’ campaign and we need to take back the anti stigma campaign which rightfully belongs, first and foremost to those who have been most harmed by psychiatry”

    AMEN. Blatant stigma is how oppression and discrimination become socially acceptable and spread like wildfire throughout a community. It is a real and inherent danger to individuals and society, and is completely perpetuated by the mh system and field, which are inherently dualistic.

    Indeed, the reality of how this stigma works as a tool for disenfranchising people and keeping them dependent on the system has become corrupt and undermined by the hypocrisy of these ‘advocacy’ agencies, becoming a tool for marketing and funding for the system.

    Thanks, Madmom, I think this is a key point–how these issues become co-opted and used simply to get more business, rather than working toward actually helping people to heal. Such a scam, and it screws everything up for those of us who went through all of this with integrity.

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  • I agree, there is no real intention for transparent dialogue in the mh world. The list of hidden agendas is endless, as evidenced by chronic defensiveness on the part of clinician when they hear something that triggers their own issues. Happens all the time in private therapy meetings, who wouldn’t this be the case in larger scale dialogues about general issues? (This is where training really falters, imo–ownership falls by the wayside, and that is extremely dangerous for a client because they are blamed for any conflict, whereas, in reality, the clinician is double-binding, that’s the tool for control).

    And even though we all know that $$ is a huge factor in all this, I think at the core of it all is a truly deep-seated need to be ‘right,’ which, of course, undermines any opportunity to actually get at the truth of the matter. That need can make people really obsessive, and totally resistant to understanding the point of view of another.

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  • I agree, it’s par for the course. Nothing about psychiatry is reasonable at this point.

    I do take pause when any professional complains of being ‘stigmatized.’ It’s not just psychiatrists, it’s also lawyers, politicians, artists, etc. Everyone gets stigmatized and stereotyped. I think it’s pretty much the way we operate these days.

    When we criticize psychiatry, though, I don’t see it as ‘stigma’ because it is actually based on fact. How many stories of suffering at the hands of psychiatry do we need to hear? It’s not ‘stigma’ when it is fact. Stigma, by definition, is an illusion, a negative projection.

    When people who are going through the ‘mental disability and social services systems,’ they are bound to experience profound and blatant stigma that will sabotage healing in many ways, thanks to their diagnoses plus the fact that they are on public assistance, not based on who they are but based on soooo many false conclusions about, both, ‘mental illness’ and receiving disability, two of the most stigmatized populations, leading to social and professional disenfranchisement, aka social trauma/social ills. This kind of stigma is dangerous and even lethal. People become despondent in this state, or enraged and rightfully so, because they are being evaluated by their case history and socio-economic class, not their character and individual process–in other words, getting royally screwed, and nothing they can do about because that stigma is bone deep and systemic. That has an immediate and far reaching negative impact on one’s health and life, and it is based on myths perpetuated by psychiatry.

    Psychiatrists, on the other hand, may have their egos bruised by criticism, but that’s not the same as having your life destroyed by hard core social stigma. That is brutal. No comparison.

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  • So, basically, their concern is how to improve the illusion of psychiatry, the ‘image,’ as opposed to ‘we need to answer to these grievance, people claim we make them suffer rather than alleviating it, and we take that seriously.’ Being on the defensive, rather than humble and self-responsible, is an extremely weak position.

    What a complete waste of energy this field is. The gap between psychiatry and truth/integrity is light years wide.

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  • “We are all still undoing what never should have been done in the first place. From what I have observed, everyone undoes differently. That’s cool, huh?”

    Big resounding yes, Julie. This is all pioneering stuff, discovering new healing and perspectives as we go, how we come off the drugs, take leaps of faith, self-heal, and create our own healing paths away from the norm, etc. All these shifting perspectives, which, I feel is how reality changes, when we perceive it differently.

    We’re all sharing our stories of awakening from traumatic oppression, betrayal, social abuse, etc. And I think the key word here is ‘awakening.’ There are going to be bumps in that process, rebirth and transformation can get messy, but that’s part of it, how we wake up and move into our power. It’s a mega-process, with lots of tangents. We keep going.

    There’s as much diversity in healing and awakening as there are people on the planet. How we share our paths with each other can be so enlightening to us all.

    There seems to be a common theme going now, however, that it can feel unsafe and we can feel unsupported by our peers, for whatever reason. Something of which we can all be mindful, I think. After all, we’re trying to stop social abuse, not perpetuate it. It’s human to be triggered, but we can be aware of what we do with that energy. There are choices, here, and always room for refinement.

    I think it’s VERY cool how each of us chooses to undo ourselves from all that garbage and move into a new self. Collectively, it’s a tapestry of energy, creating itself at present. To me, personally, it’s more of an art than a science at this point, as this is a historic first, I believe. At least in this field, there is a mass awakening going on. That’s a start!

    Thanks for this blog, Jeanene. It has been *incredibly* helpful to my own clarity. I get frustrated and angry like everyone else about the atrocities that are still occurring in the mental health arenas that are seriously draining our society and world; and I think there are many ways to address them and improve the world in which we live, in our own ways, and I think many of us are doing this, again, in our own ways, each of us different aspects of the whole.

    Overall, though, thanks to these exchanges on this blog, I do feel more optimistic that change is occurring. Indeed, it’s helped to be sharing here and hearing where others have come from in their stories of self-discovery.

    Cheers!

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  • I wanted to clarify specifically what I mean by ‘personally, I think this is the way out’–meaning that in my experience, profoundly self-compassionate ownership was my way out of confusion/dark night to clarity and the light at the end of that particular tunnel. In shot, I was finally able to integrate the entirety of my experience that went on for decades one way or another, and create a complete and coherent story that works for me, brings me right into present time, and the story continues from here, unfolding from moment to moment.

    I learned this largely doing chakra work, btw, which was awakening to me on many levels, but I know everyone has their way of going about their personal growth and healing.

    But overall, I think this kind of neutral ownership puts us in our power, because then we can perceive where our control is over our experience. That is where we find peace of mind and experience self-synchronicity. This ripples outward, like energy.

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  • Wow, you continue to speak to my own feelings. I also had waves of guilt/shame for how I may have impacted the environment negatively with my own anger, and negativity in general. I’ve worked on my self-compassion here by reminding myself that we’re all on a path of learning and growing, to give ourselves that learning curve. It’s hard to awaken to our own foibles (which we ALL have!), but once we do, these are golden healing opportunities, and they leap us forward toward our emotional freedom. So much wisdom comes to light along the way, I think it’s a truly remarkable process of transformation.

    I also think it’s truly amazing soul growth to work on that delicate balance of having our anger and overall authenticity, while learning to be PROductive with it, rather than DEstructive.

    And speaking of soul growth, I heard this recently: when we are on a soul growth path, which is our path to inner peace, then will more than likely feel like a “failure” and look like one to ourselves if we are measuring ourselves by the standards of a sick society, as this society would definitely cast aspersions on individual empowerment. A sick society wants everyone controlled, so they must be predictable and clones of each other.

    Members of a sick society make up shaming accusations, shun, demean, shame, guilt, embarrass, humiliate, etc. These are tools of emotional manipulation for the purpose of control, which we internalize until we wake up to it, then we can free ourselves from this, and separate from it. I woke up to a lot of judgment around me just for doing my life my way, completely self-resourceful, from which I walked away without any hesitation, once I realized how draining this is to our energy.

    I had the exact same feelings of failure for years (still have to swat it away like a gnat on occasion, but that voice really has no power any longer, we can, indeed, diminish it over time), even though I was working, producing, creating, and moving forward on all counts. I was invalidated quite a bit as I was healing, which made it a bit more of a rough ride than it needed to be, but at the same time, it served an important purpose: to quell those very same voices I had internalized, and disempower them altogether.

    This is the behavior I have a hard time grasping and accepting in others, when people invalidate and ridicule others while they are obviously on a path of healing. And when it comes from the ‘peer support,’ it’s particularly disheartening.

    I was diligent and transparent as I was re-writing my entire life out of necessity, and my process shook up a lot of people around me, as our own healing can light up the shadow of others who are not awakened. Not everyone was thrown by my healing, however, and could get that a process was occurring–even though they knew nothing about what I was experiencing–and supported me lovingly throughout, and these remain my circle of friends to this day.

    I’ve even managed to manifest a pretty blissful life, after my lengthy dark night of the soul filled with self-harm, self-punishment. and all sorts of oppressive stigma, both internal and external.

    With hard inner work and focus, I found my self-compassion, inner peace, and forgiveness of everything, simply so I could move on from all those internal splits. I live very humbly, peaceably, and fulfilled, but by society’s standards, I am not a rousing success at anything. Except for one thing: I am free, and as a result, quite grounded and happy with myself now. So why would I measure myself by standards that would have me judge myself negatively for not buying into its illusions and simply for following my truth path, fulfilling to me? No thanks!

    Great, great stuff, Jeanene. Personally, I think this is the way out. At least, that was the end result for me, going by exactly what you are saying.

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  • Interesting story, and some striking parallels with my own–20 years on meds, ending up on 9, then finally coming off all of them, which led to healing and transformation. This particular journey led me to filmmaking, as well.

    I wonder just how many stories there are out there of people who suffered from multiple psych drugs and then came off of them after a long period of time, only to recover their lives, health, and move on to become grounded, centered, and creating joyfully in life. Although for me, psychotherapy also proved to be toxic and harmful. It was when I stopped psychotherapy and began to learn my own intuitive sense of what I needed, that I was able to clear my head and heal my heart. That led to reclaiming my life in full.

    Our stories of healing outside of current mental health practices is the best evidence there is that the mental health field is sorely misguided. There are so many safe and effective ways to find healing on the planet. Although it will be different for everyone.

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  • Really great and powerful post, Jeanene. I very much appreciate the passion for life which you exemplify and articulate so powerfully.

    There is a lot on which to comment, here, but I’m afraid I’d write a dissertation were I to really let myself go with it. I relate to so much of what you say, especially in the direction of rewriting our stories and defining who we are based on our own merit and ever-evolving sense of self, not by some dualistic and random social standard, based on an illusory sense of ‘sanity’ thanks to the purposeful distortions of some very greedy and not very conscientious people (at least that’s my version of our ‘sick society’). To me, that is our path of healing, specifically, when we take back that power which is rightfully ours to begin with. (I think getting to the ‘root’ of the issue would be to recognize when it is we started giving that power to others to define who we are; healing would be reversing that trend, imo).

    I do want to comment, however, on this one passage really stood out to me:

    “Now that I am outside that treatment system, when I intentionally hurt myself — whether it’s through self-harm or anorexia — I become an unwitting collaborator in my oppression. In effect I affirm, by such acts, society’s ostracizing of me. I let the powerful people who say I’m “less-than” win; through such behaviors I agree with them, even if I don’t realize it at the time.”

    This is such a powerful and key thing to recognize, really radical ownership, which I admire and respect a great deal.

    I had the same epiphany. Once I owned how I was prompting the responses I most hated and which made me feel completely misunderstood, not seen, demeaned, stigmatized etc., I began to work on my own energy, beliefs, patterns, and habits, making sure that what I put out was the best I could do, from the heart, and always aiming to do better, more and more in my loving heart. After all, our own energy comes back to us, so if we want kindness, understanding, fairness, justice, and social well-being, then we have to achieve this within ourselves, to ourselves, and extend it to others.

    Thank you for this beautiful piece. Great way to end the week. And congrats on your very brave and diligent work.

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  • And yes, while I don’t think anyone is ‘sick’ but more so, we have perhaps absorbed the ills of society at large, it seems that we can act as abusers or be victims, that seems to be the choice offered in society these days. That’s a fierce double bind which causes people to suffer at the hands of callous hearts and keeps social and class division alive and well.

    Where is it that we can live and let live, without taking on either one of these roles? That would be a desirable society. Not cold, it’s a good feeling to have the encouragement and support of a community, that would be mutual respect and kindness.

    When we find that neutral identity, then we can change our experience because we no longer identify with the original trauma(s).

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  • Thanks, Jennifer, yes, you are reading me correctly. I do believe that we live in a sick society, and I actually mean that at this point with no judgment, truly, but more with concern, frustration, and puzzled over how to best encourage a shift here. It’s very challenging.

    AND, I’m a huge fan of nature and feel that it is our most healing support in life, always. That is non-judgment and non-analysis, pure freedom; simply being in the current always flowing and ever-creating. An excellent mirror for our true personal nature.

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  • Hi Fiachra, unfortunately, there are a lot of people who believe they are stuck with the trauma for the rest of their lives, and, moreover, seem to feel that full on healing is simply a ‘myth,’ and won’t even consider that someone may have actually healed from these issues, and that they can, too. I found this to be the majority of people in these environments. That leads to a lot of stigma and discrimination, just as routine.

    I do not relate to these beliefs, and so I experienced a lot of resentment for coming off meds and healing as a result, then successfully establishing a business. Here in the USA, that response seems par for the course. I find people to be way more competitive rather than supportive. Don’t grow TOO much or your “friends” will hate you. Even though I offered my services and information at no charge, I could not avoid the resentment of others. It was quite oppressive.

    BUT, it motivated me to break free of all that and plant my own feet in the world my way. Out here in the world, outside of those ‘mental health’ walls, I feel supported for my efforts and achievements in the world, which I would expect from a healthy community, and which is what I always offer to others. Jealousy and resentment were palpable energies in the mental health world, which is terribly unsafe.

    I just find that entire culture to be toxic as all get out. I found it impossible to achieve clarity and self-actualization from within any part of the ‘mental health industrial complex.’ The world is our oyster if we believe in ourselves.

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  • “…they derive their super strengths (post-traumatic growth) from their grievous wounds.”

    I really love this, Wayne. I’ve often thought what would be the indicators of childhood trauma having healed. Certainly seeing the meaning to our suffering (discovering our ‘super-powers,’ which I believe we all have somewhere in there which we can cultivate once we own them, as our inherent gifts) is a leap in the right direction. Catching up with ourselves as a result would be another part of the healing process, witnessing our own transformation, for which we all have the potential.

    Then, perhaps becoming comfortable with who we are in our new skin, leading to a new self-identity, not as one who has been traumatized, but as one who learned and grew from the trauma to discover their strength and power, as well as authority over their own lives.

    LOVE the phrase “post-traumatic growth!” I’d like to see this incorporated into the language of these discussions. I think it points in the right direction of complete healing from trauma.

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  • “Research in psychology and psychiatry can never take the place of clinical experience and patient reports. Psychology research itself has become an industry that often has little actual value.”

    Thank you for stating this so clearly. I agree wholeheartedly. People are getting handsome grants to line and furnish the ivory towers, wasting everyone else’s time and betraying hope, while on the ground, people have become desperate for help which they are not getting.

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  • Steve, Fiachra, and SE, totally agreed that it is the diagnoses which amount to insidiously abusive, what I’d call social abuse, pure and simple. That gets a person good and stuck, until they shift their self-perception away from feeling like a ‘disordered person.’ That is an illusion, of course.

    And, indeed, the diagnoses seem to be designed–or at least how it is practiced now–as a way to deflect the cause of true mental distress, which to me is more social than anything. I think we drive each other crazy more often than not via guilting, shaming, double binding, gaslighting, etc, all forms of bullying, as an inherent dynamic of the system. That’s quite common, I think, including in family systems. The independent thinker is courageous and takes risks, here.

    This is why I think this insidious social abuse is often a carry over from childhood. We internalize it and it becomes ‘familiar’ so we operate this way until we awaken to ourselves. Hence, society the way it is.

    Groups mirror us which can be helpful if it is a healthy, grounded, and self-responsible group. But they do us great harm if it’s just a repeat of everyone’s toxic family dynamics.

    So I guess it’s a matter of discernment and boundaries, which are things we refine along our journey of personal growth.

    Plus, a group can be extremely beneficial initially, indeed, to normalize our experience and see that we are not alone. But the point is to grow and move on. Groups often seem stuck and its members become very attached to each other, which is what gets me weary. Those are more systems forming.

    As long as issues are being resolved and people are moving on, then I’d call it a safe group. But often, it’s just everyone continually rehashing their stories, with no change, keeping all that fear and rage alive, rather than moving past it as a way of healing. That’s when it gets really frustrating and feels stuck, and can be very toxic and counter-productive.

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  • I don’t know, people respond differently to different things, which is our individuality.

    When I was going through the ‘peer world,’ I found it to be yet another culture with norms, and anything deviant was stigmatized. I experienced it as an extension of the system, and it was hard to grow without eliciting resentment from others. I experienced tons of negative projections from some of the peers with whom I worked.

    This may not be true for everyone, but for me, it was most healing to get away from ALL groups with ‘norms’ and discover who I am, regardless of to whom I can relate in that moment. That took inward focus, witnessing myself aside from others. Comparing ourselves to others leads to distortions. The world is filled with resonance outside of established ‘groups.’

    “I am what I am and that’s what I am.” Popeye the Sailor Man.

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  • I think we’re hitting on it, here. Agreed–for the most part we seem to be taught to be hard on ourselves, to punish ourselves for mistakes, and to be ashamed and humiliated if we march to the beat of our own drummer, rather than follow the mainstream; and to feel like a failure if we don’t measure up to the standards of the ‘norm,’ and instead have our own standards and priorities for ourselves, as individuals, each one of us unique and deserving.

    This, I believe, is what society teaches us, in lieu of self-respect and self-compassion. That’s inherently traumatic and would disturb anyone’s inner peace, until they get that it’s really their own live to live and their own person to be, regardless of what anyone tries to dictate to them. “The norm” is not necessarily sound and desirable to everyone, and there’s nothing at all wrong with that. In fact, it is the precursor to originality and creativity , two things we sorely need nowadays.

    And for social change to occur, dare to be different.

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  • “What if ACEs were the basis of mental health treatment? Perhaps there would be more compassion from mental health professionals and from the public. Most importantly, there would be more compassion by traumatized people toward themselves.”

    Self-compassion is vital to our well-being; otherwise, we are crunched by our own self-judgment and self-blame. But it falls to the wayside when people do not feel loved for who they are, at any given time during their process, unconditionally.

    From the ultra-violence happening now, my guess is that this lack of self-compassion is more common than not. Indeed, this would be beneficial to emphasize and re-learn–simply from knowing we’re all doing the best we can with what we know, learning and growing along the way (hopefully). That applies to everyone.

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  • Yes, indeed, thank you for this eloquent statement. I feel this is why the practice of ‘being in present time’ can be so transformative. We can actually keep up with ever-changing reality in the moment, as it unfolds, as we create it. It’s an excellent vantage point.

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  • Beautiful, Steve, thank you. I’m really glad to have a meeting of the minds around this particular issue. I feel it is one the most fundamental flaws in our families, communities, and society at large, these deeply entrenched ‘abuse/enabler systems’ which repeat and repeat and repeat until we ascend them, somehow, and which cause great chronic distress and illness because it can be quite difficult to detect what exactly is draining the environment, when it is not blatant but more on the clever side.

    That’s why that particular system created ‘the scapegoat,’ to keep the attention away from the abuser, who, imo, would be the one who needs healing, but would never own that. To me, that’s true narcissism, one who justifies their abusive ways, and lets another take the rap for it–insidious and sinister victimization.

    It was treacherous to experience this, and fascinating to study. Definitely an eye-opener about how we operate, as a “community system.”

    Thank you for engaging with me about this, it’s helped refine my clarity. This is the core of my counseling work. Best regards.

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  • Afterthought: when I talk about forgiveness, compassion and unconditional love for those who are clearly violating others, I am by no means advocating being ‘understanding’ of the abuse, excusing it, and to keep going along in such a relationship. One definitely needs to GET AWAY from abusive people and environments.

    What happens is that we do take that energy with us and those thoughts and feelings can continue to torment us, leaving us feeling chronically powerless. That’s certainly a normal post-traumatic stress response to abuse, but when we make it a goal to release that anger and resentment–still seeing where the responsibility lies, and being clear about who abused whom–then we feel better. Carrying resentment is painful and not healthy to our bodies.

    I’m just saying it feels better, more relaxed, to US to feel compassion rather than hate. Although I totally understand how hard it can be to not hate some people for their horrible behavior toward others.

    Like I said, it’s hardy inner work, one has to be committed to healing their heart from all wounds. I think it’s transformational healing.

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  • Great comment, Steve, I so appreciate and honor what you say here. It is hardy work to achieve this, and I’m not all there, myself. It is no easy task to remain in one’s center when either experiencing or surrounded by abuse. That would be a matter of exploring perspectives and choosing when to exercise our boundaries. Also something to learn over time, along the journey, so to speak.

    However, my growth and healing goal is always centered around increasing my capacity to love, which is no easy task given what we have to work with, here. And of course, having compassion for myself when faced with double-binding. I’ve certainly had my share of gaslighters in my life.

    Still, I have found this to be the most direct path to what I think of as healing, personal growth and, overall, supporting my desire for a grounded and joy-filled life, manifesting what I enjoy the most. Again, a work in progress, as it always is, but it’s moving forward well at this point.

    I also remember that somehow, we’re all connected and I do believe that we are, indeed, mirrors of each other, like it or not. That can lead to hard truths, but when we own them, we are free of these issues, once and for all.

    When I see through these eyes, I feel a lot clearer and centered in my truth, so the gaslighting is wasted, which tends to lead to disinterest on the part of the abuser, so they go away, which is always a relief. Although I will say that I’ve known some people who are RELENTLESS in their insistence on throwing a negative projection, regardless of anything. That’s when I just have to walk away and not look back.

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  • “We have every reason to punish a society that did not hear our screams, but still, most of us are very gentle people.”

    I find this to be really poignant, and I agree. Even the most gentle, non-violent people can be pushed to the brink in such an unsafe and betraying, oppressive society. But then, what to do with that rage, which I find to be reasonable and human, when we awaken to the real and direct cause of our chronic distress, all that betrayal and neglect? That’s a crossroads in healing.

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  • Wow, JeffreyC, I’ve never seen anyone describe themselves as ‘reefer madness’ stoned like this. When I was in college, we’d watch that movie and laugh at how outrageous it was for being such obvious propaganda. Perhaps I stand corrected! Sounds like something you should definitely avoid, as I imagine it is for some people.

    People react differently to different things ingested–whether natural herbal, like cannabis, or chemical, like pharmaceuticals. Either one can cause really unpleasant and disturbing reactions from side-effects. I know Vicodin makes A LOT of people feel really loopy and incoherent. Both Vicodin and Cannabis are painkillers.

    I live in a county where it’s the #1 industry and medical cannabis is big business. It’s also the most peaceful and grounded, very ‘neighborly’ community in which I’ve ever lived.

    So I still don’t see either correlation nor causation between cannabis and mental health issues, other than what is contingent upon one’s own particular sensitivities. But I don’t see how at all how a general statement can be made like this. I think that’s totally subjective and individual, as with anything at all in life.

    For some, cannabis is extremely beneficial, which is way more than I can say for a lot of substances which are totally legal and commonly used, extremely and dangerously addicting, and do way more harm than good in most people. Cannabis at least really does help a lot of people.

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  • I can’t even imagine a consensus ever being reached about this. Everyone affected by it is going to have to figure out their own theory and choose how to address their issues. I’m thinking that ‘mental illness’ is more subjective than not? Standards really vary so widely around the world, and even within a community itself.

    This path is going to be different for everyone, we all have our unique set of factors which throw us off balance or somehow inhibit us, or whatever you want to call it. Yes, it’s human, but so is solving problems and resolving issues.

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  • My comment simply refers to how rigid our society can be in evaluating others, from an incredibly limited perspective, which is what gives the ‘mental health industry’ such big business, when we go by that perception, which is what I feel we are growing past now, thank goodness. I think we are seeing that this is just one big hamster wheel of judgment and projection, and not in the slightest a compassionate and fair assessment of people, just in general.

    I completely agree with you about bullying and abuse and toxic childhood family dynamics, I talk about it all the time, it’s a large part of my counseling work, and I made a film about systemic (both family system and heath and social systems) bullying and abuse via blatant stigma and discrimination.

    In fact, I think most of what we call ‘mental illness’ is caused by tormentors and gas-lighters in our life–people who blatantly deceive, thrive on being deceptive, have total disregard for whom they are ‘duping,’ and then try to make you feel ashamed, crazy, stupid, and humiliated for calling them on their deceit. They also plant seeds around the system, trying to control others’ perception. Again, more lies happen here.

    To me, that is the TRUE cause of anything we call ‘mental illness,’ because it causes total splitting of the psyche, and our trust is totally betrayed. This creates hard core paranoia.

    Most people experience this for years and years until they finally WAKE UP and start doing something about it. Some abuse is so insidious, we’re not even aware of how toxic a relationship is. Look at the Ashley Madison scandal. Lots of people are discovering how abused they’ve been, and they didn’t even know it, they believed some false illusion of ‘partnership,’ but in reality, they were being betrayed. Certainly this all traces back to what we learned as children in this sick society. So I’m in agreement with you about all that.

    However, I take issue with the word ‘psychosis,’ because of all the stigma and mythology around that particular concept. I don’t feel that is ever a fair prediction for anyone.

    I’m inclined to say that chronic childhood bullying and abuse is cause of mental distress, and people do suffer post-traumatic stress from this. A lot of acting out occurs when these issues are not resolved.

    I also believe it can heal, when we find our power, and lose the victim identity. That’s where the healing inner work comes in, shifting our self-perception away from the role of perpetual ‘victim,’ without becoming an abuser (that would be critical in this equation). That is THE transformation in healing.

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  • I never experienced bullying until I got to the mental health system! That was so over the top. And I call it bullying because anyone I turned to justified the bullying and made me out to be paranoid. So despite my exhaustive efforts to find support and guidance among advocates, I had no advocacy in the mental health world, I was on my own.

    My solution was to take legal action, as I was fortunate to find a willing staff attorney at a non-profit employment law training center. That was not easy, especially since I was still recovering from psych drug toxins, but I had to do it, what they did was blatant discrimination and sabotage. My film also targets social bullying, within the family and also the mental health system. Making this film helped me to get a lot of clarity and start to move on from this victim identity which I was internalizing.

    Main thing was for me to confront it directly in a way that was reasonable, but the system doesn’t back down, and is relentless in its need for control. Such denial!

    Eventually, after leaving all this behind and finding my way back to compassionate living, I had to interpret this all another way, from a spiritual perspective. That shifted all the victim energy, and empowered me by teaching me the lessons behind these experiences.

    It was a multi-tiered process to heal from institutional bullying. More than anything, it meant finding my true path, away from this toxic garbage. That’s the blessing.

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  • Exquisite story of an important life passage and how our life challenges lead us to higher consciousness, to know who we are as spirit–our authentic nature from which our truth becomes evident. This is transformative personal growth and spiritual evolution, and is what brings us inner peace and a sense of purpose in life. Indeed, it takes a trusting and self-loving heart to face our trials with grace, something we learn along the way of the dark path to light; and, indeed, this changes our entire perspective, creating a new and improved reality. Excellent!

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  • Blows my mind how we “explain” ourselves. In reality, there is really no need to do so. Just be happy with who you are, and if you’re not, it’s a good idea to figure out how to become so, as this brings clarity, grounding, inner peace, well-being, and all good things in life. Going through life self-hating/self-stigmatizing is self-sabotage and causes suffering.

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  • And when I talk about ‘bullying,’ I’m not referring to one mean-spirited person. Bullying is in a system, a culture–either blatantly or subtly. There are a lot of ways for a culture to be bullying and disenfranchising. This is the most challenging paradox to reconcile, here, since most of us have confirmed that it is the culture which causes us mental distress, especially the “mental health” system culture. Really begs for an innovative and original perspective, ascended beyond such paradox.

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  • I agree that bullying and discrimination are among the leading causes of mental distress. Unfortunately, this duality is rampant in academia and the mental health field. Clinicians, social service staff, professors, and clinical supervisors can easily be bullying and often are quite controlling and demeaning, and even peer to peer bullying is not so unusual, as this is what is modeled in the system. So what kind of environments are recommended for wellness and equality to occur?

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  • “So the question arises, why do people with perfectly ordinary and well-functioning brains sometimes cling to false beliefs despite abundant contrary evidence?”

    The phrase ‘cling to’ is what stands out to me in this question. Indeed, we develop thought patterns and beliefs based on our early environments and from the examples and influences around us; but at the same time, change and growth is natural, our brains can be mercurial if we allow them to be, and new thought patterns and beliefs can evolve over time, more aligned with a kind and compassionate truth, rather than as a reaction to childhood trauma. The effects of trauma and can heal, causing a full-on transformation in thought patterns and beliefs.

    But when we are FIXED in our beliefs with no malleability or the ability to listen to reason and allow our thoughts to move forward, then we put ourselves at risk of falling into a delusional state, simply from not being reasonable and digging in one’s heals. It’s the lack of reasonability and flexibility in thinking that would get my attention. That only serves to create further mental and physical stress while embedding internal conflicts and delusional thinking.

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  • I also wanted to comment about your father-in-law singing. I find there to be a correlation between music and well-being. Music is uplifting, which is what people need more than anything, to feel better. It opens our hearts and nourishes our emotional body and spirit.

    I’m the music director and accompanist for a band which plays at an assisted living facility, many of the residents have dementia from various sources. Still, they always remember the music…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khwFWx75m94

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  • What a wonderful example of taking control of the health care of our own.

    This is where I’m flagged, and what seems so irrational to me, and epidemic:

    “Despite his dramatic improvement, the doctor expressed outrage that his patient’s wife and power-of-attorney made an informed decision to discontinue a drug that was obviously having extremely detrimental effects on her husband.”

    That ‘outrage’ is a symptom of trouble. Things will change when the well-being of a client/patient/facility resident takes priority over a dr’s ego and completely irrational need for control over others.

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  • Likewise, Fred. To me, it feels like pure light when we recognize and embrace each others’ heart and spirit this way. I embrace humbly my identity as a psych survivor, as it has taught me more about myself than anything else possibly could.

    “I feel that knowing I was loved and an internal abhorrence for injustice helped carry me in a positive direction.”

    The magic ingredients, knowing love and awareness of where there is lack of love. Where there is corruption and injustice, there is a blatant lack of love. And where there is lack of love, there is lack of safety. I wish more people could feel they are loved, because that makes us strong and confident, faithful. That’s the best healing the universe can offer.

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  • Ditto, regarding lived experience through all this reaping unimaginable inner strength. That would be the goal in healing, I guess, to know we can get through even the most confusing, painful, and rigorous journeys (especially when the precedent is being set in present time, as with benzo and other psych drugs withdrawal); and then recognizing, assimilating, and utilizing all that we learn, gain, and evolve from it to manifest good for the world, once we reach the conclusion to the dark night.

    Eventually, we all get there–just have to keep going, there are hoops to jump and things to learn and practice–and the most amazing and crystalline clarity comes from that. My very best wishes to you on your brilliant path.

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  • “It should be widely acknowledged that abusive parents and trauma of all forms frequently cause “schizophrenia” and other false-disease labels. APA needs to stop lying about parents not causing schizophrenia, and understand that identifying parents as causes of distress is different than blaming them.”

    I agree completely. Abuse, oppression, toxic family dynamics are, by and large, denied as critical factors that create the phenomenon we call ‘mental illness.’ Why? Because these are repeated in therapeutic ‘relationships.’ An alliance between psychiatrists and parents can be a stonewall for the vulnerable client. It’s over the top and insane-making, but that’s the way it is these days.

    Oppression is oppression, and it is passed down generationally until someone is brave enough to speak their truth, which will cause resistance and discomfort to others, and begin a process that will change the system. There will be attempts at sabotage along the way, by the ones whose power is challenged.

    That’s a hefty responsibility, but it has to start somewhere. Abuse of one’s position of authority leads to the oppression of others, and chronic fear. This will eventually lead to confusion and feelings of helplessness, aka suffering.

    The drugs cause problems, but lack of integrity, deceit, power abuse, and lack of empathy is what is epidemic and insidiously toxic. This can start in the family, and repeat in psychotherapeutic treatments, as well as dealing with social services. How do we change that?

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  • David and Fluffy, thank you, I’m so moved by what you both say and really grateful that my words ring true. Sharing so transparently as we do can be a bit nerve-wracking in its vulnerability, but when we can receive each other’s heartfelt words and intention to heal and support, I feel it is so incredibly a vital part of the process.

    I know we are creating a new culture/world because when else in history has the experience of withdrawing from psych drugs and that whole experience been so personally and intimately explored from lived experience? And internationally! I think it’s really awesome.

    That is a whole new energy on the planet, don’t know how else to put it. I find it extremely encouraging, especially in dialogues like this, which I hope to always be an active participant in moving forward this particular dialogue, regarding how to heal and maintain well-being in the way that is appropriate to each of us, based on who we are, etc. Only subjectively can these choices be made, step by step. We each need support, and when it feels like ‘counter-support,’ I’d say move on and keep going, away from the naysayers and perpetual negativity and defeatism. That’s a process to trust, a lot of personal growth and empowerment happens here, not to mention self-respect.

    Eventually, as we get older, we ‘get’ ourselves, and know what is right for us vs. what is toxic for us. Realizing how much I’ve learned thanks to these multiple dark nights staggers me, and also makes me really happy to acknowledge to myself. Witnessing our own evolution is our greatest awareness, and what teaches us that not only everything changes, as that is inevitable, but also how we can best influence that change, from our own point of focus and belief system. I think it’s where we want to trust love over fear.

    I agree with you both, it is all so totally individual, as many processes as there are individual people. I think when we, as a collective, make it a priority to respect that we each know what is right for us, intuitively, and when we get confused–as we all do at certain passages in life, that is natural and human–then we turn to whom we feel we can trust, and as well, we begin to explore and learn new aspects of life. How else do we evolve?

    The drugs seem to inhibit personal evolution, by numbing the pain, which does only suppresses whatever is causing it in the first place. Sooooo many other options, pick & choose! More and more about healing and personal growth coming to light daily, that is a hotbed of exploration and discovery. Many of us are on that ever-unfolding path. Exploring is how we learn and grow.

    Pain is a gift in life, as it guides us to our own light and truth. Pain most definitely needn’t be chronic nor permanent. I see it as a personal guide, which makes it always extremely temporary.

    Losing our judgments and evaluations while being more curious and in awe of whatever anyone’s experience is, is a good place to start bringing ease and clarity, as well as conflict resolution, both internal and external. Evolution is what we’re after, not perfection. And certainly, justice in our natural diversity.

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  • This is how I’m seeing it now–

    If mental illness is a myth, then no one is mentally ill so there is no distinction among any of us in this arena. We all have equal mental capability, albeit diverse in our foci and processes, perhaps, which would elicit totally neutral (non-stigmatizing) categories of discernment–some faster and more direct, some slower and more creative, different goals, priorities, beliefs, cultural influences, etc. No need for labels, here, which only amount to ‘name-calling’ in practice–aka stigma.

    If mental illness is something tangible and real (as it is for some), then I don’t know anyone how is not vulnerable to going off-kilter and into a ‘mental fog,’ as it were, as this is a natural part of life and a reasonable reaction to extreme overwhelm due to all sorts of factors in life, and indeed, with ALL the abuse that’s doled out daily. We’ve all been recipients of this, at one time or another, at least. Society has become abusive, by and large.

    Transitions and change also challenge everyone’s state of being and balance. That is universal. And this is a time of great change. We are all facing this, on a global scale.

    These days, on this crazy planet, how can anyone discern who is “mad” and who is “sane?” We discern by ‘who is in power,’ and that is not at all the same thing as being sane. In fact, it is often the mad who seem to ascend to power.

    Either way, no such thing as ‘them’ and ‘us’ when it comes to ‘mental health.’ It is how we relate to ourselves, rather than worrying about what other think (or call each other), that will create the pathway out of a stigmatizing culture.

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  • The stigma is real and does great harm because it keeps people at an inherent disadvantage via aggressive marginalization. It’s also extremely painful to the psyche and can cause all sorts of health issues to occur.

    But it comes from within the system and field; stigma is at the basis of how diagnoses are made and how clients are perceived as ‘other.’ Stigma in its purest form is an inherent part of this racket. And this is what they want funded.

    Claiming that stigma undermines their funding is such classic en masse manipulation–standard procedure in the ‘mental health’ field.

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  • “I really don’t care what words come out of my mouth as long as I communicate love.”

    At the core, we ARE love, unconditionally. Healing is peeling away all false beliefs (radial change) and allowing ourselves to be love, to embody it, to radiate it. Society and its cynicism makes this an extreme challenge, via negative projections and blatant stigma. Life mastery is trusting our own power of love over the opinion of others. Personal growth is increasing our capacity to love. That is what heals on all levels. It is a never-ending process, as we can never love too much.

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  • Monica, what a beautiful and insightful editorial on the individual nature of the healing process, albeit supported by an ever-present collective, one way or another. The education of your direct experience is obvious from how you synthesize and streamline the multi-dimensional aspects of healing and transformation to such clarity and accessibility. Your various rebirths are inspiring to witness.

    When I ditched the drugs, I had no idea what I was getting into, nor did anyone around me. Although my partner was really glad I was withdrawing, because we both had become so painfully aware of the harms and dangers here, by how I was going downhill fast with each added drug and psychiatric visit.

    I managed to get through what I later found out was called “iotragenic” without ever having heard of this or even considering it. All I knew was that if felt incredibly terrible and scary, all a big unknown in the face of bizarre and extreme pain for which no one had a very satisfactory explanation.

    Like you, I discovered the magic and mysticism of healing, and learned to allow things to unfold, while transmuting fear into wonderment. That was a healing exercise, in and of itself.

    Theater and performing is what finally did that for me, personally, that was my individual path to healing, as it brought me into present time and taught me to absolutely trust the process, no matter how messy it gets–it’s all moving forward, unfolding into new and ever-creative realities. Life can change on a dime, at any given moment. I’d never, ever expected the opportunities that came to me to do so, but they did, simply because I kept showing up. Hope is every present.

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  • “The United States idealizes individuality yet pathologizes the individual who becomes distressed.”

    Within the mental health world, people become pathologized (name-called) for showing signs of wellness! Confidence and having certainty turns into ‘narcissism;’ having vision turns into ‘delusions of grandeur;’ being passionate, productive, and energetic can easily garner a label of ‘manic.’ Not to mention, standing up for one’s self in the face of abuse can get you in deep trouble, medicated, and labeled all sorts of things. Pure stigma.

    I’m not sure how people in a society like this can be expected to get along, if people are always evaluating others and thinking of each other in derogatory terms—limited, at best. That does not feel like a safe society to me. A healthy and safe society would be one where people are encouraged to feel GOOD about themselves–self-respecting and gifted, not patronized.

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  • “these aren’t things we as human beings don’t know…it’s stuff that western medicine hasn’t yet proven…”

    Monica, I believe this is the crux of it. Thank God we stopped waiting around, took matters into our own hands, and learned for ourselves, eh? Waiting for proof or the opinion of others rather than finding one’s own path will keep one waiting a long, long time.

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  • “The importance of the gut microbiota for physical health, mood, and perhaps cognitive capacity is a recent discovery.”

    Chinese Medicine has prescribed gut health as a healing path for a long time. Good gut health = healthy flora = healthy inner ecology = cooling (relaxing) of the heart and clarity of mind. It also means healthy auto-immune system. So in times of stress, even extraordinary stress, we are more alert, balanced, grounded, calm, clear, patient, and able to make better decisions for ourselves, not out of panic or rage, but from reason and intuition. That leads to a better life, in general, that we, ourselves, create from our own clarity.

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  • I’m thinking it might have something to do with mistrust of the government, police brutality, mass shootings, hackers, families turning on each other, and of course, a need to keep up with the Jones’, the fear of getting sick and not having money for health care, or any trust at all in health care due to the myriad stories of gross negligence, incompetence and fraud, approaching retirement without savings, etc. This is just off the cuff, I’m sure there is plenty more to pinpoint as to why Americans might be so anxious at this time.

    If it were to be a disorder, I’d say it’s a socio-political disorder which is causing anxiety in Americans. It’s impossible for this to not change, as nothing is permanent and people are waking up, but how that change will come about and what it will look like is up for grabs, I guess. Good time to be centered and grounded, as I’m sure these changes will bring some pretty strong winds. There is A LOT to rectify.

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  • What a moving and profound comment, Corrina, I feel the truth of it in my heart. Indeed, it is traumatic to live in a stigmatizing society, where negative projections abound. We’ve all been caught in that societal crossfire, characterized by utter lack of nurturing, compassion, or tolerance. No wonder we live in what some refer to as ‘a sick society.’ Thanks for speaking your truth so plainly.

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  • Tabita, I am so happy to see you bring up Tellinger and UBUNTU contributionsim. I’ve seen one of his videos, and that was enough. This is one of the things I learned along my healing journey that was a game-changer, and it DID blow my mind, still does.

    Indeed, it is not about money, but about creating abundance. Learning this will change the world, because it will release our financial dependence and shift the collective into a cooperative rather than competitive space. It also brings to light our own power to create freely, at will.

    I can’t say enough how my life changed in every way for the better once I learned and practiced ‘abundance.’ Has nothing to do with money, but more about faith in community, trusting a process, and making sharing a priority. Same principles as Kabbalah, and other ancient spiritual teachings (non-religious). I think that’s the ticket. Thank you!

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  • “…is preferable and safer than so many of the other approaches to medication. I am not calling any of these medications safe.”

    So it’s safer but still not safe. Somehow, I don’t see how this would be comforting news to someone facing this option.

    And you are saying there are no safe alternatives, so dangerous is better than extremely dangerous? For people looking for healing? That doesn’t add up to me.

    Why can’t psychiatry find safe and effective healing for its clients? Is there none of that in psychiatry? Not all healing perspectives require high risk treatment that put a client’s quality of life in question, or worse, their life in danger. I just don’t get this. There is such a thing as safe and effective healing out there in the world. Why is psychiatry so messy?

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  • These are also unifying elements among humanity. Obviously, these days, dialogue is not.

    As I say in the film which I’m currently producing about bringing music to assisted living facilities, I express that I feel the world has become somewhat of a tower of babel, whereas music tends to bring a sense of clarity because we’re all responding to it with our hearts, so we feel moved and perhaps, a bit more open and loving.

    In dialogue, we are all interpreting things differently, and not really allowing this, so we speak past each other and become defensive quite easily, which results in chronically stuck dialogue.

    Art, music, and nature connects us on a soul level, and from there, perhaps we could find some unity and cohesion as a community. Not only does that increase individuals’ feelings of connectedness, but as a collective, we would have much greater power to make desirable changes in our environments.

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  • “The norm” is what I’m talking about here. If this is what is ‘normal,’ then we need a new normal because this is unacceptable, as it is genocide.

    After the dark ages (which we have been repeating, here) came the Renaissance. This is why I talk about art, nature, and awareness of energy as healing.

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  • “A most dangerous use for benzodiazepines was perpetrated against me (and countless others), in that I was prescribed a daily combo of a benzo (either Ativan or Klonopin) and an SSRI (either Prozac, Zoloft, or Paxil) for 20 years by my former psychiatrist. I can attest from first-hand experience that the aftermath of being so severely overmedicated is horrendous!”

    Yes, I was one of the countless others, same time frame and drugs, 20 years on Klonopin, combined with Ativan, SSRI, also mood stabilizers, 9 in total during the last year, which is when I finally caved to the toxicity of this all and made the decision to taper for good–big, HUGE mess for a good long while, that didn’t need to happen, but it did, and I got through it.

    I am free of them, and finally healed from the disabling damage this did to my body, and indeed, it was a learning and creative process like no other, and my best life education.

    But NO ONE should have to go through that! Absolutely no reason to, other than to be the target of blatant and unambiguous malpractice. There are gentler and more self-loving ways to grow in life. This is nonsense, and everyone knows it.

    That’s really the most clear and personal target of my wrath in psychiatry–the obvious grossly over-medicaters, and there are tons of them out there.

    Perhaps for some, there is still gray in other areas of psychiatric practices, but I don’t see how anyone can either justify or defend the obvious suffering caused by such insane over medication, and it is unfortunately rampant. Let’s start with that, then perhaps the more subtle truths will become more clear.

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  • There are sooooo many safe and natural ways to reduce anxiety in the moment and everyone has a pool of self-soothing resources they can tap into for lifetime anxiety management. Even in cases of super-extreme chronic anxiety (which was the major component of my disability, back in the day when I was disabled), starting with exploring new perspectives and grounding, I feel it is more than possible to avoid ever giving chemicals that will suppress challenging emotions, which, in the end, are what guide us to our integration, true selves, and inner peace.

    Although I will admit that the way society is now, and how challenged our person-to-person communication has been, even in the same language, short-term medication use seems to be a reasonable option for some. For me, that only led to more anxiety and of course way worse problems than that, as often described on this website.

    It was when I stopped taking the benzos, and all other related drugs–following a horrific withdrawal–and began to listen to the music that most touched my heart and soul, and made that my anti-anxiety practice, was I able to heal from chronic anxiety.

    Now, music has become a big part of my professional life, and I have found it to be not just one of the best anxiety-soothers I can imagine, but it is one of my best healers, overall. Music may not have that kind of power for everyone, but I know it does for a lot of people.

    If not, music, I’m sure everyone has something creative, artistic, and personal that works for them in this regard. Art is way more powerful than drugs as a healing path, and it teaches us our creative process, which is quite useful when looking to create change in one’s own life. Life is art, all creativity.

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  • I would agree that there is an element of ‘doom’ in the air now, thanks to all the corrupt politics, chronic violence, and the lack of global cooperation, and that would create anxiety in anyone.

    However, my feeling is that what is ‘doomed’ is more a way of life than the actual world, itself, which creates the opportunity for new ways of living to come about, that would feel just, safe, and creatively rich. Being aware of how energy can shift and realities transform not only reduces anxiety around what is happening in the world, but it also adds an element of hope and even excitement at the prospect of this opportunity to bring significant change to the planet. After all, core healing is all about transformation, whether for an individual, society, or the world at large.

    And I also agree that activism is key, here. Without activism, nothing would change. Activism keeps the opportunities for change alive. There are a lot of effective ways to be an activist. How we each do this, individually, creates an activist collective. If in synch, aligned, and cooperative, that would be a powerful community of change. If disjointed and in perpetual conflict, then there is no power there. Cohesion would be a good focus, if activism is to be productive rather than self-destructive.

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  • Sadly (and frustratingly), yes, this has been my experience and conclusion, as well. If there is one thing that is in our control, it is the quality, clarity, and integrity of our interactions. Not sure we’re doing such a great job, here, as collective, but I guess we’re all learning as we go. When we own our anxiety, we can transform it and not pass it on to others. That’s takes focus, practice, and commitment, however.

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  • I appreciate what you say about anxiety being a normal response to anxiety-provoking situations. In addition, each of us has our own unique sense of what causes us anxiety. When we are tapped into our own inner wisdom around this, then we can make informed choices for ourselves, thus reducing our propensity for anxiety.

    But I also notice that a lot of people are simply in the habit of thinking and beliefs that are anxiety-inducing–for example, that the world is doomed. Fear-mongering is a way of creating anxiety out of nothing, pure illusory thoughts. Perhaps if we were to focus on perspectives that instill hope and clarity rather than fear and confusion, then anxiety would be reduced collectively, and we, humans, could actually evolve as a species into a higher, self-healing consciousness.

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  • Yes, wonderful wisdom and I agree, resilience is a pivotal goal in healing. We all get knocked off kilter in life from time to time, the trick is coming back to center. The more we make this the goal, the more resilient we become, and less likely to be so easily swayed off balance. We become stronger as we go when we practice resilience.

    I also agree that it’s a transformative perspective, that was my experience as well, to see that my resilience is a reliable measure of my health and well-being. To feel hurt is to be human. Healing the pain takes resilience.

    Thank you for this, rings totally true to me, spot on.

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  • Work keeps us focused, creative, and interactive, so indeed it is highly therapeutic. At the same time, working in the mainstream these days can be incredibly stressful and crazy-making for anyone. So it seems to be kind of a toss up, from where I sit.

    I think the key would be to work at something one enjoys in an environment where one feels valued. That would be of great therapeutic advantage, where a lot of actual healing would occur.

    Breaking ground somewhere and creating something new is also an option, for the brave pioneers.

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  • True that there are so many things that cause one to feel depressed. Still, what is the most influential factor in how we address our issues in life? I’d say that it’s the examples around us which model perspective, behavior and response to others.

    Some people are quite focused and self-responsible in how they go about addressing and resolving issues, including inflammation, depression, etc., while some people are not grounded nor centered, and become rather victimized by their own issues, which is what drains energy in individuals and communities.

    Regardless of whatever issues of health or otherwise we experience in life, it is how we respond to them which determines our own sense of integrity and social harmony. This makes or breaks whether or not the problem being addressed will be resolved or remain chronic.

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  • Of course not, I’m not suggesting complacency. I’m suggesting being clever and creative, considering broader perspectives of these issues in order to take actions not considered before. Leaps of faith, trusting the universe, calm and focus during chaos, present time awareness–all good principles to remember right now, I feel. Change is happening and core changes in society are inevitable. We’re already at the brink and oppression is being called out in many societies.

    I think that, collectively, we’ve called in radical change and at this point, I’d say we’re here to witness it now, but not passively. Staying focused and aware of these changes and how they are affecting and guiding each of us allows us to help it along as opportunities for us to do so arise. These come up from day to day, when we’re paying attention.

    Certainly, some people still feel the need to fight, which I understand, there’s a lot of power in that. Still, I say that freedom comes when one has completed with their need to fight, and finding peace becomes the priority. That changes one’s perception because the intention has shifted, so different actions are taken, which I believe are more powerful than fighting, and which lead to a lot of vital creativity. We need this to create a new society, away from this perpetual suffering due to a mad society.

    But I do respect individual choices, these are very personal, not to be judged but respected. Everyone has a different role in the social revolution, depending on each person’s focus and personal issues. That’s how the collective will bring in change and thrive, I feel.

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  • I had always seen psychotherapy as a professional service to help people figure out why they are repeating self-sabotaging patterns. That takes a certain neutral, non-judgmental presence to listen to a person’s story and find the highlights which lead to where something got stuck and was left unresolved, causing these undesirable blind spots. This might take a few sessions, or perhaps for particularly intense and repeated trauma, maybe 6 months to a year. Then, a person can move on.

    That would be a valuable professional service from which a lot of people could benefit at no risk, if the focus and boundaries were to remain clear.

    However, it’s since turned into “let me be your best friend, the one who listens to you and gets you, since everyone around you sucks.” For a fee.

    That’s the opposite of ‘professional;’ that is personal enmeshment, which is what muddles everything up, because the therapist’s ego issues can easily be more present than the client’s, while the client remains unaware and appeased.

    When psychotherapists become surrogate friends, parents, siblings, or ‘gurus’ and expect money in return, then the relationship takes a turn away from anything of healing value.

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  • Plus, ‘fighting for freedom’ is an oxymoron. If you are fighting, then you are not free. The moment you stop fighting and come into present time, and connect with your creative path and process, then you are free because you discover that you are an unlimitedly creative being. From there, you can create all sorts of wonderful things that will help uplift the world out of suffering, which is the point, isn’t it? To end suffering?

    You will not get that you are unlimitedly creative–and free– as long as you are ‘fighting for freedom.’ That’s like creating war in the name of peace. Makes no sense.

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  • I’m not so sure it’s about ‘defending’ freedom, as much as it is about discovering it and practicing it. Like everything else, in the end, freedom is a belief which becomes a state of being, not something to be granted by others.

    We do disagree, here, because personally, I think freedom is acquired by each individual for themselves, and from these examples, the ownership of freedom ripples outward, to those who are ready to claim theirs.

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  • Acidpop, I’ve had numerous conversations about these issues with TONS of people who have nothing to do with the system or any of this and they get it.

    For example, the filmmaker with whom I made my film questioning the entire profession, who never had anything to do with mental health anything, yet she was a student of mine and heard me very clearly, and could see that I was an example of what I was talking about, since I did find healing elsewhere, having nothing to do with the mental health field. This is why she volunteered to help with my film, she knew it was public service, so no $$ involved, it was from her heart.

    It’s just a matter of having reasonable dialogue and walking the talk. She heard me, and was actually able to do something productive and creative, she didn’t have to take time out to help me film 6 survivors telling our stories. My film spoke to a lot of people, I got great feedback.

    In general, the public can hear truth like this, but they don’t know what to do about it. Just about everyone on the planet has their issues for which they are trying to create some kind of change. Hopefully, if we all succeed in our own little corners of the world, then perhaps that would mean that the world at large will change the way we desire it to.

    But we each have to fight our own battles, no one is going to fight them for you, regardless of rhetoric. When the chips are down, we have to take care of ourselves, not rely on others. If we do, then we’ll more than likely repeat that which we are trying to change, and always be dependent. Key word: freedom.

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  • The reason I’m not a fan of the mental health field is that it’s too competitive, and too much about being ‘right’ vs’ wrong,’ discrediting others, comparing, and becoming defensive when challenged.

    The human experience is just that, experience. It’s ALWAYS subjective. We all have our truth based on our experience. What we observe, we filter through our own experience, so it’s still our own experience of what we observe.

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  • Not to belabor this, but I’ve continued to think about this–such a great topic for this field, and the world in general, I think it’s vital to relationships–and just want to add one more thing, for clarity–

    I’m not suggesting cold and impersonal, rigid boundaries to self-protect. I do feel healthy boundaries are flexible, and appropriate to the moment, still being consistent as far as communicating them goes, and how we set up expectations, taking responsibility for how and what we communicate to others.

    This is always an area for awareness growth and refinement, this is not a very clearly-boundaried society, so to speak, lots of weird manipulation happens as a result. That’s been my pretty consistent observation in my 54 years of living. I’ve certainly taken those lessons, myself.

    I’m really talking here about emotional boundaries. It’s the attachments that concern me, that I feel that psychotherapists often foster for their own needs. I think it’s unconscious, but common, and terribly counterproductive and undermining to healing, if we are talking about personal freedom. If not, then I’m not sure what we’re talking about. Anything less is compromise.

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  • Well taken, Norman. Personally, I prefer to work with clients who do take responsibility for themselves, otherwise they get stuck in blame, victim, and co-dependence, and I see no going forward, keeps everyone stuck. Guess I’m no hero to anyone, but then again, I’d prefer to not be as that would be self-delusional; but rather I’d prefer to be someone doing their job as per agreement, keeping boundaries nice and clean.

    I do not assume a client cannot take care of him- or herself. I’m just an adjunct to their process, committed to helping them find and identify with their naturally validating spirit voice over their self-punishing voices. To me, that’s always the issue. They have to take it from there. That way, we don’t get enmeshed, and the client feels self-empowered rather than ‘taken care of.’

    Again, my own personal path as healer, I feel it’s sound, and it’s what I really craved when I was in therapy years ago, a counselor who didn’t try to take over my life as though they were my guardian or something, it was so inappropriate and self-inflating to them. I got tired of clinicians telling me that they are taking vacation and they understand that I’ll be angry because I’ll feel abandoned. ???? Um, I’m not 5 years old.

    So that’s the kind of stuff I’m thinking about when I talk about this. I ran into a lot of presumptuous clinicians that, because I had some intense issues with my dad, they thought they would be my surrogate dad (at age 45), which was quite demeaning, considering I’d been out in the world my entire adult life, taking good care of myself, working, etc. I felt they were stuck in their own need to parent someone, which was not my issue, but theirs. Can’t heal with those kinds of projections being cast, it’s impossible.

    Not at all saying this is you, Norman, but it’s what discussions like these bring up for me. You seem truly like a very loving and kind person, which I totally value and appreciate. The world can’t have enough of that right now.

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  • What makes it conditional is that without the payment, there would be no service aka no ‘love.’ So we’re dealing with some kind of illusion, here.

    Psychotherapy is a professional service, not parent replacement. That is what I feel crosses boundaries, the general philosophy and education of this. That’s my personal perspective and feeling about it. I’m aware I go against the clinical psychology grain on this one, but it’s my belief at this time. It was my graduate school education and internship training in counseling psychology that drove me to this belief, and away from the field, to other ways of practicing the healing arts.

    I think the boundary issue is what is truly problematic. Were I to hear of someone who’s been successful in setting boundaries with a mental health clinician, staff, or worker of any kind, and have it be respected without attitude or consequence, then perhaps this would give me pause to reconsider my perception of this.

    But from what I know, boundaries tend to be one-sided in a psychotherapeutic relationship, and in the mental health arena altogether. To me, that’s where the main problem comes in. It can be very disempowering for a client, and far too often, I feel this is the case.

    I’m talking in general, of course, if someone feels helped by psychotherapy, that’s great of course, no argument about that. Still, overall, I feel that these one-sided boundaries present issues which can subtly and insidiously impact a client, without hardly noticing that they really have no power in this relationship, even though a therapist would say differently. In practice, however, I feel this is the case more often than not.

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  • Norman, I do appreciate what you say about love as healing because I do believe all healing happens through the heart.

    However, what you describe makes me think of the fact that 1) the clinician is getting paid, and 2) if a clinician is aware that a person is suffering from lack of love and sets out to become the one person that makes this person feel loved, then doesn’t that open the door for all sorts of transference and dependence? This seems like a power-imbalance to me that could easily lead to repetition of feeling powerless, a common early childhood trauma brought on by conditional love (which of course is not real love, more like control and manipulation).

    To me, this is one of the conundrums of psychotherapy. Where are the boundaries? Often, they often seem rather blurred and inconsistent.

    I do appreciate what you put forth, and consider it good food for thought, regarding how real and true healing occurs.

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  • “I thought it was self-evident that one can learn from ways other than direct experience as a psychiatric patient.”

    Direct experience is the best education. You can only know a person when you walk a mile in their shoes. Observations and comparisons of people are illusory and fraught with projection, inherently, causing only false realities to perpetuate.

    This is from what psychiatric survivors are trying to ascend, these false and pejorative identities that are projected onto them, which really messes with a person’s self-perception and feeling of self-worth. That’s because most clinicians have never walked a mile in their client’s shoes. I think that matters quite a bit, and in fact, under these particular circumstances, is vital.

    Healing from meds poisoning and psychiatric ‘mistakes’ is a journey like no other. With all due respect…

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  • “Well done everyone for all the energy put into grounding wisdom that has been lost through the ages, we need to re-make and shake up this current reality into the vision that many of us hold of a world fit for A New Human.”

    Really beautiful and right on. I see it happening, as we each travel the path of our own personal transformation, each and every one of us in our own unique way.

    Perhaps finally, we will realize the most practical value of increasing our capacity to love, rather than chasing fame, glory, or riches, in order to ‘feel better about ourselves.’ Heart based consciousness is the substance which holds power and value in the new world, and from which all things are created. Thanks for your eloquent comment.

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  • Very best wishes on this, Sean. I watched the brief video on this conference, saw that Kimberley Jones is on the panel. I’ve known her for a few years and have worked with her on a few occasions, super great spirit and person! And a gifted healer, no doubt.

    While it rightfully challenges the norm, I so appreciate any efforts to raise the level of consciousness to new and enriching perspectives such as these. I think they open the doors to new options.

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  • True, I certainly never shy away from giving my informed opinion and backing up all the way. I did feel alone while fighting my own personal battles in this because it was before I knew of any such movement and just winged it, one step at a time, into the unknown of healing away from all this into which I had once, myself, been indoctrinated; it was all I knew until I woke up and went in an entirely different direction to find my healing and peace of mind. I was fortunate to make it through and get on with things. Although I do see that many have awakened and will continue, and I’m always happy to offer whatever support I can, based on my own experience. It’s a new journey to take.

    I appreciate your words of hope.

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  • Norman, I’m so glad you see this, too, with such clarity. I have an involved story with one of these agencies and “anti-stigma” programs, which really does tell this same tale you describe.

    It is the biggest illusion I’ve seen–where ALL this money is going to aggrandizing this ’empire,’ I see it growing in tiers, like a wheel expanding outward, catching people as if in a net, more like blatantly PERPETUATING the stigma, and further creating a society based on that dualistic ‘reality,’ so self-defeating for those looking for their freedom and integration. I wasn’t satisfied with being part of their ‘machine,’ but it was either their way or the highway, that was very clear. It’s like a black hole, really.

    Resolving this would create big changes, I think, like a domino effect–however on earth that task would take shape–starting with economics and also I think a lot would come to light that might set things right, once and for all. I really didn’t have that much trouble figuring this out when I was in the midst of it, but doing something about it proved to be extremely risky and consequential, repeatedly. I challenged this every way I could and wow, their reaction to me was over the top, which is why eventually I ran like a bat out of hell from the system.

    It was IMPOSSIBLE to penetrate this wall of corruption, at least by myself I couldn’t do it. Although I did go as far as winning a legal mediation, proving discrimination outright, and retaliation. Still, this is way stubborn. I couldn’t believe what I learned in this arena of ‘advocacy.’ I wish there were something productive to do here at this juncture, but I’m clueless at this point; as much as I’ve tested its boundaries and limits over the years, it is quite a closed and extremely narrow system. So then, what?

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  • I think it’s the fact that a mega-billion dollar industry has been created by totally exploiting a vulnerable and trusting population, who are asking for and expecting focused and competent, trustworthy support. Instead, behind the curtain, it goes like this: “Easy targets, here, no one will believe ‘them’ when they grieve, that’s part of ‘their illness!’ ‘They complain about everything, and then try to become so manipulative.” From what I saw, that’s the stigma employed, the smoke and mirrors that gets cast over the perception of others, to create doubt and confusion.

    Let’s not forget all those advocacy programs that are bilking public and private funding sources (especially public, I think) for programs that perhaps look good on paper, and which sound so humanitarian and conscientious to the needs of the public. All these ‘recovery’ programs that are keeping people stuck in that mental health industry hamster wheel we call ‘indoctrination.’ The power imbalance wheel continues to roll.

    I know that in CA the Prop 63 Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) is going to nonsense programs that basically amount to just this, more of the same. I’ve been long gone from being inside the system so I’m no longer too up on what is going on at present, but I remember a few years ago when the regulating state mental health agency in CA busted up (I think 2010?), and suddenly, there was no oversight to this money. Guess what happened? Indeed, the vampires came out. That, I do know. I was in a nest of them, until I got the hell outta there.

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  • Exactly same with me, Fiachra. First one about a year after I began taking them, and them, 20 years later at the time I was withdrawing.

    These legal drugs cause all sorts of distortions in belief and life experience, creating a totally artificial reality. I lived a manageable life on them for a while, until it became clear that they were slowly destroying me. These drugs may create the temporary illusion of “stability” or some such thing, for whatever reason, but truly, in the end, they only create chaos and suffering. There are so many natural ways to restore balance, we need to explore these fully. There is a plethora of natural and safe remedies for all sorts of things out there, I hope everyone is realizing this by now. Thanks to the internet, these are growing in visibility daily.

    Finally coming off of these chemical poisons and fully detoxifying allowed me to thrive, because I could learn my true self and follow my true path, which is the biggest relief of my life. We are self-healers, by nature.

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  • A few things I wanted to add about the value of grounding that I find really helpful to remember always, which hopefully might speak to some people—

    When grounded, one is in present time, inherently, so therefore, we are not attached to our issues from past time when grounded; that is, there is no trauma in that moment, because grounding brings us into pure present time, and post-traumatic stress is, by definition, past time. Personally, I feel most of what we are talking about when we talk about disabling mental distress is some kind of post-traumatic stress, even if on a subtle level. A lot of what is truly traumatic can easily be written off and neglected in an unenlightened environment. That suppression and denial of trauma is what leads to the more stigmatizing diagnoses.

    The thing about pts is that these are habits of thought which we unwittingly repeat because there tends to be no closure or resolution from the past. In present time, the resolution to trauma is to practice present time focus, grounded, and this re-routes those neural pathways that continually remind of trauma, the habits of thought. This changes our perspective entirely, to see our past in a new way, from a grounded perspective. That gives it meaning and purpose, something which propels us into deeper awareness, from which we can grow and evolve.

    Earth energy is the most powerful natural healing agent we have available, which is why root vegetables are always highly recommended, for example. We need the earth to heal—‘Mother Earth.’

    When we see the trauma from a new perspective—grounded in present time—then we can achieve new clarity, that which resolves the inner conflicts that had become chronic. This shifts our entire world view, mostly from our hearts, as integrating our splits is what increases our capacity to love. New life experiences follow, better manifestations. We can experience joy.

    So that’s an extremely valuable result of practicing grounding on a daily basis, in that our focus changes to where we have more inner peace, as well as control over what we are manifesting in life.

    When we are not grounded, manifesting is way more of a challenge, and we generally have to depend on others. Grounded in present time is where we find our personal sovereignty. One of my teachers says, “It’s like a light bulb turning on.” Indeed, it is.

    Being not grounded inhibits our ability to manifest what we want, and instead, we end up manifesting by default, which is where we risk becoming a victim of our own manifestation. The whole point of healing is to gain control of our personal experience so that we can create what we most desire (including that which we need to heal from anything), because in a grounded state of being, we know our inner guidance, without a doubt, and therefore, our unlimited creative capacity. Without grounding, we’re spitting into the wind trying to manifest.

    Grounded vs. not grounded is the difference between ease vs. effort, clarity vs. confusion, and scarcity vs. abundance. That is a fact! Ask anyone who knows about grounding. THE most basic and vital lesson in all my healing, it all started with getting myself grounded, and learning what that means. Now, it’s a lifestyle, as if I suddenly began to eat food after starving most of my life. Can’t say how grateful I feel to have finally learned how critical it is to be grounded, if we are to be happy, healthy, prosperous, and at peace.

    I hope it catches on because it DOES bring peace, at least it’s the necessary start of it, which is why grounding is the cornerstone of my healing practice. If we’re not grounded, we will not receive healing and life will be much harder than it need be.

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  • That’s exactly right. When the question goes from “am I sane or not?” to “am I grounded or not?” then the paradigm has shifted, ‘mental illness’ becomes irrelevant, and we’ve brought ease and clarity in our lives. That’s truly all it takes. The hard part is breaking old habits of belief and allowing our perception to evolve past the group think. Easier said than done, but well worth the effort in my experience. Indeed, it is a viable and realistic solution.

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  • Hi Fiachra, grounding is being connected to the earth for balance, the way we ground electrical currents. Our bodies, minds, and spirits are energy, and when we are not grounded, we experience stress, dissociation, illness, agitation, worry, paranoia, and all kinds of potential imbalances, because when we are not grounded, we are not in synch with ourselves and in perpetual uncertainty. This causes perceptual distortions, chronic fear and anxiety, and also adrenal surges and exhaustion, what Chinese Medicine calls “tired but restless syndrome.” (And what we call ‘mania’).

    Grounding is something to do daily, for energy nourishment, the way we eat to nourish our physical bodies. It connects us to our natural state of being, from which society, in general, has strayed so far away. This website is a good summary of it:

    http://healing.about.com/od/grounding/tp/grounding.htm

    It can be done through mindfulness, but more so, it is a conscious intention to come back to center and connect to the earth, and specifically to draw earth energy into our bodies, for balance, healing, and continual well-being. It also supports clarity and feeling good, uplifted. It is naturally calming to the mind and soothing to the spirit, and something that can benefit anyone, and also something I feel most people could stand to do, for the benefit of everyone.

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  • I took Lithium for several years as a result of being tagged with a diagnosis of “bipolar disorder.” Eventually, it began to affect my kidneys and other organs, so I went to a Chinese Medicine practitioner, and she said were I to learn what ‘grounding’ is and practice it daily with diligence, and that were I to balance my kidney chi with herbs, then I’d be able to heal naturally and leave all medication behind. She was 100% correct.

    That was 15 years ago. I’ve no health issue at all since I completed my recovery from the withdrawal, either mental, emotional, or otherwise. It was all made up, and once I woke up to how the diagnostic/medication system operates, that led to full healing, integration, and transformation, because I was no longer making those same mistakes and following this misguidance.

    On the other hand, I had an uncle who died of kidney failure from having taken Lithium for over 25 years. That stuff is toxic, and there are so many alternatives because there are actually different perspectives on what this HUMAN polarity is about. Not all see it as a psychiatrist would. That is merely one perspective, and not one which has served us well in any way whatsoever. Chinese Medicine gets results from their way of seeing and doing things, which is diametrically opposed to psychiatric perspective.

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  • Thoughtful and interesting piece, Sandy, thanks for sharing more of your own journey and experience. This paragraph really popped out at me:

    “We continue to be extremely concerned about the aftermaths of trauma and child abuse and I understand that some people’s memories are discounted. But discounting memories is not the same as helping to create them. And acknowledging the faulty nature of memory is not the same as dismissing a person completely. Understanding what left the professions involved so vulnerable to this kind of problem is as important as understanding the impacts of the pharmaceutical industry on the practice of medicine.”

    I actually believe that questioning a person’s memory of their trauma is traumatic in and of itself, and dismissive enough to matter a great deal in what a person believes about themselves, and how that makes them feel. It can be rather infuriating and literally crazy-making to be questioned that way. I think that’s a normal reaction to not being heard in this manner when making one’s self that vulnerable to share feelings and memories around an unresolved trauma. To me, that’s an example of being terribly unsafe.

    Some people have shaky memories and some have photographic memories, I’ve known people in both categories. Not an issue of ego or value judgment, just a fact for some, neither here nor there. But I say this because I don’t think that ‘faulty memory’ is universal.

    Some people have excellent memories and can remember details because they tend to travel life in present time, not distracted by a plethora of thoughts. Living in the moment leaves a much stronger imprint of events, because we are taking it in integrally in that moment, being present, on more than just a visual or audio level, but on a felt sense, emotional and cellular level, too–more information in the moment by moment snapshots are absorbed and processed.

    People who are caught up in their thoughts perpetually (not everyone is) tend to not remember things as well because they are not as present in the moment. I think that makes a difference in our ability to recall details and events, as well as how we felt at the time of the experience. They remember their thoughts more than what happened outside of them, which are filters to the reality at hand, which I feel lead to distorted projections. That’s how I see it anyway.

    I don’t discount it as a reality, however, because it is still creative. Whether the reality we perceive is pure or filtered through our own limited beliefs, it is still the reality we project and experience, and that’s what makes us diverse human being, in every respect. It’s all valid.

    One person’s reality will not necessarily match that of another, simply through perception. There may be overlap and perhaps sometimes there is not. That’s diversity. Culture, beliefs, location, era, age, sibs or no sibs, what books we’ve read, etc–all of these and so much more will factor in to how we project and experience reality. And, this can morph over time, we’re not stuck with any imprint. We are flexible and neuro-plastic. We can transform in many ways, that’s our creative nature, and the fun of life.

    Regarding childhood trauma and abuse, often it is subtle and insidious via toxic dynamics that are enabled and accepted, so as to not rattle the cage of whomever is in power and fear-mongering–a system that teaches that if you go against the grain, there will be negative consequences. Not just fear-instilling, but also severely guilting and emotionally burdening (“look what you’ve done to your mother!”).

    Over the years, while developing in every way, during our most vulnerable and impressionable time, an enabling system of these chronic messages do take their toll on our hearts, psyche and spirit, not to mention our self-perception. It’s easy for a kid to feel badly about themselves if the adults around them are not actively supporting them in a way that is sound and reasonable. And, the example of the adult is what matter most. Are they walking their talk? Or saying one thing and doing another.

    We teach by example, so if our example contradicts our directives, that creates only confusion, fairly certain to become a diagnosis eventually for some, and other consequences of having internalized such toxic family dynamics and relationships. Addressing this is powerful and profound feelings, but unfortunately, the dynamics can so easily repeat in psychotherapy, and are reported to quite a bit, by survivors, myself included. That’s when things really started spiraling down in a way not necessarily related to medication, but simply because of the unwitting repetition of an insidiously traumatic relationship.

    Parenting is the hardest job in the world, but there are do’s and don’ts that have not been followed, and like I say, this adds up. This can be remedied, when people make an intention take responsibility for their own experience and practice authority over their lives.

    How this childhood trauma often repeats in psychotherapeutic settings is via gaslighing* and double-binding**. I feel a lot of family dynamics revolve around these standard operational practices. In some cases, no doubt it is unconscious because it is what we have learned and repeated from familiarity, and I feel it’s prevalent now, which is why people are looking to get off the grid, it’s just nuts trying to communicate these days, for so many reasons, not the least of which is that so much is done technologically, which has shifted the quality of communication tremendously.

    Although I feel sometimes, we fall prey to those who like to disempower others, as evidence of their own power, which I realize is sinister, but I think it’s reality. I don’t think it’s a secret any longer how control is garnered by confusing others, all those smoke and mirrors. That’s certainly coming to light all over the place these days, as we search for a better truth than that by which our world operates these days.

    *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

    **https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind

    I appreciate what you put forth, here, allowing me to get more clarity around my own experience. Family and social dynamics are my focus as a healer and teacher, and as an artist, because I think this is where the evidence of our screw up is most clear, at least to me it is.

    Always so interesting to find even more meaning to our experience, in a way that we can contribute to helping to create much-needed social change. From the mud, springs the Lotus.

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  • Thanks, Steve, likewise for sure.

    I totally agree with your analysis of how these labels do harm by being a justified and ‘legal’ form of discrimination based on stigma–which I see as an extension of social ills which only embed a person’s poor and self-limiting self-image. It’s crazy-making to know this is standard procedure.

    I sat for a moment with what you wrote, and this came to me:

    I believe that, universally, we are all similar, if not equal, in our craving for love, respect, nourishment, and safety. Without these, we get cranky, to say the least–really, it goes from despondent to enraged. Different people react differently to not getting their core needs met, aka acting out. Some are quite clever in how they go about getting their needs met, others are more direct.

    We can also totally detach from our feelings altogether, as a response to a toxic environment, so as not to feel the lack which we perceive. A lot of walled up and totally dissociated people walking around the planet these days, because the emotional intensity of life is just too much. Survival tactic, of course, but that can only lead to chaos when one is detached from their authentic emotional responses. In short, denial. This is where stigmatizing projections so easily occur, and more than likely will–when we don’t own our stuff.

    So our differences amount to how we react/respond when we do not get what we not only crave, but that to which is really our birthright. At least I believe this. Everyone deserves love, respect, nourishment, and safety.

    People who lack self-love, self-respect, and are sabotaging or depriving to themselves did not get what they needed, and they have yet to learn how to be a cooperative component in their own manifestation. Were we to see this beyond our fears and judgment of differences, then we’d feel compassion for those that are acting out violently or somehow sabotaging. I work on this myself all the time, for deeper understanding of humanity.

    I’ve heard over and over people say, in the wake of violence as a reaction to injustice, “I wouldn’t act like that!” But then again, until one walks a mile in blatantly stigmatized shoes, and that has been a generational reality, it’s really impossible to know how we would behave under the thumb of social oppression at every turn. I’m sure some people would be shocked at their impulses under such circumstances.

    I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but I think it’s easy to understand, if one understands the effects of blatant discrimination on one’s nervous system and emotions. It’s quite infuriating, to say the very least, when a person is trying to get reasonable needs met, and reason ceases to be while manipulative control based on degradation and dehumanization begins, where lies are told repeatedly. Then it’s just a big ol’ mess after that, lose/lose.

    One thing for sure–we can’t force compassion on others, so we have to discern what is comfortable for each of us, that’s our own responsibility. And when we are sent outside that comfort zone, as life so often does this to us, then that’s the signal that healing, growth, and personal evolution is happening. That’s a good thing, not something to condemn!

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  • One thing is kids evolving, growing, and learning as they become social. Hopefully, there are sound, guiding, and nurturing adults around to teach them (by example) how to not judge others, and to know themselves on their own merit, not by comparison, which distorts reality.

    Another thing, however, is systemic stigma which leads to oppression and abuse on a grand scale, whether blatant or subtle (gaslighting, double-binding, etc.).

    When a system treats its clients with lack of regard and respect because they have this inherent belief that their clients are less than (deficient, disordered, chronically ill), then, indeed, label or no label, that will be damaging for the client.

    However, realistically speaking, that DSM label sure does bring a lot of false assumptions, mainly because no one seems to understand how these specious diagnoses actually relate to being a human being, other than to put them in a category that implies something which is not true.

    I think that’s where the trouble with these labels come in. It’s not at all an accurate picture of the person, EVER, for a variety of reasons. Too much assumed, too much relevant info left out, too much categorizing, too much comparison, too much based on research (as opposed to that person’s unique experience). All of this undermines the human experience and limits individuals, by implication. That can’t ever be a good thing.

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  • Thanks, SE, I really appreciate that. I always wish I could do more that would be effective in making this kind of social transformation occur. Trying to hit it on many fronts. Even trying to bring a bit of joy to the situation by making music as a way of healing the spirit. Producing a documentary about this currently, so I’ll be focused in that direction for a while.

    I appreciate your truth, courage, and faith more than I can say, thank YOU!

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  • CatNight, one last thing, I LOVED these sentences, so spot on:

    “Labels can limit and often do.”

    “Also SES , culture, and race is so important to label and stigma issues. My client was of a different race than me and different SES. Much easier to throw a kids into the “special section” when there are no advocates or watchdogs.”

    Indeed, I also feel this is vital information and awareness. We falter here a great deal, omitting important factors in what makes us US.

    Apologies for all the successive posts, I’m actually supposed to be on vacation from all of this for a couple of months while I turn my attention elsewhere temporarily, but this topic is hot and also most near and dear to my heart, and to my work, so I took couldn’t resist participating enthusiastically.

    Thanks James, for instigating a wonderful and enlightening discussion, and I believe most relevant. Very appreciative to all who have commented and have given me much food for thought regarding where we are with these issues.

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  • I mean–can you imagine, getting fired from a VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION agency, whose program I took and completed, as my own rehabilitation, I wanted to work. They are the ones that asked if I wanted to apply for the position of voc rehab counselor that was open, they recruited me. Then, they did this turnaround, like, oops, just kidding, when they saw my loyalty was with clients.

    So their (incredibly dubious) claim was that I could not be rehabilitated, after they had worked with me for a year, given me high marks and encouragement, kudos, and then recruiting me. (You should have seen the incredibly transparent lies they added to my file–which I requested–and which no one believed, they were outrageous and had nothing to do with me, obviously).

    What were they thinking??? Honestly, not terribly bright, wouldn’t you say? They no longer exist, lost their funding. Too bad.

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  • Btw, I was staff when I called out the voc rehab agency, my first job since having become temporarily disabled by medication withdrawal. I was doing great, too, got a wonderful 3 month evaluation and high marks with clients, partners, all around. Then, I got in trouble (and ‘written up’) for challenging management when I saw they were blatantly discriminating against a client. That’s when it started happening to me, they were not happy that I was not ‘going along.’ They spent 2 months torturing me (that’s how my co-workers put it), as I tried to transition to another agency, because I so desperately wanted to work and was really enjoying it–it was my training and I was thrilled to be back hands on with clients, and they were doing great, placing people well who were succeeding.

    But what really mattered was that I advocated for clients rather than for management. That’s where I went “wrong.” Although, I’d do it exactly the same way, all over again, were I ever to be in that position–which will never happen, because I’m over it! This was not fun in the slightest, but it worked. So, I lost my job, but found my freedom, which allowed me to create a great life, on my terms. Helluva learning process.

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  • So eloquent, and clearly stated, CatNight. Don’t you think we qualify as JH Griffiths? That’s exactly how it felt to me, sound like your experience, too, from what I’ve read in your posts.

    It’s amazing how we can intellectually know something–that we are not these projections– and still, it gets under our skin and in our bones. Certainly affects the quality of one’s life.

    Being stigmatized, and ‘othered’ as a result, by an entire culture is nothing short of traumatic. I suffered from “stigma post traumatic stress’ for a while, until I figured it out, called it out, and then re-claimed my sense of self.

    I think that’s really what heals all of this–when we have a strong sense of self and hold to it, then we can stand alone in any environment and not lose our way. Takes good, hardy inner work, but it’s well worth the effort, in my experience. Really clears the mind and heart to know who we are, above and beyond the stigma. Then, we can find what is supportive to our goals and well-being, rather than sabotaging to them. To stigmatize is to sabotage.

    Now, if those who perpetuate blatant stigma and discrimination can only find THEIR “sense of self,” that would greatly alleviate the issue, all around…

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  • Jonathan, one could even say absolutely nothing about this and the attitude would still translate. Stigma is felt by whether or not people are heard and listened to, how we engage with others, the quality of our responses.

    I believe it’s in the quality of the engagement where stigma can be perceived on the most subtle level. Do you engage with a client with the same attitude with which you engage with a colleague, and is that the same quality of engagement as with your boss? More than likely, it is not. That is the essence of ‘discrimination.’

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  • Oh, and just to show contrast, the Civil Rights Office DID employ blatant stigma when I filed a grievance against Dept of Rehabilitation citing discrimination. I sent evidence, including an email from a job developer which DOR assigned me, which stated very clearly to me: “You just use ADA law when you don’t get your way.” HA! Shaming me for standing up for my rights legally?? I don’t think so! I cited other actions which were consistent with this attitude. But the OCR never interviewed me, asked for follow up, nothing. I just got a letter in the mail stating that my grievance was dismissed because I had a psychiatric file with this issue and that issue. That was their evidence against ME.

    That’s what a closed system looks like–as you say, Steve, people of different CLASSES are treated differently, and there is no place to turn in that system which does not operate by the same stigma.

    I was fortunate in my employment discrimination case against the voc rehab, I found a public employment attorney who had nothing to do with the mental health system. The “mental health” legal advocates to whom I had turned were just as bad as the employers within the system–incredibly discriminating.

    So I’ve had both experiences–one where reason and justice overpowered stigma, and one where the stigma was more influential than justice. In essence, this informed my path, so it’s all good. What a world…

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  • “Those diagnosed as “mentally ill” are treated in undignified ways that no one would consider acceptable with so-called “normal” people.”

    That’s right, exactly. The solution? Well, you can imagine the shock of the system when I took a corrupt and blatantly stigmatizing and discriminating voc rehab agency to legal task–and won. That wasn’t supposed to happen, no one was supposed to believe me! Well, the EEOC did believe me. I was so fortunate that the mediator listened to reason, rather than some fabricated social prejudice.

    The craziest thing ever is that THEY actually believe the stigma they project. In essence, that is delusion.

    For clients, the important thing is to not self-identify as that which others project onto them. That would be the personal growth, in boundaries and self-perception.

    I had to even correct my family, they had bought the “mental health system party line” hook, line, and sinker. They’re awake now, I took care of that, between the film and LOTS of dialogue.

    The more people awaken to not believing the stigma and getting away from stigmatizing (discriminating) environments, the more they will heal. It is this stigma that distorts reality, so no healing can really occur, only more illusion and enabling. Stigma is the social ill which is the precursor to marginalization, oppression, discrimination, prolonged disability, and human suffering.

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  • Stigma is so much more than about language–it’s about mindset, attitude, and perspective. It’s an energy, a habit of thinking, that creates a negative environment, and especially a negative, defeating perception for individuals.

    The moment you say any condition is permanent, for example, you are stigmatizing, because there is no way anyone can know that to be true, regardless of whatever experience anyone else has had. This stigma is particularly dangerous, because you are assigning artificial limitations to a person and a skewed self-perception, and that affects us at the core more than anything. Our beliefs about ourselves influence our reality more than anything else.

    This is beyond mere ‘tolerance’ and ‘acceptance.’ It is seriously about respect, as anyone has a right to expect.

    The only way to understand this is to go through it. It’s a feeling like no other, to be the target of stigma which writes you off as second class (aka non-deserving). I came out of that period with an entirely different attitude than I had previously embodied, really grew me in all ways.

    It was transformative to my entire perspective to have gone through this. It’s quite humbling and more enriching than I can possibly say. One thing for sure–going through the experience of blatant stigma, which is the most oppressive experience I’ve had in life, broadens one’s perspective a great deal about the experience of humanity. It is truly an eye-opener.

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  • James, wow, talk about an attention getter. These issues are my main focus of thought when it comes to our health and well-being as related to social ills and relationship dynamics. I agree with CatNight, down the line.

    I actually lived fine with being labeled with a diagnosis for a good long while, almost 20 years. I went with it, managed it with medication while functioning well in society, accepted it was my reality and not really a big deal. The idea of ‘mental illness’ was never scary or off-putting to me. I though it was part of society, an experience that some humans had in life.

    I wrestled with my demons like anyone else, but my life was fulfilling, socially and professionally. In short, I was indoctrinated into the norms of society, like everyone around me at that time. I wasn’t aware of stigma, not part of my experience at that time.

    It was when I went to grad school to study psychology that this changed. I disclosed as usual, never had an issue doing so in the past, thinking it would enrich my education to have had this experience for most of my adult life while studying psychology in depth and doing my MFT training.

    Instead, my information turned on me, and the issue was STIGMA, pure and simple. One professor, in particular, kind of persecuted me after I had disclosed, which I ended up reporting. For no reason other than his own prejudice, he made my life hell for a while in grad school, totally needlessly, from his ego. He had something up his bum, and it came in my direction, after I had disclosed to him, where I had thought it was totally safe to do so, should have been, more than anywhere.

    From that point forward, the stigma undermined my life in ways that would take an entire book to describe (maybe one day).

    The stigma from the labels is harmful and toxic, because it seems that people associate all sorts of myths and propaganda with them, especially these days. And it is aggressive, definitely energy-draining. So really, there is mass education to be had, here, but I’m not sure who would give this education. Seems there is something for everyone to learn, in this regard, so perhaps life will teach us where to go next.

    These labels represent a cultural mindset that is false and prejudice, totally dualistic. Blatant stigma is oppressive because it is inherently discriminating. As CatNight suggests, try it on for size where no one knows you, and you will feel it in your heart and spirit, and it will disorient, confuse, and gaslight you, lowering your capacity to focus and function as usual.

    The only way I learned to overcome this is to stop participating in the norms of society, and not buy into any of these illusions any longer. I know better now, because I awoke to all the double binding and gas-lighting that is involved with psychiatric diagnosis. It is mental torture to awaken to the internalized negative programming which has been defining us until we awaken to who we really are, way outside of any of this.

    Going outside social norms guides us to our selves, and to a new and improved society.

    You may feel that labeling with a diagnosis is a neutral action, and at one point, perhaps it was more benign than it is now, at least seemingly so. But these days, that is not the case. This diagnostic system does not work specifically because we, as a society, have stigmatized (think negatively about) the entire notion that we just may not be perfect after all. Regardless of how sensitive we are to this and how neutral we may feel we are, the preconceptions are felt, because the education is misguided.

    True what you say, that we are all responsible for what we create in the world. There is no us vs them. That is the biggest illusion of all. When we see past the illusion of separateness, stigma will end, because when we dish it out, in turn, we feel it. And it is a truly horrible feeling, and undermining to a person’s active participation in society. It is marginalizing, inherently, and dehumanizing. That is not aligned with the cause of ‘unity.’

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  • If you’re being helped by what you are taking and not hindered by side-effects, then why stop what is working for you? Were the side-effects to begin outweighing the benefits, that’s the time to look into alternatives. Unless your intuition is telling you something, here. I wouldn’t make a decision based on fear, however, but more on what your gut instinct tells you.

    There are a lot of alternatives to medication which usually tend to be a combination of healing practices that move energy (e.g. acupuncture, qi gong) with herbal support which can detoxify and regenerate cells, strengthen the nervous system, and balance organs. That’s Chinese Medicine, which saved my life.

    I had been on medication for 20 years. I was living a full life, not at all disabled in any respect, when, after 18 years, these drugs totally turned on me in a way that was kind of bizarre, all these weird side effects started happening and I went into a mental fog.

    Of course, my psychiatrist responded by adding more and more, like a pez dispenser. I ended up on 9, which practically killed me, and which did disable me temporarily. I HAD to come off of them, for the sake of my survival. Not a fun time in the slightest, but well worth the effort, considering that the drugs had put me on a downward spiral. I’m totally fine now, back in business all around.

    The right kind of nutritional support (appropriate to your specific body, but leaning on the probiotic and alkaline side) builds a healthy inner ecology in the gut (compromised by the drugs), which is calming to the mind and heart while fortifying our auto-immune system. When we have this balanced out, we are a self-healing human machine.

    As far as your life story goes, tell it from a new perspective. That worked for me better than I could have ever imagined. We really ARE the creators of our own reality!

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  • “I’ve read the benzos are horrendous to detox from.”

    Yes, horrendous is a good word, also excruciating. It was the most surreal and insidious pain, no precedent in my life for it, nor in those who were around me at the time. No doubt they are truly a health risk.

    I was extremely fortunate to find very compassionate, intelligent, kind-hearted, and grounded, focused healers who knew the dangers of these “medications,” and the harms produced by them. Because of their support, I was able to heal fully from the damage done by these drugs and move on with my life, feeling healthy, clear, and relaxed again.

    It took a while, probably a couple of years or so, for my body to feel relief from the stress of re-structuring itself after having been so violated by these toxic “medications.” But eventually, with good care and focus, our system can find its balance again and heal naturally. Everything heals eventually, if we allow it to.

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  • I totally agree. Toxins are the enemy (and come from all sorts of sources, both physical and emotional) and detoxing allows our bodies’ natural self-healing and regenerative properties to be active and effective. I found that especially bringing liver and kidney into balance is really helpful, because they are organs of detoxification. Toxins basically inhibit our natural immune and detox systems from doing their job. On a physical level, it begins with the cells, indeed. When we get it right, no meds or anything artificial (unnatural) is at all required.

    You are correct, profound and generational brainwashing has occurred, so that we consume needlessly rather than honor nature, and look for safe and effective support from this infinite resource. Great comment!

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  • Maybe ‘relaxed heart’ would be more literally what I’m saying–a feeling of relaxation around the heart/chest. To me, that translates as ‘open-hearted,’ and would constitute ‘a healing presence.’ A ‘closed heart’ would translate into a constricted, tense feeling around the heart, which constricts the flow of our energy on a physical level. That creates a dense feeling in our bodies, which mars our clarity.

    Of course, our hearts can tense up when triggered by our own thoughts or as a fear or anger response to someone else, that is human. We do have control over this, by where we choose to place our focus, and how we choose to interpret and perceive the experiences of our lives.

    Our hearts relax and tense up daily, that would be the natural order of things. I found it extremely valuable and basic my own personal growth, as well as to my practice, to discern between these two divergent states of being.

    Personally, I think a person who is in a position to help, guide, or teach others should know when their hearts are tensed up as opposed to being relaxed, own it, and be transparent about it with a client/student. I think that is the kind of self-awareness, self-responsibility, and trust that fosters mutually open communication and which also separates effective support vs. just another enmeshed power relationship where the client/student gets dumped on due to their vulnerability. A strong opinion, I realize, but I do feel strongly about this, based on what made me worse vs. what helped me to heal and experience a transformative integration.

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  • I totally agree with you, Karen, that we are all entitled to our natural reaction and responses, based on our own individual relationship with the environment. Anything other than that is sure to throw people off-kilter, as it is not in the slightest either natural or helpful to anyone in any way to judge, oppress, deny, or invalidate our emotional response to anything!

    During my own healing, and what made all the difference–not only in my healing from having become temporarily disabled (chaotic thinking and profound chronic anxiety) from psych meds and subsequent withdrawal, but also in my current outlook on life (vastly different than what it used to be), I learned the language of the heart. That may sound metaphorical to you, but to me, based on the education I’ve had, it is concrete. The language of the heart is different than the language of the brain. I have a healing and teaching practice and I apply this and teach it, as well, so I know the effectiveness of this, as well as the literalness which it brings. The language of the heart is direct, when we are connected to our hearts. By this I mean, in touch with how our heart feels from moment to moment, not cut off from this. To me, that is our authentic truth; whereas the brain is more interpretive, and not always in the most kind way.

    Learning common language is going to take time as well as trial and error. I’m always open to being asked, “What exactly do you mean by that?” when it feels vague to someone. I also ask that question, for clarification, when need be, to avoid jumping to pre-mature conclusions. There’s a lot of sensitivity to language these days. I do my best to hear a person’s heart when they speak, which might be different than what the brain is communicating. And in turn, this is what I offer when I communicate–my heart. That’s where I’m most comfortable, and where I find clarity.

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  • Thanks for your feedback and certainly respect your position. As a commenter, I chose to simply reflect back what I feel is sound for myself, nothing more than that. Sometimes my comments are more lengthy and I choose to elaborate, and other times, my inclination is to make a simple reflection.

    Although I hear from your reactions to my chosen language, you have an interpretation that does not fit my intention, nor is it universal to my mind. Certainly these issues present challenges in communication, and even more so, in online communication, hazard of these times. I do appreciate the inherent barriers to clarity that can come from discussing such personal and intimate issues online, albeit for the sake of being supportive to others who are in challenging positions.

    I communicate with a variety of people with varying points of references and cultures. With some my language, concepts and truth ring true, and for others it does not. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about what I say.

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  • Very thoughtful post, Dr. Berezin. I always appreciate the sensitivity and clarity with which you write.

    Engaging with our hearts fully present, as opposed to our judgments, is what I find most healing and satisfying. I find that the dramas of the mind are based on fears which an open-hearted presence which can reassure and soothe, so that relief can be felt and clarity can emerge. A healing presence is a gift to all concerned.

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  • This is a really fair and astute comment, thank you.

    I’m not sure I agree, however, that men struggle with anger more than women; although I do agree that anger can express itself and manifest in a variety of ways, some of them being productive, fueling inspiration for change, while other ways of expressing anger are more sabotaging to the common goal.

    But during my journey through the system, I witnessed a lot of men being emasculated publically in group therapy settings by female therapists, rather brazenly, too. It was obvious they carried a lot of anger, especially toward men, and were paying it forward to men who were vulnerable. I found it to be a rather shameless display of power and completely counter-productive to healing anything. It was certainly unjust and betraying in every way.

    I remember one gentleman in a day treatment group I was in, complaining about violence in the public housing where he resided, and wanted to file a complaint, which he was nervous about doing. Her response to him was, “Take your meds and don’t make waves.” I actually complained about it, which of course was dismissed as ‘my issue’ or whatever. I never forgot that, and will probably be the ironic title of a book I write some day. I think it nails the attitude of the system spot on, in a nutshell.

    I think any level of duality undermines the causes of, both, human rights and social healing, because it will inevitably lead to more splitting, factionalizing, stigma, and marginalization–more of the same. To my mind, this is what is trying to heal. Male/female energies are integrative, no one dominates over the other. Cooperation among the two would be the (r)evolutionary challenge.

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  • This is a beautiful statement of unity and integration.

    I also very much appreciate and resonate with this:

    “…urge caution when viewing eastern, spiritual ways of understanding ourselves and the world’s we love in through the lens of western, psychological eyes. They’re very different.”

    Yes, thank you.

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  • I love and agree with everything you’re saying here about food, nourishment, and our bodies, Monica. I had to make a significant transition into that awareness, myself, after ditching all the meds, and it was like you say, a really beautiful journey. In fact, I had no idea what I was about to discover, just how self-healing my body really is.

    I really enjoy and benefit enormously from applying all that I learned about our inner ecology and naturally maintaining our auto-immune system. The body does have the wisdom to heal itself, if we nourish it appropriately–and by that I mean whatever is appropriate for each one of us at any given time. Our bodies are unique, no two are alike. We all experiment with this, and draw our own conclusions for ourselves, based on how we feel.

    I think the challenge is due to so many things having to do with media and consumerism and all the money made from synthetics and junk foods, filled with chemicals and other things unnatural to our systems. Our society was raised on this and are in these habits. We’ve been taught such confusion from overtly mixed messages about food. We need to untangle this, and find a way that everyone can access natural foods. So not only is it not accessible to everyone, due to cost, availability, etc.–or at least so it would seem–but also, our bodies have become programmed to crave synthetic foods. There are a lot of habits to transmute, both physical and thought-form. I know that was the case for me, it was a hard transition. But one well-worth making, because it serves me in the most positive way for the rest of my life.

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  • An even more revolutionary approach would be to see how those that would appear to ‘not fit in’ are actually on to something. Fitting into society’s expectations is fitting into society’s box. Who thinks for themselves in this box?

    Perhaps those not fitting in are the ones who ARE thinking for themselves, and leading the way to a sound and healthier society. Takes courage and creative thinking to follow the outcasts and misfits and see that they were right all along–the ones we call ‘odd’ or ‘disenfranchised’ or ‘psychotic’ or whatever…

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  • I think it’s pretty clear that each one of us has to fight our own battles. I did my healing and activism work on my own, I was alone in San Francisco with all this. And while it was tough as hell, I managed to succeed at both, because I trusted my process and stuck to my truth the whole way. It’s the only way I was able to really believe in myself, and know that I had what it takes to be fulfilled in life. Relying on others can be risky and disempowering. Fear-based focus is what leads to betrayal.

    If each of us fought our own battles, then things would change because this is how we find our power. Those who wait around for others are going to be waiting an awfully long time. Each of us must take the reigns for our own lives, while encouraging others to do the same. But no one can fight another’s war without making a big mess for everyone concerned, of that I’m certain.

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  • Anyone who knows about corruption and doesn’t speak up about it contributes to it. I lost my job for calling out corruption, and all sorts of other things, but I don’t regret a moment of it. As a result of speaking my truth and standing firmly in it, trusting from one moment to the next, my path became clear and things got better and better. Plus, the corrupt agency which I challenged is no more, because they lost their funding.

    Now, I help others find the courage to know and embody their truth, and to speak it when they feel it is the right thing to do for themselves. To me, that is healing, and what defines our sense of self as empowered and self-respecting.

    Front line people have the power to stand up for what is right. If they do not, then they are not serving their clients, and are fear-based, which is unsafe for clients, because betrayal is rampant in fear-based environments.

    Overall, I get that it is one double bind after another, I went through all of this. So we have choices, but each one seems to sacrifice something that shouldn’t be sacrificed. This is why I think the entire system is shit and serving no one, other than lining pockets of some not very nice people.

    That was MY experience!

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  • Thanks for clarifying this, Julie. I also figured that it is the ‘obsessive’ part that would be significant, but specifically obsessed with healthy eating seemed to one of those oh-so-many fabricated ‘illness’ based on what is actually sound. I get what you’re talking about now– how the system’s over-control creates these fears and obsessions in particular via what they call ‘treatment’ or some such nonsense.

    I’ve come to the conclusion that this is not about ‘the system,’ in general, as that is too impersonal at this point, and quite vague. This is about the people who have direct contact with clients working on healing, recovery, and personal growth. Somehow, the front lines have landed in the hands of toxic people. This is what needs to change, more than anything, as it is obvious they have no idea what they are doing, as far as healing support goes, not in the slightest. I think that’s as clear as a bell.

    Thanks for your expertise, Julie. It’s from people like you, with conscious awareness of your own experience, that I learn the most.

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  • One last thing, then I’m off of this particular jag (this topic of what makes or doesn’t make a good therapist is near and dear to my heart, for a lot of reasons): one clear observation I made as I went through my assembly line of therapists, is that most psychotherapists I’ve known get really triggered by powerful clients and don’t own their insecurities around this, which is where the topic of humility would come in, to my mind. This is why people get diagnosed, stigmatized, and gaslighted.

    Ok, I think I’m complete in this area. Therapists–in and out of school– gave me grief more than anything else. This was my experience, not to generalize to the experience of others. But it was a HUGE problem for me, in this field, which is why I no longer identify with the mental health field or its teachings in any way.

    I totally respect and appreciate the challenges of the myriad truths we express here, but if we don’t express what we truly feel from the depth of our personal experience, then we’re not getting anywhere fast, as far as healing, growth, and radical change are concerned. Thank you for the opportunity.

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  • I also think the word HUMILITY is, more often than not around here, used in context as some kind of personal attack and a way to demean others, rather than to really understand what it means to be humble. Ask any survivor of the mental health system–how much more humble can one get, than to go through what they put us through? That stays forever.

    Showing confidence and certainty after that kind of experience is a sign of well-being, confidence, and clarity. The more we deny healing in others, the more we sabotage our own efforts of trying to bring about necessary change. Denial of others’ healing is sabotage.

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  • A good therapist (or teacher or guide or coach) is also one who challenges their clients, which is how we grow, when we are challenged. Too many therapists enable their clients’ false self-beliefs by wanting to be liked and thought of as ‘competent,’ so they will not challenge the client to grow beyond the relationship, for fear of angering the client. Many therapists I’ve known enable victimhood and are not really authentic with their clients.

    Conversely, many people choose a therapist that will repeat their family drama–from that feeling of familiarity, one way or another–and this is the cycle that often must be broken, for healing to occur beyond a certain point of perpetual stuckness and eternal repetition of toxic relationship dynamics.

    People are not made of sugar, they will not melt in the rain. Most therapists don’t give enough credit to their clients for having their own mind, despite looking for clarity around certain issues. And often, nor do they give credit to the indelible power of the human spirit.

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  • Fiachra, what I think is cool is that there are so many ways to mix and match safe, effective tools of our choosing, to design our own path of healing and personal growth. Like, sooooo many, via a variety of media, often free and accessible to anyone. I listen to so many different teachers online, compare their information, how it sits with me, etc. So much info about alternative perspectives online. Since doing this to help support getting myself back together, it’s pretty much become a way of life now. So many ways to teach and guide ourselves as we go along, without committing to a potentially unsafe relationship, especially with internet, YouTube, etc.

    Learning chakras and how to use these as healing tools is what helped me the most, bar none. Carolyn Myss, Anatomy of the Spirit. This guided me through that, initially.

    Also, I did a three year program of self-healing, learning psychic and subtle energy focus, etc, and came out on the other side transformed and well on my way to 100%. Although I still had some work to do, which was more than anything being out there in real life and applying it all in my relationships as I moved forward professionally—establishing boundaries, thinking in a self-respecting way, knowing the red flags with toxic people and environments, etc. It’s really a fascinating process to re-build one’s psyche from the ground up, especially as I was in my late 40s. Transformative in every way. I was hand to mouth on disability, but still could scrounge part of the tuition, but I also did volunteer work as trade, everything was negotiable, I made it work.

    Lots online about chakras. I really can’t stress enough the plethora of perspectives and tools of healing support that are online, that are pretty easy and extremely effective. For getting off medication, learning to GROUND was vital and more relevant than anything. I spent years practicing grounding, this self-nourishing connection to the Earth, and it was a life-changer to know this. Natural healing all around us. Time to tap into it, as it is abundant and FREE.

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  • Laura, re sense of self–indeed, and how important is this in activism? I could not have fought my way through the system, legal mediation, corrupt social services and legal advocacy, and even just telling my story over the years so publically, without a sense of self. One has to expect a variety of diverse reactions when we challenge others like this, especially with the politics of it, and all the personal stuff it brings up in everyone, that can so easily be projected all over the place. Without a solid sense of self, I would have thrown in the towel a million times. Every time, I’m so happy I persevered. Self is intact—well, most of the time, I guess, being human and all!

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  • This is so powerful, indeed, the voice of the unheard.

    Even after having worked as a retail customer service manager for almost 20 years and being an out gay man in Texas, I had never before encountered such aggressive mean-spiritedness and utter cold-heartedness as when I began to study psychology in grad school. It was the most indirect and manipulative communication I’d ever experienced, and seriously the most snarky attitude I’d ever encountered. Seriously uptight and paranoid community.

    What is the deal with this culture of “psychology”??? It is apart from the rest of the world.

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  • Of course deprivation is going to cause all sorts of perceptual distortions and emotional disruption. That’s a normal reaction to chronic deprivation.

    Then again, the uber-rich who are running the country and the world have to be rather insane, from the way the world has turned out. I’d call it grossly criminal neglect and mismanagement, and that’s why people live in extreme poverty and deprivation, as well as in violent conflict. It’s been a never-ending cycle throughout history.

    Change has to be drastic and exceptionally creative for this tragic cycle to transcend into a livable humanity, which currently, for the vast majority of people, it is not.

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  • Wow, this is historic. The one thing I tell people about when they want to release their medication and do natural healing is that their deepest core stuff, which has been all this time suppressed by the drugs, will come up for shifting. To me, that was the hardest part, but of course, the most rewarding, and where authentic transformation resides. Even after the physical symptoms of withdrawal subsided, after a few years, those issues begged for clearing as I went along.

    Certainly a multi-dimensional process that really grows one’s awareness beyond imagination. Safe and trustworthy support is so vital, of course. I look forward to seeing how this endeavor unfolds. It could really change lives.

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  • I chose that clip because it is fairly recent, and also because in just 3 minutes, she repeats the psychiatric party line, down the line. Plus, a lot doesn’t make sense to me, seems paradoxical. I’d prefer to not going into this in detail, out of respect for Dr. Saks. I do really admire how she was able to work with a support system to achieve what she has.

    She is very fortunate to have had such support, continuously. Not everyone does, nor do they have the financial resources she has had. From having read her book, from what I remember, she was always quite comfortable and had no money woes. That is CRITICAL when considering these issues, and where power imbalances permeate the mental health field, in general. I noticed this as far back as graduate school.

    At the same time, she is most definitely part of the mainstream establishment, which I find incredibly blurry at this time, hard to trust in any respect. So much of that culture (and there are others, aside from what we call ‘mainstream’) is built on programming and simply repeating what one has been told, without question. And now we are finding that it is all bogus, which is why it has been doing more harm than good, despite anyone’s best intentions.

    These programs don’t go away easily. As they dissolve, we are left questioning our beliefs and behaviors up to now. That’s a void to experience. It’s like deprogramming from a cult, all these beliefs slanted in favor of some fabricated doctrine or to honor some false prophet, etc. Many ways these false beliefs have come into being, but the point is that we know they are false and completely dualistic, and they continue to be taught and profited from.

    I think that’s going to be hard to relinquish for many who think and speak like Dr. Saks. From what she says in those few minutes, she sounds like quite a firm believer in the way things are done now, and this is exactly what we are saying NO to. The flexibility of her mind and heart, along with anyone else’s, is what is always most uncertain to me when I begin my own personal art of persuasion away from these myths.

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  • Oh, and to briefly address the question why psychiatrists are not more readily questioned? From my experience, I’d say it’s because their responses (or better said, non-responses) are designed to make you feel small or crazy or both. Remember that the next time you try to dialogue with a psychiatrist, as I have over and over again, with the same results. And what is the definition of insanity again?

    This is why people resist questioning them–it will drive you insane to do so. Better to just move along, sometimes. That’s why you are brave, and breaking ground.

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  • I love this, great job! I once got a free ticket to a NAMI conference, and cornered the then-APA prez (don’t remember his name, this was 2007-8, I think, in San Francisco) in the corridor and asked him why they were so obsessed with medication when there are sooooo many safe and natural ways to heal from anything, and tried to tell him how I had done this, myself, after feeling only tortured from meds and withdrawal. He was also patronizing, dismissive, and making it up as he went along, as was absolutely every single psychiatrist I challenged during the conference. It’s the only language they seem to speak!

    I read Elyn Saks’ The Center Cannot Hold and called her right after. I had a pretty long phone chat with her. Very nice person, and extremely courageous, honest, transparent, and obviously hard-working, but she suffers and is dependent. I don’t care if she has an MD and Law degree, that’s not a measure of health, well-being, and mental clarity, not in the slightest. This is not an example of success, but purely of cultural indoctrination.

    Thank you for this exquisitely enlightening report, and for your brave work on the line. This is the kind of thing I really love to see. Fantastic activism 🙂

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  • That is a POWERFUL quote! How much clearer can it get? As far as I can tell, it slays the dragon of psychiatry, because it calls it out perfectly, word for word. Thanks for posting it again, I hadn’t seen it before.

    I think this quote should be at the forefront of this particular movement, to eliminate the psychiatry-of-the-absurd due to its tyrannical mindset and oppressive practices, in the name of ‘healing.’ Moral busybodies, indeed! Love that, so perfect.

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  • I responded to that, if that were the case, that I had misunderstood. But lack of transparency on the dr’s part is enough answer for me.

    This is the problem, vagueness for the purpose of confusing others. It’s an old trick, hackneyed really. But ironically, it’s certainly effective in providing clarity for those of us on the outside of it, who can tag it as such. Thank you.

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  • Yes, this caught my attention, too. I believe the mental health field is the most financially exploitative operation in the history of the world. Mainly, because it is SUPPOSED to be about healing and alleviating suffering, and it does just the opposite, creating illness and actually causing suffering, so needlessly. And with such rich remuneration. How can people feel fulfilled when it is at the obvious and dire expense of others? That makes no sense to me.

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  • I was very moved reading this. You and your husband sound like very loving, caring, and nurturing parents, and extremely conscientious. Your son is very fortunate. I’m so impressed that you tried the patch yourself, first, and especially that everyone concerned is satisfied with a minimum dosage for your son. It’s uplifting to hear of the positive outcome for your son and family! That’s a delicate balance that is often never satisfactorily reached.

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  • I meant to mention, CatNight, that yes, indeed, I’m a big fan of Mr. Griffin. I grew up in the south in the 1960’s. I read Black Like Me for the first time when I was about 13, made a huge impact on me. I thought it was the most courageous thing ever, to voluntarily walk in the shoes of oppressed people, with that identity projected outward. That’s how to learn, no other way. He achieved pure empathy, which is gold to oppressed people, because from this understanding, the next step is creating the path freedom. That’s an internal process, mostly.

    Otherwise, it’s really quite difficult to describe the extent to which those who have not experienced this will never understand, until they go through it with that same feeling of powerlessness. That is truly a dark night of the soul in our society, to be marginalized and feeling powerless. From this, light and truth will come as we evolve.

    Going through the system after having been a psychotherapist was like this, although it was not my conscious intention to do so. I was simply following my path, and this is where I found myself. Still, it was life’s best education for me, and I was able to heal from the hits I took. Now, I can be of service to others, which is my intention as I continue to follow my own path as a musician and filmmaker.

    Oh yeah, it’s brutal, I’ll personally attest to this at any time.

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  • Thanks CatNight, I agree with you that there is a big advantage in perspective when we experience both sides of the fence, and then distance ourselves to get clarity. I got an extremely thorough view of this field, inside and out, and it has been corroborated fully by what I’ve read and experienced in this pool, here online. Never again! is right, that would be the path to healing and owning our lives for ourselves, not for others.

    I think everyone concerned has been indoctrinated one way or another. It’s starts wayyyyyy up at the top, they keep themselves behind a wall, believing they are unseen and untouchable. I believe this is coming to an end, that is what global change is about now. The world is becoming transparent, which is what needed to happen.

    But this is what the fear is about, that’s what they want people to feel, to deter people from speaking their truth. I felt the indoctrination trying to happen within any group related to the ‘mental health’ community. Conform and agree, or be shamed and marginalized.

    For me, healing was finding my own voice and my own truth, regardless of any of this pressure to conform to the “mental health culture.” I did speak up when I was a social worker, which was after I had already been experiencing blatant stigma and discrimination from within the system, and I got fired for it, then I sued and won. I won because it was not a question that I was having great success with clients, which I was able to show was not their priority, in practice. They didn’t just fire me, they tortured me first, knowing how vulnerable I was feeling. Even my co-workers noticed this, and commented to me about it. This was my voc rehab, ironically enough.

    Not a nice journey to take, but empowering and educational nonetheless. These days, I make it a point to keep my power when dealing with an oppressive environment. After all, they can be hard to avoid if we want to be out in the world. But there is a way to be sensitive to the environment without taking on its ills and projections. That’s probably the most important thing I learned in my healing.

    Anyway, I’ve strayed off topic here, but I wanted to acknowledge your post because I really do want to encourage you to keep following your truth, regardless of anything. It’s challenging, but it’s the only way I know how to grow and create change. Those of us who have gone through this and have detached from it all are now the powers that be, if only due to our personal sovereignty. So, indeed, that change is occurring. We’re sure to see more and more of this, yourself included, no doubt! Keep up the brave work.

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  • For me, what felt like mental chaos and confusion was caused by my dad making me feel totally powerless over my life and my mother enabling his abuse because of her fear. I grew up with the belief that I was supposed to be a certain way, according to their personal beliefs, and if I was not, then something was wrong with me, worthy of being shamed and demeaned. This was the indoctrination of my family, from the time I was born, so it was all I knew for a good long while. It felt normal to me, so I was not realizing that I was internalizing self-beliefs which were not serving me, other than to make me feel really badly about myself, for no reason other than I was not doing what my parents thought was “appropriate.” Random stuff, but it was their culture, and any deviance from this was scorned without apology.

    This is what caused me to feel mentally ill. I don’t apologize for that term, either.

    I worked with my story around this over the years, and found new perspectives which brought me relief and clarity, which, in turn, affected my reality in the most positive way. In that process, I learned to let go, forgive, move on, and grow my perspective to one of personal maturity.

    My father has since passed, but I healed with him before he died. With my mother, the roles have reversed, and now I am patient with her chaos. But it is very clear whose chaos it was in the first place. My mind is now clear, I’m grounded, and I consider myself to have healed from the mental illness which was, in reality, the family dysfunction due to child abuse and enabling. End of story.

    Psychiatry, medication, psychotherapy–all a waste of time, energy and resources which took me more off course than anything and for a while disabled me. Totally needless, other than to teach me a great deal about humanity, more than I could have imagined.

    I healed once I defected from the field altogether and stopped using these bogus ‘services,’ which amount to one big culture of social ills, purely, and turned to more sound healing support, found in alternatives such as energy healing, spiritual learning, body work, acupuncture, natural herbal support, grounding meditation, and taking full responsibility to what I bring into my life experience and relationships. That is healing.

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  • “I tried the mental health system and as far as I’m concerned the whole profession is a joke…These walls between the so called “mental health professionals” and the people (notice I don’t refer to them as clients or consumers) their supposed to be helping, is completely devoid of any real compassion or empathy. The whole thing is extremely unethical and cold, but most of those who work in the profession seem to live in a little world of their own convincing themselves with their degrees and textbooks that their method is correct and if a person argues against this, it only proves they are mentally ill. Psychiatry is so damned arrogant, believing they have all the answers, when they have no clue what it’s like to walk in the shoes of those who suffer.”

    Frayed, you echo exactly how I feel after having gone through they system, myself. This is after doing my own training and internship in counseling psychology, I actually was part of this field. After going through the system, however, I feel it is exactly what you say, and after doing a few things for my own personal vindication, including speaking my complete and unadulterated truth about the matter, and to help bring in some change even if only small scale–at least some awareness raising where everyone is in the dark–I got out of there like a bat out of hell. It’s not only ‘a joke,’ it’s actually an extremely dangerous one.

    I was driven to a suicide attempt by these people, who treated me exactly like what you’re saying, and in doing so, convinced me I was worthless and had no future of which to speak. The psychiatrist I used to see attributed all my negative feelings on the fact that I had “lost my dreams,” which I had not considered to be true, not even had thought this. That’s what was on my mind the night I tried to kill myself, that I had “lost my dreams,” he repeated it often, until it really got in there. (These days, I’m living my dreams, so as far as I’m concerned, he was projecting his own failures onto me, I think that is obvious, because I never lost my dreams as he insisted).

    I’d never felt like that about myself nor did anyone, until these clowns got me in their clutches, unsuspectingly. Of course, I believed them, their words and actions against me broke down my defenses and my mind was screwed up from meds withdrawal, so I was extremely vulnerable, as most of us are when we enter that cockamamie world.

    They confused everything normal and natural about me and my creative process with mental illness, so of course I didn’t have a chance with them. It was all them! Pure projections, no ownership or self-responsibility whatsoever, like ZERO. They were wrong about me, so thank God my suicide attempt failed, and I chose to stay in this lifetime, see what I could make out of this mess. Thing turned around, finally, and all is well. I had to trust, one day at a time, and little by little, I got more and more clarity, and was able to make better choices for myself.

    Although it was close, I was on my way out, about a minute or so from death, if even that. My body had already lost it’s ability to hold me up. During that time, I had the epiphany that were I do die at that time from my own doing, then I’d have to come back and repeat all of this, get back to the same point in time, and try to get over that hurdle again. I don’t know why I thought this, but I did, and it prompted me right back into my body, so that I could keep going and try to figure this all out, one way or another. After all, I had come this far..

    Turns out these are spiritual teachings which I hadn’t even been taught yet (I learned this from a spiritual teacher years later), so I figured I was on to something. I decided I had come all this way and at least had some clarity about it, so I figured taking one step at a time forward in my truth, without worrying about the future or dwelling on the past–and without caring what others say, think, or do, might lead me somewhere, and it did. I eventually found exactly what I needed and it all turned around. I HAD to trust that–it was either that or chronic dread and suffering.

    I hope and pray that the light shines truth on you, showing you what incredible value you have to society from all the hurt and pain you’ve gone through, you get it. And you can help others get it, too, if you stick around. We need more truth speakers like you on the planet to help it heal, if that’s your desire. At least there are people who totally agree with you about this field, so you are not alone in that…

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  • I imagine that suicide is based on the belief that death will bring relief to chronic personal suffering. In many cultures, death is an illusion, merely a transition in which consciousness remains with us. While oppression and negative self-beliefs do cause chronic suffering, people who are revered in the world and seem to have it all commit suicide, too. (e.g. Robin Williams).

    Perhaps a deeper understanding of what ‘death’ is and is not would save lives, because it would shift our perception to what is more truth than cultural programming-based illusion.

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  • Richard, I recognize that you have worked long and hard in the field to help make change happen, and I have great respect for that. I’m sorry that you are not moved by a father and son reconciling after a difficult relationship which caused me to feel a bit crazy at times. To me, family is not about obligation, it is about love and support. Maybe it’s my culture, being Latino and Jewish. I do find the North American mainstream white culture to be awfully cold when it comes to family. That’s not me. Nothing to do with obligation, but more from my heart’s desire.

    Families have become the hotbed of unseen trauma, and this challenges everyone, whether clinician or client. I took control, here, and as a result, the family system changed in every respect, and we have all evolved from what had been a very challenging situation for me and my family for years.

    For a therapist to not see value in this is a red flag to me, as is diagnosing from afar, with no foundation. How could these NOT be red flags, if we are serious about walking our talk, here.

    For me, true forgiveness and letting go of resentment and blame, and instead taking full responsibility for my life experience DID change me internally and caused many transformations for me, as well as for all those involved, including my partner, who also healed with his family and shifted his perception, thanks to my example. I was the one who had embodied disability, so my healing was inspiring to my partner and he followed suit.

    What we both discovered together was that holding on to anger, resentment, and bitterness is what causes all sorts of illness, both physical and mental, as well as emotional instability. Perhaps in another time this fueled the illusion of change, but those days are over.

    Peace is not gained with war and fighting of any kind. I think that’s common sense that many seem to not grasp.

    I give up around here. What I see mostly is the same old judgments and misconceptions that came to light as I traversed in the mental health world. Cold.

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  • “When a group demeans or dehumanizes another group, or groups, they destroy their own humanity in the process but they seldom realize and see this.”

    I agree wholeheartedly with this, and would add ‘sabotage’ to the list–when we even attempt to sabotage others, we only succeed in sabotaging ourselves.

    I think you’re right that those that demean and sabotage would more than likely be in denial of this, and would merely justify or rationalize their behavior in a way that would appease their consciousness (and perhaps their enabling support), but I still think they feel it, on some level.

    These days, with all this truth coming to light, I think that those whom have made it a habit to sustain themselves by dehumanizing and sabotaging others will feel it more than ever. I count on that, because it is the only way things will change, when they feel the burn of their own flames. That would be the best deterrent I can think of.

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  • Wow, well, I’ve commented a lot on this blog, so I’ll make this my final post here (which means I can’t even come back to read because I KNOW I’ll be tempted, but I’ve made my position clear and don’t want to overstate it).

    So for the sake of my own closure with this issue of ‘forgiveness’ as it’s been discussed in this blog, I’m both surprised and not surprised to see the utter *resistance* to even exploring the issue of forgiveness. Our society is one of deep resentment for the betrayal most of us have experienced.

    Forgiveness a practice, which takes a lot of strength, courage, and heartfelt humility, and which brings clarity when we are sincere in our hearts about it. I’m seeing forgiveness here associated with a lot of things which I feel are more illusory than not, projections.

    It’s simply about healing the heart. Nothing else to think about, when we practice forgiveness. Indeed, that is a choice. Mine was to make heart healing a priority, and it has served me well.

    Main thing is that it healed my partnership, going on 30 years now. We blamed each other for a lot of things, and we each deserved it, as well as the forgiveness we practiced. That was the experience of a lifetime that led to supreme transformation for us both.

    We are not in a power relationship whatsoever, it is a total partnership. We’re building a performing arts healing center together, and it’s happening. I’ve no doubt that this would not be the case were we not to have practiced forgiveness. It brought us into a well-integrated partnership, because we were both humble enough to own our shit with each other.

    Thanks to all for your authentic truth. It’s what I enjoy most about open dialogue, learning the truth of others and appreciating this global diversity. Also, getting clear on my own perspective and refining it for my own clarity and grounding.

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  • “For people who have been traumatized in abusive relationships, forgiveness can mean siding with the abuser and abandoning the part of oneself that has been hurt.”

    It can also cause a person to rise above their environment, own their experience, and shift perspective–which is not only healing for the individual, it creates shifts outside of one’s self, because when we truly forgive and work out the trauma as our own, then we are no longer susceptible to bullying because it has transmuted, the perspective has changed. You want change? This is how it happens.

    “And nobody loves the doctrine of forgiveness more than abusers, because it lets them off the hook for what they have done.”

    I think a lot of abusers don’t feel they have anything to be forgiven for, so to many this makes them defensive. When we walk away, they are left with their own bullying mentality. Most people who practice abuse or oppression on others love it when they piss people off, because it shows them they have power over others. I think forgiving disempowers abusers. That’s been my experience.

    Learning what it means to truly forgive is empowering, because this is how we take back our power, by releasing the burden of resentment, which harms our bodies in the long run, and keeps us vulnerable to life stress, as resentment is chronic stress.

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  • “as for mother teresa, i think she was a very disturbed woman. very split off from her feelings and her own healing process. i always felt this about her until i read her biography — not even a particularly critical biography — and saw how troubled, inconsistent, and even hypocritical she was. often the people who are very split-off, though, seem quite healthy. it was people like mother teresa who helped me see more clearly just how much being dissociated can mimic a state of self-actualization…”

    I hesitated to comment on this and I don’t mean to belabor the issue, but I’m having so much trouble wrapping my mind around this statement, Daniel, and it bugs me. You are *diagnosing* someone, in quite a damning way, who is from an entirely different culture, life path, and perspective than you—and second hand, no less—without ever having met the woman or talked to her about from where she is coming.

    Plato’s cave talks about those staring so long at the shadows, they distort the light and never see it for what it is. Isn’t this the problem with the mental health field, in general?

    With all due respect, your comment speaks to me of stigma and judgment, with no authentic foundation.

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  • When I say forgive, I don’t necessarily mean to reconcile. I have forgiven a lot of people whom I’d not get near again, because they haven’t owned their stuff nor changed, and I’ve moved on to a better place. But to forgive them and move on with my own life, despite that they were unjust, deceitful, or betraying, feels better in my heart. I’d always had words about it with them, but that never helped, they’d get cruel and over the top unreasonable and spit venom, which of course made me more angry, so I’d walk ways, detach, forgive, and let go, and THEN, I could heal because that is taking my power back.

    What you’re talking about is bypassing, which, yes, is a problem, especially in spiritual communities. My east-west counseling psychology graduate school was all spiritual bypassing, sadly. No one’s issues were resolved, they were quite oppressive. A true healer walks their talk, and they most certainly did not. I have many examples of this, one of which I even talk about in my film, and that was the tip of the iceberg.

    I heard a story about Mother Teresa from Sasheen Littlefeather, whom I met once in a writing class I attended. She approached me once and told me this story about when she worked with Mother Teresa, which was a life-altering moment for me, if only you could have felt this presence as I did, from Sasheen. (She was the woman who spoke at the Oscars on behalf of Marlon Brando when he refused the AA for The Godfather).

    This is the personal story to which I refer, and the content of the story was amazing, which I won’t bother to tell here. That’s what I was referring to. Perhaps I shouldn’t admire so much? Doesn’t matter.

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  • Great comment, Fred.

    I confronted directly each and every abuser, one way or another–from family members to therapists to social workers to psychiatrists–and each time, the abuse got worse and worse, and then ‘the system’ (referring to group system) would take over, and that would really get especially toxic. I did all of my forgiveness work after it was apparent that abusers can be relentless and that there are enablers around that gives the illusion of power to the abuser. Either way, it can be dangerous, although I agree that one way or another, that energy needs to be given back.

    I think this is where it gets interesting, and totally unique, in terms of healing. We, as humans, can be very conscious and creative in how we give back what is not ours, while at the same time, encouraging some kind of healing to occur, so that the entire dynamic of the group system changes for the better, and not just stays stuck with same group roles as before. For me, that was a lot of trial and error in communication, but I learned a great deal in the process of finding that delicate balance.

    Most often, that means radical change in dynamic and perception. It also tends to bring with it some surprises as truth comes to light about what really is going on in that group system, which is where change is most radical. Fascinating process to watch this, and quite eye-opening.

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  • The phrase which most caught my attention and where I beg to differ is, “Forgiving parents is not part of the healing process.” Forgiveness is most definitely part of a healing process which occurs as the result of being harmed by others, whomever they are. And when it’s parents, then I feel this is especially the case, for the sake of our own inner balance.

    True, it cannot be forced, as nothing should ever be forced, to my mind. But at some point, it will be extremely relevant. I don’t see how it could be otherwise.

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  • Almost left out the all-important punch line: as a result of my heart healing and forgiveness work, and also by making a film where I express all of this and sending it to my family (this was after my dad had passed away), the family system dynamic has shifted dramatically, as they grew as a result of my doing all this work on behalf of healing from family issues. It was textbook family healing–I spoke my truth and forgave, and as a result, they all had opportunities to grow, shift, and heal their own hearts, which most of my family has done.

    So to add to the list of benefits of forgiveness, it is contagious, which is a good thing.

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  • “To me, forgiving parents is not part of the healing process, no matter what the Dalai Lama or Eckhart Tolle or Mother Teresa might have said.” Yet so many therapists preach forgiveness. Why? Because they haven’t done much to heal their traumas and instead took on the mindset of their traumatizers.”

    Daniel, I’m going to offer a different perspective, here. My healing was centered around forgiveness, which I learned about later than sooner in life. I learned, from my parents, by example, to hold grudges, because they did. Then, I unlearned this, because I learned that carrying a grudge was like carrying around baggage, and I saw how this weighted my parents down daily.

    I did not want to keeping carrying crap around like this. I had done years of therapy which amounted to nothing because no therapist was recognizing the effects of an insidiously abusive family dynamic.

    When I finally felt burned out on struggling emotionally with my family, I took a workshop where I learned all about the healing energy of ‘forgiveness,’ which meant letting them off the hook, once and for all, and looking at my own path and story, seeing how all of this fit into MY life path, detaching altogether from the family current. I did not abandon my family, but after forgiving a couple of them for their less than uplifting messages to and behavior toward me, I changed my boundaries with them and took back my power, shifting the relationship with my family into one that was not harmful to me, because by forgiving them, I got a clearer sense of who I was, and was able to detach from their life perspective, which I do not share. This turned out to be an ok thing, detaching from the family philosophy of life and way of being.

    As a result of this particular healing work, I healed with my dad before he died, which was a miracle God-send for me. Now, I can see the gifts my dad bequeathed to me and the value he had for me. He was abusive without a doubt, but he was also gifted in many ways. He was also a very loving and compassionate man, a physician who worked with people who could not afford medical care. We’re all such paradoxes, can’t pigeon hole anyone, really.

    So forgiveness helped me to 1) heal my heart and learn forgiveness in general, 2) take responsibility for my life and path, 3) redefine who I am in a relationship, and 4) appreciate the value which my dad brought into my life, which I would have otherwise missed had I stayed angry at him for not being a perfect father. That’s off the cuff, I’m sure there is more if I thought about it for a few minutes.

    I’m not implying that forgiveness is THE answer all by itself, but I think it’s a critical component. We still have to work out whatever distortions occurred as a result of toxic relationships, but at some point, forgiveness really moves us forward because it leads us to self-responsibility while expanding our capacity for love. The place you give it hear and what I pick up from how you phrased this, especially the word ‘preaching,’ I feel belittles what is actually a vital healing step.

    Btw, I don’t follow the Dalai Lama nor have I ever read Eckhart Tolle–in fact, I get a bit tired of hearing him quoted. While his words ring true, I don’t find him terribly convincing. I do, however, have a great deal of respect for the works of Mother Teresa, probably because I have a personal story about her which really opened my heart.

    My 2 cents on forgiveness. To me, embodying forgiveness is vital in healing, in that it shifts our perspective, and therefore, our personal reality, for the way better. Doesn’t mean we’re doormats. Thanks as always, Daniel, for speaking your courageous truth as always.

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  • “I chose to trust this person with a lot of personal stuff and before I knew it I realized I had opened up to a person who could care a less about me and I suspect was talking about me behind my back.”

    Thank you, this gives me clarity, I couldn’t quite put this feeling into words, but you did it nicely. Yes, it amounts to pure inauthenticity, and then betrayal.

    I also felt as though I were being talked about behind my back when I was in a day treatment center with a staff of therapists who OBVIOUSLY discussed their clients (us) among themselves, and not very nicely, from what I gathered from how they would run each subsequent group. I also naively thought they cared about their clients, I had no idea we were the nuts and bolts of a factory an endless and loopy assembly line that never really moved forward.

    “Either she was completely incompetent or just a terrible person.”

    I’ve had this very thought, too, about some clinicians with whom I worked, trying to decide which way to go on this. Either one is problematic, of course, in this field.

    A third option would be that this is simply standard operational procedure in that culture. A few years following my time in day treatment (which made me so much worse, really paranoid for a while, because there, we all had reason to be), I was a social worker and at those staff meetings, sure enough, the clients were talked about in derogatory ways. Not all of them, of course, but the more challenging clients pushed the staffs’ buttons, and they did not know how to take responsibility for this, and instead, projected all their judgments onto clients. It was very clear, suddenly, why I felt the way I did after leaving day treatment. This is an unsafe, very unhealthy environment. There is no empathy or compassion for clients, more like pity or scorn, from a place of ignorance. I saw this first hand, behind the curtain. This kind of childish nonsense helps no one at all, but this is who is running the show.

    I appreciate your perspective and echo your thoughts, thanks again for sharing.

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  • “Big Pharma has done their job so well that they no longer need to bribe doctors with cash to get them to tout the party line. Their neurobiological belief system — that complex mental states can be meaningfully reduced to neurological structures and biochemical processes — is now so well entrenched in our culture it is becoming more and more difficult to find folks who doubt it, especially in medical schools and in departments of psychiatry…the underlying belief in the brain chemistry explanation of human experience is still becoming more, not less solidly rooted in our culture.”

    This is what comes from brainwashing, mind-programming, personal manipulation, and fear-mongering. This is the CULTure of psychiatry, dangerous group think.

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  • As long as one takes on the identity of ‘victim,’ they give power to this illusion. There are highly effective and powerfully strategic ways to use perception as a tool for revolutionary change, the same way it has been used to imprison others by creating illusions and persuading others they are real. The persuasion of truth can be tricky amid these powerfully projected holograms.

    The truth is more powerful than illusion, always. From the highest perspective imaginable, no one is a victim, this is all about awakening to the illusions and seeing past them, not engaging with them any longer. Once we get this, we are free, and the illusions will dissolve on their own, because we will no longer be feeding them. Trust in that which is greater than us, to support the truth of our power and the power of our truth, is key.

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  • “…David knew and trusted in a power much greater than his own, a power much greater than that of any giant, no matter how terrifying. To be brief, God will slay the dragon of psychiatry in His own way, and in His own time. Our small part is to do what we can within our given circumstances to educate, warn, and relieve suffering.”

    Yes, this is my approach, exactly, and it has worked, repeatedly. Thank you, very well-stated.

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  • Hi David, I’m so moved by your courage and transparency to share your process so openly. To me, that is a precursor to success, so I am very optimistic for you.

    I will say this–after finally tapering from 9 meds and getting back into the swing of things, I got very busy suddenly with a new job and also a new career in theater which had sprung up out of the blue as I was healing. I began to feel overwhelmed and at the same time, experienced some life challenges. All of this felt as though it were heading me back to where I had been, where I first needed medication (or so I thought I did).

    BUT, this time, instead of going back to the drugs, I followed my new alternative route and did my energy work, applied what I had learned in my spiritual studies, and I kept going. I was doing my first musical ever, and kind of having a nervous breakdown at the same time. I had legal battles with the system regarding stigma and discrimination, a rift with my church, and on top of that, my mother in law passed away during this time, which affected my partner deeply. I had my hands full, and I was only 3 years off the drugs at this time, still recovering.

    I won my legal mediation and got great reviews for the show I was doing and navigated all of this without ever going back to either drugs or psychotherapy, and discovered that I had the power to self-heal. Came out a new person, and knew that I’d never, ever have to go back to all that, now that I had an entirely new perspective–with experience to back it up–which allowed my to navigate my troubles with new clarity and certainty.

    That has stayed with me, and I’ve since been busy and have had the usual ups and downs that life brings us, with not even an inkling of considering any of this again. Life for me has changed dramatically as a result, transformative.

    I say this to give hope, and also to remind that we do have the power to address life on our own terms. Trusting our own process and inner guidance is vital to heal dependence on psych drugs. We will be tested, no doubt about that.

    Thanks again for your inspiring and beautiful sharing.

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  • Just answered my own question: I believe this would be a textbook example of ‘intolerance.’

    I believe psychiatry is intolerant of personal differences and uniqueness in processes. That’s nothing but trouble. Intolerance leads to oppression and violence, which is what occurs within the culture of psychiatry.

    We want a tolerant society, not such rampant and dehumanizing personal judgments, thinly veiled as something ‘medical’ related. That’s a terrible example in society. Now everyone goes running around saying “you have a ‘personality disorder'” when they want to insult or demean someone. No thanks.

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  • My pleasure GetItRight! Yes, nutrient replenishing is a vital part of it all. Our inner ecology and auto-immune system take a hit from the drugs, so it’s good we can rebuild this, strengthens our natural self-healing mechanisms, while balancing our system.

    What you say about your daughter sounds so encouraging! More than anything, healing is about our ability to RECEIVE the healing, so craving it shows a powerful desire to heal, which is wonderful and can only work in her favor. Sounds like you are well on track with this!

    Learning about chakras is so interesting and valuable, so doing it together is really pretty fun and enlightening.

    This is my area, precisely, I’m in integral healer, so if there is anything at all I can help you with, please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email. I’ve streamlined all that I learned during my journey of madness from psych meds and withdrawal (9 meds!), and can refer you to a variety of energy healing perspectives via internet, etc.

    Here’s my website, if you want to check it out, with contact info: http://www.embodycalm.com/Contact.html

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  • I got through my withdrawal learning not only mindfulness, but also about how our body, mind, and spirit work as energy, specifically chakras as energy centers in the body which each correspond to different aspects of our being and life experience.

    Check out Carolyn Myss 1996 classic, Anatomy of the Spirit. I found it fascinating and life changing with respect to how I perceive ‘illness’ of any kind. For me it was a great and thorough introduction to perceiving ourselves as energy, which is where we have the power to shift anything. Before it manifests physically, energy is malleable, and is what everything physical is made of. Healing is the flip side of manifesting, so we not only have the power to heal, we have the power to manifest what our heart’s desire most–like a healthy and balanced mind, body, and spirit alignment.

    The way I perceive it, “psychosis” is a blend of vastly expanding consciousness which allows us to perceive beyond what is normally perceived, without being grounded. Mindfulness and meditation in general helps us to ground, that is, to feel our connection to the Earth, to feel that support and natural nourishment.

    Nature is extremely grounding. It’s where we find our center. So once we practice being mindful through meditation, we expand our awareness to include grounding, and then we can enjoy expanding consciousness without losing our grounding and center. No more ‘psychosis,’ just beautiful and exciting expanding awareness, from which we can manifest very creative and exciting things, to our liking, because we know ourselves and our process. That’s what comes from living mindfully.

    Many people label ‘psychotic’ simply that which they cannot understand or perceive, and which strikes fear in them. But if you felt your ‘psychosis’ as being chaotic for yourself, then, indeed, practicing mindfulness through GROUNDING is the ticket to preventing relapse, because not only does it increase awareness, it also brings you into synchronicity with yourself, calming the heart and mind. This allows us to manifest with more ease and clarity. It becomes a way of life, because it guides us toward inner peace, which I feel it what we want, at the end of it all.

    I wouldn’t necessarily call it ‘mindfulness therapy’ if only to dissociate this term as related to a healing modality. Mindfulness is a way of being, as opposed to being out of our bodies, in our heads, distracted with past issues or future worries. Changes the landscape of our personal realities.

    I hope this helps!

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  • Well, if that’s the case, then I am certainly humbled and apologetic! Although the sparseness of the reflection did allow me to at least project my truth about the matter, in general, and I stand by that. Although I’ll recant anything directed at the good doctor if what you say is true, along with my apologies for misinterpreting so reactively. Live and learn.

    I’m certainly accustomed to being called to humility when I speak my truth about healing, but I never feel it is really sound because it feels more strategic than actual feedback, one of those very familiar projections used to throw people. Obviously, it works if I mistakenly projected, but I can own it humbly.

    Although I will say, that’s certainly the voice of having been chronically demeaned and stigmatized, I’m sure other recognize it as such. From expressing this, however, I’ve healed just a bit more of it, thank God.

    Thanks for your sensitive feedback, travailler-vous, even if it is speculative. I’ll consider the other, even though I’m getting really busy now with my next show and film. I appreciate your validation, here.

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  • Yes, that is a very particular healing process. It affected me adversely for a long time. I learned to perceive these experiences from a broad non-personal perspective, however, and it informed my path, purpose, and sense of self. That’s how I healed it entirely. Didn’t kill me (by miracle) so it made me a helluva lot stronger, wiser, and extremely empathic to oppressed people. Have you read John Howard Griffin’s classic, Black Like Me? I get it now. Tough road, but oh-so- enlightening. Gets easier, though. Time heals all wounds, if we don’t keep scratching at the scabs.

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  • One last thing I want to express as clearly and directly as I can, and then I believe I will be super complete with this particular aspect of my journey through the mental health world.

    I really feel that anyone at all dealing with people who have been labeled as ‘mentally ill’ or ‘mentally disabled’–however you want to put it, but referring to those who have been diagnosed and at least at one point on ‘psych drugs,’ and who are currently taking steps and are obviously on a path to becoming more clear and self-empowered after having slipped into some kind of personal mental or emotional malaise– should really check themselves and their emotional responses to peoples’ words and actions. This goes for psychiatrists, psychotherapists, social workers, advocates, activists, and trainers.

    I have had numerous dealings with people in each of these categories over decades, including grad school therapist/professors, and what I keep noticing as the most consistent dynamic is the continuous power plays that are enacted, on the part of the ‘professional class.’ I’ve never seen such unfair, unjust, and uneven boundaries in my life. Talk about indoctrination!

    You don’t like what I say, so you criticize me. Big deal, that’s transparent to me. So many have attempted to shame, intimidate, gaslight, and demean me, all simply for asserting my truth, when it is not even hostile but reasonably critical. That merits dialogue, not shaming. How on earth is that productive, other than to appease your ego?

    Seems that the ‘mental health professional class’ feels it has some kind of authority over people, which of course, is a crock. But man-0-man, you folks really go at it with all guns when you’re triggered. This is how vulnerable unsuspecting clients end up carrying the ills of society, including the ills of their so-called ‘support.’

    To the ‘mental health professional class:’ own your issues, feelings and reactions to other, please! That way, you will have much less compulsion to medicate, force treat, or unjustly mistreat, because the secret is: really, these are YOUR issues!

    Please, please grow your tolerance for diverse energies. That takes personal growth, self-reflection, and ownership. Many of us survivors have done this already and continue to do so, that’s how we have survived, and can now thrive. It’s your turn to own your stuff.

    No disrespect at all intended, but it is hard truth to some. I think it’s valuable to at least consider this. To me, it would solve a lot of the problems with which we tend to go in circles, because you will be demonstrating much needed self-responsibility. As it is now, you are over-burdening your clients, that’s why they are not healing.

    It’s about self-ownership, on everyone’s part. That crosses all class boundaries.

    Thank you. I am complete!

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  • chrisreed, thanks for this. Many of us have successfully exited. I made a real life film about it, where we are all at different stages of this in our healing. Exiting the system is often a complex process, so indeed, I agree with you. We don’t need Hollywood to tell our stories, nor anyone else. Not only is it not real, professionals are actually arguing about what is real for OTHER people. That makes absolutely no sense to me, and will only lead to more confusion, rather than the clarity we crave.

    We exit the system by owning and refining our own stories.

    Here’s a 10 minute clip from the film I made in 2011, when I was speaking per an advocacy agency (which turned out to be bogus in the end, but I got this film out of it, which changed my life, led to family healing, as well as successfully calling out corruption). If it piques your interest, the complete film is on YouTube. This is REAL, and from what I’ve been told, both inspiring and encouraging, straight from the mouths of psychiatric survivors and a couple of our spouses. We are our own experts–

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN0-m6nhUIE

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  • It’s my truth, jt. I’m being direct, clear, and coming from my heart. Going through the system is PLENTY humbling, and I’ve internalized that for life. I find it ironic when a psychiatrist asks humility from a psychiatric survivor when in dialogue. This is from where the phrase, “Physician heal thyself,” comes, and I don’t mean any more disrespect toward you than you offer me.

    I’m entitled to my certainty, based on my experience in life so far, which has been exhaustive with these issues, I’ve lived them inside and out, on all sides of the fence, which is what my life work is about and I’m fully in practice.

    Have you been through the system as a client? Through toxic medication Dr. prescribed overdose and then treacherous withdrawal? Have you had to crawl out of disability and sabotaging stigma in the face of being demeaned and pushed to the margins of society, for no good reason other than to preserve their narcissistic power? I have. And this was after I had received my graduate education and training in psychology, so I got to experience this from a critical perspective, as well as experiential. That’s a lot of life lessons, believe me.

    And I landed just fine, no thanks to anything about the mental health world. I found my healing and guidance elsewhere, and it was clean, not laden with all of this conflict and uncertainty. Certainty is a healing energy.

    My perspective is never etched in stone, however, I’m always open to discussing anything and considering other opinions, but calling my truth ‘too strong’ is relative and subjective, and more a reflection of how my truth affects others than a reflection on me. What I express here is hardly as strong as it could be. I use kid gloves around here.

    Thank you for your honest reflection. Felt good to say this. It is so my truth at this time, most directly and authentically. In fact, give me a bit of closure to it all.

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  • “She became a psychotherapist, doctor and educator and challenged the current system in such a way that powerful men and women tried to stop her; accusing her of terrible things, threatening her children, and above all claiming that the way she worked would never be able to copied, despite the fact that research showed stunning ‘results.'”

    Wow, it’s incredibly disturbing to hear how hard people try to stop hope, truth, light, and healing from infiltrating mass consciousness. That cannot be good Karma. Kudos to those, from wherever they come, who break through those barriers and traverse new ground as pioneers. That is courage personified, and hope for all.

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  • I appreciate your efforts, as well as so many others, to bring clarity to these issues of what is and is not mental illness, as well as, perhaps, what mental illness is and is not.

    As a survivor of psychiatric madness, myself–far behind me at this point, so I have clarity about what happened to me–I have my own personal perspective about all of this, a perspective which led to my ability to heal and move on to create my life my way and enjoy it, once and for all. I no longer have any attachment to the mental health world, other than to post on here for my own deeper understanding of humanity, amid these relevant issues.

    However, I’m fairly certain that were I to know absolutely nothing about these issues and I or someone I knew were experiencing mental confusion and distress, I’d be pulling my hair out trying to get clarity about where to turn. There are so many REALLY STRONG opinions and perspectives, and more than that, there is incessant conflict and argument about them. It’s hard to tell where the personalities end and the issues begin.

    As someone outside the fold now, with all due respect, that, alone, would motivate me to look for a less distressing and argument-ridden community for support and guidance.

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  • Being mindful means being aware. When we practice mindfulness, we raise our awareness. When we raise our awareness, we learn new things. There is always new awareness to discover and there are always new things to learn. That never stops. If we want to stop experiencing depression, we can learn how to experience relief, joy, confidence, and happiness instead. Practice mindfulness daily, as a discipline, and there is no end to what one can learn.

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  • Yes, this is great!! Watched the vid and I love what you extracted. We can only be authority over ourselves, then the power is balanced. Each of us is responsible for our own existence. We all have the power to discover or re-discover our freedom, and not give others authority over us. That will be truly revolutionary, to become free of dependence from anyone.

    As psychiatric survivors, we tell our own stories, and that is what defines our self-authority and personal power.

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  • Ha, that’s a good one! I know you asked B for analysis, but I can’t resist giving it a shot.

    Ecstasy is the energy level to which you refer, here. That’s a vibration, the way, say, suffering is the antithetical vibration. So when we suffer, our goal can be to discover ecstasy, simply because ecstasy and suffering cannot exist in the same space, the exact same way light and dark cannot exist in the same space. Light eliminates the dark, the way ecstasy eliminates suffering, by nature. That’s only logical.

    I’d say that’s the most important thing to notice, that this guy feels ecstasy when he eats. What else matters, other than that our actions and manifestations give us ecstasy, and certainly it goes without saying, not at the expense of others, but simply from our own enjoyment as our self-nourishment? Or taking in a really fantastic film, play, or music, for example, that feeling of transformative ecstasy which can happen with particularly powerful art. I’d say he’s got it figured out, at least that would be my goal in life, to feel ecstatic about it wherever I can. Then I know with certainty I am not suffering. That makes life worthwhile, without a doubt.

    As far as the fact that he felt geometrical solids when he ate, I’d wonder if this feeling sensation of the solids was associated with the ecstasy, or was that the food? Where does that fit in with the ecstasy? Food-shapes-ecstasy, an interesting triangulation, so to speak. Sounds like it all vibrates at ecstasy (which would be the wavelength frequency, such as with color and sound, as per this article–there is also a feeling associated with color and sound) so he is feeling and tasting ecstasy through his physical senses of taste and touch, lucky guy.

    Definitely, my focus would be the ecstasy, for if we are feeling that, why question anything else? We simply want to enjoy more of that, which would eradicate suffering.

    The inner guidance about which I speak from time to time, as what I consider to be our best self-healing and self-guiding tools, is where the good feelings are, such as ecstasy, bliss, love, general openness and feeling of expansion, etc. So that is the direction in which I take my journey, as a way of manifesting desirable change.

    Thanks for indulging me.

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  • Nicely put, Stephen. Our differences are our gifts to humanity. When they are shunned and devalued, we are shunning and devaluing ourselves, and keeping us apart from our own nature.

    That which repels us about others is our own issue to address within ourselves. That’s how we grow, when we own our feeling of repulsiveness, rather than project it onto others. It’s a matter of expanding our awareness and growing our perspective.

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  • Disorder?? That’s more like an evolved perception. Sound and color are both vibrational frequencies, they can be interpreted in a variety of unique way this is not ‘the norm.’ Our eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and fingers experience information and energy, and our brains interpret it. We all interpret differently, with some overlap, but sometimes there is a vast difference in how we interpret what we perceive. So what? That’s diversity.

    Although I’ve certainly noticed that those with the most narrow focus and shallow perspective would, of course, be the most intolerant, critical, judgmental, and triggered by the uniqueness of others–instead, feeling compelled to negatively label them, and all that goes with that–which is really a shame when that happens, and a tragedy for society at large.

    Perfect example of how psychiatry turns our gifts into problems that aren’t there. Of course there’s nothing wrong with her, everyone has their own unique way of perceiving things! When will this community wake up to that??

    I’m glad this woman appreciates her uniqueness, and that everyone realizes there is nothing at all wrong with her brain. Sounds like an awesome creative process to me.

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  • “It reminds me of some good stuff from the family therapy literature: there is an “identified patient” who is the person who acts out the repressed conflicts in the family, and is scapegoated in various ways for doing so. The family asks the professionals to “fix” the identified patient and believes once s/he is “fixed,” all will be well. Of course, none of them changes their behavior and the identified patient is still subjected to the same stresses as he was before and is still scapegoated, and if in treatment, any success is undermined by the “family system” so that he continues to be “ill.” If, despite all this, the identified patient improves, someone else ends up acting out and stepping into the scapegoat role.”

    Nice summary of family systems, Steve.

    I became the ‘identified patient’ because I would not conform to family wishes about how I should think, feel, and live my life. I didn’t act out much, I was pretty respectful as a kid, but I did internalize a great deal of anxiety starting at a really young age, because I would call THEM on their acting out, which would cause me to get shamed, punished, hit, etc. The interesting thing is that when I’d walk away, they’d get even more pissed, and pursue me until they wore down my defenses. I took myself to therapy, because I thought something was wrong with me. I eventually learned that it wasn’t me, it was them, that became very clear over time.

    I tried to have conversation after conversation with them, all dead ends in conflict, defensiveness, and resentment. So I made a film where I precisely described the family dynamics which caused me heartache and mental chaos, and sent it to them. Two of three family members have since grown and we’ve healed our relationships, but the one person in the family who is most insidiously oppressive, and who’s whipping boy I had become, is stuck, and cannot take any responsibility. So guess who the new IP is, and guess who the ‘family healer’ is? Textbook shift in the system, because I spoke my truth and broke the system. It is a daunting task, but it’s the only way for change to even be on the table at all.

    *Someone* in every system has got to call out abuse, and then trust the process, for change to occur. It is often subtle, which makes it even more powerful. It is our path to healing when we call out abuse, directly inside the system, and it gives others the opportunity to find their healing, as well. Although not all choose to take responsibility, so their fate goes in another direction. But it does break up the abusive system to stand up and call it out to its face, no doubt. Then, we learn to forgive and move on, which is vital in healing. Hard stuff, but rich in life.

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  • The way I defined ‘mental illness’ for myself was when I was around extremely narcissistic, self-centered, vampire-like people who drain others of energy. It took me a while to recognize this and lose my naiveté about people , and until I did, I would not see how unsafe certain people and communities were, with bully systems in place as their m.o. That is, if anyone goes against the grain, ‘the group’ comes after you.

    Many people experience this with families, in work places, etc.–stop being yourself or else!” In my case, the ‘or else’ was that I’d be shamed, rejected, marginalized, whatever–all those tricks that the establishment try to use to control society, the way families try really hard to control family members when they upset the apple cart with too much truth, and most especially when they challenge the established power.

    After a while of that, things get so confusing, because one is surrounded by clever and insidious manipulation, which goes against our nature and truth. But of course, people are made to feel fear to rebel or speak up, that we become stuck in a pattern of self-abuse in order to avoid negative consequences. That’s what caused me to feel uncertain, confused, paranoid, and all out crazy. Then I got it, that everyone around me was lying and covering their tracks, and making me believe there was something wrong with ME, when I got too much clarity about the situation, as though I were delusional. Again, more tricks of master manipulation.

    Without realizing what was causing my mounting anxiety and mental confusion, I sought help from mental health services. At first I thought I had support, so I’d feel relieved. Then, I’d start feeling those same feelings that drove me to seek help in the first place, and it was in fact getting much worse and it took me years to wake up to how I was being drained of energy in therapy.

    Of course, I have realized by now that that is because the same thing was happening, I was being deceived for the purpose of business. That led to a crisis for me, because I thought the entire world unsafe, manipulative, and deceitful, so of course, how is anyone NOT going to feel crazy.

    Still working on that because it is, indeed, rare to find those with the courage to be honest, humble, and authentic in their transparency, but in the meantime, I’ve gotten away from the assholes in my life, and that’s how I was able to finally heal my mind, come back to clarity, and get a more meaningful perspective on people and the world right now. That helped me come into balance and attain a more realistic perspective of myself, rather than through the distorted mirroring of a sick society. That would never be an acceptable reality, so I changed my reality, myself. It worked!

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  • That is exactly the feeling–“unbelievable gratitude and synergy” says it. I can look up now and see them from my office window, so that is my constant state now (give or take my human moments of anxiety). I call them ‘my healers.’

    What you say about this feeling state is so vital, from what I’ve discovered. When we focus on that which brings us these feelings of intense gratitude and connection with all that is (via nature, especially), this influences our reality exponentially. In energy work, we learn exactly how it is that we actually CREATE (manifest) from this feeling. It is a ‘vibration’ called gratitude, an energy level with specific wavelengths as frequency, and from it, we create and slowly unfold a reality for which we are grateful. That’s the internal change I experienced which led to the rest. Thought I’d throw that in, to finish the story.

    Your work always inspires me, James!

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  • “How, for example, are we to define and draw boundaries around mental illness, and to distinguish it from eccentricity or mere idiosyncrasy, to draw the line between madness and malingering, mental disturbance and religious inspiration? Who has social warrant to make such decisions? Why? Do such things vary temporally and cross-culturally? How have societies responded to the presence of those who do not seem to share our commonsense notions of reality? Who embrace views of reality that strike others as delusional? Who see objects and hear voices invisible and inaudible to the rest of us?”

    These questions are excellent and on point. We’re all idiosyncratic and eccentric to some, that is relative–the way realities vary and are relative. Our idiosyncrasies and unique perspectives are not what negatively impact our health and functioning. It’s a sign of intolerance that we find differences in each other to be ‘weird,’ and off-putting rather than interesting and welcoming.

    The ‘illness’ comes in when people are treated like lepers and nothings simply for embodying their differences. So really, it is an “illness” projected by others which can become a real illness due to the abusive and oppressive nature with which our differences are regarded and how people are treated for having them. That is literally crazy-making.

    The only truly authentic way to understand ‘mental illness’ is from an experiential perspective. Once you experience ‘mental illness’ and then heal from it, there is no doubt whatsoever about what it is and is not.

    “Who commit heinous offenses against law and morality with seeming indifference?”

    Violating personal space and boundaries to the point of harming others with no remorse is, indeed, the problem. Personally, I don’t care what we call it, I’d just like to see people deterred from this behavior. What do we do with people who harm others and won’t stop? That’s why we, as a society, live in fear, paranoid.

    Very interesting article, thanks for the good read.

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  • Thank you, Emma, very much appreciated. Especially your extremely perceptive assessment that the cultural issues here were incredibly challenging. Our society is one of intense and relentless stigma. I credit my heritage for helping me to navigate this, as a first generation American from Russian-Jewish-Argentinean parents, and being an out gay man on top of this, with a former psychiatric history (I say “former” because I no longer even acknowledge it as such, it was just my journey to take). I wore it on my sleeve all the way down the line, with no apology. It’s the only way I could heal. Yes, a tough road in the USA, but I made it fine and am healthy and fulfilled. Thank you for your very kind words of acknowledgment. Best regards.

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  • This is so interesting and rings true on many levels. I found this paragraph to be particularly clear and poignant:

    “By six weeks old we begin to write a play in consciousness. Initially consciousness is too immature to create representational form. At that point we only have the ‘feeling of our being’. By age three we mature into representational consciousness where we create a three dimensional drama with personas, feeling relationships between them, scenarios, plots, set designs, and landscapes. Once our play consolidates, the rest of our experience is always filtered through the existent play in consciousness, which influences our ongoing experience. As the twig is bent, so grows the tree. When we reach adulthood, we consolidate our character. Our characters are as unique as our fingerprints. No two snowflakes are alike, but we are all snowflakes.”

    That speaks of heart consciousness to me, in our ability to accept, respect, and embrace ourselves for who we are, and for whomever we are becoming. This would, in turn, increase our capacity to extend these outward to others. I’m sure that would lead to a lot of relief, clarity, and resolution for individuals as well as profound change and healing for society, if we were able to make this make this a goal in order to achieve it. To me, that’s the billion dollar question at present.

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  • What a pleasure to read this, James, soothing and calming in and of itself. To me, you hit it out of the park, here, and you describe the most vital shifts which I, personally, made in order to heal as I did, mind/body/spirit integral approach to health and well-being.

    Although, I had to break a lot of thought and reactive habits, and question my beliefs, in order to embody these new practices. Lots of internal shifts happen when we address core lifestyle changes. I think it’s win/win, though, leads to good integral healing and evolution. Everyone around us prospers when we take care of ourselves this way.

    My time crawling through disability was in the heart of San Francisco, for over a decade. I healed a lot there and grew in awareness, but it was a relatively low ceiling in that chaos, staying there meant shrinking into a box by this point, which of course, was unacceptable. By desire, focus, and a few miracles from trusting the process, we had the opportunity to move to a rural Redwoods town in N. Cal, and my backyard is now a Redwood forest. Can’t even describe adequately the impact of this on my life and health. I went from non-stop mind and heart stress to grounding and inner calm, eventually, after I did some self-healing to catch up with myself. It was a quantum leap.

    Sleep is a gift now, among others that continue to grace us, thanks to the ease I experience now. Simple self-care does go a long way. I don’t own a car by choice, I’m addicted to walking, gets me anywhere I want in town. No car issues, gas, insurance, etc, and I stay fit and healthy to boot.

    Keeping it simple is freeing, so much less daily stress, and gives us breathing space as well as creative space. I’m able to create a lot now, because my mind is not tied up with chatter and loops, as it had been almost exclusively for a while.

    I hope I support well your missives! I do believe in them heartily, and can personally attest to their highly fruitful results in how they greatly improve the quality of our lives, under any circumstances.

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  • I’d hope it were common sense that mutual trust is vital for progress in healing support. For psychotherapy, I’d also expect social and relationship competence from a clinician. Without that, I don’t see how they could have a healthy relationship with a client, as the relationship issues of the therapist would more than likely repeat within the clinical relationship, unbeknownst to the client.

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  • Fascinating! I seem to be more optimistic than you, however. I know a lot of people who are awake and creating in the non-linear multi-dimensional reality, myself included. 3D is on its own now, flimsy to failing, but the new age is operating already on the planet through the process of ascension.

    In any event, I’ve appreciated your contributions here. Every norm needs to be challenged for change to occur. It’s the only way I know how to ascend mass illusion.

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  • Its all good. T-V, I appreciate the recommendation.

    In the end, for me, it’s just about being–my way of being, and anyone else’s. If my way of being is not compatible with another’s, there are choices to be made, based on preferences, no right or wrong. Once can work with the differences or walk in opposite directions. Either way can be sound, but it’s a matter of making a choice.

    Really, I’m pretty much done with these issues but since they were such a part of my life, I like to check in and see how the transformation is coming along, from the inside. After all, I’m still part of the world, and these systems are bringing down that world, so I do have something at stake, just not so directly any longer, I’ve taken care of that myself, in my own life.

    I perceive this all from the outside now, since the system is finally out of my system. It’s about music and art for me now, that’s my own personal Renaissance. That’s the transformation for which I like to set an example–soul-nourishing. That is the highest value I place on my healing, and it’s how I succeeded at being an activist: it’s an art.

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  • I appreciate your expressing this, Travailler-vouz, and for clarifying your process, that really enriches my understanding.

    When it comes to bridging the gaps in language and perspectives between cultures and sub-cultures, I think we are all scrambling novices here. I believe this is where we can all grow together. I don’t speak about spiritual issues in relation to health and wellness as exclusive, although I do feel that it plays way more an important role than what many can acknowledge at present. There’s nothing to criticize here, we all make our discoveries about life as we go along. I happened to learn what I learned about all this after exhausting all academic, research/science-oriented, and psychology-oriented disciplines and perspectives, all of which led me to a disastrous dead end, as many on here describe. I was so desperate to heal and get on with my life, I would leave no stone un-turned.

    And I was sooo compliant and followed directions precisely, doctors orders. I grew up in that world, heavily indoctrinated. My dad was a physician and taught med school, my brother is a dept head at Stanford. I was surrounded by science and academia, while myself, wanting to pursue the arts, which is my life now, as a musician and filmmaker.

    I don’t eschew the worlds of science and academia, per se, I wouldn’t deny the value of these institutions; but they are not at all solving the problems of humanity, in fact, these worlds have led us down a dark path, for whatever reason.

    Talking about spirituality and energy is to add a much needed component, where I feel solutions and answers become clear. I don’t know what else to say about that. I only wish I were better at communicating across cultures, as well.

    Thanks for letting me know that you do hear me! I will work more on my communicating-across-the-cultures skills.

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  • Amazing website, Tim, thanks for sharing it. Personally, I think this is key, to own our perception as malleable, and to work with it not only as a healing and personal growth tool, but as a way of defining ourselves intrinsically on a day-to-day basis. After all, change is constant, and if there is one thing we can control at all times, it is where and how we choose to focus, which is what influences our reality more than anything. We are so incredibly creative, more than we give ourselves credit for, I’m sure.

    I say this from my own experience of healing–radical self-responsibility leads to radical healing. It was not until I owned that, on a meta-level, I created all the trauma, abuse, and disability that I had experienced in my life (not at all to self-blame, but as a design to awaken to who I am and what my life and purpose is about), which is what led to my journey through the system, that I was able to harness the power to shift these patterns and define myself as a creator (cause) rather than victim (effect). The result of taking this approach is that not only did my brain heal from the effects of the trauma, but also my entire world changed to one where I feel completely empowered and in control of it, once and for all. As a result, I have peace in my mind and heart, and create life freely as I wish. It was hard work to get there, but worth every awareness and focus exercise I did to uncover my deepest truth.

    I don’t expect others to take this same approach to healing, I know the challenges of this, and many people disagree that we create our own reality. Many think it is thrust upon us, which for me, leads to feelings of powerlessness and frustration, which is why I talk about this other perspective. I think it is way empowering. Personally, I was not going to stop looking for complete and full healing until I found it, and this is where it was, in the house of full ownership.

    Sitting in blame is painful and draining, and causes us only harm. Owning our lives and experiences gives us power over them, and therefore heals feelings of resentment and powerlessness, which only turn on us when we allow them to fester. Hard, hard lessons, but of utmost value, I feel, which is why I share them.

    Thanks again for your inspired perspective. I think you’re on it.

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  • “So, why is that important? This shared humanity thing…”

    I think you so eloquently and efficiently addressed Sarah’s question , seventhsense! To me, this “movement” is about shared/extended humanity. I’ve never witnessed so many courageous and poetic souls in my life, and even more impressive, all in one virtual space. It’s both heartening and humbling. And certainly, groundbreaking.

    I don’t always perceive myself this way, but when I see myself reflected in others on here, it certainly makes me feel ‘Survivor Pride!’ I’m grateful for the survivors on here who so generously share their humanity, as in this blog, comments, et al. Always inspiring.

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  • This is what the movement is up against, as far as mainstream media goes. Just read this on Yahoo this morning, it was the top article. The comments, especially, are telling. Most can see that change is needed, somewhere, but, overall, this has become a tug-of-war of beliefs and perceptions regarding exactly what (or who) it is that needs to change…

    https://www.yahoo.com/health/the-bravest-person-i-have-ever-117098399627.html

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  • Then again, there are some people who provoke and provoke and provoke, and then wonder why people get angry at them, and call it ‘abuse.’ There is such a thing as ‘addicted to victimhood.’ Chronic abusers and perpetual victims can both exhibit toxic and manipulative behaviors. It can be very tricky to assess what is truthful and what has been instigated. The middle ground of integrity can be hard to find in this world–like a needle in a haystack.

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  • Ok, so this is where communication gets so tricky here. To me, “resistance” is a totally neutral term–we either resist or we allow. I think it’s important to discern for ourselves when we are in resistance vs when we are open and allowing. I don’t put any judgment at all on these, they just are, and we all experience both states of being.

    These are two distinct states of being which matter when doing healing work. I think resistance is part of any process, and good to tag. I wouldn’t put any more weight on it than this. I often find myself in resistance, and I like to notice it, so that I can explore the resistance if I feel compelled, so that I could be more open. There’s usually an issue, thought, or belief there that is asking for attention, or it just might be a personal choice at that moment, and utilized as inner guidance. That’s the essence of spiritual healing.

    So it occurs to me that when I use this in a sentence, which I often have here as it is a relevant term in healing and dialogue, it would seem that there is a very good chance that you are going to interpret this as blame and judgment. And if that’s the case, then this is a perfect example of speaking two different languages (even though it’s all in English), because your read on what I say would be completely different than what I’m communicating, based on our different interpretations of the word “resistance.”

    I’m highlighting this because when I read what you said about resistance, I realized how differently we interpret this one word, that would make all the difference when attempting to dialogue. Perhaps it would be a resistance-filled dialogue!

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  • Psychiatry calls what a disorder, our spiritual nature or unconditional love? They seem to believe it is our nature to be disordered–or at least, for some. Psychiatry calls many normal and healthy things a ‘disorder.’ They’ve created a huge international extremely profitable industrial complex out of doing that.

    I would never call anything ‘a disorder.’ Maybe temporarily out of order, I think everyone experiences at least that, but I could never believe that a person is ‘disordered.’ That’s dehumanizing.

    I’d never measure myself against the society of psychiatry. That is a false, biased, stigmatizing, nonsensical, and inhumane standard. So I’m not surprised that what I believe would be considered something less than. Then I’m in good company, with the rest of the world. In any case, I’m happy, healthy, and fulfilled. If that’s a disorder, I’m proud and grateful to own it.

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  • Yes, once I released the drugs, I became an actor and stage performer, which I’d never done in my life. Suddenly, after all that chaotic and crippling anxiety, which made me insomniac and catatonic with depression for a while–a real big friggin’ mess which the drugs had caused–I was able to learn songs, lines, even leads, and perform in front of audiences. Took work, focus, and courage, but it was well worth it. Audiences and critics liked me and I got a lot of work, one show after another, and had fun doing it, too. I grew during that time more than I can say. I’m still performing, as musical director for a band that plays at an assisted living center, I’m able to pay this forward now.

    That’s how I came back in synch with myself, by going out on a limb. I went straight from the system to theater, once I released the drugs and cleared my mind a bit. I was shocked at all that I could do, knowing how I’d been just a few years prior. Had I stayed on medication, I’m sure none of this would not have occurred, and my life would certainly lack the joy and fulfillment I enjoy today. I’ve no doubt of this, because I would never, ever have been able to memorize anything or have even close to the clarity and courage it took to get up and sing in front of an audience! No way I could have done that on meds. Without them, I was able to not only accomplish this, but get a career out of it.

    What disturbs me so much about all of this is that these ‘medication treatments’ are squashing valuable resources, gifts, and talents that society could use right now. There are some brilliant minds and voices who will never be heard and witnessed, because they have been drugged out of their brilliance. I know this, I’ve seen it in my journey through the system. I felt it myself, as though my IQ had dropped to about half of what it had been. Thank God that was only temporary.

    It’s not just harming individuals, it is keeping really good stuff from society, by drugging the value, intelligence, and talent out of people. And for what, lots of bucks for a few people? That’s pure wicked vampirism.

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  • At least that’s one issue I never had while I was on Lithium. It’s amazing how nothing can really be said which is universal, we are all so affected differently, as with anything. I’d imagine research would show this, were everyone who had ever experienced psychiatry were to be interviewed without censor, which I don’t really see how that could possibly happen.

    I had a lot of side effects from former psych drugging–foggy brain, lethargy, anxiety, paranoia, panic attacks, all the things they were supposed to be treating, of which Lithium had created the onset, but loss of sex drive was not one of them.

    Although thinking now about this vicious cycle of distress-psych drugs-more distress-more psych drugs, it’s incredible how all this works, must be the brainchild of a group of really sinister and greedy masterminds. Certainly, all of this cleared up once I had detoxified from all of these.

    For me, the drugs were the mental illness and disability, precisely. Without them, all is back in balance. I know I’m not alone in this claim, and that’s the best evidence we have that this is all a ruse.

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  • “The implications of thinking about distress from a psychological point of view in terms of personal responsibility and self-determination can also be confronting for some people. At different times and in different situations it can be comforting to think that this is happening to me, it is not anything I am doing to myself. Yet, the idea of ‘doing it to myself’ is exactly the kind of attitude that a psychological approach promotes. Not in a blaming, critical way but in a “master of my own destiny, captain of my own ship” kind of a way. How could it be anything else?”

    I agree wholeheartedly with this. The more we can allow ourselves to take full responsibility for our life experience as that which is our path from which to learn and grow, the more free we become from victimization in any sense of the word. This creates an entirely different perspective and feeling to our experience, a different interpretation of reality, and therefore, a new reality. That’s the kind of internal change that will create external changes.

    This is also the spiritual perspective, referring to healing through spiritual awareness, how our energy works integrally to define and honor our own personal creative process.

    If I am master of my own destiny, then I am master over my entire reality–past, present, and future. We do have that power, but believing it can be so challenging for some. I respect that, although I will admit that being around radically self-responsible people is safer, easier, and more productive, as that is a mind-set of no blame, but entirely of self-empowerment through humility, which in turn, brings peace of mind. There is no sabotage or competition when everyone is totally self-responsible, only unity and co-operation. That’s what I’d like to see, true integration of humanity. We are connected, after all, even to those for whom we don’t particularly care, so we affect each other no matter what.

    Good time to remember the laws of cause-and-effect. In Kabbalah, they say, be the cause, not the effect. That’s awakening to our creativity and control over our life experience.

    “Even though the voices seem like they’re outside my head and even though they don’t sound anything like my voice, they’re still voices that I am generating.”

    Thank you, yes. Whatever we experience in life is the experience we are generating by what focus and perspective we choose to take. There are always options, here, to consider.

    Thanks for this very thought-provoking piece!

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  • The funny thing about lighting candles is that when you do it, it exposes all sorts of critters. Shining the light into the darkness reveals a lot of filth that people ignore or refuse to look at. Many are lighting a candle, but soon the sun will shine as clear as day and psychiatry will have no where to hide.”

    Love this. Light reveals truth, so it elicits fear from many that count on truth remaining hidden in the dark. I think the dividing line now is between those lighting the candles, and those trying to blow them out. No doubt there are saboteurs of the light, based on enormous fear. Personally, I think they need to get over it, for their own sake, because sabotaging light is never really a good idea, and most definitely comes back to haunt.

    I agree, the light will win out because it is more powerful than sabotage at this point. I believe enough people around the world have awakened to this fact, and more will continue to, allowing the light to flood humanity. And it will be a shock to many what is revealed. This is the great change of these times, I truly believe.

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  • So I guess what I’m saying here is that if ignorance is bondage, then experience is freedom, since we learn from experience. When we allow ourselves to experience every aspect of ourselves and our lives–and there are sooooo many aspects to who we are, we have barely scratched the surface of this exploration–without shame, judgment, or trying to figure out who is at fault for what, and instead, just focus on finding balance and grounding in the present so that we can feel safe to create what we desire, then we are totally and completely free. Wouldn’t that be the opposite of ‘ignorance?’ That level of freedom is a big leap from the bondage to which you refer, so one step at a time, of course…

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  • Yes, exactly. Although we are all ignorant until we learn from experience, that’s how we acquire wisdom. I’m always available to offer alternatives or to guide people to them, that’s my work. However, people have to be willing to take in new information, and stretch themselves a bit to consider a perspective which they have yet to experience. I have found this to be very challenging for some people, although not so much for others. Really depends on one’s attitude and openness. Ego/fear can create tons of resistance to learning.

    Takes courage and trust to allow one’s self to be educated, rather than indoctrinated. There’s a big difference, but people often fail to perceive this, due to desperation, and also to false beliefs we’ve taken on.

    True education is where we learn to think for ourselves. When we are desperate, or if we believe that we are, somehow, limited in our ability to self-care and self-guide, then we are more likely to be gullible and easily manipulated into taking on someone else’s reality as ours, which is guaranteed suffering, square peg never fitting into a round hole.

    That’s how I discern between these, in any case.

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  • Then perhaps that is our universal theme: freedom.

    Although not all can see the light of freedom. A lot of survival fear surfaces when we are asked to take responsibility for ourselves, and shed dependence on others. Some people are raised to believe they are dependent and will always be.

    Perhaps if people were to be re-educated about their own personal power, given that trauma and dysfunctional environments undermine that relationship with our power, then they would have incentive to not even begin an association with psychiatry in the first place; or if they are already embroiled with it they would be motivated to defect this dubious institution in order to find a better and more sound truth and healing path, which includes their sense of freedom.

    People have to want to be free if they are going to achieve freedom. Otherwise, they are slaves to their own negative self-beliefs. For anything to change, perspectives must change, first. Change outside of us follows internal change.

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  • Our society is practically all myth. If you believe what you read/hear in the media at all, you are buying into myths. If you vote, you are buying into myths. If you care about what others think, then you are buying into myths. Truth is found in our own lives, not in lives observed. When we believe truth is found in others outside of ourselves, we are buying into myth.

    I think it’s a matter of feeling better and finding clarity about our own lives and selves. What else matters?

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  • “i think there’s an element of alternative/anti psychiatry thinking that likes to think you are lacking in moral fibre if you can’t think your way out of distress/mental illness.”

    This made my heart break a little to read, and I do relate to this, so I felt compelled to respond to this one sentiment. Yes, I know there is a lot of judgment out there and it is painful when we internalize it. I discourage people from taking it on and to stay focused on self-validating, not self-shaming. Where we are in our evolutionary path has nothing to do with our character. If we are even aware that we are some kind of path or journey, then we are awake enough, and will awaken more as we go, from life experience. That’s an advantage, to have that awareness, which I can see that you do.

    Personally, I do feel that there is a way to focus and internally dialogue our way out of distress, even severe distress, but it takes a lot of practice and repetition to break old thought patterns and shift beliefs. I’d call it ‘higher self dialogue,’ something like that.

    It also takes encouragement from others. When we are judged for where we are and how we choose to grow, especially when we know our own story over what others think they know about us, that can be quite disheartening and discouraging. I just say don’t listen to them, and know you are healing, growing, and evolving your way. We all address our issues in order of our path and personal priorities, that’s our individuality. We are diverse.

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  • I agree and I think you have a vital perspective to offer. I’m very interested to hear your story and your perspective about where we might go from here. We’re all still waiting for that answer re how to influence change in the system, if it can be changed at all.

    To me, the question at this time would be: do we have enough faith in ‘alternatives’ and our own personal power to let go of the system altogether and just let it fail and disappear? After all, nothing is permanent, no system lasts forever, and this one right now is on very shaky ground, it may just be something we have to accept. I hope no one is actually trying to save it, I’d have to wonder why, with all we know about it.

    Would something better and more clear and sound emerge in its place, based on some kind of universal principle(s) on which everyone can agree? Who knows? Although plenty exists in the world that is not this.

    I hear you, though, that you need your medication and other support, and I totally respect that of course, no question there for me. I also know that everything evolves and things change as we go along. Although I don’t see anything at all wrong with taking care of yourself, as you are doing. For me, it is your perspective which matters, I feel it is important. What you have to say would more than likely get us that much closer to clarity.

    http://www.madinamerica.com/submitting-personal-stories/

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  • Cpuusage, I really appreciate your voice here. I agree with a lot of what you say, that there is a lot of denial around issues of ‘mental illness.’ I, myself, use quotations marks around the term when writing about it, simply to acknowledge the ambiguity of it all and respect for the collective.

    Still, personally, I believe it is a tangible concept, and I believe it is more common than not. And yes, there are some that have fallen into the ‘severe’ category, and there is so much controversy around why this would occur with some. I had put myself in that category at one point in my life because the effects of whatever was happening in me were, indeed, severe in the impairment it caused me. There were a few reasons that it got this bad, which I eventually was able to identify and took control of in order to reverse these trends in my own life.

    Now, I put myself in the category of ‘healed,’ and this has caused me more backlash than anything, in the political world of mental health activism. I say I was ill and now I’m well, that’s my truth. Others have shared their opinions of my truth, which of course, is a reflection of them, not me. Although it is irritating when someone tells me about myself in opposition to what I say about myself. That’s what most psychiatric survivors complain about in the first place! I think that’s a bad and very dangerous trend in this ‘mental health’ arena, which has led to an unnecessarily hard life, at best, for so many. When it comes to me, it’s my voice that matters. I’m not looking for approval from others, but alignment with my own truth. That’s how I have ease and clarity in my life now.

    The issue of what is or isn’t ‘mental illness’ is terribly confusing to society, at large, because there are so many personal issues and deeply felt emotions that touch us at our core when attempting to dialogue, or even think about, these issues. Plus, and this is so true in this area, everyone has an opinion about it. That’s probably just, as long as we apply that opinion to ourselves, not to others. That would be false, inherently.

    Clarity would bring a lot of reform, but there are blocks to achieving clarity, here. First of all, denial of real phenomenon does not breed clarity, only further confusion, denial, and avoidance of what is truly relevant. Some of us claim that ‘mental illness’ is something that is real (even though it may be caused by a crazy society) and that it can actually heal. That would be the best outcome, I believe, and many of us are working to get this all out there.

    But again, there is resistance, because it threatens the economics, as well as the carefully guarded social hierarchy created from all these illusions. If we cure and heal what had been considered chronic, then there goes the chronic business and weekly/monthly payments to all those people, right out the window. And again, there are those that say you can’t ‘cure’ something that never existed. Ok, so where does that leave us? I’m not sure that’s a productive approach, that’s more about personal ego than healing and truth.

    Of course, there will always be healing to do and we all need support from time to time in our lives, but when one group of people is chronically dependent on another group for life, then imbalance, oppression, and abuse are guaranteed. I don’t believe this needs to be the case, but it will take a lot of work and introspection to break these bad habits of dependence, because there are deeply ingrained beliefs about this that have spilled into our sense of identity. Frankly, I believe that is all cultural programming. I think we can shift our self-perception, and that is not only healing, it is empowering.

    To me, true reform would be forgetting altogether about what we call it, and focusing 100% on alleviating suffering. When this is opposed and these intentions are undermined, which occurs readily in the status quo—keeping it good and static–that is where the problem comes in. With all these smoke and mirrors amid emerging new perspectives, it can be hard to tell who’s who.

    From all you have expressed on here, you seem to have bottomless courage. I see the evidence of your healing journey, you stand firm in your truth and I see you are so conscious with your process, truly awake, which I so humbly respect. I really appreciate the perspective you bring, from your obviously thorough lived experience. Thank you.

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  • Beautiful, Asherah, that’s certainly been my intention for a while now, to return to me and encourage others to take that ride, as well. And you’re right, it is, indeed, quite a ride! Like no other.

    Lots to say about our spiritual nature, but I’ll keep it simple for now: our spiritual nature is unconditional love. And it does take courage to own this, because most of us mere mortals fall short of this at present, thanks to our lovely society and all the crap it has gotten us to belief about ourselves.

    We can reverse this, however, and heal our negative self-mirroring and self-talk. We can work on it daily, owning our emotional responses so we can refine them, knowing we can shift our focus to create better feelings in our body as well as better experiences in life, simply from owning how we respond to present time. That expands our capacity to love, which is a wonderful feeling.

    The more we trust ourselves to love and feel joy from what we manifest and experience–regardless what it is, all a matter of perspective and interpretation–the more we move closer to our spiritual nature and, in the process, create a just, balanced, and love-filled life/world. Again, takes courage because in doing so, we go against the grain. But I say, keep walking forward and don’t mind the naysayers! That would there THEIR limited capacity to love, so compassion would be in order, here.

    Starts with us, though. If we do not feel love and extend it outward, then we will not manifest it for our own experience, because, in essence, we block it out. That is our nature, to create that which matches our internal vibration, indicated by how we feel.

    So when we block out love, we are going against our nature, which is why it feels so bad when we don’t feel love. We are not feeling our nature, so we’re not in communication with our higher selves. That is darkness (lack of light) and dependence (lack of freedom), as we do not know our inner guidance in this state. Translates to all kinds of pain and suffering, both physical and emotional.

    Love the somatic work, and I agree, it’s all emotions. Humans are fueled by the heart, the energy of which we feel in our bodies. We can drive these as we choose and create without limitation, based on how we focus our attention. We are unlimited creative beings. To my mind, that is our spiritual nature.

    I follow this, and it’s worked miraculously for me. The more I focus as such, the more and better I create. For example, just recently and practically spontaneously, just because I chose to volunteer my time for something and help out at an assisted living center, now, suddenly, I’m putting together a musical revue as musical director for a band, to perform for residents this center, and am also in pre-production for a new documentary about healing through music, love, and joy, centered around this show we’re doing. This came right to me, including people wanting to work on this with me. All because I do my spiritual work and focus on becoming a more loving person, daily. When I make that my priority, life cooperates like I’ve never experienced before.

    Here’s my website if you want to check it out. This is the work I do, so I do walk my talk around this. On last page is my first film about healing, where I talk a lot about heart healing and forgiveness. That was a huge part of my journey to heal. http://www.embodycalm.com

    Thanks for asking, my favorite topic 🙂

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  • Ok, now we’re getting somewhere, here. Indeed, running from truth is what leads to madness. We have either run from truth, or it has been kept from us. Either way, we have been so terribly separated from the truth of ourselves, mass madness was inevitable, and now we’re in the thick of it. As you so perfectly articulate, “We created a social ‘madness’ and then we created an artificial and damaging ‘solution’ trying to cover our tracks.” What an incredible mess we’ve made in the process.

    Coming out of the dark can seem like madness, but that is only because we are not used to light, we have blocked it for so long, as have not wanted to see the truth of ourselves. It takes adjustment when we shed old skin and false identities, based on the delusions we are fed as ‘truth,’ part of the process of shifting self-perception. The whole world changes for us when we see ourselves as we really are, and own our potential.

    I also totally agree with this statement, “A problem can never be solved on the level on which it was created.” Creativity, innovation, and ascending ego-related issues is where solutions are manifested, not in blame or victimization. That only perpetuates the problem, since this is where the problem was created in the first place. New perspectives to old stories create better feelings, more truthful realities, and desirable outcomes.

    Thank you for sharing your inspiring story and raising awareness of our spiritual nature. That’s the ticket to healing and personal evolution, I’m certain of it. It’s also how we, as a society, are going to wake up, once and for all. It is inevitable at this point.

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  • “I wondered, ‘Is this a missing piece in our own healthcare system—one that could facilitate wellbeing to many while avoiding the side-effects of surgery and drugs?’

    Indeed, it is, a resounding YES from me on this. Thank you so much for writing about this. I’d never heard the term ‘spiritism.’ I will be researching this further.

    You have described much of what I learned and experienced in my journey of healing, and what I discovered about myself, as well. I learned all about the gift of true empathy and clairsentience. I read Elaine Aron’s The Highly Sensitive Person, then someone gave me Rose Rosetree’s The Empowered Empath, and that really shifted my perspective and is exactly what led me out of that place of chaos and feelings of powerlessness. My world and health shifted poles, here, a full 180.

    After my disaster in the system and coming off medication and all that nightmare, from which there seemed no end to the darkness in that snake pit, I found a meditation and healing program which taught about this thoroughly, about clairsentience and other fascinating and relevant things, and I studied for several years at this psychic healing school in San Francisco which specifically focused on this as a healing perspective. It was a miraculous shift, to understand this aspect of me in a way that was validating and empowering, finally!

    I applied all I learned to my everyday life, and eventually, I was creating a different existence for myself, one that I could enjoy and in which I could create freely. This is what I experience now, and the work you are talking about is what allowed me to experience this after decades of diagnoses and medication, all in the past now, thank God.

    Yes, this level of sensitivity can be such a challenge in today’s society, until one learns to focus and use it consciously. Then, it is an incredible healing tool and gift. I am very relieved to see you write about this, can’t say enough about that!

    Very interesting and frustrating that you were turned down, although I’m not at all surprised. I was learning all of this and healing like gangbusters even as I was still involved in the system, and even though I was right in front of them, obviously well, grounded, present, productive, telling my story, and offering to pay forward what I learned and how it applies, I was snubbed, the way you were—over and over again. And I was no stranger to them, I was in their midst. They refused to acknowledge that I knew something of value that they did not.

    It is so telling of where the system is, and it is truly sad and even tragic. I don’t know what it will take to open these minds and hearts, if anything at this point, and go outside their extremely limited comfort zone. I’ve never seen such stubborn resistance. I think solutions are everywhere, but there is some kind of resistance to actually really solving these issues. Too much money in keeping this going, I guess, would be what I gather, from the role we all know money plays in this industry. I really hope this changes soon. I think the work you describe is extremely valuable in all this. Challenges the ego in every way.

    Very best wishes in continuing your work with this. I think it’s fantastic, it’s exactly my perspective. Again, thank you!

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  • Hi Joanne, yes, this question stuck with me, too, and sitting with it, I felt more than hope, but actually certainty. It just sort hit me as I was thinking about this. Interesting how things can be right in front of us and we don’t see it right away, until we re-focus and allow present time to enter our awareness more fully.

    I think so many of us who have ditched all of this psychiatric, drug-related, diagnostic-oriented, therapy-minded, ‘mental health system culture’ stuff and have succeeded in moving forward away from it, following our own hearts and intuition while creating a new kind of creative entrepreneurship around support and helping others, and bringing with us new healing information, dark-night-of-the-soul wisdom, as well as our own personal self-healing and transformation, is actually the hope, and at this point, it is evident.

    I have witnessed this a lot on here, and it’s my own experience, so yes, indeed, MIA has been important to me because I found others like me, who got away, got ourselves together, and are applying what we’ve learned from the rather grave mistakes of our predecessors, doing the best we can to create something way better. It’s new territory, we’ve broken ground. I think we’re covered just fine if psychiatry goes down, many of us are prepared to usher in new and humane healing and perspectives.

    I think that’s been a giant leap in the right direction, and why I do feel there is all the reason in the world to feel optimistic at this point. We, ourselves, are the evidence, as we grow in numbers in this category.

    Personally, I’m excited to see where this is going at this point, as more of us transition into a more suitable path toward relief from grief and suffering in favor of inner peace and integral well-being. I believe this trend will catch on and at some point, it will become exponential. I think the underground railroad is open, and it’s not so underground at this point! There are many platforms from which to enter, quite visible.

    Thanks again for sharing this incredibly moving and courageous story. It led me to wonderful clarity and new optimism.

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  • No argument there, but if a society can’t take care of itself (as ours obviously is not doing terribly well at the moment), then good luck with a society that can take care of others. Being self-responsible is primary, and safe, because it is ourselves we are asked to trust. Perhaps a new–or forgotten–skill for some, but necessary, I think, right now. It can be re-learned.

    Good and trustworthy support is, indeed, hard to find, at best, whether we like it or not. We’re all trying to find the delicate balance, it’s different for each of us.

    Ok, I’ll stop here because I’ve already gotten my wrist slapped once for not taking a dialogue to forum, but this seemed relevant, and I’ve found it productive, so thanks for the prompting cpuusage. I wish you the best in your continued healing.

    And thank you also, Amy, for sharing your very thought-provoking and passionate story. Really good stuff. I love reading and hearing about peoples’ various paths to freedom. We’re creating a whole new world…

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  • Cpuusage, I would never begrudge you or anyone any remedy that works for you and brings you relief. I speak from my experience about what works for me and what I observe.

    Bottom line is that each of us, individually, is in charge of our wellness and how we deal with anything. At least as adults, this would be the case. It’s why I feel that research and incessant debate about what is or is not illness or wellness and what treatments work for what and how we interpret life’s events can fall short of what is really important–to alleviate our individual suffering. More than anything, that’s what I most appreciate on here, the stories of people who found their way out of suffering. That’s what I most care about.

    If what you did helps you in that department, then of course it is right for you! Hardly anything that is discussed here is universal. Why such nasty arguments occur, I don’t know.

    Perhaps we can learn to respect a bit more our individuality, and not argue about the reality of others. I think that’s a total waste of time and energy which takes us off track considerably, while also being rather hurtful to people, understandably. Healing is hard, courageous work which makes us all feel vulnerable. True, authentic universal respect would be a wonderful healing agent in here, I believe. I’m sorry if you feel this is idealistic. Regardless, I think it’s an excellent goal for which to aim, if anything at all is going to change.

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  • Can’t think of a better example of how we, as a society, have truly lost our way. Indeed, how could a culture medicate such things as wounding and trauma from abuse and extreme grief from losing our children? Well, we do, and it is beyond my ability to comprehend as anything sound, reasonable, compassionate, loving, and at all helpful. It doesn’t even seem logical, and only adds to one’s burdens. Truly mind-boggling. What will it take to re-claim our humanity?

    Thank you for this powerful piece. Really lays it on the line.

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  • I don’t deny the biological aspects to any issue. I believe it’s all mind/body/spirit, they’re totally interconnected. However, I do not believe that psychiatry helps in regard to biological. issues, either. That field has made a tragic mess for people. It doesn’t know what it’s doing, I think that is clear, psychiatry is smoke & mirrors, all illusions, and at this point, not terribly convincing ones. Biological issues can often remedy themselves when we do work in other aspects. Often, when we remedy emotional issues, such as those which lead to self-sabotage, our body’s go back into balance, simply from relieving the pressure of false negative self-beliefs.

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  • As far as ‘ill’ and ‘unwell’ are concerned, these are highly relative terms interpreted in so many various ways, which carry a lot of energy, judgment, and stigma on them, Many schools of thought on this. So that’s a dissertation waiting to be written.

    I agree with the author and the majority on here that we were taught to trust blindly what turned out to be the wrong people, and we were taught to think about ourselves in a way that was negative and inaccurate. Trauma, family dysfunction, etc., create this internal reality for us: we are sick and we need to see a doctor. It’s a cultural program, from family beliefs, media, and social norms–mostly based on terribly limited information and downright deceit and manipulation for the purpose of control. That’s standard procedure among the power elite, to fool the masses.

    We are re-writing this now. We are defining ourselves our way, by our truth, which seems to be working well for each of us, as we grow in number, by example, and with credible voices, far and away from this other nonsense, which is how I label this process of diagnosing and medicating. It is non-sense, as in, makes no sense. We have so much proof of this.

    Even those you are calling ‘unwell’ aren’t helped by this, and there are so many other ways. They need to stop lying and being in denial. That’s what is damaging to society right now.

    I’m not saying that we’re not talking about some kind of imbalance at times, either within a person or within their life, that needs addressing, that happens to all of us, it’s human. We all have issues and challenges to face, and we do it however is best for ourselves.

    Many of us thought psychiatry was the way to go because that was the propaganda, that it exists to help resolve issues, heal our mental chaos and confusion, and relieve anxiety; whereas it does exactly the opposite, over and over again. This mental health treatment crap creates problems where they don’t exist, and makes the problems that people had upon seeking help even bigger and more entrenched.

    AND, they know it, it’s obvious, and they are digging their heals in, can’t surrender to the client’s voice as the last word.

    That’s where I would, indeed, blame them for the harm being done here. They don’t want to hear thousands or millions of voices in truth! We’re talking quality of life, family, communities, and life & deaths issues, here.

    So yes, I’d point the finger at psychiatry, too, I think that is just and accurate, beyond a doubt. I point the finger to identify the problem in society as precisely as possible, in order to fix this situation–that is, to remove the problem and allow for better solutions to come in, non-institutional, to my mind.

    Re classes, the upper tiers of society tend to shame and demean others, patronize at best, to preserve their illusion of ‘social rank.’ They make it up, based on arbitrary rules of their society. That’s what snobbery is, which is what comes from class division, people who think they’re ‘better’ for whatever reason, based totally on superficial things, that really don’t matter, but they want people to know they have what others could not possible acquire.

    Although I think this, in reality, is not true, but an illusion that has been created, that some are limited while others are not. Not true, but we can believe it if we’re taught this, until we wake up.

    I have found this to be the case, in general, with psychiatry, and a huge part of the problem, this kind snobbery, where they project lack and limitation onto clients, and worse yet, they fabricate a chronic illness to get you hooked on drugs for life. There is a definite class issue here, and it affects how ‘sick’ and ‘well’ are perceived and addressed, most definitely. I think it’s pronounced and obvious, goes without saying.

    Indeed, psychiatry has had its day. It has caused too many problems in the name of solving them. It makes no sense to preserve it at this point.

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  • Beautiful narrative, and congratulations on reclaiming your life. I especially appreciate how you ascended the dubious ‘reality’ of diagnostic and drugging practices, in order to be in the flow of natural life and your personal humanity. That’s a courageous and authentic path, kudos!

    It’s mind-boggling to me how the versions of reality differ so much between survivors and clinicians. Although considering the profit involved, I guess it’s not so mysterious after all, come to think of it. Still, these are not compatible realities, that’s for sure.

    Best wishes on all your endeavors!

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  • Yes, I agree, have noticed this readily as well, very frustrating. Seems the more truth that tries to evolve for our well-being, the more blatantly false, ridiculous, and stigmatizing distortions are projected, like a smear campaign against truth and health, in exchange for money. That’s like a devil’s contract, soul-less.

    The bad news is they don’t give up easily and only get bigger when they are challenged. The good news, I think, is that at this point, it is a house of cards. The world is waking up to this blatant misrepresentation of stated intentions and missions, along with vampire-like manipulation, and crying foul, at least. It’s anyone’s guess how the shift will go down, however. Thanks for your very astute comment, barrab.

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  • I guess after a certain point of resolving these issues, reality drifts into a new landscape.

    For me, more than anything, healing from what felt to me like ‘mental illness’ (which is how I interpret my own story) meant identifying and shifting sabotaging/self-sabotaging thoughts and actions. Once I got that straight, my entire world shifted, and I found out just how creative we humans really are.

    However one discovers their true power and whatever that particular process of discovery is for anyone concerned, I would like to see everyone on the planet own their intrinsic power, on their own terms.

    However, some seem to prefer sabotage over creation, which is not compatible with my reality. So I guess we have parallel realities going on here. Fascinating.

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts, T-V.

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  • Beautifully said, Carina, thank you. Indeed, the quality, clarity, and directness of our communication is everything when it comes to evolving the global culture into something humane and inclusive. I strongly believe that how we are currently responding to the inevitable changes that are occurring at present will determine the ease vs. challenges of such continued change, leading up to complete transformation, also inevitable, I believe. Thanks for your work and for your loving presence. No doubt you have made a big difference in how all this is evolving.

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  • Oh, and btw, it’s not my intention to imply that I’m a ‘hero’ because I’ve been through this. I’ve been through my ‘hero’s journey’ and I’m done with that. My life is great now, and I have ease. I’m no hero at this point in my life, but I felt like I was as I jumped all the hurdles. I HAD to believe that, to combat the negative self-beliefs. That’s all neutralized though, it was a rite of passage for me.

    The heroes are the ones suffering now. These are the ones that deserve unyielding respect and support. They are the teachers of today and healers of tomorrow.

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  • Thanks Carina, I appreciate your clarity here. Admittedly, I did feel a bit defensive reading this because it is annoying to keep witnessing hero-worship of those who have not gone through this journey, regardless. To me, these we are calling ‘clients’ are the heroes, and the best examples we have in the world of gong against the grain to follow our hearts and values, standing in our truth regardless of norms and social consequence. Indeed, this is how a new society is created, from such courage to radically break the mold.

    I love the idea of refining how we approach people in a way that is kind and uplifting, without giving ourselves over to another. I just don’t think this is at all confined to the ‘mental health and wellness society,’ as I’ve started referring to this particular community. In fact, I feel this is where some of our most vague and duplicitous communication occurs, and I’m not saying this as a judgment at this time, but simply as a fact, with frustration about this expressed right here in this blog. I think that’s extremely significant when assessing the value of any program intended for healing and personal growth. Do the founders/administrators walk their talk? Or do they simply expect their clients to embody it, based on what clinicians, et al, tell them SHOULD be done. That is a dubious prospect and general prognosis, at best.

    I do very much appreciate what you say, and I feel we are in agreement, really, that in the end, healing and personal growth of any kind is a highly personal and individual matter, and requires a great deal of self-trust and following our hearts.

    The problem, here, is that what people are trying to heal from is from being named, labeled, and described totally inaccurately and with blatant stigma in the first place, which they have internalized and believed about themselves for years and decades. It has become a self-identity for many which carries so many harms and draws such falsely negative conclusions about themselves. The process of diagnosing, medicating, and acculturating trauma and social stigma has led to self-sabotage for many clients, because of what they’ve been taught by mental health professionals. That is one big awesome mess, internal and external.

    Indeed, it will take our highly unique and individual processes to unravel this. It’s doable, I know for a fact based on my own experience, but it took a tremendous amount of trust in my own process, far and away from what clinicians had been trying to teach me, which was the road to living hell. I HAD to learn to trust my heart, above and beyond anything I had previously been taught to believe, or what some people continued to try to pound into my beliefs, which I had finally learned to not take on, but to stick with my own truth, regardless of anything. That was, most literally, my salvation and freedom.

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  • I agree that good things take time and patience, but when it comes to mental health and all that we talk about on here, time is not a luxury for so many clients, they are suffering every day due to all of the fragmentation and incompetence of professionals, and the insanity of what this system has become, I feel we have established that powerfully on this website alone.

    I don’t agree that it is the staff and radial clinicians we need to remember and think about, I believe it is the clients and those who have been so harmed by ‘the medical model within the psychiatric system’ who deserve the respect and thoughtfulness that they tend to not receive. THAT is what I feel is important to remember.

    How to show love and respect? Be honest, transparent, listen before responding, have clear and healthy boundaries, consistency, authenticity, and be humble in the fact of another’s truth. Tough love is also love, which can be hard, but there are lessons for all of us in any relationship, even when there is a power dynamic present. It certainly does not have to be abused. Some people in positions of authority can actually be a good example to others, although they can be hard to find these days.

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  • “To be met by silence is something I far too many times have experienced due to the tradition psychiatric system…”

    Yes, this is a widespread complaint, I’ve experienced it chronically and predictably in the mental health world. I think for one thing, it’s a way of making people feel powerless, it’s a psychological weapon. Also, I think it is very blatant communication of non-transparency, which usually means something is being hidden.

    I found anything related to psychiatry, social services, and ‘the system’ to be rife with non-responses and lack of transparency. It’s why I don’t think anything can be solved here, and why I imagine absolutely nothing will ever be found to work universally. We are talking about individual journeys and processes, I don’t see how we can go beyond this in any way. While we may have overlap, at the core, everyone’s process is unique and people respond to different things in different ways on different days.

    There are always specific culture and sub-culture considerations, generational considerations, individual considerations, and present time considerations. If open dialogue were to be seriously considered, then we’d see examples of it in every day discourse, and we don’t. Communication tends to gets shut down or becomes clearly inauthentic or hostile when the truths of the matter are being approached. The truth can really throw some people for a loop, which is why often, they choose to medicate, restrain, humiliate, and marginalize the ones speaking it.

    I’d like to see this turn right side up, in the name of system change and transformation. Non-response and non-transparency are red flags to me.

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  • “When I was teenager, I thought the doctors were working to cure me of whatever ailed me. I trusted them. We did in those days. We didn’t question them.”

    Exactly, that’s what I’m talking about, distorted thinking. I had this, too, and most people still do. The vast majority of us, in general, grew up believing this, that doctors were to whom we turned when we wanted something ‘cured’ or at least relieved and alleviated. And what have we discovered and are continuing to discover more and more vividly these days? That not only are their many, many pathways to integral healing and curing illness that have nothing at all to do with this western medical system and perception, but also that many in the medical profession are doing a great deal of harm to unsuspecting, poorly informed people–to those of us who have or had been walking around thinking that doctors are here to cure us, that this is their dominant agenda. Whereas, we all know there are other, less noble agendas happening, at the expense of the patient, as you describe, and at great loss to the general global community.

    All because of this one false belief, by which we live and operate. It is our naive and blind faith, trust, and belief in the ‘the healing power of doctors’ that guide us there to begin with–or if we don’t guide ourselves there, it is the ignorance and false beliefs of the family or legal system. The idea that doctors cure us and alleviate suffering is a toxic belief because it is what leads us down the wrong path–e.g., to ECT, because the doctor said so, they confer!

    “I think when you’re used to abuse you get to the stage whereby you only recognize it in it’s extreme forms. Someone had to point out to me that shocking me was wrong. I only discovered the physics of it 35 years later.”

    Yes, I totally agree. We do become inured to that which is familiar to us, even when it is insidiously harmful. After I finally defected from the system and found my life, health, and sanity again, at first, I’d have to ask my partner if someone was being emotionally abusive and demeaning, because that’s what I had gotten so used to and it had become hard to distinguish subtle abuse from normal everyday reality. It was like deprogramming from a cult This kind of double talk gas-lighting reality and communication seemed standard procedure in the mental health community, part of the culture to talk this way to or about people. It was surreal, at best, and literally maddening for all concerned.

    That’s what I had to awaken to. AND, I learned the physics about this, later, too! It’s energy, just like the electricity, extremely potent.

    It’s really quite remarkable the extent to which we have allowed ourselves to be abused–tormented, in fact, in many ways–all in the name of believing that doctors were doing the work of God. People don’t heal other people, we heal ourselves. Others can only support and encouragement, what we call ‘holding the space.’ That takes grounding, neutrality, and subtle self-awareness.

    Good to know the truth now, so changes can occur with better awareness and, hopefully, a bit of ease. Although the jury is still out on the ease factor. Depends on how ruggedly people cling to those false beliefs. It can be hard to shift, because it tests everything we know. But again, that is how change occurs, when our long- held beliefs, by which we swear, are tested. I believe the entire global culture is being tested in this regard, especially when it comes to medicine, and even more especially, when it comes to psychiatry. More and more people are discovering daily that it is only injurious, never healing.

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  • “…that place of power and privilege the therapist is granted by society and usually by the client as well…”

    This is where clients can be re-educated: if seeking therapy, don’t give your power away. There are many red flags up front that we tend to ignore initially for a lot of reasons. It would be helpful for clients to be able to identify when they are being sucked of their energy, rather than supported and encouraged on their own path.

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  • “painful rejection for opening my mouth”

    I think so many of us relate to this one thing, perhaps more than anything. That’s COURAGE! It’s what the world needs most in order to transform. My film was all about this, and I was kicked around all over the place for it. Yet, it led me directly to freedom in all ways. Rejection heals when we see it from a different perspective, as guidance. I’d say you’ve done your part most admirably and courageously. And from I’ve read on here, so would others. Bravo!

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  • This has been a delightful and highly educational discussion to read and absorb, thank you Daniel and commentators. I’m particularly grateful that it boils down to all the stubborn resistance to system change, regardless of whatever success is experienced from Open Dialogue and other new practices, alternative to what holds the system together. I like looking at that resistance under a microscope, myself. I think so much is here to address.

    As I read along, I could not help thinking of family systems, and how the only way I know that change can occur in toxic dysfunctional family systems is when the one who is saddled with the ills of the family—what some refer to as “projected identified patient,” via diagnoses and marginalization—shifts their self-image and therefore their role in the system. One person musters the power, courage–or even merely due to desperation, which by no means discounts the enormous power and courage it takes to do this–to stand up to the abuse, despite the enabling system, and makes separations, once and for all, going against the family norms, culture, and ‘agreements.’ This leaves the family system to sit in its own dysfunction, which is it’s opportunity to heal and transform. It won’t always choose to do so, but that’s beyond anyone’s control, I think, unless the enablers abandon, one by one, leaving the most powerful abuser in isolation, rendered him or her powerless.

    Still, the important thing is that the formerly identified patient has, in essence, transformed into the family healer by speaking their truth and embodying freedom and self-care, despite what the family thinks and says in its gossip among themselves or to anyone. And they’ll usually try really hard to bring that person down, to avoid looking at their own stuff—which of course, is their own enmeshment and co-dependent issues, usually covering shame. Everyone, including the diagnosed person, plays a vital role in keeping the system intact and running in its dysfunctional imbalance.

    But if the “identified patient” does not change his or her role and remains victim to the system dynamics, no healing, change, or transformation ever takes place because until someone makes the bold choice away from the family dysfunction, the system is only enabled and stuck, spiraling downward, because it never has a chance to recognize itself for what it is by feeling the absence of its identified patient, the one who carries the ills of the family. Without that person, they are stuck with their own ills.

    When and if the family ever recognizes the healer over the “patient,” then a family shift can occur. If not, the family will remain resentful and blaming, in their own stuckness, and the formerly diagnosed ‘patient’ can move on and live freely in their own truth, once they bring to light and shift that which they had internalized from the original system. To me, that would be the healing, once someone has abandoned toxic environments, and transformation–separating from and shifting thought habits and distorted beliefs brought upon by toxic systems. That’s programming and indoctrination into a toxic system. We can shift these, our brains are flexible here.

    So, to my mind, as soon as the system recognizes who the healers are, I believe this will bring about change and transformation on a systems level. But not until then. That’s what I’m perceiving at this moment, just after having read this. Although I have yet to envision what this would look like. It’s almost hard to imagine the current system could support such a shift in perspective, practices and roles. That would challenge it entirely quite a bit, integrally, including some very fragile egos. So I would predict a highly emotional transformation here.

    But in the end, I can’t even imagine what it would look like, structurally. I think the “patients-turned-healers” have a whole different world in mind than the one from where we are transforming, so, indeed, it will be a fascinating and volatile process, no doubt. And extremely creative, I count on that.

    This has all been so very helpful to me, thanks again. Beautiful discussion.

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  • Of course I see ECT as abusive and traumatic, but I’ve known a couple of people who insist it is hope for them–one for herself, and one on behalf of her mother. Personally, I have a terribly hard time with this, because I feel it is some kind of addiction to trauma and abuse. I believe that can happen to us, from familiarity, repetition, and chronic distortion of the truth. It’s hard to know where to begin to unravel all of this toxic thinking which allow for such practices. It is toxic and distorted perceptions that lead to such barbarism on unsuspecting vulnerable people, who are merely looking for help and support.

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  • “They must be in lock-step to maintain their lie. Consider that every slave they lose to the nobility of recalcitrance, and every mind we change, is a real disaster for them.”

    Yes, exactly, it is a house of cards, this is certain. One person at time makes all the difference, as it resonates exponentially. Between my legal action, my film, and my big mouth, I’ve convinced A LOT of people that this is all no good. Still at it…

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  • Getting out of the clutches of psychiatry and social services was a highly chaotic, complex, and rugged process for me because of all the double binds produced within these dynamics. Staying on drugs was harming me, getting off was scary, painful, and a complete unknown, with no support from the system; if I wanted services, I had to comply with their power issues and allow them to control me; when I used my voice to grieve about injustice and discrimination, they targeted me in an attempt to publicly humiliate and shame me. Once in, it became a lose/lose situation, no matter where I turned.

    I did win a legal mediation against a corrupt agency. My leverage there was that I did not back down from my truth, regardless of their intimidating and sabotaging actions, and despite the fact that it took me 6 months to even find an attorney who would take a moment to listen to the details of my story. I was treated terribly by a couple of them before I got to one who was respectful and could hear me. I don’t know how I found that strength, because a lot of people were telling me I was being paranoid, and caused my own problems, here. That was not true, I was put in a no win situation, and I stuck to that truth until my attorney could see this, as well, and we proved it.

    After I made my film where 6 of us discuss the problems with psychiatry and the system, from our perspective, more sabotage came my way, and I had no leverage this time–except for one thing. I knew how to align with the absolute truth of my heart, thanks to the brand of healing that I had been doing. That gave me a lot of grounding and clarity, regardless of the chaos and sabotage outside of me, and what the system tried to saddle me with.

    Probably the most important thing I discovered in my healing and ascending from all this horror and nonsense that the system puts one through, is that certainty trumps lack of certainty. I learned about the importance of certainty and aligning with our heart and spirit as a way of feeling our power. When we do, then we have more than enough leverage over those that are in the dark, who operate from a split in consciousness, e.g., psychiatry. There is no certainty, grounding, nor truth in these practices, which is a very weak position. Certainty, grounding, and operating from truth is what trumps the lack thereof, and is, therefore, leverage.

    Ok, so I’m a “heart-and-truth-advocating spiritualist” and perhaps this is not exactly the kind of leverage that this movement has in mind, but it is how I beat the system, so I thought I’d share my experience in this regard. I learned this in my spiritual healing work: one person aligned with the light (unity) is more powerful than the entire world in the dark (duality).

    I think many parents want their kids on medication.

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  • How does taking personal responsibility for our actions, regardless of anything, translate to “Kumbaya?” Even when there is some common external factor involved, whether it’s SSRIs or some kind of life trauma or condition, there is a core level of self-responsibility that everyone can take for themselves. Otherwise, there is endless conflict about who or what is at fault when someone commits murder, and nothing gets solved here, in the way of clarity and alleviating this rapidly growing crisis.

    Who is to decide when it is actually the murderer’s fault or the fault of some little pill, to which are giving a lot of power, here? The pill’s not going to own anything, and neither will Big Pharma or those who prescribe. We have the choice to own our lives and actions, and expect other to, or to blame others, their actions, and their choices for our collective grief and suffering. At some point, we have to own ourselves, or we are simply relinquishing control to outside influences. In the end, that renders people powerless, including to make change.

    I’m anti mental health industry in just about any respect, as per my experience. To some, this would seem extreme, while to me, based on 20 years of this, I feel it is highly reasonable. For me, it was life-saving to have disengaged altogether with it, other than on here now, as someone trying to move things along my way, from my little corner of the world.

    In that sense, however, I don’t compromise or appease, I think all of these systems are dangerous to people and society, and are beyond repair, if only because they will not allow themselves to be repaired. That would mean relinquishing their notion of ‘power,’ and I’d imagine that’s just too much change to bare, voluntarily. Change is inevitable, however, these systems are burning out on their own corruption, sabotage, and house of cards deceitful ways.

    But honestly, to my mind, even though SRRIs, etc., do put us into unnaturally vulnerable states that can lead to tragedy, I do know this, insisting on blaming a pill for this epidemic violence, I think, dis-empowers individuals and empowers the pill and Big Pharma. I would think it pleases BP to know that they have this kind of power, which they do, as long we blame them for the foibles of humanity. That’s exactly what gives them so much power, and takes it away from individuals. Once we own it, we have the power to make changes. Until then, though, I imagine it stays a bloody battle ground to the bitter end, whatever that will look like…

    I just say this because I felt that your comment was a bit misleading and somewhat demeaning to those of us who perceive the human responsibility aspect of this, which I feel is the intention of the article, at least this is what I got from it. I don’t take this personally at all, but very neutrally, I believe it to be mis-characterizing into a negative stereotype, which I think in these discussions is important, because to my mind, we’d want to set a different example.

    I’m an obvious optimistic type person, but I’m no pollyanna nor Kumbayaer. This is where I feel we can most benefit from a middle ground. Not sharing perspectives is no reason to demean. This was a big issue in mental health services, so I mention it here, as an awareness, with all due respect.

    I feel my perspective is unpopular here, but it is strongly my opinion at this point, and I know I’m not alone in the world with this, so I appreciate voicing my truth, here, regardless.

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  • This happen to me, too, when I first started talking about having come off of psych drugs. I was ‘accused’ of being a scientologist– not just asked if I was associated, but totally accused. This was years ago, before I knew that scientology even had a position about this, so I had no idea what this guy–a law professor–was talking about, and told him this.

    Communication can really go south when we take just a little bit of information and run a-muck with false conclusions, which is common, btw, in clinical relationships. It’s common all over the place. Indeed, it’s how truth is blocked from coming to light. That’s why I won’t allow the conversation to shut down. Keep talking, regardless…

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  • Living by the rules of others is indoctrinating, splitting consciousness, and the cause of chronic stress on a core level. When we ascend social norms and expectations in favor of our true nature, we cannot help but to heal, grow, and evolve, as it is our nature to do so. Conventional psychiatric treatment calls us far away from our true nature in favor of individuals following ‘the rules,’ which is spiritual death and creates chronic health conditions. Taking control of our own healing and personal growth is what teaches us who we are. We are the ones for whom we’ve been waiting.

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  • You remind me of what is exciting here, Fred, that we are pioneers in uncharted territory. We’re all discovering this together, one step forward at a time. Some overlap, some not, like a tapestry weaving itself to create something new from all this. I’ve no doubt your contributions to this exploration are intended for many. From what I’ve read on here, your experience is vaaaaast! And you write about it so brilliantly and passionately, truly.

    And, it’s what I love about your writing, Chaya, and what you share, and what many on here share so openly, the exploration of new territory, post psychiatric trauma. A lot is being born from this. I think it’s very generous and socially valuable sharing.

    I’m not sure the world has ever known such transparency as those of us who share about psychiatric survivor-ship, especially given social media now. I think it’s exciting, and historic. I see pioneers, here. Gives me an optimistic feeling and strengthens the vision of change happening, as we, ourselves, heal, grow, and, transform. Feeling very grateful for what I’m privileged to witness here.

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  • Lovely, and what I feel is a highly relevant, exploration of the interconnected themes of ‘responsibility’ and ‘self-responsibility.’ I very much feel this is central to debates regarding so-called ‘mental illness’ and related issues, for the purpose of achieving clarity.

    While a specific condition or trauma may unwittingly cause sabotaging thoughts and actions, which are painful to the mind and body, not all with these conditions or traumas allow themselves to go there, as there is some sense of responsibility to self and others. Anyone in the world can be overtaken with rage, grief, or feelings of abuse, neglect and abandonment, but not everyone turns to violence, sabotage, control, and manipulation to compensate for it.

    Self-responsibility is being able to harness some kind of self-control and self-awareness when desiring to sabotage or even destroy others. I’m sure that on some level, this is universal. Who doesn’t feel this way at times?

    When that self-control is not there, and when someone argues to justify sabotage of others, then we have a problem. To me, sabotage is always the culprit, and that which creates extraordinary fear, paranoia, and lack of trust, really closes the heart. This can affect us in so many different ways, and creates chaos for the saboteur as well as for the ones being persecuted, and usually, for everyone around them. Some become diagnosed and medicated, others become power abusers. From there, dual stigma takes over. How can clarity occur when each group is facing the other with fear, scorn, and mistrust?

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  • Gorgeous, I relate completely. To my list, I’d add 1) cry and 2) laugh.

    After I took my last dusting of the nine drugs on which I had ended up, I cried for about 3-4 days. I thought I would, literally, die from grief–a painful liberation of intense releasing, but liberation nonetheless. It was a long haul after that subsided, but at least I could feel my heart again, which to me, means feeling life. I realized how the drugs had blocked me from feeling anything in my heart, which is actually what guides me now, so in essence, they blocked my inner guidance and my connection with my own spirit.

    Eventually, I could feel joy and love again, too. The hard part had been remembering that I had once known these feelings, but not being able to conjure them any longer.

    There is no substitute for feeling life, regardless of how it feels. Life is a rainbow of feelings to experience.

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  • I love the musical allusions, Melissa. As a musician, I tend to hear the soundtrack of a piece. Yours is built in. That’s my generation, I relate to those songs and artists, they take me back.

    I find it especially interesting and ironic that you talk about music as torture and eliciting bad feelings, whereas I always associate it with earth and light, pure harmonic energy, and healing. Plus, one song is about freedom and the other about intimacy, which are the gifts of life, so to see them with negative associations is beautiful polarity. I definitely feel the tension.

    Your writing is so clear and honest. I look forward to more!

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  • Yeah, that’s totally true. These are what create illusions, including these “fictitious [illness and] diseases.” Many other illusions, too, including a socially constructed hierarchy of power.

    Where do we find expertise when it comes to human behavior, constructs of reality, what is ‘sick’ vs ‘well-being,’ what is madness vs. what is consciousness expansion, what is or is not mental illness, if it exists at all, etc.?

    I imagine we each have and are entitled to have our own interpretation of these, whether with clarity or not. The answers to life don’t come in books, they come from experiencing first-hand the many dimensions of life, by living that about which we can later write or speak. That’s our best and most valuable education, our evolution, when we experience life over merely observing it.

    I can’t imagine global agreement around any of these issues, ever, as I don’t feel there is a universal answer to ‘what is real or fiction’ or what is ‘illness vs awakening,’ these are interpreted on a very wide scale. Although I can see different communities/cultures coming together specifically over how they’d interpret these phenomena. Pretty much indicates core beliefs, and those vary from culture to culture. That would be diversity, to my mind.

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  • I’m aware that people can be helped a great deal by an adept psychotherapist who knows how to hold a space neutrally and follow a client’s process with presence and attention; but at the same time, psychotherapy has caused insidious damage to unsuspecting, vulnerable people. If psychotherapy were to become the standard of care over medication, it would still require some exploration of the clinical relationship, for the safety of a client.

    An irresponsible and emotionally un-evolved clinician can do so much harm in private 1:1 meetings, and many of them get through training and licensing without these issues coming to light in the process. I believe there needs to be stringent guidelines for what is safe and not safe for a client in a psycho-therapeutic setting. I feel this is a gray area which merits attention, for the safety of clients and clarity for clinicians.

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  • I do agree there are fruitful correlations between psychology and certain specific spiritual paths that emphasize health and healing as a matter of integral well-being and peace of mind.

    My main issue with psychology centers around how it is integrated culturally here in the US, that’s all on which I can comment, since that is my familiarity. I learned a great deal as a psychology student and intern, but there is a pervasive cultural dynamic here which lends itself to insidious bullying, and from my experience it permeates this field. This is a highly narcissistic culture with over-the-top power issues, which makes these clinical relationships precarious. I had this experience repeatedly, which was extremely damaging to my psyche, and only served to repeat what I had experienced with my family. Textbook re-trauma. Fortunately, I got over it all with the other work I did to heal, and found good meaning to all of this.

    Perhaps it’s more on a culture-by-culture basis, than the field in general. After all, our psychology is not universal in nature, it varies from person to person, and it is so heavily influenced by culture, and sub-cultures within that.

    After all is said and done, I have no relationship with the mental health world here, because I do not relate to the cultural dynamics. Yet, I’m extremely familiar with them because I was part of this for so long, playing various roles. Makes for interesting contemplation for the purpose of deeper understanding of myself.

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  • Interesting link, Fiachra, and I agree with you about the importance of emphasizing recovering and healing from severe mental illness.

    That’s what I had originally came on here to talk about, one of the main points of the film I made and the presentations I’ve done, but then I discovered that for a lot of people, ‘mental illness’ doesn’t exist, so I had to sit with this and figure out how to integrate this reality into my awareness without invalidating my own story and perception. I think that’s mainly what I’ve been exploring since posting here. These multiple perspectives of what is or is not real has taken me on a bit of a journey, here. Been enlightening in so many ways.

    I love the title of the piece, and relate to it wholeheartedly–

    “Recovery from mental illness as a re-enchantment with life: a narrative study”

    Thanks for posting this, feels validating to me.

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  • Yep, you’re getting it, B. Keep going. As I learned this, I was able to make all of those correlations, too. It’s all connected. Kabbalah tree of life is interesting to look at, as it tells the story of our being-ness. It all relates to what we do know, but it is a broader and less personalized perspective. That’s our job, to apply it, but these principles are universal. When we discover this, we are considered to be ‘awakening.’

    Carolyn Myss’ Anatomy of the Spirit (1996) connects several spiritual paths with ancient healing wisdom and modern medicine. This is what began to shift my perspective, it all made logical sense. She’s a medical intuit, which is who I saw to ask how to get off all of this medication I was on. The medical intuit gave me the recipe for what would be appropriate to me, I followed it diligently, and it worked. Not 1-2-3, it was hard work of course, but I hung in there and completed that journey.

    Then, I studied with her and did an internship, to become a medical intuit. I’ve now integrated this into my practice, and enjoy teaching it a great deal. I find it extremely efficient and practical, most clear information I ever got regarding healing.

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  • Thank you, Ann. The satisfying part was having my reality validated, when those in the system tried to tell me that I was paranoid or whatever. They were wrong–lying–and I was vindicated.

    However, no, the settlement was not at all justice, although I’m still working on the justice aspect of it, simply because I’d really like to see society shift in a radical way.

    I later made a film and spoke a bit about this, and sent it throughout the system. A year later, this agency lost its funding and closed. Can’t say for sure what was the catalyst for this, but I imagine that my legal action combined with a film widely seen within the system played a big part in closing down corruption.

    So all in all, I felt good about it because my activism was effective, and this is where I felt free, because I was being taken seriously about this corruption and discrimination, and heard. Although it seems never ending! So many components to this network of corrupt systems.

    I wish with all my heart for everyone to find their vindication and justice.

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  • Yes, energy fields are also measurable, if one really needs to see that kind of proof. These are measured in Hz. Dense energy is measured at something like 750 Hz and light energy is measured at around 350 Hz, something like this, don’t know the exact numbers, but this is definitely representative There is science behind this, but I don’t go there because I get this intuitively and it matches the teachings which I’ve run across and which resonate with me, personally. I practiced working with it, and it worked for me. Although the topic of measuring energy fields to determine density vs light is readily available on the internet.

    The significance of this is that whether energy is dense or light affects us in every way, especially emotionally. Negative emotions, cynical beliefs, and chronic resistance cause an energy field to become, literally, dense, which feel constricts our hearts in a way which we can feel when we’re attuned to our hearts. This breeds depression, conflict, rage, and violence. Our society is dense at this time, and the goal is to bring light so that shifts can happen with greater ease.

    Although in cynicism, there is a very powerful resistance to light, so the field remains dense, which is toxic and ultimately, dangerous, because it creates illusions due to lack of clarity. I would say this is exactly psychiatry and the mental health system, as well as other systems. But the mh system is among the densest I’ve seen, because its stated intention is to heal, whereas we all know it has caused way more harm than good, and there seems to be no reversal of this happening. That is extreme density, where it is so challenging to resolve issues, as there is really no light in that energy field, from what I can tell.

    Most often, we dissociate from density, rather than seeing it, feeling it, owning it, and working through it, which disconnects us from our feelings, so self-awareness matters greatly to determine whether our personal energy fields are dense or light. Density causes things to get stuck and risk spiraling downward, because it is harder for thought forms and bad feelings (all of this being pure energy) to process, as if it were trying to flow through very thick mud, which is dense.

    Whereas an open mind, optimistic thinking, thinking in terms of validating rather than denying, respecting boundaries and honoring our own, being mindful and respectful of others–all of this creates light energy fields, which makes it so much easier to process thoughts and feelings, moving swiftly through any issues we may encounter to create positive change and personal growth, because energy travels more easily and cleanly through light.

    That’s a matter of physics, and when we pay attention to how we feel in conjunction with the world around us, we perceive whether we are running dense or light energy, which is our personal contribution to the collective. If we wanted to measure this with an instrument, we could, and it has been done. But if we are connected to our feelings and self-aware, this is not at all necessary. We know by how we feel, and what we own about ourselves.

    In essence, we, ourselves, can measure energy by how we feel, it doesn’t have to be in numbers, we just go by how we feel, while understanding what is dense vs what is light, and we are free to choose which reality we prefer. If we want to shift the energy, we do this with focus. This is our power.

    I learned this way outside of anything mainstream in the US, but still, it’s all over the place, even in this country. I’m not in the slightest the first person to discover this, I was taught by wonderful teachers and healers, and I integrated it into what I had already learned in my life; although at this point, I am wondering if I’m the first from the psychiatric survivor world, because I get more arguments here than not, from those who have never studied and applied the principles of energy. That would be a requirement before taking this on, because it’s all experiential, that’s how we learn this, by practicing it in everyday life, with this focus on: how does the energy feel (inside and out)? I’m definitely not the first to ask this question about myself, or upon entering a room, and it’s a really great first question to ask oneself.

    I taught this to my partner, and it works for him, too. My clients also learn about energy, and their lives and health have at the very least improved markedly, without a doubt, and in some cases, they have transformed into a new perspective, which is life-changing in the best way possible.

    I found this area of study to be absolutely VITAL to my healing, which is why I teach it. It’s a different focus than that which fuels academic research. For me, it’s been totally reliable, whereas studies and science regarding mental health and related issues was completely irrelevant. All that mattered to me was how something was affecting me, not what others would say about any of this. It’s my unique process, so I wouldn’t expect too much of it to match up to others, although I do feel there are a few universal principles here, but that is for another discussion at another time.

    I understand very well that others go by what researchers say. I really and truly prefer to trust my heart, intuition, and inner guidance, especially when it comes to my own health and well-being. It has not failed me yet.

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  • I really love my optimism, and I hang on to it dearly mainly because it feels so much better physically and emotionally than cynicism and pessimism, it just feels better in my body to be optimistic, keeps my heart open, a bounce in my step, and my creativity easily accessible. I’m not concerned at all with how I appear to others, but more how I feel in my own skin. People may think I’m gullible, naive, stupid, etc. due to having this perspective–but I’ve been through enough to know I’ve learned from my hard knocks,

    That was actually THE big turnaround in my health and life in every respect, because it brought me clarity about who I was and what I most desired, rather than concerning myself with the expectations (norms) of others. That cleared my mind, heart, and path entirely, took me out of mental chaos to stop focusing on what others thought, and more about how I felt.

    I also have found that having myself going from a somewhat cynical perspective to a more open, optimistic one, is what actually fueled the positive turnarounds in my life, which aligns with the good spiritual teachings I know, so that felt very comfortable and real to me.

    I certainly honor how anyone chooses to perceive life, humanity, and our fate on the planet, but to me, it’s much preferable and way better feeling to believe that anything is possible in any moment, that will lead to higher awareness and a shift in global perspective. As I do this, I back this up with my own actions, and do what I can to bring love and light to my community. Tomorrow, for example, I’m playing in a band for which I’m musical director, as a volunteer at an assisted living center. My work as a healer is mostly volunteer, too. The more I surrendered my needs, the more robustly they’ve been met.

    Living in fear can cause us to bring more fearful situations to us, and is draining to our energy. It’s hard work and exhausting to live in fear. We can always choose to shift our perspective when we feel stuck. Fear and stuckness are what fuels personal growth, because we are determined to find our freedom and sense of justice, I believe that’s human nature. Indeed, we have allowed ourselves to be taken far off this path.

    I always likened entering the mental health world as going through the looking glass. I’m back on this side, now, out of there, and life and the world look completely different now, not nearly as dark. Indeed, the global situation is grave, but I, personally, don’t believe it’s literally “the end of the world.”

    What I do believe, is that it is the beginning of a new era, and healing is at the center of this.

    I also believe that it will be a struggle to make this transition, because most people are at the end of their ropes with the destruction in the world, and others are quite resistant to change. So in a way, like Richard says, we’re stuck.

    At the same time, I believe in a higher power, so I believe that stuckness is temporary because the damn is already bursting. It’s anyone’s guess what will happen tomorrow, but I’d rather feel optimistic, which is a good feeling, than pessimistic and cynical, because that feels bad. That’s my only criteria about what I choose to believe, how the belief/perspective makes me feel. That’s how I determine my own truth.

    When I made that shift, my reality unfolded accordingly. It can only be experiential in research because there is no arguing about how someone feels, and that is what determines our subjective realities.

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  • I also disagree about the flower power movement. Along with The Beats before them, they most certainly did influence society a great deal, opened a whole new door to consciousness that continues to be with us. The problem is, that movement of individual freedom was interrupted, thanks to Watergate, etc. Reagan sealed shut the fate of that social revolution.

    I believe we are returning to complete this now, but it has gotten more violent because society has gone so far downhill. Still, it’s upon us now, I’m sure of it. This is like the second wave of awakening on a grand social scale, a continuation of the Beats and and the Love Revolution, it is now being continued, because the old systems have failed, and it’s no secret.

    Analogous to the individual journey of awakening being interrupted by psychiatry. Same thing, larger scale.

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  • “Those versions of magic aren’t going to happen, Alex. Not on any large social scale. Maybe for exceptional individuals, but not for large numbers of the rest of us who have to work for a living in the context of the majority culture. I don’t see a transition strategy here. And without one, we might as well be walking on fly paper. We’re stuck.”

    There is a lot of assumption here. I do work for a living, but my business is designed a whole new way, and it’s working quite well. I am, by no means, exceptional. I focused, believed in what I was doing, and kept going through all the ups and downs, healing and evolving my awareness every step of the way.

    You say it won’t happen, but that is merely a belief. My belief is the opposite, because I made it happen, and I’m not in any vacuum, I have a partner of 30 years, friends, family, etc.

    This cannot be explained in a post like this, it is a complex transition. My website, however, is a composite of my transition, which is partially told in the film I made about all of this, posted to the last page. The classes I teach light up the transitional path, did for me, my partner, and for my clients.

    http://www.emobdycalm.com

    Just btw, I lived in San Francisco for 17 years, in Castro, before moving to the Lost Coast in N. Cal. It’s a highly restrictive, oppressive, and out of balance city now, with downtown money and tech having taken over. Money money money. It’s led to a lot of crap in SF, getting worse every day. That city has turned upside down, because it has totally repressed individuality, and instead, the free thinking individualists tend to be either medicated or homeless or both. OR, we got out of there. That’s what the new money class in the city has created.

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  • “There is a quite real and predictable consequence for dropping out of the majority culture: drop-outs and their families get marginalized just as weaker animals do in a herd. Those at the margin will either exist on the charity of others, become hunter-gatherers, or (sometimes) starve.”

    Richard, these are not at all the only two options in life–to either be part of the ‘majority’ culture or else…at least, that’s what this reads like to me, “or else…” That feels so oppressive to me, and rather threatening to someone suffering from stigma and discrimination in the mainstream.

    People ‘drop out’ of mainstream society all the time and create a new, different kind of life that is their own. Especially as the modern industrial/technological world has exploded, many have sought options outside of this rat race and network of illusion and corruption.
    In many cases, people have succeeded in establishing themselves in the world in a completely different way, from new core beliefs that better serve them. That’s the nature of our individuality.

    This is what we seek, as healing and well-being, permission to express our individuality! A society which does not allow this is an oppressive society, which becomes a ‘sick society,’ the way I understand that phrase to mean. I believe this is what we have on our hands, which is why psychiatry, social change, and healing are such hot topics now.

    True, Americans do seem to have a ‘marginalizing mentality,’ this is the culture I best know. It is not a tolerant culture, but extremely divided by fear, blame, and resentment. That creates stigma, and THIS is what marginalizes people. It depends on how evolved a culture is, which I really don’t think ours is terribly evolved, which is where the consequences to which you refer, occur.

    Mainstream academia, from what I’ve gathered, rejects ancient wisdom as ‘nonsense.’ At least, at large, this seems to be the case. I’d hate to make a generalization that is not true, but that’s been my impression, which, if that is the case, would be a big deal, here, I think.

    It’s the ‘norm’ attitude, and the willingness of a culture/community to grow and expand and shift, which can make a difference. That takes a lot of humility and trust in a process without controlling it. Until we can better achieve these, I support anyone who wants to drop out of this ‘norm,’ which is not terribly kind or healthy, in general, to my mind, and find a new way. That would be the kind of example to others which people seek.

    Thanks to having been once diagnosed (no longer relevant) and all that I needlessly suffered from all that until I finally came off medication and healed from that, and then having been in legal mediation fighting for my employment rights at EEOC–at which I succeeded but it took its toll, and from which I had to again, heal and recover–I found myself headed right outside the mainstream, which was scary.

    But I did my work, stayed focus and grounded, and landed exactly where I wanted, and am now happy and thriving in my new life with my new self. Have been for years now.

    And I have psychiatry and social services to thank, because they pushed me out soooooo far into the margins (at least they tried, they never really succeeded in getting me to internalize this, but they made my life a living hell anyway, for a time), I never would have known this kind of freedom and creativity. I was totally brainwashed into the mainstream, which is why I went so far into the depth of mental health ‘care.’ Thank God, I woke up, just in the nick of time.

    I almost lost my life, literally and figuratively, due to mainstream beliefs that are considered ‘normal.’ Defecting from all this, I’ve now won my life, which was mine to begin with, but I felt it was kind of stolen for a while.

    By no means am I either a needy charity case, nor am I any of those other things, certainly not starving. Hardly, in fact, because I love to cook. I live a totally normal life like a normal person in normal society, which happens to be rural, which is heaven on earth to me. Never imagined this lifestyle for myself, but we took to each other extremely well.

    Still, I am also totally off-the-grid, free, and living my dreams, relaxed and at peace–finally. It can be done!

    I just ask, very respectfully, that you not discourage others with this limited information. It’s quite freeing to be off-the-grid and thriving, away from the fire-breathing dragon of mainstream society.

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  • “When I look at the literature on alternative treatments the situation is generally much worse.”

    Randy, where have you been looking? Have you not read the plethora of testimonials on here and elsewhere? There are tons of stories now of people being harmed by conventional health care and people being healed by methods alternatives to what we have going on now in the mainstream, particularly in mental health care. Please think again before invalidating these. Falsely bashing alternatives with no foundation like this kills hope for people, which is the last thing we need. Thank you in advance for your consideration.

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  • Randy, I realized after reading my post again that perhaps it seemed as though I was directing it at you, personally, when I said that last part, starting with “Physician…” which was not at all my intention, so my apologies for seeming to address you this way on your blog. I should have put it in quotes, because I was making a general statement regarding a paradoxical imbalance in many clinical relationships. I do honestly believe that many clinicians are misplaced, due to their lack of self-awareness, but I was not meaning to imply this was you. I’d have no way of knowing this.

    Indeed, we can be awake and err, we’re all human, regardless of where we are on the evolutionary scale.

    Still, I’m afraid you’d consider me to sell snake oil and be ambiguous about energy fields, etc. That’s totally ok, I’m comfortable with how I practice the art of healing, despite naysayers and cynics. What I learned during my healing I’ve yet to see even remotely approached by the mental health field so far. In fact, what I and a lot of others found to be of intrinsic value is quite demeaned and stigmatized, but honestly, I got used to that particular tool of shaming invalidation, it’s rampant in the field.

    Anyway, multiple perspectives never hurt anyone, but so much of this we’ve already discarded and moved past, so I don’t see the need for more research and debate, many have found answers already–many of us to whom a dear ear is continuously turned, I’m used to that, too.

    I think academia needs to catch up with the real world at this point. That’s just my neutral observation, from my experience in both worlds–academic “healing,” based on academic research and profit, and authentic healing, which is based on ancient wisdom, personal experience, and faith in SOMETHING. I think that last part is a stretch in academia, which I think is significant in how striking the results compare between academic vs. authentic healing.

    So that’s my point of view, from my experience with all of this.

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  • “Smug psychologists (and others) have stood by smirking, unaware that their perspective is elevated only because they are being hoisted by their own petards.”

    This made me smile from the familiarity of it. I hear and see this sentiment expressed quite a bit.

    So a few of the issues with which we are dealing, here, are 1) bad attitude, seemingly ‘narcissistic,’ from that description, and 2) lack of self-awareness 3) lack of insight, 4) taking themselves too seriously, and 5) being only self-serving.

    These are all issues of healing, personal growth, and expanding consciousness/raising awareness. Physician, heal thyself. Then, you can work with others with clarity and more effectively.

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  • Great list, #7 rings especially true to me–inherent powerlessness, incurable illness, and lifetime of dependency and mediocrity. Yes, yes, and yes, all of these fabrications of this field, projected false messages, internalized by clients, causing them further suffering.

    #11. Violates Hippocratic Oath.

    From the classic text:

    “I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.”

    From a modern version:

    “I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.”

    “I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.”

    What most concerns me about psychiatry, and I would, indeed, call myself “anti-psychiatry,” is that for me, the harm here is that this field has made a mess in so many obvious ways, when there are all sorts of healers and communities that address the issues of multiple realities and personal imbalance, spiritual awakening, post-traumatic stress, etc., in a way that is appropriate and practical, have been for quite a long time, and more and more is coming to light about this.

    They’re not confused about ‘psychosis’ but psychiatrists are! So why does the government recognize this institution as ‘valuable.’ Psychiatrists don’t know what other healers know, and they pretend that they know more than anyone else. It’s pure denial that they really haven’t any value because these exorbitantly high priced practices continue, despite all the obvious harm it has caused, and continues to cause, people, families, and communities.

    Psychiatrists should learn to be healers from people who are clear on what so-called ‘psychosis’ is, then they can practice with more competence and get much better results than a bunch of despondent, over-medicated clients or enraged former clients, enraged because they were not only failed, but seriously harmed. Geez, it seems pretty black & white to me, but that is one helluva stubborn field–stubborn in its utter denial that they know so much less than others about madness, psychosis, and mental illness. Time to step back, APA, and make room for those than understand these issues with clarity. That’s the only humane thing to do.

    I’m not intending at all to overgeneralize to individual people, who happen to practice psychiatry. I respect everyone, and feel we are all doing our best with what we know how, wherever and whomever we are in life. I do believe, however, that the entire field of psychiatry is sorely misguided, from start to finish. That’s no one’s fault in particular, but a truth I feel compelled to express, because I feel it strongly in my heart.

    I think the above excerpts from two versions of the Hippocratic Oath say it all, because they are violated constantly in the field and practice of psychiatry, and this will create psychosis, madness, mental illness, and general turmoil. It is a deep betrayal.

    In fact, it’s pretty amazing how the field almost seems to based, in practice, on the antithesis of all 3 of these. I can totally back this up with my own personal experience, and concurs with so much of what I’ve read on here or elsewhere. Wake up and smell the coffee, indeed. What on earth will it take?

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  • This is so beautiful and heart-opening to read, Joanne, thank you for sharing this. Getting back to this kind of spiritual openness and sharing within communities would be really, really nice, I think. We’ve gone in the opposite direction, but I can hold out hope for a return to this by holding this exact vision, because it rings so true as the heart of humanity. And, I imagine, it would make so many of these issues of ‘mental illness/health’ obsolete.

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  • Indeed it is, and I totally agree with you both that the meds can easily cause madness, as well as can the withdrawal from them, which seems to happen more often than not, from what I have read. Also my experience, the withdrawal was horrendous and no one around me knew how to support it, and indeed, attempted to pathologize, although by then I was done with all labels like this, so I just kept moving forward with guidance from my new teachers at that time.

    And certainly the ‘wrong’ clinical support can drive us profoundly mad if we are vulnerable, which is normally the case when we see a psychiatrist.

    Still, I think the healing of this would be the same as any madness–take the healing journey and discover new things. We’ve just got to learn to follow our paths, healing past betrayal so we can learn to trust our own truth and inner guidance. To me, that would be the work to do in order to integrate what we are calling ‘madness.’

    As we emerge from any journey of madness taken consciously and with effective support– which is different for everybody what that means and looks like–we have transformed. Psychiatry and meds totally interfere with and undermine this journey, so that we get stuck in madness, so no transformation takes place, the process is stalled, which is so dangerous for people. The appropriate alternative would mean freedom from this maddening stuckness in madness.

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  • Also, I wouldn’t call it ‘unreason,’ as madness can be quite reasonable, and I’ve often found ‘madness’ to be rooted more in rage from betrayal rather than lack of reason. In fact, to me, with the kind of betrayal we’ve faced in society, from health care, government, etc., I’d say madness is highly reasonable and totally understandable, and the ‘mad’ people I’ve known are often quite logical, were we to attune to them without fear, and with an open heart and mind to the fact that this is suffering due to society’s lack of reasonable response to someone’s needs.

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  • “Madness endures, serving to frighten and to fascinate, to challenge us to probe its ambiguities and its depredations. And despite our best efforts, we remain almost as far as ever from any adequate understanding of the roots of Unreason, let alone from effective responses to the miseries it entails.”

    After all is said and done, personally, I’ve come to the conclusion that ‘madness’ exists for the purpose of contrast to inner peace, as this would be our goal, would it not? To my mind, at least, this is the goal. ‘Madness’ is a necessary step in personal growth and spiritual evolution. Without it, we haven’t the passage which is vital to awakening to all that has turned out to be illusion, out of unconscious living.

    The problem with psychiatry as we know it is that it vilifies madness–and by doing so, it unwittingly (or not) vilifies the one experiencing this temporary state of ‘madness.’ In turn, the issues become more chaotic, embedded, magnified, and chronic. This should not be, as this is where it becomes an ‘illness,’ which should never come to pass. Madness is a sign of personal growth and clarity trying to happen. Unfortunately, it is not at all treated this way by modern medicine, and it instead, turned into pathology. Terrible.

    Our internal chaos, which I believe we all possess, becomes loud and dominant in our being when it is time to address it, for the purpose of moving forward with greater clarity. That would be normal personal growth. I’d like to see this supported, rather than condemned simply because it is not understood. Fear and ignorance are the culprits here, not the madness.

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  • Aside from being an invasion of privacy, despite that the post is public, that would still be his business what he chooses to express, a couple of other things come to mind.

    First, it seems to me that being ‘locked out’ of Facebook at a time when a person might need his or her community of support, more than anything, would seem like a stupid idea, if we are to empathize with someone who claims to feel suicidal. In so many cases, FB and social media are some peoples’ sole means of community support and social contact.

    Second, why do we choose to call the police or whomever to pull a 5150 instead of reaching out and saying, “Is there anything I can do to help? Do you need to talk?” etc.

    The responses from Facebook, an anonymous caller, the police, and a psychiatric lock up all led up to what seems to me like an incredibly complicated, costly, cold, and demeaning way of responding to someone in crisis, when a simple reaching out from a caring, concerned, and openhearted person would more than likely have done the trick. I imagine this was this guy’s point, which I think is brilliant.

    So where are all the caring, concerned, and openhearted people? Not on Facebook, apparently.

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  • To put it in psychological terms, I’d say the victim has an external locus of control–that is, “something on the outside must change for me to feel better”–whereas a ‘hero’ has an internal locus of control–“my reaction to this guides me and my response is what shapes my reality and life experience.”

    That is why I feel this particular aspect of this topic is critical in this debate. What is it we’re looking to change, the outside or ourselves? Are we ‘victims’ or ‘heroes?’

    Again, just my perspective, but to me it rings totally true, and perhaps where a good and positive shift in perspective might be warranted, from a space of ownership and self-responsibility. Personally, I think it’s the best path to resolving any conflict and shedding light on truth for the purpose of resolving complex and highly controversial issues such as these, as it first ends our own internal suffering to make this shift, so in turn, we can better influence this end of suffering in the world, as we have seen past outs at this stage, by shifting our self-identity, and ACTING on it, be refining our responses to life’s challenges, into something more purposeful and useful.

    My 2 cents about this, anyway.

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  • Yes, this is sadly true. My uncle passed away from kidney failure due to lithium poisoning, after taking it for about 15 years. He was having his kidney panels monitored, but it got him anyway, in the end, there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind.

    During the 15 or so years I was on Lithium, I had my panels checked dutifully twice a year. They were always a bit off, and then they jumped suddenly, as I was breaking through any equilibrium which the Lithium had been ‘appearing’ to create, so I started experiencing only debilitating side effects, with no beneficial effects.

    All of this is what influenced me to stop all medication. Once I did and regenerated my organs via natural methods, including herbs and Qi Gong, I had all of my panels checked and they totally went back to normal when I got off of all nine medication, and have been since.

    For me, it was black & white. If I wanted good health, balance, clarity, and a good life of high quality and peace of mind, I could only ditch the drugs and heal my way, naturally.

    Lithium is toxic, as are the others. Alternatives to this is a must, if people are to thrive in well-being. That’s the goal, to my mind.

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  • Yes, that’s my experience as well. Not only was it reflected back to me (outside of the mental health world) that I was perfectly healthy, clear, and sane and reasonable in my perspective, but that is also how I felt, once I recovered from drugs toxicity and walked away from ‘mental health care’. It’s night and day, two different realities. Although within the walls of the mental health world perception, I always feel a bit off, at least this is how I am mirrored back, which I really don’t accept, but I do witness this. I guess it’s them, not me, which is a much better feeling and self-affirming truth to me than theirs. That speaks volumes.

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  • I love this comment, I think it’s pivotal in this debate.

    This is how I frame it: a “victim” sits in and operates from resentment, never owning their role in their development, by allowing the reactions and responses to trauma to shift, soften, and enlighten over time. Therefore, every challenge becomes traumatic, keeping one stuck in victim/blame mode.

    Whereas a “hero” would see the value in their experience, regardless of anything, process it and move on, resolving inner conflicts, growing, and creating fulfilling things from it. That’s empowerment over victimization, and tends to lead to better experiences in life, rather than repeating the same trauma over and over. I think it’s a good example of how our perception of ourselves really dictates the foundation of our respective realities. The reality of a ‘victim’ would be quite different than the reality of a ‘hero.’ That’s subjective reality.

    Thanks for this comment, I think it’s a really vital discernment as we continue to argue about who is ‘right’ and who is ‘wrong’ in this debate about the perception of mental health care, practices, and issues in the world, and to me, in the USA, which is the only system with which I’m familiar, and which I know is in deep trouble, and for good reason.

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  • I love the title of this article. Healing, transformation, and social change has everything to do with “wake up and smell the coffee!”

    It is so interesting to see awakening occur, in its various stages, throughout different sectors of society–although, sometimes, it occurs in a flash. It is a really beautiful, unique, and multidimensional process–some of it predictable, and some of it completely not. “Waking up” is filled with X factors, so how the unknown unfolds into the new is always so fascinating to witness.

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  • I love this, thank you. I think it’s spot on. Medications are synthetic and chemically alter our natural rhythm, which I would definitely consider to be invasive. They adapt us to the unnatural rhythm of society, so we adapt to what is going against nature, in order to, somehow, be compatible with an unnaturally driven society; that is, to conform. That’s my perspective, in any event.

    They also attack our internal ecosystem, killing our natural gut flora, which is the foundation of our auto-immune system. My healing was, in large part, gut healing in order to reverse this trend, and instead, to grow and nourish my inner ecosystem, gut flora. This elicited and strengthen my body’s natural self-healing mechanisms. I keep that part of me maintained well now, which is not much effort, so there’s no danger of backsliding, as my body is back to its completely natural rhythm now because I keep at bay anything that interferes with my natural rhythm. “Psychiatric medications” were the first thing to go, in this respect, and that bounced me right back to nature, eventually, after a bit of reparation and over haul.

    Interestingly, it has not put me at odds with society, after all, but allowed me to be fully integral within it, in a way I most enjoy, as per what would feel completely natural, comfortable, and empowering to me.

    Your analogy is perfect.

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  • Also, due to the fact that thoughts and beliefs are habits we practice for years, it can take some time and conscious focus to make the shift entirely. I have very specifically focused meditation exercises I offer to clients to practice daily. With diligence, it really doesn’t take that long to make the shift, because the universe ALWAYS brings us real like opportunities to remember what we’ve learned and apply it in the moment. That’s actually the moment where healing occurs, for real, because we’ve put it into action. Sooo empowering!

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  • Hi Dr._X, yes, that’s what I’ve found, that when we do shift our core beliefs, which means that we’re shifting our cellular vibration and would feel this as a physical change–as well as perception and attitude shift toward whatever tends to cause us distress–then we are shifting at the core, and there’s no going back because we’ve not only shifted our neurons, we’ve shifted our energy entirely, on a cellular level, which corresponds to those neural pathways, from old to new. We move forward in our evolution in a whole new way, with a clearer and cleaner process, which is ‘ease.’ That’s transformation.

    What I’ve learned is that as we shift our thoughts in the moment, there is a corresponding physical vibration that also must shift. That can also be done in the moment, by chewing a bit on what is being considered, where the triggers are, allowing different perspectives to emerge, until the one that feels right to us, based on our spirit truth, becomes clearer by how it relaxes our heart. That is, it rings true in our heart, and therefore, in our body.

    That connects the feeling of the physical shift with the shift of the thought. Each thought we have has a specific vibration (constrictive vs. expansive), and when we shift thoughts, we also shift vibration, which is physical and emotional, in nature. That would be core healing, and validating to our own spirits as having the power to self-heal.

    I’d also be interested to know if any of this is connected with CBT, but as far as I know, this hasn’t been addressed. Not that I’ve ever seen, anyway.

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  • My personal experience with CBT is that it doesn’t really stick, it doesn’t reach the core, but seems to me to be more of an in-the-moment mental exercise to appease the moment. Sometimes it seems rather manipulative to me. I certainly can’t speak for every case in which it’s administered, but I’ve perceived this a lot.

    The shift in thought pattern is, generally, not followed through to completion, following the domino of shifts that would naturally occur for long term change to be achieved–that is, allowing the information to penetrate the body on a cellular level. That’s when we embody new information, rather than just think it, which is not really applying it.

    It’s not just mind—it’s mind/body/spirit. They work in tandem, as a unit. For healing to occur, follow through must be done consciously, which reveals a person’s creative process. These have been my findings.

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  • Yes, so beautifully put, James, a greater clarity does emerge, I call it ‘ease,’ and indeed it is liberating. I was led there by the social ills coming at me, which gave them purpose and me drive, because I’m so glad with where I landed. Simplify, simplify, simplify!

    Thank you so much for that recommendation, I just looked it up and I love what it says about losing our diversity to one dominant story. I might just order it, I like that focus a lot. That would be a good trend to reverse, I think.

    Always a pleasure!

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  • I also think the title is interesting. Not having read the book, I don’t know how he addresses this further, but to me, ‘weak’ would mean ‘un-awakened to their power.’

    Oppressors don’t want people to feel their power–which is why they resort to stigmatizing, shaming, gas-lighting, distracting, and/or avoiding when confronted, to throw those calling them out off kilter–because personal empowerment makes the oppressors vulnerable, which of course, is what is happening now in the world.

    People are, indeed, waking up and finding their voices, and using them wisely and courageously. For me, what started out as a simple desire to work ended up being years of calling out sabotage. I hadn’t expected that and had not intended to be an activist, but this is no good for any of us. So I started looking at all this, as part of my own life education, and I was blown away by what has come to light. Still trying to wrap my mind around how this system is set up to be so limiting, sabotaging, and draining for the people who ask for help, and so incredibly lucrative and empowering for those in the position to help. That just blows my mind.

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  • Thanks, Fred. I was just checking it out his website. Wow, looks really powerful and compelling. I read chapter one, his style is really beautiful, reminds me of the Beats. Sure does ring true to me, from what I’ve read so far.

    I do know about the sinister plan, here, and how this all ties in with the Nazis. What I’m not getting, though, is why the information which is so thoroughly discussed on here is not getting past the point to where it is being integrated, at least partially, given all the clinicians, social workers and other professionals who read this and agree that the old ways don’t work and only serve to harm.

    For all that has come to light from one groundbreaking discussion after another, my observation is that nothing really new is trickling down to the streets, these issues of mental health and social service practices continue as usual, even as the system is going into turmoil, and homelessness, extreme poverty, isolation, disenfranchisement, marginalization, and rage & violence, including suicide, are getting worse, not better. I feel this is directly related to misguided mental health practices and the perspective from the system. I’m wondering where the blocks in communication are, from in here to out there.

    Indeed, that would be part of the system, to create these communication blocks and distortions. That’s part of dire social oppression, related to what Black talks about, but I’m curious where exactly that resistance lies, between what we know to be true, and what is not getting out there. To me, that speaks of sabotage, which is not unfamiliar in mental health and social services. If this particular information would come to light, which eventually it will as everything does, then we’d more than likely get somewhere in this effort to change things for the better and just.

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  • They’re only interested in profit, not health.

    What is most baffling to me is how a group of clinicians in one country claims great success in how they address these issues, and we are still fighting about it, while the rate of diagnosis, suffering, and family turmoil continues to climb here in the USA. This article was published 3 years ago. Where is the communication??

    There is another agenda here, having nothing to do with health & well-being. Some say it’s greed for money, while some say it’s because of power intoxication, and others say it’s sheer ignorance on the part of the mental health field, which does not nearly know what other healers know about the heart and mind.

    I’m sure it’s a few things, but overall, I’m saying that the bottom line here is fear of change: if we were to resolve these issues, a lot of people would need to find another way to earn a living.

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  • “In the United States, at least 9 percent of school-aged children have been diagnosed with ADHD, and are taking pharmaceutical medications. In France, the percentage of kids diagnosed and medicated for ADHD is less than .5 percent. How has the epidemic of ADHD—firmly established in the U.S.—almost completely passed over children in France?”

    ”French child psychiatrists…view ADHD as a medical condition that has psycho-social and situational causes. Instead of treating children’s focusing and behavioral problems with drugs, French doctors prefer to look for the underlying issue that is causing the child distress—not in the child’s brain but in the child’s social context. They then choose to treat the underlying social context problem with psychotherapy or family counseling. This is a very different way of seeing things from the American tendency to attribute all symptoms to a biological dysfunction such as a chemical imbalance in the child’s brain.”

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/suffer-the-children/201203/why-french-kids-dont-have-adhd

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  • PortlandGirl, I think you make a really good point. Society has pushed us into a variety of epidemics, in the name of ‘progress.’ It’s been sorely misguided in so many ways, and has led to all sorts of personal imbalances, because society is out of balance. Unfortunately, progress is measured in dollars and cents, rather than in our quality of life.

    Technology is, in some ways, invaluable. Were it not for the internet, none of us would be having this groundbreaking conversation.

    But at the same time, email, texting, social media, etc., has changed our perception, language, rhythm, and even grammar, not to mention our transparency. All of this has made us speed up in ways that are neither natural nor for which we have been prepared. So I agree 100% with you that society has pushed us to the edge, and indeed, that will impact sensitive and creative souls quite a bit.

    Personally, I’m not a fan of diagnosing and medicating, I think these issues can be interpreted and addressed in a different way, which is alternative to the mainstream, and hopefully will catch on more fully soon, it’s definitely up and coming, especially as mainstream mental health care continues to come under attack.

    However, I do feel that how a parent raises their child is their business, and I feel we are all doing the best we can with what we know at each moment. Thanks so much for your valuable insights.

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  • Obviously, there is more than merely one reality that exists in the world. Although the question remains as to whether or not these divergent realities can co-exist peaceably and with mutual respect of personal boundaries. Personally, I think there’s room for more than one reality on the planet. It’s called ‘diversity.’

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  • James, thanks for outing yourself as greedy, that is very brave 🙂

    Spiritual abundance trumps money because when you have spiritual abundance, money comes when you need it. When we have spiritual abundance, we can afford to be generous because resources are unlimited.

    This perspective comes from outside the norm, so one has to experience it to know it. So many of us have lost our money going through disability, and this is one option for growth in awareness and expanding consciousness.

    I did well before becoming temporarily disabled, worked for years. Then I lost my money to mental health care which turned out to be harmful to me, and now I’m back on my feet because I made the transition into a better reality. That’s the idea of taking the dark-night-of-the-soul journey, one’s entire perception of the material world shifts, to seeing that it is all illusory. Money is at the top of that list, and we don’t need it nearly as much as we think we do. It never, ever need be a source of stress, but it is because of what we are taught about ‘money,’ (through media, mostly) which are, in essence, as false as the messages that psych drugs are good for you.

    But to know about this, you have to take that dark night journey. When society is filled with robber barrens, it’s good to know how to get around this. Robber barrens (including, for example, the IRS) are powerless to spiritual abundance.

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  • Thank you, I appreciate that, Fiachra. Even though physically and technically I have separated from the mental health world, I guess I still remain somewhat tied to it because those experiences continue to live inside me, they were so intense and pervasive within that culture, and marks such a big time frame of my life–in a way shaping it, but through resistance, not ease. At least now, it’s really more good information relevant to my life and work, and not lingering trauma as it had been, although it can feel a bit haunting. I felt as though I was on the other side of the looking glass, which was a really weird and helpless feeling, as though I were meant to go through it, for some “higher-purpose” reason. I wouldn’t doubt that is the case for just about all of us.

    And still, many things have left me scratching my head a bit–like, why are certain things still happening, on such a grand scale? Knowledge may have moved forward, but I don’t see practices changing, not one bit–at least not in my neck of the woods. Attitudes, maybe a little bit–maybe, but still I’d imagine not significant enough to stop or at all slow down the pervasive and insidious abuse this all adds up to, every day.

    And this is so frustrating to me, I’m trying to figure out why this is, and how to get and expand this new knowledge at work on the planet, and continuing to consider radical perspectives, because conventional ones sure haven’t been working. The mh world is notorious for high resistance and lack of transparency, so that makes it an interesting challenge.

    I appreciate having MIA to explore these while remaining somewhat distant. I most definitely always appreciate your insights, too. You got a lot of clarity on your journey like I did. It’s hard to look back, but at the same time, I feel there is more to unearth that would be of great value for us to know. So much stubborn stuckness, I’m kind of drawn to that, because that is really where the ground is most fertile for radical change, which is what I, personally, seek.

    I’m a big fan of detective shows because I enjoy solving mysteries. This one, however, is so emotionally charged, that I find my creativity and inspiration leading me, rather than convention, as there seems to be no conventional way to process these issues. Sure is a doozy.

    But the good news is that I’m sure we’ve never before in history have gotten this far in the conversation, which does make me feel hope. So I’m grateful to all the courageous souls who dare to speak their truth against the grain. That is radical change happening.

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  • Whew, this made me feel anger to read, especially those responses from the practitioners, so negative and with complete lack of empathy.

    Just once, upon facing a complex and stubborn issue related to health, I’d like to hear, “I can see you’ve explored this thoroughly and have failed to find any relief, which I find unacceptable. Let’s see how we can explore your issues together and discover what the solution to your particular issue, here. There is a solution to every problem, regardless of how complex, and we won’t stop until we find it. You let me know along the way when you feel encouraged, or when you are feeling frustrated and would like to change course in our mutual exploration.”

    That seems like truly partnering in healing, and every reason to feel hope, optimism, and relief–healing in and of itself. Is that really too much to ask?

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  • One reason that alternatives to mainstream medicine (as well as alternatives to ‘mainstream lifestyle,’ in general) has been growing in the USA is because of all the players involved in mainstream medicine, that has nothing to do with healing, but all about business. That’s ‘the system’–whether public or private.

    Alternative healing–at least the way I practice it–is based on ease and directness, pure focus on the issues of the client. These tangential issues of payment protocol and insurance can often detract from the focus on the client’s issues and healing.

    When looking at ‘reforming’ the system, it is impossible to stop at one area of the medical system because there are so many connected institutions, including largely the government. The way the system is set up is already so stacked against the client and their health in every respect, which is why I don’t see any way around radical change, to where the client is not at the whim of multiple profiteers when they require or ask for support with their health and well-being.

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  • And btw, from what I’ve learned throughout all of this, and which I continue to explore and discover as life goes on daily, is that THE ILLUSION–when we talk about what is ‘real’ and what is not, and all that good stuff that permeates the mental health world and discussions around this–is the perception of ‘separation’ which we experience with each other. That’s the essence of duality, which keeps us separated and fragmented and at odds with each other within the culture of our global humanity.

    Indeed, we are individuals with our own personal spirit, process, and our preference and choices about how we do life, and we have boundaries which we develop, as a result of our interactions with the world and how that affects us.

    But at the same time, on a deep, deep layer of our existence, at the core, is a unifying field of which we are all part. The spiritual teachings around this topic say that humanity is one consciousness, with all these different aspects that form a whole–like, from 7 billion perspectives, as many people as their are on the planet. And throw into this, the aspects from nature, wildlife, vegetation, etc., which express consciousness in a different way than humans, but still, it’s consciousness.

    But to keep it simple, humanity is, on a core level, one consciousness, and we each represent a different aspect of this. This is what is taught in a variety of spiritual teachings (not ‘religious’), and which I totally trust, from my personal experiences.

    From this perspective, we are already united, although not all will perceive this, for a variety of reasons. That’s why people get marginalized, because we are taught to believe that we are completely separate from each other, therefore creating classes and the snob/victim mentality.

    Seeing past this illusion of separation and knowing that we are, in reality, one consciousness, is what is considered to be the big awakening–seeing past this grand illusion–and when it is felt, it changes how we choose to do things, because we see how our actions, thoughts and feelings affect our own reality. So it’s not about how we judge our actions as moral or immoral, nice or not nice, but more about how practical it is to our own life experience.

    So when we hate or resent others, we are not influencing them, we are only hurting ourselves. When we feel compassion, forgiveness, letting go and moving forward, it is the most practical thing we can do for ourselves, because it frees us up to create what it is we want. Burns up a lot of energy to stay angry, which could be used in a more productive and better feeling way. That affects our health, entirely.

    When it comes to our own creative potential, I think we are without limit, when we can believe in ourselves this way.

    Although there is a limit to the extent we can influence others. In that sense, as individual beings, even as aspects of one collective consciousness, we still have freedom of choice. Some choose to see their role in the collective and are humble to the reality of this natural unification, and others fight it because there is some truth they are not ready to see, that’s how I perceive that resistance.

    ‘Free will’ allows us to go with whatever feels right for us in the moment, but when we learn the cause-and-effect ripple of our own words, thoughts, and deeds, we tend to be more awake and mindful to what we put out. That’s hardy and valuable internal work that will translate to what we reality we project in the world. There is usually a middle path which cuts right through the bs and get to manifesting something better, and that has to be found.

    It’s good stuff, I was relieved and so grateful when I learned to perceive from a much broader perspective, rather than always feeling as though these issues always led to kind of a dead end, draining. That’s how it was feeling to me, until I perceived that we really are one! Turned out to the most practical information, because from that perspective, we can know how to gauge our moral compass, in a way that felt comfortable to each of us, by personal choice and preference. I think we each choose this for ourselves, based on what feels just at the time.

    I could go on and on about this, it’s an endless stream of fascinating information. Someone Else, you always inspire me to think further outside the box, which always brings clarity in a new way. Thank you.

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  • Social services used to be a noble and compassionate sector of our society, intended to help people who needed temporary support while dealing with undermining life issues. These days, it’s become a ring of corruption and incompetence, more like a vampire to society–not helping, but continuing to limit people with a perpetual ‘less than’ stigmatizing attitude, regardless of anything. It’s inherent and prevalent in mental health social services.

    Certainly not all individual agencies operate without integrity and perhaps are effective in helping people get back on their feet in a better way, with new wisdom, strength, and personal power. However, they would seem to be in the grave minority, and are still part of a tainted system, so I think it would be practically impossible to single out one or a few programs within such a vast ocean that is ‘the social service system,’ especially specialized in mental health support, healing, and recovery.

    Again, what I feel is inevitable is that this system will fall like a house of cards, and more likely sooner than later, with the way things are going in the world now. It’s good to know how to build forward when old systems finally fade. That’s what is happening now. New ways are on the horizon, which can still be hard to imagine, but new stuff always springs forth as the old systems fade and die out.

    Just last week I read about a shakeup in the public mental health industry and social services in the county where I live in N. Cal. Psychiatrists walking off the job, complaints to the county supervisor board, from staff, about terrible working conditions, etc. I know a public health care professional up here who says they do everything they can to circumvent mental health social services up here because the people who run it are so mean. Honestly, that’s what she said, no one can work with them.

    It’s really over the top, I can’t believe how bad it has gotten, on a human relationships level! That’s pretty scary, considering that the nature of trauma is more often than not, about abuse and family relationships.

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  • “Which is where I end up seemingly agreeing with what I think are Alex’s perspective of spiritual healing, and the belief that there is a collective unconscious or unity of souls.”

    Yes, Someone Else, you’re reading me correctly. We are, indeed, all connected at a soul-level, which is what we can perceive as we continue to awaken to deeper truths about our existence. As we continue to expand our awareness around this, our perspective shifts to where we can realize that when we judge, mistreat, betray, or withhold love and respect, we are merely doing this to ourselves–that is, we are self-sabotaging.

    For me, spiritual healing is about focusing on our path of growth and creativity, while treating everyone with equal regard and respect, as a reflection of our own self-regard and self-respect. When we do this, we balance the energy of our hearts, and this is healing to the soul. After that, things go much easier, including manifesting what we want, our heart’s desires.

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  • Fiachra, this is a perfect and to-the-point comment, imo.

    “I think for a society to support the idea of ‘rejects’ the society itself has got to be unwell, because a person can only be on the ‘outside’ in an excluding society.”

    I think this says it all. Snobbery, exclusion, marginalization–where you see this, you see a sick society in need of growth, expansion, and change.

    And in societies like this, which insist on their position of exclusion, which they always know how to justify and rationalize with thinly veiled, nonsensical, illogical arguments, that’s a rude awakening waiting to happen, guaranteed.

    This is where you’ll find insidious abuse and double-binding oppression, which, if complained about, they’ll turn YOU into the villain, the bully–and/or ‘the sick one’–also guaranteed. There’s a practiced formula to this. I’ve seen it repeatedly in every agency related to ‘mental health,’ here in the USA.

    I think the point you make, Fiachra, is the issue of all issues, because until this is rectified, nothing that is complained about here will change, because these communities are based on conditional inclusion, which is like conditional love, which is only oppressive and controlling.

    “Want love and support? Take your meds and don’t make waves. Otherwise you are not-deserving of our love and support.”

    Other than, as you say, to ‘keep up appearances,’ which can only go so far because it is, in reality, deceit and non-transparency, it just doesn’t fly.

    Thanks for this comment. I think it’s the bottom line truth, and the only change will which really make a difference right now, because until then, we only have control and resentment happening. I think we’re trying to graduate from ‘survival-of-the-fittest’ mentality, but that’s really hard for some people to let go of. This is going to be an interesting part of the shift, as it means a radical shift in personal beliefs, and that’s never easy to embrace. Although it is how change happens, without a doubt.

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  • Agreed, Julie, what you describe is corroborated in energy terms: these false and negative beliefs we’re given about ourselves are what we internalize–at least on some level if not wholeheartedly–and these literally cause a slow leak in our ‘energy fields,’ just like you describe in real terms. That can take a while to materialize, and by then, it’s a much bigger mess than it needs to be. Best to catch these things early, which is why we want to stay attuned to our energy. It tells our story, from day to day.

    We create our personal reality from our beliefs, starting with our self-beliefs, so believing that we are undeserving of the joys of life, purely the stigma projected, is one thing we can shift at no cost, wherever we are. Unlearning those messages in order to replace them with a more positive self-belief which was, in reality, actually accurate, was the first step for me–that these negative limiting beliefs were not real, they were tools used for oppression, and that this split was causing me pain and anxiety, because their reality was based on a negative illusion of me.

    Joy and happiness are inalienable rights that everyone deserves, and internalizing that I was included in this ‘everyone’ this took a bit of work because that stigma runs deep. But from that hard work, all else sprung with relative ease.

    That’s actually a big leap of faith, because simply a shift in that internal reality can be disorienting at first, because it brings in real change around us, without a doubt, and we’re left to trust the process at that point. But I think it’s a leap well worth taking. There’s a serious thrill about facing head on our fears of change that is hard to describe…

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  • Yes, I was given up on, too, given a ‘poor’ prognosis of recovery at one point, about 13 years ago. One psychiatrist told me that I had to accept that I had ‘lost my dreams, and move on. I had just come off tons of meds, brain scrambled, and had no sense of self. I believed him, so I figured this was no life to have, with no dreams, so of course I attempted suicide and landed in the hospital for a few days, and got that particular rite of passage to add to my personal list of house of horrors.

    Then I found my own healing path that had nothing to do with psychology, after 20 years of a downward spiral, thanks to mh care. For me, Chinese Medicine and Energy healing is what started the healing ball rolling.

    5 years later, after catatonic depression, crippling anxiety, year long insomnia, in and out of the hospital, brain, liver, and kidney damaged from the meds, couldn’t even focus to do simple math or read a children’s book, I took a singing class and started performing as a musical comedy actor, led to a prolific theater career, unplanned. I performed all over San Francisco and in Bay Area for 7 years, until I re-located to a small rural town, the way you left the country.

    I didn’t move as far as you did and change cultures so radically, but I did change my life entirely by relocating. It wasn’t desperate like what you describe, although it was close to a certain extent, but it also seemed impossible to do, and yet miracle after miracle opened doors quickly, as if the universe were creating an escape tunnel for me from the urban jungle. It was awesome–each step forward lit up the next piece of the path, and I never knew what was coming next, but it was always exactly the right thing. I knew clearly we had made the exact right decision for ourselves, it was time to leave the madness behind and find grounding and inner peace, which I did. And now, the dreams which I had supposedly lost, if that psychiatrist had had anything to say about it, are mine to live, and I am. No complaints these days, none at all.

    I only took the class as a way of finding healing and embodying what was learning in the energy work, since I had given up entirely on established medical care. I had never sung publicly or had done anything at all like that in my life, but the opportunity came to me for next to nothing, as a result of some volunteer work I did, so I took a shot at it and it paid off.

    So not only was I finally, once again, around people who treated others with respect, regard, and value, just as a general rule, but indeed, life became fun again. You mentioned fun, and for me, that’s when things turned a corner. I hadn’t realized that ‘fun’ was so nourishing and necessary, like water. Lack of fun makes us suffer. We have to generate our own fun, and then we find others who remember the vital importance of having fun (although not at the expense of others, I want to say clearly. When I was on staff at a voc rehab agency, their fun was based on making fun of clients at staff meetings–’nuff said about that painful subject).

    Anyway, I love all that you say and I’m so grateful for what you share, speaks to me a great deal. I, too, would do anything to help others awaken out of oppression. To me, freeing myself from oppressive environments was a matter of awakening to many things–first, to the fact that what was going on around me was total bs; second, that I was not the person they were addressing, that was purely a figment of their imagination, where I would never fair terribly well or respectably; and finally, that I had the power to create a new reality for myself. Then I bit the bullet, rolled up my sleeves, and starting learning how to do that. Fortunately, there are teachers who teach about how we create our own reality. I am now one of them. I think when we want something, we have to make it happen, because no one is going to do it for us. Want a better world? Create it.

    Thought I’d share because even though our circumstances were different, I feel that, at the core, we both discovered the same thing, in terms of our voice, self-empowerment, and finding personal freedom. I love all you say about how your transition came about, because it sounds so much like mine–never knowing from one minute to the next, but from somehow trusting, the freedom trail lights up and we get validation around us every step of the way if we just keep following our intuitive sense, what I call inner guidance, even though it’s not always exactly clear, but I believe we are supported, so the universe helps out quite a bit.

    And yes, lots of “Thank God that happened because if not, I don’t know what I would have done.” That would probably be the major theme of my story of transformation!

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  • “Essentially, Hegel views madness as a return to a pre-rational state of being. The self tries to cut itself off from the social world of shared meaning and rationality, and entrenches itself in a private internal world, the “life of feeling” (Hegel, 1978, section 408).” This retreat is a response to the inevitable sense of alienation that the self encounters as it tries to grapple with the ‘otherness’ of the world. For Hegel, therefore, madness is a possibility that is inherent in the development of consciousness, because of the pain and frustration involved in its evolution towards a fuller, more developed state.”

    This is so interesting because in the energy healing world, our ‘feeling self’ it our spirit to body communication, so it is, in essence, our inner guidance. That’s actually the goal, to connect with ourselves this way, with an integral sense of self, on a feeling level.

    Indeed, in life we are guided to be in our heads and to address life ‘rationally,’ but at the same time, our global society is filled with so many smoke and mirrors, that trying to be rational can lead to madness, because really, nothing makes sense when you look at the world rationally, because the world is not rational. It is in chaos.

    Going from a rational, intellectual, brain-centered existence to a feeling and heart-centered reality is a big jump, and takes adjustment. It’s not the same thing as retreating from society, I never retreated when I made this transition, although I did change my environment because I had outgrown my relationships with my old life, and this change was appropriate and aligned with my internal changes.

    My new environment matches my perspective and new grounding, and it is a lovely, happy, and well-integrated community, based on feeling, not judging. The idea is to feel joy, not necessarily to make sense of everything. Clarity unfolds over time, but joy is something for which we can strive every day, and that is what heals madness, to my mind, or at least, makes it a moot issue. Absolutely everyone has the capacity for madness.

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  • Sorry, Sera, this isn’t ringing true to me. I understand the issues quite well, I’ve been a part of that world and know it intimately, and I’ve drawn my conclusions about it, which match that of many others–that the mental health world tangents, as well as the core system, is a vicious cycle of illusions, corruption, and horrendous incompetence.

    The shift of which I speak doesn’t mean destroying all that’s come before, it means building on it in a new way. There are things of value to bring forward, but a lot to leave behind, because it hasn’t worked and we’re simply rehashing old stuff in new packages, which is a waste of energy, time, and resources. And I say this on behalf of people falling through the cracks daily.

    But people are really stuck in the illusions–all sorts of indoctrination– and THAT’s what is causing the problems to become worse and more entrenched, severe, and epidemic, imo, because that creates a false sense of community–one that comes together over lies and illusions, and I don’t see how that is going to lead to anything, other than, perhaps, to a catastrophe.

    So a radical shift in perspective is what is called for, for everyone’s sake. It’s an awakening trying to happen.

    And thank you, no, I never think of people as lesser vs greater, or some such thing. That’s a product of the mental health world mentality, not mine. How I discern people is by the kindness of their hearts and spirits. Not that there is anything wrong with unkind people, and there can be many reasons for why some people are more or less kind than others, but just the same, I do have a hard time being around unkind hearts and accusatory people. That’s just too much work, and not terribly fun.

    I appreciate your explanation, but I still think it’s old hat, and that the real solutions lie way beneath the veneer of funding. I’m actually kind of tired of seeing the new motto of advocacy being, “Gimme money.” In this arena, I think that is sorely and tragically misguided.

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  • Although I have to say that, at this point, if I were to put myself back into the mindset of a client, I don’t think I’d feel very safe in your program, Sera. If you are going to call my personal story of healing and transforming my personal reality to one of freedom a ‘bootstrap story’ in that way, then what hope is there of success in healing and finding personal sovereignty through a program you run? What you offered me, here, in response, was pure invalidation to my healing! I can’t get over the irony of this.

    I really had no personal opinion about whether or not you get your funding, but now I do. I can’t, in good conscious, support it, if this dialogue is any indication of how you support others in their personal growth and evolution. How you respond to my truth is way too typical of what I experienced all throughout the system, including ‘advocacy.’

    Please forgive my forthrightness about this, but your not terribly kind or empathic comment is indeed, what influenced my thoughts and feelings around this particular matter. I think it’s most relevant.

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  • Seriously?? “Bootstrap story?”

    Well, I feel reduced to a label, and in a demeaning way. I share my story of success, for the purpose of exemplifying an alternative perspective, relevant to this blog, and next thing I know I am facing people putting words in my mouth and shooting out negative projection, and despite whatever I say, it is insisted upon, just like stigma. And then a choir joins in to reinforce it.

    Hmmm, why does this feel so familiar?? Oh yes, it’s exactly the way of the mental health system.

    What a toxic, toxic, world, so sorry to say. I’m glad I’m no longer a part of it, other than to enjoy engaging in discussions around making positive change in the world…sometimes.

    Sorry, this conversation has become incredibly distasteful.

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  • Thanks for this, Julie. Indeed, we live for ourselves, not for others, and yes, others will have their opinions, projections, judgments, and misconceptions, and insist on them no matter what. I see this as a blatant and kind of bizarre resistance to light, and a troubling dependence on illusions. Especially in the mh world, I have found this to be unfortunately true, which is a tragic irony. Ascending and seeing past these illusions, of course, is how we find our clarity, health, and well-being, as you well know. Thanks always for your example and inspiration!

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  • Tina put words in my mouth. I never at all said or even implied ‘if I can do it…yadayada.’ I was clear and open in my response about this. All that you are responding to here is illusory.

    I didn’t have money for anything, I was resourceful, that’s the point. Where on earth did you get the idea I had advantages?

    What is the deal with communication around here? It’s abysmal! People are making things up.

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  • Absolutely beautiful! I’d read your memoir, you are such an engaging writer, really delightful to read your courageous story told with such light.

    Your story is an illuminating example that while it may be no easy walk to freedom, not only is it attainable, it is our inalienable birthright. You encourage people to trust their process and keep moving forward. With each step, we create opportunities for unimaginable turnarounds.

    Really inspiring, Julie, keep it up!

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  • Re my narrative being a personal bootstrap story, I’d say partially yes and partially no.

    Yes, because I’m illustrating by my example, walking my talk, which I think is sound. On this website, our personal stories are supposed to carry weight and be honored, so I share in the context of what I’m trying to express, overall, in a way that I feel is relevant. This story is about finding an alternative when the status quo wasn’t working for me. Is that not relevant here?

    Indeed, I pulled myself up by my bootstraps when it was either that or shrivel into downward spiraling disability, which I refused to do in no uncertain terms. And the reason that would have happened, should I have allowed it and bought into how I was being made to feel–first, as though I were second class and worthy of utter disregard, and then, as though I were some kind of a threat because I was not “indoctrinatable”–would have been due to the seriously over the top discrimination and literally bullying that takes place from some of these ‘advocacy’ and ‘recovery and wellness’ agencies, that’s a matter of record. And I know that the money issue is what drives this, as it is equated with power, which I don’t feel is at all sound, but it is used aggressively as a tool for oppression and shaming. That’s as clear as a bell to me, I’ve seen this a million times in a million ways.

    Again, this is a general statement based on my many experiences with these agencies, as well as what I hear from others, and is by no means necessarily reflective of all of them. Still, it’s a huge problem whose impact on those attempting to recover is severe.

    So in that way, indeed it is a bootstrap story because I fought all of this on my own and succeeded every step of the way in overcoming these socially imposed limitations. Don’t people want to hear this? I think that’s a story worth telling.

    And the reason I was able to accomplish all of this is precisely because I learned new ways during the course of my very alternative healing. I won’t bother going into that again, here, but it is a perspective worth exploring, in my estimation.

    Do I think everyone can learn this? Well, for me, I had reached a dead end, and then teachings from this new perspective came my way, and I followed them, and it worked.

    Can this happen with anyone? I suppose it can, I’m nothing special.

    Can everyone trust that path like I did? I suppose perhaps not. It’s really a matter of trust, and there are varying degrees of trust from person to person, especially within a crowd where betrayal of trust is core and rampant. I happen to be trusting of a process, and know how to follow it fruitfully and to completion.

    Can anyone do that ? I don’t know. I’m sure I’m not the only one, though.

    And then, no, I’m not totally intending it for this purpose, but again, more to offer something to think about and consider, as a possibly interesting way to look at these issues, given how challenged the system and status quo are now. That’s all.

    I happen to think the world is on the brink of change more than some realize, but that’s only because of what I’ve learned. Not everyone has learned the same thing, or is focused the same way as I am.

    I think the issue of funding programs such as these is a critical point. I’m not suggesting that things not get funded or that agencies should not do what they can, within ethical boundaries, to receive funding.

    I am suggesting to be prepared if the funding doesn’t come through, which is aligned with so many purposes here–to expand creativity, shift the paradigm, challenge the status quo, equal things out, etc.. I would think this would be a good thing to at least consider, but somehow, it’s not rolling that way here!

    Ok, well, I think my point is clear. It’s a neutral one, though, really, not an argument or a criticism of the principle of funding, nor is it a reflection on what anyone else can or can’t, will or won’t do, or what is expected of anyone. It’s just my personal example of overcoming the fact that I’m not close to funding, and yet I was able to make things work. If that brings some hope to people, then my goal is met.

    Perhaps it’s no longer a good idea to share personal info here. It gets so twisted into something negative so easily, from nothing. I would so appreciate it if we were to stop making this personal, or to create a conflict out of nothing. That’s the last thing I’m going for, and it doesn’t help with clarity around these issues. Clear, neutral, focus is important. That’s my truth, in any event, not to impose it on anyone else. Thank you.

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  • Thank you, this really speaks to my heart–my experience and perspective as well.

    Sera, please know that in no way am I intending to disrespect your efforts and of course I feel supportive of anyone’s growth and development, and in achieving their goals–that’s why I do what I do.

    But I do feel that this is a vital and relevant perspective to consider, because I think it may be one of the main places where there is some stuck-ness and double-binding going on, to, both, project and protect these illusions regarding funding and money and all that. I’m not talking about you and your agency, I’d have no way of knowing this and I’d imagine that’s not at all the case. But it is extremely prevalent, so there are a lot of bad apples in this industry, siphoning off money like nobodies business, for all sorts of things having nothing to do with helping anyone but themselves. It’s all a ruse, we’ve all talked about it.

    This issue of funding and money is a critical and complex topic in this arena, and many of us feel it’s at the core of the social ills.

    Always, my intention is to offer at least the opportunity to look at alternative ways of thinking, when something is out of our control like this. I think it’s empowering, rather than relying on the decision of others. That’s a dangling carrot, which renders us feeling powerless and dependent, leading to desperation. That’s not healthy for anyone concerned as is pretty much based on classic ‘co-dependence.’ That’s a hard truth, but to me it’s pretty clear. This is the PERFECT time to challenge our own boxes and learn radically new ways. I think that will lead to freedom in more ways than one.

    More than anything, my message is to those who haven’t a clue how to get their hands on funding, yet really want to help the healing along, on all levels, and have the talent and know how to do so. I never caved to the funding reality for myself, I was one of the clueless ones–although it frustrated me, as well as raised my eyebrows a bit at what I experienced in the process of trying to learn this–and as a result, I overcame it entirely.

    What I think is fair, is for people to know that there are other ways to support their “neighbors” and community at large (our everyday peers in life) using what we’ve learned going through all of this, without funding. I’m an example of this, otherwise I wouldn’t say it. For me, it’s not theory, it’s a reality, so that is, indeed, my world. Perhaps we’re in parallel realities, but in mine, no money required to do healing and otherwise lovingly supportive work for others all around the globe. That levels the playing field and is fair to everyone concerned.

    Self-resourcefulness is empowerment, and to me, that’s the bottom line of advocacy and activism, to empower people, not keep them dependent. That’s been pretty much all I ran into while traversing the system, from the core to the most outer ring of “peer advocacy,” on both sides of the fence.

    Ok, I’ve said enough, but it’s a hot topic, and I’ve appreciated the opportunity to express this. The point of your blog is to support funding for your agency, so I’ll shut the f*ck up, too, as I read elsewhere on here.

    All the best.

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  • Not to veer too far OT, here, but to be clear about from where I’m coming–

    Some people grow their own food, build their own houses, make their own clothes, and know how to provide for themselves in all sorts of ways that are not financially driven.

    If you want to talk about ALTERNATIVES and PARADIGM SHIFTING, imagination, creativity, and self-resourcefulness are essential. Radical change is just that–radical.

    This is about waking up to the fact that we’re actually creating the reality we experience. Radical self-responsibility is the only way to get out of the quagmire created by the mental health system, capitalism, and all the oppressive systems. Knowing how energy works is quite advantageous in this regard.

    And if one doesn’t know the mechanics of energy, the rule of thumb would be ‘follow your heart.’ But that can be hard to do when we don’t feel our loving hearts, and only feel pain, fear, rage, and grief in them. That’s why my practice is based on heart healing. When we heal our hearts from the grief of betrayal trauma, we achieve new clarity.

    I trained in a variety of healing modalities, created a successful and highly diverse practice which continues to grow and expand after 10 years, and produced a full length documentary film about healing internalized stigma which has received accolades from people of all walks of life, has influenced change by calling out corruption, and has been used in college classes, etc., impacting a lot of people–all with hardly any money, just the pittance of disability I was on at the time, which hardly covered my rent at the time. I did a lot of trading, bartering, and always had something to offer for the generosity of others, but I certainly didn’t require funding in order to make things happen and to be of healing service to others.

    And, I hardly charge anything for my services, often doing my work for free. I’m well taken care of by the universe, and never go without. In fact, I have abundance, in every way. This is what one learns after completing the dark-night-of-the-soul. They don’t call it ‘the light’ for nothing!

    The world is, indeed, changing. Good to be prepared for anything, and learn all there is to learn about creating and manifesting, for which there is a lot of guidance these days, it’s the healing topic of the day in energy healing circles. Each step forward is an unknown.

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  • I think you hit on a key point, Someone Else. I think more often than not the intelligent, astute, observant, sharp, and creative kids are basically the target of jealousy and intimidation by insecure adults. By the same token, clinicians are often more intimidated by their clients than they care to admit. This is where power imbalance has such impact.

    Children, like clients, expect support, trust, make themselves vulnerable…and whack! Simply because some adults cannot stand being mirrored back in a negative way, and will do anything in their POWER to avoid hearing and feeling it. Therefore, it becomes ‘the issue’ of the child or client. That’s how I’ve seen it work, how some are expected to carry the ills of others.

    I love Marianne Williamson’s quote:

    “Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that others won’t feel insecure around you. We all are meant to shine, like children do.”

    Indeed!

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  • I’m not sure where it is I’m being ‘unfair,’ all I’m doing is offering a different perspective.

    Sounds like you have a good program going on there, from what you say. Still, you’re in a sea of recovery and transitional programs that are corrupt and doing more harm than good, so I hope your funders can discern between quality and crap.

    I also understand that for you this is about a community standing behind you and your work in support, which I can understand your desire for that.

    Wishing you all the best for a good outcome!

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  • I saw this article on Yahoo this morning and thought about this blog, especially because of the title of it:

    https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/mom-and-baby-move-to-secret-location-after-113356709152.html

    Even the comments below this article all reflect the corruption in CPS and their connection to pediatricians, who can often become ‘overzealous’ causing unreasonable and unnecessary chaos and harm to the family, due to lack of judgment and intuition, and who knows what else? That is so called ‘mental illness’–or whatever anyone wants to call I–just waiting to happen, totally fabricated trauma by ‘the system.’

    At least in some subsets of society at large, childhood used to conjure associations with being a time of fun, play, learning, exploring, discovering, creating, creating friendships, etc. I know this isn’t universal and that people are born in dire environments, perhaps leave the starting gate already with burdensome issues plaguing them.

    But these days, being a kid in just about any circle of life has become dangerous, overly complicated, and rather dark. Why is that? More like…why the hell is that? I don’t like to see kids suffer at the hands of adults, it’s one aspect of our society which is intolerable to me. I see it happening all over the place, every other article I read in the news and the stories I hear on here and elsewhere, and my own experience. Parents killing their own kids!! I so strongly believe which we should leave turn no stone unturned to rectify this, which is why I was glad to see your article, Marilyn.

    I know there are many, many factors, but there has to be something to pinpoint, or a handful of converging factors, which has or have allowed this horrendous and extreme slide in the quality of childhood to occur. We talk about parenting skills, but in the case of this article as with other cases with which I’m familiar, it’s, both, doctors and CPS that seem to have overstepped their boundaries, tragically. Not the first time, obviously. This has been a growing trend.

    I believe that when a child suffers, the adults around them are, indeed, at fault. Who else would it be? At the very least, they would be the ones with the power to help alleviate a child’s suffering, and instead, they so often make it worse.

    The question is: which adults are the ones that either forget or aren’t even aware that the welfare of the child comes first? Because that’s the belief that seems to be missing whenever a child suffers. To me, that would indicate a grave lack of empathy.

    Wouldn’t a parent want to develop a completely empathic connection with their child? Wouldn’t this be natural? Do they cut themselves off from their natural empathy, in favor of another way to guide and nourish the child? I really don’t know, I’m asking.

    I’m not a parent, but I work with a lot of parents, and I’ve had parents myself, so did my friends, so it’s not hard to observe parenting in every day life, and notice a few things. Kids don’t seem to be getting very much of, either, nourishment or guidance these days. They’re shooting each other. That’s insane.

    One thing is clearly certain, at least to my mind: THE CHILD IS PAYING THE PRICE FOR UNAWARE ADULTS. (“Unaware” is the most neutral term I can come up with in the moment, but feel free to fill in the blank with your own adjective).

    I don’t think that’s a trend we want to continue, for a lot of reasons–not the least of which that these kids grow up with baggage and the cycle continues, spiraling downward. Where do we begin to create generation healing rather than generational madness? When will we heal ‘the disease’ of childhood, and make it ‘the joy’ of childhood? which I believe would be the natural order of things. Turning childhood into a “disease,” which, indeed, we seem to have done collectively, feels to me like going exactly against nature. We need to do a 180, somehow.

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  • I don’t at all think it’s unfair, I just think that it’s time we face reality about the economics of these endeavors. And I’m thinking more on a global scale, too, beyond just the mental health world and its multiple tangents.

    The world is changing precisely because of how dependent we’ve become on money, as you point out with the examples of potential loss for so many, if you lose your funding. Perhaps what is being indicated now is we’ve been putting all our eggs in the money basket, whereas maybe we should start looking at more sound and equitable ways to support our communities, that would not include economic power differentials among people from within the same community. I think a lot of people are tired of this.

    I also think that shifting our perspective about money, to where it is maybe an option for ease, but in no way a critical factor in healing, would alleviate a lot of despondence, hopelessness, rage, and overall emotional suffering. We can still do our jobs without money, if we are really devoted to supporting others in their recoveries, healing, and personal growth.

    All the old systems have run up against a wall–academics, health care, the government, etc.–because we, as a society have either lost or are in the process of losing all faith and trust in them. The incompetence and corruption is over the top, and it’s no secret any longer.

    People from all over feeling the oppression of this are crying, praying, and/or fighting for change. I think the way our resources are distributed by those in power has led many of us to question the integrity and wisdom of these decisions, as we are seeing chaos and violence in the streets, thanks to money hoarding. This is our opportunity to grow past this illusion that money is vital. In reality, it is not. It’s just that our reality now is set up to have us believing it is. That’s why we want a complete shift in paradigm. That would include, perhaps more than anything, our dependence on money. I think that’s core to the shift.

    I’m just saying that expanding our sense of inner resourcefulness while tapping into more profound creativity is what best prepares for any change, especially when institutional funding is so under the gun now. Sometimes, we just don’t have a choice, so it’s best not only to have a plan B, but to believe in it.

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  • The issues of economics and funding are so complex and controversial in the mental health world, especially because there is so much controversy and confusion about in what direction to go that would be most positively impact people–that is, where will the funds be best utilized as an investment in our future collective well-being? That’s where the fighting begins, whereas, really, who could ever know the answer to this?

    Ironically, in the end, money really has nothing to do with alleviating suffering, and, in fact, fighting over it is what CAN lead to suffering for some people. Whereas accessing our creativity does, indeed, go a long way toward discovering our own resourcefulness, from within, and this heightened awareness of ourselves brings great relief from the stress of financial worry.

    Sometimes, fate delivers the opportunity to fully tap our inner resourcefulness, right to our doorstep.

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  • “Its not easy to stand outside the attachment driven illusions of a consensus reality, within any group of like-minded individuals. Particularly when the subject of the consensus is mental health…”

    You said a mouthful here, that is so very true. It wears me down but I have a stubborn streak in me about this. Speaking of energy, I always have to take care that I don’t drain mine in this process. Going up against resistance can be very draining, and not terribly advisable, but we do seem to be getting close, here, so it’s hard to give up just yet.

    I’ve not studied the science of bio-energetics, but the work I’ve done as an energy healer and in my spiritual studies speak precisely to the energies of our biology, so it seems we’re talking about the same thing.

    From Chinese Medicine, I learned about the body heating up and cooling, and how this affects our health and well-being on all levels, mind, body and spirit. Seems to speak of the thermo-dynamics to which you refer.

    Also, in my spiritual work, we talk about aligning the heart and mind, and when we talk about higher states of consciousness, we talk about aligning the heart and mind with the heart and mind of God, as this is how we access our inner being/highest consciousness.

    I think one of the misconceptions of this alignment (what is commonly referred to as a state of ‘enlightenment’) is that once we achieve it, it’s some kind of permanent state of being in which we always exist; whereas I always try to point out that it is only a reference point, and that we are, indeed, human, so we go in and out of this state of heart/mind alignment, that’s natural, and it’s how we walk a path of creativity and manifestation.

    Still, once we know all of this, we have a goal toward which to focus–that is, in order to find my clarity and balance, I look for my heart/mind alignment with that of God, Source, Spirit, Inner being–whatever anyone wants to call it, that which is greater than ourselves. Then, I get my information, learn what I need to learn, then move along my path in a more integrated state. To me, this is the exact same thing as ‘soul retrieval.’

    You and I are coming from two different areas of study, yet I see how our perspectives perfectly coincide, and deliver the same conclusion.

    You’ve done remarkable work. I’ve always felt that you knew the truth about these issues. How are we going to get the point across? Or is that the point, no need to get anything across, just live our truth, and revel in our alignment with it, as examples? Who knows? Either way, I’m so glad we had this conversation!

    I’ve always appreciated your perspective and heart, David. Thanks for your diligence in all this, that’s what it takes. You’re a brilliant example of heart/mind alignment.

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  • David, I love how you see past the illusions! I agree with you, here, about the mind-body split, and dissociating from reality over embracing it, feeling it, and how middle class academic standards are a textbook example of this.

    Motion and emotion–what I would call ‘energy’–indeed, precede intellect and cognition, manifestations of the mind, which are influenced by the heart. I perceive that, as well. To me, this speaks of our spirit nature, by way of emotional expression, our authentic voice and means of communication. We are simply incurring more splitting, rather than integration. That’s how I’m interpreting the meaning of your post.

    “I urge ordinary members of the survivor community to go beyond the “appearance” of this rank & status eminence, and involve themselves in a self-education effort, made possible by our age of technology, which will take society beyond taken a for granted sense of worship, (the reverence of our parental, emotional systems of society) towards a sense of individual self-worthship.”

    Beautifully said, thank you!

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  • Wow. “Empathic failure” doesn’t even begin to describe this. Trying to get our perspective heard seems to be a lost cause, if this is the best they can come up with in terms of ‘alleviating suffering.’ How about if we scrap the whole thing and start all over again? I hear there’s some really good healing going on in the world, but not here, no way. Beyond ludicrous.

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  • I’m pretty vocal about my reservations regarding academia, for a variety of reasons, but I really appreciate the personal element you bring into this, regarding your own family dynamics, beliefs, practices, and upbringing. To me, that is always most relevant, as it teaches us, by example, how to respond to life.

    Often, what we learn by example is not the best way, and it can take a while, going through life, to recognize that we have this split happening–between how we were raised to respond vs. how we would naturally veer toward responding to life’s experiences, as per an expression of our own unique individual spirit. I know that for me, it has felt like breaking away from the family patterns is almost like betraying my family, when in essence, it is just me finding my own voice, heart, and spirit.

    One thing I take issue with in this article is where you say that we don’t think with any other organ than with our brains. I have come to believe, from my experience of healing, that we actually ‘think’ with our hearts. While our brains are, perhaps, a measure of intellectual intelligence, our hearts are a measure of emotional intelligence, which I feel influence our intellect and perception a great deal. Our beliefs and thought patterns are most influenced by how loving, kind, and generous we have feel toward ourselves and others, as well as how much of these we have had shared with us by others, especially by the adults whom surrounded us as children. I believe the level of pure gratitude we carry with us also greatly influences our thinking and perception.

    What you describe sounds like what I would call ‘withholding love,’ which would be traumatic and which would instill beliefs of not being worthy of love. That’s how I read your story about your family.

    In turn, that would translate into all sorts of negative messages which would interfere with our perspective and influence our focus in a variety of ways.

    Mostly, though, it ends up being a very deep seeded feeling of unworthiness. Once we identify this and shift into a more present time and self-affirming perspective, that of course we are all worthy of love, that it was our parents (or whomever) that had their own issues and beliefs which were, somehow, passed down to us, inappropriately, then we can forgive the past and come into present time with a new version of ourselves, as one that is of course worthy of love and all good things. That’s how we can rewrite our stories, heal from the past, and come into a new version of ourselves, aligned with our self-loving hearts. I have found this to be tremendously healing to anything, always uplifting.

    Very interesting read, thank you so much. Stimulated my thoughts around all of this. Thanks for the personal touch, as well.

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  • For me, the issue with ‘academia’ is the nature of the social relationships and dynamics. Prestige, power, recognition, and *attracting followers,* seem to be what dictates action and direction, and which creates some pretty fierce and back-biting competition, over humble cooperation. That was my experience when I was in that world.

    That’s a lot of pressure that can easily derail us from the intention and goal–to alleviate suffering. That’s my main concern about accepting an academic perspective, it can really lack substance and grounding in the real world, because the goal is more to impress others, rather than actually solving the problem.

    Otherwise, all thoughts and ideas are welcome for consideration, of course!

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  • We Americans sure have our work cut out for us when it comes to embodying social wisdom, don’t we?

    Yes, profit from healing and health care is an inherent corruption, doesn’t make sense at all. Personally, I don’t feel its just to charge for healing services that some can afford and others cannot. That alone is a big problem, right there.

    It’s why I do work for practically nothing or no cost at all. I really and truly love the work I do, with a passion, and any who works with me knows this undoubtedly. Shifting to the extremes I did, from deep suffering to chronic joy as I did, and witnessing it from the inside taught me to embrace the magic of life.

    To me, personal growth and spiritual evolution is the deliciousness of life. I grow along with my clients, each and every time.

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  • I can’t even wrap my mind around the genetic factor, that’s just so fatalistic. I thought depression was a natural response to living in an unjust, unsafe, and violent world. Buddhists teach detachment, which, in this case, I think would be a viable remedy. Then, we can get the information we need to move forward with relative ease. That’s what those teachings are all about.

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  • Not sure how this leads to anything practical, seems to distract more than anything. We’re grasping at straws–and costly ones at that–to deflect personal responsibility. Hmmm, what can we blame now so we’re not forced to look in the mirror and take a good, hardy, and truthful look at ourselves? That’s the only way things in the mental health world are going to get unstuck.

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  • Of course I agree completely and find it tragic that children are subject to this. I’ve approached this topic with clinicians and also with parents, and unfortunately, the problem seems to be that parents validate the medication, because, to their mind, it has ‘calmed the child down,’ and helped them focus, that they’re doing better in school, etc. I don’t pursue it because I’m not trying to invade someone’s free will of choice, especially when it’s their kids, not mine, and they’re the ones dealing with this, not me. Although I certainly say that there are alternatives to this. Mostly, they’re not interested, because it would be so foreign to them to go against Drs. orders–which I think is a problem, that’s cultural programming and gullibility.

    But my feeling is always that this is more than likely a short term effect, and there are far-reaching repercussions, that nothing has really been solved, just made worse in an insidious way.

    Although I feel like saying this off the cuff to a parent who has been through a lot with their kid would be simply instilling fear, when they at least feel some peace of mind at that moment. I know it’s temporary, but I don’t feel it’s my place to predict anyone’s future like this, I think that would be presumptuous of me, and not terribly responsible. Although I do include this kind of information when I teach or do presentations, in general, and allow discussion around it. It really does elicit so much anxiety, when the parents feel they have it all figured out, thanks to diagnosis and meds.

    Overall, I’m thinking that parents would be the best target of education, since they are the ones making the decisions. The issue here, then, becomes that then, parents have to grow in their awareness and address some of their own issues, and accommodate the child in ways which they are often reluctant to do. So I see a double-bind here.

    Perhaps parenting would be the issue to address, that would hit home more. Clinicians are detached and impersonal, not part of the family dynamic.

    I feel that this is what is in question: what are we teaching children to believe about themselves? That they are limited, inappropriate, and out of control when they are trying to create and communicate? They do have their own individual spirits, which need nurturing, not medicating, that’s ludicrous.

    That’s what concerns me the most, as far as how they will feel as adults, with these invalidating and negative internalized messages festering inside them, self-stigmatizing.

    Addressing parenting in an assertive yet sensitive way would lead to a lot of shifting in questionable family dynamics, which would lead to a lot of healing–for individuals, families, and communities at large. No needs for meds or diagnosis or anything of the kind. And it would be generational, because healing begets healing.

    But when we label and medicate kids, that’s a terrible prognosis for society, disaster just waiting to happen. I think we’re seeing the evidence around us daily at this point. This is really kind of an emergency kind of situation, good grief. I agree, it has to stop. Let’s nurture our kids, not condemn them, or make them scapegoats for our lack of tolerance.

    Thanks for this focus of change, so sorely needed.

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  • “Healing requires understanding ourselves as holistic beings for which everything we do matters. It also requires understanding that as individuals every path to wholeness is different.”

    That’s really the bottom line, isn’t it? Finally, we’re honoring ourselves, our hearts, our voices, and our unique individual spirits.

    Aside from all the physically-oriented work I had to do to heal (gut healing, yin/yang balancing, working out energy blocks, re-routing neural pathways, etc.), healing for me was, more than anything, about forgiving the past, so that I could really heal my heart and accept the totality of who I am in present time, without the baggage from the trauma. That not only shifted my self-perception and my entire outlook on life, and even my perception of others, coming now from a more empathic and soul-like perspective (which really helped me to release fear, resentment, and judgment), but it also directly lit up my own path toward full healing and integration.

    When the heart is calm, expansive, and robust from forgiveness and gratitude, then our minds clear and we’re in direct communication with our spirits as well as the universe. For me, this was like a lumen lighting up my path, and it hasn’t failed me yet. That’s the inner guidance I continue to follow. For me, personally, that healed anything that I had up to that point believed was chronic. In the world of energy healing, nothing is chronic and everything is repairable. That was a huge discovery for me.

    Keep up the beautiful work, Monica, you’re helping a lot of people. Best wishes with your continued healing, and the work you do for the betterment of others. I love witnessing the healing and evolution of others, as I continue with my own personal growth. I think that’s what a healthy, balanced and mutually empathic community is all about.

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  • I don’t bother posting this here any longer, although I’ve worked with people on this site, and they claimed I’ve helped them a great deal.

    But what you said made me think about all that I put together as I was healing while on disability in San Francisco, one of the most expensive and, these days, intolerant cities in the world. It’s truly a jungle, people are angry, mean, and competitive, and I trudged through all of that while sick on and off meds, to my healing, being demeaned and stigmatized all the way. I don’t know anyone else who went to legal mediation to directly challenge this. That was really rough, I had no advocacy support, other than my attorney. But no one from mental health, I did this on my own, before I even heard of mad pride or a survivors movement.

    The work that I do now is the result of all that I endured and survived, and it wasn’t easy, but I had faith and it all came together. This is what I did as a response to my suffering at the hands of the system, so that, perhaps, others can have an easier time of it: http://www.embodycalm.

    If you check the testimonials page, you’ll see another perspective. Every word is authentic, from my students and clients, and the endorsement is from the teacher/healer that really spearheaded my healing, to miraculous heights. On the last film is a film I made while traversing a mine field of politics, and I got away with it, did it at no cost, just imagination and faith, and I’ve done great with it.
    On top of that, I became an actor in the Bay Area, just out of the system, while going through mediation. I took a risk, and it paid off. That’s a pretty rough and tumble world, too, but at least it’s creative and fun, which is how it was healing to me.

    I learned a lot going the way out alternative route, all I needed. And I’m very proud of what I accomplished. I’m not intending to sound like a braggart here, but what you said made me mad because it was so incredibly presumptuous, and I thought we were on the same side. This is what confuses me around here, what exactly are the issues that are supposed to be uniting people?

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  • Not the first time I’ve heard this haven’t heard this, B. I’m so well aware of what some people in this community think about my perspective.

    But, like others, I went from a chronically truly horrible and terrifying state from the same traumatic experiences which people here describe, and I went through all the anger and resentment and chaos and blame and rage and grief, etc., for years, and then I finally found what I needed and it worked.
    I enjoy sharing what I learned and expressing my truth, and feel that’s one of the purposes of this website. Although the dialogue portion can be iffy, as far as really fleshing out ideas to clarity.

    Not sure really what to say, I mean, it totally works for me, I’m one of the happiest people I know, and I suffered for years and years due to meds and all that crap. Of course you don’t have to subscribe to it, but why would you want to begrudge me my truth, sort of bordering on invalidating and demeaning, almost shaming, perhaps? I don’t know, but these kinds of comments are what really make me step back. What is the purpose of them, other than to judge and invalidate? You’re always calling out abuse, and to me, this feels a bit abusive, if only because I’m coming from an open heart. It’s why I say this website can be unsafe.

    I’m not asking you to believe, but some people might benefit from considering what I say. I’m a very successful teacher and counselor, been doing it for years. A lot of people follow what I teach and succeed with this, and they’d totally disagree with you. As well as being called ‘rosy viewed,’ I’ve also been called a light and lumen, because I’ve been through my trials by fire in spades, and healed from it (whether people believe what I say on here is another story, this is a really tough crowd!).

    Who do you think I’m going to listen to, you or them? That’s how we discern our personal reality.

    What you and others say and feel about my truth is the reason I consider myself courageous for posting here. It’s relevant, and some agree with me. Either way, I don’t think it’s inappropriate at all, so I do respect your opinion.

    I do wish you were a bit more empathic, however, to the fact that I’m human and I’ve been through my trials and learned from them, so I don’t consider myself naïve.

    But I do consider a lot of people here to be painfully cynical, and that’s hard for me at this point, as I think that causes suffering, pure and simple, and that’s what we’re trying to address in order to alleviate. So it’s kind of ironic to me that there would be such a plethora of cynicism, although I know where it comes from, I’ve been through all that.

    Still, I respect our diversity. Thanks for your honest–albeit not terribly kind or supportive–comment.

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  • Aligning with our own truth–i.e., walking our talk–is what healing is all about. Otherwise, we exist in a consciousness split, and that’s not at all conducive to clarity. So healing is about honoring our own truth, whatever that may be, over that of another. That’s ease, and peace of mind, very grounding.

    I think the main point of contention in this debate about ‘mental health care and practices’ is about whether our own truth is honored, or are we expected to embody the truth of our ‘counselors?’ which is what the DSM is all about, conforming to some societal standard that is so not truth, as most of us have discerned already. To me, that’s the epitome of intolerance.

    And the reason its not truth, is that it harms so many people in the name of health care. How can that be, in any way, truth? There’s no heart in that, so no truth.

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  • ‘Truth’ is an energy–a vibration, if you will–which is felt in the heart, not a measure or analysis of whether something is or is not fact. Being able to discern between what is heartfelt and what is bullsh*t (truth vs illusion) is a really great skill to have, and one that most psychiatric survivors expertly possess, after learning through really hard knocks, and healing from the trauma of it all, to reach clarity. Most of us look back and say, “Oh wow, I see what happened. I was being fed tons of bs, and it drove me mad.” That would point toward social healing.

    There’s no distinction between the truth of a ‘diagnosed’ person vs. a ‘non-diagnosed’ person. Truth is truth, and bs is bs, regardless of who projects it. I think everyone on the planet is exactly equal and the same in this regard.

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  • I kept thinking about this as I was just now running some errands, and what formulated for me as I processed this is that, really, what we tend to perceive as odd or weird or fringy could actually be truth and light, in its purest form. After all, we’ve all been so media-programmed as a society to conform, that even being non-conforming could actually be more out of hostility and resentment, rather than truly allowing ourselves to be who we really are. That’s our rebellion, but not necessarily our light.

    Of course, that fear of being different does rear its ugly head occasionally, when we are not feeling our own love. So really, what mainstream calls ‘weird’ is really the new normal, when we honor the truth of our diversity.

    A sick society (as per Krishnamurti’s quote) looks just like what we see around us daily, in neat and tidy ‘polite’ language and power dressing to impress and intimidate–cookie cutter, Stepford Wives type thing. That’s corporate, and also brown shirt Fascism. No diversion from the accepted norm, no creativity, no individuality, etc., which is what makes the system so toxic.

    So I imagine that a healthy society would look completely different–perhaps weird and odd and fringy, from a mainstream point of view. If I were to be viewed this way, I’d consider myself triumphant in accomplishing full separation and identification with anything mainstream, which would be my goal. I do have a very normal, grounded, and productive life, so that perception of me would only validate that I’m off the mainstream radar, which is really a heavy burden lifted.

    I thought of all this because I feel what would make the new professional society novel would actually be the incredible diversity. If no one looks weird, then there is neither diversity, tolerance, or freedom in that culture, and only more of the same societal oppression, expectations, and dualistic judgment. I think that definitely, we want to distinguish ourselves from this.

    In theater, I learned about permission, which allows everyone to be themselves, we give permission for everyone’s process and spirit. It’s why actors and performers can be so incredibly creative while being courageously vulnerable, displaying their soul for audiences. That’s incredibly empowering.

    That’s what my healing business is based on. I don’t ever at all expect someone to aspire to my life, energy, or path. I help them find the connection to their own heart, path, spirit, and authentic personality. We’re often quite surprised when we unmask ourselves, perhaps often, more surprised than those around us. That’s great growth!

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  • Chaya, I very much appreciate what you say, here, because I’m one of those entrepreneur, and the fee thing has been such a conflicting issue for me over the years.

    What I charge has varied so much, and is usually the result of an agreement made between me and client, based on their financial situation. I always call it a donation, though, because I don’t want people to feel that if they can’t afford what I set as a fee, then I’m not available to them. Of course I am, so I say pay whatever you’re comfortable paying. To me, it’s a ‘gratitude donation,’ and I receive it as such.

    Then there’s the part of my practice which I really enjoy doing as a volunteer, and I do this robustly because it feels so good, and it makes me feel abundant. Including my film, which I’ve always only offered as a public service, I’ve made no money on it, yet it changed my life as though I had made millions, seriously. It allowed me to be free and retire from the oppressive rat race so that I could do my own thing, total freedom. Given that the film was about truth speaking as way to heal, and calling out injustice, stigma and discrimination, I feel the universe has validated me big time. I made it with no money, while on disability, and I’ve been rewarded in all ways that were truly transforming in every way. Still amazing to think about, and trace how all that occurred–a series of miracles, really.

    That’s the power of energy, as we can achieve abundance simply from knowing how to focus in a way that creates it. That’s part of my healing program, how to connect with our stream of abundance, we all have it. It’s just that all this trauma and illusion has cut us off from it because it made us feel dependent, that was part of the program we were given. ‘Abundance’ is a really powerful spiritual energy, which transcends ‘money.’

    While I try to keep from being taken advantage of and drained from too much giving and not enough receiving, at the same time, I know the universe has my back and pays me. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve done pro bono healing work for someone in need, and within a week, something really spectacular comes to me, often a check from another source I had not expected. That’s happened more than a few times. It’s pretty awesome to experience this, because I feel as though I’m being well taken care of, whether I charge or not.

    Although still, I think it’s important to have mutual energy exchange, so even charging $5 is symbolic of this, so there is a sense of an exchange taking place, which I feel is sound, especially in healing. A healer utilizes a lot of energy on the behalf of the client, and that does need to be replenished, somehow.

    Although I did take pause with this sentiment:

    “The good news is you can move from ‘crazy weirdo living on the fringes’ to valued visionary who connects the dots for others, bringing them relief, peace, joy, inspiration and magic, all of the things we humans value the most.”

    Isn’t this really in the eye of the beholder? Our identity is based on how we feel about and perceive ourselves, not on labels or on what others perceive or interpret, based on our own personal or business practices. We can’t really help or control what others project, and we do live in such a judgmental and stigmatizing society, where one tends to shoot first and never asks questions. The words you use here are a perfect expression of very dangerous stigma, as it is totally disregarding of a person’s humanity, which makes them extremely vulnerable to abuse and degradation. I know that’s what we’re trying to eradicate, so I wanted to include this here.

    Overall, though, I believe our new generation of healers and teachers has an opportunity to go way outside the box, and create an entirely new model of business. I ran businesses for the first 20 years of my working life, so I know how it’s done, and I know what it implies by today’s business standards.

    But I don’t run my business the same way, not at all, because I don’t want to fall into the same power dynamics which can easily come with money, and that does screw things up, from my experience, especially when it comes to healing. I’ve had paying clients try to hold money over me as a way of control and manipulation, which is when I know they need lessons in humility and gratitude, that would be healing to a person who does this. When I see a dangling carrot, I’m actually seeing a red flag, that would be how I perceive it.

    Anyway, just some thought I wanted to offer, my whole process around this, in fact. I think it’s important, because it’s part of the emerging new world of healing. How do we want to do things better than they’ve been done before? is always my question as I continue to evolve and expand my practice.

    Thank so much for bringing this up, it’s giving me some new thoughts on the matter. This issue has been never-ending with me! Money is fine, I don’t have a problem with it, per se, but I really hate our collective *attachment* to money, I must confess, as this renders us powerless, in the end. Like anything else, money is just energy. Abundance, however, is part of our spirit, so we’re entitled to it, always.

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  • Absolutely agreed, 100%! We all have interesting/bizarre phenomena occur to us from time to time that can be disorienting and confusing. When we explore the unknown with trust (and even excitement) rather than fear and shame, the outcomes are inevitably much, much better–pretty much black & white, in fact.

    Thank you so much for your perspective. Personally, I think it’s the ticket to healing, universally.

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  • SE, I’ve read your comment through a few times, and I’m really so struck with the light in it, there’s just this totally logical and heartfelt flow and ease to it, gives a really clear and comprehensive picture in just a few short paragraphs.

    Personally, it seems to me that you have seen past the illusions and you know truth. I know how hard that can be to trust in such a cynical world, with all those negative and invalidating messages, but I say this because it occurs to me that if you can heal your own doubt and align with the certainty of what you say, I think that would really ground you, and this would really empower you from the inside. You really have a broad perspective which to me, feels like absolute truth, feels really good in that sense of clarity.

    No doubt that you are a true visionary. I think that’s awesome!

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  • SE, your post hear literally brought tears to my eyes…not from sadness (although that is there from the reality which we are currently perceiving and experiencing) but really from your light and truth, that always pokes my heart in just the right way. Indeed, we’ve really sunk, and YES, hope is better than despair–as despair is hopelessness, and that is what really sinks us.

    Your words ring so true to me, thank you. And I do think the kingdom of heaven is on Earth now, it’s just a matter of awakening to it, by trusting our hearts, which broadens our vision. (But don’t tell anyone I said this because, well, you know what they’d think :))

    God Bless that incredibly courageous and articulate heart of yours!

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  • “Love is the force.” Indeed, it is, and unfortunately, ‘love’ is as vastly interpreted and for some, as confusing, as is the concept of ‘psychosis.’

    This article–and especially that quote–prompted me to reflect on the energy of ‘love.’

    What is love?

    That has many answers, but to me, it all boils down to feeling and navigating life with our hearts, which is, in reality, what fuels our thoughts, perceptions, and actions.

    So how do we inspire love in others?

    First, we have to know what love feels like in our own hearts. Betrayal of trust, living in a fear-based world, and other traumas, constrict our hearts and instead of love, we feel fear. These two cannot exist in the same space, as they are antithetical to each other. Fear is the absence of love.

    When we feel love, we know how to trust our hearts, and this becomes our inner guidance, which is uniquely our own. When we feel love, we know there is, in reality, nothing to fear. Whereas when we are not feeling love, our perception is different, and even kindness can appear as a threat, as in the response “What do you want from me??” Fear, panic, and paranoia is what come from lack of love, because it is lack of trust.

    To me, love is trust and is what connects absolutely everyone on some level, and to all that is. Sadly, our hearts have been so wounded, collectively, that it can be really hard to feel love, and this universal connection, and trust can be hard to come by.

    Although I always know it’s in there somewhere, when I either feel unloving or feel this from others. Usually there’s some negative crud to get out of the way, and to me, that’s what healing is all about, clearing the energy of our hearts.

    Dialogue can be challenging with those whom do not feel love, because words can be interpreted cynically, through pure negative projection. Usually, it’s like having a ‘chip on your shoulder,’ an unresolved conflict that spills into every aspect of the dialogue, inhibiting clarity and real progress, making it all personal, rather than taking ownership of our experience. It can get messy, but sticking with it, mindfully in present time and with trust in the process, can lead to light and truth, and a lot of healing for all concerned.

    However, dialogue can be hard to tolerate when there is no love, which, I think, is why people end up forced medicated. The receiver of the client’s information is not in their heart. That can be a huge and even disastrous problem for the client, if they are unsuspecting and vulnerable.

    The paradox is that when we have been in the habit of not feeling love, it can be hard to receive it, and in fact, when it comes to us, we don’t recognize it, and in fact, reject it as something threatening. That’s a distortion of thought based on post traumatic stress and fear.

    When we feel true and authentic love (you know it when you feel it), we have clarity and peace of mind, as this is the inner voice with which to dialogue for internal support, inner guidance, and to achieve self-respect and personal sovereignty over our lives. At least, this has been my experience, in its totality.

    To heal from so-called ‘mental illness,’ I had to feel love in my heart, first, by addressing all the wounds head on and working through them diligently, including at least an attempt to dialogue with those by whom I felt betrayed. Then, I forgave absolutely everyone on that list, including those within the mental health industry that gave me a ridiculously and unwarranted hard time, that almost cost me my life. Doesn’t necessarily heal the relationship, as most people don’t want to hear this, and don’t even care about being forgiven, but it does heal our own fear, and brings us great courage and confidence. Releasing resentment allows love into our hearts.

    This created a loving relationship within myself that no one can sabotage, because I know what love feels like in my heart, that’s my guidance, so it’s always my priority when I face conflict with anyone. Certainly my heart can constrict if triggered just the right way, as with anyone, but my first order of business is always to align with my heart again, feel the inherent love that is me and everyone, and THEN go back to the discussion–or not, if I feel it’s really hopeless and only draining to me at that point. That’s a matter of discerning my own feelings and intuition about the relationship at hand.

    Once I got this, my path lit up with clarity and it led to my healing, integration, and newfound wholeness. My purpose in life now is to give back, which I do every day. I know my heart and I know love, so that goal is met for the rest of my days.

    Once we connect or re-connect with the love that is inherently within us–all of us–then it is an infinite resource of loving support, personal wisdom, and spiritual abundance. From this perspective, it seems that heart healing is essential for the human spirit to thrive. Without it, I shudder to think–the evidence is already all around us.

    Lack of love = fear = violence; Love = inner peace = world peace. Perhaps not to everyone, but to me, these equations ring totally true, so the answer would seem clear. But that’s just me…

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  • Yes, probiotics help with achieving mental clarity, as well as bolstering immunity. The only thing missing from the equation, here, is the heart. When the gut cools, it in turn cools the heart, and THAT’s what calms the brain activity.

    When the heart has been wounded by chronic betrayal, shaming, etc., it constricts, which leads to chronic rage, grief, despondence, etc. This affects brain activity, thoughts, perception, how we respond to external factors, and even to our own thoughts and actions. With heart constriction, we are likely to feel more guilt, fear, or even victimization, even when we are not really being victimized. That can easily be a perception. The world feels and looks different when your hearts are constricted, darker and more bleak, and also effort-filled.

    But when our hearts are relaxed, open, feeling hope, optimism, and joy, then our thoughts become calmer, more uplifting, and our stress tolerance raises considerably. This is what leads to ease and clarity in life.

    The heart is where consciousness really begins, because what we feel in our hearts is truth, this is our spirit; whereas what we perceive with our brains is simply that, a perception. Often, the brain misguides us with illusions, whereas our hearts guide us honestly, when we learn to trust our hearts and follow its guidance. Our inner guidance is felt in the heart, so it is important to trust this, to know our true path in life.

    So yes, the gut and brain are connected, but through the heart. That’s the vital organ in this equation. When healing from anything, the heart is a good place to start because without addressing heart wounding, healing is limited and temporary. The heart is what most wants to heal, and when it does, the rest falls in line with relative ease.

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  • Right now, crimes against humanity is the way the world is operating. I don’t think there are enough courtrooms, attorneys, and judges in the world that could handle the caseload, were all of the perpetrators and accomplices to be arrested. It’s why so-called ‘mental illness’ (fear, rage, grief, and despair overload is how I read it) is epidemic at this point.

    Relief from all of this has to occur somehow, but I don’t think it’s going to be through the legal system. It’s pretty much part of the problem, too.

    I’m sure we’re at a breaking point, which will bring in change, but it’s anyone’s guess what this will look like. I, for one, however, am ready for this shift to occur in no uncertain terms. You’re right, that it keeps rolling forward, as if nothing were wrong. To me, that speaks of an abrupt change coming, kind of a rude awakening. Were the system just a tad more humble and reasonable, we might have some ease with the necessary changes that are undoubtedly coming, but I’m afraid they won’t have that, so we’ll see what happens.

    But one thing of which I’m certain–it has to change and it will. More and more people are waking up to all this, and everyone is sick and tired of deceit and oppression in all walks of life. I think we’re on it, but I wouldn’t expect the legal world to be much help here. This is about we, the people…

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  • Perfectly said, every word. Indeed, we deserve better, so a viable option is to create it ourselves. After all, we are the society, us, ourselves.

    I’ve already created this freedom for myself, and will do anything to help others in this regard. I, myself, am sick and tired of the “power crazy rich psychopaths” ruining life for everyone and not caring one bit the harm they are causing to humanity and the destruction to the planet. There is, indeed, a better way. Anyone can write me for more info on this, if they choose to explore this further, [email protected].

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  • At the risk of over-posting (I should stop for the day), I did want to bring this full circle to the article. I consider myself to be extremely high functioning, as do those around me, have been for quite some time now.

    However, I’d be curious to know how it appears from observation, if one has no idea what my story is. Would I appear low functioning if the only thing people knew about me was that I was on disability? There is SOOOO much more to that story, one couldn’t possibly assess without hearing some relevant details, which they so often don’t want to hear, for some reason.

    So, indeed, what are we talking about here when we assess high vs low functioning? Judgment calls from sheer ignorance of what is really going on with another person? That’s what it seems like to me. In fact, that would be my chief complaint with mental health care—how they fill in those blanks, from completely projected judgments. To my mind, there’s the #1 disability factor at play…

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  • And btw, I’ve tried to transition from disability a million times but I not only got no support, I got sabotaged in pretty hostile ways by pure stigma and discrimination, from the system and its tangents, which is where my work is relevant.

    So yes, they make you sick, take your money, then leave you stranded on SSD. Ok, well, I’ve certainly made the best of it and it’s turned out to be freeing, because I don’t at all buy into the stigma of ‘disability.’ I know why it’s prolonged for me, that’s completely political, and as it turns out, all of this mess guided me to my freedom and happiness. So really, I have absolutely nothing to complain about, and everything for which to be grateful. The rest is gravy…

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  • That the world runs on money is the biggest illusion that exists. That is a lie that has been told to us for centuries, by RICH people who like to hoard! It’s a false idol, totally transient and impermanent.

    Money is meant for fun, like many things in life are, not for survival, or even for creativity. I came from money, and, even though I produced and accomplished a lot there, that world made me sick and disabled from the pressure. Once I saw past this illusion, and that took work to shift what I though I knew to something much broader, it freed me in all ways, eventually. Again, I had to be diligent in my focus to heal, but I was and it worked.

    Most of my money went to psychiatric care, in the long run, and now I survive very well on a modest fixed income. So, so, so much happier now, satisfied, fulfilled, I know my power, voice, and heart.

    Plus, I’ve created my best and most valued stuff with no money–like a film and a multi-dimensional healing practice. Changed my entire outlook and life being able to do all of this without money. That was a game-changer, in every way.

    Plus, I was able to find the environment that suits me best, so I’m extremely comfortable. I had no money or credit, but I learned in my healing how to make things happen. That’s the miracle after the dark-night-of-the-soul. Everyone has the potential to reach this, if they just relax a bit into exploring the unknown with some flexibility.

    I learned this for the second half of my life, now I can enjoy it fully. The past is an illusion, I’m over it.

    Maybe one day I’ll have more money and maybe I won’t. I don’t care, not at all. I hardly charge for my healing services, if at all, because I love being a volunteer in the world. Money screws that all up. I would never go back to having money if it means giving up my freedom.

    Money isn’t freeing, it’s more imprisoning, like an addiction–it’s never enough, you need more and more, especially if others are making the millionaire’s list and you’re not. I’ve seen people lose their minds over that kind of pressure. No thanks! This is wayyyyy better–healthier and safer. I don’t rely on money, either, for security, but that’s more spiritual in nature, so I won’t go into that here.

    Still, I think it’s a much better reality than: I NEED money. That’s the biggest lie ever told, in this world of many media-related illusions.

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  • Just for clarity, here, there is no shame whatsoever in applying for public assistance, as it is so often needed, at least temporarily (well, to my mind, that should be the case, because if not, it only means we are not tapping everyone’s creative potential, which is tragic in a society, such as ours).

    Yes, there is systemic disregard, stigma, and discrimination projected, but that is the shame of those projecting it, exclusively. No need to take this on, as there is no need to feel any shame or anything of the kind when applying for public assistance when it is warranted. I think it’s wise and heroic, knowing how to utilize your resources. Why not? It’s there for that reason! That’s just good self-care, nothing else.

    I work with clients on public assistance and when they come to me with this issue, which they inevitably do, I suggest that they not take on the shame of others, that’s just good ol’ fashioned stigma. Don’t believe it, just accept your monthly check with gratitude, and live your life at peace from all that stuff. Who needs it?

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  • I think what I’m trying to say, overall, is that if we go through life seeking approval of others, as is what happens when we grow up feeling ‘disapproved of” (as per certain labels, and more importantly, how we are mirrored back, as children), then we will never know our truth or our full potential. When we can ascend this need to please or somehow placate others with our thoughts, feelings, actions, and decisions, then we become lost, because we are only living for others, not ourselves. To my mind, this would eventually lead to the kind of imbalance and confusion that most people associate with the term “mental illness.”

    When we stop seeking approval and trust our own process unequivocally, defining ourselves as we go, with both, certainty and flexibility, then we learn from our “mistakes,” and can even see how they enlighten us, rather than judge ourselves from them, and we grow. This is clarity and peace of mind, which to me, is mental health.

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  • Indeed, if that is how we are perceived as children and identified this way, then I can see how this would become an internalized self-identity, which of course, would haunt until rectified with good healing. That would involve practicing the self-validating approach, and sure, it can require a lot of practice, focus, and diligence to rewrite this internalized message, because the thoughts and beliefs we practice repeatedly become ingrained as neural pathways, . But, we can change this ourselves, with practice, which, personally, I feel it’s essential for ease, clarity, and good quality of life.

    As adults, however, I’ve certainly noticed the variability in my functioning from time to time, but that is only relative to what I know is my usual habit and also my potential. It’s why I’m a bit proponent of know yourself, heal yourself, grow yourself, and forget about what others think, if it doesn’t feel good to you. That’s the kind of specious and sabotaging support we’re trying to replace with genuine compassion and empathy, based on a perspective other than what ‘others’ expect. Relying on the observation of others, as opposed to knowing our own truth, is the essence of powerlessness, and leads to all sorts of co-dependent stuck-ness.

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  • Actually, I’m gong to take this back, about whether or not people are conscious of how they try to shame others. Sometimes, no, it is not at all deliberate, and when this is the case, I’d expect a reasonably compassionate response when I say how I feel about what is being said to me, and we’d clear up the misunderstanding.

    However, there have been instances when I’m sure it was purposeful. Although my example of this comes from an interaction I had with the ED of an “advocacy” agency (in name only), who did not like me because I was ‘anti-system,’ and of course, they are funded by systems money (that’s his own self-imposed double-bind).

    I had a strong voice in this organization, so he was always trying to cut me off at the knees, which by this time, I was impervious to, so it was more amusing than not to me that he would try this with me, although still, it would make me angry that he was in such a powerful position to do good and help others, whereas in reality, he had this horribly negative and stigmatizing attitude, true narcissism.

    So once, at a meeting we both attended at the public defender’s office having to do with police “anti-stigma training” (also in name only), he said to me out of the blue, “Alex, have you ever had run ins with the police?” He knew full well I hadn’t, my psychiatric history has to do with anxiety, never even remotely about violence or anything like that. Not even close, and he knew it full well. But he seemed to relish in being able to ask me this question, as a way of stigmatizing me in front of the others. He’d also say things like, “I hope I don’t have egg on my face” after I spoke, to imply that I had somehow, embarrassed myself. It was painfully obvious what he was doing. This is advocacy??? I had turned to them for support with my professional growth, and this is what I got in return.

    Btw, it was at this same anti-stigma meeting where other ‘advocates’ were referring to the defendant as ‘wheelchair man’ because they couldn’t remember his name. Crazy-making, indeed. Or better yet, just plain crazy, sad, maddening, surreal, you name it….

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  • I agree that it’s not conscious–at least, not at first. But addressing it is impossible because once they become conscious of it, it’s fight or flight on their part. So even when I’ve attempted to wake them up to what they are doing, it’s a disaster. Yet, I can’t get myself to give up on this endeavor, to wake them up. Whether I–and others– succeed remains to be seen. It may be too big a job for us mere mortals!

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  • Even after reading the comments, I continue to be unclear about what others mean by ‘low functioning’ vs ‘high functioning.’ If it’s about money, job, etc., I don’t see how this could be a measure of anything, other than following the ‘rules of society,’ which, in essence, is indoctrination to the norms, for fear of being perceived as ‘different.’ That speaks to internalized shame and self-stigma, which, indeed, is powerlessness and lack of sense of self. Indeed, that is a dreadful feeling, having been there, done it. Getting over the fear of being different is liberating and healing.

    Going against the grain with purpose and self-awareness is what leads to new ground and desirable changes. Being self-accepting, self-validating, and self-loving is what brings clarity, balance, health, well-being and joy. Who cares about anything else?

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  • Thought-provoking article, and a good reminder to both speak and listen mindfully, rather than from the hip, when trying to communicate for the purpose of achieving clarity and common ground.

    This reminds me of when I went pretty much straight from graduate school, years ago, into the system for support with healing while tapering from meds (this was before I understood the politics of it all, I was naïve to the questionable and specious practices of the system).

    While I completed my education and training with no social issues, which I’ve never tended to have, those with whom I participated in social services group therapy could not understand a word I was saying. My fellow clients called it ‘gibberish,’ and the therapists interpreted it all so cynically that it felt unsafe to even speak after a while, they were pretty ruthless in their responses. Of course, this harmed more than helped me, as it felt like an ambush of negativity and cynicism, when all I was looking for was healing support. This was my rude awakening into what this is industry is really all about, and I learned by taking the hits big time.

    Whereas in my psychology program, when I was a student, just like when I worked in retail customer for several years, I was perceived as an extremely clear communicator, and was usually considered the one setting the example of clarity and transparency. That was my reputation, as it was one of my strengths as a manager. This was mentioned in all of my evaluations.

    But once I started in the system, it reversed, and no one at all could understand me, and considered me to have some kind of communication issue that was part of my ‘disability.’ My partner, who has always understood me perfectly, the way everyone in life has, was as perplexed as I was frustrated.

    Even the attorney whom I found outside the system to help me with a discrimination suit against a voc rehab agency was able to understand me perfectly and hear all I had to say, which is why I succeeded in my mediation. The agency management, on the other hand, right up to the bitter end, continued to interpret what I said in some cynical way, that was really their downfall, as they were making things up, and it was obvious.

    Then it clicked, and I realized that this was how stigma worked, purely, creating a fictitious character in lieu of who ‘the client’ really is–aka, delusional projection. In this case, it was definitely a negative projection, extremely disadvantageous to me, and based purely on a tapestry of fictional stereotypes, so everyone could see that they were the ones askew from reality, whereas I was the one perfectly grounded, centered and clear–triumphant role reversal, for sure.

    And yes, this was all done with strategic language, that became very apparent to all of us. In the end, they lost, because they were speaking a language of their own, thinking it was universal. So that was not only sweet justice for me, but a lesson in how our interpretation of what others say is really what defines our reality and world. They actually crashed and burned, because they would not face universal reality, and continued to create a cynical reality with their language. Had nothing to do with me, not at all.

    While at first it was actually disabling, I have learned well over the years, as a core component of my healing and personal evolution, to not even in the slightest to relate to this. It’s helpful to have people we can trust around us, when others try to get to us this way, to offset the purposeful ambiguity of certain types of speak.

    Thanks for this one, Sera, I think it’s quite relevant to the process and progress of shifting the paradigm away from systemic abuse, oppression, and discrimination as standard operational procedure.

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  • Emmeline, I appreciate your call out for a heightened awareness that this website welcomes those who have been negatively impacted by multiple trauma in their lives, including social trauma due to oppression and discrimination as well as medical malpractice, but still, there is an emotional safety issue here for many with lived experienced.

    One of the vital issues on here is the question of whether clinicians, social workers, and all staff that work with people in a recovery or rehabilitative process, have the required empathy to work effectively with clients. Lack of empathy when working with others in this capacity will inherently do harm to others, even subtly and insidiously when it’s not so obvious in the moment.

    Many of us have pointed out that this is the case–that empathy toward clients has fallen by the wayside, and it is evident in the state of things at present in the mental health world.

    There is a fine line between criticizing ideas and invalidating a person’s process, the latter of which is unambiguously harmful to a person’s health and well-being, if that person is in a process of healing that leaves him/her vulnerable at that moment. Indeed, people are responsible for themselves, but many on here who have dealt with a plethora of conflict in their lives, whether emotionally or physically violent (it’s ALL emotionally violent) causing chronic trauma, will not be able to tolerate the conflict on here. To me, that speaks of a somewhat oppressive and inherently divisive dynamic within the community.

    This is what I see from my perspective, limited of course, because it’s just me on my side of the computer, but I’ve certainly picked up a trend of this growing division and resentment on here, as per lack of empathy, over time.

    I question now whether or not this platform is safe for many people who would like to be more active in the discussions, as per their own healing and education, but who only feel they are walking back into the ring of fire that did them so much harm to begin with. Seems we’re back in the same dynamic that led people to seek health care and counseling support in the first place.

    That’s how professional advocacy felt to me when I had gotten there, just as oppressive and skewed as the system they professed to be fighting…all more of the same. That just repeats social trauma for people, in the exact same way as before.

    This is what I’d like to see change, the entire platform for these discussions. To me, that would be a creative path to new solutions. This feels like a hamster wheel at this point, because the relationship dynamics are simply repeating. People may have new ideas to think about, but communities will continue to sink as they exalting some and demean others, as per their particular norm, so duality will continue to prevail. That is a hotbed for more oppression and discrimination…and for what we are or are not calling ‘mental illness.’ Either way, it is an imbalance and we only perpetuate injustice by continuing to operate in such a ‘survival-of-the-fittest’ manner. I don’t see how this adds any compassion to people who are trying to heal, or to get clarity to the matters at hand. Quite the opposite, in fact.

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  • When I did live with a diagnosis, I, myself, would never have held up a sign like this, because I didn’t feel the need to defend my position around how I perceived myself or my life at any given moment. That’s my business, and the business of those with whom I have intimate relationships, should I choose to involve them. It’s all a process and we allow ourselves to grow in awareness.

    And while I understand that the mental health industry creates an oppressive environment which teaches people to believe they are less than, people do have the right to their process without others compounding the issues by adding their own shame to the process of another.

    This website appears to be more exclusive, divisive, alienating, and marginalizing at this point, rather than inclusive and unifying. I don’t understand the point of that, if we are seeking change. That seems like more of the same to me.

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  • Although I will say this, regarding groups–I think when groups come together over matters of the heart, it can, perhaps, be authentic. But first, it’s vital we have an uplifting relationship with ourselves, and that requires that we become acquainted with and embrace our ever-expansive nature to, indeed, become more fully human, as you imply. Perhaps that’s a never-ending process, but I do believe it is the journey we are all on, from day to day, becoming more fully ourselves.

    When people come together in that state of being, miracles can happen. I’ve witnessed this repeatedly. It’s amazing what happens when truly heart-centered and spiritually aware people come together. To me, that would transcend the bonding ‘need,’ and in turn, it becomes an expansive, open, and ever-creative community, very powerful. But it has to be authentic, because it is based on transparency and full diversity, no exceptions. That is the unifying force of unconditional love, it extends to absolutely everyone.

    With this awareness, I don’t see how violence can even be on the radar, because from this perspective, we know from where it stems: our own projections. When we take full responsibility and own our inner conflicts, the outer ones begin to dissipate. Plus, we feel a lot better, so in that process, we enjoy life more. So to me, owning our inner conflicts as the root of external conflict is a win/win proposition–feel better, and change the world in the process. Why not?

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  • “I ask readers to contemplate the reality that we are not yet fully human and all our PROJECTIONS onto external reality, are created by internal processes which are essentially PSYCHOTIC in nature. And that all group behaviour, whether it be a group labelled psychiatry or anti-psychiatry, is based on basic-assumptions that are essentially about binding and bonding needs.”

    Brilliant, David, as usual. I agree 100%.

    I always love reading your impassioned, expertly-reasoned, and, to my mind, enlightened truth. You’re a lumen, as far as I’m concerned. So great to see you posting here again 🙂

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  • “Abuse and systemic violence does not go away no matter how spiritual you get.”

    In reality, I believe abuse and discrimination do transform and eventually cease when we perceive from and embody a spiritual perspective as an expansion of what we have learned collectively so far. It’s another, very broad, dimension of reality, that I believe is universally relevant.

    Abuse is abuse, and I’m not calling it anything other than that. But when we know how to connect with our spiritual nature (which is a practice and discipline, not an academic exercise), then we know how to heal abuse in our own lives and stop patterns of abuse; instead, shifting the nature of our relationship with others by feeling our power within them, rather than fear and intimidation. That changes our relationship with ourselves for the better.

    When we have abusive patterns, we abuse ourselves, via self-punishing self-talk, when no one else is around to do it, so that is one thing we can change ourselves, as a way of finding relief from such anxiety as self-hatred. That changes the world around us, right there, just from that internal shift from self-judgment to self-appreciation and self-validation. It extends outward. That is a basic spiritual principle which I see at work every day, 100%.

    This happens one person at a time, where each of us can create a different relationship pattern, where we are empowered, and not susceptible to abuse. That takes focus, perception, and transforming our consciousness. It’s a shift in perception that requires focus and diligence at first, until it becomes second nature, as well as open-minded and open-hearted contemplation. So it’s not easy when we’re in the habit of perceiving so much abuse and discrimination, causing us to recoil our hearts.

    But not only am I convinced it is possible, but to my mind, it’s THE way to transform systemic violence such as what occurs via psychiatry. Not easy, but it’s sound, and it’s the shift in paradigm that will heal abuse because it’s how we change reality, by changing our perception.

    Shifting ourselves–our beliefs, self-perception, how we approach situations, attitude, perspective, etc.–is the most efficient and healthful way to create change outside of ourselves. That is the nature of spiritual healing.

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  • Inferring that someone is “2nd class,” btw, is for purposes of shaming, to throw someone off kilter, so the focus on discrimination and abuse is diffused. It’s a tool, and an effective one at that, because it creates ambiguity and doubt where there is, in reality, clarity and certainty.

    Class division is an illusion, that becomes real when we buy into it. Solution: don’t buy into the stigma.

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  • I think it’s because they are guilty of all that we charge, which is why truth registers as a threat to their consciousness–much like the distorted perception of the light from those in Plato’s cave, who only perceive shadow.

    But the inner being knows the truth, so I can’t imagine that this split is terribly comfortable. Denial can only go so far before it turns into something more evidently toxic and self-sabotaging.

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  • Thanks, Michael, for providing such a perfect example of how the dialogue between survivors and psychiatry/the system is stuck.

    This is so typical of pattern of communication that takes place, whether in public, or worse yet, in a private office setting, face-to-face. This has happened to me and to absolutely everyone I know who has attempted to file a grievance:

    Client/survivor: “I feel abused, dismissed, disregarded, stigmatized, and discriminated against.”

    Psychiatrist (or representative/enabler): “You have issues, you have disorganized thinking, you are outside reality, something is wrong with you, you are paranoid, you are psychotic, you are delusional, this is a pattern for you, you are hurting my feelings, you are making me angry, you are wrong.” My favorite one of all has been, “I don’t have time for this.” I’ve heard ‘em all.

    These would trigger any reasonable, sane, and self-respecting person to high heaven, as it is demeaning, discriminating, dismissive, and completely avoidant of the issue, in favor of pure stigma.

    Fortunately, the law has been on my side, so I was able to get past this, but it was so draining. I had to heal simply from standing up for my rights when they were denied. They don’t make it easy, not at all. In fact, the mediator who facilitated my legal mediation 10 years ago said, “You can go further, but they’re going to make your life hell.” Being given the option to fight for justice with the promise of such personal sacrifice, simply because they can get away with it, is neither encouraging nor tempting. I’d already been through hell, I was not looking for another round trip ticket in that direction.

    First of all, at no time have I ever heard, “I’m so glad you said something, I had no idea you were feeling this way. Please tell me why you feel this way and we’ll see if we can uncover some truth, here, see what’s going on that got us to this point.” Or something to that affect, not intimidating, defensive, combative, or demeaning, but neutral and with some legitimate and heartfelt concern to actually correct this matter reasonably, regardless from where it originates. And, with some personal ownership in tow. THAT would be reasonable, mature, and most of all, healing.

    Jumping to the immediate conclusion that something is ‘wrong’ with the person making the complaint—which is the big and traumatizing double bind for people trying to file grievances from within the system–without careful examination of what has taken place to make a person feel this way, is not only shallow and defensive, I believe it’s actually illegal, as per ADA. Yet, it’s standard procedure. These things need to be taken seriously, rather than to initiate a battle of disparaging insults. That solves nothing, and only makes things worse.

    Second, I think these defensive responses to accusations of abuse and discrimination, which are so real and with plenty of evidence to substantiate that claim, is a perfect illustration of the utter lack of empathy that has gripped the psychiatric field. These grievances come from a place of profound wounding from stigma, marginalization, oppression, discrimination, and general social trauma. That would be something to heal, not make worse with defensiveness. That directly contradicts healing, so they’re totally not doing their jobs here.

    It’s just so clear that this is a closed system, stuck and spiraling downward, until the dialogue between survivors and clinicians becomes reasonable, and with a new dynamic. Is that possible? Who knows? Psychiatrists are among the most stubborn and defensive, sensitive people I know. Indeed, that is a negative characterization, but it’s really and truly what I have experienced. I’m still waiting to find the exception to this, as it has eluded me entirely. The kind of dialogue I associate with psychiatrists is calculated and manipulative, that’s just the honest truth. Why is that? Training? Fear? I don’t know, but it’s always been the case in my attempts to dialogue. It’s why they’re in trouble now, that stuff comes does back to haunt, eventually. It would be great to see this take a turn in another direction, once and for all. How Lieberman responded here is just sos, and it gets so tiresome.

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  • As a highly sensitive person, myself, what I discovered, for me at least, is that this means I’m sensitive to everything equally–toxic, constricting energy as well nourishing, uplifting energy. So I made it a point to, first, practice focusing in a more positive and gentle way when thinking about life or myself or others, etc. After all, I was sensitive to my own thoughts, as well.

    So I turned down judgment, and tapped more into acceptance, appreciation, and heartfelt compassion. I had to do a lot of forgiving and self-forgiving, and letting go of resentment. I found this relaxed my heart, body, and mind a great deal, and my focus became more about how much love and light can I absorb from the environment, rather than the stuff I had grown really tired of ruminating about (trauma, grief, loss, etc.). I found the more I dwelled on and talked about this, over time, the more I drew it into my experience, became a vicious cycle after a while, and this made my sensitivity more of a curse than a blessing.

    But conversely, the more I focused on topics which made my body feel good and relaxed, rather than tense and uptight, the more I drew good feeling thoughts and experiences into my path, engulfing me with feelings of joy and relaxation. That’s when I relish in my sensitivity, because highly sensitive people have a high capacity for feeling joy and love as much as anything else.

    That way, at least, my sensitivity works for me, in that it attracts love, light, and calm into my life–and into my body–which was like a soothing balm, healing to the effects of trauma.

    I think sensitivity is a precious gift–to feel life is to live life–to which we have to tend constantly. Then, we have a clear radar with which to navigate our lives, from a space of gratitude, appreciation, and love. These were some of the most vital lessons I learned in my healing, addressing how to be sensitive in an insensitive world.

    Thanks for stimulating my thoughts about this. Brought me some new clarity. Blessings!

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  • Love this, I have to chime in, especially since you voiced an insecurity about what you say. I, for one, feel it’s the closest thing to clarity I’ve seen on MIA.

    As long as a counselor’s/coach’s counter-transference is in check and a co-dependent power relationship is not re-created, then I think you’re spot on. I was thinking along the same lines, that the ‘movement’ as I would see it, is, in reality, simply this, at the core: healing away from psychiatry. And this will, indeed, leave psychiatry in the dust. It’s a boycott en masse, which certainly speaks of earlier activists and freedom fighters. When at all possible, boycott the institution, and create new ways. That’s exactly how we evolve as a society.

    As far as the government’s involvement in all this, along with big business, pharma, etc., and all that corruption, these are such complex matters with so much going on behind closed doors, that I feel will inevitably resolve themselves as people stop using psychiatric services, when a choice is presented, given all the alternatives that exist now, and which are growing fast, in both numbers and visibility. That’s where our voices most matter, in being able to educate others from our experience with all this. That can be done in so many ways, each and every day.

    Right now, the law allows forced treatment, but going head on with this is certainly not a healing endeavor. The prize may seem nice, but the process is dreadful, I know this from experience. It’s courageous to fight them, and I honor those that do go head on, as I once did. It grew me, but looking back, I could have done more in a way that was way less taxing to me, on every level. So I always like to put out that it’s not always healthy to the mind, heart or soul, in reality, to push against, push against, push against. Some enjoy making those kinds of sacrifices for a cause, but in this case, the goal is healing, not re-creating trauma. That would be contra-indicated here. That’s my perspective.

    Thanks, Andrew, very nice comment, I appreciate the clarity and ease about it. I think it’s the exact right direction in which to go.

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  • I was just doing a search for ‘healing mental illness’ to research a healing manual I’m in the process of creating for my practice, and I found this interesting webpage, not sure what to make of it. She claims that her website and accounts are continually tampered with, so I hope the link works. Many errors here, she says she is typing in a hurry for practical reasons. What she writes here is interesting and scary, outlining many things discussed or implied on this site. Interesting, too, that MIA blogger Tina Minkowitz is mentioned here.

    http://www.healingmentalillness.com/

    In case the link is problematic, this one passage, below, certainly got my attention, seemed relevant to this blog, and something I imagine would raise eyebrows here. I, myself, have exited this website, for the most part, other than occasionally checking in to read about the progress being made in this endeavor to free people from psychiatric harm, so I’m not participating in any discussion here; but I felt this would be good fodder for MIA to consider, as far as outside perception of the psychiatric survivor movement, at least from this one individual who wrote this. I’d never heard this before, although it sure does illustrate the inherent polarization that seems to occur here, chronically:

    “This webpage is intended to help anyone exit psychiatry…This web page also explains how the psychiatric survivor movement is not a grassroots organization. It is an organization with an international agenda. The leaders intend to sabbotage (sic) anyone from really recovering. It will hurt your mental health to have anything to do with it…”

    ??????

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  • “We do need psychiatry, and pharmacology, and a profit motive to drive parts of the industry. But like all industries, medicine and pharmacy need carefully-thought-through guidelines and regulation, without which their noble aims can fall victim to shorter-term considerations.”

    Oh wow, this statement concerns me a great deal, in that I feel it completely undermines the goal, purpose, and nature of healing. No way should it be an ‘industry,’ and no way that “profit” and “noble aims” belong in the same sentence. Imo, that’s an oxymoron.

    I sincerely believe that, in no way, do we need psychiatry and psychiatric pharmacology. The illusion of needing this is based on control and corruption, I thought that was a given by this point. We need a complete restructuring of how we perceive reality. This is cultural programming, in my eyes. I appreciate your perspective, here, but I feel it is limited in many respects, and merits further investigation of antithetical perspectives.

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  • Love this, Emmeline. I feel it actually answers the question I posed to you recently, brings me clarity about that. Thank you so much!

    Love the job you’re doing, btw, seriously. You’ve made an enormous difference in the energy here with your discernment and clear and neutral communication. Very grateful.

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  • To me, this is a matter of semantics, so I’m fine with saying, “Atheism is not believing that anything greater than our physical bodies and egos exist.” At least, that’s my understanding of it, that to an atheist, we live in a purely physical world with no other reality than what we perceive before us with our five physical senses.

    I didn’t mean as in, being ‘in denial,’ to deny “the truth,” because our truths are subjective. I apologize for any confusion. I do try my best with discussing interesting and complex topics via internet, but this problem of language and semantics do arise quite a bit, especially on this website.

    I hope this clarifies my position a bit, regarding my main point, for what it’s worth–that there is more to life than meets the eye, and if we could stretch ourselves here, a bit, we’d find some relief, collectively. That’s all I’m proposing, for healing purposes. Certainly ok to hit the ‘ignore’ button (metaphorically speaking), if you prefer.

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  • “I still caution against suggesting that agnostics or atheists are somehow cut off from an essential inner dimension of themselves. Spirituality may be one framework for exploring meaning in life. But it is not the only framework or even necessarily the best one for people who are highly trained in science or observation.”

    Richard, you are, indeed, accurately, reflecting my views. I’m always flexible, but as of now, I do stand by the idea that lack of spiritual grounding is a type of dissociation, so vital information does go missing. I think this is one reason for a lot of confusion and in-fighting in academia. There is no spirit, so there is not truth, nor is there justice, it’s just random at this point, dog-eat-dog, all personal self-interest, to my mind.

    I don’t at all feel that science and observation trumps spirit and feeling. When we observe, it is still OUR experience we’re observing. Too much projecting in observation. When we observe, we are only seeing our reality, each and every time, which is why it’s good to practice compassion, otherwise, when we judge others, it is our own judgment we feel in our bodies.

    And even huge numbers observing the same thing really amounts to ‘group think’ or ‘group perception.’ You can never nail down reality, it shifts all the time and each and every person has at least a slightly different perspective, also ever shifting and changing. Energy, thoughts, and reality are in perpetual motion, always.

    I totally appreciate your thoughts and respect your position, but like I said, as of now, until I’m shown otherwise, I don’t see at all how science could ever trump spirituality. When one is connected and in communication with his or her spirit (inner being, inner guidance, higher consciousness, et al), one is connected to their truth, unambiguously, so there’s no dependence on outside information. That can only validate or not the information we know intrinsically, when we’re tapped into this, which is a practice and discipline.

    I went from the transition of having an academic mindset to opening up to a grounded spiritual perspective, and the difference is astonishing, remarkable, and for me, it was extremely desirable, in that I relaxed about a million fold, and this allowed me to enjoy life once again, in that I could feel joy and love. These had fallen to the wayside at one time, which is when things went dark for me.

    Spirit is heart consciousness, which is light energy. Academia and science is brain consciousness, which is dense energy. That’s how this is discerned in the field and study of energy frequency, which was part of my training.

    I always say that there is no feeling like being chronically oppressed and stigmatized, like no way out, so one has to experience to understand it. It is only describable as utter powerlessness and perpetual mental chaos–back and forth fear, rage, and grief–because it always lack just and reasonable resolution.

    And, it’s based on people observing me through a non-spiritual lens, because if they did have that perspective, which fuels integrity, this would never have occurred. Again, I’m not talking about simply knowing spirituality, but actually embodying and grounding it, there’s a difference here. The latter takes practice, focus, and discipline. Authentic spirituality needs to be applied to have any practical value. Otherwise, indeed, we can run into the same hypocrisies as anywhere.

    But when a person is spiritual evolved and grounded, that’s where we find safety. It’s an intuitive sense, like all else.

    Same thing for body-spirit connection and communication–until you feel it, it’s impossible to describe. It is multi-dimensional and pure creativity. It is emotional freedom. It is resolution.

    What can I say, Richard, I took my dark-night-of-the-soul through the system, feeling powerless, alone, and in chronic fear, panic and dread, and my healing was a combo of energy work, Chinese Medicine, and a variety of spiritual studies, various perspectives. I did my work and found my truth, voice, heart, grounding, balance, health, and power.

    The journey, itself, is incredibly humbling, and my humility is always knowing that I am not the last word in anything. Still, I’m allowed my opinion and certainty, nothing unsound about that.

    I really believe science is the one to catch up with the spiritual teachings being offered en masse these days, by light workers and energy healers (like me) based on ancient wisdom.

    I got a lot of clarity about myself and my life, leading to inner peace, learning chakras, law of attraction, and kabbalah, from which I synthesized a lot of really great information relevant to healing emotional distress, including those caused by physical issues, as well as social issues. I learned things that medical science has yet to even consider, perhaps, or at best, doesn’t know how to observe yet.

    They’ll catch up, I imagine, but for now, there is viable truth out there that could be effectively applied to healing, but it is not because of personal biases and stigma about spirituality. I think it’s way more powerful than science. Again, that’s just me. I know with certainty I’m quite in the minority around here, but that’s been my experience, through and through.

    I appreciate the engagement, very much.

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  • Btw, if you really want to piss off anyone in the mental health and social service system, outshine them. Every single person in this agency, outside the management oligarchy, knew that I was succeeding wildly with clients, which I was. I was transitioning them quickly into work, and they were doing great. I was the only clinician in a sea of business majors as social workers, at this agency. My peers, however, recommended that I steer clear of management when possible. They were all so intimidated by them. One colleague even used the word ‘vicious’ to describe one of the top brass in this organization. It was scary.

    I was still not feeling myself and was really just starting to recover from feeling disabled, so I was quite humble, but all it took was my success with clients to spoil their party. That’s why is was an open and shut case. I got accolades from outside partners, for my work with clients. After being there for three months, they started fabricating excuses to get rid of me. After 6 months, they had created all sorts of fantasies about me, and created a reason to fire me. I had done absolutely nothing wrong, always followed protocol, but whenever I turned to an in-house advocate and said, “I feel as though I am being discriminated against,” his response would be. “You have to stop using words like that around here!” True story.

    I know I’m off topic, here, but these dynamics are so pervasive throughout the whole system, I felt this might be relevant information. I just like for people to be aware of as much as possible in this system, so that they can make wiser decision for themselves than I made! I was really programmed for a while, there, to think the system was there to help me. I could not have been more naïve and mistaken.

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  • They don’t even understand leverage, not at all.

    I had plenty of leverage when I went to EEOC against a social service agency, which is why I won a settlement. Although in mediation, the settlement amounts to a tiny fraction of what really would be owed, and in mediation, you’re made to sign a waver of responsibility, so really, they’re still not taking responsibility, but they are paying out. This isn’t justice, but it’s the legal option given.

    In addition, the mediator, knowing that I was royally screwed–but the payout has limitations in mediation–did say that I could go further, but that they would make life hell for me. She knew this from having done the negotiations with them, which took several hours because they were really STUBBORN and kept trying to interpret very reasonable emails I had sent requesting dialogue (as per ADA), as demented or threating or something. They really made fools of themselves trying to stigmatize me, because they were so obviously out in left field, and the mediator and attorney could see this.

    Still, I really had no protection against their aggression, and that’s what court can be all about in these instances–character annihilation, not necessarily truth, even as a person recovering from mental disability. So that’s a double bind right there–if you fight for your rights, you’ll be re-triggered into abuse trauma. Great.

    Getting up to the mediation itself took a year after filing with the help of an attorney, who, thankfully, was non-profit, so it cost me nothing. She was the one bright light in all of this, that was fortuitous for me. But they canceled and postponed it three times, and then by the time we finally got there, the CEO had resigned. The president, whom I named as an ‘abuser,’ fled the state before I even filed, and the program director resigned after I had been terminated (wrongfully).

    I was still healing, not really in great mental clarity, nor in great self-confidence, when all this occurred. But I sure do know abuse and discrimination when it hits me, and this woke me up but good. That was actually the beginning of my recovery, on a very practical level.

    I was actually very calm when they fired me–although the did it in a panel of three against just me, and even tried to get away without giving me an explanation or evidence of why I was being terminated. (This was a social service agency, mind you). They were seriously delusional, and thought I would explode. I’ve never exploded at work, I’m always totally professional, have been for the 20 years or so I’ve worked. But they were stigmatizing me, totally, as a ‘violent mentally disabled’ person, when that’s never been an issue for me, not in the slightest. The only violence I’ve ever shown is toward myself.

    Instead, I called my partner who came right over and stood guard while I collected my things. I was very calm, and went kind of slow, asked to see my file to make sure it was in order (it was not, it was missing a response I had written to an unjust reprimand, which was later found on my supervisors desk, buried under paperwork and files), and the pres got so pissed, and I was told to leave immediately. They were so trying to intimidate me! Fools.

    I was already so drained, and there was absolutely no mental health advocacy for me in San Francisco, so it was just me and my partner and my attorney. Had I gone further under those circumstances, I would have backslid a great deal in my health, it was precarious as it was by the time I got to the end.

    But I did fine, took my small settlement and at least the satisfaction that I was believed and that my reality was, indeed, the clearest and most reasonable, but it did not feel complete, and they continued business as usual. I did not feel good about this, but I had to get on with my own life and build my practice, etc. Still, it gnawed at me.

    About 6 months after the mediation was settled, I got an email, as did everyone who had ever been associated with this organization, that their hard drive with all the confidential files had been stolen.

    Then, several years later, I participated in a speaker bureau and griped around town a lot about the system and made my film about it, passed it around the city, within the system, and next thing I knew, about a year later, this agency lost its funding and closed. I can’t say for certain what went down, but I’d like to think that between mediation and the film, I helped to create positive change, away from stigma and discrimination.

    When I found this out, I felt a bit like I had done the David vs. Goliath thing, which felt good and satisfying, finally complete with all that, but it was seriously and truly exhausting, because they really will not take responsibility, no matter what.

    There’s got to be a better way.

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  • Steve, I think there are different perspectives on ‘what a really good therapist’ is and does. What you’re talking is merely one approach. There are a variety of ways to provide good counseling and psychotherapy, and some are more directive than others. Nothing wrong with that, if handled with neutrality and respect for the clients’ process.

    I don’t even think there is any such thing as a ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’ therapist. It really depends on how well the personalities of the therapist and client match, and what kind of relationship dynamic is formed. Nothing wrong with diagnosing–and, in fact, it does bring focus and clarity to the issues at hand. But it certainly doesn’t have to be a DSM or even a western-based diagnosis.

    One can be diagnosed with an imbalance (either in themselves, or perhaps in their environment, which is a reasonable diagnosis) in a very neutral, simple terms–not with a label of a chronic condition, that’s what I think is bs and toxic) and then a treatment plan sketched out (client goal, topics on which to focus for dialogue, focus exercises, grounding exercises, etc.) and followed flexibly, of course leaving room for all sorts of discoveries based on, not only a client’s process, but also our own, the therapist/counselors. Psychotherapy and client counseling is a multi-dimensional process, not linear.

    But to withhold information can sometimes be cruel for a client, and trigger old wounds, that of withholding love. That’s often used as a weapon of abuse on kids–conditional love. “I will love you if you do this for me.”

    There are many ways to provide effective psychotherapy. What you describe is merely one approach.

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  • Oh, and one other thing I discovered about this—people tend to conform to the establishment, even if they have a radical mindset, in order to avoid feeling their own self-stigma. That is, we don’t like to be perceived as ‘weird.’

    Personally, and this is just me, I think we need to be done with that, because we’re all weird in our own way. When we care too much about what other people think, we sacrifice our truth. Corruption will never come to light if we continue to enable it by fearing stigma, we have to face it in order to move past it. That’s very empowering.

    When we speak our truth among those that do not agree, we have courage, truth, and light on our side. Don’t give in to their desire to shame and disorient. It’s just a tool!

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  • And btw, the issue of pure and extremely toxic stigma–that, personally, I feel is what is really and truly at the bottom of why solutions and clarity are so incredibly challenging to achieve, here, and why suffering and disability is so prolonged–is that I feel it is the hardest issue to detect. I don’t even think research can do it justice, it would all be so skewed by stigma, from conception to delivery. These things are felt on a gut level, it’s a prominent and deeply felt negative, constricting, powerless feeling when one is truly experiencing stigma, as many of us on here recognize.

    To me, stigma is born from fear and discrimination, and we are so in the habit of this duality and fear-based living, this toxic level of stigma abounds in ways that permeate our existence at this time. There is no clarity anywhere–other than the clarity we all have that something core and vital in our society, is, indeed, amiss– due to this illusory division in society, and that is the idea of corrupt power, right?
    To keep things confused, in conflict, and in chaos. That’s empowering to established mainstream power, when their communities are in conflict, because they can sit on the gold. That’s how it seems to work, from what I’ve been able to gather.

    Of course, that’s really a house of cards, but short term thinking seems to accompany greed, especially now that the money class has reason to be a bit desperate to cling to their riches. There is definitely an awakening going on in the world around all this, and the masses are so not pleased with what is being unearthed about people they have trusted, even if they are people they didn’t know, media heroes. But it’s happening in our lives, as well, as more and more comes to light about the world and society in which we’ve been living, and how illusory and programmed it’s been.

    We’ve bought it, though, for a long time, so this is a major process of transition, as the old systems lose their power, and new information and solutions come to light.

    To me, the issue of prolonged disability and corruption go hand in hand, and the most powerful weapons of corruption are stigma, because it produced fear and shame, and this disempowers people, really throws them off their game. That’s a natural reaction to stigma and discrimination.

    Were we to not take this on, they would not have the power, because we could get clarity on the issues. That’s my feeling about it, anyway, seems logical to me. That’s why I say the key to resolution, here, is based on our self-perception. When this is strengthened, stigma loses its emotional power, and corruption can be unearthed. That would free a lot of people I think.

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  • Thank you for this enlightening and insightful post. Your clarity around how the corruption works is refreshing, and it rings completely true to me.

    “….even if they were able to go off their psych meds they might not be able to return to full-time work, and they were often discriminated against when they tried to find work because of their past injuries and psychiatric diagnoses.”

    Indeed. Discrimination and stigma play the largest roles in prolonged disability, as far as I’m concerned. Even the meds issue is based on stigma and discrimination, so it all falls under this umbrella. Radical change would mean detaching from this and rewriting our stories, which is a process of healing. Change in society will occur when we shift our self-perception.

    Those who stigmatize and discriminate, especially when it is systemic and institutional, will not change, until they face they their own judgments, and who knows when that will be? That’s a rough road.

    Thank you so much for this. Clearest post I’ve read on the subject.

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  • Coming from a Latino Jewish family, my family modeled many things. In the end, it was up to me to pick and choose what I wanted to carry forward, and what I wanted to leave behind, as well as what I wanted to add on my own. That was the level of ownership I learned in my healing.

    For sure, they had chutzpah, which I greatly admire. My dad was a physician, extremely competent and respected, taught med school, as well, and worked for the county. He came from the Jewish ghetto of Argentina, humble beginnings, and he was quite forthright. He was a rager, but he was honest, I’ll say that for him. I learned a lot from his legacy.

    It’s the last part–the parts of my life with which my family cannot resonate–that challenges them, they’re just as stigmatizing as the system. But they’re learning!

    Middle class professional academic is their culture, not mine. I went working class, it felt more authentic to me, and relaxed. I loved working customer service retail, they were horrified, called me a ‘plebian.’ Endearingly, of course, all in jest, but that was their perspective.

    Now, I’m the one enjoying my freedom, so it’s all quite ironic.

    One of my favorite and truth-ringing quotes, from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet:

    “Your children are not your children.
    They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
    They come through you but not from you,
    And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”

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  • Well, I certainly appreciate the engagement, acidpop, and of course I totally respect your truth. I don’t see you as stuck, but I did think that you were seeing yourself as stuck, in a way, so I’m glad to hear that’s not the case. You’ve obviously done tons of very courageous healing work, and I imagine you’ve had a positive, healing impact on others as well. I always appreciate your truth, you speak it with passion.

    Thank you, this has been enlightening and encouraging to me.

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  • To answer briefly your last post, which I saw after mine posted, I’m an activist, and I do it my way. For me, it works because my truth rings true to me, so I know I’m walking my talk. I feel there is a lot of activism to achieve within this community, itself. I find it filled with all sorts of stigma. I feel you characterize me incorrectly, and I’m sure we all do this with each other here. It’s kind of messy. If you check out my film, you might get to know me better. Or not.

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  • Before I go (for the day, at least, ya never know)–one thing acidpop, to explain why I don’t relate to what you’re saying–

    After going through all this and coming off the drugs, etc., I went straight from the mental health and voc rehab system (which I took to legal mediation and won, I’ve talked about this), I became an actor, from having mustered up the courage to take a singing and performing class, via some volunteer work I did for a theater company in San Francisco. I felt fragile and sensitive, but also brave.

    This was 3 years after a suicide attempt, and at the start of my legal mediation. I just had to do something fun, so I went for it. I’d always enjoyed theater, but I’d never done anything like this before.

    Over a period of 7 years, I performed on stage and did play after play after play in San Francisco, including a Broadway operetta which I’d never feel was in my scope, and I got accolades for it, a lead part. I was already blown away that people liked my work on stage, I got great reviews and parts offered to me without audition. Directors really enjoyed working with me, and audiences came to see me.

    I never, ever would have imagined this, although I’ll confess, it was a secret dream of mine. I had gone to see Wicked a few years earlier, before all this had begun and while I was in my darkest hour, and I was crying throughout most of it because I though I’d lost this dream, and it looked so much fun. I was jealous and heartbroken. A psychiatrist had told me I had lost all my dreams, which is what precipitated my suicide attempt. These are the words that rang in my ears as I reached for the pills.

    I don’t think I’m anything at all special, I just believed in myself and focused. I think ANYONE can do this–not theater, necessarily, but whatever encourages one to really reach, in a way that is challenging in a fun and joyful way. I had an amazingly fun and healing journey doing this, sure beat sitting around and feeling that I was cooked in any way whatsoever.

    So this is why I feel the way I do. I’m a healer and teacher to encourage people do reach for the best, and to keep expanding this, to never give up until one is satisfied and fulfilled, and to enjoy the process, not to walk it with rage and fear, but with hope and optimism.

    I can’t help people, however, who feel they are limited by their own doubt. That’s an internal double bind to work out.

    I think any of us, if we just allow ourselves to stretch a bit, can find our way to our own brilliance. We all have it in there somewhere, and it’s just itching to fill your body and being. To some, I may sound crazy, and if that’s crazy, I’m totally good with it, whatever, eh?

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  • “I’m also frighteningly familiar with gas lighting. In fact, it and I still have a rather personal and extensive relationship… but that’s a tangent for another day. ”

    I believe this is not a tangent, but a central feature of why prolonged disability exists in the mental health world. I posted this for others to consider it in their experience. It was an eye-opener to me, and when I processed this, it allowed me to see it and not take it on. I’ve experienced it a lot in advocacy, when their money was threatened by my truth. I’ve experienced it, here, too, on MIA. Insanity.

    “I think you seem very motivated, but I think, like most people who have survived the system, you are looking for a reason this happened to you. You are looking for accountability…”

    I know why this happened to me, and my family has taken responsibility, along with my own accountability. That story is under my belt and integrated. It’s a story of forgiveness, and having healing dialogues, and it worked, because my family is now whole again, and back on track, thanks to my truth-speaking, and not stopping until the truth was unearthed.

    Other than that, I’m very clear on the trajectory of my illness, disability, and healing. I’ve done that work, also integrated it, and have moved on.

    I’m here trying to communicate with others, and finding it often futile due to erroneous assumptions made, and insisted upon, a direct replication of the system, exactly. Crazy-making.

    “I’m going to tell you something I learned the hard way… even with a congressional hearing, I never found those. something about people like us, coping skills, connections with others, stress management… whatever. Something about people like us make us different.”

    I do not relate to this, so when you say “people like us,” I wouldn’t include myself in your ‘us.’

    “Psychiatry is generally uncomfortable with that differentness so they tried to stuff us back into a neatly labeled box and likely broke us more than we already were.”

    Yes, I know, I made a film all about this in 2011, updated in 2014, called Voices That Heal. It’s on YouTube if you want to check it out.

    “However, I think we have to be like this… one absolute that I can give you is that above all else, the underlying programming of humanity is survival. Fight or flight will always your last breath trying to save you. I think that that’s what we are.”

    I wholeheartedly disagree. We can be anything we want. We can shift and change programs. I learned how to do this in my training and healing, and I work with people on this all the time. Your perspective makes me feel boxed in and terribly limited, so I must reject it for myself.

    Life is about thriving, creating, loving, and feeling joy, not just simply ‘surviving.’ We can evolve from that fear-based consciousness, and for our health and well-being, it’s a step in the right direction.

    “I think mental illness was the option between destruction and saving ourselves.”

    Yes, I agree, and I was almost destroyed, about a minute away from death at one point, if that much. I had pretty much checked out but came back. Learned a lot in that time, btw.

    But I “saved myself” by persevering and retrieving my soul, heart, and spirit entirely, despite the nasty messages I kept getting from the mental health world, that I was basically doomed. Haha, proved them wrong. I found my way, and it’s all behind me.

    Perhaps it’s best if I stay out of the way, here, and let you all figure this out for yourselves. I’m done with my journey, so best that I move on.

    Honestly, I don’t know what the deal is here. I can’t tolerate messages of stuckness and duality any longer, I’ve had my fill of it. There’s a great big world out here, where fun, joy, and integrity go hand in hand. I wish everyone luck in finding their way to it.

    When you change your belief, you change your reality. Anyone can always create good health & well-being, if they just learn their inner guidance, and trust it.

    Blessings for good healing, whomever and wherever you are.

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  • “Gaslighting or gas-lighting is a form of mental abuse in which information is twisted/spun, selectively omitted to favor the abuser, or false information is presented with the intent of making victims doubt their own memory, perception and sanity. Instances may range simply from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred, up to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

    It originates from a 1944 classic film, Gaslight, with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, where he, the husband, drives his new wife mad by making her believe all sorts of things about herself that we, the audience, know are not true. The film is wonderful, btw, I highly recommend it for those who enjoy classic film. Ingrid won an Oscar for her performance in this.

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  • Not an absolute, but definitely more of an acknowledgement with regards to how children are affected by the attitude, beliefs, and behaviors of adults. We’re all psychic, and kids pick it all up.

    And so do clients, even though many are told they are hallucinating or paranoid or whatever, whereas really, they’re picking up the truth. That’s called gas-lighting–making one believe they are crazy when they are so not. It’s done to kids and it’s done to clients.

    Were we to acknowledge this more acceptingly, without self-judgment–but simply to acknowledge that there may be something to learn here, from which we can all grow–then I think we would move forward quite a bit with these issues.

    I’m not a fan of the phrase, “It’s complicated,” because those that say it tend to be on some payroll, and what do they care if we get clarity. They just want to dialogue forever, until retirement.

    Yes, it’s complex, but that’s no reason to not dig for answer right then and there. Often, over-dialoguing and making it personal keeps us in perpetual ambiguity, when we need clarity, as people are falling through the cracks daily.

    I understand the resistance here, because it is profound self-reflection that can often lead to hard truths, but I feel it is well worth the effort to find our truth and then give it a chance to unfold. When we trust a process, we learn so much more than we can imagine. Trust is hard when reeling from betrayal, but it can be learned again, if given the chance. That’s up to each person to decide for themselves, however.

    I don’t at all think we’re the totality of our trauma, but I think we are the totality of all our experiences, good and bad, and then some. We all have a story we tell and live by, and we do have the will to shift these stories by seeking out different perspectives. How each of us do this is personal and unique, which is our diversity. But to me, this is pure healing and evolution.

    We all do the best we can with what we know how in the moment, but we also have daily opportunities to grown in our awareness, consider different perspectives, and discover how we are not nearly as limited as we once believed we were. I believe that is the ‘trauma’ talking, when we believe we are limited, or somehow, inferior to others. I think that’s a false belief, and what I would target for healing.

    But that’s just my viewpoint, and when I do healing work with others, you can bet that I will never, ever let anyone get away with believing they are less than. If they insist on fighting me on it, and wanting to stay in victim identification and dependent, then we are not a match.

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  • And, despite anything, which child is more likely to feel love in their hearts, which makes all the difference in our health and well-being, and which child would more than likely carry around a hole in their hearts, causing them perpetual grief, and, more than likely, suicide ideation?

    Regardless of any physical condition, how we respond to it, either acceptingly and with self-compassion or with resistance and self-hate–depending on the example of the adults around us–makes ALL the difference as far as our mental and emotional well-being.

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  • I read an article in the news just a couple of weeks ago, about a child born in Australia with Down Syndrome and the mother abandoned him because of this ‘flaw,’ just left the hospital without him. Fortunately, the father didn’t feel the same way, so the kid does have a chance at life, here.

    There are millions of kids born with all sorts of issues like this, and the mothers don’t abandon them, but instead love them unconditionally and learn from them, honoring and respecting them for the gift they are. These spirits are often called ‘healers.’

    We never know when a remedy for anything will be found, so when and if it is, whom would you imagine, just off the cuff, has the best shot at a fruitful productive life, brain issues and all?

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  • “I think we all need to remain humble and recognize that there is going to be much uncertainty.”

    If you’d been through what a lot of us have been through, I’d hope you’d see differently, here. Most of us have here taken a journey more humbling than one who has not taken it could ever imagine. And we survived, and are collectively growing in our self-respect and self-confidence, awakening to how this has all occurred, and it’s not a very nice story, because it involves what we feel is legalized crime.

    In this case, uncertainty breeds fear and neglect. Certainty, however, is a healing concept, sorely missing in mental health ‘care.’ And that has everything to do with rising disability rates.

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  • “Psychotropic drugs cause irreparable harm. This is an indisputable fact.”

    I am sorry, I am going to have to firmly dispute this fact. Yes, they cause harm in all sorts of ways, they are toxic. But the damage they do is NOT irreparable. I know this for a fact. It is a matter of discovering your healing path, and following it. Eventually, we get there, to complete healing, if we allow ourselves to by believing in it.

    I agree with all you say about slaying the dragon of psychiatry, it is, indeed, a dragon. But this message that the harm done by these toxic drugs is irreparable is, in and of itself, precarious in that it denies hope for people.

    My damage from 20 years of taking these drugs, culminating in a nasty mix of nine of them, and then from a painful and rugged withdrawal, healed completely 100%. Took a while, and I had to focus diligently on what my healers were telling me to do, but I did and it worked. I was quite bad off, so I never thought I’d heal, but thankfully, I was wrong. Please let’s never lose hope that full and complete healing from these drugs can occur.

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  • Thanks, Steve, and since you mentioned the family issues, I wanted to take this opportunity to clarify something about this, on a bit more subtle level.

    Of course, it’s clear when there is blatant family abuse, and many of us have talked about subtly insidious dynamics that can be literally ‘crazy-making,’ but I also wanted to bring in one component that I think is often missed, and important here–in that, as adults, how we respond to life and its events is what sets an example for kids.

    I know that my parents tended to make drama of everything, creating problems as they went, catastrophizing everything, taking everything personally, being defensive, etc. It wasn’t 100%, but that was their general character.

    There were other issues, too, but this was a big one that influenced how all of us–my 2 sibs and me–felt quite burdened and on guard, and of course we carried this into adulthood. We internalized a lot, and a big part of my healing was to reverse this, ground, and practice a new perception of life, that it does not have power over me, but me over it. Little by little, my family has been taking my cue, so it’s been textbook family healing. So interesting to have experienced this.

    But indeed, we impact our kids in so many ways. If we listen to them and take them seriously, they will teach us to grow. Most important thing I learned in this whole thing, and one way in which we sort of got it backwards.

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  • Richard, I hesitate to continue debating this online, because my feeling is that we’re talking past each other a bit. Nature of the internet sometimes.

    From your response, I don’t feel you are hearing me as per what I am attempting to communicate about this, so perhaps I am not expressing myself as articulately as I wish. Given all we already bring to the table regarding spiritual matters, I find it a challenge to have a fruitful debate about it. My shortcoming, no doubt.

    Although I will say, “The buck stops here — with me and my actions and consequences” is something to which I totally subscribe, in terms of radical self-responsibility, which is something I. both, practice and teach as a profound healing tool.

    When we own our experiences, in totality, then we free ourselves from victimization. In order to do this with clarity, neutrality, and self-compassion, however, I feel this is where understanding the spiritual nature of things (which, to me, means the energetic nature, same thing), then we heal our victim identity, because we see the purpose and meaning to our trials. Otherwise, we just get stuck in our judgmental, dualistic ego, and we’re on a downward spiraling hamster wheel.

    When we own this, how we create our life experience, we can release resentment, which allows us to know and feel our true spirit nature, which is an incredibly healthy feeling of balance and well-being, that leads to clarity, and eventually, joy–something sorely lacking in a lot of peoples’ lives that would make a big difference in their health and well-being.

    I don’t know how any of what I say will sit with you. In some circles, it’s a given and would make perfect sense. But the perception and meaning of language here is a bit different, as in any culture or sub-culture, so I never know to whom I make sense and to whom I do not.

    Although this is all perfectly clear to a lot of people I know, that I’m not at all doubting my perspective, I’m just aware I don’t always communicate it in a way that some people can hear or understand.

    “is a vastly different world view than ‘I know that I am saved.'”

    I’m not sure what you mean by “I am saved,” although I imagine it to have kind of a zealous tone to it, from the context, here.

    Personally, to me, when we find inner peace, we are ‘saved,’ based on how I would define ‘saved.’ I do think there is a point in our evolution where we get a certain kind of clarity that remains long term, because we ‘get it.’ Doesn’t mean life’s problems and challenges go away, they’re just not nearly as dramatic and traumatizing from this perspective, which relieves distress. That’s the whole point of healing.

    Everyone would have a different interpretation of this, and some probably feel that there is no such thing to ‘get,’ but I feel differently about it, based on my life experience. Diversity is part of life, but if we are each responsible for ourselves, exclusively, which I feel we are, then we each live with the effect of our beliefs. That’s a personal choice.

    I only speak from my experience, Richard, it’s not my intention to dog anyone. And from my personal experience, there is a vast different in my interactions with people who deny spirituality altogether and those who are open to it. That’s the only discernment I make, in the broadest sense, and my reflections are based on how I feel in these interactions. I’m not casting stones upon people I’ve never met.

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  • And btw, the spirituality to which I’m referring is completely practical and universal, not some esoteric and dogmatic framework for life that is impossible to achieve, and from which we are judged when we don’t; but simply a sense of ourselves on a level greater than our physical beings, for us to do what we wish with that awareness.

    So much power, wisdom, and assurance there, it brings inner peace.

    Now, if inner peace is not your goal, then the brand of spirituality to which I refer is not for you. Although I’m sure there is no way to achieve world peace without inner peace.

    So really, the idea of whether or not one wants to embrace the spiritual nature of life totally depends on one’s personal goals.

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  • SE, I think what gets overinflated, from this non-spiritual perspective, is their sense of power. That’s where the delusions begin.

    I found the clinicians I worked with to be completely without humility, as though it should be my goal to ascribe to their truth–not just about life in general, but about me! If I disagreed with their assessment of me, then I was delusional in my self-awareness, to their mind (I have my notes).

    Whereas, I measure myself as I’d feel myself assessed by an unconditionally loving God. That most certainly trumps anything a psychiatrist would tell me about how I don’t ‘measure up’ to society as ‘worthy,’ in their eyes.

    My psychiatrist also told me that my experiences while coming off meds was ‘impossible’ because “studies show…” blahblahblah. And they were wrong about everything else, too. What rubbish.

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  • I said that an atheist cannot see beyond the physical (ego) aspect of life. When we understand the spiritual nature of our reality (meaning, energy beyond that which we perceive on a purely physical level), then this open doors to entirely new vistas of perception, which include solutions to the issues at hand, here.

    I beg to differ–in that an understanding of the spiritual nature of life is inherently vital to our cause, and especially to healing. I think it’s also vital to how we treat each other. If we only knew how what we put out really does come back to us. These are all sound and well-regarded principles of energy–and everything is energy–which are taught in some spiritual disciplines. Not religions, but spiritual studies, those are two different things.

    I’m sure this sets me apart from a lot of people here, even people with whom I agree in perception of the mental health field. Where I find I’m at odds, mostly, however, is in the solutions. Which is fine, I apply my wisdom to my own life, as others do to theirs. But I’m definitely convinced that there is a core connection between spirituality and healing. AND, between spirituality and activism, without a doubt.

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  • Richard, I specifically said ‘authentic and personal spirituality,’ meaning not organized religion.

    And again, from my experience in life and with people, when this is denied, reality is dangerously limited. When we confine ourselves to believing in only what can be proven, first, without the benefit of imagination, creativity, intuition, personal wisdom, and trust, then we limit ourselves tremendously. This limited perspective keeps us embroiled in old issues and patters, just like what is happening in mental health care these days.

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  • I would think that all the all of the incidents about which I’ve been reading about in the news this past year, of family members killing family members–kids killing parents, parents killing kids, siblings killing abusive siblings–that is going on in the news might provide pretty strong clues regarding decline in mental clarity and emotional stability, along with a rise in suicide. Families are turning on each other, whereas we used to rely on our families for support. At least, that was the idea. Depression, fear, and helpless rage would seem like a normal state of being, considering the world in which we live.

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  • Thank you, Sandy, I appreciate what you say here. I’m a bit saturated with this right now, because it’s been around an issue that’s quite important to me.

    My last post in this thread is below, and I really don’t know what to say to help neutralize this at this point. Please know that it is absolutely nothing personal, I have a lot of respect for you, like I do just about anyone, because we’re all part of this, somehow.

    My experience in all of this has been intense, as it has been for many. I am trying to release the energies that do me no good in my life, conflict being one of them. I just haven’t seen any way around it in this arena, and it wears me down to the point where I’m not enjoying myself.

    Sometimes, dialoguing and disagreeing, and getting to the heart of things for clarity is fun, and I enjoy it. But when it becomes so personal like this, which as I’ve said always, is NEVER my intention, but it always gets down to ‘I don’t know what else to say, I’ve tried to communicate with you.’

    Imagine if I were in your office and vulnerable! If that were the case, giving up on me would have devastated me. Now, however, this is just proving my point. I can’t see where I’ve been unreasonable, I’ve been transparent and what I consider to be direct and clear. Apparently, as client and clinicians, we’d never get to the bottom of anything, because even as peers on this website, we cannot.

    While I don’t see this as a reflection on either one of us in character or intention, I feel I can trace it to what I’ve said, that I can’t get clarity from you. That’s not a judgment, it just is. I still certainly like and respect you as a person, and think you’re doing an admirable job of soul-searching, but I can’t help but to notice a lot of resistance to taking in relevant information. I see you swatting it away, as if with a fly swatter. Maybe that’s my perception, I don’t know, but it sure has felt this way since we started dialoguing–exactly a year ago, I happen to remember it was Valentine’s Day when we had our first dialogue.

    Anyway, I appreciate, respect, and listen to whatever you have to say. I hope one day you can feel about and do the same, regarding what I have to say.

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  • Ok, I’ve been sitting with all of this extremely rich and powerful information, applying it to my own experience then and now–meaning, recalling how it felt to be in dialogue with mental health professionals when I was disabled, vulnerable, and filled with fear that I was permanently damaged by 1) horribly toxic medication, and 2) extremely stigmatizing and healing-inhibiting mind and control games played by a lot of members of this particular community. Seems to be standard operational procedure, from what I’ve gathered over a period of time, up to and including present time.

    Then, of course, it was infuriating, because it felt as though acid were being poured into my wounds, and it was disorienting and terribly painful and anxiety inducing to experience that level of stigma, disregard, and cultural control during a long and rugged withdrawal from a lot of medication. I was in chronic pain, trying to heal, and being demeaned and sabotaged in the process.

    And that’s no exaggeration, I ended up winning a legal mediation against a non-profit voc rehab agency for blatant discrimination, and that gave me complete credibility. I had been mistaken for someone complacent and compliant, because I did try to respect the rules of the culture, but when it interfered with my healing and professional development, I drew the line and spoke up, which of course did not go over well, until I found a really good, level-headed and neutral, employment attorney who worked for a non-profit OUTSIDE the mental health system.

    Up until then, of course, my truth was only disregarded as delusional or paranoiac, simply because there were certain people in charge trying to cover their asses, and they took advantage of the multiple stigma which my situation carried. We’re not dumb, you know.

    After winning the mediation, I felt free because my truth about being discriminated against had been unambiguously validated, once and for all. In the mental health system, where I was considered a ‘mentally ill disabled person’ who would not deserve more than a bag of old clothes as a settlement (oh yes, that is what they initially offered me, to settle this), outside of this world, I am considered and treated like a respectable, healthy, level headed, perfectly fine individual, and one who speaks his truth for the purpose of creating positive change in the world, nothing else. My website, film, work, and my life reflects this, all who know me know this.

    So now that I have a positive sense of self and identify as I do in the world, in the flow of society (although I live on the rural fringe, because I think society is toxic, after having lived in San Francisco for 17 years, dealing with all this, out here is just fine with us), I can stay pretty neutral with all this as I experience it yet again, and instead, get a lot of good insights for myself, here.

    Overall, it validates what I continue to think, that this is a losing battle, trying to reform psychiatry, and anything about the mental health world. I’m just grateful that I’m not part of it any longer. I’ve just been here to bring whatever it is I learned along the way, in order to help create change, so people can heal and be free of all this totally unnecessary and system-inflicted misery and suffering. I think that’s perhaps one thing we do have in common, each and every one who posts here, although I can’t be to sure. I’d hope so, in any event.

    And in this case, I’m going to allow myself to ‘blame,’ because, indeed, I blame the mental health system for our social ills, bar none. Mainly, because they WON’T ACCEPT FEEDBACK, and they’re hostile about it.

    That system has set the worst example imaginable, to my mind. I can hardly even fathom it at the moment, but I can feel how overwhelmingly this system has brought down western civilization.

    That is my conclusion at the end of it all–diagnosed and medicated for over 20 years, educated in the field and clinically trained, having had an exhaustive and very conscious journey as a hard core client as a disabled person, and then climbing out of all that, ditching all the meds, healing a new way, leaving all this behind, and oh yes, giving it the finger. How can I not flip it off! I entered the mental health system thoroughly, with trust, and it failed me miserably every step of the way, up to and including when I tried to reasonably protest practices that were obviously doing all harm, and no good.

    I know my story and so do my loved ones. We’re all pissed, but what can we do. It’s ALL protected by law–or at least by gatekeepers. I think there are a lot of people professing to do good while really only protecting the system. I think there’s a lot of that happening, come to think about it. I ran into it quite a bit among those whom I thought were supposed to be ‘advocates.’

    Thank GOD I’m healthy now, I found my way. But this is crap, I don’t see any hope for it. Sorry, that’s my totally truthful opinion, humble or not.

    And now, I’m going to enjoy the rest of my Sunday. This has been cleansing for me. Thank you for reading.

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  • Plus, I have to say, this is exactly what I’m talking about. I’ve been trying to give you a client perspective, from a former client who got a lot of clarity about this. Now, from your fear of ‘making mistakes’ you are shutting down the conversation. I’ve been direct with you about how your communication has made me feel. I would just like it to be acknowledged, for once. This is not personal, it’s totally professional. This is exactly what I’ve run into repeatedly, when trying to present a client perspective, for the purpose of change. This is why things are stuck, and why I feel there is an inherent barrier in communication that inhibits reform, and why we need radical change.. Why exit the conversation, why not go for clarity? Your choice, though. I’ll let this settle for a while, feels like a hot button to me.

    I’m always grateful for your courage, Sandy, I’ve said it many times. We all struggle with these ‘relationship issues,’ each and every one of us.

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  • And btw, my mother completely owned her issues when I spoke my truth about where I felt my ‘illness’ originated. Really, it was more of a perception than measurable objective reality, we all concluded, finally. She resisted and felt very guilty for a while, but we talked about it, and about forgiveness and self-forgiveness, and got all the clarity we needed. That’s how family healing works.

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  • Ok, that’s fine to agree to disagree. Still, given my experience from the inside of so called ‘mental illness’ onset, ‘mental illness disability,’ then healing from ‘mental illness’ and ‘disability,’ embarking successfully on two careers, one in healing and teaching, and on in performing arts, now fully back integrated into life, my community, and moving along great guns, in perfect health and and grounded, I feel I have a lot of clarity on this issue. I respect and honor, of course, that you follow your own path to truth.

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  • I don’t think it’s about ‘blame’ Sandy, which is a judgment, and which becomes a personal ego issue; but more about cause-and-effect, which is neutral, and necessary to know in order for things to shift, change, heal, and grow. I believe that is a distinct and vital differentiation. Ego takes us into denial. Truth is what sets us free, always.

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  • I think that, due to pure and dangerous stigma, there are so many assumptions about people on disability and how and why, that can so easily be, by and large, totally false and misleading. Personally, I think a person’s financial situation is their business, and their business alone. Our society makes it out to be a reflection of the value of a person, and nothing could be more harmfully stigmatizing and so completely false. We sure have bought into this, up until now, but I think the world is waking up to the implication of this socio-economic imbalance. And here, in the mental health world, it’s strikingly apparent, and we see the harm it has done, and the issues it has created and crimes it continues to perpetrate. My stance on psychiatry being a harmful and damaging institution is firm.

    There are tons of unjust and blatantly discrimination-based reasons that people wind up on disability and, literally, get stuck there, simply from negative expectations from their support, which is easy for people to internalize when one is bombarded with these messages, which is what occurs in the psychiatric system. This is a complex network of social ills and media and government based illusions, purely based on profit and desiring an imperialistic sphere of influence.

    I got stuck here for a while, and my solution was to perceive my freedom, and from that perception, came the reality of it, which I now live. The work force has become toxic. People with time on their hands have the opportunity to create a new world. Radical change occurs when people are backed to a wall. I believe this ‘disability’ status and the stigma and misconceptions that come with it, have backed people to the wall.

    “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose…” Kris Kristofferson, Me & Bobby McGee.

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  • I’m going to take a stab at this, because I think I agree with Ted, if I’m interpreting that line correctly, about MIA not being encouraging to survivors in liberation, although I feel he may be being more diplomatic than I feel about this.

    For me, psychiatry has proven 100% of the time, over a period of a couple of decades in a variety of professional relationships and attempts to dialogue, futile in trying to find common ground. In their offices, it’s been brutal and blatantly oppressive to be a psychiatric client. In the end, I see it was dangerous, and so does my partner and family. They see the enormous difference in my spirit and well-being, since I separated from that world, and I certainly feel it.

    On this website, I have found trying to discuss issues openly with psychiatrists to lead only to feeling shut down, subtly demeaned, dismissed, resisted, and somewhat manipulated.

    My relationship life is excellent, married almost 30 years, I have no problems communicating with my friend, family, neighbors, and just about anyone. But I can say with absolute certainty and accuracy that I have never, ever, ever been able to have a satisfying dialogue with a psychiatrist, and in fact, I always walk away feeling as though I am in a haze of confusion, and can easily tip to feeling badly about myself, as though something were ‘wrong with me.’ Like, “What was that??”

    I have never seen nor felt clarity or truth from a psychiatrist, only confusion and uncertainty–and quite often, smoke and mirrors. I’ve felt manipulated and gas-lighted by many psychiatrists, way many.

    Whereas on this website and elsewhere, I’ve seen a lot of clarity and truth from survivors. We also hold a lot of anger, because our clarity and truth is so often turned into some kind of weird and bizarre reality and called ‘psychosis,’ That’s over the top stigma, and it’s let to disaster for all concerned, due to negative, projective, assumptive communication, on the part of the psychiatrist, often leading others to feel as though they’re in a pile of muck.

    I generally don’t make such sweeping critical generalizations toward one particular group of people, as, indeed, that can be stigma, in and of itself. But in this case, to me, it feels like a very accurate assessment, from my vast and varied experiences with psychiatry. I see evidence of this daily on here, and I know it well from my own life.

    There is an inherent communication barrier, and, even in the name of radical self-responsibility, I feel the resistance comes so heavily from the psychiatrist, because they want clients to continue carrying their demons, on some level. Don’t know how else to put it, but it comes down to a horrendous lack of self-responsibility, that has harmed so many people. To me, that’s very clear.

    So to have this website be an agent for radical change (or is it not? perhaps I’ve misunderstood the goal, here?) seems undermined when it seems to not be balancing this power differential that is causing all the problems of imbalance in the system, which have lead to torture for so many, and in fact, perhaps it might be perpetuating this imbalance with some of these judgment calls.

    Yes, there are articles from all sorts of people who’ve had a variety of roles, experiences, and perspectives, but on some level, I feel that there is more of an alliance between psychiatry and MIA than between survivors and MIA, and I would imagine it has something to do with money, connections, and social position. These are the parameters of ‘the norm’ which we want to challenge. At least, I do. I feel this is central to the issues, here.

    We live in a toxic culture with grave power imbalance, and we want to rectify this imbalance, because it is what causes the MOST mental, physical, and spiritual distress in society. It’s killing us, literally. Boundaries do have to be clear for balance to occur. Blurred, we perpetuate imbalance–aka, corruption.

    Power belongs to the survivors now, not to the abusers. We want a new era, where survivors are the teachers, and psychiatrists learn from us. I don’t see any compromise with this. Anger and all, we are the voice of reason and clarity, here, not defensiveness and denial.

    This is my perspective, in any event.

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  • Collaboration is fine if everyone’s voice is equally weighed and every human being in that collaboration were treated with equal regard.

    Even in collaboration, however, there is someone who takes the lead and facilitates the collaboration. In all, it’s a collective endeavor, but there has to be at least one grounded and trustworthy voice of reason to bring balance and hold the space. Otherwise, I’ve no doubt that it would only be collaboration in conflict, chaos, and chronic irritation, leading us all further down the rabbit hole.

    Who ‘leads’ seems to be what a lot of conflict is over–and destructive competition–who is really in charge, here?

    I say to psychiatry, “Get off the throne. You (collectively) have proven to be dangerous as ‘leaders’ and ‘examples.’ Hard truth, yes, I know, and somehow, we’ve all been duped, you included. But it’s painfully obvious, just from all that I’ve read here on MIA over the last few years, that this is truth and your ‘authority’ over matters of the mind have heart have proven to be damaging and even lethal to so, so many. And you refuse to hear this. Time to wake up.”

    Psychiatry is not capable of setting the example of empathy, openness, and healing that we seek. I find their attempts to dialogue one-sided and confusing, filled with resistance. I am sorry to say this, but it’s a truth that bares speaking repeatedly, given the way things have been going, and we know why, to a large extent.

    So in this collaboration, I would suggest that psychiatry should be in the position of listening, learning, and following. Then, it would more than likely be a fruitful and effective collaboration, from which new information, solutions, and abundant clarity would come.

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  • I agree with you both. This is a constantly stated ideal that never even comes close to coming to fruition. In this case, talk is cheap, and amounts to pretty words and wasted time, energy, and resources to state the obvious, and still not be able to embody it. Too much pressure on everyone to conform to the corruption.

    I’ve also lost faith in the current medical establishment, completely, which is why I made it a point to learn integral self-healing. That was a life-changer, because I am no longer dependent whatsoever on this kind of western medicine. My journey through the psychiatric world enlightened me to how toxic western medicine can be, from greed, arrogance, and utter lack of empathy, no matter how hard they try–at best, it’s patronizing and not authentic. More like a script.

    My healing support is no longer at all within this precarious health institution, because it is too dishonest and profit-driven, and extremely limited in its scope of information regarding healing. Plus, everyone seems way to stressed out to be focused and present, that’s really my biggest concern. That can never work to the advantage of a patient–or anyone, really–despite the integrity of a few enlightened individuals from within. Time for radical change.

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  • Come to think about it, from my experience, people who deny the existence of anything greater than ourselves–that which connects us all to each other and to everything that exists through a unified field of energy in constant motion–tend to label anything that is not within their scope of reference or understanding as ‘delusional’ or ‘psychotic.’ To me, that’s the essence of what I think when I hear the term ‘narcissism.’

    Connection to some kind of authentic and personal spirituality is a feeling of safety and universal connection, so compassion and empathy tend to run higher. When we’re aware of this unifying spirit, we feel what we cause the other person feel during interactions, that’s pure empathy.

    For me, the most disturbing part of psychiatry as it exists at present is that thousands or millions of people are saying, “This is hurting me!” and the response is, “No it’s not, that’s a delusion. I’m actually helping you.” If that’s not crazy-making, I don’t know what is.

    Lack of connection to some kind of spirituality obstructs our empathy to such a degree that we create a cruel and unfeeling culture, which is going to make extreme mental distress chronic, severe, and epidemic, always around the corner or looming over us.

    Connection to true spirituality brings kindness. We can still get angry from injustice, because it is so unkind, and truly harms people. How can one not be angry about that?

    Still, I like to envision a kinder culture than what we have going on now, one in which when we communicate that we feel we are being harmed, it will be heard, respected, and CHANGED.

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  • Atheism is the denial that anything greater than our physical bodies and egos do exist. To me, that is such an extremely limited perspective, I don’t see how healing or personal growth could ever occur, especially the healing of heart wounding.

    I’m not ‘Christian,’ but I have an appreciation for Christ and his teachings. I also have an appreciation for the teachings of Buddhism. I’m Jewish, but I believe in an unconditionally loving God, not a punishing, dualistic one. I believe that, in the heart and mind of God, we are, each, exactly equal in our deservedness of love, joy, and abundance.

    I’ve studied a variety of spiritually-based perspectives. To me, atheism is cynicism, so I don’t see how this is helpful to people in mental distress. I think this perspective is laden with negativity and limitedness. This is the opposite of unconditional love. It is pure intellectualism, which I feel is not a safe space, as it denies heart consciousness.

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  • This is interesting, definitely a step in the right direction. Is this medicare billable? I’m wondering how accessible this is to people on disability income, and how safe it is for low income people. It does seem as though it would be pricey.

    One big problem in the system is the disregard for people on the margins of society, due to social ills. To me, remedying this particular aspect of the psychiatric world would be a big leap forward, and what I would call the radical change that is sorely needed.

    “Psychiatric hospitalization is clearly the treatment of choice when a person presents with safety issues such as active suicidal ideation or a very disorganized psychosis.”

    This statement does concern me, as there are strong shades of stigma and potential discrimination. We continue to define the human experience from extremely limited and dualistic perspectives. ‘Active suicidal ideation’ and ‘very disorganized psychosis’ are loaded terms that do not necessarily accurately describe a person’s experience, and both can be easily misunderstood and misinterpreted based on biased subjective interpretation, and that is always terribly costly to the client. To my mind, it would be unacceptable.

    This is what is consistently the problem in psychiatry, all these assumptions that are extremely disadvantageous to vulnerable and unsuspecting people, from those who have not experienced intense oppression and chronic powerlessness due to aggressive stigma. That’s a horrific and debilitating anxiety to carry around, and causes all sorts of emotional and psychological distortions.

    I’d fear duplication of ‘the system,’ in this regard, which would undermine the whole operation.

    I do hope this is not true because otherwise, it looks like an interesting integration of healing modalities, with emphasis on natural healing, which I always think is a good thing. Best of luck with this.

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  • “It’s perhaps the most unchecked form of oppression in our country today.”

    Indeed it is, and it’s obvious that unless one has been through this charade of smoke and mirrors, one doesn’t get it. Being treated as second–or even third–class simply for turning to professionals for support is insane and insane-making. That’s systemic vampirism.

    I’m eager to see how this all goes down, myself. I feel the pressure building. The resistance to seeing and owning the truth is over-the-top. That’s a damn just waiting to burst. You are certainly part of the change. Thank you for speaking your truth!

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  • What are the unifying agreements within this ‘movement’? We speak of diversity, which to me would actually be groundbreaking to exemplify, yet is it really honored and respected? I see a very traditional socio-economic classist-type hierarchy within this community that keeps us divided and separate, rather than creating a unified power with which to contend.

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  • So frustrating to keep reading about these academic tug-of-wars, while more and more people are neglected, discriminated against, oppressed, and abused daily in all facets of the system.

    “Asked by the moderator to define his dream, Rogers responded that his dream would be to create a massive movement of individuals with lived experience, families, and allies. ‘That’s the only way we’re going to change things.'”

    I don’t know, I see more fighting and fierce competition, including back-biting and betrayal, within these groups. When communities connect over suffering, rage, and dysfunctional family dynamics, it can be hard to imagine clarity and cooperation, in the long run. There’s a lot of confusion here that can’t seem to get sorted out, because so much of this reality is myth, illusion, and indoctrination. It’s hard to tell who’s who and what’s what.

    With that said, it’s hard to know WHAT exactly will make the difference at this point, although I’m always a big fan of speaking truth with as much clarity and compassion as possible. Sometimes that’s hard, but I think it’s a good goal for which to shoot, imho. That’s the only way I can see how any difference will be made, leading to the radical changes we so sorely need. Something’s gotta give…

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  • I’m glad this is being considered. I worked at many agencies in N Cal which received these monies, and I challenged them directly on how these monies were being applied, because it was easy to see that the distribution of it was askew, to say the least. From what I understood form what others had told me, there was no oversight and regulation, so it ran amuck. I hope they clean this up but good.

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  • I think what’s coming to light, here, is that a ‘nervous breakdown’ is, in reality, an awakening to change occurring. Change happens, whether we welcome it or not, that’s the nature of life, ever-evolving.

    I think when we resist change for too long, some kind of ‘nervous breakdown’ will occur, somewhere–either in individuals, or in a society, or both. Change HAS to occur, and resistance is like putting up a damn to the natural flow of things, of energy. I think we, as a society, are in the habit of this, to resist nature. When enough pressure has built, the damn bursts. To me, this is a good analogy to having a ‘nervous breakdown.’

    Once the damn burst (busting through resistance), it will be a very powerful rush of energy of which we really have no control, but if we surrender our control, now that the resistance has been beaten down, then eventually, nature’s inherent tendency to restore balance will run its course, and we’ll see what that looks like, in the end. Something–perhaps a lot–will have changed, and we can only witness it, with trust, and then assimilate it, somehow.

    However, I think what we’re arguing about here is that the mental health system/field/community, etc., by philosophy and practice, try to control the rush after the damn has burst, which is really self-defeating and more effort than anyone can really bare.

    So to me, what is missing in current mental health practices and beliefs is that nature does have a desire to restore balance on its own, if we know how to trust a process. By labeling it and medicating it, we screw it all up, and simply create bigger and bigger damns, which keep energy building and exploding, never smoothing out to its natural flow.

    By these terms, a ‘nervous breakdown’ would be nothing to stigmatize or shun, but actually an event to welcome and celebrate, as it is a sign that change is inevitable and occurring, which I believe to be a good thing.

    If we were to once and for all stop turning it into a chronic illness–which to me is a complete fabrication of ‘the system,’ and its greed along with some weird need for control–then perhaps nature could finally take its course and healing could occur on a grand scale. That rings true to me, in any event. I certainly don’t have any studies to back it up, but it seems logical.

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  • Hi Fiachra, yes, that’s how I see it. For me, it was an awakening–at first, to something I was not noticing that was affecting me adversely, and then, to the truth of my heart. It’s like a soul-retrieval, when we heal, learn and grow from these events. That’s a creative process.

    These are opportunities to heal core issues and get in synch with our natural self, what I call our ‘spirit nature.’ All the mixed messages from our toxic environments can send us in a direction which is not good for us, so when these ‘breakdowns’ occur, I interpret this as my spirit trying to get me to re-direct in a way that will be appropriate and desirable to me, to align me with my truth. Part of the fun in life is discovering our truth, and who we are. That’s an extremely creative and rich process. Breakdown of the old is necessary for shifting into the new–just like what is going on in the world now. I believe the planet is currently having a nervous breakdown, and we’re here to shift into something better than what it’s been.

    Our task, of course, is to make this easier and more understandable for others when this passage occurs. It may be uncomfortable, the way core transitions tend to be, but in no way does it need to be, either terrifying or excruciating. In fact, it can be a beautiful unfolding of our awareness, leading to exciting new things. From the mud, springs the lotus.

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  • I agree, I have no objection to that phrase to describe how I felt at one point in my life. To me, ‘nervous breakdown’ and ‘personal growth’ go hand in hand, in that one leads to another. At least, it should, if not tampered with in an invalidating way, as pathology or something like that.

    I find it to be a neutral term that well describes the spirit of that particular event, when things collide and life seems to crash down on you, leaving one temporarily disoriented. I tend to believe that everyone has a nervous breakdown at one time or another. To me, it’s a right of passage. Surrender and trust during chaos are important lessons. You learn and create a lot from ‘breaking down’ and building back up again.

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  • I didn’t mean to vote as the public to see if this should be so, I was basically wanting a metaphorical show of hands so that we could see where people really stand on this–or at least, so people can get clarity for themselves. I’ve noticed a lot of fence-walkers on this issue, and I think there should be clarity and definition, here. Just for information, not decision-making.

    No, no, I would never ask for a public vote to decide on this issue. If one hasn’t been through it, one doesn’t get it. We’ve lost sight of human rights, altogether with this one.

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  • Thanks, Sandy, I’ve appreciated this dialogue and your openness a great deal. You are definitely high on my list of courageous people.

    Btw, I read The Center Cannot Hold a few years ago, and contacted Elyn Saks. We had a pretty long phone conversation one afternoon, very interesting lady. She’s not only an attorney, she’s a psychiatrist.

    One of the things about speaking our truth in order to make change is that, more often than not, I’m aware how this can challenge people’s ego and feelings. That’s a necessary bi-product of waking up. Certainly mine went through the wringer, but that was necessary to heal and creative positive change in my own life. Sure did lead to being able to own my sense of self and spirit truth, and that’s what changed everything for the better.

    I have a guilt button that wants to go off, nature of my family culture. I was taught, by example, to enable abuse and oppression in my family (in other words, to shut up and go along with it), and that became a template in my mind, so that if others weren’t abusing me for speaking my truth, I’d do it myself.

    That’s not longer the case for me, a core aspect of my healing was to validate my own reality, despite the wishes of punishers, intimidators, and fear-mongers–the enablers. I’ve worked very hard with that, so I don’t self-judge, and trust my truth. As far as I know, I speak it with clarity, authenticity, and integrity. That’s always my intention. I can only hope it leads to the necessary changes we seek.

    I think by each of us speaking our truths and following our hearts, we are, indeed, already creating change together. That’s in the bag, as far as I’m concerned.

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  • It’s a community effort, B, we’re all speaking from our perspectives and yes, I do hope it adds up to the whole elephant this time.

    I think many of us would welcome that authority being taken away from clinicians, so at least we’re all in agreement about that. Although some do want psychiatrists to have this power, because they fear their family members.

    Shall we take a vote on who would like this power taken away from clinicians vs. those who want this to remain status quo?

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  • Thanks for asking, Sandy. The simple straightforward answer is, I’d off to help and try to get that person to see that their actions are hurting them, but if they refuse to listen or take any assistance, in the end, I’d mind my own business. It’s not for me or anyone to say what another person chooses to perceive, as long as they are not harming others—that’s a different matter. But in this instance, it is himself he is harming, and if there is nothing we can do about stopping this voluntarily, then we are powerless to that person’s well, which is humility, a virtue.

    I’d like to say a bit more about what is behind my response, here. I’m re-posting that example in two parts, for clarity.

    “Let’s say there is someone who is walking for miles in our sub-zero weather in order to meet up with aliens and in the process he has sustained frost bite. This person is found by a concerned person who sees him walking in the road and calls the police who persuade him to come to the ER for evaluation. If this person refuses all offers for safe shelter insisting he is impervious to the cold (despite the evidence otherwise) and tell us the aliens will meet him and will care for him and I was called, I would likely hold him in the hospital against his will.”

    First of all, you are assuming there are no aliens. Perhaps there are, you never know. Just because you don’t believe in them or you haven’t experienced alien energy, doesn’t mean that it is not a reality. Many, many, many—thousands—of people have reported affirming alien experiences. Psychiatrists need to stop “assuming” this is a delusion. Research this on the internet please. Lots of info, of all sorts, from a variety of people in various positions in various cultures. This is a cross-cultural phenomenon.

    Although really, the fact that he’s going to meet the aliens is not the problem, that’s his business, his reality. The problem is that he is allowing his body to be harmed in the process. If a person calls the police, they are not ‘concerned,’ they are afraid. I think that’s a very important distinction to make, because fear makes us want to control others. If the person were truly ‘concerned,’ they would take them to a hospital themselves.

    If he refuses shelter, that’s his prerogative and his business. Anything else is meddling. The fact that he is hurting himself and cannot perceive this can be addressed, you can try to point out to this person that they are putting themselves in harm’s way from their own actions, but in the end that is his business and fate.

    In the healing work that I do, it is part of our creed that we are never responsible for other individuals, we are only there to offer loving support if they want it. If not, then their fate is between them and their God, whatever that would mean to anyone.

    We are not saviors, just helpers. To me, it seems you are wanting to ‘save’ people. I don’t think that is sound, and in fact, throws society off kilter. We can only save ourselves, and be responsible for ourselves. Even our children are not our children, as Kahlil Gibran says in The Prophet.

    “If on the other hand, a different person comes to the ER with frostbite. He has been camping in the area for a while. He seems to generally know how to manage but on this night things got out of hand, If he says he wants to leave and seems to have some reasonable ability to fend for himself, I might view this as an unusual choice but I would not be likely to intervene.”

    Sandy, with all due respect, why should you even have an opinion about what another person decides to do? Mental health clinicians have the mental program of ‘evaluation,’ and we really don’t need to go around evaluating other people, how is that helping anyone? This is an inherent problem in the field, that’s institutional arrogance, pure and simple, as far as I’m concerned.

    In this scenario, the difference in your description is striking. If I boil it down to what it feels like to me, it seems you are saying, “We have this crazy guy who believes in aliens and then there is this reasonable guy who I can kind of relate to because he’s generally aware of when he gets frostbite. The crazy guy I’d lock up and the other guy I’d let him go.” I’m putting quotation marks even though I’m not quoting you, but this is how your example read to me, very dualistic and stigmatizing. Now that’s just my reality, but it’s how I read the energy of it, and felt it.

    “But to the question of whether I would practice if I did not have this authority – I would welcome it! This was not something I thought much about when I entered psychiatry. It is not what drew me in. But once in, I certainly realized I needed to reckon with this in a serious way and that is an ongoing project.”

    But you can choose to never take this option, or is that not true? I know you justify it with your examples, but at the same time, many of us are trying to communicate that this is neither sound nor just, and we are asking you to feel this with your empathy. And I’m saying there’s no way healing can occur, here.

    So I’m not sure, from what you say, if involuntary patient incarceration is something you can choose, or is it something which you, yourself, are mandated to do by law? If the latter, then you’re being coerced, too. Unless of course, you are of the same opinion as the government. I’m not sure if we’re talking about your values, or what you perceive to be ‘your duty.’ I think that would be important to clarify.

    “But if I did not have that authority, I do not think the problem would go away.”

    Hmmm, I beg to differ here. I think that your having this authority is directly and specifically a social ill, and I very strongly believe that if it were to be taken away from you and others, things would most definitely improve.

    One thing I hated hearing people say—and these were my professional peers–was “I’m a mandated reporter.” There was such a ring of ‘self-importance’ to it. I urge people to never get near nor talk to anyone who calls themselves this. You never know when you’re going to get reported for pissing someone off. Happens all the time, and it puts people through hell.

    The mental health system is drunk with power, and this is why. Imo, not sound, not healthy, needs to change, and yes, it would improve things a great deal if there were no such thing as ‘mandated reporter’ or forced anything. I’m certain of it.

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  • This topic is so central to what I’m working on now, I can’t help but to keep coming back to this, it’s such a vital core issue, this power of forcing someone to take treatment of any kind.

    Sandy, I’m ok with whether or not you choose to respond, seriously. I think that’s a free will choice we all have, based on our comfort level. Still, so much occurs to me here, that I feel compelled to express it.

    I was wondering, Sandy, if you would continue in your position were that privilege of forcing treatment on someone–for whatever reason–were taken away? I imagine that this would bring up a lot of fear and feelings of vulnerability to mental health clinicians, and I question how many would continue to practice. It takes a lot of faith to sit with high level anxiety without panicking, and reaching for the stun gun.

    I realize this might be edgy, but so is this topic. I always appreciate the privilege of exploring our respective truths here, together, to get clarity on these issues which ignite passion for us all. With clarity, change comes with minimal effort.

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  • One thing to add…

    I do believe you have a good heart and you want to see people recovering and doing well. But personally, I would be on the side fighting to take that one particular privilege away from any mental health care professional, to force anyone to do anything against there will, regardless of circumstances. If that is a job to be done, for the good of society, it should not, in the slightest, belong to mental health care professionals. That is just too much of an oxymoron, and compromises trust significantly. In mental health culture terms–it is UNSAFE.

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  • Sandy, this is very poignant, what you say here. Thank you. I think one is thing is our values, and another thing is being empathic to another person’s position. Obviously, there are a lot of people here who are furious about having been coerced, and it has led to trauma, so empathy with your position might be a stretch.

    At the same time, you are sincerely and exhaustively exploring how to best empathize with a person whom you do not understand.

    The issue of great divide is that you–and others–have a particular authority to make people do something against there will, while those people do not have that same power over you. Most of us balk at whomever gave you that authority (the govt, I guess, since legally you have this option), but still, it is a professional tool that you have at your disposal, and it seems to me that you are saying that there are times when you feel the need to use this tool, and you don’t know any way around it.

    From your examples, it seems that your intention is to use this tool of forced hospitalization for ‘the good of the client,’ that is, from a space of compassion. There, I can easily see your values, and I feel them, as well.

    So perhaps, it’s an issue of who knows what’s best for others? Perhaps it’s just a philosophical inquiry at this point, because until the law prohibits you from locking people up, you will still have that tool at your disposal, and, as B says, it’s trouble from the get-go. No way this is an equal partner relationship, that’s impossible within those parameters.

    I so respect your values, and I can feel your authentic compassion for humanity, but psychologically, how can this be sound?

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  • Hi Dapper, it’s my training, I’m an integral health practitioner and teacher. Plus I applied it to my own healing. So I researched it by, both, education and application, and it all worked for me.

    Here’s a great website about gut health and the impact on our health from our inner ecology. Tons of info, plus products, seminars, and she’s got a great book out called The Body Ecology Diet, with great info about how our bodies process different categories of foods, in general.

    http://bodyecology.com/

    I partner with an herbalist in my own practice, but she’s been having website issues, so it’s down for now, but if you email me, I’ll be happy to share her contact info with you. When I was using her herbs as I healed from meds toxicity, she also made me a personal mixture and when I asked her for the ingredients (there were a bunch), she not only told me, but she educated me about them. Sound like she might be a good match for you.

    I don’t want to post to this thread any longer because it’s so off topic, now, but I’ve appreciated the inquiries. Plus, this’ll be my last post for a couple of days, as I’ve got some work to do which will be keeping me busy. I’m posting my website with my contact information below. Anyone that wants to get in touch with me about healing or references, I’m happy to provide any information or services at no cost, if you mention MIA. That’s my volunteer healing work now, that was my resolution for the new year. Been a bit busier than usual, so it might take a day or two to respond, but I will.

    http://www.embodycalm.com/Contact.html

    Bob, my apologies for the digressions.

    Best wishes,
    Alex.

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  • You said a mouthful, here, Someone Else. I gave up on SF specifically because the professional ‘advocacy’ was part of the downtown financial district culture, very high rent (for one thing). I found all of Bay Area advocacy to be corporate-run, really into the monetary aspect, focused specifically on that flow. Professional dress codes, etc, to flagrantly set them apart from people who come to them for services.

    So when you are talking about busting up corporate culture, you’re talking about a lot of grant- and donor-run advocacy. Very scary, and central to many of these problems, I feel.

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  • Dapper, yes there is a definitely a correlation between gut inflammation and mood.

    What I learned in Chinese Medicine is that when our gut is not generating enough flora (lots of reasons for this, mostly stress-related), it ‘heats’ up. Warming/cooling are terms used in CM to discern between the density and lightness of energy. Warming foods are dense, and can cause the inflammation if we our dietary intake isn’t balanced, overall.

    And I agree with you that it is so individual, everyone’s body reacts differently to different things, depending on so many different factors and individual preferences. We each do our trial and errors, finding what works for us best. No study will beat you to the punch of your own intuition and inner guidance.

    So, when our guts get inflamed/heated up, that ‘heat’ travels to the heart, constricting it and causing anxiety, and also to the brain, which would be that feeling of inflammation you have, if nothing physical has been found. The heat would produce that sensation, and perhaps, a feeling of ‘fogginess.’ All of this would definitely translate to depression and agitation in the mind and body.

    Our energy is supposed to run like clear water, but when it gets heated up and filled with density, it can feel more like sludge. That can be cleared up in a lot of ways, and dietary is one of them.

    I’ve also heard fish oil helps a lot of people. For me, Kefir, probiotics, and a generally high alkaline diet (raw greens, green smoothies, etc.–these are ‘cooling’ foods) for a few days or even sometimes for a week, (if I can take it without sending my body into depravation), is what reduces gut inflammation when it occurs, while nourishing healthy flora and cooling the gut, which then relieves the pressure in, both, heart and brain.

    I don’t mean to continue veering this thread like this, but when I see something about healing that I feel I can respond to with some clarity, it’s my compulsion–perhaps my nature, even–to take advantage of it. Hope it’s of value to at least some people.

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  • Oh, then you’re definitely getting ‘zapped’ by the collective energy. Those times you mention are when we are most open. That’s pure empathy, you’re an empath, which means you are especially sensitive to energy. I believe this is the case for a lot of us on here, and for a lot of people who wind up diagnosed and medicated. The psychiatric/psychological/academic culture tend to see this as a shortcoming, from what I’ve gathered. It’s what gets people erroneously diagnosed, and where environmental issues are overlooked. I’m certain, however, that it is a gift, because in essence, you are tapping into the truth of the collective, which is fantastic information. But the collective energy is filled with diverse energies, some negative and some positive, so one thing an empath can learn to do well is to discern between these, on an intuitive level. When you trust your intuition, you are on your spiritual path.

    For empaths, it is especially important to practice boundaries and grounding. This is a practice and discipline of focused meditation. It’s what I learned in my healing, which was of supreme value, and one of the basic things I teach and help others practice. It can be a bit of a rocky road getting into these habits of grounding in our bodies, because it does light up some heavy energy. But that’s important, because it is where healing occurs.

    If we are patient with this and simply allow it to flow out of us, as if it were a river of energy, as we breathed and relaxed best we can in the moment, then we would eventually clear our spaces of old heavy energy from trauma, etc., and come into present time with our light.

    When we are grounded and with firm, clear boundaries, we can better distinguish between ourselves and the collective. We are all part of the collective on a soul level, but at the same time, we are individual people, so we work to balance these two realities. They’re perfectly copacetic.

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  • I’m glad to see ’empathy’ on the table on such grand scale. It seems to have completely fallen by the wayside in current mental health practices. Frankly, the perspectives of ‘self’ offered, alone, are inherently un-empathic and academic. An empathic perspective would demonstrate high and equal regard for any human being in the vicinity. At present, we’re far away from that reality. Good luck!

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  • I’m familiar with brain zaps, which is pure energy. Extremely uncomfortable, I do know this.

    These are, indeed, connected with what is happening with you in your journey. Although I’d look at your life journey in general, integrally, not just your spiritual journey, what you feel is a physical embodiment of energy, so it’s real on all levels. This is a multi-dimensional energy phenomenon.

    The most important thing to address first is the stress this causes you, and of course, stress is part of the manifestation, in general, so the anecdote energies we’re looking for are: soothing, ease, calm, relaxation. Breathing is how we administer these through our bodies.

    When these zaps hit, or any anxiety, taking slow long deep breaths while consciously focusing on these four energies–imagine them as colors and notice how those colors make you feel. Really allow your body to take them in by visualizing and feeling the energy/vibration/feeling of soothing, ease, calm, relaxation. Keep breathing in these energies and allow them to flood through your body, mind, heart, and entire energy field around you.

    Pay attention to how your body shifts in vibration when you imagine these filling your body, and especially imagine them soothing and calming your brain, allowing it to release stress.

    A daily habit of this exercise in meditation will allow you to release excess energy daily. Energy builds up inside of us from day to day unless we know to consciously release it, by bringing calm and ease into our bodies.

    Especially when our lives have been perpetually stressful, or our minds are constantly wound up, we have to make a conscious habit of releasing energy, or we will become physically ill, or somehow, lose our balance. Eventually, as we practice this consciously, releasing excess energy becomes part of our natural process and it’s so much easier to stay centered and grounded, even in stressful situations.

    In essence, at the core, that’s what you’re experiencing, excess energy. There are other things going on, as there always are multiple factors in any manifestation, but when we keep it general like that, it’s easier to release and shift, rather than struggling with specific meanings, right off the bat. Easier to get meaning once you’ve released excess energy.

    If you want to look further into what all of this means to your life path, which of course it does, events like this are always significant that way, feel free to contact me for an energy reading, on the house! Happy to check it out, if you wish. It can all be done by email, if that’s what you prefer. I can also do a phone reading, whichever.

    [email protected]

    Hope this helps!

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  • No, the doctors don’t have solutions, but that doesn’t mean solutions don’t exist. I know I sound like a broken record about this, but again, this is all energy that can be manipulated, but that takes focus and work. There are also herbs that regenerate our organs from toxic damage.

    If I’m the only one here that knows how that works, then I guess I’ll need to start working on my book. This can all be explained and illustrated in about 20 or so pages, by my off-the-cuff estimation. It’s not as complicated as one would think.

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  • JeffreyC, it’s good to hear, at least, that your condition has improved over time. I am sorry if my posts agitate you further. I just always like to leave room for hope. None of us has a crystal ball, so the future is always uncertain.

    People are speaking up and out about all sorts of things, change is really on the horizon. I think when we can feel at least a twinge of hope, something will shift in our favor. Improvements happen gradually, most often, but we have to be willing to see them.

    But if we put a lid on hope, then I think that’s pretty damning, in general, and things will go south.

    Nothing in easy here. Kind of a hamster wheel after a point, I guess…

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  • Well, I’ve piped in enough on this one, there are a lot of volatile and very personal issues attached to ‘disability,’ etc. Mostly, I see a lot of stigma and self-stigma here that I do understand is really hard to shake, but, personally, I think it’s a good goal. That’s incredibly stressful.

    Where I seem to be mostly at odds with this community, in general, is that, even though I know the meds make people sick and disabled, for me, it was temporary. In the world of healing from where I come, absolutely everything is healable, nothing at all is chronic, and for me that turned out to be undeniably true. If not, I’m sure my partner, family and friends would be the first to tell me that I’m living in some delusion of wellness. Of course that’s not the case, not in the slightest.

    Most unfortunately, this seems to be the hardest habit to break–the notion that people are ‘permanently damaged.’ To me, that’s yet another illusion, and only true if that’s what a person actually believes about themselves because everyone is telling them this, or treating them this way. When a person believes they can heal, they do. Those who deny that we can heal, deny their own healing.

    I realize this challenges many people, but it’s my truth and I felt it was important to share, especially if we’re trying to resolve the issues of such high rates of ‘permanent disability.’ This is a complicated network of deceit and illusions, heavily mixed with social stigma and politics, and all sorts of preposterous misconceptions. I do hope this can be cleaned up. A lot of people are suffering due to these illusions, and that needn’t be the case. It’s also stagnating our society a great deal, causing it to sink into despair and violence. I think it’s a most critical issue.

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  • Shame and shaming are big players in this equation. That will muddle things up every time, and keep things in emotional chaos. Life is complicated enough without this in the mix, but it’s there, adding insult to injury.

    Certainly, that’s one change that can be made on a personal level, and there’s responsibility on both sides–to not shame others and to not take on shame from others. When it comes to poverty, disability, ‘mental illness,’ etc., that’s a significant issue, as it is quite disempowering when we buy into it. Personally, I think it’s a tool used knowingly to try to throw others off their game, and that’s almost too sinister to even write about. Still, I know it to be the case, so I’m going to call it out.

    And its nothing short of evil (owning my judgment, here) when done to others, especially someone who is obviously courageous enough to make themselves vulnerable. That sets a terrible example, bar none. And, it is easily a crime against humanity, by my definition. To me, that’s critical to clean up, for clarity and unity to occur.

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  • What a beautiful story of grace. Thank you for sharing your journey and wisdom.

    “Helia’s Journey opened my eyes to life in its deepest sense and changed not only my life, but the life of many around us.”

    Sounds like your daughter is the ‘family healer.’ Those through whom we face our greatest challenges are our guides to expanded awareness, our spirits. She is lucky to have you. My very best wishes for continued success.

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  • B and Someone Else–I love both your comments so much, all of it spot on to my mind. What you both say reminds me of what I observed about San Francisco, the way things have shifted so radically in perspective.

    I moved there in 1996, when I was 35, having had that goal since I was a teen-ager. Mostly, I was drawn to the Beats movement–also the Haight-Ashbury stuff, but really it was the Beats that I followed. I thought there was so much truth in what they wrote and talked about, and it did lead to a cultural revolution. Those were visionaries and artists, and teachers through their experience. Troubled? I guess to some extent, yes, but I think that was the point. They were making change from within the society, at large, because it was society that needed to be challenged at this point. The Nuclear Age was in full tilt.

    Into the 2000s, as I was deeply entrenched in that urban culture, having my transformative experiences in life, I noticed that people who thought like this and who supported the radical thinking and revolutionary ideas and who challenged the ills of society, even in the most reasonable fashion, were actually the ones who were diagnosed, medicated, homeless, or otherwise marginalized. I knew so many of these people, thanks to my own journey, and they were the most insightful, creative, and generally brilliant minds I knew. But one way or another, because of their independent nature and knowing their truth, they were beaten down in many ways, due to prejudice and fear in society. I saw a lot of broken hearts and discouraged spirits from the aggressive bullying which society imposes on the its ‘disenfranchised’ citizens. So many issues here that are disturbing.

    Overall, I saw first hand the effect of this ‘social role reversal’ on what once had been a revolutionary mecca. Fear and epidemic marginalization have taken over that city. It’s a major culture clash, and everyone is losing.

    I’ve since moved to a peaceful and grounded environment. Both my partner and I found it unlivable. He also worked in social services, although he never went through the system like I did. But between the two of us, we got the full picture. He witnessed my journey every step of the way.

    Anyway, point being, as you say SE, “upside down and backwards.” Let’s turn it right side up, shall we?

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  • It’s not necessarily harder for the prospective employee, it’s harder for the employer. Otherwise, the burden is totally on the one wanting to work. Employers don’t want to deal with accommodating anyone, only controlling. And I don’t mean this cynically, I’ve just never known an employer who didn’t, in the end, resort to control to shut down any kind of challenge.

    And if you ask someone that you are describing as ‘bipolar’ to accommodate the culture of the work force, then you’re trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, fertile ground for oppression. That’s where the system, at large, and how we operate as a culture, is backasswards, and totally counterproductive to individual, as well as social, well-being.

    Not sure if this is reconcilable, other than to begin to imagine a more balanced society. That’s gonna be a stretch, although I do wonder if there are any good examples in the world from which to draw. As far as where I’ve been in my own life, along with what is most prominent in the media about the world, I haven’t seen anything yet to fit the bill. We’re scrambling.

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  • Isn’t ‘mood disorder’ or ‘psychotic disorder’ a vital issue here? That seems to be the topic of great divide–is it a real condition vs. is it culturally contrived?; is it a ‘chronic disorder’ vs. a temporary state?; is it a sign of illness vs a sign of spiritual awakening?; is it merely judgment in personality types and an indication of an extremely low-permission, uptight and anxious society?

    That’s one thing that keep coming up for me here, the issue of a chronic disorder. I think that’s an illusion, totally, that so well-serves the capitalist nature of the mental health field. AND, it keeps people on disability, the total confusion around this illusion.

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  • In the research I’ve done, as I was going through the mental health world and for a fraction of that time, receiving disability, being ‘on disability’ carries the most profound stigma of all, given that it reflects a socio-economic position. So I feel, by and large, it’s a political tool–an image filled with misconception and distortion, for the purpose of divide and conquer, in a social sense.

    While my actual and real disability began exclusively due to toxic medications and what I consider to be gross psychiatric malpractice on many levels, my actually being dependent on disability payments for survival was prolonged greatly and unnecessarily due to, both, discrimination and political corruption within the system. I know this because it’s my work and I learned a lot about the system and its tangents in my various interactions over the years. I experienced a lot of sabotage, specifically because of stigma and discrimination, by some really clueless people in power, and it was easy to prove, over and over again.

    None of the agencies with whom I worked either knew the spirit of, or followed the guidelines of, American Disabilities Act (ADA), because mostly people feel that the voice of a disgruntled patient/client carries no weight. So of course, this is fertile ground for oppression and power abuse, which is disabling in all sorts of ways, and definitely keeps people on disability. I was fortunate to break through this barrier several years ago, when I won my discrimination meditation, based on ADA law. Thank God, I found an public employment attorney OUTSIDE legal advocacy in the system. She’s been miraculous support as I’ve traversed all of this.

    With all the corruption and smoke and mirrors that has become inherent in the political world of ‘disability,’ it’s certainly a formidable challenge to seek clarity. Having been through all that, I’ll just say that it’s like being on the other side of the looking glass, truly bizarro world. I do believe there are a lot of answers here. Thanks for bringing this up, Bob.

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  • Here’s exactly why I believe in God–

    If I rely on other people to mirror me, then, really, all I see is their subjective perception, and to me, that can never be a complete picture. In fact, it can easily be quite stigmatizing. As a Gay Jewish Latino man with a psychiatric history, more than likely, others will view me quite distortedly, based on projections that are not at all who I am. So I have to have a very strong and unyielding sense of Self to be comfortable in the world. Which I’ve, indeed, developed, so it’s all good.

    And how I developed my sense of Self is to realize how I feel myself reflected in the mind and heart of God, as that is something I can always trust to be accurate. It’s always loving and validating; although if I go out of alignment with my truth, I will feel it, so God is definitely not enabling. As long as I’m walking my talk with integrity and true to my own spirit, then God’s reflection will be affirming and positive.

    Can’t say that for other people, we tend to see each other distorted through our own filters, regardless of our words and actions. I think that goes for everyone. I don’t know anyone at all who can claim to be completely 100% neutral all the time and always see things from the most God-like perspective. That doesn’t seem human to me. I certainly have my subjective version of reality–that’s my story, and also my creativity.

    Still, we all have the capacity to access this higher state of consciousness–our universal connection to light–which is the most helpful thing I know for stress, depression, tough times, etc. So why not practice this? Costs nothing, always a choice, and the only addiction is the addiction to clarity and love, which are wonderful feelings and experiences to have.

    Btw, what I’m calling “God” is, of course, referred to in a variety different ways in many cultures and sub-cultures, but for me, it’s an ‘energy level.’ “God” is a vibrational frequency that is the equivalent to the vibrational frequency of unconditional love, universal compassion, and limitless creativity. These are what we strive to access in ourselves–first, toward ourselves, and then extending outward to others. How can that not be desirable? I know some may feel this is hogwash, or perhaps, impossible, but I beg to differ.

    Maybe I am trying to convince others, on some level. But that’s only out of the desire to see people not suffer! I believe that is our collective goal. Still, I wholeheartedly respect those who feel differently. Although admittedly, I have a hard time being in dialogue with people who do not believe in something greater than our physical beings, because we are talking two totally different languages, and also, the relationship dynamics tend to lack compatibility. That’s a hard truth, but that’s been my experience. If that can somehow, be rectified, I’m all ears.

    Pardon if I am sounding preachy at all, not my intention. I’m actually thinking out loud, here, in the moment. I think this is a really vital topic in regards to our mental and physical well-being.

    In short, I’d call “God” (energy level) the best alternative medicine I know, and I can prove that, beyond the shadow of a doubt, with the story of my life.

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  • In the beliefs which I’ve adopted, God is Yin/Yang–that is, the perfect balance between masculine and feminine energies. We all contain, both, masculine and feminine energies, that is the gestalt of our being. For a peaceful world to manifest, we need this balance. No one can be dominant over the other, they must work in harmony.

    When I think of ‘God,’ I think of the sum total of the collective of humanity, plus everything else, including the space between physical objects–as flowing, ever-moving, ever-creating energy. I believe it is inherently loving, although some humans project fear toward that which they don’t understand or perceive as physical.

    To use a psychoanalytic term, I’d call God a neutral ‘blank slate,’ so whatever we project onto this notion of “God” is our reality. If we don’t believe in anything greater than ourselves, well…good luck with it all! That would be rough living, complete uncertainty.

    I’m grateful to have found my connection, here. Turned everything around. I’ll never convince cynics, nor am I trying. But for sure, if I can get people to not feel shame or embarrassment for believing in God, then that’s what I’m happy to offer. The academic world seems a bit short on faith, to my mind, and that matters a great deal when it comes to leadership. Not that claiming to be spiritual is necessarily a sign of trustworthiness, but for sure, I would never trust a faithless leader.

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  • These two articles posted this morning on spirituality and art have really gotten me thinking, mainly because I found myself a bit stuck with the irritation that I mention in my above post.

    What has occurred to me now is that a world without art and spirituality is quite dark and dense, and in fact, to me, would translate into sheer madness. This is why I have always envisioned an awakening of psychiatric survivors (and the like, whatever all that means, about extremely oppressed people, devalued rather than seen for their gifts) would actually be the gateway to a Renaissance, a new age of healing, flourishing art, new insights regarding humanity, etc. And most importantly, a new, deeper, and universal meaning to the word ’empathy.’ I think that would unite a great many people on a very profound and authentic level.

    I see the potential, just from what I’ve seen on this website for the past few years. I’m wondering how to break through all that resistance?? That’s what I would call daunting, so this is where I simply surrender to the light (universe, or whatever one wants to call that which is greater than ourselves–and there is SOMETHING greater than ourselves, I mean, c’mon), and take my walk in the woods, feeling and expressing gratitude for life. That would never, in the slightest, have been me 12 years ago. This is better.

    I have such seriously tremendous respect for all who have the courage to walk their paths on this planet, however they choose to do it. That is one tough game. It’s heartening to see this with new clarity. That gives me a great deal of hope. Thank you to MIA virtual community, and all that speak their truths with such passion and commitment to making things better for us all, one way or another.

    That’s my Sunday Blessing! 🙂

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  • I love art, I’m an artist–actor, performer, band member, writer, filmmaker, etc. What is really irritating to me, however, is how things like art and spirituality (referring to the previous article, about God and psychiatry) are becoming more and more frequently associated, somehow, with ‘mental illness.’ Talk about brainwashing!

    I would like to officially dissociate this vague and non-understood notion of ‘mental illness’ from art, spirituality, and all that is good in this world. Even being kind-hearted, open, energetic, insightful, and productive can be seen as some kind of ‘mania’ or based on some kind of self-delusion, or some such nonsense. I can’t even keep up with how virtuous living, and seeking joy, fun, and personal freedom are so chronically associated with psychopathology. Good grief.

    At this rate, how is light and truth ever going to find its way into the ‘mental health world,’ if these are precisely what are continuously obstructed and sabotaged?

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  • Yana, I also wanted to make clear that when I say, ‘a new world of healing,’ I’m talking about ascending any need for money when it comes to doing healing work in the world. Once money is involved as a necessary component, healing can easily become corrupt. Healing is a spiritual issue, not a material one.

    I am one of many energy healers on the planet, who work with the light. That’s the shift in healing. In truth, healing has nothing to do with how we, in our western culture, have been perceiving it all our lives. It’s an entirely different paradigm of thought, where healing and spiritual evolution become a way of life. That is how one achieves health and well-being, unmistakably. At least, that is my truth.

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  • I also wanted to say–I wouldn’t say that I changed my identity as much as with whom I identified evolved over time. I played different roles in the community, not turned into different people. My spirit identity has remained constant.

    How I prefer to see it is that I explored different aspects of my spirit and personality. That would be the advantage of playing different roles. Personally, I enjoy going through life this way because it exercises all of me, not just this narrow little aspect of myself. That’s terribly constricting to me.

    Probably why I took to acting so well! That’s REALLY an opportunity to explore deeply different aspects of ourselves. It’s really a fun endeavor, and incredibly enlightening, when we allow different aspects of ourselves to come forward in life. Fear of speaking and showing up, in our totality, is something we need to get over, if we are ever going to achieve personal freedom and inner peace.

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  • Madmom, I think you’re describing society at large. At this point, I think virtually everyone on the planet is feeling like a prisoner, one way or another. We’re going through a time of great change all over the world, and it’s not easy for any of us. The goal of this change is for each of us to know our personal freedom. That’s a pole shift.

    Indeed, our society has been one based on the ‘rich and powerful’ exploiting the ‘poor and vulnerable’ in order to achieve ‘the American Dream.’ That dream, obviously, is a grand illusion, if it was created by robbing others of their soul and happiness, which is what had occurred, through blatant deceit and disregard.

    The world and humanity are shifting, in every respect, and as you imply, those who have been privileged by this inequality, mass deceit, and corruption are not making it easy for that change to occur. In reality, underneath all that wealth and position, is a lot of fear, even paranoia, I would imagine. Those of us speaking up and out, however, exemplify courage and truth.

    I’m optimistic at this point. I think the old systems are breaking down and we will see more and more evidence of this daily. I think there are enough of us bringing in the new healing wisdom and how it applies to creating a more harmonious and peaceful world, that we’ve shifted the axis here.

    People are waking up in droves, daily now, in all areas of the global population. So many of us are really tired of this constant tug-of-war, and want, more than anything, to see an integrated world. I believe we’ve made a big difference, and the evidence of that will show up soon, unmistakably. That’s my gut feeling.

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  • I like how you articulate the philosophy here, very clearly, that ‘depression’ is a teacher. I think when we make an intention to learn from it, rather than to sink into despair and chronic negativity, it actually transforms the experience into something more positive–creative–than a sign that ‘something is wrong.’ Quite the opposite–it usually means that change is occurring, or at the very least, that some shift is in order. To me, that’s ‘inner guidance,’ and where we have the potential to grow and evolve spiritually.

    In the process of conscious manifestation, which is one of the things I learned about as I healed from disability, what you’re referring to as ‘depression’ would actually be called ‘contrast,’ which is a totally neutral term–when energy constricts. It’s an inherent part of the creative process, from contrast to expansion, like the ebb and flow of the tides, the movement of energy. Following the contrast/depression would be expansion/relief, and we can get on with joyously creating our life experience. When the contrast swings back around, there are more lessons, here, to integrate. That’s the process of awakening.

    It’s interesting how this all aligns–healing, manifesting, awakening. That’s how it all lined up for me as I healed. So now, when I feel contrast, it’s no longer depressing in any way. More so, I’m eager to know what it is I’m manifesting, so it doesn’t at all register as depression, but really, just a time to go inward and retreat into my own spirit, unplug from the world. That’s how we achieve clarity. That could be for a day, a week, or a month, depending on how much I’m intending to learn at that juncture.

    Thanks for the stimulating article!

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  • Hi Yana, well, as far as which ‘club’ I would belong to, my identification has changed quite a bit over the years—therapist, client, ‘peer,’ psychiatric survivor, advocate, activist. I’ve been in agreement and affinity on one hand, and also at odds, on the other, with each one of these communities within the mental health industry. As a healer and teacher, I identify with a community outside the mental health world.

    I was a therapist-turned- ‘consumer’-turned-disabled-turned-awakened, if that makes sense. That’s the basic outline of my healing trajectory and spiritual evolution.

    At present, I identify with those who are looking to create a new world of healing. That’s been my work in the world, as a result of my journey. The deeper I got into it, on all levels, the more I could see that this mental health industry was doomed, in terms of what we have going on now. This was before I discovered MIA. This community validated my experience, and that relieved me a great deal. Until I found this website, I was the only one I knew that was speaking out this way. My fellow ‘peers’ were petrified of speaking out, and were angry with me for doing so, as I was ‘rocking the boat,’ and challenging the mental health cultural programming.

    As far as creating new healing avenues, I feel I’ve gotten off to a good start. I did a lot of training as I healed from disability, in various schools of thought. It was an extremely interesting and enlightening training as a healer. I’ve been working consistently in this capacity for the last ten years, expanding and evolving as I go. I’m happy with how it’s all been growing, suits me perfectly.

    Here’s my website, if you want to check it out, this is my particular brand of healing and activism. I add ‘manifesting’ to the list, because I discovered that this is where healing can be fun and real, rather than tortuous and illusory.

    http://www.embodycalm.com

    There’s an interesting documentary that I made on the last page, if you feel compelled to check it out, where 6 of us from the ‘peer’ culture talk about our experiences going through the system. We’re not all of like mind, but there is overlap in our truths, for the most part.

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  • I was a psychotherapist and now all my former classmates and colleagues won’t get near me, after I spoke out. They never had my journey on the wrong side of the system, so they haven’t a clue about this. Instead of listening and dialoguing with me about it, they get offended and abandon. That says a lot to me.

    I lost the support of peer group after peer group as I awakened to all that was occurring around me in my journey through the system, from group to group, staff to staff, etc. It got pretty nasty a few times, but I learned a lot about the culture from exchanges like that.

    In the end, it was my guidance, because it led me to all that is now, and I have no complaints, not a one. My affirmation became: then these are not my true peers. Eventually, I found my community of healers (and artists!), with whom I’m in perfect synch. That’s how it works!

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  • “People generally want to be on the right side of history and I think this will apply to a lot of people who don’t yet feel safe enough to engage in this dialogue openly out of fear of losing the respect of their peers. But in the future it will become safer to speak out…”

    Fear of losing respect for speaking out, embodying and standing in one’s truth? That seems like a double-bind to me.

    I say the future is now, we have to MAKE it safe by breaking that ground. Many of us have, evidenced here every day. I’ve been in the face of the system, spoke my truth in legal mediation, and in my film. The agency with which I was associated at that time was not aligned with the truth of my film, I called out the system, which was, in essence, their meal ticket. But it was truth, that was most important here, given what we’ve all been facing with such a myriad of messy ‘mental health community issues.’

    What all of this cost me professionally on one level, I gained more than I could possibly say, in the long run–freedom, mostly. Also a sense of myself, which is what I was after. That’s where I found my inner peace, finally. I felt good about myself, in a way I never had–resolved.

    If we fear speaking our truth, then we are letting the oppressors and power abusers win. We all have our styles, I try to be respectful. Sometimes I get passionate. I always strive to be clear and direct in how I communicate and I always appreciate the same, I think it leads to needed clarity. But that’s just me.

    However one does it, I always highly recommend facing that particular fear, taking a leap of faith, and speaking one’s truth. The truth really does set you free, not just a hackneyed philosophy. It’s truth.

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  • “84% of the articles contained no suggestion that voice-hearing can be ‘normal’… Most of the articles (81.8%) connected voice-hearing to mental illness. In some cases, auditory verbal hallucinations were simply equated with insanity. Some articles linked voice-hearing to a tragic lack of control… Another common assumption was that hallucinations are frightening…”

    Hmmm, could it be that many are in pure denial of their ‘inner voices?’ That’s fertile ground for negative projections, stigma, and discrimination–such as what is occurring in the mental health field. I agree with Someone Else, common sense, instincts, etc. have fallen by the wayside due to this madness of creating pathology from the most natural and healthy of occurrences in life, which to my mind, are fueled by mass denial in the field. I would include ‘creativity’ in this assessment, as well. And, I think it’s painfully obvious.

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  • This is a lovely narrative of personal discovery, thank you.

    I found it particularly interesting because ever since I transitioned from medication, diagnoses, and got untangled from all that mess in order heal and move on in my life, I’ve fantasized about the parallel reality of NOT having turned to psychiatry and the mental health field when I first felt crippled by anxiety, confusion and mental chaos. What if I had turned to someone who would have simply been able to recognize that I was suffering from the end result of having lived in a toxic family dynamic for so long, which impaired my self-perception and altered my reality at the time? That’s what it turned out to be.

    But instead of investigating my life circumstances, I was given a diagnosis and medication, which, after 20 years, had devastating effects on my mind and body. THAT is where my dark night of the journey began.

    So, in essence, I would not have had a dark-night-of-the-soul had it not been for psychiatry and mental health services. I would have simply done the healing from insidious family relationships when I first showed symptoms, and more than likely, that would have been that.

    Instead, I got the opportunity to sink into the most complicated and overwhelming network of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual malaise of my life, rife with political and socio-economic issues as well. Add to that stigma, discrimination, oppression, and going head to head with corruption (for which I chose to seek legal services).

    As a result, my healing and personal transformation were bigger and better than ever, and life has been remarkable ever since, spectacular, in fact.

    I no longer have anything at all to do with mental health services or any kind of services, that’s all behind me. I just post and read here to keep up with the shift that is going on in this arena. I find it exciting and, without a doubt, totally necessary. I think as these radical changes occur in the mental health industry, this will ripple quickly into the world.

    Had I simply gone to see a spiritual counselor and had had the opportunity to be heard about how I was feeling in my family (in mental health care, that would mean that something was ‘wrong with me’) and found some clarity there, I would not have had the amazing experience of a complete breakdown with my system, thanks to all sorts of psych drugs, along with facing oppressive discrimination, and then recovering, healing, and shifting out of that reality completely. That was the experience of a lifetime.

    In the end, I’m more grateful for my experience than I can say, because it has taught me everything I need to know to be happy in life, and grounded in my body. Still, I would so much like to see others have an easier time of healing–much easier. What happened to me as I went through the system, was completely unnecessary, and added insult to injury, literally!

    From what I’ve been able to gather, there is no complete healing and moving on in current ‘mental health practices.’ That world is where a temporary issue, easily remedied in other modalities, can easily become chronic and evolve into some lifetime condition. That’s what I’m really tired of seeing, as it destroys spirits, lives, and communities–all for money.

    Thank you again for this most interesting read. Very best wishes as you continue to question the field and fight the system!

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  • “We should reframe the ‘anti-stigma’ campaign, taking away one of NAMI’s greatest talking points, reframing it to include the important stigma of those who were slandered, dehumanized, or diagnosed with a manufactured illness and forced to take toxic medications or ‘treatment’ that made them much much worse. We should address the stigma of being scapegoated as a danger to society when in reality, the most dangerous people of all live in the state department, the Pentagon, at the policy level, etc.”

    My goodness, this is exactly what the content of my film explores, to a tee. That was exactly the intention, to reframe and take back the issue of stigma, and make it relevant to clarity, understanding, and HEALING.

    I made the film while on disability, using my best resourcefulness, faith, and trust in the process. It’s not a perfect product, but I know it gets many of these points across. And it’s just us, from the system, and a couple of our spouses, no outside ‘experts,’ just our truth. I thought it was one of a kind, in this regard.

    I was invited to submit it to MIA film fest, from the trailer, but it was then rejected. It’s been highly regarded and acclaimed in many circles, and it also led to effective activism in San Francisco, but aside from a couple of thumbs up here, it has not been favorite among this crowd, for some reason. I’ve yet to really be able to put my finger on it. But yes, I totally agree with you and again, this is what I have been exploring, specifically, which is what led to my making Voices That Heal.

    Thankfully, it has served me well as self-advocacy and it did precipitate a big transition in my life that has been favorable, so for me it was extremely healing, as well as for my family. I’m not promoting it (again) here, as I write this, I’m just saying it’s ironic. Indeed, to my mind, the stigma is the issue which muddles everything up, personal prejudice can be hard to ascend, but that’s a wonderful healing, when we own our prejudices.

    NAMI and other advocacy agencies are simply exploiting this issue for funding and to create more business for themselves, but they are, in reality, only perpetuating stigma and discrimination. Healing is impossible in these environments.

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  • I wanted to amend where I say self-compassion and healthy defenses are not natural but learned. I got that backwards–we are born with self-compassion, but that can be unlearned in an out-of-balance environment. Trauma certainly undermines our sense of personal boundaries.

    Healing is a matter or remembering our self-compassion.

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  • Very well stated, as usual, Madmom.

    The thing is, when it comes to the scapegoat issue, from what I’ve seen and also experienced in my own life, there are some people who walk the planet in a highly empathic way, just naturally. I know of a lot of people who say they can easily pick up the vibes of another person or in a room full of people–and not just when populated, an empty room has a ‘feel’ to it.

    Some people pick this up way more easily than others, which creates a two-fold effect for a person–

    First, it makes them quite vulnerable in the world, as they pick up energy so easily–whether joy or stress–so they’d fair better in a light, joyous environment. A stressful environment would undo someone with a heightened sense of environmental empathy, until they learn to have self-compassionate boundaries and healthy defenses. But that takes practice, as we are not born with these, but must learn them, from healthy adults, by example.

    Also, people with this particular quality–which, once integrated, is a gift, and a tool for navigating life–tend to be more artistic because that vulnerability is what connects us to our creativity, directly. When we are in our truth, we are inherently vulnerable.

    So yes, if everyone worked together to create a better environment rather than this dark, dense, oppressive, toxic entity that is called ‘the mental health system,’ then I imagine pretty strongly that healing and clarity would be achieved.

    But then again, that kind of describes the world right now, too, doesn’t it? So where do we begin? Something needs to lighten up somewhere.

    I think right now, we’re all scapegoats one way or another, considering the political and socio-economic climate, on a global scale.

    Clients try to communicate a lot to families and professionals that is simply not understood by the mainstream mentality. That’s where we seem to hit a snag, and it’s somewhat tragically ironic, because if they are the ones carrying the social ills predominantly, then they are also the ones with the solutions.

    So I think it’s a good idea to make it a priority to bridge the communication gap here. That’s where I’m never quite sure if progress is being made, although MIA is a good gauge for this, in general. It’s gotta start somewhere!

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  • Hi Sandy, obviously, I’ve gone back on my resolve not to post here due to the frustration I was feeling from the general level of resistance I’d been encountering. And that’s because soon after I had expressed this to you in our last exchange, I did notice a shift on MIA. I felt things starting to move forward a bit, in terms of new information and direction, so I’ve been encouraged. I guess God gave me a mind so I could change it 🙂

    One reason for this shift, I feel, is that you do make it a point to be transparent about your own inner conflicts around this most controversial and vital issue, and, as others state, I really respect and appreciate that. Transparency is necessary for truth and clarity to emerge from complex situations like this.

    With that said, I’m drawn to what you say, here:

    “But from where I sit, there continue to be people who can not live safely in our communities. Some do not seem to have the wherewithal to care for themselves adequately and others appear to pose a risk to their neighbors. In some cases, they refuse what we have to offer and for others, we do not have adequate resources. The issue of resources is not trivial.”

    I think we want to question how safe our communities are, and I’m not just talking physical safety from violence, etc.–I’m talking about emotional safety. Even the most safe-seeming environments can, in reality, be oppressive, controlling, and emotionally tortuous.

    My question is: why is there always a scapegoat for this, and the community around this scapegoat never questioned and, usually, so well-protected? I think, often, there is only an illusion of integrity and respectability, when there is often something sinister and toxic going on around the ‘patient’ in question.

    The power imbalance is overwhelming, when one person can decide the fate of another like this, under any circumstance. Even parents can ‘control’ their kids only so much. We’re all independent and have free will, at the core. Violating that birthright is bad news for mind, body, and spirit, I would think that’s obvious; and no doubt we have plenty of evidence of that all around us. Oppression is toxic.

    And here, we’re so largely talking about adults. That’s where this really troubles me, about ‘what to do with’ adult human beings who have, perhaps, ‘lost their way.’ That’s how I’d put it, anyway, in the most general sense.

    As I’ve said before, these ‘extreme states’ are the result of chronic neglect of issues, it usually doesn’t happen overnight. Communities/families tend to bury their heads in the sand until a catastrophe occurs, or someone’s defenses completely break down, which would lead to an extreme state. Usually, they’ve been beaten down over a long period of time, subtly and insidiously.

    I think you’re likely to scratch your head for a long time wondering what is best for people who either cannot care for themselves in that moment—and have no one in their personal lives who can support them adequately—or for those whose lack regard for personal boundaries poses a threat to others. (Perhaps it’s a paranoid community? That’s another perspective).

    But in the end, I think it’s more fruitful to wonder what to do about a society that lets things get so bad before even admitting there is a problem. By then, everyone is looking for someone to blame and wondering how to find the light at the end of the tunnel, usually scrambling, fighting, and back-biting, as a desperate and fear-based community. Nothing changes in environments like this, just more of the same, and more people losing their way, aka in extreme states. Downward spiral.

    Resources are, indeed, vital, but why do we keep insisting that one side has to offer the other side anything? Perhaps ‘resourcefulness’ trumps ‘resources.’ (I.e., teach a person to fish, rather than giving him fish…). This would go a long way in creating change, mentoring others.

    Sometimes, it’s just a matter of letting the light find you. Have you considered a silent meditation retreat? I guarantee that this would bring clarity to you around, at least, some of this. Just a thought.
    I continue to appreciate following your evolution around all of this. Thanks, as always, for sharing so openly.

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  • In short, if I had a client that felt that someone was an alien and that they were dangerous so they needed to kill them, my first order of business would be to understand why they’d want to kill anyone at all. Way more than likely, that desire is based on one or more false beliefs, although hearing that person’s story, one would probably be able to understand why they felt like killing someone.

    The story is one thing, but the emotions attached to it are what’s important for compassion, empathy, and healing. When we get distracted by the belief because it seems outrageous to us, we miss the point of what is really trying to be communicated–paranoia, rage, etc.

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  • Yes, that is my point, too. A belief represents the story being told–which is neutral, in that I would not feel compelled to evaluate it, but instead, to learn it and understand it. Our beliefs contain stories, the cumulative result of our very personal life experience.

    In my line of work, this is considered to be a person’s ‘spiritual trajectory.’ If there are violent thoughts inherent in the belief, exploring that belief with interest and curiosity–not to question it or ask for some kind of proof or evidence, but simply to understand it–these will be dissipated in the exploration. Beliefs are malleable, we can shift them when we feel compelled. Violent thoughts will release and shift when we let go of resentment and blame, which relaxes our minds and bodies and shifts us into new beliefs, but those can be sticky sometimes.

    Interestingly, along the lines of your alien example, I was responding to an issue with a client in the public system once, years ago, and he started talking about aliens, and not belonging, and the belief that he was going to be kidnapped from his home any day. We talked for about 45 minutes as I asked him some questions I felt were relevant, and it turned out he had a housing issue and feared being evicted from public housing. From that information, I was able to get the information I needed to allay his fears and get him the right info. There was no reason for me to doubt his story of aliens, I knew there was something he was trying to communicate to me. I knew that asking him questions about it and exploring it would lead to some kind of truth about his needs. Ironic that you brought up that exact same example.

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  • Amazing, very brave journey, Someone Else, thank you so much for sharing this.

    Based on what I’ve learned so far, when we embody and stand in our light of truth, as you so obviously do, we open ourselves to some really fascinating experiences from which we can learn a great deal, and which informs our path in many ways. To me, that is life education and spiritual evolution. All you describe here rings totally true to me, extremely creative and authentic in your process. That’s your spirit!

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  • Truly beautiful synthesis of the various factors that create our subjective reality. So who’s to say who’s delusional? We all awaken constantly to new realities as we go through life. Life is more fun when it’s surreal, and our thinking is creative and multi-dimensional, rather than simply linear.

    What I have found to be most toxic is when I state a positive belief about myself and it is challenged. Sometimes it seems that the mental health industry is based on this practice, to challenge our happiness, joy, and positive self-image as we move along in our growth. I know that during critical parts of my healing, I was told I wasn’t ‘as good as I thought I was.’ I’ve also been told ‘you are not as happy as you think you are. You are in denial.’

    How sinister! If I feel good and good about myself, why on earth should that be challenged in any way? That’s ridiculous, and reeks of bitter jealousy to me.

    It’s also criminal, to my mind, when it is said to a person who is healing and recovering from disability, when hope, validation, and encouragement are the order of the day. That should be illegal in the mental health world, to project such a negative attitude on a recovering person, because it does great, great harm. In that stage of healing, that is nothing short of traumatic! It’s crazy-making.

    Healing from trauma is about a person creating positive self-beliefs, and during this process, the worst thing one can do is to call them ‘narcissistic’ or tell them they have ‘delusions of grandeur’ when they are feeling their personal power, and it happens so often. We want to encourage those positive self-beliefs, as it is the core of healing so called ‘mental illness.’ The edges will smooth as people go along evolving, personal growth doesn’t stop at any point, and no one is perfect. But at least give a person their day in the sun when they are succeeding.

    All I got was challenged and knocked down and continually sabotaged by the system and even by advocacy, as I was growing into my own voice and personal independence, as though they resented it or were threatened by it. I was not trying to compete, I was trying to find my path as I healed; but competition was all they knew. I never found trustworthy advocacy, always betraying and petty.

    I’m still standing, stronger than ever and firmly on my path, creating my life based on my beliefs, and it’s working for me so I must be in synch with my beliefs–delusional to others or not, what do I care? That’s not even an issue to me, how others judge me or assess my reality. I’m the one living it and enjoying it.

    But this was really my biggest gripe going along, going through the mental health industry. To me it’s ‘support 101,’ but apparently, being demeaning is an inherent part of this culture, and what beliefs that behavior is based on is something about which I can only speculate.

    “The one thing that is for certain, is that behind almost every so-called mental illness is a person who has little to no compassion for his or her self and likely loathes his or her very being.”

    YES, exactly my point!

    Thank you for this wonderfully clear and enlightening article. In fact, I think it’s groundbreaking.

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  • I was a psychotherapy client for a long time, due to a variety of issues which I wanted to untangle and get clarity on. I moved a few times over the years, and was also in the system for a while, so I’ve sat with quite a few therapists in my lifetime. I had trained as a psychotherapist, myself, but now I work with clients in a different way, that is not psychotherapy, which has been working well for me and clients.

    You’re right, there are some who are competent and some who are not. More than ‘are we a match?’ I think a client can assess competence by how well we feel listened to and engaged with. I have to say, there are some really negative thinkers and cynics sitting in a therapist’s chair, which does concern me. Not all can claim self-awareness and ownership. I’ve heard a lot of projections flung at clients, and that always made me cringe in the worst way.

    To some degree, it was helpful to talk about confusing issues and get clarity, outside feedback, another perspective, etc. After a while, I was done with talking and turned to different schools of thought altogether to continue my evolution. So I terminated my psychotherapy once and for all and moved on.

    A side effect of chronic psychotherapy, I discovered, was that my brain had gotten so in the habit of processing and analyzing, that I could not stop it from ruminating. I could get no peace of mind, no matter what I did. I could not get my mind to relax, it just wanted to talk and talk and talk away at me, and I could not find my center. It was energy-draining and extremely distracting.

    That’s where meditation and Qi Gong really served me, to heal from what I started calling ‘therapy brain.’ Psychotherapy had left me completely ungrounded.

    I just wanted to express this as a consideration when working with a client. I always include meditation in my sessions with clients. I find that it really grounds the session and creates an innate feeling of safety and focus. I also do at least a 30 minute meditation to ground and center before working with a client.

    I think there are a lot of vital elements missing in the education of counseling psychology, regarding the energy of dialogue. To me, that is significant. I learned vital tools for counseling outside of this field.

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  • Wow, very interesting stuff, Someone Else. This is the energy perspective:

    As we move through each day and through life, we move through a variety of experiences, along with our river of thought and feelings. It is a constant flow of energy, which appears to us in different ways, internal and external. This is how we ‘perceive’ energy, as physical manifestations, including feelings, the physical manifestation of emotions.

    From that, there are specific frequencies of vibration—specific emotions or specific experiences—which vary, and which are indicated by our feeling response to the experience. Akin to color, their are various wavelength frequencies of color. Colors elicit different emotions which we feel viscerally. That’s vibration.

    What you describe is where energies and circumstances converged in such a way as to create this energy surge in your spirit, which is not at all uncommon. To me, that’s all an altered state is, an energy surge. More than altered, thought, from what you say, it sounds like you were in an expanded state of being.

    That’s a necessary passage, totally appropriate for where you are at that point in time. It’s a manifestation of your energy that occurred because you wanted some information for personal growth. This would be called an ‘expansion’ of your energy, leading to raised awareness. That’s how we tap into subtle (psychic) energy that is always active in the collective. It is a matter of sensitivity and focus, and indeed, it can happen spontaneously. Life comes with surprises around every corner, and we learn from them.

    People have their experiences based on their beliefs, as well as on their openness, trust, and courage, so to me, bizarre, paranormal, other-worldly, and other manifestations of reality speak to our willingness to be vulnerable so that we can heal and grow. To me, that’s virtuous, so I validate those experiences in people. They’re temporary, and are intended to teach us more than we’ve learned so far. There is always more to learn. Always, always…that’s a never-ending process.

    Very common for technical foul-ups to occur, as you describe. We are energy! There is no separation in energy, it is continuous and in constant motion. We affect each other, whether we know it or not, we all contribute to the collective, and that makes up the world as we see it.
    As each person heals and integrates, it happens in the collective.

    Hopefully, we’ll be seeing a better world, soon, which would be an indication of people really and truly healing and finding their alignment with their true selves. Separation is an illusion. We all have to get our own information and experiences of this.

    Nazi Germany was a manifestation of energy based on pure duality, scapegoating, viciously exploiting a tattered and guilt-ridden society plagued by mega-inflation; along with obsession with power, delusions of grandeur, needing to belong, needing to be superior, yadada. Big business is what created fertile ground and support for the Nazis. And of course, psychiatry provided tools for manipulation and control.

    So yes, I would say this is a time for healing this all, as a generation. The idea is to go from a collective unconscious to a collective consciousness. This is all a process of global awakening, one soul at a time.

    Curious to know if this speaks to your experience?

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  • Natalie, again, I sincerely appreciate the clarity and directness with which you offer your knowledge and posit your questions. I respond to them directly, below. First, I wanted to offer to you what I know about Shamanism and psychiatry.

    I have never trained nor been exposed directly to Shamanism, per se, but I’ve known a lot of people and have had a lot of discussions about this, as I have always found it relevant and valuable to our world, in general. My education and training in psychotherapy was East-West and highly spiritually influenced, and the topic of Shamanism came up quite a bit.

    Where I learned most, however, and where my healing became real, tangible, and integrally effective, is when I did my training in energy healing, which was thorough and multi-faceted, real world-oriented. This was in the heart of San Francisco. It had to be practical and accessible, not esoteric; that was the point. There were no Shamanic rituals, but I feel, from what I do know about Shamanism, is that there is, at the very least, an overlap in the principles of Shamanic healing and energy healing. It might kind of be the same thing, depending on nuance and perspective.

    I did this training for 3 years, entering as I came off of nine medications. I was a wreck, and knew no one who had gone through this. I was completely out of focus and in a fog, could barely speak coherently (at one point, I completely lost my voice due to post traumatic stress), and I was as sensitive as a newborn baby.

    In this program, I did complete chakra clearing, we looked at past life energy, communication cords from past, present, future, learned to navigate Akashic Records, connected with our healing guides, learned Law of Attraction; and I learned to do healing for others, reading energy, calling it back, clearing it out from spirit guides, toxins, and negative beliefs, and specifically bringing in what we called ‘healing energies.’ We had an intensive lab with supervision, so as we did healings for others, we would, in turn, get our own healing. I learned to heal and grow as I did healing for others. To me, that is the essence of healing, for all concerned.

    Two weeks after graduating from this program, I was offered my first job—a part in a show, from a director in my singing class I had started taking, to practice and embody what I was learning in healing, and from that came my career in theater, from which I earned money, and which was quite successful critically. It was also unexpected. So I felt like an accomplished artist in this vain, which felt miraculous at that point, after where I had ended up.

    Psychiatry had given me a prognosis of ‘poor,’ which I was more than happy to invalidate and contradict. That energy work was my miracle. It took, and I’ve only grown since.

    The irony is that I had graduated from my East-West psychology program just a few years earlier, and that whole experience, along with the medication and psychiatric services, is what wrecked me. Honestly, it is that black and white.

    Psychology sent me into crisis and chronic suffering, and this energy work I did to pull out of that chronic extreme state (I suffered with catatonic anxiety, perpetual insomnia, and extreme paranoia while withdrawing from meds) is what turned my mind, heart, and life around and saved me from either 1) lifetime institutionalization, 2) homelessness, or 3) in chronic suicide ideation and perpetual suffering.

    In addition, the energy work taught me how to clear out all of this trauma and manifest the life of my dreams, seriously. Performing is how I found my voice. I’m happy as a clam now, fulfilled, and healthy as can be, having met all my personal goals—after 20 years living diagnosed and medicated. That only degenerated my mind and body, while keeping my heart and spirit wounded and in a downward spiral.

    However, I will say that it was quite useful to know psychological concepts—such as identified patient, object constancy, projection identification, etc.—because these are, indeed, relevant and useful in how we assess our relationships and family dynamics. When I learned about energy, I actually learned to heal and shift what psychology had taught me to identify.

    Learning personality disorders, however, felt highly dubious and laden with social stigma and projection. I feel this should be obliterated altogether from healing consciousness, as it only produces shame in marginalization via specious labels which, in the end, are demeaning. That’s nothing short of toxic.

    Again, from what I understand, Shamanic healing is, at the core, ‘soul-retrieving.’ I’m sure it may be more complex than that and I don’t mean to oversimplify or misrepresent, as I am relatively ignorant about this, but for all practical purposes, that’s how I’ve associated this. I feel that calling our soul/energy back to us the most valuable thing we can do for ourselves, in every respect. Then, we can self-care and manifest consciously. When we retrieve our souls, we have the opportunity to awaken to who we are—that is, limitless beings. That’s my perception, in any case. That is emotional freedom and personal sovereignty, what I consider to be the cornerstones of well-being.

    Energy healing is based on retrieving our energy and aligning with it—same thing as ‘soul-retrieving.’ When we call our energy/spirit/soul back to us, then we can work to own our integral totality. What we are usually retrieving is power we gave to others, for various reasons. I believe these are matters of social dynamics, which of course vary from culture to culture. I believe it’s vital to make room for diversity, here, which, in spiritual work, is where we learn to embody permission and universal compassion—two vital healing energies of the heart.

    I say all of this in prelude to responding to your questions:

    Has anyone got a record of this kind of collaboration being used elsewhere in the field of mental well-being? To what extent is it appropriate today, to open a dialogue about the cultural relevance and effectiveness of shamanic practice?

    I don’t have a record of this specific collaboration, but I do have my experience of combining psychology with energy work, as I have been a therapist and an energy healer, as well having been on the client side of both.

    In the course of my healing journey over the last several years, I applied energy principles, combined with a few relevant concepts I learned in psychology, to my own healing, after literally decades of psychotherapy, medication, and my own training in the field, working with myriad professionals in various roles. I’ve also worked with energy healers, psychics and clairvoyants (which was part of our training), and teachers whom I consider to be ‘shamans’ (shaman-like) in their life path.

    I think it’s highly relevant to discuss this–vital, in fact–because, from my experience, the leanings toward energy/Shaman healing is way more integral and neutral, which makes it effective at the core.

    Psychiatry and the like are stigma laden, it’s dualistic. Shamans strive to heal duality. We heal it first, internally (hence, the ‘soul-retrieving’), and, by theory, that ripples outward. The problem is that we are so heavily programmed in duality, that this process of rippling outward can be easily impeded by corruption. That creates all sorts of double-binds and resistance in society that can lead to madness and/or physical illness.

    I feel that this is what we are trying to heal, where healing is sabotaged. That is sadly and unfortunately what I feel is one of the big problems here, too much sabotage because of the agendas of money and power/control. I know that’s becoming a cliché, but I think it’s just obviously so true, and basic.

    A true healer knows that he/she is merely a channel, which is humbling, and also knows that healing is not dependent on peoples’ ability to pay, and should not be. Our society/world seems to operate under the illusion that healing is for the rich and educated, or some such thing. In any case, the issue of privilege is always relevant here, and when I think of discussing Shamanism as healing, I associate this with the highest spiritual principles. That’s why I feel it is effective.

    I believe, in reality, we are our own Shamans. I believe that references to Shaman or Guru or Messiah is really, in these modern times, an issue of collective consciousness. We all have this in us, and we strive for it because it is empowering and it feels good. I believe it is our nature to self-heal and to manifest freely. In our world, this has been manipulated out of our consciousness, via family, media, etc. Awakening, to me, is about connecting to this again. I think this would ripple out into the world as healing on a grand scale.

    This is exactly what my work as a teacher and healer, is about. My clients/students have been quite happy with the healing and growth they have and are experiencing, learning this and applying it. I collect new information daily and integrate it, so my work is ever-evolving.

    One more point of perspective—in psychic healing energy terms, a person who the DSM would diagnose with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID, previously MPD) would be considered to be a ‘trans-medium,’ meaning that they channel multiple energies simultaneously through their bodies. This is a gift, when we know how to use it, extremely valuable in healing and other things. The healing world from where I come honors this, and knows how to ground it in order to create integration.

    That’s just one example of how we can shift ‘diagnoses’ to where they are not spiritual death sentences, but instead, wholly life-affirming.

    Sorry for the length of this, but it seemed relevant, so I went with it. Thank you so much for again opening up and continuing this most interesting and pertinent avenue of discussion.

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  • Excellent analogy, Meaghan! I think when different perspectives align like that, there is truth.

    Vancouver is an exciting city and this is an exciting time for you. God bless your faith and courage! I have a strong feeling that you are going to manifest just what you need, and then some. When we heal and shift and follow our intentions, we manifest on a more refined level, usually with pretty strikingly noticeable results.

    I very much look forward to your following your journey as it unfolds!

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  • More than trusting Spirit, what I found useful in healing is the idea of embodying Spirit. In my spiritual work, what I discovered was that what we call ‘Spirit’ is actually the energy of gratitude, joy, bliss, and unconditional love. That is what I believe is challenging to embody when we are in pain, especially emotional pain. Anxiety, fear, etc., is what tends to contradict and undermine these light, buoyant feelings.

    When we focus on practicing the uplifting feelings in our bodies and make that our primary focus, the more dense and heavy feelings soon fall by the wayside because we are systematically and with focus shifting the feeling in our bodies, which shifts our perspective, which changes our reality, from internal to external–wherever we are.

    I always suggest to make practicing gratitude and trust in our processes a priority in healing–actually feeling these feelings in our bodies with daily focus and practice on what makes us feel truly grateful. To me, that is relief in the heart, which not only feels better, but it allows energy to flow freely, without constriction, which is vital to our well-being. Personally, I made quantum leaps in healing and evolution doing this. As a result, the universe brought me entirely new experiences. No more old patterns, just new adventures.

    My two cents. Hope it helps!

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  • Congratulations for taking a leap of faith. I believe you embody the courage to heal.

    My leap was the opposite, from big city to rural. First thing I did was to seek out a meditation community in order to ground fully into my new environment and culture. I had a few lessons still to learn and some past time energy to clear–which is to be expected with such a change–but overall, everything has unfolded beautifully, better than I could have ever imagined. At times, seemingly miraculously. Keep the faith!

    Best wishes with your transition.

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  • Natalie, I wasn’t going to post any further on this blog because I feel I stated my perspectives pretty thoroughly here. However, it occurred to me this morning that I have a 10 minute video clip to share with you that I feel might be relevant, here, if you have the time.

    I made a film in 2011 called Voices That Heal that has made its rounds and is now on YouTube posted as a service announcement. 6 of us from within the system share our feelings and perspectives of the system, while talking about our life journeys from childhood to present time, through the system, and where we are in the moment with our healing and personal evolution. We not of like mind, have various perspectives, although we do overlap in areas of thought. I call it a rainbow choir of voices from within the system. (At that time, we were all part of a public speaker bureau program associated with an ‘advocacy’ agency).

    I edited together clips from public presentations we did, interviews, and I include a round table discussion, which I facilitate, spliced throughout. It’s all in real time, kind of a documentation, perhaps, more than a documentary.

    When I thought about it, I realized that it’s a good example of discussion outside the academic box. While I do hold a degree and my training in the field, we all come from a client perspective as we relate our stories and offer our reflections. We are all speaking our truths here, in the moment, regarding our experiences. It’s a snapshot in time, we’ve all evolved since then.

    For me, personally, this film was a catalyst for transforming my life. I thought, as an anthropologist, and also since you had asked about the round table situation here in the US, you might find this interesting. If so, there is a link in the description below the video that leads to where the film is posted in its entirety.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN0-m6nhUIE

    Thank you.

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  • Yep, I agree, I don’t see any two ways about this. It helps to have people around that can sincerely and wholeheartedly trust a process–be encouraging, perhaps, but not interfering. Yet, certainly not enabling, although that’s a whole other discussion to be had. We’re all learning these delicate balances as we go along, which I think is an inherent part of life.

    I tend to be in awe of anyone’s process, we’re such amazingly creative beings, all of us. Although, admittedly, some process do seem more rugged than others. I believe we can refine the level of ease as we go along, if we wish. Personally, find that a highly desirable goal, perpetually.

    After that, it’s a whole new world…

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  • “Hope means acting from your own highest principles, without necessarily knowing what the outcome will be.”

    Love this! When we follow our intuition and inspiration, we are inherently doing the ‘right thing’ because it feels good and right to us–that is, we are in synch with our actions. What happens afterwards is up for grabs, and that’s true for anyone at any time. We cannot control everything, an obvious fact.

    Attaching to outcomes can be detrimental to our health because we NEED something to happen, and it just might not. We’d then have the option to allow resentment to fester, or to shift perspective and grow in awareness.

    Whereas when we detach from the outcome, we are more relaxed, not needy, and can simply focus on walking our talk. Self-synchronicity is an enormously rewarding and fulfilling feeling.

    I’m not an environmental activist, but this article reminded me of the ups and downs of activism in general. That ‘wall of silence’ is very familiar sounding, and to my mind, an incredibly fertile target for change. That’s an excellent time to exercise our best imagination and creative powers of manifestation.

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  • Seventhsense, yes, I felt that synch as well from reading your posts. I find them to speak such truth, thank you. Sounds like you’ve done some deeply transformational work as well, congratulations!

    I found shifting frame of reference to be the way to go, because that’s what changes everything about us, from a cellular to a global level. Transforming disenfranchisement is an AWESOME experience, opens the doors to everything. I’d venture to guess that you have a lot of really great stuff to look forward to!

    I’m going off line from this discussion for the rest of the weekend after I post this. So much to assimilate here! Please feel to e-contact me if you want to discuss further any of this, I’m happy to share any information that might be of value to you. [email protected].

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  • This is gorgeous, thank you Caitlin.

    What I’d like to contribute, here, is to say that in present day US urban culture–from my experience in this–the Shamanic Journey of traversing metaphorical heavens and hells is taken quite naturally if one has ‘co-created’ the path of disability, disenfranchisement, and then healing from social and medical trauma. That is hell and heaven in the extremes.

    Some of us have taken this journey without the ‘appropriate guide,’ (tried, failed, betrayed, etc., all those common grievances) which is nothing short of transformational, as it is vital our higher-self soul is retrieved/awakened, one way or another, if we are to survive, integrate, and evolve from all this. We are all Shamans, when we take the extreme journeys, and then assimilate it all.

    In fact, it’s in everyone. You just have to take the journey to feel this level of synchronicity. When life thrusts it upon you and you perceive neither recourse nor support, the light goes out (out of synch, as you say). We are all equipped with our own light, if we know how to connect with it. That’s the point of spiritual healing—connecting with our own light, especially so we don’t have to suck it out of others! Energy vampirism is a big problem in this field.

    To me this would add up to “a thinking form designing itself for an emerging global experience. A form that does not lend itself to current models of institutional learning.” Indeed, I can say from experience that “metaphysical mapping is like keeping hot fudge on ice cream!” For me, it is the zest of life, and why I can actually be grateful for all the weird, crazy, and highly uncomfortable things I experienced from all of this. Still weird and crazy sometimes, but in a thrilling way now, because it is the creation of new things, finally!

    Thanks for all the validation and your wonderful information and perspective, Caitlin. My optimism is growing more and more with this breakthrough conversation.

    And much gratitude and appreciation for you, Natalie, really awesome discussion—vital and sorely needed, I feel. I really appreciate your authenticity and willingness to engage here like this, here, truly. I haven’t been terribly vocal on this site in a while and had started to feel discouraged about the dialogue, but you and others in this discussion have inspired me greatly. I know I’ve been all over it, so I hope not in an overly verbose way, it’s just that there is so much to talk about at this particular juncture which you highlighted so beautifully, Natalie, that the discussion had never quite reached. This is refreshing. Thanks to all.

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  • Another time, I went spoke to a law class at Berkeley about my experience with medication and getting off of it all, finally, because it had made me so ill after a period of 20 years, and one of the students, who happened to be a psychiatrist literally had a meltdown, started speaking loudly and defensively, and then began to cry from anger and defensiveness. I was dumbfounded. So this is how the dialogue goes here.

    Natalie, the list goes on and on. I can’t say enough how incredibly stuck the issues are here because of how PERSONALLY our critiques are taken. I’ve heard, “You’ve hurt my feelings’ by clinicians and advocates way too often to feel that there is any hope in the quality and effectiveness of this dialogue. It would be really awesome to see a change in attitude, here, on the part of the ‘professionals.’

    In the meantime, I’ve taken care of my issues and have gotten on with my life, and am at the table, outside of academia. I’d be happy to invite you to MY table. No tokens, here, we’re all equally regarded and no one is paid. I do this for the passion of it now.

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  • In the US, people in ANY kind of state that have been labeled, especially if social services are involved, are subject to extreme stigma, oppression, and discrimination.

    I’ve been invited in the past to the table by a group of legal ‘mental health advocates’ who invited me to share my experience for the benefit of their work.

    I gave them excellent information from my own experience, while still recovering. It was a bit challenging, but I felt it was my responsibility to share my tribulations and how I remedied them, as well as what I learned in the social context of disability.

    Everyone at the table had very nice salaries, they were mostly attorneys and this was a grant-funded project, but they said they had no money to pay ME. Although they were happy to offer me ‘refreshments.’

    I went because I was in recovery and felt this would be of value to me at that time, to talk about this as such, but I regretted it.

    In the end, I felt patronized, observed, used, then discarded, while they continued along claiming glory for the work that I did for them.

    This happened a few times because I kept thinking this would lead to my integrating–after all, I had been a psychotherapist and was now a trained energy healer and teacher, and I felt that my work would be useful in the system, especially after having been on the inside of the experience.

    But this was not the case in this urban professional class. My role as their ‘token consumer’ or ‘token peer’ is not one I would ever want to play again, as it is one of tremendous disregard, other than how my information can serve their gain.

    Sorry to be so cynical, but this is the absolute truth and it is why I moved from San Francisco. It was the most dishonest and deceitful environment. This is what is presented as the best option for people recovering from disability.

    Bay Area advocacy is highly corrupt, and supports the stigmatizing system over clients because the system pays them. Clients/consumers/peers–whatever you want to call it–are strictly commodities to be used.

    Does that give you a clearer picture of what happens in the US? It’s a horrendous problem that lends itself to blatant oppression, as well as rampant violation of American Disabilities Act. They count on knowing that grievances from a ‘mentally ill’ person is specious, at best.

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  • One thing to add, here regarding who is in a position to create change–

    I think that opportunity belongs to anyone and everyone. I created transformational change in my own life, having learned things like how to follow my inner guidance, and other deeply relevant things I learned, thanks to the experience of extreme states, which added up to the most significant, practical and relevant education of my life.

    We’re all responsible for change, and I’m not sure anyone is really in charge of it, or has inherently any more or less influence on how change occurs. We all change what is in our sphere of influence, and that begins with ourselves. I don’t believe academia, the government, the banks, or any established institution has a corner on the power to create change in the world. In fact, these are generally the institutions which get funded for saying they want to create change, only to end up creating more of the same. I know a lot of people are getting really tired of this, myself included. It’s rampant.

    Each and every one of us who is focused on creating change is equally part of that collective power.

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  • Thanks Natalie and seventhsense, I’m responding to both your posts with this reply because they tie in together. Natalie, what seventhsense says about ‘privilege’ is central to what I’m trying to get across, perhaps a bit clumsily. This has been a hard one to articulate clearly, so I appreciate the opportunity to attempt it, here.

    I’m aware that educators, etc., are human and have human experiences like anyone else. But I’m also aware that the academic culture is apart in beliefs, language, and perspective than ‘the masses’ (for lack of a better term). It is a culture based on privilege and elitism, inherently, it’s part of the structure and deeply programmed. How this translates to many clients, from my own experience and from a plethora of testimonials I’ve seen and read, is as a very deeply felt imbalance—leaning toward patronizing–that has been so difficult to communicate in order to rectify and shift; either we’re not saying it right, or it’s not being heard right, or a little of both, not sure.

    There’s really a lot I could say here, enough to fill a book with plenty of examples from my experience of how power and social position, as opposed to curiosity and transparency, has unfortunately played such a pivotal role in these ‘therapeutic relationships,’ (aka dialogue) causing a lot of confusion and frustration for us clients.

    But for now, what I’m really aware of is that there is a HUGE disenfranchised ‘mental health disability’ culture, members of which have experienced life in a way that someone from a privileged elite culture would never relate to, and vice versa. And yes, I am making a generalization and indeed, I’m sure many academicians are not rich or came from humble beginnings, but I’m talking about the dominant frame of thought and reference in that culture being ingrained in elitism, I just don’t see a way around that.

    There is a great divide in class, and extreme states when disenfranchised–which are terrifying because of the utter powerlessness this incurs, making one extremely vulnerable to abuse–are very different than experiencing this without that social stigma attached to it, and with resources to take options, other than social services, which can be deadly, as we all know.

    That is a powerful difference that is relevant to extreme states, and I feel it is overlooked more often than not, which translates into significant neglect. That leads to more disability.

    While I no longer experience extreme states like this since getting off medication about 12 years ago, in the past, I’d been in both positions—had extreme states while in professional positions, and also experienced them during a period of ‘urban disability’–and they are profoundly different experiences. These differences are significant to information about extreme states and also so-called ‘mental illness.’

    As seventhsense says, we have figured a lot of this out and we want to share our experiences for the benefit of all, but we have a hard time communicating these issues safely and soundly because of this divide. Did I get this right, sevensthsense? It’s what resonates with me about what you say.

    I hope my response here has helped provide clarity around from where I’m coming with this. As I’ve said, I find this challenging to articulate but I’m doing my best with this complex network of issues. Thanks seventhsense, your posts have helped me in this regard.

    Mainly, yes, this is privileged class vs. disenfranchised with respect to extreme states. Communication is more than just about language, it’s about intent and frame of reference, and its quite disparate between academia and disenfranchised populations. That would be an important gap to bridge, if you want a full-spectrum perspective around this issue.

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  • Yes, thank you, you’ve driven home my point, exactly. This is where the dialogue between two cultures gets stuck or problematic. Why studied? Why not listened to—with the same thoughtful and respectful engagement as with anyone? And with some humility and transparency. That would go a long way in helping to someone heal in many ways, just that gesture.

    At the core, everyone is the same, take away the uniforms. This is what I have found most challenging to bridge in the mental health world. Who sets the example first?

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  • Why academics? Life is to be lived, that’s a requirement if one is alive and in a body. Studying life and others is optional; but to really learn about life and humanity, it’s most important to ‘study’–or at least be mindful of–ourselves, not others.

    The only way to understand ‘extreme states’ is to experience it one’s self, live through it, then reflect back on what it was all about for you. How does this reflect your own experience of life? They are never permanent and if they do turn out to be chronic, I can guarantee you that it is because of social ills and prejudice, along with terrible misinformation.

    But certainly, an ‘extreme state’ for one would not necessarily be extreme for another, nor would two extreme states be an indicator of the same phenomenon. It is all so relative.

    For different people, extreme states would indicate different things about that person’s unique path, journey, story, whatever one wants to call it. I don’t believe there is one common denominator, other than every person on the planet has the capacity and potential for extreme states. It’s all much too subjective and personal, reflective of our own evolution.

    When our defenses are weakened by chronic stress, extreme states can occur. Why do our defenses get hammered away at? Life can be pretty rough when around the wrong people.

    In general, I feel that observing other cultures and populations without having embodied and experienced their cultural phenomena is much too prone to stigma, projection, and cultural/class division, until we learn to ascend judgment.

    These are all spiritual lessons that ring true and make logical sense to me. In energy medicine, they’d be considered ‘energetically sound.’ But that’s just me and the healing world from which I come. Naturally, I completely respect if this is not the case for others.

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  • And, I do humbly apologize for joining in the chorus of ‘tear-downs’ regarding academia, but I cannot regret feeling this way because it is from experience on the inside.

    I come from a highly academic family and ‘ve done my share of academic and graduate work. I have been behind the curtain, and awakened to a lot of duplicity and manipulation taking place, with no regard for how it is affecting others–usually terribly.

    So this is a sore spot for me. Again, from my experience, especially when it comes to ‘mental health’ and related issues, I have found the academic approach to be so extremely limited, at best. There are no doubt many brilliant academic minds that I can admire a great deal, but the culture, overall, is tainted.

    Ok, last I’ll say about this, but I felt compelled to own my paradox, here.

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  • “You are probably aware that academics can be a nasty bunch who make their living tearing down the work of fellow academics for their own gain. The knives are perpetually out. We just have to look at Natalie Tobert’s box problem.She didn’t refer to knives, but fear and territoriality is a big part of why people stay in their boxes.”

    Yes, I agree, it’s insidious; and it’s a significant problem because it becomes a programmed mindset to tear down others, rather than working co-operatively and encouraging each other. Of course, that would be risky to trust in academia, and everyone fears the other will throw the first knife, so there is a chronic defensiveness.

    So in relationship with that academic cultural programming, all parties end up either terribly frustrated, paranoid, or both. Hardly what I’d call healthy dynamics, so I don’t see how this can possibly be or provide any example of authentic health and healing, in any respect. Seems more like a rabbit hole to me.

    Alternative, to me, means alternative to ivory tower medicine. That tower is, in and of itself, maddening, and potentially, disabling. Sorry to say, but frankly, more harm than good comes from this culture.

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  • Interesting that you should ask me this, Sean. I got frustrated with the stigma around energy and spiritual healing, so I withdrew from discussing it here for a while. I’d like to see those barriers broken down, because I truly feel in my heart and bones that this is the avenue to take in order to transform all of this mess. Inner peace = outer peace.

    My work, in general, has been about ‘stigma’ overall–that is, how living in a seriously and chronically stigmatizing society is what creates fertile ground for suffering, violence, criminal inequality and injustice, and illness and imbalances of all kinds, especially what many refer to as ‘mental illness.’ In short, it creates a distorted sense of self, intimidation and paranoia, and all sorts of other confusing illusions–enough to drive anyone and all to madness.

    So indeed, when I saw this blog, I got excited, and the discussion has been encouraging. I’m all for moving forward, and ascending any and all boxes and perceived limitations. Times now call for utter creativity in thinking and courage in action. That’s how change occurs.

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  • Love the work you are doing, Sean. That’s my story–lived 20 years diagnosed and drugged for bipolar (which became other random labels over the course of time). Turned out that it that, all along, it was just me trying to get back to my spirit in a non-permissive, fear-based culture. Lots of drama, chaos, and despair during those times, before I stumbled upon similar information as you are sharing. Done with all that now, have been for 12 years now–no meds, no diagnosis, just awake, alive, aligned, and finally, just me, creating my life the way I most desire now.

    Very best wishes on your groundbreaking work!

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  • That’s great to hear about your son singing, Rossa. Channeling music through our bodies is one of the most healthful and aligning experiences we can have, and performing puts us in pure present time. Most healing and growth-oriented thing I’ve ever done. Without intending or expecting to, I got a career out of it and did theater in the Bay Area for several years, after defecting from the mental health world. I still call my singing teacher and mentor the greatest healer I’ve ever had. First thing we did on first day in class, under his direction, was to kick out of our space anyone who said we couldn’t do it. That was revelatory.

    Thanks for posting the link, too, very interesting. I’d never heard of the assemblage point, but I do know about the thymus playing a vital role in our energy balance (yin/yang). My focus in the healing work I do with others is helping people to identify their true spirit voice over external messages, so they can align with their authentic spirit nature–which can be quite different than what we had been perceiving about ourselves. When we align with our inner being, we are said to be ‘in synchronicity with ourselves,’ and life becomes rhythmic and poetic–in fact, it feels like music to me.

    On a separate note–my apologies, Jonathan, for the misspelling of your name, I just noticed this. Also for the typos in my post above. I should know better than to be hurried as I post.

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  • Thanks for clarifying, Jonathon. Regardless, the language you are using—double blind studies, placebo, etc.—is quite foreign to non-academic populations, so right there is a cultural divide. All of that is relatively meaningless, imo, to people who continue to suffer, if only for reasons of oppression by elitism and classism, so the emphasis on academic research is kind of a pardox, really.

    Historically, many spiritual healing cultures also operated on an elitist level, harboring the secrets of energy and healing, while still successfully employing these healing methods, because they were trusted due to effectiveness. That is not the case in the mental health world, where the evidence of failure and harm is rampant, and trust has been betrayed repeatedly.

    At present, however, there are a plethora of spiritual healers and teachers who are in the process of doing just what you say is, perhaps, impossible, or at best, extremely challenging. I think this is what any good healing conference would be about nowadays, how to translate these concepts and practices into accessible and relatively universal language. That would take a focus and patience. Esther Hicks, Kimberley Jones, Henry Stites, Doreen Virtue, and Lizette Rodriguez are teachers/healers such as these that come to mind right off the bat…there are so many others. That’s the order of the day in the spiritual healing world.

    It’s also exactly what I do in my own practice. I have traditional psychotherapy training which really has done me no good with myself or with my clients, in all honesty—other than, perhaps, learning to sit with a client. I also have years of training in a variety of energy and spiritual healing schools of thought–chakra work, psychic healing, vibrational/energy medicine, Kabbalah, and I trained as a medical intuit with Buddhist teachers/healers. All that, I did AS I healed from meds withdrawal and social trauma (stigma), and it all added up to retrieving my soul, integrating, and experiencing a full on healing transformation.

    (I was had also just started acting and performing on stage during this time, by an act of fate, which was challenging, enormously rewarding, and most vital to retrieving my spirit).

    If you check out my list of classes I’ve taught for several years now, you will see the trajectory of the healing, from start to finish, ending with “Paradigm Shift.”

    http://www.embodycalm.com/Services-Testimonials.html

    As far as language and beliefs, I am successful with people who are open to learning from a beginners mind, and who are willing to follow their processes with flexibility, in order to learn a new perspective. By the same token, I have worked with some clients who enjoy the personal empowerment that these teaching inevitably bring, but who’s heart is so wounded, they remain angry, split, and quite resistant to change. They’re more interested in manipulating others, rather than healing their hearts and shifting perspective.

    Also, I’ve run into people who by my merely using the word ‘vibration,’ they accuse me of being “New Agey,” which is really self-defeating. Vibration is a physics term which is most relevant to our existence. But if people want to dig their heals in cynicism and prejudice without informing themselves, nothing I can do about that.

    Overall, I find that by speaking consciously and mindfully about what words we use in what context and allowing people to dialogue for clarity, a new perspective and paradigm can be translated into pretty simple and straightforward language. But only to open minds and hearts, and that’s up to each individual what they bring to the table.

    We teach by setting the example and we learn by trusting and being open. Both sides have to cooperate with this, or nothing at all gets accomplished, other than keeping things good and stuck.

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  • “Shamanic, spiritual and religious tools are more complicated because they do rely on a willingness to forego scientific rationality.”

    I disagree. There is a very rational logic to Shamanic work, when you understand energy and vibration. There is a lot of scientific work that supports what Shamans and other esoteric healers have been able to intuit for centuries, in a variety of aspects. Many things you can google to get this information–emotions and vibrational frequency, studies on meditation and grounding, how like energies attract like energies, etc. All of these link to scientific evidence, one way or another.

    Personally, I’ve never seen or heard of a study that totally affirms how soul-retrieving works, on a physical level, but I don’t think that lack of ‘scientific evidence via academic research’ necessarily means that Shamans eschew the rationale of science. The evidence of Shamanic/spiritual energy work is experiential, no need to prove anything to others. One is either open to it or not.

    From my experience, having been open to the energy of healing, while also knowing from having been a psychotherapist myself, the psychological components involved, being open to Shamanic energy work will bring the evidence one needs in one’s experience to feel much, much better about themselves, and about life. This level of integration the core of healing, in my estimation.

    In no way do I feel this is shunning anything rational. What I do feel, is that science is second to intuition and personal experience. Eventually, science catches up to what healers have already figured out.

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  • This is the clearest and, to me, most relevant ‘call to arms’ I’ve seen on MIA. When attempting to issue such change in how we address human suffering is no time for naysayers, resistance, cynicism, or back-stabbing competition. Ego and rigidity in thinking obscures the path to enlightenment, and enlightenment is what we need now, more than ever.

    A rainbow bridge is what is needed, where all aspects of humanity are represented, not simply more dominant thought, with a few token radicals. That only duplicates the dualistic approach, fertile ground for stigma and discrimination, that has failed us chronically.

    It’s time the playing field is leveled, with respect to all culturally-influenced thinking, so that power struggles and abuse, along with ‘the need to be right,’ are replaced by mutual respect, and the desire for inner and outer peace, above all else. To me, that’s the proverbial bridge to cross, with a plethora of unknowns, but I feel a journey well worth taking.

    Thank you so much for this beautiful and fascinating piece. Gave me great hope when I read this 🙂

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  • Your strength, fortitude and wisdom cannot be overstated. As well as your generosity for sharing your very brave and heartbreaking story. Life is a teacher, and you are channeling her abundantly.

    Lesson five was highlighted for me: “You can’t love someone back to wholeness.”

    Indeed, it is vital we learn to love ourselves, as we are the only ones that can bring ourselves to wholeness. Probably the essence of our feeling powerless, when we see others suffer and cannot do anything about it. Yet, I’d say it’s a powerful lesson to understand and practice our surrender to truth, and to allow it to carry us forward, enriched and, somehow, freer.

    Thank you for this very moving piece. Blessings to you.

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  • “We currently have, either stupid people or, criminals in charge of the U.S…”

    There’s the problem, right there, and it’s a HUGE problem. Trickles down, too, until someone finally stands up to it and refuses to enable that game.

    I think more and more people are seeing this, though, and getting sorely fed up with incompetence and corruption that are so obviously real and concrete causes of people feeling distressed, paranoid, and, in general, creating needless suffering for everyone concerned. Here’s to continued awakening…

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  • Your comment—and your story, in general–reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, by Marianne Williamson:

    “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

    Shine on!

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  • Julie, you give so many hope with your brilliant and courageous example of personal empowerment and spiritual freedom. I’m in awe. Thank you for providing such a clear and well-informed perspective, perfect way to start the year. My very best to you.

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  • Very interesting topic and article on this last day of the year. I think how we react and respond to each other’s own personal reality is key to our universal sense of compassion, healthy boundaries, and personal freedom.

    We all have different goals and processes, so I imagine we all have our own unique blend of foci, beliefs, and perspectives as we journey through life. This would make up each of our highly diverse realities, from our subjective experience and the conclusions we draw as we go along–shifting over time for some, and for others, perhaps not. To me, that is neutral; who is to judge one reality over another?

    As far as how we address each other and interact, I would say that the level of respect, honesty, and self-ownership we each display toward each other would proportionately impact the well-being of the community at large, and therefore, make its individual members feel safe, valued, and unconditionally supported. I believe this is the bar we are looking to raise.

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  • Excellent topic and questions.

    From where I sit, all of society would have to experience extreme poverty, homelessness, and repeated social trauma (stigma)–and then heal and recover from it, building a foundation of self from the inside, regardless of how they fall into ‘the norm’–in order to understand anything at all about people who find themselves socially marginalized, especially due to financial conditions. No two ways about that.

    It’s preposterous what we assume about people who are not in the ‘normal’ work force, as there are so many creative ways to live one’s life and thrive. I’ve been poor in the past, but spiritually abundant, and personally, I have a hard time understanding people who are rich and successful, by society’s narrow standards, but with no spiritual foundation. That feels like hell to me, extremely uncertain, chronically.

    We are talking about individuals, regardless of any other condition. While some may commit crimes fueled by their social conditions, others do not–which doesn’t necessarily signify anything, other than the factors involved in ‘what makes a person commit a crime’ quite complex and subtle.

    As you deftly point out, however, certain social conditions can make it virtually impossible to survive without committing some kind of misdemeanor. So when you ask, “How should society respond to ‘these people?'” I’m more likely to wonder, “How should we respond to the system?” To me, it sounds completely impossible and unacceptable, so I would respond non-compliantly and rebel against it–which is what I did, btw, so I’m coming from my own example. That was my healing, and it catapulted me forward in my own life by quantum leaps.

    The legal and mental health systems are created and maintained by blatant power abusers and their enabling minions, who are also largely responsible for why we have such an epidemic rate of extreme poverty, homelessness, and mental and emotional health challenges.

    How do we heal abuse of power? That’s the biggest epidemic of all. Those are ‘the people’ about whom I wondering, “How should society respond to power abusers?” As a society, we’ve enabled this for way too long, which makes us an enabling society. So really, it’s our collective responsibility to call out the abusers. It’s scary, for a lot of reasons, but more healing than anyone can imagine.

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  • Fred, you’re an inspiration.

    I’ve said to many people quite often in the past year that I was done with dialoguing about these “mental health issues,” and wanted to move on to simply continuing to manifest my life, my way. I’ve been posting on MIA for a couple of years now, gaining further clarity and validation for the horrendousness I experienced all throughout my comprehensive journey through the mental health world, and it’s felt good, allowing me to feel complete with my experience and the information I drew from it. It’s all really helped me to grow tremendously, and for that I am grateful.

    It’s been hard to complete, like a sticky habit. These issues had been such an inherent part of my life for so long, but to me, personally, it is no longer relevant. Although it was really such an awful experience to deal with all of this for so long, that if I don’t turn my focus away from these frustrating (to me) debates, my energy will drain from constant splitting.

    For my own well-being, I am once again attempting to pry myself away from all this to move forward into a new light. I send out these words like a beacon, hopefully to encourage and support others…

    I’ve been a psych student, a clinical intern, a client, a social worker, an advocate, a ‘peer educator,’ an activist, a healer, a teacher, and a filmmaker—all in the name of ‘mental health and healing.’ I went from taking ‘psych drugs’ for 20 years, culminating in a grand total of 9 during that last year, to being completely free of these drugs, and fully detoxified. I also sued a vocational rehabilitation agency for discrimination, and won.

    Eventually, after years of learning to own my experience fully and releasing the trauma of it all, like sandbags of dense energy, I found my freedom.

    Like you, Fred, I also want as many people as possible to know their freedom, as well as their inner peace, their power to create, and their infinite stream of abundance. The world would be a truly remarkable place, if only…

    Many blessings to you for your tireless compassion.

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  • To me, the most relevant issue at this time is what Bob points out about the ambiguity of what we mean by ‘mental illness.’ That phrase is a sticking point, and has become contentious on many levels. On this website, I’ve been called on the carpet for actually believing that such a phenomenon exists at all, but I am flex with this. To me, it seems reasonable that this would be open to myriad interpretations. And, indeed, there would be a plethora of reasons that a person might find themselves out of balance, ungrounded, depressed, dissociated, etc. Main point for me about that is that everything heals so whatever I would call ‘mental illness’ would not take on any political implication or social stigma. For me, personally, when I did live with a diagnosis, it was not that big a deal, until others began to project their own stigma onto it. Then, it became catastrophic to my life.

    Frankly, I believe it is relative. Two people can be face to face with each other, each one thinking the other is ‘mentally ill.’ It is so subjective, overall.

    Predominantly, when we talk about ‘mental illness’ and ‘disability,’ and the relationship of these to social justice and fairness, I think more of power vs. powerlessness, rather than ‘mentally ill’ vs ‘mentally healthy,’ whatever either of those would mean. More often than not, we seem to use these terms as an indicator of being outside the norm in a way that is shaming and belittling, which already sets up an unjust imbalance, from which marginalization is inherent. For whatever reason it occurs, being de-valued by a 1) family and/or 2) society will have a devastating impact on a person, causing them to suffer until they retrieve their sense of self, impervious to the opinions of others.

    Psych hospitals and jails are filled with people who, somehow, lost their power, whether by sabotage from another, self-sabotage, or sabotaging social conditions. To me, they all seem like different sides of the same triangle.

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  • Thanks, Emmeline. I do appreciate that my posts on this thread were a bit askew from the main point of the blog, but as an activist-minded member of the LGBT community, when this issue is discussed in relationship to mental illness, even as an example of ‘social control,’ I feel compelled to address nuance, in any capacity. Stigma run bones deep, and can be extremely insidious and subtle.

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  • Emmeline, I must take issue with this.

    Personally, I believe homophobia is an accurate term, as this is based in ‘fear,’ to my mind. Calling it ‘anti-gay’ feels very demeaning to me, as a gay man. It seems these respective terms highlight ‘the other’ as ‘the one with the problem.’

    Either way, semantics aside, more than anything, I’d like to reiterate that at the core, this is about how people are regarded, above and beyond stigma. To me, this is about stigma. We could just as easily say, “Anti-straight” vs. “heterophobia,” which does apply to some people, that’s how some people feel, just like some heterosexuals fear gay people. Many roots to these, based on social trauma and programming, of course.

    In either direction, are we not trying to find our commonalties more than our differences? Especially when noting our difference leads to fearing or shunning or in some way ‘othering,’ if even simply by deconstructing analytically a population of people simply because they/we are outside some illusory notion of what is ‘normal?’

    Please let’s not say anti-gay. That feels dehumanizing to me.

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  • “homophobia is actually one of the few things that is not in the DSM!”

    I’m no fan of the DSM but I have to say, this is the irony of the century. Talk about an indicator of indoctrinated social values!

    Homophobia is, specifically, to my mind, a social ill that causes a lot of harm to people–from grossly distorted self-perception, to death, including, of course, suicide. It is based on ‘fear,’ and breeds stigma, discrimination, and marginalization, and is, therefore, accurate in language.

    This is merely my opinion, based on not only being a gay man, but also having lived, worked, and played in the Castro District of San Francisco for almost 20 years. This was after growing up, out and open, in Texas. So it was incredibly interesting to be part of ‘the norm’ for a while, there. It’s an entirely different experience in life, I felt like a totally different person. There’s a lot to learn and integrate when you experience life on both sides of the fence.

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  • I’m so glad my story lights up your hope, madmom. That’s the only reason I share. I had to bust through a lot of mythology and illusion (blatant stigma) I was being fed in order to find my clarity and true voice.

    Indeed, one vital truth I learned along my journey is that EVERYTHING heals, if we *allow* it to. Healing is natural and inevitable, although we can sabotage it with cynicism, pessimism, and negative beliefs, in general. Environments which stigmatize are, in no way, healing environments. Quite the opposite.

    I had to find and manifest environments where my full and complete healing was 1) believed in, and 2) supported. I certainly had to believe in that, myself, for it to occur. I learned that what we believe–deep in our hearts, when we are really being honest with ourselves–is what matters most when it comes to healing.

    (Apologies for veering off topic, but I felt strongly compelled to follow through, here).

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  • Just as a final comment, I’ve always attributed the substance behind why ‘homosexuality’ was finally stricken from the DSM as having no basis whatsoever for being in there, to Dr. Evelyn Hooker.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Hooker

    Here’s a 5 minute clip from an excellent and enlightening documentary I saw a couple of years ago about Dr. Hooker and her work in this area, called Changing Our Minds: The Story of Dr. Evelyn Hooker.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWOfyD5qvSQ

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  • I no longer post here, for personal reasons, but reading this blog and comments, I cannot help myself at present.

    My partner of 30 years (and now-husband) and I survived the catastrophe our life had become due to my particular story of psychiatric and social service abuse, coming off tons of meds, and my legal battle with the system. I was in despair and paranoia, and he was enraged at life and scared to death he had lost me to ‘mental illness.’ We had no effective support, of which to speak, so we were basically alone together, each of us in crisis and with me suddenly disabled.

    As I healed and ‘woke up,’ he was forced into doing his own healing, were we to survive as a couple. He did, and dedicated himself to healing, as did I, and we have since moved to the country together and are living a very happy and well-balanced, fulfilled life together. We feel we are living our dream, finally, the way we had planned, but which got derailed temporarily thanks to my debilitating encounters with the ‘mental health world.’ I’ve since shifted out of that world, eschewing it altogether.

    Personally, I don’t know of couples of any sexual orientation who weathered the storm like we did, both of us coming out of the dark and our own respective crises, growing and evolving together–once at odds as we each wrestled with our own demons, but now deeper in love and more committed to each other than ever.

    I just wanted to give a vivid example of how couples can heal together and create a really profound and meaningful partnership commitment, as a result. It just so happens that I’m part of a same-sex couple. So what?

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  • I was once diagnosed with bpd as I was suffering from psych drug withdrawal. That had never been a diagnosis for me before this. I had anxiety, depression, and I was in flux between two poles for a while, but I had never been diagnosed with a personality disorder, I’d never had any social or relationship issues like this. I was diagnosed because I didn’t feel myself and had a lot of chaos in my head that scared me, and I wasn’t sure why; not because anyone complained about or objected to my behavior. But this psychiatrist diagnosed me as such was because I feared being abandoned while sick and disabled, I had a lot of anxiety about that. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable fear, because this happens to a lot of people.

    As I healed and recovered, I got clear on what this psychiatrist was all about, and I let him know that I would not be continuing with him. He did everything in his power to not get me to abandon him, including having the gall to inform me that if I left him, I would just take my borderline personality with me into any relationship.

    I have a very healthy relationship life, always have. Strangely, he never perceived this about me. No matter what I said and how I said it, he would only hear the conversation is in own head. Whatever he brought into this was his issue, clearly. So who has “fear of abandonment” issues?

    What a crock this all this. I think it’s obvious that established mental health care practice these days is a rabbit hole to which there is no bottom, thanks to toxic relationships such as I describe above–a mere recreation of that from which we are attempting to heal. From all the stories I’ve heard, I am so not alone in this.

    I can no longer tolerate discussions such as these–reading this conversation made me nauseous. All this does for me now is to bring back horrible memories of dealing with ‘mentally ill’ (or whatever you want to call it) clinicians, and I seriously want to focus on moving forward, rather than remembering how these toxic projections and mind games made me feel crazy. That’s where I am now. I can certainly appreciate the value these discussions have for others.

    It’s been an interesting couple of years interacting with this website and I’ve learned a great deal, especially from the incredibly courageous sharing of truth from mental health system survivors. These are the voices to which I give my uncompromised respect when it comes to life wisdom. Thanks to these voices, I was able to validate my experience fully, and that’s what I needed for closure to all of this. I’m eternally grateful to all of you.

    We have, indeed, suffered needlessly at the hands of tragically misguided practices and gratefully, that part of the journey does have an end. My sincere and heartfelt wish is for each and every person who desires to end their suffering to find their way as quickly as possible. It is such a personal and subjective journey. Don’t let anyone discourage or distract you from finding peace.

    Very best wishes to all.

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  • That’s really great to hear, Sinead. This is what I envision to be ‘the alternative’ to what we have going now. To me, this is the new medicine–not a healing modality, but more so, an entirely new perspective, based on our awareness of energy. Not radical to ancient healing practitioners, but certainly radical for modern Western society.

    For me, it doesn’t matter where one is on his or her path–whether healthy and aligned or temporarily disabled, on meds or not, or whatever–expanding consciousness is what leads us to know the power of our creative minds. From wherever we are, we have only forward to go. When we awaken to our innate abilities to self-guide, self-heal, and create our paths consciously, we can resolve any issue with relative ease. To me, that was a game-changer, and it ultimately set me free.

    Here’s my program if you want to check it out. Feel free to be in touch if you want to compare notes. http://www.embodycalm.com.

    Best wishes for continued success with your wonderful work!

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  • Cause-and-effect is neutral and universal. Blame is judgment and lack of self-responsibility. (Self-blame is self-judgment and can be torturous and toxic for us). There is a huge difference in how we embody these disparate beliefs, and the effects on our health, lives, and communities.

    This goes way beyond the notion of ‘having a positive attitude.’ It is more about expanding consciousness, awareness, and personal evolution. Highly personal and subjective, I realize. And while it is intended to move us into an uplifting direction, what I’m talking about is more integrative than simply ‘all positive.’

    There are courses taught in the nature of our personal reality as related to what we hold as our practiced beliefs, and lots about this on the internet, youtube, etc.

    Thank you for sharing your truth in response to mine. I feel clear on your perspective, respectfully. I appreciate the dialogue.

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  • I should add that when I say that my perspective is that our beliefs dictate our reality, the main point here is that we do have the power to shift our beliefs as we go along in life. To me, this is extremely empowering. It’s also a radical shift in the paradigm, and isn’t that what we’re after? Takes flexibility to bring in radical change, by considering different beliefs about the nature of our personal and global reality.

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  • You misinterpret me, AA. My statement has nothing at all to do with blame. My perspective is that our beliefs dictate our reality. It is something worth considering, when nothing else has worked.

    I feel that when we share our stories and what we learned from our experiences, it is with the intention of inspiring hope, when some have given up, because the information out there is so misleading and extremely discouraging. The reason for sharing our experiences and truths is for the purpose of considering different points of view for the purpose of finding clarity and solutions to challenging issues like this. To me, that would the point of dialogue. I certainly don’t want be part of any community that feel that anyone is STUCK with suffering. That is not a reality to which I subscribe.

    Thanks for your response, I do appreciate what you say, here. But I don’t feel it’s fair for you to say I need to ‘watch what I say’ when I state a belief that I feel can be uplifting and encouraging to some.

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  • Dr. Breggin, I watched the video and what you say had been my experience, having tapered off of what had become nine drugs, after 20 years of one ‘cocktail’ or another. I actually functioned well for about 15 of those years, although looking back, I can see how I was somewhat compromised from the drugs. I compensated with coping mechanisms, however and moved along in my life, believing all along that this was my best option.

    Later, however, for a variety of reasons, my system finally crashed from it all, and I had no choice, if I wanted to live any kind of reasonable and healthful life, I’d have to leave them behind. Over a two-year period, I came off the drugs and yes, it was a wild and painful ride, at times excruciating. But I immediately sought support from an extremely gifted 5th generation herbalist, and an acupuncturist and Gi Gong teacher, and Chinese Medicine is what allowed me to heal and restore.

    I do want to be clear that I do feel our bodies regenerate naturally, if we allow them to, so no damage is permanent. That’s my heartfelt belief, in any event. I’ve been healthy for years now, which considering how bad things had gotten, is a true miracle to me and to my family, as well as to my healers. I got blood tests and panels done as I was in this process, and after a few years doing my healing due diligence, they all went into balance. For years, my kidney and liver panels were off, blood sugar was high, as well as bp, sudden adrenal rushes, etc. No longer, at all. No flight of fight, either, which had become a chronic nuisance while I took medication. I have no health issues at all at present, nor require medication of any kind for anything at all. I’m very grateful for my health, not something I’d ever take for granted, after all of this.

    I also did some specific focused grounding meditation, in a program for a few years, to help heal my mind from the extreme thought distortions which this had caused. I did other things, too, determined to get myself back to balance and clarity, so that I could integrate all that I had learned during this dark and treacherous time—as you say, I believe, catastrophic. Thankfully, that’s all in the past. I’ve turned many corners since, and can hardly even relate to who I was back then.

    What I continually scratch my head about is 1) how is this legal? And 2) who is protecting whom? It almost makes me nervous to even ask these questions, because I think the reality is pretty ugly, but frankly, I’m so sick and tired of seeing these people prosper by increasing suffering in those that turn trustingly and vulnerably for support and healing when they are in pain! It’s such an open secret at this point, how can they play dumb, with any conscience? This is malpractice en masse. In my opinion, it’s truly ruining our world.

    Thank you so much for your brave work and voice of truth in these endeavors.
    Best regards, Alex.

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  • Thanks for sharing so transparently your internal paradoxes around making changes from within the system. Very courageous.

    “Being open-minded and questioning things sometimes leads me to worry that I won’t be included or that I’ll be judged as somehow defecting.”

    Very powerful statement. When that happens, then you are creating change. If not, then nothing is changing. Change occurs when we are not afraid to test the boundaries of the status quo. Of course it’s going to shake things up, that’s the point.

    Revolutionary change occurs not when we make the choice (with conviction) to speak, embody, and live our truth over appeasing others to simply “be accepted.” I don’t see how it could be otherwise. (Although I’m open to hearing if anyone knows how to create meaningful change in an oppressive system without making waves and risking backlash. Hard to imagine how this would be…).

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  • A sound priority would be living by one’s own truth, regardless of how anyone perceives it, especially ‘society-at-large.’ Changes occur when we ascend group think and expectations, without feeling as though we are ‘failing,’ but more so, garner feelings of strength and empowerment from following our own path, however that may look or sound to others.

    That’s what they want people to feel, like failures. That is where the mainstream gets its power, by marginalizing independent thinkers. A person doesn’t have to feel like a failure, regardless of anything. That’s merely a perception.

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  • So well said. Alcoholism and depression (not sure about suicide, I’d be curious) increased dramatically among American women during the 60’s and 70’s because they were not Donna Stone (Reed).

    Corporate social expectations and practices are cold and disregarding of humanity. That culture only looks to replicate itself arrogantly and shuns individual creativity and diversity. Who on Earth could authentically feel ‘worthy’ in THAT world? Success there depends on being phony baloney, being a good liar, watching your back, and disarming others for the purpose of ‘getting ahead.’ I fail to see the attraction.

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  • Love your analysis, acidpop, rings true to me. The irony is tragic–suicide ideation and attempts can easily be the result of being in a vicious cycle of shame and blame, and taking it on, internally, believing these negative projections. Even if we don’t, fighting it when it is so powerfully projected and insisted upon by society at large is draining and exasperating, truly an uphill battle. But one worth fighting, nonetheless, I feel–somehow, someway; truth-speaking, I guess, calling it out, like you’re doing.

    And I agree, that’s been my experience, too–to be shamed and blamed for wanting to be free of pain, which in essence, is yet another example of how one individual can be expected to take on the anxiety and negativity of others. It doesn’t stop, even after death.

    We are all free to choose how we respond to life, and it ain’t such a party most of the time. Some people make it more challenging than it need be, imo, going against their own integrity.

    I shudder when I think of how others were treating me and responding to me when I survived an attempt. (Same as before, actually, nothing had changed–simply as I was trying to heal). I was in no condition then to respond from a space of inner strength and self-respect, of which I had none at that time; but I have since found my voice and my truth, and I get a great deal of satisfaction knowing how to respond to this spiritually and emotionally wounding tripe now. If we’re calling this ‘mental health treatment,’ then it’s the height of incompetence, at the very least. Talk about kicking people when they’re down, jeez…

    When we don’t understand others, first thing we do is shame, blame, demean, and marginalize, one way or another. I found this to be modeled in “mental health care.”

    Whereas we do have the choice to ask questions and show compassionate interest and curiosity, rather than harsh judgment and complete dismissal of that person’s truth. I ran across no one in the mental health world who came from this perspective, trying to understand how things had gotten so bad so that we could reverse that trend.

    That was a red flag to me, that lack of curiosity and direct engagement. Clued me into why it was that I had gotten to feel so badly about myself, while trying to heal in the mh system and under ‘psychiatric care.’ Plus, I could see that no issues were being resolved, in the slightest, and trauma was only being perpetuated and repeated.

    Even when in spirit, it’s a crappy vibe, that’s how I feel it. What and who does that help? No one, it only makes things worse, that’s common sense. We want to learn from our mistakes, not blame others for them.

    In a toxic system, there is usually at least one person who knows how to rally troops against a ‘threatening’ individual (for example, calling them ‘psychotic’), which results in some people feeling completely alienated, based on mythical stigma, generated by those that know how to ‘influence’ (manipulate, instill fear or guilt in) people. It’s sinister and insidious, and I’ve seen this a lot. I had to wake up to this in my own personal world, and when I did, it was like the clouds parted, and recognizing this truth is where my healing really took a turn and accelerated. I felt freed learning how those around me operated. Whereas my naiveté had led me into an emotional prison.

    One of my favorite quotes that was buzzing around the internet a few years ago is:

    “Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low-self esteem, make sure you are not surrounded by a**holes, first.” Anonymous.

    It’s a hard truth, but liberating, nonetheless.

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  • Not at all surprised. This doesn’t even consider researchers and funders of research that cannot discern between their own personal agenda from that of the community which they allegedly serve; or those who simply lie about their agenda, that’s all too common.

    Personally, I have never considered academic research as being indicative of free and independent, revolutionary thinking. If that were the case, we wouldn’t be so dependent on the experience of others to know our own personal truth. Nor would we need to prove anything to anyone. We’d just know our truth and apply it to our lives, intuitively.

    When we retrieve our abilities to know ourselves and our capabilities without needing proof or ‘permission’ from the experience of others, but simply from our own experience of living; and, as well, when we have released the need to prove anything to anyone, we have achieved personal freedom.

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  • I agree. Psychiatry teaches people that they are chronically ill and cannot achieve their dreams. Then, their terribly misguided (to be civil) practices ensure this. Then, they treat vulnerable, wounded clients with disregard, as though they are to be observed and assessed rather than engaged with and listened to, like a human being, compounding trauma rather than relieving it. The feeling of powerlessness becomes overwhelming, and quality of life becomes so compromised, and this need not be the case at all. It is created by this incredibly limited and dualistic perspective on humanity that we call ‘psychiatry.’

    The amount of damage done to the human spirit is overwhelming. Suicide can seem like a reasonable option after what psychiatry leads people to believe about themselves. It’s really hard to not internalized the stigma that is so aggressively projected, and it’s a spirit-killer.

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  • I realized that in my philosophizing about hope, which, indeed, you did mention, that I directly neglected the fact that you had said that on the most practical level, you are wanting tools. Sorry about that. This is a tricky area, because I think tools are so personal to our specific perspectives, which vary quite a bit. Still, I have some to offer.

    Main tool I learned while doing all of this was GROUNDING. By far the most important tool in my box. Being grounded is vital for any kind of change or coherent manifestation to occur. Otherwise, we simply create chaos.

    There are many others, in different paradigms of thought. You can email me privately if you want, I have a lot of tools at my disposal from which you can pick and choose, that are practical on a day to day basis. Always happy to share. Here’s the contact page from my website:

    http://www.embodycalm.com/Contact.html

    I guess the main point I want to get across here is that it became a matter of needing to be extremely creative, identify where the edges of all my boxes were, and then go beyond them. Takes trust, and overcoming fear of the unknown, but that’s the only way out I know.

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  • That’s a beautifully heartfelt and eloquent statement, madmom. Thanks for your truth. A couple of things that occur to me as I read your comment:

    First, I think the fact that each of us, and also as a collective, are addressing such multiple tiers of this journey or process influences how we receive the posts. Some people need their experiences validated, that was one way MIA helped me, to read that it was just not me, as I had been wondering. Also, to share insights about WHY this crap is happening, for the purpose of making change. When we find the root of an issue, we can make healthy changes there.

    But I agree, that solutions and resolutions are things we crave, as examples of success in making radical changes. That’s why I share my story. I did what so many said was impossible. Haha, fooled ‘em all! Radical changes are, indeed, possible, but it takes a lot of flexibility to have our beliefs challenged. That’s the only way to bring in a new paradigm. Creating radical change in the world means that we have to shift radically how we perceive reality. It cannot be about the past, only the present, as a gateway to the future. Imagine how sticky that gets in the mental health world!

    There are general social issues and there are specific individual issues. There are also issues of what is considered ‘sound healing,’ and also issues of what is fair and just. Overall, we’re asking to know what would be most effective in bringing about the radical change which we seek. Just how do we do this, so suffering can begin to dissipate. That’s what I have yet to see happen, as suffering only seems to be getting worse, on a global scale. To me, that’s the first order of business.

    So I really honor your perspective as a parent. My perspective is from one who had accepted a diagnoses and drugs, and who later realized that this was a terrible mistake, that I had, indeed, compromised already, just as you say; and also, that this perspective just doesn’t work, and as we all know, only serves to make things worse. So what do we do? How do we change this?

    That leads me to the second thing. From what you say, it seems reasonable to listen to the many, many of us who went through this, and then who overcame it, systematically. That’s my story, and the story of so many others. The trouble is getting people to listen, and then to actually engage. I try, and some have heard. But there’s a lot of resistance to listening out there, we’ve all experienced that.

    I agree, we know the damage done, and we have heard thousands upon thousands of stories, and a lot of good calling out about what is really going on behind the curtain. I think we know the truth, now.

    I think the first ingredient to change is to find hope, someway, somehow. My experience, when I was deep in the dark trenches, unable to see any light at all, was that when someone told me that there was a new of seeing all what I was experiencing and that it was available for me to learn and practice, that gave me my first glimmer of hope when I felt all had been lost, because everyone around me was hopeless for me. They did not know this other perspective, and they assumed they knew everything there was to know, of course. Zero creativity in thinking. Not exactly the support I would seek intentionally, but I learned to discern.

    I also learned that this is the most damaging and harmful message we can give anyone, that there is no hope. That feeling of hope, even the slightest, when it was offered to me finally, relaxed me enough to feel the feeling of hopefulness in my body, which opened my heart a bit, and that changed my moment by moment, day by day perspective. I guess you can say ‘the clouds parted,’ at least a bit. Eventually, the sky cleared up entirely, but that took focus and practice.

    So to anyone who feels hopeless, I would say, first, find a good source which inspires hope. That will vary from person to person, but the feeling is the same, it relaxes us. Own that, feel it, and see where your process takes you next. That’s actually a whole shift in perspective, and that changes how we feel in the present. There’s a lot more to shifting perspective and paradigm, but it’s got to start with hope, or one really can’t see the forest for the trees. (Pardon all the metaphors, but it’s just what is occurring to me in the moment!). When we embody hope, we see things had not seen before. It’s like turning on a light. The rest is to be discovered as you go along. Most important thing from my perspective is to keep hope alive.

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  • Come to think of it, to my mind, any true blue and authentic human rights movement will value the extremes as indicators of the truth. Extreme positions are born from having been grossly neglected, marginalized and stigmatized–that is, spirit-wounded. This calls for extreme change, because NO ONE should have to experience this. And if they have to, certainly not because we have decided who is extreme and who is not. That’s playing God, to my mind.

    People-pleasing–which to me is the inherent core of ‘politics’–as opposed to speaking and embodying our authentic truth, is what keeps things average and status quo, perhaps with an illusion of change here and there, but more and more we are seeing through all of this façade.

    The only way I was able to heal fully and recover all of myself was to take extreme measures, in every respect. Just my personal experience, but I value it highly.

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  • Seems to me as though this only repeats the pattern of marginalization, by blowing off the extremes. More and more people are discovering for themselves that they don’t fit into any median, which would seem authentic and realistic to me.

    I strongly feel that being ‘extreme’ is called for under the circumstances, since what we are calling for is radical change, not just a little shift. “The population average” to me continues to speak of ‘status quo.’ I think in the case of these issues regarding what is going on in the “mental health” world and all of its myriad tangents, the extreme position has a very good possibility of holding truth. Average is just, well, average–as in ‘mediocre.’

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  • Laysha, this is so haunting and rings so true to me. I took my journey of disability, healing, and transformation in San Francisco. For me, a new paradigm and perspective made the old one obsolete, at least in my own personal world.

    I had to move to a small rural town, filled with nature, space, and peace, in order to retrieve my soul once again, and find my clarity, balance, and grounding. It was absolutely impossible there. Not just for me, but for my partner, as well. Once I was done with my nightmare of an experience releasing meds and traversing the mental health system and related social services, he actually got a job in social services and worked as a case manager for a few years. Finally, he was clued into my reality and saw what had been happening with me all those years. He saw how the system was set up, the way I had experience it, that there is really, no choice in the matter if one is to survive, and even that can be dubitable. Between us both, we got the full picture, and saw that it was an impossible situation.

    So after doing all we could to create change–I did public speaking about all of this, and as well made a film from inside systemic professional ‘advocacy’–we continued to run into wall after wall and wall, and we did, indeed, feel the enormity of these issues. People kept saying, “It’s complicated,” but I wasn’t as confused as they were. I saw it purely as a lack of regard for humanity–mainly because those in power not only held on for dear life, but they also would ruthlessly stomp on the clinging fingers of anyone trying to climb on the ledge for support. I saw no consciousness, compassion, or competence at work in these social and political systems. It is truly a disaster of the highest magnitude, in every respect, and everyone is blindly backing each other up, for political reasons. The system is closed unto itself.

    That’s what I discovered after a 17-year journey in the mental health world, starting as grad student and ending as advocate. All power and greed, sucking energy for survival and justification, like an institutional vampire. It was truly overwhelming to experience and witness, and my biggest awakening.

    Transitioning out of that world was rough, due to the profound stigma that is epidemic there. That’s the weapon used. It was like de-programming from a cult, and the system was hostile to me in protest of my independent mind at work. Independent thinking is one of the powerful sign of healing, and they HATED it! They made that very clear, repeatedly.

    That’s where I woke up. Been speaking out ever since, every chance I get, to help others awaken so that they can find their path to freedom. I believe once we wake up, that path unfolds. I know it is there for everyone. It’s just that a negative frame of mind hinders our ability to see this. Wisdom, purpose, desire, and vision are found in our hearts, not in our intellect, and certainly, they cannot be dictated by anyone outside of ourselves, that’s just plain ridiculous to even consider.

    “I believe one of the greatest injustices a society can commit is to make certain members doubt their own reality, and then make them prisoners in their own minds.”

    I believe you nailed it, here. This is where we are. That’s called ‘a cult.’ Time to de-program, and meet truth, freedom, and inner peace.

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  • Great video, Michael, I enjoyed it thoroughly and felt good healing from it.

    In some of the training I did, I learned about ‘having a healing presence,’ that is, a neutral, grounded, heart-centered, and fluid perspective when present with anyone—whether it be a client, student, friend, boss, etc.–leading to a transcendent and blissful state of being. But it sure takes practice, given how enmeshed we’ve become with perpetual global chaos and being in what seems to be a chronic state of ungrounded-ness.

    I certainly feel your heart presence from your video, so grounded. I think when we tap into this non-ego state of being, we raise not only our own energy, but that of the collective. So, as a member of the collective, thank you very much!

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  • I first heard the term ‘spiritual bypassing’ in my counseling psychology grad program, which was (allegedly) spiritually based. From what I understand, it means to replace doing one’s inner work by espousing a spiritual perspective–that is, possessing an intellectual notion of spirit, without actually embodying one’s spiritual voice, so in essence, we cut ourselves off from our feelings and never have our emotional journey of life. Life is not about the intellect (that’s where illusions occur), it is about our richly textured emotions, the colors of life’s art. To me, that is truth.

    Avoiding emotions is avoiding truth, so really, we cut ourselves off from our truth when we deny ourselves our emotional experience to anything. How can we discern between what brings us joy and what brings us fear, if we don’t allow ourselves to feel? How can we grow and evolve as emotional beings if we cannot assess how we feel at any given moment?

    Another beautiful and insightful article, Melissa, thank you!

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  • What speaks most clearly and concisely to me is when you refer to psychiatry as “an institution that is serving us poorly and constitutes a threat to everyone.” Given the economics involved, how on earth can it be justified, in any respect? Were psychiatry to become disempowered and obsolete, resources would undoubtedly abound for more fruitful and authentic healing, not to mention we’d at least have a shot at becoming a just and balanced society.

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  • Your post is totally clear, no worries re typos. I think we all miss that edit feature!

    I, too, very much appreciate your kind words.

    Specifically my reference about two sides of the same coin were to the self-punishment and rage. While there can be so many reasons why these exist, they are two common responses to chronic abuse, oppression, and injustice. Perhaps these would qualify as ‘extreme,’ but they can be quite reasonable under the circumstances. And I feel they are the result of human expression of pain, when it is not being heard or recognized.

    (Although I had to learn to speak the truth of my anger in the moment, rather than stuffing it. My health was deteriorating in every way by not expressing my anger. I had some pretty serious guilt programmed in me, on top of it, so I really put myself in an emotional straight-jacket).

    I think it’s reasonable to ‘act crazy’ in crazy-making circumstances. Everyone does it, and it’s human. For some (many?) of us, family is our first crazy-making system. Hard for a kid to make sense of this, it just feels TERRIBLE. I’m not slamming parents, either. I’m not a parent, so I wouldn’t be so presumptuous. Plus, parents were kids once, too, with their own share of confusion as they were growing up.

    But I’ve been parented, and I know what feels right and helpful to me and what feels bad, hurtful, and downright sabotaging. I just think that raising awareness about how families tick is a really good start to getting to the heart of the matter, here, regarding extreme emotions that wind up hurting us. Who knows, that may be part of your mission, since you are a parent!

    I just had this thought about the double-sided coin as I wrote the comment before this one, thinking how ironic that we have these nonsense labels which do all this harm and make things worse, based on these different emotional responses, and really, it’s all the same thing, at the core–a response to crazy-making family dynamics. Of course there are other forms of trauma, but imbalanced family dynamics are insidiously powerful, and often not recognized for what they are.

    Once we do see and own this, then a lot can be done to move forward and heal, step by step, layer by layer, as you have described. I love your process, looking at yourself from various perspectives, distancing, and creating compassionate stories of truth around your experience. How I process takes me down the same road. It’s an ongoing experiment, how we grow and evolve, and exactly how we teach ourselves new ways of thinking. Beautifully creative healing! It’s exactly what I advocate.

    One last thing, then I’m offline for the rest of the day–I think you talk about something that is so important when you talk about fear of world catastrophe. This energy is actually in the collective now, so we’re all feeling it.

    One thing I learned from some teachers is that when we feel fear in the collective, the most healing action we can take for ourselves and others is to realize that we create our own reality, and if we can find our way to connect with our deepest faith and really trust our process while focusing on that which makes us feel better than fear (even indignation is better than fear, although if we can find our way to feeling hope, even better), then we are raising the energy of the collective and, in essence, shifting reality. It can be a mind-bender, but it’s fun to work it. I’ve seen hardy results in my own life.

    Thanks for your wonderful sharing and dialogue, Jonah. Enjoy the rest of your day! Over and out…for now.
    Alex.

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  • Thanks, Jonah, you’re totally right, I misspoke, here. What you describe is in some ways similar to my experience, too, that I was not ‘broken’ when all of this began for me, but more so very conflicted and confused.

    I wanted support as I tried to sort things out for myself. I never threw anything, but I felt like it every moment, and because I wasn’t raging as would have probably been healthier for me, I resisted and instead, I became disabled from harboring inside of me volcanoes of anxiety. So by not externalizing my rage, I suffered from extreme self-punishment. Do you think they might be two sides of the same coin? I do relate to your family dynamics quite a bit.

    Even though I actually entered the system voluntarily, this is the first thing that was communicated to me, that those of us there were ‘broken,’ in various ways as you recount. Aside from all the coercion, the indoctrination/brainwashing was blatant.

    One group facilitator walked into the room on my first day in this one social service group, and wrote on a white board: DIS-ABLED. I kid you not. And we spent an hour discussing how we were no longer ‘abled.’ ???? That was certainly not my intention when I turned to the system for support and HEALING!

    And it was downhill from there for a good long while. I fought hard to not internalized this, but the effect on my spirit was no good. I struggled with all of this until I finally woke up to the reality of that world–and the world in general–so well-articulated by many here on this website. It was such a relief, and so amazingly healing, when I learned the truth about the economics and politics of all this. Completely changed my self-perception, in a way that was only healthy for me.

    Of course were I to do it all over again, this is not, in any way, to where I would turn for support, but I came from societal indoctrination. After all, I studied psychology and did an internship, so I believed in all of this at one time. Lessons learned!

    This is actually healing to me in the moment, reminding myself of all of this, thanks to your comment. Shifts my perspective a bit in present time. Thank you.

    I always appreciate your extremely thoughtful use of language, you’ve been an example to me in this regard.

    Your story always moves me so much because it is easy for me to see your spirit and feel your heart as you describe your journey and experiences. Such powerful clear truth there. Aside from being an example of truth, I also feel you’re an example of personal power, from the heart. I really appreciate and admire that so much.

    I’m pasting what it says here underneath the Pocahontas quote from the article you posted here. I wasn’t familiar with this—never saw the film—but I loved what I read and wholeheartedly agree with it and do my best to live by it (always learning and expanding, here), so appropriate, especially these days:

    “’We are all connected to each other, in a circle, in a hoop that never ends,’ she says. When we let others into our lives, individuals who may see the world through an alternative lens, we learn more. Even if we don’t see eye to eye, we could still listen and acknowledge contrasting perspectives, opinions and beliefs.”

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  • Btw, I totally believe we are spiritual beings having a human experience. We are not our trauma, that is an experience we have, from which we can learn all about who we are and what we are here to accomplish in the world. Trauma is a highly effective teacher and guide. Post traumatic stress heals, no one is stuck with it, unless that is what they believe about themselves.

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  • I love this quote, Stephen, because it basically advocates for radical self-responsibility, which, personally, I feel is key for the kind of healing that amounts to personal transformation, where the original trauma really can sink into the background, and be used as fuel for empathy, creativity, and truth. That’s how it worked in my case, at least.

    When we experience repeated trauma, we can sink into crippling beliefs of being powerless to trauma. That’s an illusion, as we are all powerful and can transcend anything, if we only believed it. Our faith in ourselves is what opens the path to healing and integration.

    To accomplish this, it is vital we believe in our ability and potential. Hard to do with some clinicians, who further embed that feeling of powerlessness. Not only clinicians, but a lot of people, whether or not they are part of any of this, will not let others grow, from their own insecurities. Effective support allows us to be powerful, that’s necessary, I strongly feel.

    When we own all aspects of ourselves (teacher/student, leader/follower, etc.) then we are, in essence, retrieving our souls. When I finally experienced this after years of mind-bending healing work, my health, life, relationships, and environment changed completely. It is truly amazing–and seemingly miraculous–what occurs when we can integrate these dualities, and see ourselves as our own teacher, as well as our own student. This inner dialogue that we can create between these dual roles, is our light, and when we turn this on, we see things we never even imagined about ourselves and the world around us, that which supports us, rather than negates and sabotages. That’s expanded awareness, our collective goal.

    In the self-healing work I learned to do, the idea was to see how we all have these internal dichotomies that separate us from our wholeness. For example, we are all masculine and feminine combined. The physical gender we project is not necessarily indicative of whether we are more masculine or feminine in how we operate. When I use these terms, I am not referring to culturally assigned roles or stereotypes, but more so about the universal principles of masculine/feminine energy–i.e., yin/yang. When integrated, there is wholeness, clarity, and inner guidance.

    ‘Shamanic’ work–where we own and integrate all aspects of ourselves–is not so mysterious, and can only occur when we drop judgment and replace it with authentic compassion and trust. Then we can become whole and free as we move forward in our evolution. Anyone who desires to do so can accomplish this. It’s no longer esoteric, like it used to be.

    As indicated all over MIA, there are so many individual paths to integration. Still, I feel it’s a winning goal, and this quote you posted is a great vision of how this looks—we are ALL of it, each one of us, 100%.

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  • This is truth with which I can resonate. Capitalizing on misfortune, further breaking a broken spirit, domestic and social disease, high priced bureaucrats concealing truth, building an empire from all this. To me, that is what I would call ‘an extreme state,’ and it is systemic and extremely dangerous.

    Thank you for sharing your crystal clear vision of the reality of the situation. Decency and kindness is, indeed, what heals, and which also maintains a balanced, healthful community. Where did they go?

    Imo, the solution to how best to heal would be to find these qualities again–along with integrity–embody them, and expand them. It helps to begin by being kind to ourselves. It’s not easy being kind in today’s fear- and rage-based world, where lack of kindness is what is so heavily practiced and where certain acts of force and violence are justified by those who feel they have–or should have–some kind of ‘control’ over others.

    But it’s a journey to take, an excellent focus with which to begin healing anything, not just in ourselves, but society, at large. We’re far away from this now, but it’s not impossible.

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  • Each of us is our own expert of our own lives. We live and learn as we go along, and gain expertise about how we operate and about our own creative process, via our own experience. What became absurd to me was paying (or not) a stranger to tell me about myself, as if they were going to be neutral and inherently supportive. Of course, these diagnoses are often used as ways of saying “You bug me, there must be a name I can call you.” But it’s how we’ve been programmed in society, to not trust our own judgment, to not revel in making mistakes along the learning curve, to be ashamed to be human and flawed, etc.

    I agree completely that we are guided by our inner being, our own light, which knows our limitless potential. Life stressors and trauma do interfere with our hearing this inner voice. Healing occurs when we hear our own guiding, supportive and validating voice over negative and limiting self-beliefs, as well as over the shaming or discouraging voices of others outside of ourselves.

    When we connect with this inner light, we are free, not dependent on the opinion of others to reflect who we are, more often than not laden with judgment. Who we are is not something we can easily describe in language. It is a felt sense, a feeling of well-being. This occurs when we value our own voice over that of others. Of course, our own voice has to be kind with ourselves for us to feel good, which it often is not. When we learn self-kindness, we grow by leaps and bounds because we relax and feel our intrinsic value. Again, a felt sense of ‘worthiness.’

    Live, learn, own, grow. Everyone has some kind of trauma or inner conflict to work out, and we each do it our own way, talk to someone we trust or not talk about it at all, work it out internally, ourselves. Many people heal this way, privately, simply through their own inner dialogue.

    To whom on the planet does this NOT apply? Why do we need these ridiculous and pejorative names? That’s totally random and meaningless, other than to confuse people further terribly about their self-identity.

    For me, the trauma is what guided me to that inner light so that I could 1) heal the negative effects of the trauma, and 2) use it as conscious guidance now. What else do we need to know?

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  • In my psych grad program, we were assigned to watch Fatal Attraction as an example of BPD, and then we had a class discussion about it. It’s one reason I began to seriously question this field, and chose instead to follow another path. I find it to be a terribly demeaning distraction from what is relevant and humane, and simply used as a tool for ‘othering.’ It seems so much like blatant projection to me, pure judgment and fear. Over the top.

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  • If ‘mainstream mentality’ cannot hear the voices of those outside of their construct of reality, then perhaps the education and dialogue would be better served if aimed at everyone who is simply looking for guidance about how to best address extreme stress for themselves. After all, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been thrown off kilter by life stressors. Right now, psychiatry/psychology is the default, because that is has been the propaganda programming from education and media. We’ve soaked it in all too well, as a collective.

    If Rome is burning (which I agree, it is), then I think it’s best to walk away from the fire and build a new city with this new expanded awareness that has been so skillfully and passionately brought into reality by radical advocacy.

    Of course, one can try to fight the fire, but personally, I feel that would be futile and a waste of energy. From where I sit, it is a raging inferno with a life of its own at this point.

    Our personal resources of energy could be allocated more efficiently to a receptive audience, rather than one so rigid with resistance, with no subjective first-person experience whatsoever regarding the depth of what many of us have experienced, not to mention the amazing recoveries and healings so many of us have achieved, are achieving, or are well on their way to achieving. I’d say that this is what gives this movement its unique power. We do know exactly what we’re talking about, because we’ve been through it and back. To me, that defines the parameters of ‘expertise.’

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  • Then there are those that hand their personal power over to others, and then rage from their feelings of powerlessness, cuing ‘the power’ to force them into submission. It’s a terribly vicious downward-spiraling cycle. Hard to believe that a very few people are getting so rich from all of this, but that does seem to be the game being played.

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  • David, I agree with Jonah…wow. You make such a powerful and key argument, the core of power imbalance via the psychiatric ‘system.’ As a society giving these practices a ‘free pass,’ we are enabling systemic bullying and abuse, albeit unwittingly, perhaps, I’m aware. As a society–and especially in the mental health system–we have too many exceptions for the golden rule of treating others the way we would want to be treated. Thank you for raising the collective consciousness with your brilliant analysis.

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  • To me, that’s what trauma work is all about–separating past from present, emotionally. It’s painful when those initial emotional responses become ‘unsuppressed,’ but hardy soothing, patience, being in our truth, and trusting the process does pay off.

    I love when you say, “Each day is another chance to turn things around.” This is invaluable wisdom, keeps us in the moment, where, indeed, anything can happen. Every day is a new day with new energy and new possibilities.

    I found it helpful–and in fact, pretty vital–to allow my imagination to really stretch and for my beliefs to be challenged, as I healed from medication trauma, as my brain was shifting so much. That helped me to heal from the original traumas because I could see them from a different perspective. Honestly, it was more of a transformation in my reality than I could have imagined, so like you say, it’s good to embrace the unknown. That makes it an exciting and creating journey, rather than one filled with fear. That’s healing, in and of itself.

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  • Wow, I agree, this is brilliant. Clear, articulate, personal and heartfelt, and you cover all relevant ground. Not only an extremely generous letter, but also a very persuasive argument in favor of creating our lives from our own imagination, vision, choices, and using our emotions as indications of our humanism, as opposed to something to avoid or feel shame about–or worse yet, as indicators of some ‘disorder.’ That’s just social judgment illusion-creating stigma bs. We can own who we are and for sure don’t need to buy into that external stuff. We do have that choice.

    At this point, after all I learned in my journey of healing, it’s beyond my comprehension how we can judge our emotions, even though I played that role for a long time, with myself. I’m glad I can no longer tolerate this. Judging our emotions is toxic, I think, which is why it has been leading to toxic ‘remedies,’ in this pill dispensing society. While I don’t feel we ARE our emotions, I do feel that they make us human. That really should be ok, but often, it doesn’t feel as though that’s the case in today’s world, that we’re allowed to be human, ourselves. Some would like for emotions to be ‘regulated,’ which, to my mind, is 100% counter nature, and only leads to trouble.

    What I had to re-learn is how my emotions are my guidance in that they tell me how I feel about my experience. I think that’s important information regarding our discernment in making choices. So the last thing I would want is to not feel them. My healing was about learning to swim in my emotions, embracing them, rather than to drown in them by shunning myself and judging how I feel, and that required that I do my healing work thoroughly, with focus and diligence, sifting through different perspectives of myself and what I wanted from life. My perception of myself shifted drastically from when I lived and identified with diagnoses and a bunch of psych drugs to finally coming off them all after 20 years and eschewing all diagnoses, defining who I am as a human being my way, based on my emotional preferences. From THAT perspective, I was able to move forward fully and heal, once and for all.

    I went through withdrawal hell, too, and I feel so empathic and supportive of anyone who chooses to take this road–in spirit, at least, and more concretely when opportunities come to me. I’ve supported folks coming off psych drugs, and helped people to not start them, when their FAMILIES wanted them to. (That’s usually easy to remedy, with a new perspective on what role they have been playing in the family).

    When we are fully in touch with our emotions, we reach ourselves on a deeper and more authentic level, I think, in that we have clearer inner communication, and this helps us navigate lives with much greater awareness and feeling of freedom and control over our lives. Whereas when we dull, avoid, or separate from our emotions, we have lost touch with a vital part of ourselves that serves to guide us, so it’s easy to feel either with lost in direction or dependent on others. That was my experience.

    Really beautiful work, Meaghan, with yourself and with others. Courage and heart make a good team :). Best wishes on your own healing journey!

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  • Melissa, this article really stuck with me this week. I’ve read it several times and it’s really affected me at the core, I have to say. I’ve been meditating with what you’re putting forth here, still processing it in many ways. I think it’s really good stuff, and shining light on how many key issues come together in a way that I feel is valuable in making good progress in reforming our perspectives around these complex issues.

    To me, that’s what really needs reform, how we are perceiving issues, as well as how we are speaking and communicating about them, as you say. Simplifying for clarity, being open to how we are interpreting others, but certainly not to dismiss the challenges of “fixing” a broken system and society (however that would occur), where we all *seem* to be speaking the same language, but at the same time, it’s a bit of the tower of babel syndrome. Same words, different meanings, connotations, and energies around their intention. It’s such a multi-dimensional issue.

    Right now, we (in general) seem to be quite scattered in this regard, unable, for some reason, to communicate with clarity and neutrality, and thus focus is sacrificed. I would guess driven by anger, fear, those kinds of emotions, also competition. That’s my hit, anyway. I think you are creating a really neutral and astutely synthesized cohesion with this article that to me, feels very clear.

    I tell you this because in my estimation, you are really putting together a lot of really rich information that I feel adds up to what is vital–how we relate to each other through language, specifically. In the family, in social and professional communities, online and offline, etc. Social norms/expectations vs. inner voice/heart’s desires, they rarely coincide these days.

    Who’s to say who is doing it ‘right?’ I believe that’s between a person and their own heart and spirit, and has nothing to do with the assessment–judgmental or otherwise–from others.

    To me, a healthy community is one where we are encouraged on our paths, whoever we are and however we do it–not have it sabotaged by social invalidation via labels that lead to personal and social disempowerment. Unfortunately, that’s what we have now, and I’m sure we’d all here agree that it’s brutal.

    I feel your take on these issues is a light at the end of that tunnel, where we have an opportunity to create a better society from a new perspective, exploring the different dimensions of language, disability, and relationship which you put forth.

    I’m thinking about all of this quite a bit, thanks to having read your post.

    I look forward to the next installments!
    Thanks, Alex.

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  • Stephen, I was one of those kids, back in the 60s, when it was not only not talked about, it was completely and totally 100% kicked under the rug–by parents, in some cases, certainly in mine, no less–and allowed to fester, as though nothing had happened. Talk about crazy-making, literally. That’s a disaster waiting to happen, like around college age, right on cue.

    When I talk about healing, finding meaning, and ‘transcending’ the trauma, it’s to be an example of someone who did, in fact, heal through this perspective. I think I can’t afford to NOT talk about this aspect of it. To me, aside from actually healing from the trauma of abuse–sexual and otherwise–and talking about the kind of personal transformation that can be experienced from having faced the underbelly of humanity in such a direct way, as opposed to feeling condemned to chronic suffering, as I’m afraid many do, I feel that I am, indeed, doing something highly constructive and productive.

    While I’m doing the best I can to spread a hopeful message that these things do heal–not with a one shot magic bullet, but with focus and systematic healing–I’m all for preventing others from going through what I and countless others have. Any suggestions?

    Indeed, the family structure is in big trouble. Families are turning on and killing each other. It’s all over the news daily, multiple stories at a time. I’d love for this to be the focus of any kind of movement. It’s where society is cracked, like the San Andreas Fault. What has happened to families?? And what’s the solution?

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  • I think we’re as confused by the word ‘disabled’ as we are with the word ‘enlightened.’ There are many times were I feel the latter could sub for the former. I have my own perspective on this, but I won’t go into that semantic debate now.

    Mainly, I want to say what a moving and insightful article I feel this is. Perhaps going too fast and missing out on life is more of a ‘disability’ than taking one’s time and allowing each moment to process thoroughly, as it sounds from your description is your son’s nature. I totally admire this, and feel that he is providing a good example for others. We are all creative beings, with an infinite capacity for love, despite our individual and unique ways of communicating and processing. We’re ALL different, in this respect.

    Indeed, those we label as ‘disabled’ are, in reality, our best guides and teachers. As long as my teachers are kind-hearted and authentic, I strive to treat them with the utmost respect.

    “He is whole and complete and simply different in the qualities that define his character and his way of moving in the world.”

    I was elated when I read this sentence. He’s so lucky to have you as his mother, and vice versa, from what you say! Just beautiful, thanks.

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  • James, really wonderful piece and, I think, an extremely clear and articulate conclusion to your very thoroughly reasoned series.

    I love all of what you have to say, here, and I agree, this has been my experience. I especially loved this:

    “Self-worth recognizes that much of what produces meaning and happiness is acquired from beyond. Although we recognize that all of us commit mistakes and transgressions, the manifestation of self-worth invokes an understanding that each person is worth that of another, only expressed in a unique way. A leader may influence by her life. A helper may influence by his heart. Sufferers can influence by their witness. But all lives can have great meaning, much of which will always be beyond our poor powers to perceive. So it seems the only thing more tragic than when people feel discarded by the world is when they are discarded by themselves.”

    That is so humbling, and from my perspective, truthful. We certainly have control over how we perceive anything, and with practice, as you say, we can always broaden our perspectives to create new meaning out of any events in our life. (The only word I would want to change in that paragraph is where you write, “beyond our poor powers to perceive.” I’d replace ‘poor’ with ‘limited,’ only because it sounds less evaluative and more neutral). Still, I agree that there are perceptions beyond our scope, although we can certainly make it a point to strive to see things from a higher and more neutral/compassionate perspective.

    This is so beautifully validating to each member of any collective, without shunning, excepting, or marginalizing anyone. Each and every human being has intrinsic value, each moves the energy of the collective one way or another, regardless of our judgments or reactions to anyone. We are all connected, whether we like it or not. That’s certainly how I see it.

    I believe it is so healing and personally empowering when we can each be aware of and internalize this intrinsic value we carry, at all times. We tend to vacillate in this awareness, but it’s a good thing to remember when we are feeling the opposite.

    I believe if we have the intention to feel happy and joyous, regardless of anything, we can find that avenue, if we can find that connection to what is beyond our physical awareness. This broader consciousness is what I found gave meaning to my life, in totality, and it completely changed my world, both internal and external. As my perception shifted toward a place of meaning and self-worth, my environment transformed to reflect this, as I internalized it. It’s been a glorious transformation, all around, and it’s extended outward.

    And yes, forgiveness played a major role for me, in that it allowed me to let go of blame and resentment, own my experience from a whole new perspective, and bring in a more compassionate, lighter response to life’s harder moments. Doesn’t mean I have to hang out with those that I forgave, just the opposite. I go the other way when looking for relationship, so as to not repeat what I experienced before. Again, what you describe is my experience, to a tee.

    I always love your beautiful work, very enlightening and validating. Thank you 🙂

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  • Fwiw, this is why I feel that the word ‘stigma’ does have its place in all of this.

    First of all, to me, the feeling this word conjures for me is just as vile as ‘discrimination,’ ‘oppression,’ ‘bigoted,’ ‘prejudice,’ and ‘shaming.’ I’m sure there are other words as such, which I feel are all connected.

    When a person has ingrained beliefs that lean in this direction (‘superior us’ vs. ‘marginalized them’), then many things are easily deduced, not the least of which is that this is someone who does not own their shadow. In plain English, I’d call this person ‘snobby.’ That’s how I define that word. I have found it to go hand-in-hand with stigma and discrimination. Snobs feel that marginalized populations SHOULD be marginalized, that’s their authentic belief. They don’t recognize how they are sabotaging their own reality, and therefore their community, with this belief.

    When a person does not recognize this internal split for themselves–which I feel we all have or have had to one degree or another, thanks to media and education programming, for example—and absolutely refuses to see this, then I feel this relationship becomes unsafe and toxic, and I would not give this person any power over me at all. I would walk away if I felt this from someone, for any reason. I find there is no reasoning, God knows I’ve tried repeatedly, only to hit the same hostile wall and go down the rabbit hole with them.

    No one is superior or inferior to anyone, or has power over anyone, unless we buy into a stigma, and not see it for the illusory projection that it is, all about the one throwing stigma, not about the intended target. We are we collective consciousness, and mirrors of one another, always. That’s my belief, in any case.

    Also, this is someone who would take someone’s life story and respond something like, “You are sick,” “you are weird,” for example. “You have a disorder,” “you’re maladjusted”—the list goes on and on. When I tell my story of healing to someone and the response starts with “You are…” followed by something that makes me feel like I don’t know what I’m talking about when I tell my own story, then I know I am in the presence of a negatively discriminating ‘us vs. them’ mentality, which to me, translates to stigma—that there is something wrong with me, that I lack self-awareness, and that I am marked–or should be–for what my truth happens to be.

    What I feel needs to be addressed is this notion that anyone is superior or inferior to another in character, I don’t care what a person’s wealth, position, education, or blue blood line is, character is character, and transcends all of this superficiality. That’s archaic and illusory, passed down from generation to generation, and what I feel causes so many problems when we find our empowerment. Being empowered is a big component of healing, and it is not taken well in such an intensely and dangerously insecure environment. That is very damaging! Integrity and truth is what we’re after, here, not perpetuating a split society of illusions.

    Not only can a person’s newfound sense of personal empowerment be threatening to others who are not prepared for this shift in relationship, but we can also become ego-centric and ‘drunk with power’ and lose sight of the collective goal. That continues the cycle of stigma and oppression. The collective is always undermined when there is not respect for absolutely everyone’s individuality.

    Everyone is qualified to be a student or client, leader or follower, as well as a teacher and healer. To me, that’s not stigmatizing us and them thinking, I believe we go in and out of these modes with each other fluidly and continuously, if we are mutually supportive, and no one has a hidden agenda of wanting power over others. That’s when the stigma will come out, and discrimination, along with the same power conflict, ensues yet again.

    As long as any story of extreme distress, healing, and transformation is not met with the utmost respect, as opposed to eliciting cynicism and marginalization, then how can social ills—that is, stigma, discrimination, and marginalization–ever heal at all?

    It always comes down to ‘integration.’ This starts within, until the ‘us vs. them’ within us all is seen for the sabotaging illusion that it is. If we integrate internally, then perhaps integration has a chance in the outer world.

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  • Whatever one calls it, it is bad news, harmful, destructive, and sabotaging. The best way I have found to combat it is to call it out for what it is in the moment that you feel it, and let the chips fall where they may. I called it out repeatedly during my journey through the system, and of course it created more shaming, retaliation, and truly profound a blatant discrimination–acts of marginalization and downright cruelty. I was threatened and intimidated by the management of mental health and related agencies for telling them to their faces that they are being utterly discriminating, it was painfully obvious. To my mind, I had no choice but to stand in my truth and walk forward, until I was away from this nonsense (it’s criminal behavior, but their reasoning and behavior is nonsensical).

    From that, I found my path out of there, and with a lot more clarity than from before I began to experience this. I had to speak my truth in the moment, however, despite the immediate consequence, which there were. I sacrificed employment to speak my truth about discrimination in the system. To me, it felt like textbook stigma–they way I define it, born out of fear and discrimination–but I respect if that word isn’t strong enough for some, or if it feels co-opted or overused, whatever.

    For me, the most significant point is that the trauma from it all did heal with good, focused healing work, and I understand a lot more about how people and communities operate now. Thanks to this experience, it also makes perfect sense to me why the planet is in the shape it’s in, if these are the folks in charge. The kind of discrimination we’re talking about here is evil, in that it insists on power, competition, and sabotage, rather than healing, true blue support, and personal growth of its community members. And, they are the ones that get the funding, and are committing the crime of blatant and chronic discrimination. That’s what I call a closed system. New plan required.

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  • It was easier to be Gay in Texas than safely disclosing having a diagnosis in a graduate school counseling psych program! None of this was really a problem for me until I moved to San Francisco and entered this graduate program. There are cultural/environmental issues, here.

    Interesting what you say about appreciation–I was so extremely grateful whenever I did get anything of value, I was vocal about it, and did a lot of work voluntarily, gladly. Then they would start taking advantage of me, and I’d balk, which would not go over well.

    These relationships always started off fine, because I was responsible and did my work and as a result I healed, grew, and moved forward. But as I healed and grew into my full awareness, that’s when the resistance would start, and it would eventually become hostile.

    Indeed, stigma is the tip of the iceberg, we’re talking flagrant intimidation, discrimination, and adult emotional cruelty and abuse, that is certain to my mind. One co-worker made the comment to me, “They really tortured you.” They would turn on a dime when I set a boundary or corrected an erroneous assumption. I wanted to transfer to another agency, but they refused to allow anyone to help me put together a resume. My co-workers took compassion on me, and helped me behind their backs. It was truly insane. Fortunately, they’ve since closed their doors.

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  • AA, I feel that I understand your perspective because I went through this, too, being haunted by my file. I agree 100% with how Frank puts it, its part and parcel. It wasn’t medically where I was compromised, however, it was professionally. I made the error of turning to vocational rehabilitation for support, and ended up with an ‘employment file’ which was tarnished with textbook stigma, as I found out when I filed a grievance with the Civil Rights Office, so I requested it for legal purposes.

    While during the course of my thrill ride through the mental health system I had some legal success when I cried ‘foul,’ I also had grievances responded to with the basic message that “well, you see, you have this file and in it is says that you…” They would fill in the … with whatever was convenient to them. I had no idea that what I disclosed to ‘professionals’ was subject to such distortion and judgment, aka stigma. Learned the hard way, as so many of us have, it seems.

    Again, as Frank says, this is inherent in the mental health world. Even as I healed and became able to work again, my battles with the system continued because I could only go as far as their ceiling (based on their stigmatizing projections/inaccurate beliefs) would allow—that is, always under their thumb, selling their bill of goods. Control, control, control.

    Even going so far out into ‘professional advocacy,’ my voice was too radical and alternative, even though they liked my information about healing, since I obviously embodied it. They’d tell me they were on the same page as me, but it turned out that this claim was false, they were ‘of the system,’ and could not see it. That is where their funding comes from, and of course they’re not going to bite the hand that feeds them. They called themselves ‘advocates.’ For whom, I wondered?

    They would never, ever allow me to be anything but a ‘peer,’ even though I’ve been a clinician, and have been a counselor and teacher for years now, since I healed. I had also been a professional actor, did all sorts of things in the community, with no issue like this from anyone, ever.

    Reflecting back to their faces—and not at all angrily, but kind of with a sense of irony, with the purpose of giving them a client perspective for their own awakening–that I felt discriminated against and totally stigmatized only led them to become incredibly defensive and then it would turn into a barrage of demeaning insults and accusations. Suddenly, in their eyes, they became MY victim!

    I finally caught on that this is how they play the stigma and control game. It’s horrendous, and unconscionable to my mind, because no matter how far out you go in the mental health world, it ALWAYS amounts to who can overpower who, and the put-you-in-your-place stigma card is played every time the truth about the situation is spoken. Case closed. So many ways this is communicated, they have it down. That was totally my experience. It’s totally irresponsible, cruel, and I imagine it’s a blatant violation of ADA law—reasonable request does NOT get reasonably accommodated, nor even reasonably discussed.

    When I talk about not internalizing it, I know it is not easy, as I had to fight tooth and nail to not do so; they really poured it on thick as I was stubbornly trying to reason with them, getting more and more frustrated, of course. I eventually saw there is no reasoning, only overpowering. I was being seen not as me, but as whatever version of ‘mentally ill’ (or whatever) they had, which was not flattering in the slightest. This also led to a lot of lies about who I was as a person, about my character, but there was no convincing them of their completely irrational words and actions. Nothing had any foundation, and that was easy for me to prove in legal mediation. For sure, however, rallying others around these false beliefs is part of this sinister ritual of exclusion due to stigma. It is common practice.

    I focused on how this was affecting my spirit as I healed, owning my sense of self and self-respect, despite the fact that I felt like crap about myself because of how all of this was wasting me, but I persevered and that all got better. Because I made this my priority, I was able to finally disentangle from all of this. I had to heal a lot of self-blame, and then a lot of resentment, and come to a place of acceptance for the time being. That led to doors opening wide for me that allowed me to change my life radically and get away from all of this, leading me back to more respectful and copacetic communities.

    There’s still a lot of stigma out there of all kinds, but I hadn’t before run into anything quite as powerfully cynical and damaging as within the mental health world. Even as a Gay teen growing up in Texas, then as an adult, did I not experience anything this severe! Given the nature of illness and healing, I’d say this is grandiose betrayal which has shattered our trust.

    There’s a great big world out there with a lot of different things to offer in all areas, including healing support. I always advise to stay away from the mental health arena. While I know there are many compassionate people working in mental health, I feel the education is way mis-focused, and these kinds of power dynamics have taken over, in all tangents.

    Overall, it was a big leap from that stigmatizing dualistic world, because I had to shift radically all that I had taken on during those years in order to create a new experience of life. I did a lot of energy and spiritual work to make that happen, learned a whole new self-healing paradigm. Because I insisted I was not who they needed me to be, I found my way to my voice and truth, and I’m perfectly fine now, healthy, happy and productive, and off-the-grid entirely. I found a new life, no stigma included, of any kind. That’s because I walked out of that world and am not looking back, other than to share when it seems reasonable.

    I have a totally different view of myself and the world now than I did before all of this occurred, and that’s because I stayed alert and fought the stigma, calling it out every step of the way, even before I knew what to call it. I knew it was cruel and wrong, because of how truly awful it felt.

    I appreciate your very thoughtful responses.

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  • Stigma is internal, and sabotaging. Developing a strong sense of Self heals stigma, and makes us impervious to the judgments and opinions of others, so we take different actions than we would were we to take on projected stigma. When we don’t identify with others’ judgments and stigma, we are different people, emotionally and creatively free.

    When projected outward, it creates a hologram, and ‘reality’ becomes filtered through duality, via fear, blame, and discrimination, complete lack of self-responsibility. It spreads when we gossip negatively about others, and even when we speak negatively about ourselves. These are all stigmatic projections/introjections.

    We’re so used to it, it can be hard to recognize in ourselves. We’re swimming in stigma and judgment, since we are so dualistic in perception–that is, indoctrinated in ‘us vs. them’ duality. Most communities I know of are stigmatizing, one way or another. It’s epidemic, and toxic, the core of social ills.

    Yes, psychiatry is inherently stigmatizing, as are all of its tentacles. I agree, this is the ‘illness’ that creates ‘permanent disability’–all illusion.

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  • I could not agree with you more, fluffybunny. It really does snowball until we address it one way or another, and it does amount to our self-perception, in the end. If we’ve been force-fed such negative messages repeatedly as our minds, hearts and spirits are developing, only we can correct this ourselves, by consciously practicing a more compassionate and fully validating self-perception. In time, it shifts our neural pathways, and that’s transformation. We navigate life very differently and make different choices when we live with internal positive reinforcement and self-support, rather than self-bashing.

    I got the same messages you did, be perfect or else. All this double-binding and emotional straight-jacketing, crazy-making manipulation and shaming, totally fear-inducing.

    Yes, it’s at the core of so many diagnoses, to me that rings totally true, and I can trace it to my own experience. It can also be the hardest thing to see for ourselves. Family healing is not an easy journey, but I agree with you, that it’s way more often than not the at the heart of the matter.

    I also agree with ssenerch that physical issues result from childhood toxic family trauma. When we carry this stuff around, it manifests in so many ways that we often don’t attribute to old wounds, but I’ve always seen the connection, to me it’s clear.

    Regarding the initial post, for me, how I nourished my body was, indeed, a significant layer in my healing. I created a whole new inner ecology that shifted my energy tremendously into well-being. But I never would have gotten to that had it not been for the work I did around my family issues, that was the most important thing. Not only was it the key to my peace of mind as far as my own identity is concerned, but I found that doing the heart healing just naturally led me to work harder in other areas, to regain balance and maintain well-being. At this point, it’s what I most attribute to emotional freedom. My life, my rules, whatever works for me.

    I’m so glad you brought this up. It is central to my healing and to my work as a healer. There is a lot to be discovered in the area of family trauma and healing that I feel will clear up a lot of this mess.

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  • Beautiful and heartfelt story, Brenda, I so admire your self-awareness, courage, and determination.

    When I look around in the world, I see evidence of childhood trauma just about everywhere I look; people are really on the defensive these days, very competitive, to the point of being sabotaging. I feel that this is one of the main reasons we are in such global turmoil in this society, because many do not recognize their wounds and their potential impact on our well-being, as you have.

    At this point, I feel it’s a call to some kind of global transformation, with focus on heart consciousness and healing heart wounds. Then, our minds can become clear and focused, and we can know our truth and embody it as such. The process of manifesting what we need and want is so much easier, as we follow the path of least resistance. This was my experience, in any event.

    My very best wishes to you as you continue on your path of personal evolution, and keep up the amazing and very admirable work!

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  • Daniel, I made this transition, similar to what you’re talking about. Although much earlier on in my career than what you describe, I defected before taking the exam, in the middle of my MFT internship. I had healing of my own to do, and I could tell that my issues were interfering with my work with clients, so I took time off to do this. I turned to the system for support, which is where I WOKE UP.

    What I realized was that it was not so much my issues, but that of the environment that I was in, and these stigmatizing power dynamics. I had felt that this therapy thing had become more about power, rigid boundaries, and ‘othering,’ rather than being authentically about healing, personal growth, and true compassion. I found it politically and financially motivated, pure and simple. I became very disillusioned with the field, but still felt the call to be of support to others. I had done very well in my training and internship, and I knew I cleared out my own stuff, I could get back on track in a much more neutral and fully present way with clients.

    Thanks to the rude awakening I got going through the mental health system and its many tangents, I took a journey of personal transformation before it became clear to me how to make this best work for myself, and that’s where I got all my clarity about this path. Of course, this was after falling into a lot of confusion and feeling resistance, from both inside and outside, that led to a great deal of soul-searching and learning about who I am as spirit, what my path and life journey are all about, and how this all worked integrally in the human realm–to heal, grow, manifest, etc.

    Along the way, I became certified in a variety of healing modalities which gave me legitimacy, including becoming ordained as minister–not in a religious program, I’m non-denominational and continue to identify with my Jewish roots, but as the result of doing spiritual energy work specifically for the purpose of healing the spirit and psyche. That was the best healing and training I ever got, plus it’s my legal claim to do spiritual counseling.

    I’ve been called a ‘life coach,’ but I reject it, because I am not comfortable with it. We’re all learning as we go along, regardless of the roles we play. I call myself a ‘healer’ because what I do is for the intention of healing and shifting perspectives for the purpose of personal growth and evolution. Plus, I only had the courage to start my practice when I considered that I had done my own self-healing, as this is what I teach and how I support others. Others have called me a teacher or spiritual guide. Doesn’t matter to me, the work is the same, and I’m off the grid, legitimate and free.

    You bring up excellent and highly relevant points about the logistics of this, vis a vis the mainstream establishment. I had to be extremely creative and take leaps of faith, while keeping that faith. I also had to let go of the old paradigm altogether, meaning that I had to go into this with a beginners mind. It would have been impossible to make this shift without being fluid in my perspective, not hanging on to familiar meanings and attachment to the past and what I had learned, but to allow a new and fresh perspective emerge. It took time, trust, and flexibility, but it’s worked out really great for me, I found exactly what I wanted, from the perspective which fits me perfectly, so I feel fully in my integrity.

    There’s a lot to address here which could be messy and easily misunderstood in a forum like this, so feel free to contact me if you want to know more. http://www.embodycalm.com/Contact.html

    Either way, best wishes with these shifts you are looking to make! Personally, I feel this is the way to go. Detaching from a system altogether disempowers that system. Creating a new, better, and effective way to do things will make it obsolete.
    Alex.

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  • I post very minimally on here these days, only when something really sticks out to me that has not been said before, as so much gets repeated—repeatedly! To my mind, what you brought up, fluffybunny, is key to healing, and as you both say, what gets avoided, for many reasons having to do with family and social indoctrination.

    Nourishing my body in a way that balanced my energy, uplifted my spirit, and which contributed to my clarity, was an important part of my healing. But the family healing was the vital part, without which I would not have healed and gotten on with my life in a way with which I’m aligned, healthy, and happy, fulfilled.

    Main thing was to once and for all forgive them for the toxic dynamic by which they insisted in operating, while I disentangled from it (they don’t make it easy, that’s for sure). I also had to heal these dynamics within myself. When they weren’t around to demean, judge, and double-bind me, I’d either to the job myself, or I’d, somehow, find for someone else to do it.

    Really and truly forgiving them and taking over from there, calling it my path of healing and doing the work from that perspective, allowed me to know my voice separate and distinct from that of my family. For my own well-being, I let go of resentment and owned my issues entirely. I had to stand alone in my light of truth, and not doubt it, stick to it, follow that path and walk that talk. That’s where I could finally own my life, not as a victim, but as a spiritual being having a human experience. It’s where I found emotional freedom, lightness in my heart and soul, and clarity.

    One family member still functions the same way, and I keep him at arm’s length because he can’t seem to help but to be demeaning. He still has his troubles, never owned them, stayed in blame. But the others got it, and did their healing work as a result of my doing mine, and speaking my truth in the family.

    What I discovered is that when insidious toxic family issues go unrecognized and unaddressed, we simply repeat those toxic patterns in our relationships—including with ourselves, in our minds–as it continues to be part of our neural programming, from habit. Doesn’t matter what else we do, this one sticks if we don’t address it. I had to own what I had picked up from them, which I did not like, and then change this within in myself. Has nothing to do with expecting them or anyone else to change.

    Doing this work shifted my self-perspective, and my world entirely. That was the key to not only my mental health, but to having a healthy relationship with myself and the world. This is how I healed childhood trauma from toxic family dynamics and cleared my head.

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  • So beautifully said, Someone Else. Exactly, all of it. Feels good to have a consensus about this 🙂

    I have a feeling that this is changing, we’ve reached the edge, as you know. That one percent is being called out directly, clearly, and articulately, as you are doing. Hong Kong seems to be a good indicator that people are fed up with this garbage. Let’s keep hope alive that the tide is actually turning, now that we do know the truth and have a consensus about it. The one percent is very challenged right now. Perhaps it’s time for that two percent to step up, with confidence!

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  • I didn’t quite reach the work force, per se, I was interning when I interrupted my supervised practice to get off meds. I could tell that many things were interfering with my ability to stay centered with a client, so I took this path, to release the meds and heal from my core.

    The irony is that is that I went straight to the mental health system, and got ‘trapped’ in the disabled/peer identity for a while, didn’t see that coming. It was brutally reinforced and I internalized it temporarily, but I also fought it tooth and nail, which was my saving grace. My truth about myself was in no way consensual to their truth about me (and if that happens, my truth wins over anyone else’s as far as my own life and identity is concerned), so I could see it was no win for me in there, and in fact, dangerous. They would always feel entitled to overpower me, and I’d always be fighting that. That’s why I say it would make me ill. That’s just crazy-making and draining.

    Anyway, I don’t mean to babble on, here, but my point here is that my absolute best and most eye-opening ‘training,’ after all that education and supervision, was actually experiencing the oppression to that degree, in my skin and bones, knowing in my heart that this was total bs. And fighting it was so perilous, that was the main problem, I think, where the bad stuff really kicks in. Being shamed and gas-lighted when you’re trying to heal and move forward, for no reason other than jealousy and with a need to control and desire to sabotage like this, I could easily see why there is so much rage and despondence in this field. Now that I’m cleaned up from all of that in my own self-identity, and back to where I feel myself, impervious to these kinds of projections, I share and do what I can to help shifts things.

    It can be hard to get the message across, we tend to project so easily and own so little under stress, and on the internet, I find true dialogue about these things to not be very satisfying, for the most part. A lot of nuance and shifting perspectives as we move through this rubble to find answers and new pathways. But this helps, so thanks again for posting about it. I think it’s the core of the social ills and stigma which would make anyone feel pretty insane, because it is insane-making. But it does heal, that’s my point. I had to walk away, however, to make this happen, and it turned out to be a whole new world waiting to be discovered.

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  • Excellent topic, thanks for bringing it up. I was a clinician before entering the mental health system as a client. I had envisioned that I would heal, get off meds, and get back to work in the field. I worked hard at healing getting back into the swing of things, and I was getting there, going through disability voc rehab.

    And then sabotage began to happen, from inside the system, via stigma and discrimination, purely. Turns out that my truth–based on my newfound empathy for clients, having been through social services intensive group therapy and other activities with disabled peers–was not compatible with the workplace. I got in a lot of trouble for things I had a hard time understanding, like question why we are talking so harshly and judgmentally about clients at staff meetings. I was written up for posing that question.

    I was fired for saying, “I feel discriminated against.” I was certainly not in my center, but I was in control. I just blurted it out without thinking, because it had dawned on me in that moment, as though I suddenly work up. The CEO had said to me, “You don’t fit in,” despite the fact that I was getting people jobs right and left. I sued and won, and I found out they closed a few years later. N doubt there was a lot of weird stuff going on behind the curtain. That seems prevalent these days in the field.

    I tried other avenues, but when I talked about getting off of meds and healing, and presented my perspective, I was shunned. So those doors all closed on this clinician-turned-survivor-turned voc rehab counselor.

    What did I do? I made a film telling my story of going through the system and of my healing, trained and became certified in other healing modalities, and opened a healing and teaching practice of my own. In short, I created an alternative, and I’m much, MUCH happier than I ever could have been trying to fit inside that teeny tiny little box, which I felt was corrupt, anyway. They didn’t want me as I was, and I didn’t feel like conforming to appease the ‘power’ was the way to go, that would have made me ill, no doubt. Walking our talk keeps us clear, aligned, and healthy.

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  • AND, how to get people to stop emulating this! If one’s goal is to be rich and powerful, then you will miss out on the best life has to offer, and this is absolute truth, to my mind. Whereas if one’s intention is to find joy in life, then healing is a natural occurrence which takes no more effort than learning to feel joy.

    For some, yes, that can be tough, if one has been practicing a non-joyous reality for a long time, neural pathways are from habit. But if we make an intention to feel joy, then that path begins to unfold and if we can see it past our trauma and victim self, then we are on our way. This is how you change and evolve your reality, with your intention of where to focus. Many, many, thousands of references to this all over the internet, esp on YouTube. It’s well worth a look. Search ‘how to shift your reality.’

    Don’t try to convince closed hearted cynics, they are on another path.

    But from what I’ve learned, there is always light somewhere, and when our hearts can perceive it, there is joy.

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  • Russell Brand, Enlightened Man
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bKQXmvdr8o

    From 8:35-9:00 is particularly relevant, as it seems to me that the mental health world is for the benefit of an ‘elite,’ while it is supposed to benefit all, as is sound and JUST for any community. Somehow, in this world which I traversed up and down on all sides for decades, as a client and professional, including professional legal advocacy–and now that I am looking back on it all with new eyes, from a clearer perspective–one conclusion I can definitely draw from my experience is that the non-elite (clients) are sucked dry, and the rich and powerful get more rich and powerful…and downright mean and cruel and horribly stigmatizing, shaming, when pushed to truth.

    This must change, but of course, that’s the hardest thing to shift, for obvious reasons. How to get the elite to stop being so selfish and pig-headed, to feel with their hearts, rather than to observe with a limited perspective and draw ridiculously and insultingly false conclusions.

    We ALL have heart blocks from trauma. I make the generalization challenging anyone to come forth and say, “Hey, not me, I’ve never been traumatized, my heart has never been closed.” If so, I’d love to know how they operate, because that would be a joyous feeling. There are many ways to release heart trauma. Find your favorite loving and effective support and no need for drugs, or anything of the kind. Stop the madness.

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  • I was on Lithium for about 15 years and had a full and productive life, gainfully employed, getting BS and MA, healthy marriage, no disability. Still, it led to a lot of problems, and especially, it kicked off panic attacks (adrenaline surges), which led to dual diagnoses and more meds.

    When I finally got off the Lithium (along with other meds that had piled up), I was able to recover, heal, and get on with things. No Lithium, no meds of any kind, no panic anything, no bipolar. Grounded, clear-headed. Hard to analyze, but that’s how it went. My uncle died from kidney failure, after taking Lithium for 20 years.

    That’s my experience with it.

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  • I have Black Like Me right here next to me. Fantastic book. JH Griffin didn’t just observe, he fully experienced, subjectively. He felt what it was like to be Black in the 1950’s south, with no other identification, other than his connection to his soul and inner voice. He had no other fallback of which to speak, outside of his ‘alternate reality.’ He put himself courageously in that position to feel the range of emotions that become active under extreme social oppression and discrimination, fueled by extreme poverty, leading to despair, rage, and violence. That’s how we go IT.

    I believe many of us have done our jobs, here. We’re just waiting…

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  • One things I wanted to add for clarity–my work is geared toward anyone who is on the journey desiring to awaken to their spirit. My clientele has been highly diverse, from therapists, teachers, writers, filmmaker, to folks who live with diagnoses and disability. On meds or not is not an issue for me. These are all individual lots in life, all of which can change in an instant. We are all at one place or another in life.

    When it comes to energy work, everyone is equally on their journey, including me. There is no duality, no ‘us vs. them.’ When we talk about energy, we are One. I believe this is why this work is so effective. It never, ever marginalizes or discriminates.

    We are all energy, period, equal in power and potential, each of us in the game of cause and effect. Anything outside of this is pure illusion, and can be easily manipulated. With a strong loving collective heart, we will create a peaceful and just world. That will take some time, of course, but if we start with healing our hearts, we are well on our way.

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  • Fred, thanks, as always, for your back up on this.

    Been interesting since I started doing this work. I’ve never advertised or listed anywhere, other than where I’ve posted Voices That Heal or in discussion groups such as this. I get a few responses here and there. Mostly, I get referrals from other students and clients, so it’s mostly word of mouth. Plus, whenever I screen my film or give presentations–as I did a few months ago to public health nurses–one or two people recognize me and choose to work with me.

    Not everyone is ready to let go of all they’ve known in order to allow a new reality to emerge. Even though we want change, there is also a lot of fear of change. Resolving this internalized polarity is part of the consciousness shift. Given how things are going in the world these days, one way or another, people will wake up. For some, it will be a relief, while for others it could feel devastating. It so depends on one’s flexibility of mind and heartfelt trust of a process.

    I’ve made my shift, so I’m here to support anyone ready for theirs.

    It’s so great that you crossed paths with such a gifted and generous teacher, and that you found your peace. Quite a blessing, after all that we’ve endured, isn’t it?

    Take good care,
    Alex.

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  • There are very adept trained, educated and highly successful healers all over the world, who have been through their journeys of darkness and made it all the way through, transformed, who are willing and able to connect via internet and phone. Here’s a directory of energy healers–which is what I’m talking about as the alternative, in general. They are listed state by state and also internationally.

    http://energymedicinedirectory.com/energy_medicine_usa.html

    There are still a lot of practices and personalities that are individual to the practitioner, as with anything, and energy can be addressed in a variety of ways. But alternative to DSM and the like is energy medicine, which, regardless of what approach is utilized, addresses the complete mind/body/spirit picture, from the specific root to the most broad layer of perspective of energy; as opposed to psychology, which is generally very narrow in scope, and vague and incomplete, at best.

    Energy medicine gets right to the heart of the matter and serves to drive desired shifts, with no ambiguity, and certainly with no issues of dependence. The goal is mental clarity and physical relief. I work through dialogue, with some focused grounding meditation involved, but from a whole different perspective than traditional psychotherapy.

    Focus is on heart and spirit energy, which is a paradigm shift. The mind becomes clear when the heart feels relief. This is where double binds are resolved and ascended, creating a smoother flow of energy through the mind and body which is powerfully felt. Tons of relief and clarity come from knowing how our energy operates. It’s really empowering to know this.

    A client with whom I’m working presently is across the country from me, and she found my website, consulted with me, and decided to trust her intuition and check out what I have going on. As a result, she has found what she was looking for in terms of healing and aligning body/mind/spirit, as per her evident progress and submitted testimonial. All our communication is via phone and internet. In fact, I gave her a 10-week course in energy healing and shifting the healing paradigm using a Google folder. I’d taught this class in person, but I’d never done that before long distance, and it worked beautifully, because we were both well-focused on specific goals.

    At this point, I’d recommend being open to all the new stuff that is growing in exposure and popularity out there. It’s all about energy. It may be coming to a neighborhood near you at some point, but in the meantime, there is a lot one can learn on one’s own about energy and energy medicine, it’s all over the internet and on YouTube. It’s really all about learning our own self-healing powers, under any and all circumstances.

    Energy medicine been practiced for centuries, but it has never filtered into the mainstream as it has started to do now. From what I understand, the oligarchy of power would not want the masses to know this information, as it would disempower them completely if we were to all know the extent of our own powers of healing and manifesting. Of course, their goal is to make us all dependent.

    There are also reasons for this info being subdued, having to do with what we do and do not accept in our society. That’s individual choice, however, not a societal one.

    But in reality, energy medicine is what is shifting the world into healing, rather than the downward course it’s been on. When we learn that we have the power to heal ourselves, a lot of established institutions will fall by the wayside, because these institutions are no longer required for healing and well-being. It will be a whole new world in the making when we awaken to this, en masse.

    I’m always happy to share what I know about this that might be helpful to someone, if anyone is ever interested in learning more about energy healing and has no other access to an energy medicine practitioner. I’ve been in practice for several years and have learned quite a bit about energy and the human experience, via my own healing. My training was thorough and systematic, along with my healing and integration.

    I remember well the financial challenges of healing, so when someone chooses to work with me, my charges are based on what people can comfortably afford. I’ve charged $5 for sessions, when necessary, even though I can hardly afford it. But it comes back in many ways, so it’s always a good deal, regardless.

    The quality of one’s healing should never, ever be based on what some can afford that others cannot. That’s class warfare, not healing. http://www.embodycalm.com

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  • The practice of ‘psychiatry’ has already been replaced. There are so many effective ways of addressing all levels of distress and imbalance that have existed for a long time, and which are commonly practiced. It’s not necessarily ‘prestigious’ in academic journal circles or the recipient of government grants, but who cares about that when it comes to health and well-being? Well, a lot of people do, but, personally, I feel that’s a grave and limiting error in judgment. Health and well-being are contingent on neither social position or bank accounts. They are matter of inner peace and self-validation, and anyone can achieve these if that is what they want.

    These days, there are many readily practiced and extremely effective alternatives to the specific field of psychology/psychiatry which work outside of the framework of any disease model and more directly with the human heart and spirit.

    Getting off of 9 meds was the most physically painful and rigorous thing I’ve put myself through in life, but it was so well worth it in order to become independent of this rapidly downwardly spiraling field of psychology/psychiatry (I see them interlinked these days, in terms of dualistic perspective–always disenfranchising and splitting, one way or another, this seems inherent in how these clinical relationships are practiced). I found a lot of good natural support during this transitional time, which was a valuable education in and of itself.

    The mental health field, on the whole, has way more critics than supporters, and for good reason. I abolished it from my own life altogether, by refusing the toxins any longer and freeing myself up to discern where I would best find support in order to continue my healing, including from psychiatry-induced and psychotherapy-related post-traumatic stress.

    I’m certainly not interested in ‘reforming’ how I was treated, which would compromise my well-being and personal evolution. I am interested in abolishing that kind of treatment of others altogether, so I took the meticulous steps and practiced diligent focus to disentangle myself from this extremely dysfunctional relationship I had found myself in with this field. I know some people feel helped by meds or psychotherapy, but for me, my experience with the entire field was a catastrophic disaster, from which I then had to heal even more.

    The true blessing of it all is that it made my dark night extremely rich and productive, and all that I learned serves and supports emotional and spiritual freedom.

    The good news is that we do live in a great big world with a variety of cultures and perspectives, and what I discovered is that the mental health world is unto itself. I’ve been a member of many communities, but I’ve never experienced the lack of clarity and defensive rationalizations that exists in the mental health world. That’s a problem for people who turn to these fields specifically to seek clarity and inner peace. Apparently, that is nowhere to be found in the mental health world.

    There are many avenues of healing and seeking personal clarity out there, I don’t see why wondering what could replace ‘psychiatry’ is an issue. That makes it sound indispensable, which I can’t even fathom how this could be true.

    Sandy, you know I respect you a great deal and this is not meant to be at all personal, but the entire field just seems to highly toxic by now, I think it’s so evident. I can totally understand how this would not be a pleasing thought to someone conscientious like you who is in this field. But the world, on a whole, is toxic and not a terribly pleasant place to live at this time, so no one is alone in this.

    Still, imo, psychiatry, as way to find and maintain mental health, is self-propagated mythology; and turning to other sources of healing mind/heart/spirit, far and away from current established mental health practices and philosophy, is a done deal for a lot of people.

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  • How do we build peace in a world so blinded by pain and fear that we seem unwilling to look towards the light of forgiveness? How do you transform consciousness? How do you build peace? How do you describe the sweetness of the fruit?

    Lauren, these are the brilliant questions, imo. Each of us finding our spiritual voice is such an individual journey. To me, forgiveness is as much a practical matter as it is spiritually generous. In fact, I believe that spirituality is practical. Within this, we find the support which can be lacking in our communities, often starting with families. Within our spirit truth, we find ease, lightness, and good feelings, here, like hope and joy. For me, that was the healing. I had to learn how to feel good after having felt so badly for so long, due to multiple traumas, betrayal, etc.

    This occurred when I learned to be much kinder to myself, which grew me impervious to negative influences outside of myself, thicker skin. To say I had an inner critic is a major understatement. I had to defeat those voices but good in order to find my clarity, joy, and inner light. Not easy in a hyper-critical and shaming world, but that actually served to help me separate my voice from those of others.

    When we connect with our spiritual nature, we can free ourselves of worry, fear, and other emotional burdens which have long dragged us down, as we are connected to our guiding voice when we connect with our spirits. We are in present time, not in our traumas. That is our light within the darkness, the clarity within the chaos. It’s inside us all along, our personal lumen. It’s just a matter of allowing ourselves to feel this in our hearts, to know our truth and create from it, paying forward the light and love we can feel from knowing our spirits, creating a new and improved world, thusly. To me, that’s the whole point of being on the planet right now.

    Unfortunately, like virtually all else in our current reality, spirituality has been corrupt, and it can be associated with further control, deceit, betrayal, and overall abuse. I know this all too well, from my own experience and from listening to others. It is up to each one of us to get clarity on what is actually spiritual vs. what is dogmatic oppression. I believe this is what we’re all looking to discern now, what is real vs. what is illusory (impermanent). (Not that oppression is illusory, we feel it as very real; still, there are illusions involved here which, were we to see through them, we could ascend the abuse and stop falling prey to it).

    To me, our spirits are real because they are constant. They can be challenged and wounded, but they cannot be destroyed. That’s impossible, as they self-repair, that is the nature of energy. The problem on Earth at this time is that we do not honor nature, so we keep our spirits wounded and undernourished, which is what is so disempowering to us.

    Since I made this connection, my spirit has never, ever let me down. When I follow my spirit guidance, I know I am on a fascinating journey of well-being that gets me all that I could want for myself (fortunately, my needs are quite simple, which is a blessing). But I do have peace, thanks to my spiritual reality, and that is my primary need.

    Anything physical, like our bodies, are temporary by nature. So are the institutions which have brought us so far down; they are temporary, in that they cannot last forever. We would like to see an end to them now, in fact. I believe we can achieve this, were we to know the impermanence of them. That is a powerful and advantageous perspective, I think. To discern illusion from what is real and eternal is a gift to ourselves. This is our power. We have believed the lies for so long, and have grown painfully accustomed to the confusion that comes from these, that disillusionment (literally) will certainly impact us profoundly.

    For me, this is where transformation occurs, when we can accept the spiritual nature of our reality over the physical nature of it. That is where we ascend from a limited reality to one of unlimited potential for one and all, and for humanity at large. This affects everything we do and experience in a way that brings blessed ease into our experience.

    I recently received a testimonial which is on my website from someone with whom I’ve been working who says that the feeling of making this spiritual connection is ‘beyond description.’ That is my feeling, as well. I believe this information exists solely on a felt sense level. Many people have described it in different ways using all sorts of analogies and metaphors, but I have yet to find words to do justice to this experience of transformation to spiritual awareness. It is real and practical, in that it feels fantastic, even in our darkest moments. It is eternal.

    Posting my website, if you’d like to see what I do, related to what we have been discussing, here. And to be further in touch, if you feel inclined. I actually describe my practice as “A school for transforming consciousness.” Following all of my struggles largely related to the illusions of mental health and academic worlds, I’ve found my peace, and my place in the world. My own personal needs are well met, in abundance. I know my spiritual contract, because I finally asked about it, and learned how to listen for the authentic response. I had a good teacher who helped guide me to this information. Took a while, but I finally got it. I am here now to be of service and support during this time of global transformation, that’s what my work and life are geared toward. That gives all my trials and tribulations profound meaning. http://www.embodycalm.com

    Thanks for all that you’ve shared, Lauren. This dialogue has been truly enlightening and validating for me. Much appreciation to you, and for your amazing journey.

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  • “incivility, righteousness, and moralism will stop forward movement every time, IMHO. They give a momentary sense of satisfaction, and short-lived sense of accomplishment, and ultimately leave everyone where they started, and angrier for it.”

    I like civility as a goal, but I agree with Jonah that it’s highly relative and open to interpretation what is considered civil. That’s also a cross-cultural issue, as different cultures have varying tolerance, awareness, and interpretation of behaviors in relationship to each other. Certainly there is a line where behavior can be seen as universally uncivil, but for the most part, it is highly open to interpretation.

    Lack of civility can be subtle and insidious, rather cleverly manipulated with justification. It can also be a matter of how words are received, rather than how they are offered.

    Regarding righteousness and morality, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Harvey Milk were both very righteous and moral leaders, and those movements broke all new ground and they continue to do so. The didn’t rely on scientific evidence to reach people. They did it by fueling their vision of unity and global cooperation with heartfelt reason, focus, and passion. From what I’ve seen and experienced, this is what speaks most clearly and rings true to the general public.

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  • When we know our darkness, we know our light. It is all one consciousness. Courage and faith guide us well, and when we listen, we learn that life is eternal, and our physical burdens are relieved, regardless of whether we continue our journeys in our physical bodies or without them.

    Ascending from illusions occurs with forgiveness. That is when we can see the spiritual reality of life, the light. Our best guidance comes from that which seems impossible to forgive. This is among our best opportunities for healing, growth, and knowing universal truth and unconditional love, which is only to our benefit in every way.

    I’m so moved by your journey, and what you describe. So much to learn from these transpersonal experiences. I look forward to reading more about this, thank you.

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  • We speak the same language! “Ending the illusion of separation” is also the goal with fuels my work, and my own personal life. Inner peace is also the most important thing to me, allowing it to ripple outward, attracting more peace. As we strive for this, we feel the power of our spirit, which is where I find my encouragement to help to navigate these changes happening in the world.

    Indeed, awakening to illusion and realizing the lies we’ve been fed, especially about ourselves, is somewhat of a horror and also exhilarating and freeing at the same time. Insidious is the word I use to describe it, as well. I feel this is where we have such fertile opportunities to make core shifts, remembering trust and our natural inner guidance. Forgiveness and self-compassion are powerful allies as we awaken. When we can allow ourselves to connect with these, peace and clarity are on its way.

    Brava, Lauren! So great to know you’re out there doing this work. To me, it is the ticket. All the best on your trip to Auschwitz. Sounds like very exciting and profound work.

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  • Lauren, this is exquisite. Breaking addictions to limiting thoughts is what frees us up from the stigmatizing and self-stigmatizing illusions which compromise our quality of life, and our existence on the planet, in general. That’s the work I do with myself and with others, to release old patterns of thinking, to allow new ways of being to emerge. It takes a lot of trust, intuition, and patience–as well as a sense of adventure–and I feel this is the ticket.

    My experience has been that it does, indeed, lead to inner peace, as you talk about in the video. Only when we achieve inner peace do we begin to create peace in our world. The shift is from brain consciousness (duality, separation) to heart consciousness (unity, integration of masculine/feminine). Life brings us plenty of opportunities to own what we’ve repressed, and to let it go, once and for all, rather than to continue struggling with ourselves.

    When I made this shift in myself, inclusion occurred, because I knew my place in the world, regardless of anyone else’s projection. It was like releasing a decades long held breath–finally, release and relief, and I could finally identify with my true limitless spirit. Changes everything, inside and out.

    Thank you for a clear and inspired post about healing and evolving into personal freedom.

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  • I was checking a reference on this blog and saw this question posed to me that I hadn’t seen before, regarding the mind. A little late now, but fwiw, the mind is energy.

    Energy can be dense or it can be light. That’s physics. When energy is dense, it creates dis-ease. I wouldn’t argue about what to call it; I think it’s more fruitful and relevant to find clarity about how to heal the density by breaking up energy blocks.

    When you know how energy works and how we direct and navigate it with our thoughts and beliefs, healing is not so complicated. Only by understanding energy can one get clarity about why the mind can go out of balance, causing us to turn on ourselves and each other.

    Everyone experiences this from time to time. Some, unfortunately, get stuck in density until they know their own self-healing abilities. We all have them, many just don’t know how to access this part of ourselves. Certainly, exorbitantly paid doctors of any kind will never acknowledge that we can heal and shift anything within ourselves, and in fact, will ridicule this notion, because it would cut into their business and disempower them.

    But some people and certain communities are starting to catch on, thank God. That’s what will make this industry obsolete, as this information ripples outward, and into the world at large. Stay tuned, you’ll be hearing more about this as time goes on. It’s the essence of the paradigm shift.

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  • I agree that purposely trying to die goes against our nature, but then again, our society goes against nature, so it can be pretty easy to find one’s self in multiple double-binding loops that lead to chronic and extreme distress, for those unaware of how they are being oppressed and controlled. It can be impossible to pinpoint, intellectually, when in the midst of experiencing it, but it is easily felt in the heart and spirit as devastating.

    The messages we get from outside of ourselves can feel very shaming, demeaning, and discouraging, and when this becomes internalized, it will distort our self-perception and lead us to believe we will never know joy, fulfillment, and peace of mind. I know this is an illusion, but it is a powerful one that feels very real and insurmountable in the present moment, which can feel like an eternity.

    As long as society is out so out of balance, and one of scapegoating mentality (lack of self-responsibility), we can, indeed, be a danger to ourselves and to each other. I say this on a collective level. Individuals merely reflect what is at the core of collective beliefs. After all, our national suicide rate is exorbitant. I can’t even imagine the numbers on attempted suicide. What kind of society have we manifested, where suicide and suicide attempts are epidemic? That’s the reddist flag I can even imagine.

    To me, this is a community issue, not individual. Toxic communities will inherently have its victims.

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  • “As for human on human attacks…we have an alienation/violence problem in this country right now, don’t we?…The problem is that we are fostering an aggressive, arrogant, success at all costs culture, and that’s what you get from that sort of thing. It isn’t all lovey dovey, anything but, and where you don’t have love, violence may erupt. Sometimes, when matters become superficial, it’s just a matter of the truth getting out, if not thoroughly.”

    What we’ve alienated ourselves from is our naturally loving selves, which is why groups alienate and marginalize certain members, as they are threatening reflections of what they don’t want to see or feel in themselves. If a person makes you feel bad, then it is your bad feeling to deal with and heal, not theirs. That’s just simple self-responsibility, a tough one for many, I realize. We are a scapegoating and blaming society, on a whole.

    It is part of life that we affect each other not always positively; our agendas don’t always coincide, even among people who feel a connection with each other, on some level. If someone makes you feel bad often, then get away from that person and don’t look back! That is self-loving self-care. One can still have compassion for a jerk, just don’t hang out with them.

    While we can all act like jerks at times, some people seem to be perpetually mean-spirited and chronically invalidating and demeaning. They are jerks because they, too, have lacked love in their lives. To me, there can be no other reason for hurting others and getting angry, defensive, argumentative, or demeaning when it is pointed out.

    I believe if the anger were to clear, what we’d really feel is sad, before we allow ourselves to fully embrace unconditional love. Our society is one of walking wounded. Just about everyone I know has suffered trauma and abuse, it’s certainly not confined to the mental health world, not in the slightest. But I certainly wouldn’t turn to the mental health field in any way shape or form in order to find clarity and healing, should I ever need support in the future. To me, I got the opposite of healing and clarity—more confusion and more feeling disoriented, fragmented, and ill. Only by turning my focus to other paradigms of healing–those that can be met with tremendous stigma in the more academic circles of our society–was I able to reverse this, and be on my way, healthy, whole, grounded, free, and personally sovereign.

    And yes, this level of self and social alienation that we are currently experiencing does tend to create chronic rage and fear, causing violent chronic thoughts and actions toward one’s self, others, or both. That’s a terribly painful existence, that needn’t be. And if any love does manage to get through, during possible moments of clarity and feeling connected to the collective consciousness, it is merely conditional—based on the condition that “you fulfill my needs without question. If not, there will be consequences to fear.”

    Abuse of power has become a way of life in our society. When we heal the belief that we are perpetual victims and stop identifying with it, and empower ourselves with kind, compassionate, and self-validating beliefs, then the abusers lose their power, and have only themselves to turn against. At the same time, we’ve done our own personal health and well-being a great service, and can feel a lot of relief from this shift in perspective.

    No, it is not lovey dovey, that would be unrealistic, and also kind of boring and irritating, as nothing is created from such placidness. There is no challenge with this.

    Unconditional love can be tough love, and experienced in the face of chaos and mean-spiritedness. It ain’t easy, but it does resolve issues and moves things forward, rather than keeping them stuck in an emotional quagmire that seems inherent in how we relate to our society, in general.

    As always, we have choices in how to perceive our experiences. I suggest striving for unity and wholeness, rather than fragmenting anything off, simply because of our fears and suspicions. Fear-based mentality and living is what got us all into this mess to begin with. I don’t see how that is going to resolve anything. In fact, it only repeats the dynamics about which we are complaining.

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  • “…it is not enough to rid ourselves of psychiatry. If that is all we accomplished, psychiatry could easily be replaced by a new form of ruling that is just as powerful, that is just as all-encompassing.”

    I agree, psychiatry is just one example of such influential agencies in our culture being corrupt, and draining society by creating–or at the very least, actively contributing to–social ills, in addition to individual suffering. Unfortunately, we have such dysfunctional social dynamics which make the ground fertile for such groups. We’re an overly stressed society, which makes us vulnerable to tyranny-like oppression. I really love your point, Bonnie, that imagination is key. I think we want to create new things, rather than to keep doing the same things over and over (aka insanity). I imagine, even, radically new things from radically new perspectives.

    Personally, I abolished psychiatry in my own life, which was the best thing I ever did for myself. When I completed with all that, after a 20 year run using their services, what I really needed and what eventually led to my full integral healing pretty much sprang forth, and that was the thread I followed. Now, I’m simply in my flow of personal growth, like anyone else. No diagnoses, no drugs, no therapy, just self-awareness and knowing what keeps me feeling healthy and aligned with myself.

    Psychiatric services took me from bad to worse, and soaked up so much space in my mind and energy, that it overtook my life. So when I changed course finally, I felt incredibly freed up, just from letting that go—all that negativity and discouragement, the coercion and manipulation, and the drugs. It was really an amazing difference when I was finally able to break free of all that, which was a meticulous process, of course. It led to a personal transformation that got me back on my feet, and into the river of life once again. What a relief it’s been, all these years.

    I’ve got a lot of stories from that time, but the story I tell the most is that psychiatry made me so sick and disabled, and only by completely changing healing tracks to a whole different paradigm of healing was I able to come back to life and claim it, so that I could once again be happy, grounded and productive. In my case, it was absolutely no contest.

    Toxins bad; nature good. No on Psych!

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  • This is so wonderful to see! I agree that telling our stories of healing is what will most influence the world in a positive direction, leading to much-needed change. It brings the truth to light in many ways.

    When I spoke about my issues in the mental health world, indeed, I discovered all the stigma, discrimination, and downright silly notions and assumptions that exist in that world, which cause people to feel limited about what they can accomplish. That is what finally gave my the direction I needed to know where I wanted to be in life, and I took the guidance for myself and landed where I wanted, in a loving and compassionate community, rather than in one filled with fear and judgment. As a result of sharing my story with the world, the energy around me shifted a great deal. In fact, it created a complete transformation in my life. Had I not disclosed, I never would have discovered my inner guidance. Inspired work you’re doing here!

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  • Healing, like social change, is neither a science nor a religion. It is a creative process, an art. It requires a fertile imagination, courage to step into the unknown, and developing a keen sense of discernment. The rest is about humbly trusting a process–navigating it and learning from it, rather than controlling it. We can influence it either positively or negatively with our attitude and example. I find that integrity and authenticity are the most positive influence to any process. Otherwise, clarity is never achieved.

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  • Actually, anyone can inquire further with me if they wish to do so. I limit the extent to which I talk about in on MIA, because I feel there is a lot of stigma attached to what I do–ironically enough! Still, I’ve stuck my neck out a few times so I have appreciated that opportunity here.

    I know it’s hard for a lot of people who comment here to buy this stuff, or to even think it’s relevant, which is fine. I just don’t find it fruitful to get into arguments about beliefs. We’re all free to choose, and to live by our own truth. I just speak mine, I don’t necessarily feel compelled to always defend it. But I’m happy to elaborate any time, upon request.

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  • Thank you, Fred, likewise, for sure. You have a beautiful heart.

    I hadn’t heard of the Yuen method until you had mentioned it previously. I checked out the website, and indeed, this would be similar to the perspective from which I work. There are a lot of teachers of this stuff on the rise, now, as the alternative to established healing practices that have proven to be either fruitless or damaging to the client. Many different styles, approaches, and personalities–hence, diversity!–but it all boils down to the same thing: energy is the root of all existence, so when we tap into this aspect of our being, then we can make any changes we wish…aka, healing. Not only that, we can manifest consciously, so we know how to get the experience from life we most enjoy.

    I’m one of those teachers. I’ve taught this for about 5 years now, and the results have been staggeringly positive.

    Send an email if you like, Fred. I’d enjoy discussing this further with you, if you feel inclined. Contact info is on my website. http://www.embodycalm.com/Contact.html

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  • Fred, I completely agree with you. Having been made ultimately gravely ill for years by meds and psychiatry, once I dropped all the psychiatry bs and turned to energy healing, I went from Z to A in record time. Everyone around me witnessed this, and my work with chakra meditation and the like inspired my partner so much that he signed up for the same program I was in. With energy work, there is no discrimination among who is centered and who is not. We all go in and out of our centers, that’s the river of life. We heal when we know our center, and that goes for anyone.

    In 2001, I was disabled by chronic insomnia, crippling anxiety, and catatonic depression. My thoughts were horrific, 24/7, and I could only feel terrible in my body. At my most stressed and hopeless, I did attempt to end my life, which led to a terrifying hospital experience. This is after 20 years of meds and psychotherapy.

    I had also been working full time during the time I was receiving mental health services, and had attended both college and graduate school, did well at all of it. I had had a pretty conventional suburban life, except that I was on meds and seeing psychotherapists the whole time. I didn’t keep it a secret, either, everyone knew, it was fine, no issues either socially or professionally.

    At least, not until I moved to San Francisco many years after all of this began for me, then it suddenly became a different story, all this stigma came flying at me, from within the field!

    I hadn’t realized how the meds were slowly decomposing my body, until the shit hit the fan right after grad school. I was also very negatively impacted, emotionally, by the abundance of stigma which I had experienced while in a graduate school counseling psychology program, generated by disclosing a DSM diagnosis.

    By 2003, thanks largely to a medical intuit with whom I later trained and interned, as well as a first-rate herbalist, I had tapered off all meds (9 in total by that time) and started energy work, which is inherently spiritual–not religious, but with focus on who we are as spirit, our spirit voice, akin to sense of self/inner being; who we are at the core, not as a reflection of how others see us, but how we, ourselves, feel in our bodies. I could barely form a coherent sentence at the time, from the damage done to my brain from the meds. But I persevered, and eventually found my balance and voice again.

    From what I learned, that is our essence—how we feel, as opposed to going by any artificial social hierarchy as a reflection of our being.

    In 2005, I was brave enough to sign up for a singing class, which came from doing some volunteer work, which by matters of fate led to a hardy career in theater in San Francisco, which came to me. It was not something I had consciously sought, and it changed my entire self-perception, and therefore, my life.

    I opened my healing and teaching practice during this time, based on what had helped me to become whole and integrated after the mental health field debacle, made my film, and all of that led me to where I am now, living productively and at peace among the Redwoods of Northern CA. After over a decade of torturous days and nights for my partner and myself, thanks to the downhill spiral that psychiatry led me on, we are now both completely healthy and in true bliss, all thanks to what I learned in energy healing– that we are our own authority, and we can create and navigate our physical lives consciously when we know our true spirit. Miracles, indeed.

    I could never have foreseen being where I am now before I learned that we are, indeed, limitless beings, if one can perceive beyond the mere physical. We all have equal capacity for this, but not everyone chooses to see this, for whatever reason. Our origins are spiritual and energetic in nature, not physical. Physicality is a limited and limiting perspective. Healing can only be about energy and self-awareness. That is where we can perceive the big picture. There is nothing to prove to anyone. We can only know this for ourselves, and once we do, we can create the world around us we most desire.

    A closed, angry heart may choose to not receive healing, and if that’s the case, there is nothing anyone can do about it, other than to be an example of healing and hope to influence by this example.

    At the core of a closed heart, there is fear, which is not compatible with unconditional love. We each open up to healing when we can trust, and unfortunately, psychiatry has betrayed peoples’ in abundance, which has closed hearts down and has created a society of walking wounded, so our environments have become closed off, too, in large part. Makes it challenging to offer healing, so personally, I appreciate your courage and faith. To me, that is what uplifts humanity, inherently. Thanks!

    Finally, am I anti-psychiatry? Well, for me I am! Others have to choose for themselves.

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  • This is a beautiful post, and I feel it delivers a simple and profound message: a negative, fear-based mindset is really the enemy when it comes to health and well-being. All the very best to you and your wife during this time of dedicated and meaningful healing.

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  • This makes me think of someone who files for bankruptcy every other year advertising to give financial counsel. Your former therapist sounds unsafe, off-kilter, and highly delusional–undoubtedly a product of his culture which hold and practice these marginalizing beliefs. I’ve had similar experiences. Fortunately, THAT is what got repaired over time, and with tons of focused, deep meditation to find my center and learning to stay connected with it.

    My very best wishes on your healing and integration. You are very strong and courageous.

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  • Nothing has meaning until we assign meaning to it with our interpretation. Different words and events mean different things to different people. Our interpretations are based on our beliefs and perspectives which we have practiced habitually, and which vary wildly. Different interpretations will create different relationship dynamics, as well as different outcomes. In my experience, thinking with heartfelt compassion (thinking with the heart), along with possessing healthy boundaries that reflect self-compassion, creates freedom.

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  • Thank you, Ron, I just want to chime in to re-enforce what you say, I have such an aversion to the idea “reparative” therapy. I feel it is to the spirit exactly what medical psychiatry has been–so invalidating to our nature and process. I feel it enables our most self-traumatizing and wounding voices, which, indeed, makes it toxic. It’s a bad product and needs to be recalled.

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  • Wow, powerful story told equally powerfully.

    “What they do experience while in treatment is cognitive dissonance…and they often leave treatment dissociated, depersonalized, depressed, and, at times, suicidal.”

    I think you’ve nailed the overall effect of misguided psychotherapy for a lot of people. Shame-based psychotherapy is more common than not, from what I’ve seen and experienced.

    Good for you for challenging this on your own! Horrible stuff you describe, and it needs to be called out, as tons of people are getting hurt daily from these judgments made by self-appointed “Gods of humanity.” I don’t think so….

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  • With the over-the-top social ills so evident daily in San Francisco and the high stress and fears this is causing in the city, my fear is that most voters would favor Laura’s Law. When I was working with SF Mental Health Association, it was a main focus of theirs to keep this off the table. I hope they can spearhead a movement to sway voters in favor of civil liberties.

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  • We already know that psychiatry, psychiatric treatment, and certain methods and practices of psychotherapy have caused great distress in people, causing trauma and recurrence of trauma, at the very least. Overwhelming testimonials. Causes of distress have been plenty examined and are really a matter of common sense. The chaotic and violent way the planet is today is plenty distressful for just about everyone.

    Also the way we communicate to ourselves and to others causes great distress these days. A simple conversation can easily turn traumatic for people! What’s the remedy for that, stay away from group discussions? Maybe…

    Personally, I do believe in mental illness. I believe it is a real and tangible phenomenon. I believe it’s epidemic, especially in the United States. I think it’s so common that we don’t always even recognize it, it’s kind of the norm these days.

    I also believe that any form of illness-mental or otherwise–can heal, if we allow it to, and don’t make it worse by our common errors in practice.

    Most of us here agree that meds cause mental illness–or some kind of imbalance, whatever you want to call it (I don’t have an aversion to the term ‘mental illness,’ I owned it when I experienced it, I didn’t have self-stigma about it).

    Maybe in the mainstream mentality and academic circles psychiatry has some kind of corner on the distress market, but that is not the greater world any longer. There are myriad alternatives–as you know, being an alternative practitioner–which are used daily to alleviate subtle and profound distress, and they work long term, they are practical and don’t create dependency, and are without heinous side effects.

    Post traumatic stress can heal and one can move on from these issues. However, this would not occur with current mental health treatment and practices. That alone is cause for distress.

    The idea that psychiatry has a corner on that market is merely an illusion. Don’t fall for it. Common sense can heal, whereas meds and the wrong clinician can cause way more harm than good.

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  • No need to broadcast anything, but if they are doing something that is troubling, unethical, or perhaps even illegal (I’ve used ADA to successfully challenge agencies) that is doing harm to clients, then I do hope you are sharing the specifics with someone, somewhere. I know reactions can be defensive, and the system has many rocks and hard spots, and also that it’s hard to find anyone who really knows how to take action against the system. But silence has equaled death.

    I do understand the balancing act this all is. Personal growth is just that.

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  • “But at the core, I think our role as dissenters is to spend less time examining the exact etiology of emotional distress (I think there are many causes personally), and spend more time examining the ways we can help people heal when they are experiencing intense distress.”

    Really? You don’t feel that bringing to light the root cause of distress is a worthwhile goal? I consider it to be vital in the healing process. Otherwise, the ‘healing’ done is superficial, like a Band-Aid, and the distress will continue to fester until triggered again.

    Whereas, if we take the time to examine the origins of specific distress, then something core can be shifted, and the problem alleviates altogether, permanently. That is a core shift. Without this, any condition of imbalance can, indeed, become chronic and degenerative.

    I think it’s good to take the time to learn the specific causes of distress. Each one can be shifted, which brings profound healing and personal growth. Otherwise, people can get stuck, which is what I believe happens in the system, precisely because those within it don’t look for root causes, but only applies superficial remedies intended to ‘calm people down’ in the moment. I don’t see how this is ‘healing.’

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  • Hi Malaika, I appreciate your having personal reasons for doing this work and learning as you go. As someone who has been through all the peer stuff, and having ‘graduated’ from this dubious status (I am no longer connected with the system in any way, for reasons having to do with maintaining my sanity and well-being), I found it terribly toxic and crazy-making. I also appreciate those, like you, with the intention of creating change from within.

    However, this statement from your article stood out to me:

    “I’d really like to include a few anecdotes here but I think I might get myself in trouble with some small-state politics so I won’t.”

    Creating change would mean challenging such control. For me, one of the main issues I noticed in the system, and in working in ‘peer’ settings, is the fear and intimidation which fuels the client/’peer’ culture. Playing it safe keep the status quo alive. Taking risks is what produces change.
    All the best,
    Alex.

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  • Yes, indeed! And for sure, we want to align our words and actions with these principles, whatever they be. To me, practicing integrity is universally healthy and would more than likely lead to a healthy collective, were all to at least align with their beliefs. I feel everyone is going to believe what they choose to believe about anything, but I feel it’s the splitting our beliefs and behaviors/words that create unhealthy environments, through chaos, confusion, ambiguity. When we live perpetually out of alignment with our core beliefs, I feel this can lead to unhealthy situations on all levels, potentially.

    Lots to say about the relationship between how our core beliefs and principles fuel, and even create, our situations in life, too.

    Thanks, James, I always appreciate the dedicated focus in your articles and dialogue to seeking clarity around these issues of what is health, healing, and wholeness I’d like to see more of this.

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  • I agree with you about many things, James. Your article rings true to me, in many respects.

    I did have a reaction to how you used the word ‘normal,’ but I felt I got the spirit of what you intend to say, which is why I highlight healthy/unhealthy as my wording of choice. For me, that’s a more universally and timelessly inclined term, given my personal belief of what this means. To me, ‘normal’ is relative and flexible, and changes from culture to culture, and from time period to time period. Normalcy changes, and in fact, evolves, to my mind.

    Some strive to be against it, purposefully, because they detest what is ‘normal,’ which I think is a respectable, and often, reasonable, choice, if it works for someone.

    I’m inclined that way at present, myself, as these days, to me, what is ‘normal’ equates to what is ‘unhealthy.’ That’s how I’m putting it together. I work and live happily off the grid. I was totally part of the establishment for a long time, and believed a lot of the myths, so that was hard work to get there–in large part because of discernment about ‘normalcy’ and the STIGMA that brought with it, specifically.

    But I got through it and have landed just fine with a life and healing/teaching practice I enjoy a great deal. Separating from the mainstream normalcy, and going through that fascinating and enlightening process, led to a lot of great healing and personal growth, and it was definitely well worth the effort.

    And I do agree that there are universal truths regarding health and well-being. I also believe there would be a lot of variables, depending on many things, cultural influence and belief and value systems being among the more prominent subjective variables. This would all determine how we are educated and guided as we grow, also highly variant.

    What felt important to me in my journey was making these discoveries—who am I, unto myself (my spiritual identity)? And who am I, as part of a universal collective? Learning these was a healthy pursuit for me, and led to a lot of well-being, grounding, and expansion in awareness—not to mention, inner peace. Not sure it’s terribly normal in our culture, however.

    I believe that the universal principles about which you speak would be what connects us all as one consciousness. That’s the orientation from which I practice.

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  • So powerful and real, and beautifully written, Leah. Indeed, our stories tell the story we’re working to change.

    I really like your specific call to address “the social and economic disparities that contribute to poor mental health and overall health outcomes.” I think these factors tend to be way overlooked, whereas in reality, not only are they vital in the equation, the disparities are created purposefully, imo, to foster separation and encourage dependency. It’s been a power move for generations, and I think it’s evident now how these divisions are fed and fostered in order to specifically avoid unity that would level the playing field and create a just order. Great call out, thanks!

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  • To me, it’s pretty clear that psychiatry has failed us all. I could never give power to any particular individual(s) regarding this failure, but as a branch of medicine, I fail to see the relevance of psychiatry in any way that is practical; and like others, I have seen it destroy lives, at great profit.

    If dialoguing about my issues in their office is impossible, then how could a larger scale effective dialogue occur? If in-office dialogues were satisfying, then why would we need these kinds of dialogues about the ineffectualness of that field?

    There has been so much dialogue about this over the years, and from it, I keep drawing the same conclusion, that psychiatry is doomed. From my own personal experience, I extend this beyond psychiatry, and add that the entire mental health field is sorely misguided. I say this from having been a clinician as well as having been a long time client, both of which are in the past.

    Seems to me a more fruitful discussion would be about solutions. Although those dialogues carry their challenges, as well. In the 20+ years I’ve been in associated with mental health world in any way, I have pretty much always found the dialogues to lead to muddle. This is why I feel the field is precarious at this point. Clarity about anything seems pretty much impossible to achieve in these dialogues, other than negative agreements.

    Presently, however, one thing that seems abundantly clear is that psychiatric perspective is not terribly helpful in helping to guide society into balance and well-being, and, in fact, creates further chaos. The evidence seems overwhelming. So what’s the alternative? Many people have discovered a variety of sound alternatives.

    Mainly, we are all learning how to be human, and living life and paying attention to it is the only way to learn that. Academic theories have never enriched my life.

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  • I charge by donation. I ask a client to consider their current financials, and we agree on this together. I don’t believe that healing is about science. It’s a way more creative endeavor than being guided by ‘studies’ would offer, imo.

    I don’t take advantage of gullible people. That statement would be more demeaning to my clients than having anything to do with me. I remind people that they have minds of their own. If it’s in a fragmented state, then we work on this together. Everything can heal, and we’re in control of that. That’s GOOD news!

    I do appreciate all that you put forth here, although I’m getting this feeling that nothing I say in any way, shape, or form will satisfy you.

    Again, we have completely different positions as far as research and studies go. Is that the deal-breaker, here?

    A lot of really great healing work is done in the world without relying on research and studies. That’s costly and time consuming, and by the time the studies are published, things have already changed. To me, studies can be sorely misguided when it comes to healing. We’re talking about individuality, here, so why would studies be so crucial? If anything, they support what many healers already now.

    It’s more about being in present time, in full ownership and authenticity, having an open heart and mind, and allowing the healing to manifest. Takes focus and practice, but it’s in most–if not all–people to do this, if they so desire.

    Google energy, vibration, emotions, and healing, and tons of stuff will pop up. Just read it and sit with it for a few, see what you think, before blasting what I say without any foundation.

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  • That’s a good question–how do I measure the success of my work as a healer?

    One way is to go by the testimonials I’ve received over the years, last one was posted a few weeks ago–

    http://www.embodycalm.com/Services-Testimonials.html

    Another way is that many with whom I’ve worked keep me posted on how they’re doing, usually by email. That’s been ongoing for years with some. I really enjoy the exchanges I have with former clients/students. That keeps me very well-informed of how well we did working together.

    (Btw, it’s their work, really. I just give them information, feedback, and tools, but they’re the ones responsible for applying it. I believe that whatever healing occurs is a manifested together, between the healer and the client).

    I tend to see people for a limited amount of time, because I don’t believe in ongoing counseling. I feel this creates dependency. I teach how to self-heal. Check ups and energy adjustments are fine, but I have a 10 week program which takes a person through the trajectory of the core shift I’m talking about, to a sense of personal freedom and unlimited possibilities.

    The third way is to believe in myself and in what I’m doing. My clients know that I’m 100% present with them, while having healthy, yet flexible, boundaries. I’ve worked on all of this over the years, as a goal.

    I’m always evolving my perspective and constantly getting new information about healing, and I integrate it all the time. Partly, I get my information from a school of healers called ‘lightworkers,’ though, not from anything traditionally medical, or even academic, really. We’re energy healers.

    I have MA and internship training as a psychotherapist, but I found that all to be terribly limited and somewhat dubious in many respects, as evidenced by this profound mental health crisis we’re in.

    The lightworker info can sound a bit new agey in rhetoric, which can come across as vague on not terribly practical, but overall, the concepts are sound, ancient wisdom that, when applied to daily experience, are quite remarkable in their effect. Again, that’s been my experience.

    So these are my measuring sticks. That, plus you can ask my partner of 29 years, who thinks I’m the most amazing healer on the planet. Then again, he is my hubby, so perhaps he’s biased. But then again still, he how I witnessed first hand how I efficiently and somewhat miraculously put myself back together again quite well, after being torn into little bitty fragments, thanks to current mental health care practices and treatment. That’s really what convinced him the most.

    Thanks for asking.

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  • Thank you both for you input, I do appreciate your honesty and your perspectives. I’m glad we all agree that we don’t have to agree.

    Still, I continue to do my personal work and my ongoing training diligently, and I have loyal clients and students who have done extremely well working with me. That–plus feeling good about it all, in general–is all I need as evidence. Nothing else required. Thanks again.

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  • I don’t think there is anything ‘irresponsible’ about stating my belief and paradigm. I’m certainly not in the position to force anyone to walk my talk. Nor would I even want that power.

    We’re here to share ideas which are sorely needed in health care–especially mental health, but I feel it’s all integral. How is anything going to ever change around here with that kind of judgment looming?

    If you want more info about what I’m talking about, please see above post in response to Michael.

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  • Thanks, Michael. The above are sites which popped up when I googled ‘fear and illness,’ so I’m just sharing them here to provide a glimpse into this paradigm of thought, health, and healing.

    The website that I’m posting here, below, pretty much describes my orientation–that our emotions do have a frequency (measured in Hz), and because of this, they have a direct impact not only on our health, but on the reality which we create for ourselves via which perspective we choose to take at any given moment. This is all fluid, like energy. Present time is present time.

    http://www.highfrequencyhealing.org/Emotionalbody.html

    In my work, we learn how to choose our focus, to manifest a high vibrational feeling. We drive our emotions according to where we focus our thoughts. We have choices, here.

    Although we also have deeply ingrained habits and programming. If we truly desire change in our bodies, in our lives, and in the world, the work is shifting the internal habits of focus and perspective, which creates a different wavelength of emotion, which extends outward into the collective.

    We’re all affected by the emotions of others, as the world is a co-creation of our collective thoughts, ideas, and emotional frequencies. Instead of letting negative emotions sink us, however, we can learn to, literally, rise above them, by training our own thoughts to perceive our own vibration through our emotional experience. It’s a slow process at first, because there is an emotional journey to take, here, in order to create the desired changes. I have a lot of focus and meditation exercises I offer as tools for support in this journey.

    Eventually, with diligent focus, neurons naturally shift into ease and neutrality, without at all sacrificing our emotional experience, as it increases our ability to tolerate negative emotions responsibly and without fear when we do experience them. In fact, they take on a positive connotation–as guidance, rather than something to cause shut down or conflict. From my perspective, that’s sound self-healing.

    Incidentally, I believe this is a time when the world is dividing up into dense and light emotional frequencies, for easier discernment. This is how change is occurring now. We have opportunities to shift our internal densities into more light frequencies, by driving our emotions to more compassionate and radically self-responsible (non-victim) perspectives.

    Every life experience offers a variety of perspectives, (Rashomon), so we choose which perspective to adopt at any given moment, based on our innate sense of truth. The will vary, naturally. This is what creates diversity.

    In any case, this is where I be now. So far so good! And expanding more daily. The big shift for me was when life went from chronic pain, dread, and heartache to daily joy, gratitude, and celebration of life. Two completely opposite feelings/wavelengths. Practicing the latter is what changed my entire outer world, as it radically shifted the quality of my experiences.

    We have a choice in how we perceive our lives, and this will affect our experience of it, and, in turn, what we create for ourselves. Seems totally logical to me.

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  • Sorry, I have to disagree with both of you. Which, as far as I’m concerned, is fine, we’re all entitled to believe what we believe.

    Mental health treatments and practices have caused us such tragic and never-ending chaos and confusion, as we talk about at length on here, I like to be open to a variety of paradigms.

    I’m not saying anything new with what I say above. I learned about how energy works, in detail, as part of my healing education. I trained in many varieties of energy healing modalities for years, which is where I found my own healing and integration, during this process.

    Emotion is energy, and so is illness (dis-ease). So is anything and everything. We affect the flow of energy, including in our bodies, with our emotions. We affect the entire environment, and the collective. Social ills, like physical ills, are caused by energy going out of whack. It begins inside each one of us.

    When you see it from that perspective, what I say is perfectly logical. AND, any imbalance is relatively easily remedied, through full ownership of one’s energy. I can personally attest to this in many ways.

    What I say doesn’t negate what you are saying about diabetes, etc. I am seeing the imbalance from another perspective. That’s necessary if a paradigm is going to shift, so that change can occur.

    I’m not trying to persuade you if you don’t want to see it from an energy perspective. But that is from where I’m coming. No reason you have to consider it, whatsoever. But it is my belief, and it’s worked for me and others. We find it to be totally true. I find this paradigm to be of value to healing, so I discuss it, when possible.

    I use this paradigm in my practice, and I’ve had great results and favorable testimonials for years now. So perhaps we simply don’t perceive reality the same way.

    Doesn’t make either one of us wrong, but more so, diverse in our thinking. And that’s what we’re after, isn’t it? A community of diverse thinking, to help resolve issues that don’t seem to want to get resolved?

    Frankly, and to his chagrin, the poster doesn’t feel terribly encouraged at this time, because I don’t see any desire in these responses to explore, but only to invalidate without question or dialogue. That’s exactly why I totally disconnected from the mental health world! It’s kinda crazy-making, really, I have to say. The end.

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  • Michael, while I agree that treating emotional reactions as a physical disorder is ridiculous and only ends up making matters worse, I belong to the school of healers that treats any physical imbalance as having emotional roots. I believe that physical illness is created from unacknowledged fear, which causes the heart to constrict, which, in turn, undermines our natural self-healing (self-correcting) mechanisms. Chronic fear can knock our system out of whack in so many ways.

    Shifting ingrained fear–by recognizing and resolving the issue that caused such overwhelming fear, then releasing the fear and learning to trust again–will go a long way in healing imbalance of any kind. When we heal fear, we stop worrying so anxiety decreases, and we find our way to hope and trust, which causes our hearts expand. This allows healing to occur naturally. That’s been my experience, in any event.

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  • Amazing. This is an important piece, thank you.

    “This, of course, is the problem with political crisis management…rather than implementing costly increased mental health services, what actually was needed was a top-down review of the kind of mental health services being provided.”

    Yep, I agree. Let’s not keep feeding the piranhas. A top-down review of mental health services is, indeed, what is called for, desperately. Were it to be conducted neutrally, fairly and with integrity, I can’t imagine it would pass as even close to ‘satisfactory’ on any level.

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  • Thanks for the detailed clarification, Fiachra, makes good sense to me.

    It’s interesting to me when you say, “If they believe DSM and Diagnoses then they are not real psychotherapists” because here in the USA, psychotherapists do diagnose from DSM. As far as I know, it’s standard procedure. So I guess that there is hardly really a separation of psychiatry and psychotherapy here. I didn’t realize that this wasn’t the case elsewhere. Psychologists can’t prescribe medication, by law, but to me, that’s really about the only distinction between the two. At least in my experience and education, neither group is really doing a very good job with people, in that they seem to only know how to project their issues onto clients. It’s all so very ego-driven and based on control, while keeping the client in confusion for the purpose of having a long term income from each client. It’s really rather endless–a bottomless pit of false analysis. That’s been my experience and observation over the years.

    What you have to say about this is kind of an eye-opener to me.

    Sounds like you found yourself a really valuable network of healing tools and communities, which is wonderful. All the best with your continued healing. You seem to be on the right track. Good for you!!
    Alex.

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  • Hi Fiachra, I’m always happy to read about your success with psychotherapy, and am very interested to know how psychotherapy worked for you. I did not at all have that same experience from psychotherapy, quite the opposite. I felt it did me a lot of damage which I had to undo myself, so that could reach clarity, grounding, and an authentic sense of self.

    I was in psychotherapy for a long time, and while at first it kind of calmed me down because the psychotherapist I saw before I moved to San Francisco were pretty nice, and gave me some healthy positive mirroring that I hadn’t gotten as a kid, and that did help.

    But when I moved to San Francisco in the mid ’90’s, I not only attended graduate school in counseling psychology, where, like me, my classmates were psychotherapists-to-be. I don’t mean to cast aspersions, but quite frankly, they were some of the most cold, judgmental, snobby, and stigmatizing people I’d ever met, who really seemed pretty clueless about life’s issues, and particularly, about issues of the disabled and disenfranchised.

    In addition to that, I saw one therapist after another, including a handful of group psychotherapists in a social service program, when I was coming off a lot of meds, who were downright cruel, not just to me, but to any of us who showed any signs of authenticity and independent thinking.

    The last therapist I saw was a case manager who worked in the system, who happened to graduate from the same grad school I did, which, interestingly enough was a psycho-spiritual program, who kind of poo-pooed traditional psychology programs, but still, the emphasis was on DSM and psychopathology. I thought it was pretty hypocritical, in the end.

    I was seeing this guy to transition off of disability, because I had healed and was practicing as an integral healer, which is my training, and also had an acting career going on. I wanted support as I transitioned from disability. He was HORRIBLE, and pushed me way back, as though his message to me was “who are you to think you can come off of disability?” That’s certainly how he made me feel.

    He added all sorts of fictitious diagnoses AFTER I had healed completely doing energy and spiritual work, in which I had trained and became certified, and which has comprised of my practice for the last 9 years. I went to see him with no diagnoses, and he started making them up! He didn’t even tell me about them. I discovered all of this when I requested my notes upon terminating psychotherapy for good, being totally fed up with all this crap.

    When I read these ridiculous notes, I realized he had been appeasing me in his office, to my face, and writing something totally different down, which explained why I felt so demeaned and unsafe with him. I’d bring it up that I felt uncomfortable with him and felt as though he was stigmatizing me because I did have a psychiatric history, and he’s suggest I was paranoid, or some such thing, and when I read my notes, I discovered I was right all along. He was seriously gaslighting me!

    My partner wanted me to sue him, but I’d already been through a lawsuit with the system, and I wasn’t going to go through that again. But I did send him an email and I gave him a good what for, and told him how much damage he is doing to his clients, and that he is no healer, counselor, nor nothing.

    After decades of psychotherapy, I had to heal from what I called ‘therapy brain,’ where all I could hear in my mental ears were stigmatizing and demeaning voices from what had been projected onto me. I did this using a combination of things I learned in my training as an integral healer and health practitioner that I did as I was healing my own heart and mind, as well as the issues that drove me down this path, to begin with. I was lucky, I found some really good teachers and healers after leaving behind the mental health world (until I went back to this guy for transitional support, which was a big mistake!).

    I’ve heard similar stories from others, how psychotherapy really did way more harm than good, so I’m curious how it helped you, which of course, I’m glad it did. Different things work for different people, but psychotherapy, at least in the Bay Area, proved to be quite dangerous. To my mind, as much as medication is dangerous for a lot of people.

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  • Exactly. “Normalcy” is an illusion, because to be ‘normal,’ one’s priority must be ‘to fit in.’ If we were an honest society, we’d easily see that everyone ‘thinks differently.’ Normal is not authentic.

    I’ve posted before one of my favorite quotes, by Juiddu Krishnamurti, on MIA, and I’ll post it here again, more relevant than ever:

    “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

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  • Stigma heals when those being stigmatized stop giving a damn what other people think and project onto them. That’s a matter of having a sense of Self.

    People who ‘think differently’ are societies true leaders, by example, because they have the courage and integrity to walk their own paths and live in their own truth, and not one of ‘group think.’

    The ‘norm’ is fear-based and conformist. Why would anyone want to integrate into a fear-based society? That’s emotional and spiritual suicide. A new world is being born, and the norm is extinguishing itself with its own deceit and delusions.

    Am I a ‘hot stove?’ To some, yes. To others, not so much. I think that goes for everyone.

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  • “…if it is not mutual within a group a person could become depleted or destitute.”

    Boy howdy, ain’t that the truth! I’ve also had to address this within myself, as you describe. Discernment is something I’ve had to practice consciously.

    I also studied Kabbalah online, and also took a class in person just before I left SF, with Kabbalah Center. I learned a lot from them and really appreciate those teachings. I find them so relevant to the world situation today, in terms of shifting our internal programming. Great stuff!

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  • Fred, each individual has their own path, as you know. Hard to respond to situations like this online, but for now, I’d suggest watching the video I just posted in my response to Leah, above. I think it’s inspired, and contains profound truth. At least, it’s a start. When all else fails, I send a lot of love through the collective. After all, we are one, and those vibes are, indeed felt powerfully, if we allow ourselves to feel them.

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  • Thank you for your beautiful and heartfelt response, Leah. I’ll tell you that now that I have reconciled all of this and have discovered meaning from it, I can truly feel grateful for all that I’ve experienced, and to where it has led me.

    After 14 years, I continue to live on SSDI, because every time I was in the process of transitioning, by working in the system (which was, after all, my field of study and training) or by producing a film for professional advocacy, I was literally sabotaged by these government contracted agencies. So ironic.

    In one of those instances, I ended up in legal mediation for discrimination, which was successful for me, but it was not enough to carry me too far in San Francisco. I was told that I could go further with this, but that they’d make my life hell. (Some world we live in, eh?).

    So after healing from what this had all caused me to feel, I got myself together and moved my practice from SF to a small rural town in Northern CA, where my partner and I now live in true bliss and abundance. I went from the heart of a frigid and heartless urban center to a lush Redwood forest, which neither of us had ever imagined would be a reality for us. So I’m a country healer and teacher now, and free as a bird. I run my practice as a donations-based community service, and most of my students/clients are rather limited, so it’s all very humble, which keeps things nice and simple, and which I have thankfully discovered is true freedom.

    I learned that freedom and abundance is not a matter of financial privilege or position in society, but more so, a matter of the being authentic in one’s heart and spirit. The universe responds quite well to truth and integrity.

    I teach conscious manifestation to a group of healers and teachers now, because I learned that energy is ever-present and eternal, by nature, and we really and truly are limitless beings. Indeed, we have been taught such the opposite in life, but I believe this is changing now, as these teachings are becoming more public and prevalent. It’s what we need to know in order to transform ourselves, as well as to shift our reality into something that produces joy in life, as opposed to grief and heartbreak.

    I would never had known this were it not for the many hard knocks which guided me along this path, so I am filled with gratitude each and every day now. Well, on occasion I may slip out of that state of being–after all, I am human–but I work on it daily, for sure. For me, and for my partner, it’s the most important thing imaginable to us, and it extends into each and every area of my life, and we feel our light and love growing more every day.

    I don’t really believe that anything is random, but the result of taking our emotional journey. Our feelings guide us to the next step, that’s how we’re set up, naturally. We’ve all done this at least unconsciously most of our lives, but when we awaken to our spirit guidance, the sky is the limit, and we can relax and create with ease, joyously. That’s the ticket!

    I LOVE your idea re TRC! I’d encourage you to run with that.

    A friend of mine sent me a video just today that feels perfect to share here. It’s only 3 minutes, and I believe it says it all.

    http://blog.petflow.com/this-3-minute-video-made-me-cry-and-i-never-cry-must-see-for-everyone/

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  • I healed a lot of trauma from my life experience–from early childhood family dynamics to medication brain trauma to psychotherapy trauma to professional marginalization trauma to stigma and discrimination trauma to professional advocacy trauma. In early childhood, powerfully dysfunctional family dynamics were cleverly hidden, since my parents were pillars of the community.

    I have forgiven them over and over for having done everything in their power to control me, primarily by demeaning and humiliating me in front of others, for starters. While I have compassion that they both came from their own trauma, they were neither forgiving nor self-responsible. I had to learn forgiveness, self-responsibility, and also how to have healthy boundaries, from excellent teachers and guides, later in life.

    But before then, it all led to diagnoses and medication, which I accepted for 20 years. During that time, I worked, went to school, and began a partnership which is now in its 29th year. No trauma during that time, other than when I went to visit my family. By then, I was so accustomed to their ways (which I had not yet identified as traumatic, that came much later, when I WOKE UP), that I simply operated in my usual anxiety and denial, and kept taking my meds.

    Then I went to grad school to study integral counseling psychology, primarily to learn more about the DSM and ‘mental illness,’ since I had been living with it for a while by then. I experienced tremendous trauma there, from a very spiritually miserly professor (this was a psycho-spiritual integral counseling program, and he taught “Buddhist Principles of Counseling Psychology”), who told me I didn’t belong there, after I had revealed all of myself in a paper, which was exactly our assignment–to apply our issues to psychodynamic theory.

    I’ve always been an excellent student, and I did what he had requested from us all, and he whacked me hard for it. He even went to my advisor, for whom I put on a very humble song and dance because I wanted to stay in the program. I got him back in my evaluation (some of my classmates backed me up), but the damage to my psyche was done, as I felt very betrayed, unsafe, and I was already feeling extremely vulnerable as a student. His shaming voice raged in my mental ears for throughout my remaining years in graduate school.

    I persevered and completed my MA, as well as 1000 hours of clinical training. Upon graduating, I felt miserable about myself, regardless of my success as a student and intern, and I wound up applying for disability because I had become so riddled with anxiety, and my negative voices were in full force. As a result, I became dysfunctional and disabled for the first time in my life, after having functioned well, both, socially and professionally, for about 17 years on medication.

    I eventually forgave this professor for igniting my decade long dark night of the soul, because, after all, it was because of this dark night, that eventually I found my light and full integration, and I learned all sorts of fascinating and mystical things, that I’ve since assimilated into my being and awareness, thanks to this long and twisted journey of healing.

    Then came the mental health system, cruelly demeaning therapists, abusive psychiatrists, and hopelessly indoctrinated social service providers and vocational rehabilitation counselors, and finally, corrupt advocates–all of it, extremely traumatic, via betrayal and deceit.

    When finally I came off 20 years of multiple medications, due to horribly debilitating side effects from what had become 9 meds, I discovered that my brain was totally messed up, and it took years to heal this.

    I healed it all through compassion, forgiveness, natural herbal remedies, Qi Gong, vibration and energy medicine, and a lot of faith. Also, on a whim, to help me heal anxiety, I took a singing class which miraculously led to an acting career, which did wonders for my ability to ground and be in present time. Music and the expressive arts, especially geared toward performing for an audience (scary, indeed!) is of tremendous healing value, imo. Really boosts confidence, and heals internalized invalidating voices.

    Ultimately, I feel that what healed the adverse effects from all this trauma was when I learned to perceive it all from a non-victim perspective–one of full life ownership–which is what I now teach in my healing and teaching practice. This informed my path, my spirit, me sense of Self, and my life purpose.

    I strongly believe that those of us who have experienced profound and chronic trauma are healers. We have true and authentic empathy. Once we heal the resentment which we carry in our hearts from such injurious betrayals, we can then find clarity and meaning in our lives. At least, this has been my experience, and I’ve witnessed this in others–my partner, for one.

    I think we are a violent nation because it was founded on duality–landowners vs. slaves, rich vs. poor, Europeans vs. Native Americans, and the list goes on and on. Generations of oppression, marginalization, abuse, and slaughter-both physically and emotionally–will, indeed, make a nation enraged with violence, and for sure, we’ve been carrying this forward. At what point do we say “Enough!” ??

    Betrayal leads to resentment leads to rage leads to violence. When we learn to forgive, release resentment, own our life experiences, and heal our hearts, perhaps this seemingly endless cycle will end, and then we can move on to creating a more peaceable world–one forgiving soul at a time.

    At least, that’s how I see it, fwiw.

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  • Thanks for your thoughtful response, James.

    A few points I’d like to express in response–

    1. If our emotions are taking us away from our goals, then I would question whether or not our goals are guiding us in the right direction for ourselves. We internalize a lot of ‘shoulds’ and ‘if only’s’ without realizing that we are operating from these internalized judgments and speculations, rather than our heart’s true desires.

    I’ve heard that one way to make God laugh is to make plans. What I’ve learned, believe, and experience daily is that our emotions are indicators of our spirit vibration. If the vibration is dense and constricting, it produces a bad feeling, and this is an indication of a split between our inner being (soul, spirit) and our choices. That already is leading us down the path of mental distress and grief.

    While I feel it’s sound to have an intention or goal, I feel it’s MOST sound to be flexible, according to what our emotions are expressing to us along the way. I would most definitely put emotions along the journey of manifesting our goals (akin to the proverbial yellow brick road), over the need to manifest the original goal, unwaveringly. That would indicate attachment, which can render us powerless, or at the very least, create a lot of unnecessary effort and undue emotional suffering.

    If we let things morph without attaching or controlling, then we are creating with ease, and it can be joyous. This joy is important, because it becomes the fuel for the manifestation. We do want to manifest that which brings us joy, don’t we? Regardless of what it is, in the end, we desire joy.

    Certainly our processes of manifestation are not without challenges, but these challenges are more welcome because if we’re following our inner guidance (emotions), then we tend to be a bit more clairvoyant and the universe will align with us in support to overcome the challenge, and we learn and create so much simply from facing these hurdles in all our authenticity. This is how heal while refining our creative processes, and feel better and lighter as we get older, as opposed to more burdened and cynical. I firmly believe this, and I experience it all the time. I believe that life is set up this way, works every time.

    2. When I talk about seeking support from a community with beliefs similar to mine, I’m discerning between those with beliefs that include judgment and invalidation for my process from those that understand permission and non-judgment. My belief is that there is no right or wrong way of doing things, and I validate any process that a client is choosing because it is dictated solely by their spirit. I am in no way qualified to interfere with that, nor would I want to.

    Of course, I’m also there to help out when they are experiencing double-binding paradoxes and doubt, but I neither dictate nor manipulate to try to get them to see things as I do. I simply try to get them to make the connection between their thoughts/beliefs and how they are feeling. “How does that thought make you feel?” is a much more sound, neutral, and respectful question than, “Is that belief rational?” imo.

    I enjoy diverse beliefs and perspectives, as this is what creates rich and beautiful diversity–the gestalt of our collective spirits. But I do tend to stay away from low permission people and environments, unless they are my clients looking to expand their awareness.

    3. The only truths of which I’m aware are fixed in our universe is:
    a. Like attracts like
    b. We allow what we experience
    c. We are all creators of our reality

    This is Law of Attraction, which is the basis of many diverse spiritual teachings. It is radical self-responsibility, far and away from victim mentality and powerlessness. It is the essence of our power over our lives, by knowing spirit vibration, through honoring our emotions at all times.

    All else that we call ‘reality’ is transient, based on the collective vibration. If we vibrate at ‘fear,’ then we create fearful experiences to match our feeling and focus of thought. If we vibrate at rage, then we create things that will support our rage. If we vibrate at unconditional love, then that will be the world we create.

    I believe we are all looking to manifest an unconditionally loving world, so one way or another, our spirits are guiding us to know this. That’s a challenge in the world we live in, but I do feel the universe is helping us out here. Although for some, it is truly a rude awakening, and will shake the foundation of what we’ve accepted as reality. The world is changing quickly because of all this, and it’s needed to.

    When we connect to our spirit voices–through our emotional journey–we find our way, and this is why I support emotional journeying over intellectual pursuits. The intellect deceives us all the time, falling for illusions as though they are real, because we have come to create realities that keep us in denial of our neuroses. It’s why I eschew academia. That ivory tower reality is about as illusory as it gets, and it’s what has driven the world to the brink of disaster. We’ve based so much on what is, in reality, ACADEMIC. Multiple holograms there.

    Whereas our emotions guide us with authenticity and truth by pointing us in the direction of what feels better, which leads to hope, clarity, and eventually bliss and love. It is self-loving to look for what feels better, as opposed to seeking out that which will make us seem consistent and coherent to others. What do I care about how others perceive me? I care exclusively about how I feel. Period. That way, I get my own insights, and I don’t have to rely on what others think. I’ve read plenty of books over the years and in my studies, but it is MY information which I value most highly, because it is relevant to MY process, not to that of some author outside of myself. That only teaches me about their process, which can be interesting, but it is not my process that I learn about from books written by others.

    I don’t have to consciously choose with whom I commune. Law of Attraction takes care of that. The universe is always picking up and responding to our frequency of vibration, always in motion around this. I am only responsible for the signal I put out in the collective, so I try to keep it high and truthful, aligned with heart and integrity. I do a lot of meditation and deliberate focus to achieve clarity of thought and feeling. I also have a group of healers and teachers with whom I work, so we do this on a communal level, which is incredibly powerful.

    Those that vibrate at a different frequency will not pick up my signal, and vice versa, so we will not be in each others vicinity. We are vibrational beings, and emit and receive signals like a radio antenna. We have a variety of signals in the world, the way a radio has a variety of stations. That which is on AM is not the same frequency as that which is on FM. Same goes for the specific stations on each band.

    These are the teachings of the new paradigm of reality, healing, and conscious manifestation, and I believe they are totally sound and spot on. My life transformed in every respect when I applied all of this, as has that of many others. It is an incredible relief, to say the least, to evolve from density to light, as we call it.

    If we want a peaceful and harmonious world, then it is necessary to create inner peace and harmony. Indeed, we want diversity, that is our God-given rainbow. But our emotions tell us whether or not we’re on track with this, as we take the journey to create what it is we most desire. Happens one person at a time, and then we can work as a very powerful creative collective, as we each awaken to our limitlessness, which we can only do by taking our emotional journey.

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  • “Consciousness…is a person’s ability to take in their situation fully in order to best determine their next course of action. Coherence is the state of being logical, consistent, and congruent with what exists around us. It does not disregard our emotional state, but it mandates that the arguments we make be based on reasonable facts, ideas, and/or beliefs.”

    With all due respect, James, I feel this explanation is a bit askew, given that reality is multi-dimension, rather than linear. “What exists around us” is up to anyone to determine, based on what they perceive, which, in turn, is based on a variety of factors that come together at that point in time. It’s all so highly individualized, aka Rashomon.

    “While it does not disregard our emotional state” makes our emotions sound secondary to our thoughts, and I’d argue that emotions are really primary. Naturally, where we focus our thoughts determine what we feel, and we can choose where to focus. So by choosing wisely and deliberately, we can make ourselves feel good, or at least better than terrible.

    Feelings make up our inner guidance, and they are what really lead us to the next step, not cognition. Going by ‘brain consciousness’ is what has led us down such a bleak path, as it leaves out the most vital information: “How do you feel at present, and what steps would you take to feel better?” would, to my mind, be the universal question to ask for the purpose of healing.
    What may appear logical and consistent to one person can feel illogical and inconsistent to another. I believe this is universal. Moreover, an observer is more likely to interpret someone through their own filter—we all have them—which imposes onto the observed a different framework of reality than their own.

    I think this is one of the grave errors that psychotherapists commit chronically, which is terribly unfair and demeaning to the client, not to mention confusing as hell to one’s mind. These criteria simply lead to misunderstandings and worse yet, unfounded judgments. Just because a person’s behavior, beliefs or ideas don’t make sense to the observer does not necessarily mean that the observed is nonsensical or irrational.

    Beliefs are beliefs, and we create our reality from beliefs, which manifest as we each take our individual journeys through life. I really don’t think there is such a thing as “an unreasonable belief,” since we all have the right to choose what it is we believe. We really do have free will, here—it is our creativity in action–and often, the clash is due to stringent cultural norms that offer no permission for individuality or diversity. That is where stigma comes from—a society imposing its belief norms on another, and demeaning, labeling, or marginalizing them when their belief is not consistent with the norm.

    “It is why cognitive-behavioral therapy works. It seeks to take irrational beliefs and put them into a clearer, more realistic context.”

    Gotta disagree with you, here. CBT programs a person’s mind to think the way society thinks, advocating group think, as per cultural norms. I think it’s highly manipulative, and not in a good way. The norm is not healthy, I think we all agree about that by now, at least most of us do. So isn’t it time to open our hearts and minds to new ways of thinking?

    Who’s to say what is irrational or not? A therapist? I’ve known plenty of therapists that seemed irrational to me. Then again, going by my own argument, here, who am I to say?

    In any event, I would never allow myself to internalize another’s judgment of my beliefs. That’s my reality, and I enjoy it thoroughly. It also evolves over time, based on what I experience in life as I go along.

    It was only when I allowed therapists to confuse me by trying to convince me that my thoughts are off, my beliefs are irrational, and my feelings are not valid that I became gravely ill. I call it ‘therapy brain,’ and I had a helluva time healing that.

    Fortunately, I discovered that neurons can be re-directed to a comfortable flow, in synch with who I am, allowing me to become aligned with my sense of Self. Brought ease and clarity into my thinking, and it relaxed my heart and clarified my feelings a great deal, allowing me to take my inner guidance while creating and living my life to my heart’s content.

    Most importantly, I learned to discern my voice from the external judgment and opinions of others, who may not be aligned with my beliefs, which is fine. Many are, and those are the ones to whom I gravitate for coherency and community support.

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  • “Maybe doctors have to cooperate with the way things are done and can only express themselves when they get into authority”

    To me, that would speak of the hierarchy that defines and runs our systems, which I believe is one of the things that has caused so much confusion and so many problems. These hierarchies are illusory, as it is often based on deceit and misrepresentation, and are based on nothing more than aggressive power, not at all indicative of who really knows what and who is qualified to heal and coordinate, but more about who is most cleverly manipulative and pushy.

    Only expressing one’s self when in authority is kind of cowardly, don’t you think? Those are the ones who actually have authority issues which cloud neutrality and objectivity–i.e., false sense of self and personal power. Their power is based on their ability to control others by exploiting peoples’ vulnerability, fear, and desperation. That’s how I see it, in any event.

    “Any time I see a newspaper over here there’s a new wonder drug discovered. Not for mental illness though, I think they have already moved from this, and the patents are running out as well.”

    Well, that’s a start, at least! One day, we’ll realize that there is no such thing as a ‘wonder drug,’ other than on an individual basis. Different things work for different people. We’re all different and respond differently to different things. I don’t see how anything else could be true.

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  • I agree that psychiatry has painted itself into a corner, as they have failed to adequately address issues, while insisting that they are doing ‘the best they can.’
    While perhaps they have done the best they can with what THEY know, what they know is not nearly all there is to know about the mind, heart and spirit, which other healers DO know. Of course, these other healers to which I refer don’t have political or financial clout, and sadly, that makes all the difference in whom we ‘trust.’

    Individuals seeking support for mental distress and other manifestations of the psyche now have opportunities to seek support from other, more knowledgeable sources, with more effective ways of addressing issues of mind, body and spirit. It is up to each person to find what works best for them. There are solutions to these issues, which are not always terribly complicated, whereas psychiatry insists that people are ‘limited.’ Not all healers believe in these limitations, nor in anything chronic. This is part of awakening to the truth about ourselves, and of how society operates.

    Big Pharma, on the other hand, can tap any medical branch to sell their product, so that will take longer to dissipate. Nature tends to contain remedies for everything and anything, but, on the whole, we have become accustomed to chemicals, which go against nature. The powers that be–from greed, as you say–run a brilliant PR campaign that has convinced people they need these chemicals, and now millions are addicted, not just to the chemicals, but also to the thought and idea that they need these chems. So people pay out the nose for them or rely on the government to do so, on their behalf, creating yet another dependency) and not only is nothing remedied, things tend to get worse and conditions become unnecessarily chronic. It’s a tragic hamster wheel, until people wake up to the fact that they’re being lied to, and until they can learn to, once again, trust nature and the natural course of energy.

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  • I believe that Big Pharma holds the power, here, dangling drugs as though they were candied colored panacea. Psychiatry is merely a pawn in their game, and they’re not exactly doing very good PR work for them. Society, as a whole, has never really regarded psychiatry very highly, and now, psychiatrists are alienating those that have come to them for support, big time, with their overt and covert betrayal to the cause of health and well-being. People have been waking up to this for a long time, and at present, that particular choir of voices is getting louder and stronger.

    But it is still Big Pharma that is calling the shots given that it is their $$$ which talks loudest in that world. They seem to have a lot of support from other powers that be. Even if people go off psych meds in droves, then that will only serve to increase the power of other medical-phrama alliances, as psychiatry will no longer be useful to them, and would only serve as a liability to their mission of profit, rather than as an asset to it.

    My curiosity is focused on which domino will be the first one to fall, that will knock down all the others in order to, once and for all, break up this incredibly lousy and socially betraying system of bad “medicine.”

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  • While I find your work very interesting, humane, and insightful, I’m not sure we agree about the illness thing, Dr. Hickey. I looked up illness on dictionary.com, and it defines it like this:

    1. Poor health resulting from disease of body or mind
    2. A disease
    3. Evil; wickedness

    Again, I’m not saying that anything is chronic, I don’t even believe in chronic physical illness. I feel that chronic illnesses are fabrications to keep some people in fear and feelings of powerlessness and helplessness, while keeping others rolling in money. I believe that our society has degenerated to this degree, which is why the world is as it is now, and why suffering has been so rampant and perpetual.

    This is not my website that I’m posting below, but it is representational of much of what I learned after defecting from the mental health world, and in which I trained to heal myself. This is also what I teach others now. I believe we are our own healers, once we learn how to focus in a way that is most appropriate to our well-being. That is a matter of understanding the vibration of energy, and practicing radical self-responsibility.

    http://www.energyandvibration.com

    But I do believe that chronic rage and fear puts our minds and bodies at dis-ease, causing us myriad health issues, and that this ripples out into society, creating social ills, which, in turn, comes back to the individuals. It is a vicious cycle, which is why discussions around this have become loopy and stuck. At this point, I strongly feel that it is simply a matter of quieting our minds, feeling our hearts, and doing the healing work, individually. Certainly, support is beneficial, if we can find the right kind of support by those who understand vibration and energy. But it’s not absolutely necessary. Ultimately, we are in our own hands, and minds.

    I do not feel we are born this way, but most certainly, we learn this in our earliest environments, mainly referring to family. We are the end result of generations of hardships and suffering, control and manipulation–and abuse–that has translated into a complete separation of our intuitively loving and confident true selves. We are stuck in systems of perpetrator/victim/enabler that is only a downward spiral in humanity. This is what I experienced with myself, which I eventually remedied in a complex way over the years. I continue to observe these patterns and dynamics in others, in epidemic proportion. I am always extending a hand of support, but it can be challenging to accept it, because healing does mean letting go of old habitual beliefs that have been so deeply engrained in all of us. This is a rigorous process, and one has to be ready to face the unknown. This is where good support comes in handy, simply to encourage and cheer on, as well as to help heal fears, doubts and worries with authentic reassurance, neutrally, without ego, and from experience.

    Not everyone can accept what I say, here, at present, but it is where I landed after all of my debacles in the mental health world, and in advocacy. The issues have become so political, that we seem to have forgotten that health and well-being is really what we’re after. And I am so grateful that my path led me to know this truth, because as I’ve said before on here, it has transformed my health and my life.

    I was most definitely ‘ill’ at points in my life, and I was never in denial of it. Now I am well, and I celebrate it. I taught my partner all of this, as he was part of my oppressive environment which caused me to become very ill and disabled–which he owns fully–and as a result, he healed his fear and heart wounds, as well.

    As far as the 3rd definition goes, isn’t ‘evil’ what we are all talking about on here? Haven’t we all witnessed and/or experienced what feels like ‘evil’ from psychiatry and the mental health systems? Isn’t this what the global community is screaming about, in general, that they wish would end, once and for all, that has caused the world to be in such fear, rage, violence, and chaos? I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that it makes us sick.

    It’s hard to recognize illness when we have been surrounded by it and entrenched in it all our lives, until we separate from it. The irony now is that those who are well and happy are not so easily accepted, and who, in turn, may look and sound kind of weird and ‘off.’ And our fear of being thought of as weird, keeps us good and sick, simply to appease others and not be an ‘outsider.’

    It takes a lot of courage and fortitude to heal, and to be happy and loving, in this sick and cynical world. But I think it’s well worthwhile, because it leads to a lot of wonderful things. I have learned this well in my journey, and I’m so glad I did.

    Sometimes I wonder if I really fit into this community, even though my experiences have been strikingly similar and I share generously all that I have done to make myself well, while encouraging others to find their own healing. Still, it seems to simply rub some people the wrong way. Now that is what I find to be very interesting.

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  • I also think that each person has to fight their own battles, here, and to not rely on others. This is not activism like before, this is a new paradigm. We’re not just fighting for rights, respect, and personal dignity, we’re talking specifically about health issues, at the core of it all. This is a new twist.

    I fought my battles without any group support. In fact, I was abandoned by those who secretively believed in what I was doing, but they were too intimidated to show me support publically. I was scared, too, but facing my fears by speaking my truth was better than sinking into them by not standing up and speaking out, on my own. Had I done that, then I would have remained vulnerable to their control. But I found my own voice and learned to believe and trust in it, and this is what saved me.

    That is one double bind from which I ascended, not just by speaking my truth, but by embodying it as well. I walked my talk. Many tried to discredit me in various ways, but I stopped caring about those personal issues, because I was feeling more secure in who I was, and that is how I retrieved my mental health, which was the whole point to begin with.

    The stigma and discrimination occurred later into the journey, and caught me blindsided. These hard knocks are what propel us forward, if we can apply them as lessons and internal guidance, rather than to become despondent, enraged, and disabled by them. I went through all those stages, but I worked hard to ascend into a more hopeful and relaxed space about it all. That’s where my spiritual studies were most valuable to me, and where the mental health world completely failed me. The best they could do was to enable my victimhood, because they wanted to be my ‘saviors.’ Feh!

    I never got funding for anything, and I trudge on with faith and trust. I had no resources when I made my film, and yet doors opened for me all over the place. It was truly miraculous, in my eyes, and I feel that it was because I was meant to take this step.

    This nourishes me to the point where I can honestly say all of my needs are met, and when I’m looking for something, whatever I need comes my way, if it’s the right thing. Yet another way I avoided dependence on others and compromising my integrity in any way. This was also enormously healing to me, and it boosted my faith insurmountably.

    What we are facing in this arena has never before been addressed, and it is a multi-dimensional endeavor. I feel that the best I can do is to be an example by sharing my stories, but I’ve gotten flack for that, too, one way or another. This is a challenging road on many levels, no doubt about it.

    As I always say, we all do the best we can with what we know. At some point, it’s simply time to move on and hope for the best.

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  • What I’m seeing here is the concept of individual needs vs collective needs. Regardless of our stated intentions to discredit groups that are, indeed, doing harm to others via a variety of sinister cause and effect strategies, you are correct in noticing that there are naïve and well-intended individuals in any collective that are being used.

    I certainly fell into that category when I was working in one of these ‘anti-stigma’ campaigns myself. As I’ve said before, I eventually wised up. But it was a dilemma for me because the individual work I was doing in that particular group was beneficial for my own personal goals. The public speaking grew me a lot in my own self-awareness, which moved me along tremendously in my path. One reason I made Voices That Heal was to honor the effectiveness of telling our stories, which helped us all in our own healing. I wasn’t so concerned about the organization I was with, and at that time, I saw its value for all of us.

    So when I woke up to the fact that they were, in reality, not honorable to their own cause, and even worse, getting funding for these purposes, I took pause and did the best I could to figure out what was best for me to do. I had already sabotaged my work life years prior to this by speaking my truth to a voc rehab agency, so I had to consider taking another road, here, for the sake of my own survival. I did completely separate from that agency, eventually, but only after building my own bridge out of there, which I crossed successfully.

    This whole mental health world is fraught with very challenging double binds. It is easy to not see the forest for the trees, when we are not in touch with our true intentions. In the end, we all do what we feel is right for ourselves. Sometimes confronting feels good, and we feel our own confidence and power; while at other times, letting go and letting the universe do its thing, as we watch with faith and trust, puts us in touch with our humility. It’s a delicate balance, and an interesting one with which to experiment.

    In the end, I found that being flexible with how I addressed these issues led me to personal integration of all aspects of myself, and from this vantage point, I was able to succeed in all of my goals, both for myself, and in my intention to help clean up some of this mess.

    For example, I just found out that the highly stigmatizing and discriminatory voc rehab agency which I had taken to legal task 10 years ago and which I briefly talked about in my film (and btw, which partnered with NAMI and the likes, and worse yet, with the mental health system itself), closed its doors for good less than a year after I posted my film on YouTube, because it lost its funding. I imagine there may have been other factors, but I would like to believe that my truth won out.

    While I was happy to know this, I was also concerned about its clients, who were once my peers. They were good people, sincerely looking to heal and to grow professionally. I hope they are ok, and moving along in their paths even better now, because they are not being covertly dragged down by such clever hypocrisy. Still, I’m glad that this system is losing its footing.

    There are no easy answers to how to go about dismantling this mess for the purpose of creating and implementing more effective and stand up ways of addressing these challenging and complex issues, but I’m confident that all our voices and efforts, together, are making a huge difference. Different aspects of the tragic mental health world are being addressed, one way or another, and I believe it is proving to be quite effective.

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  • What will cause psychiatry to change? Like the plethora of global institutions that have brought harm, misery, suffering, and death to so many on the planet–through lying, cheating, bullying, avoiding, and general hypocrisy and betrayal to their own professed causes and missions–they will hang by their own ropes. The changes that are occurring in the world will leave it unrecognizable.

    My own personal belief is that rude awakenings are just around the corner for systems that operate via dark and dense energies–that is, those devoid of conscience, consciousness, and which utterly lack integrity. How these events will manifest is anyone’s guess.

    I imagine that a lot of people are, eventually, going to be arrested for the crimes they have perpetrated on humanity. The ones that survive, physically, will, more than likely, descend into madness. Then they’ll start to get it.

    At that point, the real healing will begin.

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  • Oh, and btw, even though I do believe that mental illness does exist, and rampantly around us, I do not at all buy into DSM diagnoses or the idea that the brain is ‘broken.’ I also feel that it is neither a disorder or anything chronic. When we operate from chronic negativity or overly suspicious minds–which happens when our heart wounds go unaddressed–then our thought processes become muddled and we cannot focus on point. When I say mental illness, this is to what I refer. There are relatively easy ways to address this and remedy all of it, but it is a process, and in all of my extensive experience and dealings with the mental health world, I have failed to see this addressed adequately.

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  • “The fundamental premise underlying all mental health commitment legislation is that mental illnesses exist, and that these putative illnesses cause people to think, feel, and behave in a problematic, and sometimes dangerous, manner.”

    Spurious or not, the idea of this legislation–and in all of what the mental health world dishes out– is to cause fear. Fear-mongering is an extremely powerful tool which is used to create suspicion and paranoia, which is rampant in our society, in general, thanks to the slant that the media gives everything, and we buy into it, hook line and sinker.

    Personally, I do believe that ‘mental illness’ is a valid concept, but I feel that these semantics and perspectives are beside the point. Create fear in a population, and then you got ’em. Leads to chaos, conflict, and illusions, which makes people extremely vulnerable and feeling powerless. The mental health world, just like the government, does not want people to know their own power, as this would really kill their agenda of control and manipulation. Divide and conquer is the game they play with us.

    I believe this is what needs to heal in all of us, individually and collectively. Otherwise, we are vulnerable to deceit and intimidation, because we are not in touch with our truth and inner being. And certainly, we have strayed far from this, as a collective.

    Those who can overcome their chronic fear, who know their inner being, and have a sense of self will not succumb to fear mongering, and therefore, can ground in their own personal reality, without doubting their own voice of well-being. At least, that’s been my experience.

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  • “Healing with informed consent is a state of expansion. It’s all seeing, all knowing, all wise. It’s light years larger than the DSM. It’s you.”

    Spot on, Chaya, beautiful work. How can anyone inform anyone about this stuff? There is no complete information, other than what we learn as we go along. It is unknown and unresolved territory. This is our opportunity to get our own information, by hearing our own inner voice as we move along our life journeys. This is how we, ourselves, own our paths.

    “Expansion” is the perfect word. We are expanding, evolving, learning new things all the time. It is our voice of healing and well-being that counts, not that of others for us. Thank you.

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  • Bulls eye! Absolutely brilliant mirroring, Steve. And thank you so much for your very kind words. I’ve always noticed on here how so very astutely you read others, and I do pick up that your heart is very kind. I imagine you do excellent work, as well. When I read your post, I thought…hmmm, kind of sounds like we may have been separated at birth. Lol.

    I just read this exchange to my partner, and he said, “Wow, I’ve never heard anyone get it like that.” Yes, I went through the looking glass (as I say in my film). What you say is precisely why I made the film. This cannot go on.

    Voices That Heal also got a review on Spirit Enlightened film festival website this morning, that I posted onto my own website a few hours ago, that very much speaks to what you say, here. It was made by a clinical therapist. More magical synchronicity. Check it out:

    http://www.embodycalm.com/Film–Voices-That-Heal.html

    Well, I’ve established myself as a spiritual counselor and teacher now, and my work seems to be good, I have very affirming testimonials. So their loss is my good fortune, and all is well.

    Thank you for this beautiful and heartfelt dialogue, Steve. Made my week 🙂

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  • I can so relate to what you say, here, Steve. Hypocrites keep me at arm’s length, as well, and I have the same picture of people in general that you do, which can feel maddening at times.

    Although, interestingly, I was a popular teenager and I was also a popular retail manager as a young adult, highly respected by my bosses and by my staff. I was kind of naïve about things, but I had good intuition, and knew how to navigate a culture.

    I was fine in graduate school, too, where I did my MFT training, although this is where the division started happening. I was in a psycho-spiritually based counseling program that was experiential in nature, so we were supposed to talk openly about our issues, as part of our education. I had lived with a diagnosis for a long time and was on meds, although it had never disabled me up to that point. I didn’t know about stigma or any such thing, as I had never experienced this before.

    But in grad school, suddenly, some of my would-be psychotherapist classmates and this one professor couldn’t at all handle it. One colleague called me up during my second semester and literally screamed into the phone, “Stop talking about your mental illness, you’re making people feel uncomfortable!” How would you like to have her for a therapist?!

    And the professor went to my advisor because he wanted me thrown out of school. I saved myself from that fate, however. I was a straight A student and one of the top trainees, given that I had the highest rate of referrals and the largest caseload that this counseling center had ever seen. He was the first one who had ever said to me, “You don’t belong here,” but he was in the minority, as most of the faculty and students regarded me highly. He had something up his rump, but like I say above, it had nothing to do with me.

    Although at that time, I wasn’t so inured, so it was devastating to me, and I processed it all during grad school, and beyond. I call it the beginning of my dark night.

    I was later told a few years later by a voc rehab counselor that I “didn’t fit in,” which ended up costing her big time at a legal mediation.

    I was in my 40s at the time, and had never experienced this kind of marginalization, and it was rough for me. Not only did it cause me tremendous mental distress and a suddenly horrible self-perception, but it also blocked me from working in the field, where I was trained. Big mess for me, and the first time I had ever felt disenfranchised in any way.

    I found my way to doing theater as I as exited the system (that’s another long story, how that occurred, it was a bit of a miracle), and became a popular Bay Area actor, so I felt back in my game, and I was healing from all that stigma and marginalization.

    Then, I joined a speakers’ bureau with an advocacy agency to speak publically about my healing and to talk about how devastating the stigma had been to my life and health, and suddenly, I was back to being considered second class, even though I had been working as an actor, and I also had my healing practice. They just couldn’t help it, the stigma was just automatic, no rhyme or reason.

    It was only in the mental health world that I’ve been told that I don’t ‘fit in,’ and they made sure I felt it. It is a deeply entrenched internalized program, and so incredibly damaging to the heart, mind, and spirit.

    While in society as a whole, I was perfectly in the flow, and, in fact, revered, regardless of whether I was sick or well, on meds or not, anywhere in the mental health world, including professional ‘advocacy,’ because I had a psychiatric history at all, even after it was all behind me, I was considered marginal and, basically, dismissed and not worthy or general human respect.

    So guess where I don’t hang out any longer?

    Oy, what a crazy world!

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  • Oh yeah, and in the mental health world, as well–as student, clinician, and client. Which is why I eventually defected from the field and said, “Watch my dust!”

    When I think about how much $$ I spent trustingly to be subtly and covertly demeaned, grrrrrrr. In the system, of course, it was much more blatant, but we are, somehow, so strangely made to feel we have no choices when we are part of that corporation. I guess that’s why most of us are here, mad as hell, or at the very least, terribly confused.

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  • Glad to hear this, Sally. It’s why I feel that sharing our stories is so vital to healing, as a society.

    Steve, just for clarification, my behavior was never in question. No one in my personal life ever considered me weird or “inappropriate.” It was my life choices and personal perspectives that were met with judgment, and for which others–both, strangers that don’t know anything about me, and also certain family members–tried to demean me and make me feel shame. I don’t take it on, however, as I know this is about their shame for something or other, and really has nothing at all to do with me. As I’m sure you know, that’s what is called ‘scapegoating,’ which I would like to see stop happening, as it is such an unhealthy and toxic dynamic, based purely on lack of self-responsibility. So I call it out.

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  • This is an interesting article to me because there are many things here that speak to my own life experience. I also come from a professional Jewish mid-upper class family–my father was a physician and my brother is a dept head at a highly prestigious research university. He’s the older one, who satisfied the family version of ‘success.’ I was the one who ended up being labeled and temporarily disenfranchised from professional society, which, thankfully, I have long overcome, and have moved on from all of this.

    I have not lived up to family expectations, yet my fulfillment came from personal transformation, and I’m the happiest and most fulfilled one in the bunch. I’m also the one with love in my life, and in my heart.

    At first, I thought they were happy for the all the rigorous healing work I had done, and with which I have succeeded, but turns out that they still have trouble accepting me, and on those rare occasions when I speak to them, there is a still a demeaning quality to their communication to me, sometimes pretty overtly, which had caused me great personal and mental distress for a long time, but, thanks to a lot of spiritual work I have done, especially around detachment, forgiveness, dropping resentment, and personal ownership of my life path, I have learned to accept THEM, and have compassion for where they are in their own personal evolution, despite their judgments (and, perhaps, jealousy? I hate to think and say this, but it’s been suggested to me by my partner and many of my friends). Sadly, these are their demons with which to wrestle, not mine.

    Turning the tables on who accepts whom was pivotal in my healing, and recovering from depression, among other manifestations of stress.

    I had a therapist–back when I was seeing therapists–who suggested that I was depressed because I was not working at that time. Intuitively, rejected that notion, but I was happy he said this to me, because it led me to realize that my distress was caused by feeling that I was not living up to others’ expectations. The solution to this was not at all to aim for living up to anyone’s expectations, but, in reality, to forget about what anyone else expected from me, and to focus on what it was I most desired, which is what has defined my life path. That brought me not only mental health and grounding, but also a kind of magical synchronicity that I continue to enjoy to this day.

    For me, healing depression was about defining my own path in life, and rejecting altogether anything that a judgmental and inherently stigmatizing society projects.

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  • Good note, Monica, it is definitely such an individual process, and filled with unknowns, so it’s a good time to practice discernment, trusting our intuition, and learning how our bodies respond to different things. I went through a variety of alternative practitioners before finding the right matches for myself. Sometimes, it seemed like looking for tiny little needles in haystacks of charlatans.

    Aside from the herbs and homeopathic remedies which I found helpful and supportive to me, I practiced energy-building exercises like Qi Gong, which I did daily, joined a fun group. And most importantly, I learned about grounding and ‘earth energy,’ which I discovered to be vital to my process, and especially when it came to meds withdrawal. Mine was rough–I came off of what had eventually become 9 meds, after 20 years of one toxic mix or another. I spent a good couple of years insomniac, which led to bouts of psychosis, as Chaya mentions, as well as excruciating physical pain, as I’ve seen you describe in some of your posts. Overall, I was catatonic with disabling anxiety for a good long while.

    I also did regular acupuncture for a few years, which I found to be really helpful and supportive to moving energy around, so it would not get stuck in my body. I was fortunate to find a really good clinic in San Francisco, which took Medi-cal, which I was on at the time, and I was able to get treatments for only $1 a session, which was a true miracle. My acupuncturist was really supportive and complemented well all the other stuff I was doing.

    In addition, also as Chaya mentions, I found probiotics to be extremely beneficial, as it builds healthy gut flora, and strengthens our auto-immune system. Also, I have found a daily serving of oats to be good for my nervous system. I also enjoy making raw veggie green drink smoothies in the morning. This really helps to remedy intestinal inflammation. Again, just an option for those to whom it might beneficial. Many do, but not all.

    I agree with what you say, that we have to be cautious about to whom we turn, which is why I learned this all for myself, and trained in what I was learning–although I am not an acupuncturist or an herbalist. But I did learn vibrational and energy medicine, as I feel that we are, in essence, our own healers and guides.

    http://www.energyandvibration.com

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  • Suzanne Woods is a 5th generational herbalist from New Zealand, and she is the reason my meds withdrawal was as successful as it was. She is in Shreveport, LA now, and is available for consultations by phone. Thanks to her herbs, I was able to regenerate on a cellular level.

    She does a custom blend of herbs and flower essences tailored to each person’s individual process and nervous system. She is also extremely personable and warm. A true herbal genius, and very supportive of anyone wanting to come off meds. http://www.herbcraftrx.com/#!about/cjg9

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  • Thanks, Sera, I so very much appreciate that you watched the film and for your feedback. Back to that in a moment.

    Regarding my response to Richard, the main thing I appreciated as a result of our dialogue is that you agreed that 1) the ‘wrong ones on that stage’ comment was unfair, and that you’d prefer to have that removed—that is what most stood out to me, and what made me the most angry, and 2) that the sarcasm might distract from the clarity and directness of your argument, and that, in reality, it’s not necessary. As I said in my initial post, I appreciate your cleverness, but in this case, I felt it was poor exampling, if we are talking about educating others. That’s just me, but you copped to it, for which I was grateful, so these are the main things to which I was referring.

    On top of that, I don’t disagree with your assessments of these programs, I’ve experienced the same thing in my own experience, and I got screwed in a million ways until I caught on to the dishonesty and corruption of groups like NAMI, et al. I learned this all from the inside.

    One thing that made me eventually an outsider with professional advocacy and voc rehab is that they could NOT indoctrinate me, and they really let me have it when they discovered they could not control me. But I didn’t know what I was getting into, and honestly, I was just looking for work! These programs looked good at first, but then I discovered the reality of it, and I paid dearly for standing up to them. But I did stand up to them, I never cowered.

    There was no MIA at that time, nor was I aware about any of this corruption when I turned to these agencies for support—it seemed like a reasonable option at the time, so I learned it from the inside, and the knocks were hard, but they were good lessons. As I’ve said, I took my former employers (of the system) to EEOC mediation, and I won. That wasn’t easy, and as a result of the backlash (no, it’s not legal, but it still happens), I had to eventually move from the city. Fortunately, it was a great move, and as always, my hardships became my guidance, which turned out incredibly favorably for me, but this took a long time for me to get over, on an emotional level. I was alone in this, and I succeeded. I fought all my battles on my own, my integrity remained intact, and it all paid off. But it was a rough few years. And this was AFTER I had healed from med poisoning and other PTS stuff. (Please notice I do not say ptsD, as I do not believe in ‘disorders,’ but I do believe in post-traumatic stress. And I don’t know anyone who hasn’t experience that in life, on some level.

    In any event, I agree with your assessment about these programs, but still, for me the thing that I became most aware of was how the speakers and members of Active Minds felt about what you did and wrote, and my heart simply went out to them. I’ve been in their shoes, and it’s quite discouraging when one is doing their best to create understanding of their own personal chaos (for lack of a better term—at least for me, that’s how it felt at the time), and there is a disruption for political purposes. It reminded me of Act Up, which I never liked.
    Activism is one place where I feel a shift in the paradigm would be quite useful and beneficial, but that is for another discussion.

    Otherwise, we’re just doing the same thing that the mental health world does. It’s like protesting against war by bombing the factories that make bombs. People get killed that way, and it’s what protesters are protesting. Does this make sense? You may not agree with this analogy (and no, you didn’t kill anyone, not even close), which is fine, but it’s from where I’m coming on these issues.

    I do know, however, that the panel felt overly challenged, at a time they really needed support. To me, their individual personal experience while speaking their truths far surpasses any political agenda. Some people will wake up, all in good time, but that is there decision to make and their path to take, at least, that’s what I believe.

    So that’s why I eventually expressed to you what I did, but before I did, I contacted them to see what was going on. Perhaps it wasn’t my place, but at the same time, I’m just as concerned about this whole ‘mental health’ situation as everyone else here, on every level, as my life became a mess despite my best efforts to heal and move forward. I’m certainly still angry about what is going on in that world, as it is draining to all concerned, and so damaging and deadly to way too many, but I had to drop my personal resentment so that I could get my life back together, which I have done well, thank God. We all do our best, and learn as we go.

    My focus, however, is more on the healing. I did front line activism in San Francisco for a good long while, and now, I’d prefer to do this another way. That’s my path at this time, and I’m comfortable with it. I do admire your fortitude.

    Ok, re the film—first, thanks for the positive feedback on certain parts of it. I get where the trouble spots are for you.

    The ‘mental illness’ language thing is tricky, and as I’ve said, we were all speaking in present time, from our hearts, from our own interpretations of our realities. It’s all in real time, with no scripts. The language part is challenging for us all, because we all have different reference points for our experience. Indeed, there are a lot of contradictions, but isn’t that reality? This isn’t about ‘telling it like it is,’ or trying to convince anyone of anything, necessarily. Although I was definitely focused on challenging the status quo, big time, but not all of them were, and I had to respect that.

    More than anything, it’s about telling our stories, warts and all in how we express ourselves. I didn’t want something neat and tidy and polished. I wanted something as close to reality as I could get, and I feel pretty good about how it turned out in this regard. Still, it’s in 3 specific acts, so it has a structure, and I believe it takes the audience on a journey. It’s a heart speak film, not an academic exercise. We have enough of those.

    Most of all, I wanted to create something that would lend itself to enlivened discussions, so if I were to be asked something like, “But here you say this, and there you say that. Which is it?” I’d totally welcome that. That is how interesting discussions happen, and how we achieve further clarity, as a collective. We ascend from paradox, that’s a really enlightening place, imo. As long as people ask question, rather than simply ‘shooting’ first, then we’re onto something. So thank you for noticing this.

    Yes, I know the stigma thing is not so popular around here, and I respect that and I understand why this is. Still, as I’ve said, not only is this central to our experiences, especially to mine, but I felt it was sound. Plus–and this, more than anything, is the reason that the film is built around it–that was the theme of our speaker bureau. I had no say in this, it’s the program, and I had such a good opportunity to film these presentations quite easily, that I went with it. It’s what we talked about around town, and for me, it is relevant. I feel that I actually took this back from how it is co-opted by NAMI, et al, and we discuss it with relevance to oppression and discrimination.

    Still, I was hoping that our stories and discussion would touch people, regardless of the focus on stigma, and how we discuss it prompts us all to reflect on our tendencies to judge others, based on superficial awareness. I think we all have the tendency to do this, one way or another, as it is how we’ve been programmed to think, in many ways, by the media, etc. To me, one aspect of healing is to own this, and to see past the illusions that we, ourselves, create, when we judge others, for ANY reason.

    In the end, when I was editing the film, I felt that this issue did, indeed, bridge mental distress and social ills, so that was kind of an ‘aha!’ for me. I thought it was interesting, and as always, it’s open to discussion, that’s what I’m after. This is new stuff.

    Now, about the dogs. You know, not to shirk responsibility, but that was really the idea of my cast. I was ok without it, but they really wanted to include this. The point was not to make a ‘perfect’ film, but to help us heal. I gave the cast a lot of say in the final edit. I felt that was important. Personally, I would not have included this, but for the three of them that had the dogs, it was important, so I allowed it. Why not? I’m not out to win an Oscar, but I did want them to feel comfortable, and to feel respected in their contributions. That’s what was most important to me. I’m not trying to sound sanctimonious, here, but it’s totally the truth.

    I’m a healer, and I did this for the purpose of healing. The goal was to have fun making it, and for everyone to get in what was important to them. I tried to construct it best I could, from our collective wishes.

    So that’s the story!

    Again, Sera, I’m really grateful that you took the time and energy to watch it and comment on it so thoughtfully and honestly, amid your busy life. This has all been really good. I’m very appreciative for our dialogue.

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  • I’ll consider it, to see if anything new occurs to me, but so far, I feel what I said reflects how I honestly feel. I thought about it quite a bit before posting it, and edited it many times over.

    I don’t post stuff like this off-the-cuff. I sit with it for a while and see how it feels to me, make sure I’m clear with myself. These are not easy issues for any of us, and we all have our diverse perspectives.

    Plus, Sera and I came into agreement about things, as a result of our dialogue. You and I (and, I imagine, others) may simply not be in agreement in this case. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve stood alone in my opinion.

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  • I appreciate your feelings, Richard. Indeed, I’m fully aware of what we’re engaged in. I’ve lived my own story, and have succeeded in resolving my own struggles, as well as educating others. Nothing at all wrong with anger, but I feel there are self-responsible ways to express ourselves that are not demeaning to others. Otherwise, we simply run the risk of causing more damage to the human mind and spirit–both, individually and collectively.

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  • I still say you could be more sensitive and thoughtful while offering your truth. And this time I’ll say…especially when people–younger or older–are being courageous and generous enough to make themselves so incredibly vulnerable for the purpose of increasing their own understanding of these issues, as well as sharing with others.

    Seems to me that this panel–including the moderator–made enough of an impact on you that it stirred you in emotionally significant ways, so I applaud them hardily. And of course, you stirred them, too, so I’m sure that, in the long run, this all has value for them. As we all know, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

    I learned when I spoke publically that this kind of stuff would occur from time to time, and it grew me well. I just wish your post had been a bit more direct and to the point, rather than being so laced with what seems like unnecessary sarcasm to me. I think that’s what left such a bad taste in our mouths–at least, that was an issue for me. These are such sensitive and challenging issues, that clarity can be better reached with focused intent and unambiguous communication.

    Going off-topic a bit from your post (although there is definitely some overlap, here, given the title of your blog post), I’d be so curious to know what detailed critique you’d give of my film, given its diversity that you appreciate. I’d welcome it either publically or privately, either way. I’ve gotten good validation from a few MIA regulars, while others have not been able to finish watching it, due to the fact that 1) it centers around stigma (which I, personally, am no longer part of any organized anti-stigma campaign, for reasons which I’ve often posted about–I caught on to what they were doing, eventually, and how misleading and dishonest it was; still, it was relevant to me, as I state above), and 2) I don’t come right out and lambaste the medical model full on–although I have done that in my posts, here, on MIA, and I can always access this.

    Although for the film and for the purpose of allowing the process of discussion to be reasonable and productive, I very blatantly bring it into serious question among others who still operated from there–which is what created good discussion, with some tension, in the film. I stated my position in our discussions, and I went with whatever responses I got, and moved it forward from there. I feel this is sound teaching, to guide the conversation, rather than to dominate it.

    It’s up to you, of course, if you want to take on this challenge.

    http://www.cultureunplugged.com/storyteller/Alex_Goldenberg

    I will say this about my process of making the film–doing this was vital to my healing and moving forward, and even though I have not profited financially from it (in fact, still in the red), I can way with all certainty that the universe granted me a one-way ticket out of the system and all my chaos, once and for all, and into grounding and clarity, not to mention family healing, thanks to my faith in what I was doing with this film, and sticking to guns, regardless of the resistance that came flying at me, at times. I was in the middle, here–to radical for the professional ‘advocates,’ and not radial and angry enough for the radical advocates.

    Ironically, the general public, as well as many mental health system clients, have loved it quite a bit and have called it ‘groundbreaking’ and ‘timeless.’ So, at least, I know I have an appreciative audience.

    All in all, I’m satisfied, but, given your experience with all of these issues, including making films on these topics, I’d be curious to know your truth about it.

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  • Like you, Sera, I tend to experience guilt quite easily, and it has caused me often to keep my mouth shut when I am particularly angry with someone. My Yiddisha Mama has a lot to do with this, as she cannot take any negative feedback at all, not in the slightest, without telling me that she will “die on the spot.” (Seriously, we’ve had this conversation). But that has served neither myself nor others, so at the risk of triggering this again, I am going to speak my truth, here, directly to you. Perhaps this time, I can heal this internalized self-oppression, once and for all.

    Sera, I have to say, this blog was a real turn off to me, much for the same reasons that GreenLady says. I don’t want to go point by point, because it seems like trying to dialogue with you when you are in disagreement with something or someone is a terribly futile experience, unless someone is willing to put up with your seemingly lack of kindness and compassion for those with differing viewpoints, or even someone who is at a different stage of their personal evolution.

    When you say, “…they had the wrong people on that stage… or at the very least, nowhere near enough of a mix…” I don’t understand where it is that you have this capacity to judge something like this.

    I know you have had your challenges and troubling experiences in life, but so have most of us that post here. To me, what you offer is simply arrogance and blatant disrespect. I do not enjoying saying these things to others, and I’ve never offered such a critique on MIA. In fact, if you were to check out the majority of my comments, I tend to be very validating and encouraging to others.

    But in this case, I cannot help myself but to offer a reflection such as what I am offering here, as I feel that you are keeping things good and stuck, here, and on a downward spiral—and quite relentlessly.

    I, myself, have moved way beyond the medical model in my own healing, life, and personal evolution, and have healed my heart by forgiving those whom I felt wronged and deceived me, which were plenty of folks and systems, as I tended to be quite naively trusting and not have very self-compassionate boundaries, but I have since grown in my self-esteem, thanks to some wonderful spiritual teachers I’ve had in recent years, after I defected from the mental health industry altogether.

    In turn, that healed my mind from a lot of negative thinking, which is what I consider to be part of ‘mental illness’—chronic negativity. That’s just my perspective, because it feels crazy-making to me. I feel a lot of victim mentality and exaggerated suspicion coming from you, here. Please forgive me for being so blunt, as I am not at all out to hurt or judge anyone, but it seems that you need a wake-up call.

    GreenLady points out:

    “It was simply to start a conversation on our campus, make students aware of options for help on and off campus and let them know, via the panelists, that they are not alone in whatever their struggles are.”

    This seems perfectly reasonable to me, and it is exactly why I made my film, Voices That Heal–to start and engage in a dialogue. And we focus on stigma, as well, because it is something that has affected all of us in the film, profoundly. For me, blatant stigma kept me from working for a good long time, very unjustly, and I even had my day in court about this, successfully. It also made me feel insane to have such wrongful and terribly invalidating projections cast onto me, as I see you doing to this program you attended, and to these students, despite your thinly veiled attempt to offer some sort of validation for their individual presentations.

    I had to heal from the damage that stigma brought onto me, after I had already healed from the damage from years of medication, as well as the damage of family trauma, followed by the damage done by being sexually molested by a stranger at the age of 2—something I have never disclosed before, publically, so this is a first for me.

    In my film, we have extremely diverse viewpoints among the six of us. I’m on one end of that spectrum—somewhat aligned with your perspective and that of others here on MIA–while one of the cast members of my film pretty much validates his experience with traditional medical model.
    The others fall somewhere in between.

    I did not choose this cast, I put out a call to 30 speakers, and whoever was ready to take this step was welcome to speak their truth in my film. It was not my intention to promote one and only one point of view, but a variety of perspectives, which we all discuss and debate in a filmed discussion which I facilitated fairly, while offering my own perspective. My primary intention was to keep the conversation moving forward, and not to get stuck in emotionally overwrought personal disagreements. Not all in my film agreed with me, but still, I did not censor anyone, nor did I direct others to present what I wanted them or others to believe. I allowed everyone to speak their truth, their way, and I edited it together to illustrate individual healing journeys, as well as a collective journey of forward moving dialogue, as opposed to a perspective which I might want to hold to as ‘the right one.’ To me, that would be foolish and non-productive when addressing the complexities of mental health and related issues, via these highly subjective experiences.

    I was not backed by any ‘funders,’ I made the film myself, independently, with no money at all, as I was still on disability at the time in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the country. One of my meditation students is a filmmaker, and despite being a single mother of three and quite busy, she was kind and faithful enough to volunteer her technical skills as director of photography and technical editor. My desire is to pay her someday, but I’ve only been able to offer the film as a public service, so we haven’t made a dime off the film. I made it with heart and faith, something I have failed to see evident in anything you have had to offer on MIA, in general, and most certainly, on this blog.

    To me, it seems that what you have done is to demean these courageous and perfectly well-intended students’ efforts to move conversation forward for their own journey of understanding about these issues, and of themselves. You may be in a different place, but that does not give you the right to impose your viewpoints on others in what appears to me to be a somewhat emotionally violent way. This is no different than what psychiatrists do, and what the mental health system, in general, does, that we all complain about here. I just see you paying forward the oppression. Given all you write about, and your obvious brilliance with words and phrases, it baffles me that you cannot see this for yourself.

    GreenLady asks: “How can you offer anything to the discussion? Who is this blog post serving? What purpose did it serve to blast an attempt to open a dialogue? Did it serve a purpose to denigrate the panel for speaking about their struggles in hopes of touching one other and giving a little hope?”

    I have the very same questions in mind that GreenLady poses. What purpose did it serve for you to demean an entire event, and then to come onto MIA and blast it for all to see, because you may have some personal or political agenda?

    After reading this last week, I did track down where this all took place, and I reached out to this group to offer them support and encouragement. They were quite grateful and moved, because they were so shaken and discouraged by what you did, so I’m glad I did this.

    As a truth-speaker, myself, and one who has gotten over whatever it was that was ailing me (I will refrain from calling it anything specific here, as I do not want to get into a semantic squabble with you or anyone about how I interpret my own life experience, as this is, in and of itself, terribly demeaning), I simply could not stand by and witness you offer such discouragement to these students who are trying heal themselves, and to make a different in the world—from their hearts, not from their victim rage.

    I do sincerely hope you can find your heart again. Obviously, you have been terribly wounded, and you have yet to find your healing. I don’t want to add to your troubled spirit, but I really felt it necessary to express this to you, after seeing how, first, you demeaned these students for no reason that I can see as justifiable, and now, when GreenLady steps in courageously to express her very legitimate concerns about this, you railroad her like a steam engine. To me, that’s just bullying, plain and simply.

    I sincerely wish you the very best. You have a lot to offer the world, but first, I wish you would heal that angry heart of yours.

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  • Thank you so much, Fred! I do, too, I’m definitely working on it. It had been my life goal to be a filmmaker since I was a cine-phile teen-ager, so it felt good to see this dream come to fruition 35 years later. (Although I hadn’t realized that I had to live my film before I could actually create it!).

    I so much appreciate your kind words and encouragement–more than I can say. Thank you.

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  • Hi Cgiroux,

    I noticed your comment on the front page comments panel of this website, and I agree with what you say, here. Although my feeling is that you intended to post as a response to Sera Davidow’s blog, “I Love…Stigma?” since you talk about having attended a program like the one she describes. Although please correct me if I’m wrong.

    I looked up Active Minds, and it does look like a really wonderful program. I wish something like this had existed when I was in college (over 30 years ago!), because it would have been very helpful and supportive to me. Instead, I had to go it alone, which was incredibly hard and frightening, needless to say.

    I agree with you that it is our journey to take and our stories to tell, our way, and that this is what gives us our ownership and sense of self. As we continue to share our thoughts and feelings about ourselves and our experiences, we gain much insight into who we are.
    To me, this is the humanity of our experience.

    I’ve had a long journey myself, which began when I was in college. I’ve since come off of all medication—which had been a lot–and re-defined myself as my story evolved over the years. I did a lot of soul searching and personal research on my own, and discovered new and fascinating perspectives as I went along. For sure, it’s a never-ending process, which, to me, is what makes life most interesting.

    I made a film a few years ago, in which 6 of us tell our stories, our way. I did not direct anyone on how to tell their stories, I allowed everyone to tell it their way, in present time. There were no scripts, rehearsals, or re-takes, we simply all spoke our truths from what we believed in our hearts at that time. I simply edited it for time, but aside from that, there was no censoring of individual perspectives. We don’t all have the same viewpoint, we are diverse in our perspectives, and part of the film is a discussion we have amongst ourselves, where we dialogue openly about our individual self-perceptions. There is some overlap, and there are also differences, which made it all most interesting during the process of filming.

    The film does, indeed, center around stigma, not just toward those who are diagnosed, but about stigma in society, in general—which I feel is a powerful and dangerous tool, that leads to a lot of harmful self-judgment, if we buy into it—which is hard not to do at first, until we discover our own voice of truth for ourselves. To me, that is where our individual personal power lies, and nothing is more healing than that, in my experience. Whatever our experiences are, and however we perceive ourselves, we are all in a process of growth and personal evolution, and it is up to us to discover who we are, by way of our own individual process. No two processes are the same, so I love to learn about others by listening to how their processes unfold. To me, this is the most fascinating and moving part of our journeys as human beings.

    My film, Voices That Heal, is posted on cultureunplugged.com, and is part of an online film festival called Spirit Enlightened. If you’d like to check it out, here’s the link:

    http://www.cultureunplugged.com/storyteller/Alex_Goldenberg

    If you feel it’s appropriate for others you know, or for the Active Minds program, feel free to pass it along. You can also check out my website, if you like, see if anything here speaks to you. http://www.embodycalm.com.

    Thanks for adding your voice here, can congratulations on your courage and truth-speaking, very inspiring.

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  • Chaya, are you still planning to be in the Bay Area soon? If so, I do hope you can find a way to travel north a bit as an excursion. I’m about 250 mi north of SF, just south of CA/Oregon border.

    I would love to speak more to you about this in person. I facilitate a group of local healers and teachers, from which I’m currently on hiatus until April 5, but I have an updated syllabus for an 8 week class which specifically addresses all of this, and I would love to share it with you.

    So far, I’ve had good success with my off-the-grid program, as my testimonials would indicate. Email me if you like, and I’ll be happy to share a copy of it with you, see if it speaks to you. I’d very much enjoy your feedback, as well. I’m so very aware that you have a lot of experience and wisdom to offer, and I’d love to know what you think about what I’ve put together here.

    My contact info is here: http://www.embodycalm.com/Contact.html (p.s. the pic below contact info is where I live now, my natural abundance).

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  • I have a donations-based practice, where I have supported many people who choose to come off medication for hardly any payment. While I am a trained and certified integral health practitioner, based on Chinese and vibrational energy medicine, I am not a western medical practitioner, so I refrain from offering medical advice. But I do hardily cheer people on and offer what I can from my own experience. I tell people that there is no manual for this, and this is where we discover our own natural processes of healing, so I am there with them when doubts and fears start to creep in, and I offer my feedback and encouragement. Being on the inside of withdrawal can be so scary and blinding, and even though it was a while ago for me, I remember it well. I did not have any guidance outside of myself, as I knew no one at the time who had been through this. I was not aware of all that is written about now.

    I try to help soothe anxieties, and encourage folks to access their inner guidance. It is, inherently, a chaotic and complex process, and I try to help bring some ease into this process, best I can.

    I also work with a 5th generational herbalist to whom I refer people for internal support, and for detoxification, as well as regeneration of cells, organs, and nervous system. She is the one who helped me to leave meds behind years ago, and to find my center again.

    I am not at all comfortable with the concept of ‘money,’ in any regard, and I truly dislike the power we have given this, as a global culture. Part of my spiritual practice is to work with the energy of ‘abundance,’ which is not at all necessarily about money, but about energy. We have a misconception that resources are limited (thanks to what we’ve been programmed to believe, for the benefit of a few), whereas it’s my belief that energy is truly unlimited. This is all based on teachings I received as I was healing, and it has worked fantastically for me.

    I did not have money to make my film, start my healing practice, nor to move from the city to the country, but when I set an intention to manifest and focused on my natural abundance, the resources came to me, in miraculous and unexpected ways. When I look around me, I see my abundance, although it is not reflected in my bank account. Still, I feel my abundance and I see and experience it thoroughly.

    Sometimes, people tell me they feel badly that they can’t pay me more than a pittance, and I tell them that the universe compensates me, and it always does. This is how I survived living on SSDI in an exorbitant city like San Francisco. I had once feared being cast into the streets, and it almost seemed inevitable at one time, but it never happened. My authentic faith and trust in the universe never failed me.

    All in all, for me it is not about money. It is purely about the energy of abundance, which, when one taps into it, is limitless. I don’t have much cash at present, but I lack for nothing in life, because my heart is full and trusting. These were not easy lessons to learn, given all the betrayal we have faced, but forgiveness and being in present time go a long way to connect us with our abundance. These were the most valuable lessons I learned in all of this, and this is what I always try to pass on to others. Not all accept it, and that is fine. I do the best I can.

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  • There are so many barriers to healing and personal growth and well-being that have become woven into the norm of our fragmented, misguided, and emotionally violent and fear-based society. There are no practical answers in the ivory towers, which are totally disconnected from the reality of streets. Money and power/control, based on survival fears, continue to be the motivating factors of these academic beliefs, and this only serves to transfer social illness onto vulnerable and trusting populations who speak their truth. Not only is this deceitful and unjust, it is emotionally and spiritually murderous. (And, in some cases, physically so).

    Mostly, I feel that, collectively, we suffer from our failure to connect with our true nature and essence. We have strayed so far from that, that we continue to live under a variety of delusions which are the undercurrent of such insane disenfranchisement of human beings. While I so very much respect those who have worked hard to ‘get back into the mainstream,’ which I know is a grand effort for many people, I don’t at all believe that ‘work’ is necessarily a true and accurate measure of anything, other than needing to be accepted by some group or society. Needing to be ‘accepted’ by anything that is inherently out of whack simply puts us all in danger of living in an illusion, which is a house of cards, and only beneficial (in the short run) to some tiny group of self-proclaimed financial elites. From this perspective, our dependence on others only deepens, and this keeps fear alive, and power imbalanced. To me, fear is our number one ill-making culprit.

    Fear is healed when we connect to our inner beings, our spirit voice, and in turn, we learn trust our own process. There are 7 billion individual processes on the planet, one for each individual. We can only know ourselves. By not allowing others to interfere with our innate self-knowledge, knowing how to self-guide and self-heal, we take control of our lives, and we can swim in a sea of integral well-being and personal evolution, naturally. That sounds like good health and life mastery to me.

    Of course, we all know that current mental health practices do not lead us to self-mastery of our lives. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, as we are taught ‘dependence,’ and shamed and punished when we do not learn this twisted lesson.

    It is up to each of us, individually, to choose what it is that feels healthy and balanced to us. Others may not relate, or may judge, and while it could be an opportunity for that society to grow and evolve into embracing diversity, it most often very stubbornly resists this opportunity, which, to me, would be an indication that one may be in the wrong community for themselves. Otherwise, that individual is sure to find themselves marginalized, disabled, and considered ‘ill.’

    The planet is not one big happy family, nor do I feel that this would be natural and reasonable. We are a diverse bunch, with resonant families, and it’s up to each of us to find where we are best supported in our health, well-being, and natural creative process. This would shift the entire framework of what is considered disabled.

    I say it is society which is disabled. What is ‘normal’ to us, is opposite of healthy. To consider an individual disabled–especially permanently disabled–is the grand myth of all time. It saddens me that we continue to operate under these delusions.

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  • Rachel, your analogy of taking meds with a co-dependent relationship is brilliant and spot on, imo. Congratulations for making the break. Indeed, healing from the effects of such a relationship is complex and takes time, but I did it, and I know everyone can. It is the nature of life to heal and move on from that which has harmed us.

    I love what you say here:

    “Taking my last pill was like going through the gate of a protected, but deeply uncomfortable, paddock back out into the world in all its intensity. Making sense of this world, and finding a way of living in it, is the hard part. It’s also something that I relish….Even on the difficult days I am clear that this is MY life, MY pain and MY joy and it’s MY right to experience it directly.”

    I came off cocktails of meds after 20 years, and it was one of the roughest parts of my life journey. I had no support with this around me, from mental health world, and that made it especially rough and lonely. They all wanted me to go back on meds. I refused, and eventually found the support I need in alternative healing communities, where healing is based on spirit and energy.

    And I’m so happy that I did this. It’s been over 10 years now, and I’m perfectly clear and grounded now, creating my life in the way I most enjoy. I feel a lot of love for life now.

    After coming off the meds, which initially caused my blood to feel as though it were fire, I had to re-build myself from the ground up. I took the Jungian journey through the dark night into light, fighting my way through the jungle of madness and fear. It was quite bumpy and, at times, disorienting, but it allowed me to experience many of life’s mysteries and miracles in a way that I could own and, eventually, understand. Main thing I had to clear out of my head and heart was the idea that something was inherently ‘wrong’ with me, and that I was no longer of any value to society. That was the most damaging message of all, and from within the mental health system, this is what had been communicated to me, repeatedly.

    In my healing, I learned how to separate from and discard those inner voices. They were not mine to begin with. These are just plain lies, and it is so damaging and self-defeating to believe them. I’m thriving now, in health, life, and love, thanks to once and for all, seeing the forest for the trees. The big picture is so different than what we are led to believe when seeking support from current mental health practices. At least, this has been my experience.

    I’d consider contributing my story to your book, but I’ve told my story in detail so many times, that I’m a bit tired of doing this, as I have gone way past this by now, and I don’t really enjoy revisiting it, other than to know that it is all behind me and that I did it. Healing occurs in layers, and I went through every last one of them until I felt completely myself and in perfectly sound health and clarity. My health and life transformed as a result, and this does give me great joy.

    Although I do love the idea of what you are putting together. Your story is courageous and revealing, as are those of others who have left all this meds crap behind. I believe what you are doing will have great impact on all of this, and feel very supportive and encouraging of this project. My very best wishes to you, and for this project!

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  • Thank you for this comprehensive glimpse into how we, as a society and individuals, respond to human suffering.

    “Although modern treatments can effectively subdue some of the more extreme manifestations of madness, there is little evidence that any of the numerous interventions administered to the mentally disordered over the years influence the natural course of the condition.”

    I would argue that these interventions which we question and which many of us reject, categorically, as effective, do, in fact, influence the natural course of the condition. I believe they influence negatively the natural course of healing. These interventions stop or distort the natural flow of energy, which only serves to keep a person off track. Nature is healing, and most of the interventions of which I’m aware in current mental health practices go against nature, which would only create illness and grave imbalance, rather than to encourage, trust, and witness a natural healing process.

    “What they have done, however, is obscure the underlying functions that mental health services undoubtedly still serve. And if we wish to think about how to address the problems posed by mental disturbance in the most rational, economical and humanitarian way, we need to keep those functions at the front of our minds.”

    I do agree with this (about how any potentially positive mental health service has become obscured by harmful practices) because, for me, I cannot conceive of what positive influence is provided by current mental health services. At least here, in the United States, in my almost 20 years of involvement with mental health services (as a student, clinician, social worker, client, advocate, and ultimately, defector) I have failed to see long term satisfying results from any and all mental health services; whereas I have seen and experienced complete and utterly remarkable healing in healing environments having nothing to do with focusing on our psychology, but more on our heart and spirit.

    I wonder, as you or others might suggest, if I am generalizing from all that I’ve witnessed and experienced in the mental health field which made me angry and to feel so critical of this field, because it was misleading and disorienting at best, and lethal at worst. I’m open to seeing evidence of honest to goodness complete healing, but as of yet, I have not.

    I especially enjoyed and appreciated your video interview. In it, you say,

    “We don’t know how to interpret the evidence…”

    For me, this is one glaring and vital issue, how we interpret—whether it’s evidence from a study, or evidence of the life around us. We manifest our feelings and realities by our interpretation of what we see and experience. We have choices as to which perspective we wish to choose from which to witness anything. In mental health, I find most people are interpreted cynically, as if they are ‘diseased’ or inherently disadvantaged, and will be dependent on outside support for the rest of their lives. So much so that clients internalize this, which I believe to be so damaging and self-sabotaging to walk around with this self-belief. From it, we will create a life reality for ourselves (in general) of being needy. In turn, this further creates a toxic and imbalanced society. It’s a tragic hamster wheel.

    “That doesn’t mean that we’ve cured anything…”

    Thank you for this comment, especially. I think one of the great myths, and most stigmatizing beliefs, of addressing mental health is that, when we find ourselves to be out of balance, somehow (which happens to everyone at many times in life—it is human, and part of our process of growth and evolution), that many times, it cannot be cured and rectified completely.

    Again, very damaging and self-defeating to the human spirit. Everything can heal and everything can come back into balance, one way or another. We all have our own way of doing this; it is our path and creative process which dictates this. Society, or any aspect of it–medical or otherwise– cannot dictate what is ‘appropriate’ for another person. That is up to the individual. In short, it is between ‘them and their God.’

    Once the individual can connect to how they feel about this experience or that, then they can make appropriate choices to their well-being, because they will know what feels good to them, and for me, this is what would constitute ‘cure.’

    Life is trial and error, and we should all be allowed to take our journeys. ‘Support,’ to me, means good and loving witnessing and encouragement, along with positive and authentic feedback, if asked for it.

    “Children are being taught that they need a crutch to manage their emotions, and that is one of the prime tasks of growing up, to manage our emotions and to learn how to control our behavior.”

    Indeed, self-responsibility is our most effective guide and healer in life. If parents are not self-responsible, chances are the kids will not be. Or, a kid could grow up feeling responsible for the parents’ feelings, which would then translate into feeling responsible for the whole world, which can cause debilitating burnout in an adult, and self-negligence, on behalf of others.

    As you imply, calling ‘mental illness,’ of any kind, a brain disease only serves to allow toxic (abusive, oppressive, shaming, guilting, double-binding) individuals and dysfunctional societies off the hook. As you say, “It is easy” to do this, which, indeed, causes us to ignore and avoid the truly problematic issues. For sure, like you say, this makes it easy for politicians to scapegoat others, causing them to ignore and neglect the well-being of society as a whole.

    I really like how you put forth that our mainstream response needs to be questioned, as it is, undoubtedly, a very damaging message that one person is responsible for the comfort and well-being of those around them, or otherwise, this individual will be deemed ‘the problem.’ In general, a person labeled as ‘marginal’ or ‘ill’ because they make others uncomfortable is a wake-up call that something is wrong with that environment or society. This is how individuals get scapegoated in the family, and later on, by society. The media sure does encourage this, which is, in my estimation, is simply awful, and totally illusory. But yes, it does let others off the hook, unjustly.

    More than ‘employment’ in society, I believe the solution is about personal fulfillment and knowing our own power to create the life we most desire, based on loving life. I believe we all have this within us, but we have been convinced that we need others, or are responsible to others. For me, this usually translates into lack of love or self-love. At the very least, it is a measure of lack of unmitigated self-respect.

    We are employed by life. Being traditionally employed by others keeps us believing that our role is to help others become rich and powerful. We really are our own bosses in life, if we allow ourselves to be, and trust our processes. To me, this is radical self-responsibility, and is what leads to well-being. This is how we learn to believe in ourselves, wholeheartedly.

    When you ask, ‘Why are people depressed or acting out?’ I’d respond that, more than likely, in general, it is because we have not been allowed to be ourselves and to follow our own unique process, due to an uptight and judgmental environment, modeled with no sense of self-responsibility; and that if we are transparent in our unique creativity, we will be judged, labeled, ridiculed, or marginalized. We will be considered ‘the problem,’ rather than being recognized as embodying our truth, which is true courage and self-ownership. Rather than being the problem, I would call this person ‘the example.’

    I do not believe, in any way, that we are on this earth and in this life to appease others. We are here to find joy and fulfillment, and to honor our heart’s desires. Imagine how much love would manifest on the planet if we were all allowed to honor ourselves this way. At least, this is what I firmly believe.

    If our processes are thwarted, discouraged, and invalidated, who wouldn’t be depressed? In many cases, over long term, it causes rage. Some call it ‘psychosis.’ I call it reasonable.

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  • Sandy, as you know, I too, very much appreciate your courageous voice, here, despite the onslaught of negative reactions that can come toward you or any psychiatrist (as well as others) on this site. To me, that makes you a leader in your field, because obviously, you have the willingness to step into the mine field in order to find truth. Finding truth is not the actual intention of all (for some, it is about sabotaging truth, for self-interest or self-protection), but I believe that for you, it IS about finding the truth of the matter. That’s what I intuit, from our interactions.

    I can relate to your position. I am introducing a lot of new information and perspective into healing, personal evolution, and paradigm shifting and it is a helluva task. I get so much resistance thrown at me because it seems impossible to suggest something that challenges a person’s (or community’s) long held belief without it being reacted to as if it were personal. All neutrality and hope for balanced discussion disappears quickly, as it falls on wounded or programmed ears. I find this to be the most challenging part of these discussions.

    I know that personal feeling will come up, that seems natural and reasonable to me. However, this is where I introduce ownership and self-responsibility in my groups. Our emotions can inform us with subtle and interesting information, if we owned that our feelings belonged to US, rather than to the people that trigger us. If we are very empathic and feeling the feelings of others, then that should be acknowledged somehow, with neutrality and compassion. I witness that you do that beautifully. I find you to be very authentic and humble in your communication.

    To me, that’s an internal paradigm shift. To have fruitful discussions, we do need to allow our emotions to surface, otherwise words ring hollow, at least to me they do . Plus, in these particular discussions around ‘mental illness’ and it’s many related complex tangents, I know we’re all fully aware of the rage that has built for a lot of reasons. And I do believe it is reasonable, no doubt about that.

    But I do feel that a sense of our higher self (as in, a self-responsible and self-controlling adult) should be present at all times. When we smear, discard, dismiss, or discredit others when a perspective is presented, instead of being reasonable when we get angry, and a bit curious, communication has broken down, and things remain stuck–unless, of course, we can pull ourselves out of that mindset. All else is a waste of time and a drain on one’s energy. That’s how I see it, anyway.

    Perhaps a bit off the point of your post, but after reading through the comments, I felt compelled to express this. I think you’re a wonderful example of being, both, authentic and respectful in your communication on this website, in a sea of anger, and I appreciate that very much. Thanks.

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  • Yes, exactly. WE do all the work, they get paid zillions. And for what???? Just like you say, how can anyone heal from any kind of wound, whether physical or emotional, when their process is either stifled or misdirected, due to bad medicine. And it’s such public knowledge, now, too, that’s what is so frustrating.

    Sounds like you had a lot of salt rubbed into your wounds, which is what I experienced, too, from psychiatry, and mental health care, in general. Indeed, speaking my truth, straight from my heart, has been my best healer. My very best wishes to you on your recovery and healing.

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  • Thank you, James. Your response is gracious. I may have strayed a bit from the original intent of your post, but I felt compelled to share my reflections of your work, in general, since you offered the link, based on my feelings and experience.

    My own work is based on the effects of a family/group/community/society on an individual, and vice versa. I’m always happy to find perspectives such as yours about the family. Not everyone shares it.

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  • “Properly raising children is not ‘unemployed,’ it’s a grotesquely under respected, but invaluable service…”

    Not only do I undoubtedly agree with this, but it made me think of my experience with healing. I could interchange the words, “Healing is not ‘unemployed,’ it’s a grotesquely under respected, but invaluable service…”

    I know it’s a bit askew from the topic, here, but when I read your comment, this just popped into my head, so I thought I’d say it out loud. It’s totally true. My healing is my prized possession in life, and in order to accomplish it, I had to get away from the mainstream at all cost, which meant a long period of ‘unemployment.’ Mainstream is dense, unhealthy energy, imploding and exploding all over the place, all projections, no ownership. So how can healing ever occur?

    But it was only perceived unemployment by a culture that considers mainstream employment the be all end all, which I’ve never believed. It’s an option. There are many options for healthy and successful living. I’ve never worked harder in my life than when I was healing from med toxins on top of family issues on top of social issues. I was fully employed by my healing. I think the same thing can be said about parenting. That’s a lot of employment.

    It’s time to get this all straight. Mainstream anything is for the birds. It’s all tainted with deceit and mistrust, and I believe it’s destroying itself. I think that’s good news, as it will allow for a new and improved reality. I believe it’s happening now.

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  • I got up a bit early this morning, so I’ve been reading through your articles. There are many reasons I feel affinity with your work.

    First of all, I find that you have a spiritual voice with which I resonate strongly. You talk about fear and worry as resistance, which I love how you apply this in order to develop courage to grow and evolve past this, integrally. I think that’s basic and really sound healing. The poem you wrote about facing fears speaks to me.

    From how you describe your perspective, I also feel that you see peoples’ spirit, which has been my own personal frustration with the mental health field–both as a former consumer and as a former clinician–that I felt we weren’t trained to see heart and spirit, but specifically ‘what is wrong with that person’s brain?’ I hate that, and I feel you have shifted this, into a more heart and spirit focus. I can tell by what it is you notice about people. I find it to be neutral (as in, non-judgmental) and that everything is rife with possibility, from the present moment. I feel you write about personal growth and evolution as a birthright for all, and that no one is really stuck, if they don’t want to be.

    At least, overall, this is what I get from your perspective. You don’t write anyone off, you seem to really get that all of this is about being human, you actually seem to apply this, rather than to simply say it.

    Finally, I really enjoy how you talk about faith and anxiety. I also like how you distinguish ‘spirituality’ (personally based) from ‘religion’ (culturally based).

    All of this speaks to me for personal as well as professional reasons. I am a spiritual teacher and counselor now because I couldn’t stand being part of the world of ‘psychology’ any longer. I defected after my MFT training because the mental health world had let me down in so many ways, repeatedly. I even attended and completed a psycho-spiritual graduate program in counseling psychology, but that disappointed me, too.

    At the end of it all, it was all about the brain and ‘this is what is wrong with your clients.’ I really shun that perspective now. I also found it to be divisive and manipulative, whereas you seem to trust a person’s process. That is true faith and trust, also rare in the mental health field, I have found.

    As a kid, I had over the top anxiety issues and it spilled into adulthood in a way that disabled me temporarily. I had taken meds for years until they made me so sick I could barely function. I tapered off of a massive cocktail about 10 years ago, and replaced this with meditation, qi gong, and unyielding faith. That was not easy, not in the slightest, but it was well worth the effort. I’m complete in that process now, and have healed form the effects of the withdrawal, which was rough. I consider myself to be 100% now, as far as all that goes. I feel complete with it, and have moved on to create my life from present time.

    I also discovered the effects of bad parenting system within me. My folks were both very intellectual, non-spiritual, nervous, overly-dramatic, and angry. My father was a physician, so he was a pillar in society, but he had deeply entrenched personality problems which came up repeatedly at home, so it was all very hidden, they had status and image to protect, which they did at ALL cost.

    In order to heal fully, once and for all, I had to learn forgiveness and utter self-responsibility. Ultimately, I had to ask, “So why did I create this all for myself? What was it I was trying to learn? And how does this inform my path and spirit? What is the purpose of all of this? How is this causing me to grow and gain clarity about who I am?”

    Turns out those were the right questions to ask, finally.

    Because I took this route to heal, I actually developed a heart-centered relationship with my dad before he passed away a few years ago, and my mom and I have healed our relationship.

    I have seen the magic of the universe at work now, and both my partner and I are devout in our gratitude and appreciation for life, and all its blessings. I had to get off the meds to see this, and learn about forgiveness and truly unconditional love. And I had to learn myself (my Self) on the most intimate and intricate level in order to connect with my spiritual essence as I have. As a result, my health and life have transformed.

    So this, and other reasons, is why your writing speaks so clearly and resonantly to me. I’ve written Kelly and have requested to receive your articles. I don’t mean to be overly effusive here, but I also love your writing style, very breezy and clear, easy to read. What else can I say? Keep going!

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  • “I hear you saying that it is all about letting go of the pride that serves to often immobilize us, and recognize the humility that is needed to be both a great parent and a great person.”

    Oh yeah, that’s exactly what I mean, spot on. I’m sighing with relief reading this. Absolutely easier said than done, but in essence, I feel that’s the journey. This would be the goal for us all.

    I read the letter introducing your articles and I can’t wait to read them this week. I really and truly think you’re onto it, James. At least to me, it all rings true. When we tend to the family, the rest happens, it ripples outward into the world. Being that you’re a father of six, coupled with what I’m picking up about you as I read your work, gives you a lot of credibility in my book. I’m going to email your assistant and get on your list. I’m very excited about your work. Thank you!!

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  • Excellent, again, James. I think it’s important for parents to give themselves a lot of permission and self-compassion. Parenting, like life in general, does not come with a manual. I can’t imagine a more challenging endeavor. All that authenticity, individuality, the unpredictability, the myriad stages of development, bonding and separating, community and world influences, etc. And if it’s more than one child in a family, add to that sibling rivalry. Oh vey! That is so much responsibility, it can be overwhelming. Yet, parenting has been practiced since the beginning of time all over the world. I don’t know if there is such thing as ‘getting it right.’ I think it’s always ‘learn as you go and do the best you can.’

    I’m curious what would you and others feel would be the indicators of sound parenting? Are there any? Or is it just way too subjective and personal an experience?

    I really appreciate this thought:

    “In seeing others’ weaknesses and strengths more clearly, we become privy to our own.”

    I believe you speak such truth, here, universally. Our children, especially, are our mirrors. It’s hard when parents don’t realize this, and in turn, create a duality with their kids. I see this happen more often than not. I think radical self-responsibility is essential for a child-parent relationship. By radical self-responsibility, what I mean is for parents to own their stuff, and not take issues out on the kid. Sometimes, the kid needs direction or boundaries; other times, the parent is the one being unreasonable and not hearing the kid’s heart and spirit. That can come back to haunt the family. It’s hard for everyone concerned when that happens.

    Indeed, positive reflections are vital for anyone’s well-being. I remember when Jodie Foster won one of her Oscars, she said in her acceptance speech, “I want to thank my mother for making me feel as though all the finger paintings I brought home from kindergarten were Picassos. I never forgot that.

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  • Thank you for your courageous voice of reason. This paragraph, especially, caught my attention:

    “The rewriting has serious consequences, becoming the basis for wrong assumptions, misplaced outrage, lack of outrage where it would be justified, and failure to take action in order to prevent harm to currently uncountable numbers of human beings. The rewritten version of this history is used to justify depriving psychiatrically labeled people of their human rights on the grounds that it is good for them or society or both. It draws attention of professionals and the public away from the facts related to psychiatric diagnosis; draws energy and resources away from stopping, redressing, and preventing harm; draws everyone’s attention from the most important people, those who have suffered from being psychiatrically labeled; helps maintain damaging features of the status quo; and causes history to repeat itself in destructive ways.”

    In my estimation, your analysis has captured the vital flaws in what is the basis of psychiatric beliefs and practices, in general. At the core, it is misleading and distracting from where we should be focused, if we want to resolve the issues which have been creating and embedding our collective confusion and chaos, in order to move forward toward clarity and the truth of the matter, for the purpose of relieving needless personal suffering and a potential loss of human and civil rights for those who turn to psychiatry for support. Creating distractions is what I find to be psychiatry’s strong suit, they’re quite masterful at it. Many others have taken this example, society at large, in fact.

    What we have now, and how you describe it, is, in my calculation, the product of corruption, deceit, avoidance, and incompetence. The goal is to help people heal, not to drive them insane. Sounds like an obvious statement, but I like to reiterate it, given the irony of today’s mental health care, and its increasingly growing negative reputation.

    As far as solutions go, I imagine we’d have to go outside of mental health for answers. This field can’t seem to find solutions for anything; all I see are the same conflicts, repeatedly. I call that being stuck.

    I agree wholeheartedly with what Kris says, above, that “it is only against great odds that a student would gain insight into the smoke and mirrors of psychology.” I couldn’t help but notice how much avoidance, defensiveness, and overly rationalized justifications were part of the faculty-student relationships when I attended graduate school to study psychology. Seems to be ingrained in the field, and it starts in education. That was my experience, at least.

    Thank you again, Paula, I really appreciate your clarity and the very sound reasoning of your article.

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  • Thanks, Sandy and Jonah, this is the part of my story I’m always happy to share, and what I’d like to see more of, this kind of radical transformation, however it occurs. This was my own personal paradigm shift, and that has led to a shift in my entire world.

    Jonah, again, thanks for the correction. I should have written ‘talk psychotherapy.’ I believe it is dissociating to exclusively talk about issues. If combined with actually embodying the information, that is, applying the insights and shifts on a physical level, then it could have an impact. But talk alone is a very minute part of our process, in my opinion.

    I think part of the paradigm shift is to bring body, mind and spirit into synchronicity, as the most efficient healing path. Again, that’s my opinion and experience, not everyone will agree with this. But it is what I practice and teach, and it’s been highly effective for all concerned.

    I also teach that having fun and creating wildly guide us toward feelings of love and appreciation in our bodies, which, to me, are the most powerful healing energies that exist. Our minds, bodies, and spirits respond so affirmatively to this, that it actually puts us in alignment with our sense of self, which to me, is the goal every day. We practice this as a healing modality. Having fun is definitely healing.

    And you’re right, none of that happens in the MH system, other than, perhaps, at staff office parties. Sure is no fun for the clients, and any sign of it usually gets you into trouble. It’s barbaric and anti-healing.

    I’m also so happy to hear that you found your community of resonance. One thing I say in my film is that there is nothing more healing than when a community values an individual, a far cry from what clients feel in the MH system, which would be the exact opposite: devalued. Human beings deserve better than that, and for those that are wounded, that’s just devastating.

    Please, let’s keep building those avenues out of there! Life is to be experienced, not medicated and institutionalized!

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  • This is how I would respond to intolerance by a society: We live in a world of various societies, not just our dominant mainstream society. I would start my cultivating this belief:

    Everyone belongs somewhere. When we grow up where we are not allowed to be ourselves, we fragment.

    There’s a lot after this, but I’m spent for now. Again, please contact me if you want to continue this conversation.

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  • I saw your response after mine addendum posted.

    I’m doing all I can to help, here, where I am. I have a long story around my relationship with local mental health care, and the work I do. It’s been a frustration, and all political. I’ve tried harder than you might imagine.

    I would be happy to have a more thorough discussion about how I feel I could help support, but online, here, this gets rather confusing for me. Would you consider dialoguing in private? If so, please feel free to email me. My contact info is here:

    http://www.embodycalm.com/Contact.html.

    I’ll be happy to dialogue with you about any of this, where you feel it might be helpful and supportive to you. I imagine I would become clear on a lot, from you, as well, of which I may not be aware.

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  • I’d like to add, here, that the way that I was able to heal the severe symptoms I had developed, thanks to medication addiction and withdrawal, which so greatly exaggerated every shadow issue I had from other life events, was to get outside of all of this intellectualizing about my life and start focusing on embodying and living my life. Simply by going out into the community to volunteer, when I was scared that I would not be able to function or communicate with intelligence and articulation. I was about 20% of myself, so I felt very self-conscious and embarrassed, but I did it, and it went better than I would have thought.

    I was still doing healing work, as I was continuing to recover from the disabling effects of the meds, in addition to my own unresolved issues, but not with mental health clinicians. That had been a disaster, and part of this was CBT, which I found to be transparently manipulative.

    Instead, I had found energy and spiritual work which I could apply practically. Everyone responds to different things. I believe that is the best research can show us. What the therapy world has to offer is limited. There’s a whole big world of healing out there, beyond the scope of academic research.

    One thing led to another, thanks to the volunteering I did, and I ended up taking a big risk to help me with intense anxiety—I’ve always loved theater, and I had an opportunity to sign up for an adult singing and performing class for next to nothing. I was on disability at the time, so I couldn’t afford anything fancy, but this came into my path at just the right time, and I won it very cheap at a silent auction. This singing class changed my life in every way.

    From that, I was discovered by a director who also was taking the class, and he cast me in a show. Much to my very pleasant surprise, I was a big hit in a popular play. I was referred to another director, and she cast me in a children’s musical, which was great fun. I discovered that fun, permission, and creative expression were fantastic healing agents.

    From that, I got cast as lead in a show with a very large ensemble cast, and it was a HUGE hit, and people got to know who I was. I was then asked by that same theater company to be a lead in Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Candide,’ which was a dream come true for me.

    I did a few more shows, all of the professional. The last show I did was because a director sent me a script and said, “pick a part, any part.” It was the most fun I’d ever had. From mental health system to Bay Area musical theater–i.e., from dark to light.

    By the time I had become established as an actor, I had faced all my fears and learned to be in total present time with confidence, and as a result, my symptoms dissipated. They’ve been gone for years now, I don’t believe there is any going back. This all transformed me into a whole and integrated, confident human being.

    I had no idea that this was in me, and simply from stopping all this talk talk talk did I find what I really needed, and in the process, I got a career out of it which I had never expected. I learned that an environment of highest permission was needed for a process to really take place fully, from beginning to end. Therapy takes us out of our bodies and keeps us in our heads. That’s dissociation.

    At the same time, I was doing all this hard core energy healing work with different teachers, and I became well-versed and certified in a variety of healing practices, so now I’ve had two careers, in which I’ve been validating and successful. And both of them began because I turned to these environments for my own healing.

    Sorry for my long posts, but I wanted to try and be clear about how I healed from psychosis and paranoia. When I got out of the hospital, I was told I had ‘poor’ chance of recovery. 12 years later, I can hardly remember who that person was. But I do remember he was in excruciating chronic psychic pain, and no one could reach him.

    Then, this musical theater director came along, and my health, life, and perspective on life completely transformed. I am certain that it’s for good. Life only gets better each day, for both me and my partner of 29 years. As a result of my healing, he healed his stuff, as well. A relationship is a system, and we are both responsible for the balance of our system.

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  • Sandra, for the record, I feel you come across as very kind and respectful on MIA, consistently, and I appreciate all of your efforts and I believe you are helping greatly to move all of this forward. In the muck that is psychiatry, we are lucky to have your expertise and compassion.

    With that said, I couldn’t resist responding to this:

    “…but I know of people who would reject anything – alternative and humane or standard ‘care’.”

    When I read this, I had an immediate response because I’ve been aware of this, and it can be maddening. I’ve not only had clients who fit this description, but when I was in group treatment, myself, years ago, I witnessed a lot of resistance to healing in others.

    I always believed in complete and full healing from mental illness, even severe and involving what you would call psychosis, paranoia, etc., I was able to accomplish this with myself because I held tight to this belief, regardless of all the resistance around me from, both, all mental health clinicians (and I was around a bunch of them, and not one believed I could succeed in what I had set out to accomplish with my health and achieving my goals), and from some very stubbornly resistant and cynical clients, who were very sabotaging, in general.

    My answer would be: you can’t heal everyone. No one really knows anyone else’s path and process, other than themselves. There are many ways to take our journeys, and those with whom we struggle the most, as healers, are the ones that are teaching US surrender, trust, and humility. I have found challenging and resistant clients to be my most powerful guides. I learn most about myself from them.

    My personal belief is that it is a waste of time and resources to try and figure every little mysterious thing out. I do know the temptation, I love to know how things work.

    But when it comes to helping and supporting people on their paths, sometimes it is best to simply let go of trying to save everyone, and we take our lessons from this. This is how healers grow and evolve. We learn to trust the way the universe works, whether or not we can understand it. Some do understand it, which makes it easier.

    At least for me, this has worked quite well. In turn, you can use your energy and focus for where it is most supported, rather than resisted. Much, much more can be accomplished this way.

    The universe will, somehow, guide those whom you cannot reach. As healers, I believe it’s important to know that the universe is looking after its inhabitants.

    We are not saviors, simply loving, attentive, and respectful support. And yes, anyone can do this, imho.

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  • I would love to connect! However, I’m no longer in San Francisco. I’ve been living in Humboldt County, CA (just south of Cal/Oregon border) for a little over a year now. I made the transition from urban to rural, which has been transformational. I’m about 350 mi north of SF. If you were to be able to take a side trip, the Redwoods up here are breathtaking.

    In the meantime, please feel free to contact me, either by phone or email. My contact info is here:

    http://www.embodycalm.com/Contact.html

    I would love to talk more, if you feel so inclined!

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  • Sorry about typos, my fingers were flying a bit.

    Also, I wanted to add that what I happily discovered is that those who resonate with my spirit are kindred, whereas those who do not are simply free to stay out of my path. Truth-speaking like this pretty much cuts through the bs, and it draws the people that you WANT to be around (those with compassion and courage), while separating us from those who I probably wouldn’t really care to be around. I let the universe make those decisions for me now, so I can relax about whether or not someone is being duplicitous with me. Really shifted my whole world for the way better.

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  • Oh yes, I can relate to all that you say, here. It gets less scary and definitely validating and fulfilling, but what a reminder of our vulnerability! It’s all be so humbling, empowering, and confident-building.

    Here is an article published on Mother Bear. It’s brief, I was limited to 1000 words. Hyper-links to my website and film are embedded in the text.

    http://motherbearcan.com/2013/08/15/the-family-dance-of-healing-by-alex-goldenberg/

    Voices That Heal was also solicited by http://www.cultureunplugged.com for their Spirit Enlightened film festival, and has been playing online there for a couple of months now. It was most validating for me to finally have broken out of and exclusively mental health-focused audience into a more general and diverse world-wide audience. I’m so encouraged by the path this film has been taking. I made it two years ago, so I’ve been watching it cut through a lot of density and resistance.

    Here’s a 10 minute clip of VTH. I think it’s so interesting that this clip begins exactly with what you say at the start of your article. Looks like we’re on to something, here! 🙂

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN0-m6nhUIE

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  • Wonderful, Chaya! I’m definitely one of your followers. You tell your story with such heart, insight, transparency, courage, and clarity. I always so very much enjoy reading your work.

    When I first published Voices That Heal on YouTube, where I tell part of my story, it took me a while to get over the fact that I would be interpreted, assessed, and evaluated. And more than likely, judged, criticized, perhaps even ridiculed. It was such a vital part of my healing to get over the opinion of others when it came to my character or how I lived my life, so I’m glad I went through all of that. Pure freedom.

    I hope we are training to people to listen with their feeling hearts, rather than with their calculating brains. I think that’s been a big part of the problem in the mental health field, and in the world at large. We have forgotten how to listen with our hearts and how to see each others’ spirits. Speaking our heart’s truth will hopefully shift this, at least I’m optimistic about it.

    I especially appreciated reading this:

    “11. Keep writing, creating, retelling you story in whatever ways suit you and inspire you.”

    To me, this is the most valuable opportunity to move ourselves forward, and where we can really take control of our lives, our health, our creativity, and our paths. It is OUR story to tell, not for someone else to impose upon us. Like nature, our stories evolve from day to day. If they don’t, we can get stuck.

    I’m honored to be able to support you with this, with my own example of telling our stories from our own heart and truth. I feel a lot of appreciation for you and your inspiring message, Chaya. Thank you!

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  • “…in order for any valid movement to be effective, especially one that is perceived as countercultural, it must have two major things in place. One, it must seek to truthfully expose the wrongs that have been committed, but just as important, it must illuminate a clear pathway to follow. It must do this on both a micro and macro level. Until this happens, IMHO, I don’t think that it can ever be effective in the way it desires. My hope is that my message will better illuminate a clear pathway on a micro, yet universal level.”

    Superb!

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  • In an inherently authentic, transparent, and loving environment, where its members are nourished with validation for their spirit, the mind will be clear and the body will self-heal and thrive.

    In an under-nourishing environment, filled with fear, rage, invalidation, competition, rivalry, and general negativity, where love is withheld as a point of power, a body and/or mind will go out of balance, which eventually leads to illness.

    Psychiatry = dysfunctional toxic family system. Exact same dynamic. The effects of this can be reversed when we take self-loving actions, and make a habit of them.

    The mind and body can heal from anything when we nourish our spirits.

    Can’t site any studies on this because I haven’t checked that out. But these are common teachings that resonate strongly with me. Plus, I’ve experienced this kind of shift. I like believing this, because it, at least, encourages us to be more loving toward each other. Not perfect, we’re all human. But it’s certainly a call to do much better than we have been doing.

    I would wager that the more we treated each other with respect and integrity, the healthier we’d all become in mind, body, and spirit, and the greater our power would be to heal from anything, whether physical, emotional, or cognitive, in nature.

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  • James, in response to your past before this, about helping to shift psychiatry, I was cynical about even having this as a goal, for a variety of reasons which I stated.

    But I will conceded this now–I think your sphere of influence is really positive with this kind of focus and direction, and you seem really grounded about it. You are encouraging open dialogue and raised awareness as a natural fabric of family relationships, which is sorely needed. I strongly feel this takes us in the exact right direction, if we are to heal as a society, at the core, and shift our reality for the better–open, transparent, authentic. I feel a lot of relief thinking about this.

    I’m definitely looking forward to the rest of the series!

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  • This is a very touching post, and so universally relevant. What we call ‘death’ sure does leave us open to all sorts of unresolved issues, and somehow, we are asked to find peace. That can be so challenging in certain circumstances. Really takes a lot of soul and spiritual reflection, as well as emotional cleansing. Looking at this a powerful way to deepen our awareness.

    I particularly enjoyed reading this line, “His funeral was a celebration, and my oldest uncle aptly noted upon his eulogy that his life ‘was a job well done.’”

    That is so incredibly life affirming.

    There are cultures which believe that there is no death, as we feel it presently, but merely a transition into non-physical unity–the oneness that connects us all, whether or not we’re in a body. It is a release of all resistance. The body is merely resistance in physical form. When we release our bodies, I hear that it’s literally orgasmic, as we understand everything in that instance.

    I can’t say for sure, but it speaks to me in a way that feels really good and assuring. Gives life that eternal ring. So indeed, it can be a cause for celebration.

    The circumstances of a transition, however, are what can create confusion and prolonged grief for the survivors. I think this is where meaningful support is most relevant.

    Thank you so much for opening up such a valuable and significant topic. There is so much we don’t understand about our passages in and out of life that can come to light from discussions, and that can only be of such value to our personal and collective well-being. I think it’s great that you are encouraging it so openly.

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  • Your response made me smile up front because I do agree that loving kindness cannot be overstated when it comes to healing, health and well-being. Certainly for our children, it’s a must if they are to develop and maintain a strong sense of self. Without this, our spirits wither, and a withered spirit leads to all sorts of complex and debilitating problems in life and health. That certainly includes tough love, which, for me, means exhibiting healthy boundaries and not taking on the responsibility of what others are feeling (nor putting our feelings on the shoulders of others), while still having compassion for their response.

    Authenticity, rather than patronizing kindness, is a must. So it’s not all fun and cheerful all the time. But when we attend to others with our authentic hearts, rather than with our egos, then we can go far to help nurture a child, or an adult in need at that moment, back to wholeness.

    “There are some wonderful people working in the mental health field, and like any other profession… there are also many not so wonderful people.”

    I agree with this statement, as I would agree with the statement that there are some wonderful people in the world, and there are some not so wonderful people in the world. Of course, how I would divide this up would be subjective to my preferences, as others would make different discriminations (good or not so good) of people, contingent upon their own preferences.

    Still, I wanted to take this opportunity to say that, overall, I feel that the core paradigm of the current mental health field is inherently flawed. And I say this for the reason of this next statement which you write:

    “I hope that all adults challenged by mental health issues can find “good” help, a more supportive network of good friends and family, and figure out what makes them feel better about themselves and life.”

    I very sincerely and firmly believe that every adult has mental health challenges throughout life, and everyone on the planet could use ‘good’ help, support from friends and family, and everyone is growing and evolving, learning new ways to do life better and more refined, on a daily basis. I believe we all have our own learn-as-you-go manuals which we bring into our awareness along the way. No one manual fits another. None at all.

    This is one area of discernment within the mental health field that I feel causes fallacious, stigmatizing, and classist divisions in humanity. Your statement implies that only certain adults face mental health challenges, whereas I don’t know a single adult who can honestly claim that their mental health is not challenged at times, beyond their own clarity.

    I do know that for some, it has been horrifically intense and long-lasting, but, as we discuss on MIA often for the purpose of reversing this inhumane and unnatural trend, there are myriad approaches to interpreting the significance of this information.

    From my perspective, I believe these false beliefs can dominate a wounded society, such as we have, creating social ills, injustices, and oppression that leads to beliefs of powerlessness.

    Everything and anything can heal, that’s my firm belief. I do not believe we are ever ‘stuck’ with one way of being. We can change and shift in myriad ways, to suit our best interest and desires. We can shift neuron patterns, strengthen our nervous and adrenal systems, et al. I do not believe there is an exception to this. We all have this power within us, we just have to dig for it, sometimes.

    What I personally believe is that these seemingly chronic conditions occur specifically because we walk into the ‘mental health treatment world’ with this belief that ‘some are prone to mental health challenges while others are not,’ which makes people with this belief extremely vulnerable.

    These pejorative projections of limitation are merely bestowed upon people by this very limited world view perpetrated within the mental health field, and is not at all conducive to a person’s own sense of who they are.

    Sense of self is paramount for health and well-being, as is loving kindness, and it cannot be found in a projection fueled by the belief that only ‘some adults *inherently* have mental health challenges.’ That is a dangerous and harmful belief, in my opinion.

    I don’t see how healing and wholeness can occur within the context of this belief, which leads me to wonder what is the fate of our current mental health beliefs and practices.

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  • “…films make us wonder, and question, and rethink the status quo, acting as reflective mirrors that show us who we are, or who we could be, in new and sometimes uncomfortable ways.”

    Lovely statement, Laura, so true. I’ve been a cine-phile since I was a kid. I got my BA in film studies, so I spent college watching, writing about, and discussing films, which made college a great time for me. I’d say that my obsession with film and fascination with film language played a major role in shaping my reality. I see and experience life as if it were a film, which keeps it very interesting.

    Indeed, film is an incredibly powerful medium of art and communication, and I also believe it to always have the potential to drive significant mass change.

    I was tooling around on YouTube recently, looking for a good documentary, and I came upon this one that’s about global shift in human consciousness, outside of ‘the system.’ It’s not specifically about mental health and psychiatry, but it is about the origins of the Illuminati, and how it has caused us to be in heinous conflict with each other for the precise purpose of profit and power for these few individuals. It is very specific in spelling this out, and it reminded me so much of what is so often discussed on MIA, about being duped en masse by a purposely corrupt system.

    The second half is dedicated to personal empowerment by disengaging altogether from mainstream media, specifically from television, and turning to nature in order to know our own personal sense of creative power, outside and beyond the disabling illusions of the status quo. Kind of a ‘wake up call,’ really.

    I found this film to be very moving and direct, extremely accessible. Basically, it talks about getting as far away from the mainstream as possible, which, personally, I feel is a sound idea.

    Not sure if it’s appropriate for this film festival, although it might be, given how controversial it is. I can easily imagine a riveting discussion around mental health issues and social justice coming from this film.

    Either way, I hope its ok to share, here. I thought it was relevant, even though more general in scope than simply the mental health industry. Although, my feeling is that there is a strong connection, here.

    Pretty scary stuff, but it’s good to hear that people are finally waking up. Certainly instills hope for humanity and creating a new global society truly based on community compassion and world justice.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DuQhaAWEtk

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  • This line get bringing me back to this post:

    “Given the sensitive nature of the work we do, the power we can wield over people’s lives…”

    The idea of someone wielding power over my life creeps me out, which is why I abandoned mental health care, altogether. It was easy to know that this was the belief of clinicians. In graduate school and during my training, I was guided to believe this, and I rejected the idea, altogether, that I had power over anyone. One of my supervisors would remind me, “Don’t give your client too much power.” I could not believe this was my supervision. A person heals when they know, own, and operate from their own power, to me that’s just common sense. I don’t believe it’s accurate nor humanitarian to believe that this would not be possible for someone, to own their power. We are all entitled to this, 100%.

    As a healer and teacher, I continuously remind people that the only person that has control over their lives is themselves. They don’t always like hearing this, because it can create an overwhelming feeling of burden and victimization, rather than being welcomed as self-responsibility–which is good news, because then you have control over your experience. Still, there is a lot of resistance to letting go of co-dependence, and it’s my job to not fall into that pattern with a client, as tempting as it can be, sometimes, simply to avoid feeling guilt. Guilt is a powerful weapon of control and manipulation, and it is used readily. I can’t tell you how many times a clinician has told me that I’ve ‘hurt their feelings’ when I would give them my honest feedback. I wouldn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I heard this.

    In the end, it was maddening because no real communication–nor, needless to say, any healing at all–would take place. All they wanted was to have power over me, as this was a programmed belief in their minds, which would always lead to my departure from their practice, until I got that it this was a problem of epidemic proportion in the mental health world. That’s when I saw how incredibly limited current mental health beliefs and practices really are.

    Believing that anyone has power over anyone else is buying into many illusions. I’ve witnessed clinicians manipulate, purposefully trigger, threaten survival, coyly remind others of their ‘place,’ and for sure that instills fear and shame to the point where they are so vulnerable and with no sense of self, that it is easy to believe they are easily influenced and controllable. But that is blatant manipulation, not anywhere near being truly powerful.

    At the core of our humanity, no one has power over anyone else. That would be a clinician–or anyone with this delusion– believing they are God.

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  • And from this rewrite, where we feel good about ourselves, and deserving, we will have the inspiration and motivation to know our bodies better, and what it needs. Indeed, diet and all else we ingest affects our balance and clarity.

    But if we don’t feel good about ourselves to begin with and have too much negative self-talk, then we’re generally not terribly motivated to restrict our diets. Health gut flora is vital for good physical and mental health, no argument there. Chemicals take away our natural balance. Forced chemicals are outright poison.

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  • Referring to my above response, I left out what I feel is the most important item: I do believe all of this can heal. We can rewrite our neurons through understanding, compassion and forgiveness, if we accept that our path is our path, and learn from it, rather than burn in blame and resentment. In turn, we become emotionally free, and this also unleashes our gifts.

    To me, that’s always the most important message–anything can heal. We start with our beliefs, and from that, we create our journey and outcomes. Don’t like the outcome? Change your beliefs. That’s how to reprogram neurons, no medical intervention needed.

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  • Thanks for pointing this out, Jonah. I never take offense at a disagreement or negative feedback, I know it’s not personal. And even when it is intended to be personal, out of the need to attack or to throw some projection, I never at all take it that way, I know that would not be about me.

    We’re all trying to get clarity about this stuff (well, many of us, at least), so I appreciate what you say about my language, here. That’s valuable.

    You’re right, it is a contradiction. I should have stated it the way I say in my addendum, “what we are calling ‘mental illness.'” (Still vague, but transitioning the language is a work in progress).

    It’s a challenge discussing all of this due to our language issues, and how we each interpret certain words and terms, and also the internet makes that part even more challenging. I so prefer to have face to face discussions about these issues, where it’s so much easier to read from tone, body language, and to ask for clarification in the moment. Internet has a lot of limitations when we are dealing with subtle and significant nuance.

    You are very sharp about these things, I always notice, and I truly appreciate that about you. You’d keep me well in line, here, which is always helpful.

    With that said, I do believe that being marginalized in a family system is a core cause of negative feelings toward one’s self, and a somewhat skewed perception of others. I believe it is what can throw us off balance, and make it challenging to ground. This can cause problems of mental focus, too, as well as emotional sensitivity to the point of fearing interacting with society. It can also cause our consciousness to fragment, creating psychosis-like manifestations. I believe being marginalized and scapegoated by the family can cause this more than anything else, but I’m open to being challenged about this.

    Would this phrasing be more acceptable and accurate to you to describe the effects of family scapegoating on our mental and emotional state of being?

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  • I want to amend the last sentence in my above paragraph to say, “…and this is ONE WAY, I believe, that mental illness is born.”

    I’m open to learning in what other ways what we call ‘mental illness’ originates, but I feel that what I describe above is a lot of peoples’ story, and from resistance, we create distractions or simply come to the ‘conclusion’ that “it’s complicated,” which, in turn, keeps things complicated and vague, and therefore overly-challenging to discover the truth in order to resolve the issue.

    By pinpointing where it originates in a family, we can at least solve the problem of emotional neglect. Then, we’ll see what we’re left with.

    I believe that focusing here will solve more problems than we currently realize, although the process of change will be inherently challenging. This is where a lot of difficult emotions will surface and things can get a bit confusing. Still, I can’t think of a better opportunity for really thorough healing and perspective-shifting than owning our family issues, through and through.

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  • Thanks, Jonah, there are a lot of perspectives out there, and I’m glad we see eye to eye on this.

    John, I agree without question that there are myriad experiences and interactions that affect a child’s development and coping skills. A child’s self-perception is always morphing, according to the challenges they face on a daily basis, in all sorts of environments. Just as well, their overall health is affected by a variety of factors, both internal and external.

    When I think of mental distress (mine or another’s), however, I don’t focus on behavior, for me it’s more about how a person is feeling, especially about themselves. That committee of inner critics can be chronic and harsh, regardless of our circumstances in life. I think this is what can ruin our health, and which definitely can compromises our mental health and ability to, both, focus on point, and follow through on tasks. Where does this severe inner criticism come from? I don’t believe we’re born this way, and it obscures our joy of life.

    When we are raised to believe the best about ourselves and are supported to discover our own unique process, we can take on anything that life and the world has to dish out, and life becomes a highly creative experience, no matter what. Conversely, when we’re raised in fear, judgment and invalidation, we live in fear, frustration, and/or rage. Resentment builds, and this is what causes us to lose our center.

    Mindful nurturing teaches us how to get back to center, when life has caused us to stretch, which it always does, from time to time. No one stays in their center 100% of the time, but some people do know what works for them to let go of stress on a daily basis and come back into natural balance. That keeps anything from becoming chronic.

    And yes, psychiatry teaches us to take a pill, rather than how to naturally find our center. Even if there IS a biological issue going on, such as nutrient deficiency or some other organ imbalance, knowing how to self-nurture is what leads to healing. If one does not have this experience as a child, then life is harder because what then to do when life throws us a few curve balls? The self-nurturer does not worry, and can live life with confidence rather than fear. They fall down, they get back up, stronger and wiser. They grow.

    Like Steve and uprising write, below, this process of identifying where the family could have done better is what leads to compassion and forgiveness, and this is healing for all concerned. Everyone does the best they can with what they know how at the time. Yes, our parents were once children with same or similar issues.

    We can stop this generational downwardly spiraling cycle by acknowledging how these dynamics can lead to negative self-beliefs which make life much more challenging than one who has been taught to go easy on themselves, and that mistakes are fine, no one is a ‘loser,’ and they are encouraged to do the best in life, following the path that makes them happiest. Problems arise, and we address them and learn from them as we go.

    When the invalidation and emotional neglect snowballs enough, and this level of neglect is compounded in society, and then made worse in the mental health system, then, indeed, it can turn into what we call psychosis or delusional or bipolar or whatever. It’s an extremely high level of anxiety, that is for sure. Adrenaline goes wild in these circumstances. There’s only so much emotional neglect a person can take before their mind fragments and their behavior becomes a cry for help. By then, communication has severely shut down. I believe this originates in family dynamics.

    For sure, everyone in the family needs support around this kind of healing, as it comes up. This would be the end of the identified patient as one person, but more so, as the family dynamic. That is what needs shifting, these relationship dynamics that neglect some of its members’ needs. This then ripples out as a society issue, as families are merely microcosms of society.

    There are all kinds of ways one can end up disadvantaged in a family system. It’s not always a traumatic event, but it can also be a series of wounding family experiences over a long period of time. They can be subtle and hard to detect because this would be the ‘norm’ of the family.

    When a child sees through this, they are generally not allowed to call the elephant in the room, as it does challenge the parents and family system too much. So they internalize this information, along with their role, which is an unreasonably heavy burden for a child. But to their mind, their survival hangs in the balance, as parents are the ones with the money and safety at their disposal.

    Healing would occur when this norm shifts, but often family members rebel against this, and would instead, prefer to seek help for the scapegoat (truth-seer), as if something were wrong with them, with no regard for how the other family members play into the skewed system. This is to protect the system. That is devastating to a person, and is how, I believe, mental illness is born.

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  • Most often, parents treat their children differently, not the same. Relationships with parents can be competitive, and parents can foster this. Each child has a different set of circumstances in childhood and in life to which to respond, and a different innate focus.

    Anyone has their challenges in life, whether biological or environmental or both. Often they’re connected, and usually, one can be factored in as having a greater impact on an individual.

    I’m curious how people would discern which is which in each person; that is, which factor–bio, socio, other–would most likely cause chronic mental distress over the others? Or is it a particular combination? That would seem like something only the individual being called ‘mentally ill’ would really be able to inform about, accurately.

    Either way, it could never hurt to check our relationship skills, and make sure we’re not holding on to any deep seated resentment that is undermining our flow of nurturing to others. We can be draining to others if we’re not aware of how we relate to others, and that can cause all sorts of problems after a time. After all, I, like others, naturally and unconsciously looked to our parents to see how they handled their issues in life, and with others. Mine were not good role models for a variety of reasons, unfortunately, and I had to unlearn what I learned from them. I had good teachers who taught me how to find my own voice, separate from their beliefs. That’s when things changed for me, when I took that responsibility on for myself.

    A person is never inherently ‘defective,’ and the effects of bad family dynamics are never inherently permanent, so I wouldn’t call it anything more than a learning process, rather than any kind of illness–under ANY circumstances. It’s a learning process for all concerned.

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  • I am so relieved and grateful to see this post. In my own practice and general experience, talking about the issues of parent/child relationship within the context of mental health continues to be challenging–which I understand completely, of course.

    I try to distinguish between neutral cause-and-effect and the judgmental energy of ‘blame,’ but I don’t always do a very effective job with this, in the moment. Gets very emotional, and defenses go way up. I feel this is an area of communication where I can learn a lot. It’s hard to move forward in this conversation, which is why I’m so pleased to see this on MIA.

    I think that with as much mindfulness as possible about how this issue affects people, this discussion holds the potential for a lot of significant clarity that has been out of reach, precisely due to the resistance described in this article. It’s also a good place to learn self-compassion and forgiveness.

    I had to forgive myself and others a million times when I finally saw the truth about my family dynamics. Led to a lot of really good things, starting with freedom and relief. Eventually my whole world transformed, and I felt out of the dark, once and for all.

    Not just me, but other family members, too, benefitted from coming to a place of peace with the truth. Not all do, which is the tough part. Some really have trouble seeing themselves, while for others, it’s welcome. That’s the gamble, here, but at least for me, it was highly beneficial to bring the family dynamics to light, and let everyone have the opportunity to grow from that information.

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  • Million dollar question, Larmac. Where do we go now?

    A friend just sent me an article about NSA surveillance by author and researcher David Wilcock, and in it, he describes the effects of such societal betrayal. I feel that what he says applies perfectly to what we’re experience as a result of the decay of ethics and humanism within psychiatry, and the mental health field, in general–

    “For most people, such a basic betrayal of trust from our so-called ‘authorities’ is a horrible, isolating, terrifying feeling….This ‘ugly’ feeling actually has a name and a purpose. It is an archetype — i.e. a blueprint of consciousness that appears to be written into the ‘collective unconscious.’ The name of this horrible, chilling, terrifying moment in our life’s journey is the Dark Night of the Soul.”

    Seems we’re in a collective ‘dark night of the soul,’ with psychiatry smack in the center of it. I agree with you that this has permeated throughout our entire culture. Yet, the tragic irony here is that we’re turning to psychiatry and mental health services for our emotional distress, and what happens is that we get sucked into their darkness, without realizing it. We trust, they betray.

    So how does one get through the Dark Night of the Soul, to reach light? I got through mine, and it was not easy. It’s not supposed to be. It’s where we learn our strength, voice, power, tenacity, and forgiveness. It’s where we learn to self care by being loving to ourselves, and this makes it possible to be genuinely loving toward others.

    One by one, we take our inner journeys, and from that, a new society will be created. It already is. There are many healers all over the planet now who work with ‘the light.’ This is my primary peer community, this group of light workers and healers.

    Integrity is an agent of healing. I know that it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack these days, but integrity does exist in small pockets of the world, and I believe it will eventually thrive. Perhaps not in everyone’s reality, since in order to create something, we actually have to believe in it, first. But for some of us, reality will be better, because we believe that such change can occur, one way or another.

    Given the public outrage occurring around the mental health industry, I believe the deceivers are finally feeling their own pain. And we who fell for the deceit at one time are getting stronger and clearer, and more aligned with our truths. Whatever happens now, it will be a fascinating journey out of this dark night and into the light.

    What will it finally take to blast all this density and resistance that psychiatry puts up? I wonder.

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  • I woke up this morning still thinking about this post, so I figured I had something else that I needed to express about this, as is often the case when I allow myself to think about my former life as a psychiatric patient.

    Even though I’ve completed my journey with this and have moved on to simply and mindfully living my life as an integrated and creative human being, I find myself drawn to every opportunity possible to speak, at least, an aspect of my truth about psychiatry. If nothing else, it sure does help me move forward, so I can continue to get on with my life in a more settled way, working toward achieving inner peace from these experiences. These issues can feel rather sticky and loopy, like all post-traumatic stress. Thank goodness for MIA.

    I apologize for my comment, here, being broader than the scope of the article, but no matter how much time has passed since I took my last pill or since I came face to face with any kind of therapist, there is still a sizeable pit of shadowy chaos which gets triggered when I allow myself to think back on my life as a customer of the mental health industry. Kind of like turning to salt when I look back, although it’s almost a guilty pleasure. So many surreal and strange aspects to a journey through ‘mental health treatment.’ I’m still learning a lot, as new insights surface, and it’s informing my life path, clearly.

    “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”
    Grateful Dead

    Using methods that are working well and to completion for me, I’ve worked very diligently to heal from the post-traumatic stress (both physical and psychological) that was caused by my particular series of experiences. PTS occurs when one is not allowed to express their true feelings at the moment they occur, or not processed reasonably afterwards. This occurs way more often than not in mental health care, I think it’s the norm.

    Speaking my truth now and forever is what will keep me up-to-date with myself, so nothing festers, as it does with psychiatric clients, because their truths are so invalidated in myriad ways, as mine were for so long. First thing that occurred when I abandoned psychiatry is that I reclaimed my self-esteem and independence of mind. They had sucked me dry of these.

    Now that I can at least compartmentalize this, so that it doesn’t filter into my self-perception or into my relationship life, so much is coming to light daily, in my relative clarity about these experiences with mental health clinicians, and it’s informing me well about many things—most importantly, how to shift my own energy so that I can create what I want now, in a forward moving way. It’s my own fault I got stuck, but that’s because I trusted psychiatry, from my own upbringing. I thought it was the way to go for anxiety and depression, as many still do.

    It’s hard to know where to begin, although I don’t believe it’s necessary for me to say anything, here, because it’s all been stated on this website, in many ways, repeatedly.

    To me, “What is ‘sound’ mental health?” would inherently have to be agreed upon by a community, as the nature of this question really falls into the category of ‘cultural norms.’ Still, from my perspective, whatever this is (feeling good about yourself, maybe?) would most likely be cultivated in a space of permission, creativity, integrity, loving compassion, and unmitigated validation for the heart’s truth of the one who is seeking healing and personal growth. I don’t recall any of these qualities in any of the clinicians with whom I worked, or in any of the mental health agencies which I attended. Quite the opposite—very constricted and rigid, emotionally and intellectually. Zero spirituality of any kind, not even remotely. In fact, it was largely ridiculed.

    People who are traumatized, confused, despondent, fearful and who turn for support should be able to expect role models in terms of honesty and generosity of spirit, and instead, with current mental health care and psychiatry, they fall into a nest of greedy, narrow-minded vampires. What you describe above, in this article, is pure vampirism. These are our role models? This is what creates rage within a population!

    Apologies are transparent and weak when you are caught red-handed lying and stealing like this. For crying out loud, these are adults who have a job to do for the public, they’ve taken an oath! I know this sounds terribly naïve, but I like remembering this perspective. Adults aren’t the same as when I was growing up. Even though there have always been troubled people in the world, I do remember when there was at least some recognition of emotional maturity among the adults, at least in my environment this was the case. These days, I feel like I’m dealing with overgrown kids when I interact with the world. No direct communication, all acting out, just like kids. In psychiatry, it was like being with the schoolyard bullies. A lot of arrested development in this field, I discovered—the tragic irony of it all.

    A good role model would be humble enough to change his or her ways when they get caught with their hands in the cookie jar. That would really be so healing for all concerned.

    I look forward to the day that we have broken free of these discussions, because that would mean that the planet has finally awakened. As much as I gain from speaking my truth, these kinds of truths don’t feel terribly joyous to express.

    This is the time that I turn off my computer, take a deep breath, and take a walk in the woods that are next to my home. I’ll probably stop and get a latte somewhere along the way. The sun is shining today. It’s Sunday. This is what brings me joy.

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  • I’m glad you posted about this, Sandra, because I think that issues like this are precisely indicative of what many of us feel the core problem is, here–lack of honesty and integrity for the sake of profit, as standard operational procedure. That may be the norm in the corporate business world, but when it occurs in health care, it should be scorned and deterred in every possible way, as it affects the community so adversely, blatantly betraying its trust. In mental health care, it downright crazy-making, which is the point of our protests.

    This particular conflict of interest may appear less dramatic as an issue, relative to horror stories we hear about how people are treated in this field, but it all amounts to general lack of ethics, as this would indicate. This ripples out in many ways. Where does it stop?? To me, it seems like a runaway train at this point.

    To be sure, I do appreciate *your* honesty and integrity, you speak clear truth, thank you.

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  • This is such a beautiful and enlightened post, thank you.

    “What does it mean to be a human being and what does it mean to meet someone?”

    I so agree, that we rendezvous with other for a reason having to do with our own personal evolution and gradual awakening. Sometimes it’s comfortable and sometimes it’s challenging. Still, I believe it is always with some higher purpose, although we’re not always poised to perceive that, or if we are, we can’t always determine that purpose right away. Eventually, it can become clear.

    To me, that speaks to our collective unity by that which connects us all as human beings. In reality, there really is no division between people. I think we just make that up so that we don’t have to see and feel certain aspects of ourselves. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s the case.

    I’m glad that we’re waking up to this now. It will change how we perceive reality, into a new and expanded consciousness, and in turn, it will shift how we perceive, behave toward and treat each other, since we are, in essence, the other, as well as ourselves.

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  • I also feel that the issue of Nazism is more about the metaphor that psychiatry and mental health system reality is more like a concentration camp of the mind.

    Clients/victims are branded and weakened for easy control, and the penalty for–well, for just being, really–is some kind of suffering and asphyxiation, in the most degrading ways.

    Perhaps it’s toward those that speak up in their own defense of abuse (only to be condemned as ‘non-compliant,’ ‘rebellious,’ and ‘oppositionally defiant’ of course); or perhaps it’s more random than that, simply standard operational procedure, due to such condemnation and utter disregard for the spirit of those branded human beings. At least I feel this is true in the unconscious mind of many clinicians. It is the norm in that particular society, of that I feel certain.

    In the mind and heart, this can feel like barbed wire, inescapable in that moment. Post traumatic stress causes this to linger in all sorts of ways, so it adversely affects society as a whole–very directly, imo.

    While I know that this can be resolved and healed, I also know that it can certainly not be resolved within the community that caused it in the first place!

    Like Anne Frank, I do believe that, somewhere deep down inside, everyone is good at heart. But I also believe that this heart can be buried under layers and layers of fear and resentment that our world has caused many to feel. Just as people feared and hated Hitler, they fear and hate the APA, and other such organizations, along with the entire mental health system.

    Whether good hearted or not on a deep spiritual level, some have been, and still are, acting like monsters.

    Not all. Some are just doing what they’ve been taught, and not questioning their authority. The defense of the Nazis that were tried at Nuremberg was, “I was just following orders.”

    I respect when people hold out hope for something, I think that feeling of hope is a good one. But hoping that psychiatry and the mental health system heal and reform will only drain hope for those who are suffering now.

    Just from my humble voice on the outside, here, after having been enmeshed with all of this for years before breaking free of it all and healing from how all of this ailed me–I don’t think psychiatry or the mental health system are worth hanging onto at this point. So much effort and energy simply to, more than likely, create more suffering, while ignoring the ones that are because THEY haven’t thought of the answers. That really seems crazy to me.

    There are sooooo many much better ways to heal and find support, that are natural, humane, and neither politically nor financially motivated. These would be the paths to truly integral well-being for everyone. Contrary to some beliefs, that is not reserved for a privileged few.

    I guess I’ve made my position clear, and it’s effort to keep repeating this, so I wanted to put it as thoroughly and directly as I knew how so I can move on with my own life. This gets draining after a while.

    Really, it boils down to three words for me at this point: gimme a break.

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  • The change that is needed in psychiatry, and the mental health field, in general, is the infusion of humility on the part of clinicians. Until then, they will not get the information they need if they want to truly support a client’s healing and personal growth.

    Reforming the system = trying to get psychiatry to be effect = trying the same thing over and over again, expecting different results = insanity.

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  • Thank you for your efforts and attention to creating vital change in the mental health industry.

    This is one of the most general things I notice as being problematic. There appears to be a complete breakdown in communication between psychiatrists and those who have suffered through the system, which, naturally, makes me wonder about the quality of the communication between clients and psychiatrists, in 1-on-1 office visits. I no longer receive mental health services, as I found alternative healing that completely did the trick for me, and got me grounded and reasonably clear-minded, allowing me to leave all medication behind after 20 years of multiple meds. That was 10 years ago.

    But when I did see psychiatrists, indeed, the communication was abysmal, in a variety of ways. It only poured salt into the wounds.

    There is this idea that psychiatrists, in general, do not know how to engage with clients eye to eye, that it is always through a lens that amounts to stigma, which compromises quality of life, at best, and which destroys lives, at worst. Diagnoses, socio-economic factors, and general personality traits that are perceived as ‘symptoms,’ due to their visibly creative nature which does not mimic the norm, seem to create a division that is not at all favorable to the client, creating a feeling of complete and utter powerlessness for the client, and, in general, a loss of civil rights. This only adds to the malaise and confusion that is trying to heal. I believe that counter-transference which is not owned nor recognized a really big problem in the field.

    There are so many issues to address when it comes to ‘reforming’ the system. For me, personally, this is one of the most vital, as it creates marginalization, which can be devastating to the human mind, heart and spirit.

    I am curious, what, if anything, can be done about it. I think mental health clinicians should be required to do a Shamanic journey or something like that. The ones that I knew–and there were plenty–had no self-awareness and even less self-responsibility. They mostly seemed narrow, angry, and defensive, not recognizing individual creativity, but rather were annoyed with it, and hence, they turned personality which they could neither understand or relate to, into pathology. This is what I’d like to see change.

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  • Perhaps being aware of how we choose to respond to and interpret rough times and experiences would at least bring in some ease and meaning into these experiences, on a soul level, which can be unconscious or conscious, depending on our individual awareness.

    We have many choices about how we respond to anything, and we can make those consciously. When we experiment with this, we find that we can actually create different realities with each response, because we can create different outcomes depending on which choices we make. We also create different feelings in our bodies with each response, which also speaks to us.

    Clarity is something we seek, naturally, and our minds are curious. If our hearts are wounded and we have negative self-perceptions, then we will naturally interpret our thoughts, actions and feelings, as well as the world around us, predominately negatively.

    Whereas if we feel settled in our hearts, relieved of the effects of trauma and victimization (the inner work), then we have a much more positive view of things, and a more positive view of life. We also have better health.

    That, alone, creates a more calm and freeing reality. We share myriad realities within one humanity.

    We can’t expect the world to change so that we can feel better. The government has nothing to do with this, it has its own agenda, nothing to do with our well-being, in practice. We have to find our own inner peace, first, before expecting it on the outside. This would start with internalizing feelings of hope. Clarity and conviction are important for positive creation to occur. Ambiguity simply creates more ambiguity. Clarity of mind depends on a healed heart.

    We create from the inside out. Otherwise, we will always be dependent on others for our power, rather than seeking it internally. That can of dependence is, in reality, disempowering, and therefore, terribly unhealthy. An unhealthy society breeds unhealthy individuals. In turn, unhealthy individuals create unhealthy societies.

    It is vital that we know our own power of creating and manifesting, without relying on others.

    I like what skybluesight says above, about standing on our own two feet. Members of healthy communities will support each other mutually. An unhealthy community, however, is one sub-group being dependent on another, exclusively. That will never work.

    One by one, each of us finding peace in our own hearts, and living authentically in our own truth, the world will shift. It’s the only way.

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  • “Nobody needs research. We already know everything we need to know. We just need to practice tried and true methods of wellness and cure. If you don’t know what to do then ask a successful survivor – they will smarten you up.”

    Absolute truth. Period.

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  • Direct, clear, passionate…overall, terrific! Yes, moving forward into the unknown, scary and exciting, our opportunity to create just as we prefer.

    I especially love this:

    “If I blame psychiatry now it is for enabling me to avoid grappling with the scary aspects of life. If I blame psychiatry it is for approving my lack of optimism, and encouraging me to replace inner torment with psych-drugged malaise. I blame psychiatry for shielding me from self-responsibility, when I asked to be shielded from self-responsibility.”

    Spot on. Time to face life head-on, on our own terms. Now it’s our turn to create a more honest and understanding society, from our authentic humanity. Let’s see what happens. You have strengthened my optimism and brightened the vision. Thank you.

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  • Stephen, your post is so moving to me–not only because it is such powerful and clear truth, but also because I know EXACTLY what you’re talking about.

    The mind-programming that takes place in the system is over the top. It’s why people appear soul-less, because they have been so utterly traumatized out of their voice of truth. Although, I know in my heart it is somewhere in there. It would seem next to impossible to awaken to it consciously while still being ‘required’ to live in such an environment, however. That’s the challenge, here.

    Indeed, they cannot blame themselves. I’ve certainly been there, until I woke up. Waking up was hard, because I felt like a fool for what I got myself into, voluntarily, but this was a good lesson–self-forgiveness.

    I learned a lot being ‘foolish,’ so, in essence, I’m glad it all happened the way it did. Really gave me the best and most well-rounded perspective, like I hear from you. It’s rare to have the opportunities of perspective that you and I have, thanks to where our lives have led us.

    Having been a client-transitioned-to-staff, myself, for a while, that was the toughest spot for me, just like you’re describing. This is what I experienced as a voc rehab counselor, after having gone through the system. I was, literally, the only one who knew how to communicate with clients in a way that got the job done.

    My co-workers, most of them very well-meaning (but very young and inexperienced) were steeped in stigma, could not at all have a clear view of their client, that was so obvious to me. For some reason, they accepted me eye to eye, however, they enjoyed working with me. These had not been clients, they had not been through the system. They were just young urban professionals, just as indoctrinated, at least, behaviorally. They did not live in their truth at work, but in the truth of management. And this affected the clients profoundly.

    Management liked me at first (after all, they recruited me from their program!), but soon, they couldn’t stand me, and they literally persecuted me because of my success with clients. I was very successful in matching them with jobs that fulfilled them, and this was not the objective of this agency, it turned out–as we all now know about such things.

    Many of those I worked with thought like I did and we talked about our frustrations, but when it came to speaking our truth about it, even totally appropriate in the context of a staff meeting or feedback session, suddenly, they were all fine with it, while to me, they complained otherwise. It was maddening and disheartening, and it made it hard for me to continue healing, in such a hypocrisy.

    It’s how I ended up in legal mediation, because this complacency and duplicity, due to fear on the part of staff, feeling intimidated by this management team, is what allowed the discrimination toward me to occur. So I went to the EEOC. By the time I got through with them, their top three brass–CEO, Prez, Program Mgr–had resigned. That was my personal coup.

    Same thing happened when I worked in professional advocacy. Advocates were double-dealers, and many clients kissed ass because that was the game. While, again, to me, they complained about those same asses.

    It’s always hard to know where to go next in moving this forward. As you illustrate, so many double-binds.

    Although I think this conversation is really clear, so I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities to continue speaking your truth toward this goal. You’ve accomplished more than you know, I’m sure. Keep speaking it, Stephen, just like you do! Your truth is your guide, and it will help connect others to THEIR truth, that’s how it works.

    Things will continue to unfold now, I’m certain of it.

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  • Yes, yes, YES!! Wow, this is the most exciting research I’ve seen. Finally. Thank you so much for all of this.

    From the article on trance:

    “Tibetan medicine is an integrated system of health care that has served the Tibetan people well for many centuries and which, I believe, can still provide much benefit to humanity at large. The difficulty we face in bringing this about is one of communication, for like other scientific systems, Tibetan medicine must be understood in its own terms, as well as in the context of objective investigation.”

    Indeed, communication is where we have been challenged, here (like the Tower of Babel!)–especially when it comes to listening and actually sitting with and contemplating perspectives other than those with which we are familiar.

    Not only do I agree with you completely that cultivating inner peace one-by-one is the solution, my entire practice is based on this. I’ve been facilitating groups for a few years now where this is exactly what we practice, and it’s been working beautifully, I’ve gotten wonderful testimonials.

    My work is based on how I was able to heal from the severe symptoms I had experienced for such a long time (made so much worse by mental health treatment), thanks to some wonderful spiritual teachers and healers.

    It is very exciting for me to come across your work.

    If you feel inclined, please check out the film I made a couple of years ago, Voices That Heal, if you get a chance, it speaks to all of this. A friend told me it is very Buddhist in message and vibration.

    http://www.cultureunplugged.com/storyteller/Alex_Goldenberg

    Voices That Heal is now a part of the Spirit Enlightened Film Festival, whose mission it is “to witness the evolution of consciousness toward our shifting and awakening humanity.” They spotted it on YouTube and solicited it from me, which was thrilling for me, and an honor. There are many fascinating documentaries on this site which offer multiple and cutting edge perspectives, based on ancient wisdom, to help support our shift into a humane, compassionate, and non-violent global society.

    I made this film as self-advocacy, and it has since rippled out in exciting ways.

    A few days after I posted it, I found this review posted, which practically made me cry, I was so moved and humbled by the fact that this reviewer ‘got it:’

    “Alex Goldenberg has captured the depth, courage and humor involved in the crawl out from mental illness into health and higher consciousness. He has provided those he interviews the opportunity for profound honesty we can all relate to. This is an inspiring film for all of us with similar struggles, overturning the predominant medical model that offers no hope for people with mental illness diagnoses. Instead he provides vivid examples of how we can heal and become healers in the process.”

    Thank you so much, Janna, for your very exciting and thorough work. This made my week!

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  • Point well taken, Jonah! After I made this post, I did go out and take a walk in the woods, which helped me come back to center. I’m glad I was able to intercept for you 🙂

    This is what I love most about meditation: after years of practice and teaching it, I can still have my natural passionate reaction to things, but I can quickly ground and come back center, no lingering.

    I’ve found that with good hardy daily focused meditation, just sitting in stillness–or with whatever comes up, not taking action, just breathing through whatever surfaces until any anxiety passes–we can rewire the brain to where it lets go of things, and we don’t carry around baggage. Every day becomes a new day, without lingering issues to tie up my brain. Frees up our creativity. I’ve gotten fantastic feedback on this.

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  • Yep, you’re right about all of it, Stephen. True that these studies are what science requires before labeling it ‘truth,’ and at least these are actually supporting evidence for what really is true and helpful to people.

    Still, my gasket blew a bit when I saw this because, like you, I find it really crazy that money and time is spent ‘proving’ things that we already know with certainty due to common sense or, like you say, thousands of years of successful practice. Or on totally decoy and faulty, skewed and terribly biased studies that, somehow, become integrated into medical and popular beliefs, wreaking havoc for people and communities, and continuing to line certain specific pockets.

    Yes, it can feel disgusting at times, when you consider how people could be helped so much more TODAY if we didn’t insist on waiting for evidence, especially with something so obvious like this.

    It’s why this whole conversation has become never-ending. A lot of peoples’ livelihood depends on never resolving this, at the tremendous expense of so many. This is what make me most angry.

    I’d like to see people start to trust their intuition more, so as to decrease the level of dependency we have on organized mental health care, until we eventually don’t need it any longer because we’ve segued into the myriad practices alternative to this that are actually supportive and effective, rather than those like psychiatry—and even some psychotherapy, that many have pointed out can be harmful and re-traumatizing–that are controlling, dangerous, and potentially deadly. That’s where we do have plenty of evidence, mountains of it, and a really large choir of voices all over the world.

    Thanks to the incredible plethora of diverse information and perspectives shared on this website, I think we have enough evidence that this whole ‘mental illness’ thing is based on multiple illusions, and why that is advantageous for some, to keep the illusions alive. I would be really shocked if reason, statistics, or personal testimonials were to ever crack that wall. They count on things being left vague and inconclusive, or simply misleading, to require even MORE studies. Wall, black hole, bottomless pit–choose the metaphor, all three apply in this case.

    In addition, from what I’ve witnessed, we all seem to have developed very firm convictions and beliefs by which to live, thanks to what we wrestle with, here. I think what is most healing, under any circumstances, is to live our truths—not a therapists or psychiatrists truth, but OUR truth.

    Why do we need to convince psychiatrists, or anyone? We can certainly meditate, at least, without the need for evidence so they can give their stamp of approval.

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  • Mindfulness meditation is “comparable” to medication for depression? There’s no comparison! Meditation is the practice of being centered and grounded, of course it’s only going to help improve one’s health, in every capacity. We need studies for this?

    Most of the world is convinced already that meditation is the most healthful action we can take. What an absurd waste, needing statistics to prove this. Are these researchers really that out of it, or is it the fact that this is a racket? Wow.

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  • Janna, I love your website! One thing I was particularly taken with was how the Integrative model shows that “the mistaken view of self is the root cause of violence.”

    I so believe this wholeheartedly, and my own personal emotional and perceptual journey has allowed me to feel this.

    I believe that our deepest soul and heart center, we are unconditionally loving beings, and that is what connects us all. Doesn’t mean we’re always grounded and cheerful, we continue to have emotions and ups and downs, etc, but we can reflect on thim and respond to them much differently from this space. In essence, we practice self-healing when we know our self-love.

    Certainly, this is not consistent with the behavior we observe around us, which is violent in so many ways, overtly and covertly, and one of dependence on others, fearing we cannot take care of ourselves (one skewed self-perception).

    So I’m thinking it’s pretty obvious that, as a collective, we’re about as far away from our soul and heart center as we can be, creating an illusion of complete disconnection and separation (another skewed perception), that is, we create duality. That’s a very scary place to exist, as we have been, as it causes feelings of profound alienation, as it has been doing for centuries, now.

    I think only individually, one by one, can we find our way back to that heart and soul center, where we can perceive our true spirit nature. Once we do this as a collective, I feel people will feel their natural internal support, and have a more comfortable and loving view of themselves, and, therefore, a more compassionate view of others.

    I can see how this would heal violence, easily. The trick would be to not get people to fight about this. For some, getting into the heart center is like trying to give a cat a bath. It’s quite the unknown, but a worthwhile journey, nonetheless. I believe it can save lives, even one’s own.

    Thank you for your wonderful information! I look forward to perusing your website more thoroughly. It’s got a lot of fascinating information on it!

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  • “I think about this a lot when I hang out with “societally ill”. (Sounds better than mentally ill) depressed, poor homeless people…”

    Allowing myself to perceive duality for a moment, if I were to call anyone ‘societally ill,’ it would most definitely not be people who are currently experiencing, either, depression or homelessness, nor any other manifestation of social illness.

    The folks that I’d consider to be socially ill are not so obvious, at first. But eventually, thanks to how much more aware of how people operate, in large part to all the immensely brilliant, creative, and courageous thinkers on this website, everyone becomes pretty transparent, one way or another. It’s the times.

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  • “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you, but not from you. And though they are with you, they belong not to you.

    “You may give them your love but not your thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls. For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.”

    Kahlil Gibran,
    The Prophet

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  • “most parents desperately want to find a way to prevent their beloved child from suffering any more. They are frightened because they know that unless their young one can get back to thinking in a way that the world will accept, they are doomed to exclusion, labeling, ridicule and worse. It is all very complicated.”

    This speaks of conforming for the purpose of being ‘accepted.’ Accepted by whom, a degenerating society? I don’t think it’s so complicated.

    Another choice a parent would have is to celebrate their child’s independent and novel, creative thinking, if that’s what the case is, and to encourage the kid to follow their mind and heart, without caring AT ALL what others think. If the parents are frightened for the child, then it is their fear which would cause the kid problems. That’s THEIR fear they are passing along to the child, rather than confidence.

    Those who think in ways that are challenging to society are the movers and shakers of the world. They are the ones poised to create a new and better society, celebrating diversity, as opposed to fearing others’ reaction to their lack of conformity.

    Suffering is caused when we judge and shame ourselves for being who we are. We learn that as children from those around us. As adults, we can clean this up and re-write these debilitating messages, and encourage people to think on their own, trust their own hearts, and honor what they feel, without question.

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  • “Not much self-examination here transformation maybe because of not wanting to “blame” anyone…It is more like recovery rather than psychodynamic change…Too much lightfoot dancing around here on this subject.”

    I agree. There is a difference between ‘blame’ and the lack of ownership that goes with this, and cause and effect, where everyone takes responsibility for their role in the family system, including the initial client. For the family member that was the catalyst for bringing attention to the family, the challenge would be to speak their truth. For the family, the challenge would be to hear it, respect it, and then each person can speak their truth. Then, you see what you have to work with.

    This is where true change is found, in the awareness of cause and effect. It’s hard for me to imagine how a family environment (or lack of one) cannot drastically influence the stress level of a child, which later becomes post traumatic stress in many forms. I agree, there are many forms of abuse, neglect, emotional abandonment, not respecting boundaries–all sorts of insidious ways we drive each other crazy, and all sorts of ways we dodge this issue.

    “IMO, the more egos you crack the stronger the results – after all egos were meant to be broken, why waste all the madness?”

    Well said. In my opinion, as well. When egos are challenged, we grow and evolve in awareness, and we learn our innate strength and power.

    What I find interesting is that for those of us who have gone through all of this mental health crap, our egos have been slashed, which is why we roar. What we’re doing now, is cashing in on this and finding our voice, strength, and power, which would be the natural next step, as we heal from our wounds over time.

    I don’t believe the madness is wasted. It’s a tool for healing, justice, and truth, and for creating healthy communities.

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  • Your voices is more powerful than ever, here, Maria. I’ve worked hard over the years to persuade and convince the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity, but with every push I give, they push back at least twice as hard and the wall gets thicker. Reason, even statistically–based, just doesn’t seem to work, here, not for long, anyway. That’s been my experience, at least. Even if I manage to stretch the rubber band around the box just a little bit, it always seems to snap right back into place.

    What I’ve been doing, that appears to be making an impact around me and for which I’ve gotten very positive feedback, is to work with people on their perceptions of what life and death are. As you know, I firmly believe that life is eternal, and that we’re calling ‘death,’ is, in reality, merely a transition from physically focused reality. We’re ALL part of non-physical reality. That is our collective consciousness. Our individual spirits continue, and those who have transitioned are around us, constantly. They never stop being part of us.

    There are signs everywhere, if we know how to read this energy. For example, I know when I’m craving a steak sandwich (which I never eat) or when I have this sudden urge to play an Edith Piaf record, I know my dad is with me, as these were two trademarks of his, and often I have a really nice conversation with him. He passed away 4 years ago, this week. When he was in a body, we had our troubles which caused me grief, but that’s a thing of the past. I forgave him and made peace with him in my heart. In present time now, he’s one of main guides and I love him very much. He’s my dad!

    Knowing this and perceiving it is a matter of expanding heart consciousness. Eventually, the mind can fathom this, but it takes time and a diligent practice of heart consciousness to undo all the illusory perceptions which we have internalized, as well as quieting our habitual thinking. Thanks to this expanding heart awareness, we can heal and grow, in general, with greater ease and understanding. This ripples outward, and in that process, we are upgrading our society to a more humanitarian resonance.

    I came scarily close to succeeding in my attempt to end my physical life years ago, and I am in 100% agreement with you. I can easily trace, like math, all the components of my mental health treatment at the time, which led me to believe that my life was not worth a plug nickel, that I was of no value to society and only a burden, that I had ‘lost my dreams’ (the phrase my psychiatrist used repeatedly during my sessions with him), and that my life and health would be chronically compromised. I bought it, hook, line, and sinker, because it did seem that way at the time. I was not the same person I am now. Deep down I was, but my ability to focus and function was greatly compromised, thanks to medication.

    Yes, they hand us one big mess to sink into. It’s become standard operational procedure.

    It was during my near death experience that I discovered the eternal nature of our consciousness. I got a lot of information at that time that took a while for me to digest and process, which I have now integrated into my practice and teachings.

    I don’t think we can all understand each other, and many of us simply rub each other the wrong way. It’s when we attach an illness or some kind of ‘defect’ to the person that triggers a negative emotion in us, then we’re not owning our stuff and taking our guidance.

    I don’t think life is so much a matter of fighting for turf, as much as it is about finding our ‘resonant families’–that is, communities which we find supportive to our natures. Since we have diverse natures, we’ll have diverse communities. No one needs to attack the other. If you’re hurt by them, get away and start your own community! I feel this will disempower the debilitators.

    I envision a society where each of us finds our healthy and supportive communities so we can heal all of this overt and covert victimization going on in the world. Maybe then, people won’t be in such a hurry to leave the planet pre-maturely, and, in fact, will revel fearlessly in their own process of life. That’s my Sunday prayer for today.

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  • “While all families are different, one way out of this impasse is to let go of changing the relative. Easier said than done, of course, when it’s your child in crisis, but in family after family, recovery for a person struggling with psychosis means a shift from controlling the other to controlling yourself. It means looking at how you relate to your relative, rather than what’s wrong with them. And it means getting support to make change.”

    What I’ve often found to be the case is that there is a family dynamic in place which does not accommodate the needs or process of one of the individuals. When they express their individuality and independent thinking, they are judged, shamed, guilted, or ostracized, perpetually, as a way of trying to control them into conformity (much like the society, at large, with which we’re dealing, supported by psychiatry).

    There is nothing ‘wrong’ with the individual, but these dynamics can exist daily in a family, which can be crazy-making to a person–and often leads to what we call ‘mental illness,’ ‘psychosis,’ etc. I think it’s more hurt and feelings of betrayal which are plaguing that person’s heart, and causing chaos in their mind. From awareness of these issues, these internalized dynamics and the false beliefs that are created from them can certainly heal with the right support.

    Family abuse takes many forms, and is a chronic and debilitating nightmare for a kid. As an adult, this can linger as post traumatic stress, but at least we have more options and freedom about how to get away and heal from what gets internalized from all of this. It’s a complex network of neuro-confusion that begs for clarity, so the mind can relax, and the heart can heal.

    Aside from a blatant abuser, there are enablers, and they can be more insidiously abusive and double-binding than the actual primary abuser. Often, it is the most sane-acting and successful person in the group who is the most clever and manipulative, what I’d call ‘the gaslighter’ of the group. It’s a sinister role to play, but some choose to play it. They are usually most challenged to own their part in how this toxic dynamic, holding on fiercely to their power-struggling reality.

    So much to explore and learn about how families operate, and how to make them safer and geared toward producing a community of health, alignment, well-being, and emotional freedom.

    I appreciate all the work being done in this area. Thank you for this information!

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  • Thank you, Philip. Indeed, what made me think of the creative process is your emphasis on our thoughts, feelings and behavior–i.e., how we embody and experience our creativity.

    If we are to be our true selves, then we need to have permission to experience the entire range of human emotions and experiment with our perception without it being equated with pathology. This is natural to being human, it is what our consciousness calls for. Squelching this process is to deter our spirits from self-expression, and that is what is truly harmful.

    To me, art and nature are all things possible–life and feeling experiences of all shades, colors, and textures. I don’t think we’re on the planet to be bored, but we could sure make our ups and downs more enriching and meaningful if we were to cease calling our experience a disease. The alternative is to actually *celebrate* our diversity, both inside and out.

    I just read more of your writings online. I’m very inspired and encouraged by your clarity and certainty around these issues. Thank you.

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  • “Psychiatry and its bible are probably the biggest hoaxes pulled on the American people in the history of this country.”

    Beautifully put, Stephen, it’s exactly how I’d frame it.

    Your comment reminded me of a blog that a friend sent me just yesterday, written by Chaz Ebert, Roger’s widow. Reflecting on his passing last April, she writes:

    “Roger said that he didn’t know if he could believe in God. He had his doubts. But toward the end, something really interesting happened. That week before Roger passed away, I would see him and he would talk about having visited this other place. I thought he was hallucinating. I thought they were giving him too much medication. But the day before he passed away, he wrote me a note: “This is all an elaborate hoax.” I asked him, “What’s a hoax?” And he was talking about this world, this place. He said it was all an illusion. I thought he was just confused. But he was not confused. He wasn’t visiting heaven, not the way we think of heaven. He described it as a vastness that you can’t even imagine. It was a place where the past, present, and future were happening all at once.”

    When I read it, I thought about psychiatry, along with a sizeable list of illusions perpetuated by this study and practice—as if psychiatry is being used as a tool (by whom?) to block truth, authentic reality, etc., however we’d define that–this ‘vastness’ to which she refers. Like an “anti-Christ,” so to speak. Sure has worked well for them, et al–brilliantly, in fact.

    I believe the purpose of this would be to keep a few people very rich, and feeling powerful, while unsuspecting others remain confused, enraged, agitated, grief-stricken, and fighting amongst each other.

    I think what Chaz Evert is saying here, based on her husband’s reflections at the end of his physical life, opens up a whole host of possibilities. If this is all an illusion—a hoax for profit, at the expense of so many people and communities—then what is this vast, concurrent past/present/future multi-dimensional reality? How would we experience this? Would it be where we’d find justice, along with true support for whatever creative process we choose to experience? Seems like ‘heaven on earth’ to me. Could this be what is behind the illusions fostered by this psychiatric hoax? Just a thought.

    Here’s the full article, for anyone interested in reading it. I found it very moving.

    http://www.rogerebert.com/chazs-blog/reflecting-for-the-new-year-on-rogers-last-day

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  • Wonderful article. I think that refined and clear reasoning like this is what most powerfully resonates as accessible truth. When I read the title, “Psychiatry is Not Based on Science,” my first thought was, neither is the rich and unpredictable experience of life.

    After reading through the article, it occurred to me that what psychiatry has hijacked is our individual creativity, and turned it into an exorbitantly profitable chronic illness-creating business.

    How long can this extreme vampirism go on? Psychiatry has sucked the energy out of all of us. Were psychiatry not available to undermine and kill the creativity in the world, we’d probably enjoy a full-blown Renaissance!

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  • Fantastic article, Maria! Reading and reflecting on this, I feel that you are beaming through some hard core illusions with your crystal-like analysis.

    I’m breaking down your last (truly wonderful) paragraph, below, just to add my two cents here. Thank you so much for this well-thought piece. It’s totally synchronistic with what is in my field of vision, as well.

    “I think the writing is on the wall that psychology will fill the gap left by the shortage of psychiatrists, that it will be cheaper, more accessible and less tarnished than psychiatry but deliver the same harms.”

    Yes, the myths and misinformation are deeply entrenched and habitually practiced beliefs!

    “I think it will become the new target for pharmaceutical industry corruption as drugs are branded as part of a holistic approach to curing mental disorders rather than miracle neurobiological cures.”

    Of course, they’ll say anything to make sales, playing off of these beliefs–from one manipulator to another, passing it on…

    “I think the public who are increasingly wary of psychiatry will be lulled into a false sense of security that psychology will have equal emphasis on psychosocial as biological approaches and feel safer and more comfortable engaging with psychologists to their detriment.”

    It’s become of game of persuasion for profit, forget honesty, integrity, Hippocrates, not to mention self-reflection. (Just to feel some balance here, and not overly cynical, I do understand that some may think they’re being helpful, but that would be a matter of 1) misguided education, and 2) not listening).

    “I think those of us who promote alternatives to psychiatry need to be careful that we are not sending people from the frying pan to the fire.”

    Extremely well put.

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  • Warning/awakening others to such truths sounds like an act of love to me. Anger and love can co-exist, whereas fear and love cannot. You certainly show no fear, only courage and love. I so hardily believe you will succeed in meeting this challenge, and that you are well on your way.

    From what I understand about Quantum Physics, consciousness is eternal, and you and your son are working together now toward this enlightened goal. He is a guide for you. At least, this is what my heart tells me, so I’m sharing with you what is in my heart at present. I say this humbly, as hope I’m not overstepping boundaries.

    I have the same goal, to focus on creating a world that is safe and supportive for every individual on the planet, rather one that disregards the human heart, spirit, and life, for the purpose of controlling others, and to acquire as much cash as possible.

    Very best wishes to you. I really admire your work.

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  • Wonderful article, Maria. I love this shift in perspective which you are exploring. I especially resonate with this thought–

    “…somewhere in the multiverse, there is a world where intelligent life has rejected psychiatric theory and practice…” Certainly, in my universe, this is the reality.

    I believe wholeheartedly that it is within our power to create any world we want, and I believe that what you put forth, here, to “observe the positive and create the world we dream of,” is how to do it, with conscious focus on that which makes us feel good in our heart, where we feel love and joy on what we focus. Indeed, we have a network of feelings and emotions, some of them uncomfortable and painful, and this is how we know joy, when it flows into our experience. I believe this contrast is vital to creation, and a universal component to being human.

    So to my mind, it all works together, that entire range of our human emotions, and from this, we create a diverse society. I believe if we have full and unequivocal respect for this diversity, both inside and out, and own it and welcome it as part of the reality which we have created, then this diversity will be harmonious. Can we do it?

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  • As usual, I really enjoyed reading your beautifully expressed wisdom, Chaya. I agree, never stop dreaming. I believe energy follows intention, and if we can feel our dreams, then we’re well on our way to creating them.

    I especially like how you write about using life’s challenges and emotions as your guides to realizing your dreams and shining your light for others.

    Congrats on such wonderful and successful self-healing and self-awareness work. I always admire the faith and trust in your process which you demonstrate. Very powerful!

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  • What a gorgeously expressed story, Lia. Thank you for the honor and pleasure of reading about your healing. Your self-insights are powerful and inspiring. I’m especially struck by what you say, here:

    “I finally learned to love myself, deep inside…”

    To me, that’s the core message of healing. Lack of love–or perceived lack of love, either way–messes us up in so many ways. I think that finding the natural and inherent love within ourselves is self-recognition and wholeness. You radiate this love through your work, so I’m sure you’ve helped countless people feel the relief of hope and the joy of optimism. So wonderful to hear stories like yours, told with such clarity, generosity, and humility.

    Best wishes,
    Alex.

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  • All great stuff, Jonah. Seems we’re really on the same page, here. I totally agree with everything you say above.

    Yes, the ‘mental health’ Caste system. It’s become the focal point of this operation, inherently and aggressively, rather than the health and well-being of the client, and their process. Front line staff is left to carry the burden, which I’ve seen split them. I’ve done presentations and trainings with social workers, and they’re always feeling caught in the middle, between client and management, and from fear, of course, they tow the party line–which does NOT serve the client, and in fact, can easily end up being harmful. Hard to blame them, really, everyone is in a tough spot in that world. We’re ALL looking for our personal power, here, and our heart’s truth.

    Moreover, this hierarchy creates a climate of fear and intimidation, which is as unhealthful as one can get. How on earth can *anyone* in that environment be healthy? It’s like pouring rat poison in a public park. Anyone who goes there for whatever their reason is would wind up sick, one way or another.

    And yes, it’s highly competitive for power, which is the LAST thing that a mental health facility needs! It takes up all of one’s energy to navigate a culture like this, and these kinds of dynamics are exactly what lead people to seek help to begin with, hence all the re-trauma happening in ‘mental health treatment.’

    I think any training in healing disciplines, such as hypnotherapy, is incredibly valuable. Hypnosis, meditation, Qi Gong/Tai Chi, etc., are grounding and centering. Practicing these as disciplines train the mind and body to align with our heart and spirit, which is when we experience wellness. By practicing these, we are actually practicing wellness. They also integrate masculine and feminine (yin/yang), and cosmic and earth energy.

    I did 4 years of chakra meditation, energy healing and clairvoyant training at a school in San Francisco. I was also ordained there, which is how I became a spiritual counselor. I’m a non-denominational minister. I also do psychic energy and healing work. Aside from this training, I also trained as a medical intuit, while becoming Reiki attuned. I did an internship in Santa Rosa at a cancer clinic, which is where I was able to apply and synthesize all that I had learned. From this, I became a certified Advanced Hospital Integral Health Practitioner. All this together packed a punch, and pushed me way forward in my own healing, as I trained. If you want to check it out: http://www.embodycalm.com

    My integral health teacher is Buddhist, although I don’t identify as such. I still say I’m Jewish, but my spiritual beliefs really lie in a more universal source energy realm.

    ‘Mental Health,’ per se, is not the focus of my work. My work is for anyone, there is no discrimination when working with energy.

    On an introductory level, I teach about grounding, boundaries, and mind/body/spirit alignment. On a more advanced level, I teach about how to work with universal energy to manifest consciously (which would include things like manifesting healing, but that is up to each person to decide what that looks like), I work with identifying our spirit voice (trust), as opposed to ego voice (fear). I help people align to their own voice of healing and well-being, and to trust it.

    Like all healers and teachers, my work is based on all that I learned in this elaborate journey. Always working to streamlining it, but as of now, it’s working well. There’s always new information to learn and integrate, which is why I enjoy this work so much. It’s a never-ending learning process.

    I also agree with you wholeheartedly that there is no need for ‘mental health’ work. I did 20 years of that, intensively, and not only reached a dead end, but it made me sick and disabled, in the long run. Not just the meds and social structure, but all that talk therapy gave me what I call “therapy brain.’’ Burned up all my energy and kept me out of my body. I had to heal from that, too.

    The energy work healed all that ailed me, and, in the process, it also taught me all I needed to know about creating my life experience. My partner caught on, and we’re creating like gangbusters. And now, I have a group of 6, all learning the same thing–a couple of them have histories of diagnosis and medication, while others do not. There is no distinction, here. When I get a group going, it’s fascinating to watch what we all co-create together. We get really plugged in. It’s a blast, really! Most fascinating thing I’ve ever done, and always healing.

    Ok, this post is long enough. I don’t mean to hijack. Seemed like a good opportunity to present some alternatives with clarity, here. Thanks for indulging me, and for this discussion. These social issues are the aspects of our life experience which I most focus on because they’re so bloody toxic, and I seek as much clarity as I can. Your information has helped me gain this clarity. (Plus, I could talk about healing, energy, and manifesting forever. I’ve developed a passion for all of this).

    Corrina, thank you for bringing up these issues for discussion. This has been really valuable for my own personal growth.

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  • Jonah, I think your Caste-system analysis is so spot on.

    After winning my mediation against a voc rehab agency for discrimination, I set up my own practice, which I consider to be an alternative to traditional mental health treatment. Fortunately, so have others who have come to me, either, for support while tapering from meds, or in order to avoid meds and any kind of traditional treatment, in the first place.

    Thinking that I left the system behind me successfully, after I’d been practicing for about a year, I volunteered with an advocacy agency to do public speaking around the city, so that I could tell my story of coming off medication and how I was able to successfully transition myself out of the system. That’s what led to my making a film. I was called a ‘peer educator’ and I didn’t mind, I thought it was appropriate. Even though I considered myself healed and I was professionally established in the community, I still considered myself a peer, as those of us in this speakers’ bureau had a very powerful shared experience, even though we were at different stages of our healing. I was the only one that considered myself completely finished with all of this, medically speaking.

    I didn’t know at the time the implication of taking on the ‘peer’ identity. But I soon learned. It was around every corner. I fought it while I was there, as I did when I worked in voc rehab, but we’re talking about the a very rigid government system, iron clad. It’s a fixed perception, due to its profitability.

    I put all of this–my healing work and the film, all with powerful and affirming testimonials–into a very complete and well-rounded package of healing and advocacy, specifically highlighting social ills and negative projections onto others as the major contributing factor to severe mental distress. That’s what my website and work is all about.

    I couldn’t get anywhere with advocacy, because of this caste-system. On the one hand, they were encouraging me because I was a good example of self-advocacy and self-healing, and I was embodying my success. Regardless of anything, I was still a ‘peer,’ which meant that no matter what I produced, no matter how clean, direct, novel, and relevant my work was, neither professional nor financial support for my work would ever come my way from them. I was led around in circles for a year, until I finally saw the writing on the wall, and I left that community.

    Since these were advocates, I naively assumed that it would be a different world there than in day treatment or voc rehab. I didn’t realize they were siphoning from the same cash tank, but they were. At first, I thought it was a go, from how they encouraged me, but in the end, they were totally two-faced with me. They had me on quite a roller-coaster for a while, but alas, another lesson learned.

    I’ve worked with spiritual teachers and energy healers for a long time, and I’m one of them now. I haven’t sought psychological or psychiatric services of any kind for years. Still, there was absolutely no place in that caste-system for me that was acceptable, so my partner and I packed up and moved from the city to a rural town, where none of this is relevant any longer, so I’m at peace now, and on longer haunted by these illusions of hierarchy. I’m a country healer and teacher now, with a good practice, and that’s all I am here.

    At the end of it all, I do believe that civil and human rights are vital to address, and with persistence. I think the violation of these on such a grand scale is what creates the majority of our health issues, both individually and socially. I’m glad that people are waking up to what has been happening, and that they are pissed as hell, as I had been for a long time, until I allowed my perspective to shift, kind of mellowed me out a bit. But between my lawsuit and the film, I feel I gave it back, and hopefully, my efforts have rippled out and made an impact, other than in my own life. For me, fighting back was totally healing. It’s how I was able to retrieve my self-respecting voice, from which the system did an excellent job of eclipsing me, for a while.

    As someone who went from having had a successful first career in retail management, to being a grad student and intern, to suddenly having 3rd class citizenship brutally projected onto me (which was hell to crawl out from under), I’d say that this rage is reasonable. It’s infuriating to be demeaned, mistrusted, suspect, and lied to over and over again from people to whom we turn in trust–many of whom are paid handsomely via grants, et al. For me, what was especially tough was that this blatant stigma (from the anti-stigma people, we all know that tragic paradox by now) interfered directly with my inalienable right to make a living.

    But when I read about it on here, my blood still boils. I shouldn’t read about it so much, but I can’t help it, I feel that the situation created by the ‘mental health’ industry’s lack of regard for human beings is affecting the world at large so adversely. While I can now create my own existence from my own personal beliefs about how we operate, I do still live in this world. I would love to live long enough to see this insanity-causing toxicity cleaned up but good.

    Thanks, as always, for your amazing clarity.

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  • What a beautiful post and gentle guidance. This has been my practice, as well, to give back what is not mine. It’s a big awakening to realize how, and to what extent, we take on energy from others.

    Presently, maintaining my health and well-being is contingent upon the clarity and certainty of my boundaries. I make it a point, now, to not take on for others. I’ve got my own inner stuff going on!

    Although old habits can die hard, and I work at it. Still, not only is it not my chosen role to play in a relationship any longer, I don’t think it’s helpful for anyone concerned. People will grow only when they own their stuff and take their own emotional journeys.

    “I am holding things for other people. My family and society.”

    Powerful awareness and very healing. I guess this is what a lot of us here have shared. Thanks, as always for sharing your insights. Personally, I think what you write about here is basic universal truth in that it guides us back to our own energy and true nature, not to be confused with those of others.

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  • Brilliant post. I think this is what the mental health field is missing, the awareness of our multi-dimensionality. I think that’s one of the major factors in all these disagreements about reality, in general.

    Neither are we linear beings, nor are our lives linear. These are illusions fabricated by highly limited and narrow perceptions, from minds that have yet to be awakened. Demanding that we all accept linearity and duality is asking everyone to stay asleep to what life and the mind are all about. That’s not only extremely undesirable, it’s also impossible.

    Expanding awareness–that is, personal growth and evolution–does require explorations of these dimensions. When that experience is labeled as an illness and something to be suppressed and avoided, we are damning–and damning up–growth and evolution.

    Whereas if we allow and celebrate these expansive experiences, then we are encouraging our awakening to a better (in my evaluation), more truthful and robust reality–honoring life experience in all it’s diversity.

    Thanks for your sharp and precise clarity, mjk. It’s a gift.

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  • “Do you not believe that a hospital is a hierarchal setting? That there is a power imbalance between staff and patient?”

    I believe these are very well crafted illusions perpetuated by the master manipulators of society. I believe that this division of power has been insidiously imposed upon people who are humble, authentic, and trusting in asking for help. The result is an illusory reality that favors those who stand to profit from it all, by aggressively exploiting vulnerable, hurting people.

    I feel that people in positions like yours, playing this game of illusions of hierarchy and delusions of power, are merely pawns in service to the system. In that sense, where is your power? There are a lot of people above you in that hierarchy you perceive, that have a lot of power over you, and they’re counting on you selling their bill of goods, for their profit.

    Your clients have the power to make you angry, fearful, and defensive. They have the power to make you question your beliefs in everything, and to shake you at your core. At least, if you’re truly present with them and humble, this would be the case. Your clients—every single last one of them–are mirrors of your various aspects, so the only power struggle, in reality, is you with yourself.

    “On a deeper level I agree with you. Staff certainly has the illusion of power.”

    Yes, I’m glad we agree, here, although it seems to contradict what you say initially. Hierarchy and power: illusion or universal truth? (To me, reality is what is universal and eternal, by nature. All else is transitory and illusory, it all comes and goes).

    “At a core level, staff has absolutely no more power than those coming to a hospital.”

    Correct, and it is core level reality that is universal and eternal, so it’s really the only reality that matters, as this is our blank slate and ground zero, what connects us as a global collective of humanity. It’s true for everyone, always, at the core.

    “But the structure creates a power dynamic just as the societal structure creates a dynamic where being a white male gives one more privilege.”

    Correct, it is ‘the structure’ that creates these privileged classes and power dynamics. This is a free-will creation that goes against nature. The rift between the culture of this structure and nature is abundantly evident from all the dissidence regarding this structure.

    So I say, bulldoze the structure, and you’ll free a lot of people from these ghastly and illness-creating illusions. The structure is neither universal nor eternal. It’s a fabrication of those master manipulators. It needn’t exist. To so, so many, it is grossly undesirable. So why is it still here? Who is it serving? Your employers, that’s who. Corruption is, by no means, power. It’s cowardice.

    “So I’m not sure what you mean by “buying” into the “power thing.’”

    Seems to me you believe that some people have power over others. At the core, I don’t believe that for a minute—not for you, not for myself, nor for anyone. You do. It’s an illusion, and you buy into it. You live it and embody it, at your job, from what you have described in your posts. That’s what I mean when I say ‘buying into power.’

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  • “Whatever we begin by expecting, we wind up creating.”

    I believe this is universally true. The good news, is that we can change our expectations, that is our choice, we have free will here. Our minds are malleable, we can shift our focus any time we want, wherever we are in life at any given time. Therefore, in reality, we can create anything we want, because we can choose what to expect.

    So why all the insidious and toxic turmoil in the mental health world? (of all places–it’s just so hard to get past the tragic irony of it all). From what expectation did this madness become a reality?

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  • I re-read your response, Jonathan, and this stood out to me this morning, so I wanted to add one more thing:

    “The hospital setting by nature is a hierarchal setting where the staff have essentially all the power and the patients have next to none.”

    This is the issue–staff has the *illusion* of power. You, just like my colleagues while I was training (before I defected from this field to discover, apply and become trained in what actually DOES promote healing and wellness), really buy into this ‘power’ thing.

    You have no more power nor authority over anyone than anyone does over you, unless you naively give it to them (or they to you), out of fear.

    As far as patients having ‘next to’ no power, I disagree. That’s obviously your belief, and what you want them to believe, but I think that’s terribly naïve.

    You may want to sit with this identification you have with ‘power,’ and perhaps you’ll be able to see your ego attachments, here. That would be very healing for you and your clients.

    At present, I’d say you are functioning in a holographic existence. Once you become aware of this and are able to see past the illusions you’ve been buying into, you’ll notice a lot of things changing, both internally and externally. One goes with the other, that is the true nature of our reality.

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  • “My cold blooded opinion about Psychiatry is that it is an institution practicing mass murder (both psychic and real) and is run by cold blooded killers at the top who are motivated by wealth and power. Civilized humanity is in conflict with these despots.
    A big lol on the lack of ‘true dialogue’ with the system being the fault of the voices of protest. And a big lol on using this concept on trying to suppress the voices of opposition attempting to provoke dialogue. You apparently wish to block civilized people from performing an intervention upon a sick and dysfunctional system.”

    No longer part of the mental health world, other than as a well-informed witness, I find this statement to be 100% accurate. I think the jig is up.

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  • Jonathan, thanks for your thoughtful reply.

    You ask, “What is the other answer? To ignore the system? To not examine it and see what could be better?”

    The system has been plenty examined, and I feel the conclusion is air-tight: it’s making people insane and chronically ill, at best, and killing them, at worst. In between, it’s a complex and absurdly bureaucratic fabric of stigma, oppression, and discrimination. I don’t at all feel I’m exaggerating. I think that’s pretty clear by now, to anyone who is paying attention with open eyes and ears.

    Where could it be better? I think, overall, a good start would be that it could have a better perspective on itself. This quote comes to mind, by Jiddu Krishnamurti:

    “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

    I think the system and all its tangents are a profoundly sick society. How can I buy anything it’s trying to tout? It is not a trustworthy system, too much special business interest to be authentic. Personally, I think it’s a house of cards at this point, but I’m open to being wrong about that. Time will tell…

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  • Jonah, thanks so much for the link. That’s very moving, and I hear you!

    I’ve heard many people say we’re all broken, one way or another. Personally, I think exactly the opposite, we are never ‘broken.’ We’re on a journey. Hokey and new agey as that may sound, I believe it hardily and heartily, and I live that way. Every day is a new day and every moment is a new moment. Anything can shift at any one moment. Our hearts can heal the moment we choose to let go of resentment, and then there’s a process to clear the mind from those negative impressions. Seems to me you are so on the right track!

    I feel good about where I am, too, moving forward, healing from negative introjections from that emotionally hostile environment. Indeed, it leaves an impression quickly.

    I’ve been working for the last 5 years years with students in a healing meditation class I created . I just finished with my group this morning. That was our theme today, healing negative voices and self-perception. Lots of layers to this, it affects us profoundly, in many kind of wicked ways. This is how I healed from the stigma issues. I feel very removed from the system now, MIA is the only place where I still participate in that world, and that’s because I feel these issues affect all of us on the planet, one way or another, no doubt in my mind about that.

    My film where 6 of us tell our stories of going through the system has been accepted to an online film festival called Spirit Enlightened, sponsored by a group called Culture Unplugged and just started playing, so it seems I’ve made my transition. I feel very attuned to the spiritual world now, rather than to the academic world.

    Challenges are what they are, and what we make of them. Social ills do, indeed, make life seem impossible, but that is what I yell most loudly about, when I choose to yell. These social ills we talk about here are what create the perception that something is wrong with us, or that we are broken. Certainly, they make people feel really badly about themselves, which makes for easy targets for abuse, oppression, and being controlled and manipulated.

    This is where standing in one’s own truth is not only powerful, it’s the most practical thing we can do. That way, we’re impervious to the negative projections of others, even from an entire society. It’s how a new society is being created, from these novel and refined truths that are being unearthed now, from those of us who have experienced social ills in the health care system. I can’t imagine anything more harmful than that. No way the world can stay the same at this point.

    Finally, back to music, when I was really down and out, my nerves frayed and my mind filled with crap and nothing but, as I detoxed from all those meds, about 10 years ago, music was also my salvation, so I really get you on this. I had a CD I listened to over and over and over, the only thing that could reach my heart at this time. This was on it. Singer is Linda Eder, Broadway and cabaret singer (I’m a theater guy). As you said to me, don’t know if it’s your taste, but this song in particular, was my voice:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE0yiKoR0zk

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  • Jonathan, I know you are addressing Jonah, here, but since my comment helps to support what Jonah has been attempting to communicate to you, I’m going to stick my nose in here in respond to one thing in your post directed at Jonah.

    When you say, “Violence doesn’t often come out of nowhere. Make contact. Listen. Try to respond to needs. Avoid titles and hierarchy. Be genuine. Offer a place to vent, to rage, that is safe. Offer food and drink if wanted. Give some if wanted…,” you are neglecting one most likely possibility for that client’s rage and their alleged violent impulses: more than likely, they are being addressed by pure stigma, being looked down upon, thought of as marginal, needy, can’t take care of themselves, etc. Often it is not a conscious thing on your part, or on the part of your colleagues, but the walls of the system breathe this, it’s in the oxygen. If you are to remain employed by the mental health system, having this attitude somewhere inside you is a requirement.

    When I was going through the system, no matter with whom I was dealing, in every case over a period of 10+ very long years–100% of the time, no matter who it was–it all felt demeaning. It was very easy to pick this up from every single staff member, no matter how helpful and ‘agreeable’ they may have seemed at first. It’s an attitude that permeates the system. After all, the public system is the government, and what on earth does the government know about mental well being?? Especially these days, that would be the absolute last place I’d go for support with my health and well being.

    You environment is fear-based, that’s all that ‘preemptive’ means–“I fear I or others will be attacked.” As I said above, people who have been through this are highly sensitive to the feelings of others, and what they mostly pick up is prejudice in denial. This is what causes them rage. They have been stripped of their personal power. That’s more important than food because when a person is in their personal power, they don’t have those kinds of survival issues, they can manifest their own food, housing, etc. But the system makes them believe they have no power nor authority over their own lives, and that it is up to you all to be their rescuers and saviors. That’s why their enraged. This is what they feel coming from you, and they’d be right.

    This is a complete and total illusion perpetuated by the system which you feel can be reformed and saved, because now people are ‘having discussions.’ People have had these discussions forever! That’s not progress, that’s feeding the stuckness. While you all are getting paid to ‘have discussions,’ thousands fall by the wayside daily because these philosophical discussions have become endless, with no evidence at all of real change, not anywhere.

    I’m not even part of this system any longer, but I can still feel the division you have in your head between you and your clients. People can protect themselves. Your job is to own your prejudices and do that inner work on yourself. Perhaps then, you would begin to see a favorable shift in your environment.

    So that would be at least my answer as far as alternative to restraining clients in any way, shape or form. Own your internalized stigma and prejudices, that social hierarchy which is part of your creative vibration, then the client won’t become enraged in the first place.

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  • Thanks for this confirmation, Jonah. It’s gratifying to know that my posts have been speaking to you, it encourages me.

    I’m especially moved and in complete agreement with what you say, here:

    “…many people who are without personal physical shelter, do nonetheless have a home, a sort of meta-physical dwelling, in their hearts and minds, that they carry with them, wherever they go,”

    along with,

    “ I would not recommend to accept the “mentally ill” identity, as a prerequisite for free housing. Much better to remain houseless/apartmentless — and carry ones home in ones own heart…”

    It’s a relief to read this. That is a reality that some segments of our society cannot even fathom, it’s such an enlightened perspective of personal responsibility. Our hearts are powerful creators of our experienced reality. And yes, many people who have found themselves marginalized from dominant society do know this truth. Those who’ve had it relatively easy in a material sense (e.g., not ever homeless) cannot.

    While, of course, some choose the label to receive services and housing, and it’s understandable, I think, from fear. In so many cases, they do discover soon after the dehumanizing and socially (et al) tortuous pay off.

    I saw this repeatedly, even mention it as an example in my film (my ‘favorite’ quote from a social psychotherapist upon hearing one particular complaint from a guy having trouble in his housing–“take your meds and don’t make waves.” Were I to ever write a book about the plethora of social service ills which I encountered and witnessed as I went through the system and then again, in advocacy, this would be my title. Says it all).

    Overall, when you say we carry our homes in our heart, that’s what I would call a really high spiritual truth, and it defines our power to own our experience, no matter what. It’s how I crawled out of this mess, I had some really good teachers who taught just this, as the way we actually create our reality.

    As I attempted to heal while in the system and voc rehab, and move forward from disability, I would stand up and they’d knock me down, and I’d stand up, and they’d knock me down, and I’d stand up, etc…

    I knew enough to know what they were doing was wrong, illogical, and illegal (non-ADA compliant), but, of course, being branded ‘the client’ brings on powerful stigma, rather unbeatable, in a social and professional sense–not ‘respectable,’ so literally, no respect. My word meant spit (and ‘you’re being paranoid’), regardless of how incredibly obvious their prejudices were, and I had plenty of evidence of discrimination, point blank. It’s impossible to know the feeling of this, unless one has experienced this crazy-ass second class citizenship thing, first hand. It’s a feeling beyond description.

    My experience in the system, following graduate school and MFT training, was both eye-opening and soul-feeding. As far as learning humanity at the core, it’s heart and soul, this education far exceeded any of what I learned in graduate school. To say that my formal education was all merely academic is an understatement. It’s hardly relevant to any of the reality on the streets, or about mental illness and disability, if at all! I’m willing to be proven wrong, but at this point, I feel I can say this with certainty. It could practically be an experiential research paper, the way I lived it.

    What I infer from your words is that the answer is always in the truth of our hearts, that is our most powerful reality and creator. Once we know how to hear and trust that, we don’t need anyone recommending anything to us. We know ourselves what it is we want, and we’ll know how to get it, once we trust our hearts.

    That’s incredibly hard work, to make this heart connection with ourselves, when we’ve suffered in certain ways, especially due to chronic betrayal, misguidance, and really negatively mirroring, especially in subtle ways that make us walk away not quite sure what happened and why we feel anxious. Now I see, it was because I was feeling demeaned.

    Once I got out of this mess and complete separated from the ‘mental health’ world, I had to heal from chronic patronizing–like really seriously patronizing–voices in my head. It was insidious. I had to re-route a lot of neural pathways myself, in states of meditation, once I disengaged from this world. My self-perception was tremendously messed up. Better now, thank God. Those are hard voices to wake up with in the middle of the night. It healed, though, eventually. Personally, I believe everything can heal, even our lives. One of the pearl I picked up along with way, although I’m aware that this is something else that much of society cannot fathom, but why would I want to listen to that? Good to know where we have choices about things, like where we tune in for our guidance…

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  • When I attended a social services day treatment group therapy center in San Francisco for several months, I became friends with a lot of people who lived on the streets and got along in life as panhandlers. Their stories and reasons for being on the streets were varied, and their personalities were diverse.

    One thing that was clear: they were mentally gifted, some of the sharpest and most aware people I knew in the city, and extremely insightful. They were savvy, tough, and sensitive to the feelings of others. A few of them I knew spent a lot of their vast spare time in the library, reading the news and watching documentaries, since they could do this all for free. They attended groups and other services where they could, so they could enjoy some company and interesting, intelligent, and hardy conversation.

    So why were they on the streets? They hated society, couldn’t stand the bullshit–the duplicity, hypocrisies, the expectation to conform, the compromise to their spirit and heart, the judgments, and on and on. At least some were very clear about this. Life is a game, and they were playing it their way.

    Certainly, this is not the case for all people on the streets. Many fall into this lifestyle because their basic soul needs have been neglected for too long, and they got emotionally violently knocked out of their connection to their natural intuition, which is what guides us through life.

    I once spoke at a city supervisor meeting at city hall against involuntary commitment and forced medication, and a social worker asked me, “What about the guy eating out of a trash can and covered with sores and feces? He wouldn’t be in that condition if he would have just taken his meds. Shouldn’t he be required to take them?”

    I answered that question bluntly, that she is way off in her cause and effect analysis, and not at all taking responsibility for what we, as a society, have created collectively. I pointed out to her that she is putting all the social ills on the homeless, when, in reality, it is her attitude that is the social ill, and is in large part responsible for what she is looking at, when she sees people digging through trash cans. She got mad and abandoned the conversation. I can understand that, but still, I felt she needed to sit with that for a while, and let it sink in.

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  • Thank you, both, I appreciate that.

    I don’t want to ramble on here, but one thing I want to add: what most gets my attention is the psychiatry-academia-government triumvirate, which is where I feel communication shut-down becomes the issue. These are extremely non-transparent entities. Psychiatry is under great attack, so I imagine its sole, or at least, dominant purpose now is that of maintaining its vast sphere of influence which they have so now enjoyed and exploited, in any way, shape, or form.

    When in a relationship with people who are spilling their guts and laying down their burdens in trust, while feeling anxious, vulnerable, and, perhaps, fragmented, that is extremely dangerous! In the case of mental health care, it’s been a genocide of lives, minds, hearts, and spirits.

    This is what I would love to see dissolve, these buttresses which hold these three together, which keep the whole situation alive and kicking.

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  • I could, in no way, assess the character, integrity, and competence of each individual psychiatrist that exists, and I’ve no doubt that there are plenty of well-intentioned and compassionate people in this field. I imagine you may be one of them. From what you write, you do seem to reach out to clients in a heartfelt way.

    But overall, I think it’s become more than obvious that psychiatric treatment, and particularly all this medication crap, has severely harmed countless people—SEVERELY harmed, very badly, chronically. You see the rage, right here in this thread and all over this website. It has also driven people to suicide, as it almost did to me, with its stigmatizing negative projections and aggressive messages of disenfranchisement and marginalization.

    The field, itself, is madness—illusions about power and social hierarchy, along with toxic medications that hardly have credibility when you consider the _obvious_ economics and politics of it all. This is all written and spoken about at length on this and other websites, has been for a long time now.

    Psychiatry is the one field I know of where there are myriad examples of clients complaining of being hurt and harmed, and the responses can so easily be glib, cold, dismissive, and blaming to the client. Ok, so ‘first do no harm’ has fallen to the wayside, here.

    What pisses me off even more is that when a client tells a psychiatrist that the meds are hurting them or that they are feeling disrespected, demeaned, and/or stigmatized, the doctors get angry, defensive, blaming, and shaming. That’s unconscionable, and it happens OFTEN. I experienced this many times, and I’ve heard and read about this countless other times.

    When someone is hurting you and you tell them, and they give you a hard time about it, and add more insult to injury, that’s clearly oppressive and abusive. This kind of life experience is what leads people to seek mental health care to begin with, only to experience it all over again in the field, by those who are supposed to be remedying it. Mind-boggling paradox, and tragic.

    My hope is that we can, once and for all, begin to ascend past all of this by turning to other sources of healing, and forgetting about psychiatry. Regardless of the small handful of well-meaning psychiatrists, the field is tarnished by this plethora of negative testimonials. I’m one of them.

    Fortunately, I kicked 20 years of meds, and eventually healed all the damage it had done to me. Took a few years and lot of different and somewhat radical kinds of healing, but it all worked, thank God. Now, on the other side of this, looking back with new clarity, it is easy to see how meds were only pouring salt into wounds–wounds from which I was able to heal once I was OFF the meds, and clear from the confusion and malaise they had caused me for so long. In the meantime, they compromised my life for two decades, until I wised up.

    I was resentful for a time, but I no longer have ill-feelings on a personal level, I’ve done my work around this and have moved on in my life, far away from this. Dropping resentment and blame is good for my health. But cause and effect is easy to see, here, and I’m painfully aware that this field has become a vampire to society, and I’d like to see that kind of energy disempowered, one way or another, for the sake of living in a safe and trustworthy world. Diminishing the power of psychiatry would be a good start, in my opinion.

    I do apologize for being so blunt about this, I realize this is your field, and I really mean nothing personally. Still, I experienced a lot of blatant harm from a variety of psychiatrists over the years, that led to needless suffering. And so have tons of others. ‘Nuff said.

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  • Excellent point, the law does support current psychiatric trends, vehemently, which basically means that it allows these social ills to occur against those already being harmed by ‘mental health treatment.’ I don’t limit that to the issue of forced drugging, though. I feel it’s the same toxic culture, believing the same myths and illusions–along with operating in the same social/professional hierarchy–that created this mess to begin with, so it just goes on and on and on…

    And for the record, I’d much sooner trust and astrologer’s information, which I find can be reliable, over a psychiatric projection, which I’d never at all found to be in any way helpful, but more something to strengthen my boundaries and personal convictions around. Again, my personal experience, not everyone’s reality.

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  • I agree completely about the power of intention. I know from my own experience and observation of my own life that energy does, indeed, follow intention. The more we focus on something, the more real it becomes as a feeling, concept, and eventually, it manifests into physical reality. What’s interesting is that this applies to the negative as well as the positive. So really, we have a choice about where our focused intentions lead us, depending on where we focus our energy. There’s a whole new level of self-awareness that occurs here.

    As I healed from the mess my head and nerves had become due to overwhelming anxiety and rage-making frustration with myself and the mental health community, what I found most challenging in this process was to actually trust the process which ensued from my intention, filled with all sorts of twists and turns, naturally. Betrayal issues can be sticky, and they can create all sorts of fear and illusions as one is healing. I had to let go of control, here, and allow shifts to occur, however that was to happen.

    Learning to trust that the universe is really and truly loving and supportive–that, in essence, it has our backs–can be a tall order when on the heels of the profound betrayal that so many experience going through the diagnostic mental health culture–not to mention, thanks to the core family betrayal issues that are so often flagrant in society at large. For me, this was an life-changing healing process, in and of itself.

    I also found it was important for me to stand in my own truth, regardless of how others reacted to me. Those around me resisted my healing a great deal, as it challenged their self-perception. Navigating this consciously, with the highest and most loving intention, brought me strength and clarity.

    Nice post, thank you.

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  • There is no reforming a system which is based on the belief that some people know what’s best for others. This is inherently classist and divisive, and is also what leads to oppressive and debilitating abuse of power–largely through fear-mongering and intimidation, including subtle, implicit language. Personally, I believe these dynamics to be the #1 cause of profound and overwhelming mental and physical distress, such as what we discuss here.

    From what I’ve seen and experienced myself in that world, this is a snowball of utter confusion and malaise that has permeated the academically-oriented ‘mental health’ culture. At this point, I can only see it caving in on itself, which will force us all, as a society, to redirect entirely how we address these issues, and most importantly, how we experience them first-hand.

    Just my perspective, but it’s what I very strongly feel.

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  • Chaya, I, too always enjoy your beautifully written and thought-provoking articles. Your heart’s truth rings with such authenticity, and you walk your talk, from what I’ve witnessed here on MIA, as far as courage goes.

    I do agree that for far too long, the dominant and often oppressive patriarchy was enabled in our society, and as a result, we have a messed up world on our hands at present. I talk about this in my film, regarding my own personal story with my dad, about how he was ‘given permission to rule the roost with an iron fist,’ meaning that, as a male, he could be as abusive and oppressive as he wanted and get away with it. It was a ‘norm.’

    I grew up in the 1960s/70s, and the anti-authoritarian revolution had not yet reached our neck of the woods, although I was a big fan of Karl Marx, Jack Kerouac, Lenny Bruce, etc.—free-thinkers–so I fought my own battles at home, in my very conservative Texas suburban community. My dad was also a well-respected and highly competent physician, a leader and teacher in the medical community. He was also a very authentic humanitarian, having devoted his medical career to public hospitals and working with indigent populations. He grew up very poor and made good, believed in giving back and he did.

    But at home, he was a tyrant, he needed to get it out somewhere, I guess, and this was safe for him. When I rebelled against this, things would get much worse, as the toxic family system would go into full action. Each time I tried to stop my dad from coming after me, one way or another, everyone in the family would play their role, predictably, including me, as ‘challenger-turned-victim.’ As a result, I ended up in psychiatric care at age 21.

    I did heal through forgiveness 20 years later, which was incredibly hard and powerful work, it was not an overnight thing. I did all this personal heart and soul work before my dad passed away a few years ago, so we had good times together toward his life’s end. I’ve always spoken my truth to my family, which was a big challenge for us all. But that was my way of breaking the family system, and it led to incredible healing for us all.

    I repeated this dynamic over and over again, as an adult going through mental health care. I filed grievances, including with the Office of Civil Rights, with very clear evidence of discrimination. I also spoke with attorney mental health ‘advocate’ attorneys. I was locked out in every direction, starting with no interview from the OCR. They simply checked my Dept of Rehab file, whom I had named in my complaint as undermining my efforts at getting meaningful employment, and they drew the conclusion that, given I had a file at all in the first place, I was not telling the truth, despite emails I had collected with clearly discriminatory language and accusations.

    The attorneys pretty much shrugged me off. Upon telling one senior staff attorney about the abuse which I had experienced in the system, and continued to witness and hear about from others, he responded, “Vulnerable people have been abused all throughout history. What do you want _me_ to do about it?” When I addressed this troubling response with his supervisor, she responded to me, so snippily, “I’m sorry you’re not happy with our services,” and then gave me a 1-800 number for a directory of private attorneys. She knew I was on disability, but what am I supposed to do, sue lawyers?? I was livid, and could only tell her that they were being paid a lot of money to, in reality, advocate for no one, other than themselves.

    These examples really taught me about how an enabling system works, in practice. It’s so much more than just ‘the abuser.’ As far as gender goes, I’ve experienced a lot of control and oppression from both men and women, so I won’t discriminate here. I just think we all have a part in how these systems are created, and when we can figure out what our role has been, as individuals, we can make some positive internal shifts that can make a profound impact on others in the community. I do see a lot of this happening, thanks to truth-speakers like you.

    Thanks for a very rich and thoughtful post! Happy Thanksgiving, to you and all!

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  • “What is so fascinating to me about this is how two people can view the same things but interpret them in such different ways. Where Torrey has clarity, I contend there is much that we still do not understand. I worry that a perspective that suggests the answers are clear cuts us off from inquiry into alternate approaches.”

    While I’d prefer to not comment on personal disagreements between two people whom I don’t know, I think it’s very common for different people to witness the same phenomenon and to perceive it differently. That’s what Rashomon is all about. In fact, everyone in agreement would seem false and inauthentic to me, as we all stand at different vantage points. Isn’t that how we create a diverse collective reality? (Which, btw, is always in flux, given that change is constant).

    Often the interpretations are totally contradicting, which poses an interesting paradox. In the reality in which we’re currently operating, we tend to invalidate our polar opposite, often as being ‘psychotic’ or even just ‘crazy.’ Both clarity and confusion are temporary states of mind, and both can exist simultaneously within the same consciousness/energy field.

    But in a better (in my opinion) and more harmonious reality, we can ascend the paradox to reach truth, without invalidating our ‘opponent.’ All of it—light and shadow—work together as a whole, if we allow them to integrate. I believe that once we get a handle on this, the confusion about mental health and related issues will begin to dissipate naturally.

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  • It’s great to see all the support for medication withdrawal, and a desire to increase awareness and knowledge around this.

    As an energy healer, myself, I work with clients only under the premise that ANYTHING can heal. In the energy healing world, there is no such thing as a chronic illness. Although, in order to heal, we must, first and foremost, have the belief that we can heal from anything. It’s unfortunate and distressing that we can be scared out of this natural and innate power of self-healing by clinicians, and the illusions perpetuated by many who are in the medical business.

    When I tapered off of nine psych meds, after 20 years of one cocktail or another, my withdrawal was over the top painful, like I’ve seen described by others. I felt brain-damaged for a while, along with kidney, liver, and stomach damaged. Neither my body nor my mind functioned terribly well for a while, but still, I was feeling that healing was occurring.

    Eventually, after a couple of years of reparation through a variety of practices, all the brain zaps, the body pains, the fogginess and confusion, digestive issues, insomnia, rashes, etc., subsided. Now, 9 years after having taken my last dose, it’s as though none of this happened, other than the fact that I learned a great deal about the underbelly of society, and, of course, my own shadow. But I no longer have any residual from the meds or withdrawal.

    During this time, I did several things which helped support withdrawal. I started healing my gut from the mayhem caused by the meds. For a year, I was very strict with my diet of greens and probiotics, and at the end of that year, I had a digestive system filled with healthy restorative flora, boosting immunity, and most of my symptoms had disappeared. These days, I no longer follow any kind of prescribed diet, I just make sure I’m eating balanced, like any health-conscious person would do. It was merely a matter of conversion, until the internal shift took place. My system ‘cooled’ as a result. (Chinese medicine divides foods into ‘cooling’ or ‘warming.’ When our systems heat up too much, we experience imbalance).

    I also started a Qi Gong practice to build foundational energy. This is something I still practice, and even teach now, because I find it so grounding and enjoyable. Acupuncture and herbs (from a qualified herbalist whom I trusted) rounded out the healing support and regeneration of my cells. After a time, I didn’t need herbs, unless I wanted to take them for whatever health issue. But, unlike psych meds, herbs aren’t addictive. They train your body to heal naturally through vibration, so there’s no issue of dependence.

    Other than that, I kept my sights on what my goals had been before I became ill from the meds, and I returned to them. It was hard at first because I was changing so much, due to the detox, but with patience, all the internal malaise and negative introjections quieted down to the point of disappearing altogether.

    I feel the single most important factor in my healing, however, is what I firmly believed I could and would heal, even at the scoffing of the medical community. If we really and truly believe we can heal, then we will. If we believe in chronic illness and permanent damage, then we will, more than likely, experience this, until we change our beliefs about this. I firmly believe that the reality which we experience is contingent solely on what it is we believe. I believe that anyone can heal from absolutely anything, with focus, patience, trust, ownership, and due diligence.

    It was also vital for me to get away from negative influences, and skeptics. I gravitated toward those who were encouraging and supportive, which meant giving up a lot of relationships, and certainly, it meant dissociating altogether from the mental health industry. I found no support nor encouragement, in that world, that I could heal fully and naturally. It was a bit overwhelming to discover to what extent I was being influence (and drained) by the negativity of others, but that was a fantastic revelation. My belief in my own ability to heal won out, however, and now I understand the world a whole lot better than I did before. Lesson learned: stay away from toxic people and communities, as this is what most made me feel crazy. That, and those damn pills. When I cleaned up one, the other followed suit, so I saw firsthand how my internal experience directly influenced my external experience. I learned and grew more during this period than at any other time in my life. It was truly transformative.

    Best wishes with your exciting and groundbreaking work!

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  • Ah, got it, thanks for clarifying. I’ve not listened to Watts, although I know of his work, and yeah, it’s part of what I talk about. For me it started with Deepak Chopra back in the ’80’s–bringing to light for me the connection between our emotions and our physical state of being; then Carolyn Myss, who drew an even bigger and more subtle picture; and now I’m a big fan of Esther Hicks, whom I think does a wonderful job talking about our physical vs. non-physical selves, and our shift into vibrational reality over physical reality. She addresses what we call ‘mental illness’ in such a neutral and accessible way, as well as all the illusions of society. No such thing as ‘psychosis’ in these teachings. She really crossed me over into what I now understand about the nature of personal reality, and our creative processes.

    In any event, thanks for the dialogue. It’s been helpful and enlightening to me. I very much appreciate the hard work you are doing, as well.

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  • Following a screening of my film last year via the local dept of health, I did a workshop with about 40 clients from the system attending. Some were very grounded and focused, other were more challenged in this regard, but it was an all-inclusive discussion, very lively. It lasted 5 hours, while we applied all of this stuff. They got it, and were very intrigued by this different perspective, and wanted to learn more. In their evaluations, they said they wanted me to come back. That was being arranged, but then guess what happened? That process was stopped dead in its tracks by the ‘peer management.’ Suddenly, the grant had some stipulation in it that would only allow certain types of training from specific agencies. Uh-huh.

    I also have a client, with whom I’m working privately, who has just tapered from 18 years of psych meds. This work is supporting her transition beautifully. In previous years, I’ve supported a lot of people coming off medication. Med withdrawal takes tons of energy, and this helps rebuild. A few have sought my work and support specifically to avoid starting meds, which they’d been advised to take, but prefer not to go down that road.

    I also like to work with staff that has direct contact with clients.

    When we’re focused on peoples’ energy, there’s no difference in people we call ‘clients’ or ‘patients,’ and those who are not. None at all. The distinctions we make are illusory. As far as my work is concerned, everyone is addressed equally.

    Not sure what you’re referring to when you say, “Twenty years ago probably but now I’m a little older and hopefully understand things a little better.”

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  • It’s always helpful to me to explain this shift, so I appreciate your asking. It’s a constantly evolving perspective in the ‘light-worker’ energy healing community.

    Some of my teachers were Buddhists, I also studied with Kabbalists. The healing meditation I do is Chakra-based. In Anatomy of the Spirit (1996) Carolyn Myss describes the Chakras and our energy system as a synthesis of all spiritual paths. Law of Attraction is at the core of it all. LOA is not a spiritual path, but a guide to healing and manifesting, as per the vibrational laws of the universe. Like attracts like, always.

    “As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.” Mahatma Ghandi

    When we remake ourselves, allowing ourselves to shift with the natural flow of change, in the habit of releasing attachment to what has gone before, including yesterday, we actually create a new world for ourselves, reflecting our internal positive and grounding shifts—one by one. Allowing our perceptions to shift is what allows the world to change.

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  • Your example says it all. This happened to me many times, as I continued to truth-speak my way out of this mess. At every turn, no matter how reasonable and focused I was about individual empowerment as the way out of this needless suffering–offering my example of speaking publically, making a film, and creating a healing practice based on energy and natural healing—I’d be abruptly cut off and the focus redirected, just as you describe. Often, when I made statements of certainty around mental health and related issues, someone from staff would express the typical indoctrination missive—“well, no one really knows, it’s a confusing issue,” as if to purposely sabotage the pursuit of clarity. Conversations would never move forward because of this innate resistance. After all, it’s bad for business. But more than that, on an immediate level, I feel it really threatens staffers, et al, to go against the grain in any way. Egos flair easily in this world, projecting fear and defensiveness, in lieu of moving forward the cause of societal and individual well-being. Plus, the box is ‘safe,’ although I’d argue that this is one of the illusions. Safety is not found in one’s comfort zone (illusion); it’s found with one’s own innate individual sense of safety. That’s an internal mechanism, a belief, it’s not external. This clash with mixed messages and resistance went on for me for a few years, at every turn running into this smoke & mirrors duplicity.

    How I ended up navigating this chronic and frustrating dynamic was to apply all that I had learned from the healing communities that did help me, far and away from the mental health communities to which I had once turned, which wound up only leading to all this we’re talking about, pure resistance. This is where my own personal paradigm completely shifted, in every way. I had already been studying Law of Attraction, energy and vibration, and personal ownership, via a variety of healing and spiritual studies. I also knew that my experience with the system was an exact duplicate of my family dynamic and issues. (I come from a very academic family, invalidating of emotions, to the point of shaming, which is a sure fire way to throw a person way off their intuition and inner guidance, causing them utter internal chaos—which we, as a society, are calling ‘mental illness’).

    A big part of the spiritual work I do is to own whatever experience I have as a result of my own beliefs, which cause an internal vibration from which we create our reality. This is what I learned about, thoroughly. Where we focus our thoughts will determine what we create next. It’s a pure cause and effect relationship. So whenever I’d have these incidents occur, which was plenty of times, I’d go home and do my energy work. Hard to explain this in a post, as it is kind of a different language than what we’re used to, which is why I offer workshops and classes, to learn, apply and practice shifting our own energy. This is self-healing, which breaks the bonds of dependence on ANYTHING, other than our own trust in our process. With practice, one can really learn to master one’s life with great ease. Anyone has the capacity to learn and practice this, if they desire to. There is no discrimination in the energy world.

    There are a variety of techniques by which to do this self-healing work, depending on what is the most resonant process for each individual. The beauty of it is that it is how to heal in present time, using triggers (such as being sabotaged) as guides, and this inevitably heals related trauma and confusion from past time dynamics. This is the new healing I discovered. I’ve been invited to speak to a group of public health nurses in a couple of weeks, and I’m going to present this to them. They’re asking for assistance with burnout from overwhelm and frustration, which I find this work addresses with great ease and clarity.

    One challenge, here, is that everyone has to walk their own path, and get to this point for themselves. We can only do our own healing work, following our own paths, and not the paths of others, and shine as an example for others. So if you take these experiences as your own path of learning and guidance, then others will intuitively feel these shifts, and you will influence others. This is the rippling effect of healing, and of energy. It’s how I practice my work.

    If any of this speaks to you and you want to know more specifics, please feel free to contact me. My contact info is on my website, which pretty much tells the whole story of how I evolved out of the system, and out of my past time issues. http://www.embodycalm.com

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  • I so understand your frustration, Stephen. I’m no longer in that space, but I can still feel it from vivid memory. The lawsuit thing was a necessary part of my path out of there, for whatever reason, but I wouldn’t recommend it. The legal system is just as toxic as the mental health system, in much the same way. That required healing, in and of itself.

    For me–and this is what my work and presentations are about–it was ALL about finding that internal freedom, ‘THE healing journey,’ as many would call it, which is hard work in an oppressive environment. But it’s where we can break through the illusions and fear induced by all of this corruption, find our own voice and sense of self, and create what we need to move on from these heinous and debilitating paradoxes. Complex, creative, and forward moving.

    This was my path, at least. I found that pushing against such stuckness was really draining to me, after a while. In my environment, any appearance at progress and expansion would pop back into place like a rubber band quickly, the system was so tightly closed, and it would sting as such, in the process. All in all, I learned to create from a whole new perspective. That was the gift from the healing I did. I’m always happy to share anything with anyone that is interested.

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  • Having been a client in the system, then hired to staff at voc rehab, then wrongfully terminated because I called them on their acts of discrimination against people with disabilities, I learned ADA law. The most useful clause to me was “reasonable accommodation for reasonable request,” which is what I applied to win my legal mediation.

    I discovered that the system, throughout, is a legal house of cards, in chronic violation of ADA law. I was lucky, eventually, to find an attorney who worked with me, but I had to be persistent in my search for legal support. Most of the mental health advocate attorneys from whom I requested support were really advocates for the system and the established norms of stigma and discrimination, enabling it down the line, as their funding also comes from the same source.

    However, I found a publicly-funded employment attorney, outside the mental health and advocacy system, and because she was outside the mental health system, per se, she was not inherently biased against people with psychiatric histories. She met me eye to eye, respectfully, and did right by me. That was a novel, and very welcome, experience at that time.

    Another conclusion I drew, from my personal experience and observation, was that the system sucks peoples’ energy, like a nest of vampires. I find it psychically so messy, that it was impossible to bring in light. The management staff for which I worked *needed* clients to be in the dark, to feel their own power (and become drunk with it). It was a truly horrible and traumatic experience, and eye opening, as far as observing the underbelly of our society. I’d never seen such corporate and personal vampirism, all under the guise of being contracted to support those in need.

    I admire and respect your courage and determination to change the system from within. I tried and was sacrificed in my attempt. Now, I contract independently with different groups within the public health system, to help expand and shift awareness around energy and health, from a non-diagnostic perspective. I do a lot of my work pro bono, so money doesn’t become some dangling carrot issue. They’ll use *any* vulnerability to control, so I keep my boundaries very clear, which are now, finally, respected.

    Good to know there are brave and determined folks from within, kicking up the dust for change. Best wishes in your quest to make these positive shifts.

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  • I, too, have found this website to be invaluable. I’ve sent it to numerous psychotherapists and ‘advocates,’ to show them all the different realities that never would even occur to them to consider, so I’m grateful to everyone who shares their truth with such heart and courage. One cannot deny the plethora of experiences talked about on this site, all so unique, perhaps with the common theme of ‘please stop the lying and oppression!!’ At least, that’s my core desire for the system and psychiatry. Often, reading here has been a true eye-opener for these folks.

    I also share this site and specific articles with clients with whom I work. It is very freeing to see that others have experienced such insidious mal-treatment. Once validated like this, on such a large scale, they’re more easily able to work through their own specific traumas, without questioning their reality. Instead, they are able to own it, and move on.

    Before I found MIA, I had not been aware that there existed support for the idea that medication is a toxic big business, causing way more harm than good, which I felt was the case as I was transitioning from having been medicated long term to living life healthy, whole, and medication-free, about 9 years ago. My choices were resisted by my mental health community because they literally thought I was crazy for believing such things. They thought my belief in my healing was actually delusional, as in ‘grandiose.’ How can anyone heal with *that* perspective hovering everywhere?! Maddening. Had I continued to listen to them…well, I shudder to think. I knew what was right for me, based on how I felt, but I still very anxiously questioned my sanity, to the point of daily distress, because I felt alone in my quest for healing by tapering off meds after so long.

    I know MIA helps a lot of people feel not alone, and from my perspective, that would be its greatest value. In that sense, I’d call it ‘sanity-making.’ Also inspires confidence and certainty. Thank you.

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  • When I attempted to end my life because of all the condemning messages I received about myself from my ‘support’—specifically because my psychiatrist pounded into my head that I had ‘lost my dreams,’ because all he could perceive was how confusing my mental chaos was to him–everyone assumed it was because I was no longer taking medication. Whereas, in reality, it was because no one believed I could heal, the way I believed I could heal. I was taking herbs, and it was speculated that it was due to the herbs that I was led to try and kill myself. Then, a doctor suggested angrily and accusatorily that I was manipulative, and a saboteur.

    What I most noticed at the time was that no one bothered to ask *me* what was going on with me on the night of my self-harm. When I did try to articulate it, everything that came out of my mouth was somehow turned against me, or simply dismissed as trivial, or even psychotic.

    When I came back to life, I turned to healing communities where they understand how we create our realities, and who know how to shift energy for the purpose of healing core issues and energy imbalances.

    It seems impossible to move forward with these issues in the mental health community, because it is filled with ‘yeah, but…’ More than anything, what I’ve seen and experienced most from the mental health community is that peoples’ realities are flat out denied, attacked, and turned into diseases. When I first began to talk about having healed fully, at the core, then it became the favorite past-time of the cynical mental health community to look for evidence that I was wrong about myself. They did not succeed, and it they were not happy about it, in fact, rather defensive. It felt very strange to experience this, almost surreal. Certainly, it was confirmation that it was time to leave that toxic world, altogether.

    The good news, I discovered as I went along, was that my reality is what it is, for me to live the way I choose. What a concept. Having been part of the mental health world for so long, one way or another, I had somehow come to believe that others knew what was best for me. Looking back, I see how I was influenced to have this negative self-belief–brainwashing, programming, whatever you want to call it, all of it traumatic, one way or another.

    When I can own and validate my own reality, and be impervious to negative projections that so many love to cast, including mental health clinicians, then I feel safe and grounded in the world. “Mental illness,’ as we know it today, is simply one big stigma, given that client’s reality is readily dismissed, in favor of a projected reality based on ‘observation,’ which I’ve never seen to be positive, uplifting and affirming, but instead, quite the opposite. I can see how being flooded with this while in a vulnerable and fragmented state could cause a person to want to kill themselves. This is what happened to me, at least. It’s excruciating to live this way, being condemned by those that who call themselves ‘support.’ Leads to hopelessness. That is real, neither medication-induced, nor withdrawal-induced. It’s culturally induced. My personal belief is that shifting our focus, here, would be most valuable.

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  • This is such a powerful example of how we, as a society—starting from within families—use drugs, labels and all sorts of insidiously divisive and discriminating tactics as a substitute not only for self-responsibility on the part of adults, but also, even more directly and critically, as a sub for love, caring, respect, and acceptance. That’s about as toxic as I can imagine. How wonderful that FJ was willing to share his experience and perspective, at your prompting.

    Great truth-speaking, I hope this story, and other heartfelt testimonials like this, helps to wake people up. Brava again, Chaya!

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  • I so appreciate and respect everyone’s courage and determination to heal. Personally, I don’t believe any damage is permanent. Our bodies have the wisdom to heal in every way, if we allow them to and believe in our own innate ability to heal.

    I did successfully withdraw completely from 20 years of multiple psych meds of various classes. By the time I had reached a 9-med cocktail that a pill-pushing psychiatrist put me on in my most desperate hour, I was experiencing only heinous side effects which kept my neighborhood hospital ER quite busy one summer.

    Finally, one of the ER docs advised strongly that I ditch the meds, which felt so relieving to hear. It also felt like ‘the truth’ to me. I went to see a medical intuitive who could read my energy, and gave me the prescription that did work for me, but not without great shifts and transitions on my part. That was hard work, took a lot of focus, incredible patience (which I couldn’t always practice easily, but I learned the value and stability of it, eventually), an open mind, and an open heart. Being open in my heart was a tough lesson in and of itself, due to all the betrayal issues from many sources (e.g., family, the system), but it was vital for healing to occur.

    I began a daily discipline of meditation specifically to practice being grounded. That was not easy with such a chaotic mind as I had at that time, so I found a good meditation school to practice with others. The overload of meds had completely shocked me out of my body for a long time. The withdrawal was so painful, the last thing I wanted to do was to be in my body, but I knew that it was the direction in which to go, so that I could, once and for all, allow the pain and malaise from 1) past issues/trauma and 2) medication toxicity, to begin to move. A lot of energy from multiple traumas had been stuck underneath all that medication, haunting me in ways I was not detecting.

    Once I cleared my body of medication, I had emotional pain to face and I faced it head on while doing Chinese Medicine (acupuncture, herbal remedies, Qi Gong) to help soothe and regenerate my cells, building up my energy which had been so drained. Chinese Medicine is based on our body’s ability to naturally regenerate. It merely removes blocks and brings organs into balance, so our bodies’ natural processes can occur with ease.

    I also did a variety of energy healing, based on Carolyn Myss’ groundbreaking book, Anatomy of the Spirit, where she teaches about Chakras and energy and how this relates to health and balance on every level—physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. This goes way beyond our very limited and intellectual/academic western medicine model (not to mention, highly experimental, at the expense of patients), and what I found to be consistently trustworthy, reliable, and effective. The disciplines which moved me forward and allowed me to heal were the ones I chose to learn and practice and integrate as a teacher and healer. This keeps me on my path of personal evolution, daily.

    The most challenging part of healing has been saying good-bye to the world that made me sick. It was, after all, my world from time I was born. I thought it was all there was, the way society was set up to be. It was in my 40’s (I’m 52 now) when I finally woke up to the fact that we’ve been brainwashed as a society in so many ways, and I learned how to bust through all of the illusions, thanks to a lot of spiritual work, all of which boiled down to Law of Attraction. That was the big ‘aha!’ and where I really turned a corner. I’ve since learned this thoroughly, and how to apply it to practical everyday life. In essence, it’s how I created an entirely new existence for myself, one that reflects the real me, and not some construct of society’s expectations. That’s where I feel we can really go down the rabbit hole, trying to meet someone else’s expectations.

    It’s my responsibility to stay well and healthy, and it’s hard to stay well in a world out of balance. In healing myself, however, and paying close attention to the choices I made thereafter, I discovered that transforming my inner world is what leads to transforming my outer world. If I want peace and harmony in the world, I must first experience peace and harmony within myself. A tall order, indeed, but I believe this is how we create, from the inside out–one of the many valuable things which my dark night journey taught me.

    It’s been over 8 years since I took my last 1/8 mg of clonazepam, and I’ve since moved from the toxic environment in which I had been living. My whole life and community have changed for the better, in every way. But there’s no way that this would have occurred had I not allowed myself to shift what I believed about myself and my life experience. That’s a tough haul, but a rich and exciting journey, nonetheless. Not easy, at first, but totally transformative. Then, it becomes much, much easier. At least, that’s been my experience.

    It’s humbling to have succeeded in this endeavor, and I’m so aware of the struggles of others. I hope my information can provide some hope and light. It’s the only reason I have now to share my story.

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