(I suspect you meant S159 not S195 of the WAMHA (AUS))
The real culprit is the ability of Police to put the medical practitioner under pressure by referring a person for a medical examination under S26:
S26. Referral for examination at authorised hospital or other place
(1) A medical practitioner or authorised mental health practitioner may refer a person under subsection (2) or (3)(a) for an examination conducted by a psychiatrist if, having regard to the criteria specified in section 25, the practitioner reasonably suspects that —
(a) the person is in need of an involuntary treatment order;
So! THIS is the point where the “person” should be able to say “I assert my international human right to refuse this medical treatment.”, and it should be respected by allowing the person to be treated as if they did not have a medical condition for which they wanted treatment, or that they wanted to enter as legal pleadings of innocence by reason of insanity.
To just round up people who the Police think have a mental illness and commence involuntary treatment in total denial of the international human right to refuse it, is a blatant violation of that human right.
The criteria (in S25 below) is what a wholesale abuse of the right to refuse medical treatment looks like, and the only thing missing from it that would make it right is this:
(4) The person has not asserted their right to refuse the medical treatment.
…noting that this would necessarily negate (1)(c) below….
MENTAL HEALTH ACT 2014 – SECT 25
25 . Criteria for involuntary treatment order
(1) A person is in need of an inpatient treatment order only if all of these criteria are satisfied —
(a) that the person has a mental illness for which the person is in need of treatment;
(b) that, because of the mental illness, there is —
(i) a significant risk to the health or safety of the person or to the safety of another person; or
(ii) a significant risk of serious harm to the person or to another person;
(c) that the person does not demonstrate the capacity required by section 18 to make a treatment decision about the provision of the treatment to himself or herself;
(d) that treatment in the community cannot reasonably be provided to the person;
(e) that the person cannot be adequately provided with treatment in a way that would involve less restriction on the person’s freedom of choice and movement than making an inpatient treatment order.
(2) A person is in need of a community treatment order only if all of these criteria are satisfied —
(a) that the person has a mental illness for which the person is in need of treatment;
(b) that, because of the mental illness, there is —
(i) a significant risk to the health or safety of the person or to the safety of another person; or
(ii) a significant risk of serious harm to the person or to another person; or
(iii) a significant risk of the person suffering serious physical or mental deterioration;
(c) that the person does not demonstrate the capacity required by section 18 to make a treatment decision about the provision of the treatment to himself or herself;
(d) that treatment in the community can reasonably be provided to the person;
(e) that the person cannot be adequately provided with treatment in a way that would involve less restriction on the person’s freedom of choice and movement than making a community treatment order.
(3) A decision whether or not a person is in need of an inpatient treatment order or a community treatment order must be made having regard to the guidelines published under section 547(1)(a) for that purpose.
Note for this Division:
Part 21 Division 3 confers jurisdiction on the Mental Health Tribunal to conduct reviews relating to involuntary patients.
The use of “you” and “your” for both singular and plural forms in English is a unfortunate ambiguity. This is not the case on other languages – German in particular makes the plural of “you/your” completely clear, and it is not necessary to have to explain (in German) that by “your” I meant the collective singular, not the second person singular. My first sentence would have been better put as follows:
“It is everyone’s international human right to refuse medical treatment of any kind. This incudes psychiatric treatment, of any kind.”
The reply was intended for whoever wanted to read it – everyone – including yourself, so in that sense it was directed at your comment, not you, but my use of “your” does not impart this, so offense is able to be taken, albeit not intended. That is a risk I’m willing to accept when I am not accusing the “you” I am referring to, and investing too much energy into perfecting my prose would be unnecessary.
I hope that answers your first question.
By ‘…mansplaining well after the fact…’ I assume you refer to the sexist anti-male term of “the explanation of something by a man, typically to a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing.”
My answer to the first question also applies here. It was in reply to your comment to everyone, not just you. I was directing my reply to whoever wanted to read it. As for “after the fact”, the comment was made in the same fact of my first reply. That is not “after the fact”, but during the fact. Therefore, there is no “mansplaining” on my part, anymore than you have tried to “mansplain” something to me.
I note also that you are guessing my sex as I purposefully do not publish it. I dont feel any particular need to respond to your projection of sexual belittlement onto me, but will state that your are also incorrect in the sense that you have no idea what sex I am.
That said, misandronist accusations have no place here any more than misogynist ones. You ought to withdraw your misandronist accusation of “mansplaining” solely on the basis of sexist language toward other contributors having no place on this site other than to complain about it.
Removed for moderation.
No need to be very careful at all, A.M.. The First Amendment addresses those fears:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
So its your right to speak your truth and name your names. No harm in that either, particularly on a site called “Mad in AMERICA”. I say, more of it.
Life is not a sheltered workshop.
Thank you for this contribution, and your lived experience in becoming ‘sectioned’ is a familiar pattern all over the western world.
Any diagnosis of a mental illness is a massive insult to the mental health of a person who does not in fact have a mental illness. It is the most violent and extreme form of psychological abuse, and you as a student of psychology should appreciate this. So should psychiatrists, yet they mostly do not. Mental illness should be a diagnosis of last resort.
An important point also, is one you no doubt want to avoid placing too much emphasis on, but which is in fact absolutely relevant to the greater problem in involuntary psychiatry. It does seem that you already knew that Ketamine is a strong anaesthetic and most used in veterinary pain relief for large animals like horses. It is not a psychiatric drug, nor an analgesic. I recently took just 1 oral Ketamine for excruciating (10/10) kidney stone pain with positive effect. The pain vanished after 30 minutes and by the time I got to surgery a 4 days later the stone had already passed, which I attribute to the relaxing effect of the Ketamine.
The UK medical practitioner who promoted the strong anesthetic Ketamine as able to help you with something that has nothing to do with pain or surgery should be made the subject of a complaint with a view to having that person stuck off. You need to get some free legal advice on how to file a formal complaint to the correct regulating authority, and have that person prosecuted. Even if nothing comes of it, a complaint should still be made.
That said, I completely symapthise with your inexcusable subsequent experience, but the Ketamine factor was something under your control to refuse at any time, and you didn’t. The UN international human right to refuse ANY medical treatment is, today, your only protection against psychiatric (iatrogenic) abuse, and that right is not respected in Western psychiatric medicine. THIS is the problem we need all need to work together on to overcome.
I am going to politely assert in your DEFENCE that you were already a prescription drug abuser of Ketamine by your own volition, albeit enabled by an unscrupulous/unethical medial practitioner. You were sectioned because of this drug abuse, not any psychiatric illness, and which is an all too common entry point for reckless abuse of involuntary psychiatric orders.
Regardless of who is to blame for your prescription drug abuse, it does not alter one iota the abusive treatment you received IN ORDER TO MAKE YOU, and AFTER YOU BECAME, an involuntary patient. This in itself retraumatized you, a fact that sadistic (usually male) nurses in the locked wards happily play up to confirm the factitious (real) mental illness you just acquired from being sectioned that justifies their forcing the involuntary medication upon you.
I hope the above can help you in some way to separate out the different traumas you have experienced and their different causes in your encounter with involuntary psychiatric abuse.
Please be assured that you are not alone, and I too have been unlawfully treated involuntarily for a mental illness I did not have – for 10 years – because I was a already a traumatized victim of a separate criminal act (against me) of psychological abuse. This is another classic scenario. Victims of crime ending up in unlawful involuntary psychiatric treatment as a way of concealing the original crime. And it can cascade into third and forth or ongoing criminal acts to prevent the prior crimes from being discovered. That is my story.
Because two crimes make a right. Right?
Or so they think – the Judas priests who do this.
IMPORTANT NOTE to the above – successfully refusing a psychiatric drug treatment that has already been commenced will almost always require you to slowly reduce the amount taken. If you are successful in your request be aware that suddenly stopping these drugs can have dangerous withdrawal side effects, including rebound psychosis. Ensure that respecting your right to stop treatment respects the need to safely withdraw from the drug, and that you are not being subjected to a secondary abuse of these drugs in suddenly discontinuing them. A worst offender in this respect is Effexor, which can take 18 months to withdraw from. Research internet user group forums on withdrawing from your particular drug.
It is your international human right to refuse medical treatment of any kind. This incudes psychiatric treatment, of any kind. The (mostly Western) countries that do not respect this UN Human Right also mostly have “epidemics” of psychiatric illness.
This does not stop you from asserting your right to refuse, quite the contrary. Although you had better be well prepared for the consequences by getting your timing and approach sorted out first.
The strategy I recommend is a three stage mantra stated clearly, matter-of-factly, and with endless repetition, any way you can get it out (you’ll already having the worst day in your life so don’t worry about your delivery of the message, focus on coherently getting it out):
1. when treatment is threatened:
“I refuse this medical treatment under my international human right to refuse it” (pursuant to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD));
2. when treatment is being prescribed or administered: “I have already refused this medical treatment, and procuring me for treatment without consent is a violation of my international human right to refuse it”;
3. after treatment is started: “this treatment is a violation of my international human right to refuse it. I will hold you, and you will be held, accountable for the crime* of procuring a person for psychiatric treatment who does not have a psychiatric illness”.
*Note that it is not necessarily a crime in your country, but that hardly matters, it bloody well ought to be, and in any case you have the legal protection of already being legally incompetent – you can say whatever you need to say to threaten them with legal consequences. This may be your only shot at protesting the flagrant violation of your right to refuse. So protest like your life depended on it, because, your life does depend on it.
Now just remember, if you are in a vulnerable position, this could result in a tragic outcome for you, including drug overdoses resulting in permanent severe disability or death. Choose your battles carefully, but if an opportunity arises to complain, then the above is the complaint you need to make. Nothing else will have any effect on these people, and its unlikely this will either. But if we all do this then things will change.
Lilu, your question is a common response to many issues surfaced on the Internet regarding medical issues that are not well understood by the medical profession.
The answer is that we are the experts in our own health.
While professionals can provide assistance, you ultimately must decide whether that assistance is an improvement or not, based on all the relevant known facts. This is nothing more than assessing costs against the benefits. For people who make it to MIA like me, that decision was made easy by doctors who made us suffer unlawfully by failing to respect our international human right to refuse their “medical” treatment.
The importance of MIA as a means by which interested professionals can inform themselves at any time of the actual current state of the psychiatric profession cannot be overstated. This web site is the best resource that exists anywhere on earth for professionals who wish to know.
All you, I, or anyone else needs to do is refer those professionals to this site, and to condemn as medical charlatans, hypocrites, and sadists, those who prefer to remain ignorant of MIA because they benefit from perpetuating the suffering of others.
I wish to add that just as Australia now requires professionals to vetted by police before they can be licensed to work with children, so too must psychiatric professionals be vetted for criminality, drug abuse, or psychopathy, that puts the people entrusted into their care in danger of their lives
Yes, B. We need to push for labelling on these drugs to state:
“WARNING: This drug has dangerous and potentially fatal side effects.”
Just a short & sweet message to let people know what they’re getting involved with.
Society’s “interests” at the moment are based on groundless media hysteria that erroneously suggests mad is bad. Its hardly in anyone’s interests to make a situation worse than if you did nothing. 15 years ago, just when I thought the message had got through to the community my local media started publishing again the highly offensive lie that the mentally ill were more violent that the general population. This kind of disability discrimination needs to be “violently “rejected, particularly when the drug companies have most them chemically restrained. “What? Are you saying the drugs don’t work then?” would be my first response. But I decided to rethink my tactics over this, and it seems to me that such ignorance will never go away unless we go out and educate as part of our lifelong campaign for our own individual human rights. Forget about fighting for principles, fight for your dignity and right to a life worth living. Never surrender in that battle, and you will do more for “the mentally ill” in the process of standing up for yourself than you could ever do fighting on behalf of us collectively, even though the latter is also our ultimate goal.
Thanks even more for posting Bradford! I’m realising this is a big area that has been terribly missed. If side effects of the drugs can last 30+ years then there are way way way more people withdrawing from the drugs than taking them. Probably about 10 to 1. This is such an important conversation that anyone who has a story to tell should tell it. Probably the best place is my Topic “Panic Attacks” in the Community Forum. I have already linked the topic to this article.
Your answer convinces me that you’ve objectively identified the real cause of my panic attacks for me. It’s the drugs. No question. Even after 30+ years I’m still recovering. Just read the first paragraph of my first post. The sense of complete terror is the compelling parallel. Your entire article describes exactly my experience but from a much more informed understanding. Immensely grateful. Immensely.
(I suspect you meant S159 not S195 of the WAMHA (AUS))
The real culprit is the ability of Police to put the medical practitioner under pressure by referring a person for a medical examination under S26:
S26. Referral for examination at authorised hospital or other place
(1) A medical practitioner or authorised mental health practitioner may refer a person under subsection (2) or (3)(a) for an examination conducted by a psychiatrist if, having regard to the criteria specified in section 25, the practitioner reasonably suspects that —
(a) the person is in need of an involuntary treatment order;
So! THIS is the point where the “person” should be able to say “I assert my international human right to refuse this medical treatment.”, and it should be respected by allowing the person to be treated as if they did not have a medical condition for which they wanted treatment, or that they wanted to enter as legal pleadings of innocence by reason of insanity.
To just round up people who the Police think have a mental illness and commence involuntary treatment in total denial of the international human right to refuse it, is a blatant violation of that human right.
The criteria (in S25 below) is what a wholesale abuse of the right to refuse medical treatment looks like, and the only thing missing from it that would make it right is this:
(4) The person has not asserted their right to refuse the medical treatment.
…noting that this would necessarily negate (1)(c) below….
MENTAL HEALTH ACT 2014 – SECT 25
25 . Criteria for involuntary treatment order
(1) A person is in need of an inpatient treatment order only if all of these criteria are satisfied —
(a) that the person has a mental illness for which the person is in need of treatment;
(b) that, because of the mental illness, there is —
(i) a significant risk to the health or safety of the person or to the safety of another person; or
(ii) a significant risk of serious harm to the person or to another person;
(c) that the person does not demonstrate the capacity required by section 18 to make a treatment decision about the provision of the treatment to himself or herself;
(d) that treatment in the community cannot reasonably be provided to the person;
(e) that the person cannot be adequately provided with treatment in a way that would involve less restriction on the person’s freedom of choice and movement than making an inpatient treatment order.
(2) A person is in need of a community treatment order only if all of these criteria are satisfied —
(a) that the person has a mental illness for which the person is in need of treatment;
(b) that, because of the mental illness, there is —
(i) a significant risk to the health or safety of the person or to the safety of another person; or
(ii) a significant risk of serious harm to the person or to another person; or
(iii) a significant risk of the person suffering serious physical or mental deterioration;
(c) that the person does not demonstrate the capacity required by section 18 to make a treatment decision about the provision of the treatment to himself or herself;
(d) that treatment in the community can reasonably be provided to the person;
(e) that the person cannot be adequately provided with treatment in a way that would involve less restriction on the person’s freedom of choice and movement than making a community treatment order.
(3) A decision whether or not a person is in need of an inpatient treatment order or a community treatment order must be made having regard to the guidelines published under section 547(1)(a) for that purpose.
Note for this Division:
Part 21 Division 3 confers jurisdiction on the Mental Health Tribunal to conduct reviews relating to involuntary patients.
The use of “you” and “your” for both singular and plural forms in English is a unfortunate ambiguity. This is not the case on other languages – German in particular makes the plural of “you/your” completely clear, and it is not necessary to have to explain (in German) that by “your” I meant the collective singular, not the second person singular. My first sentence would have been better put as follows:
“It is everyone’s international human right to refuse medical treatment of any kind. This incudes psychiatric treatment, of any kind.”
The reply was intended for whoever wanted to read it – everyone – including yourself, so in that sense it was directed at your comment, not you, but my use of “your” does not impart this, so offense is able to be taken, albeit not intended. That is a risk I’m willing to accept when I am not accusing the “you” I am referring to, and investing too much energy into perfecting my prose would be unnecessary.
I hope that answers your first question.
By ‘…mansplaining well after the fact…’ I assume you refer to the sexist anti-male term of “the explanation of something by a man, typically to a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing.”
My answer to the first question also applies here. It was in reply to your comment to everyone, not just you. I was directing my reply to whoever wanted to read it. As for “after the fact”, the comment was made in the same fact of my first reply. That is not “after the fact”, but during the fact. Therefore, there is no “mansplaining” on my part, anymore than you have tried to “mansplain” something to me.
I note also that you are guessing my sex as I purposefully do not publish it. I dont feel any particular need to respond to your projection of sexual belittlement onto me, but will state that your are also incorrect in the sense that you have no idea what sex I am.
That said, misandronist accusations have no place here any more than misogynist ones. You ought to withdraw your misandronist accusation of “mansplaining” solely on the basis of sexist language toward other contributors having no place on this site other than to complain about it.
Removed for moderation.
No need to be very careful at all, A.M.. The First Amendment addresses those fears:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
So its your right to speak your truth and name your names. No harm in that either, particularly on a site called “Mad in AMERICA”. I say, more of it.
Life is not a sheltered workshop.
Thank you for this contribution, and your lived experience in becoming ‘sectioned’ is a familiar pattern all over the western world.
Any diagnosis of a mental illness is a massive insult to the mental health of a person who does not in fact have a mental illness. It is the most violent and extreme form of psychological abuse, and you as a student of psychology should appreciate this. So should psychiatrists, yet they mostly do not. Mental illness should be a diagnosis of last resort.
An important point also, is one you no doubt want to avoid placing too much emphasis on, but which is in fact absolutely relevant to the greater problem in involuntary psychiatry. It does seem that you already knew that Ketamine is a strong anaesthetic and most used in veterinary pain relief for large animals like horses. It is not a psychiatric drug, nor an analgesic. I recently took just 1 oral Ketamine for excruciating (10/10) kidney stone pain with positive effect. The pain vanished after 30 minutes and by the time I got to surgery a 4 days later the stone had already passed, which I attribute to the relaxing effect of the Ketamine.
The UK medical practitioner who promoted the strong anesthetic Ketamine as able to help you with something that has nothing to do with pain or surgery should be made the subject of a complaint with a view to having that person stuck off. You need to get some free legal advice on how to file a formal complaint to the correct regulating authority, and have that person prosecuted. Even if nothing comes of it, a complaint should still be made.
That said, I completely symapthise with your inexcusable subsequent experience, but the Ketamine factor was something under your control to refuse at any time, and you didn’t. The UN international human right to refuse ANY medical treatment is, today, your only protection against psychiatric (iatrogenic) abuse, and that right is not respected in Western psychiatric medicine. THIS is the problem we need all need to work together on to overcome.
I am going to politely assert in your DEFENCE that you were already a prescription drug abuser of Ketamine by your own volition, albeit enabled by an unscrupulous/unethical medial practitioner. You were sectioned because of this drug abuse, not any psychiatric illness, and which is an all too common entry point for reckless abuse of involuntary psychiatric orders.
Regardless of who is to blame for your prescription drug abuse, it does not alter one iota the abusive treatment you received IN ORDER TO MAKE YOU, and AFTER YOU BECAME, an involuntary patient. This in itself retraumatized you, a fact that sadistic (usually male) nurses in the locked wards happily play up to confirm the factitious (real) mental illness you just acquired from being sectioned that justifies their forcing the involuntary medication upon you.
I hope the above can help you in some way to separate out the different traumas you have experienced and their different causes in your encounter with involuntary psychiatric abuse.
Please be assured that you are not alone, and I too have been unlawfully treated involuntarily for a mental illness I did not have – for 10 years – because I was a already a traumatized victim of a separate criminal act (against me) of psychological abuse. This is another classic scenario. Victims of crime ending up in unlawful involuntary psychiatric treatment as a way of concealing the original crime. And it can cascade into third and forth or ongoing criminal acts to prevent the prior crimes from being discovered. That is my story.
Because two crimes make a right. Right?
Or so they think – the Judas priests who do this.
IMPORTANT NOTE to the above – successfully refusing a psychiatric drug treatment that has already been commenced will almost always require you to slowly reduce the amount taken. If you are successful in your request be aware that suddenly stopping these drugs can have dangerous withdrawal side effects, including rebound psychosis. Ensure that respecting your right to stop treatment respects the need to safely withdraw from the drug, and that you are not being subjected to a secondary abuse of these drugs in suddenly discontinuing them. A worst offender in this respect is Effexor, which can take 18 months to withdraw from. Research internet user group forums on withdrawing from your particular drug.
It is your international human right to refuse medical treatment of any kind. This incudes psychiatric treatment, of any kind. The (mostly Western) countries that do not respect this UN Human Right also mostly have “epidemics” of psychiatric illness.
This does not stop you from asserting your right to refuse, quite the contrary. Although you had better be well prepared for the consequences by getting your timing and approach sorted out first.
The strategy I recommend is a three stage mantra stated clearly, matter-of-factly, and with endless repetition, any way you can get it out (you’ll already having the worst day in your life so don’t worry about your delivery of the message, focus on coherently getting it out):
1. when treatment is threatened:
“I refuse this medical treatment under my international human right to refuse it” (pursuant to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD));
2. when treatment is being prescribed or administered: “I have already refused this medical treatment, and procuring me for treatment without consent is a violation of my international human right to refuse it”;
3. after treatment is started: “this treatment is a violation of my international human right to refuse it. I will hold you, and you will be held, accountable for the crime* of procuring a person for psychiatric treatment who does not have a psychiatric illness”.
*Note that it is not necessarily a crime in your country, but that hardly matters, it bloody well ought to be, and in any case you have the legal protection of already being legally incompetent – you can say whatever you need to say to threaten them with legal consequences. This may be your only shot at protesting the flagrant violation of your right to refuse. So protest like your life depended on it, because, your life does depend on it.
Now just remember, if you are in a vulnerable position, this could result in a tragic outcome for you, including drug overdoses resulting in permanent severe disability or death. Choose your battles carefully, but if an opportunity arises to complain, then the above is the complaint you need to make. Nothing else will have any effect on these people, and its unlikely this will either. But if we all do this then things will change.
Lilu, your question is a common response to many issues surfaced on the Internet regarding medical issues that are not well understood by the medical profession.
The answer is that we are the experts in our own health.
While professionals can provide assistance, you ultimately must decide whether that assistance is an improvement or not, based on all the relevant known facts. This is nothing more than assessing costs against the benefits. For people who make it to MIA like me, that decision was made easy by doctors who made us suffer unlawfully by failing to respect our international human right to refuse their “medical” treatment.
The importance of MIA as a means by which interested professionals can inform themselves at any time of the actual current state of the psychiatric profession cannot be overstated. This web site is the best resource that exists anywhere on earth for professionals who wish to know.
All you, I, or anyone else needs to do is refer those professionals to this site, and to condemn as medical charlatans, hypocrites, and sadists, those who prefer to remain ignorant of MIA because they benefit from perpetuating the suffering of others.
I wish to add that just as Australia now requires professionals to vetted by police before they can be licensed to work with children, so too must psychiatric professionals be vetted for criminality, drug abuse, or psychopathy, that puts the people entrusted into their care in danger of their lives
Yes, B. We need to push for labelling on these drugs to state:
“WARNING: This drug has dangerous and potentially fatal side effects.”
Just a short & sweet message to let people know what they’re getting involved with.
Society’s “interests” at the moment are based on groundless media hysteria that erroneously suggests mad is bad. Its hardly in anyone’s interests to make a situation worse than if you did nothing. 15 years ago, just when I thought the message had got through to the community my local media started publishing again the highly offensive lie that the mentally ill were more violent that the general population. This kind of disability discrimination needs to be “violently “rejected, particularly when the drug companies have most them chemically restrained. “What? Are you saying the drugs don’t work then?” would be my first response. But I decided to rethink my tactics over this, and it seems to me that such ignorance will never go away unless we go out and educate as part of our lifelong campaign for our own individual human rights. Forget about fighting for principles, fight for your dignity and right to a life worth living. Never surrender in that battle, and you will do more for “the mentally ill” in the process of standing up for yourself than you could ever do fighting on behalf of us collectively, even though the latter is also our ultimate goal.
Thanks even more for posting Bradford! I’m realising this is a big area that has been terribly missed. If side effects of the drugs can last 30+ years then there are way way way more people withdrawing from the drugs than taking them. Probably about 10 to 1. This is such an important conversation that anyone who has a story to tell should tell it. Probably the best place is my Topic “Panic Attacks” in the Community Forum. I have already linked the topic to this article.
Your answer convinces me that you’ve objectively identified the real cause of my panic attacks for me. It’s the drugs. No question. Even after 30+ years I’m still recovering. Just read the first paragraph of my first post. The sense of complete terror is the compelling parallel. Your entire article describes exactly my experience but from a much more informed understanding. Immensely grateful. Immensely.
Hi Monica,
You must have read my post on Panic Attacks –> http://www.madinamerica.com/forums/topic/panic-attacks/
Am I correct, or did you make these observations – esp about the “terror” – independently of me? It would help me a lot to know.
Many Thanks,
SandGroper