Comments by Mary Maddock

Showing 81 of 81 comments.

  • Thank you for your excellent response! It is no wonder that women are always more in danger of being abused. We have been over the centuries. Now we have more ways to speak out. Together we can stand up for ourselves and support each other. It is no wonder that psychiatry can control us very easily when the public is also controlled as easily by the established media. Congrats to all the women who have been abused by psychiatry and are still standing! I remember all those who were lost to psychiatry especially my good friend Helena who passed away about 15 years ago. A short time before she died she said ” I am lost to psychiatry” on Irish TV.

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  • Congratulations Antonia for sharing your important story! So many women who have hospital births can be misunderstood. I was one also. I was on several psychotropic drugs for many decades without informed consent. I do not call these drugs medication because mostly they do more harm than good. We should expect medicine to do much more good than harm. In 2000 I was fortunate to become drug-free. I too was told I needed them for the rest of my life when the drugs in fact were doing me very serious harm. It can be difficult to get free from these drugs as there is so little help available globally to do so. But for me, the last 21 years have been brilliant because I got a chance to be the real ME! I wish you all the best on the rest of your life’s journey! http://www.mindfreedomireland.com

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  • ”The only way to determine whether the benefits are outweighing the costs is to ask the individual experiencing them, and to keep asking over time. A quantitative meta-analysis cannot give us the answer.”
    If you asked me this question while I was taking a neuroleptic I would not be able to answer it correctly because of the damaging cognitive effects of the neuroleptic. Also it is very clear to me now 17 years free from all prescription, synthetic drugs that when I was given neuroleptics for the first time short term that they actually caused some of the symptoms that I feared the most such as Akathisia and being completely unaware of many actions I was performing. I have read about them in my notes and it is hard to believe that it was actually me they were talking about. Sometimes also actions like falling on the ground, due to low blood pressure caused by their drugs, was viewed as if I was looking for attention!!
    On reflection of my whole life history and I am now approaching 70! I never displayed any unusual symptoms only when I was on psychiatric drugs!
    This is a subject you rarely hear discussed by doctors. It is a fact that the drugs can cause people to behave in anti social ways. Neuroleptics can cause terrible adverse effects even in short term.

    Show 8 footnotes

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  • First of all so called ‘anti psychotics’ should be called neuroleptics because the purpose of these drugs is to diminish what we can do uniquely as human beings namely to create, understand, love, reflect, and live consciously. We are blessed to be able to take our important place as part of the creative energy which continues to move the universe. Neuroleptics are capable of interrupting this universal energy when they are given to struggling people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
    People who are labelled by psychiatry are given these drugs without informed consent and they are known to cause a chemical lobotomy. Many are forced to receive them for their own ‘good’. They do cause both ( typical and atypical) many torturous motor disturbances such as Tardive dyskinesia, Dystonia, Akatisia and Parkinsons. However because of their spell binding effects many people who experience these effects might not be even aware! I was one of them. Just like physical lobotomies these drugs can be a form of torture, assault and battery.
    It is a measure of our lack of mutual support and solidarity that some of us feel we have to resort to prescribing or consuming these synthetic, man made poisons. Let us encourage each other to feel the grace we all possess within us so we are able to overcome the trials we will find on our individual life journeys.

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  • So true Oldhead!
    One of the reasons that many people become victims of the medical model in the first place is because we have to much ‘ professionalism ‘! You could say I am a music ‘professional’ but true musicians hear and feel music. Many of our best musicians never had a music lesson!

    We who have survived psychiatry know it does much more harm than good. Many other well meaning ‘mental health!!!’ ‘professionals are the same.

    It is time to speak simply and leave the labels behind. They are clearly doing no good and increasing the discrimination which is rampant already! There is no divide only the one which is created to have us believe that some of us are sound and others are not.
    However the so called remedies (drugs, electroshock etc) are definitely causing serious harm even in some cases death.
    If you are a true professional you will want to support the voice of survivors and let them lead the way. Let us accept ourselves with all our shades of humanity. Let us love ourselves the way we are….. HUMAN.
    http://www.mindfreedomireland.com

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  • “The biomedical model of mental illness, which your programme showcased, makes it all too easy to believe that humans belong to two sub-species: the mentally well and the mentally ill”
    Yes!
    We have no evidence that what is referred to as ‘mental illness’ actually exists so should we be talking about being ‘mentally ill’ or ‘mentally well’ in the first place?
    Does discrimination not thrive on this illusion? Many people are oppressed and controlled each day because of this illusion. Many people forcefully lobotomized because the grand illusion becomes stronger each day that passes.
    I believe Stephen Fry is well meaning just like I was when I was misdiagnosed,drugged and seriously misinformed. I think he is doing much more harm than good because he has such a high profile and the public are likely to believe him.
    Drugs might have their place but it looks like most people who prescribe them do not understand them well enough to do less harm than good! Good nutrition on the other hand supports our bodies, minds and spirits. Thanks for writing the letter Richard!
    http://www.mindfreedomireland.com

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  • Thanks so much Bradford! Yes even though everyone who invariably is caught up in the psychiatric trap suffers so much because of its deception, oppression and aggression we can consider ourselves the fortunate people who actually got out of its grip. It is so horrible to think that so many others remain victims for life or have very short existence.

    We can only hope that the tide is turning and like very many other very oppressive regimes this snake in our midst will be irrigated also!

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  • You warm my heart with your powerful words! Yes those who view people as clinical bodies are well capable of considering our hopes as ‘delusions of grandeur’ but what a pity they have so much power to put other people down so easily. What a pity they have such troubled minds that drugs and electroshock are their answers while they fail to encourage and support others. While they label other people as lacking capacity when they are very incapable themselves. But we are giving ourselves hope. We are confident that we can act, in spite of everything, to be the change we want to see in the world.

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  • Sorry you like many others have had such a hard time but great to hear you have found your way through the mess that psychiatry has in its toolbox for too many people. It is hard to witness so many lovely people having to encounter the tyranny of ‘goodwill’ which the ‘mental health’ system practices daily as it doles out drugs and electroshock as ‘solutions to human problems.
    Thankfully more people like us are coming out of the darkness and are reclaiming ourselves in spite of all the misinformation and oppression which is so prevalent today. Our movement for radical change is becoming stronger. Money can talk and deceive but love cannot be bought and it does make the world go around!

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  • Thank you so much! Some think the dream is happening and others think we have a long way to go! Unfortunately the drugs are so powerful and unpredictable that many who take them are easily convinced and believe those who profit from them. However others are waking up and some of the public are waking up with them.

    Just as when people believed that some people were chosen by God and others were not then those who were not chosen were cast out and some burnt at the stake in the past. But it took centuries for people to see how ridiculous this was. Now we have the’ healthy’ and the’ unhealthy’, the ‘mentally well’ and the ‘mentally unwell’! It will take many more centuries but at least we can see it now and we are helping others to become aware too!

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  • I got large doses of nitous oxide during labour and had an adverse reaction to it. http://jnls.cup.org/pdftext.do;jsessionid=60F715DD51C8F3AFBE8CE4D948207F6B?componentId=9397975&jid=CJN&freeFlag=Y
    They then proceeded to give me Sparine, a neurleptic, during the labour 2 times after which they noticed I was allergic to it. The labour was 17 and a half hours long. Then after the birth, which I do not remember at all, I was drugged again and 3 days later I received electroshock followed by 12 more shocks over a period of time. I was given numerous drugs often in injection form. All this time I was separated from my baby and when I eventually left the ‘hospital’ on 5 different neuroleptics I was so restless from akathisia that I just wanted to be on the go all the time. Then I went to another’ hospital’ where I was taken of the 5 neuroleptics cold turkey and after two more months I returned to my family. I was discharged on one neuroleptic and I still was suffering from akathisia. I was drug free about a year later.
    But because I still did not know how deceptive bio psychiatry was then and of course even more so now I became a victim again and was in the hands of a psychiatrist for a long time. In 1993 I realized that one of the drugs he was poisoning me with was causing my worst problems because he had to take me off it! Then the penny dropped and I eventually got free in 2000! Thankfully I am free ever since! The drugs with their effects and after effects were definitely my problem.

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  • Yes Someone Else mothers are often in a very vulnerable position of being misunderstood. Often labour can be very long and they cannot get enough sleep. Then so many drugs are used today also to take away pain etc. We live in a society which expects to get rid of pain at all costs. Thanks so much for your support and so glad that you too are aware of what happened to you also. I consider myself fortunate to have found out even if it took such a long time!

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  • Thank you so much! I feel so much in common with you! I wish I could give you a big hug. It is terrible how much misunderstanding is rampant. Yes it is difficult to feel there will ever be any real change but I do know that I would never have risen out of the terrible smog toxic drugs if I did not find out the truth about deceptive, coercive, oppressive psychiatry and its companions. I know there are many others like me now and that some people will never be labelled because of the work done by people who continue to speak out bravely. I know it is a drop in the ocean now but hopefully that drop will get bigger and bigger is we do not get disillusioned!

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  • Thank you! Having my records around the time I was in labour and afterwards it is now clear that I was responding to the drugs I was given then, They perceived me to be ‘psychotic’ because of their adverse effects and just proceeded to give me more and more of the same!

    Many people I know who have been treated by psychiatrists and GPS end up being much more effected by their medical intervention than the trauma we all endure as life’s citizens

    Yes good nutrition is very beneficial for everyone and to be able to provide our basic needs is of course essential for everyone – to be able to have self respect – and not dependent on other people’s ‘charity’! Many people clearly find it very difficult but to be labelled as ‘mentally ill’ puts so many obstacles in the way of those of us who are unfortunate enough to be scapegoated! Yes I am still dreaming!!! But I will not give up trying to make my dream come true!!

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  • Sandra I was training to be a catholic nun for 7 years between 1965 and 1972. The catholic church even made an effort to reform and change then. As I continued I was very hopeful that indeed it would be reformed but sadly it too is much more interested in power than spirituality Many of us voted with our feet then and left the convent and some like me left the church also. It was very difficult but I am very glad that I did today.

    I am now a survivor of psychiatry of almost 16 years. Psychiatry is a much more powerful ‘church’ today. It is very difficult for you to be a psychiatrist as you are clearly a sincere woman. I would suggest respectfully to you that you would be such a powerful voice for change if you were to see that psychiatry and its DSM/medical interventions/coercion is much more the problem than any kind of a solution. There has been a mass exodus from the catholic church in Ireland. Hopefully you might lead a mass exodus from psychiatry so we all can get on with living our lives in peace.

    “When the power of love overcomes the love of power then we will have PEACE.\” ( especially peace of mind.)

    “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” C.S. Lewis

    .

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  • Sandra I was training to be a catholic nun for 7 years between 1965 and 1972. The catholic church even made an effort to reform and change then. As I continued I was very hopeful that indeed it would be reformed but sadly it too is much more interested in power than spirituality Many of us voted with our feet then and left the convent and some like me left the church also. It was very difficult but I am very glad that I did today.

    I am now a survivor of psychiatry of almost 16 years. Psychiatry is a much more powerful ‘church’ today. It is very difficult for you to be a psychiatrist as you are clearly a sincere woman. I would suggest respectfully to you that you would be such a powerful voice for change if you were to see that psychiatry and its DSM/medical interventions/coercion is much more the problem than any kind of a solution. There has been a mass exodus from the catholic church in Ireland. Hopefully you might lead a mass exodus from psychiatry so we all can get on with living our lives in peace.
    “When the power of love overcomes the love of power then we will have PEACE.\” ( especially peace of mind.)
    “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” C.S. Lewis

    .

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  • Thank you Stephen for sharing your courageous story! Your love for your daughter Meili shines in your every word and deed. As one who endured the terrible disabling, torturous effects of these drugs you have saved your daughter from a similar fate.
    You will inspire more people to love and respect their love ones as they are and not as they might desire them to be.

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  • Thanks so much Patrice!

    Ever since our paths crossed you value and inspire me. You are not afraid to speak from your heart and you have such a good sense of humour too!! You help me to appreciate the funny side of life and I loved the hours we have spent together when we found a way to meet up. It is good that the north and south of Ireland are not too far apart today!

    We are the change we want to see in the world and while people like you are part of the revolution we hope will take place then it will happen! Better still it is happening!!

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  • Thanks so much Mark!

    Unfortunately the law is not on our side. While psychiatric labels are viewed as’ scientific medical diagnoses’, when they clearly are not, it is very difficult to find legal rights. While all the systems that hold clout in society are on the same side it is even more difficult but there are many people who are working for change now so hopefully we will find a way to end psychiatric slavery just as other oppressed people did in the past. If we want it then we will find it!

    In the meantime even in the midst of oppression we can ‘Dare To Live’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Lu2mB54b7I&feature=share

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  • Thank you ebl!
    I hope soon people will wake up to the oppressive force lurking in our midst as our salvation and that one day these dark days will pass sooner than we think into history so that when people are in distress it will be accepted as part of humanity and there will always be someone there to lend a helping hand – someone who knows they are human and experiences distress also!

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  • Thank you Bradford! “In my own life, and many close friends – some who died far too soon – the LIE of psychiatry has done far more harm than good.” Like you I have seen so much damage done by the BIG LIE also.

    Your point about heroin is unfortunately so true. When I was a young woman while I was living in Dublin many young people were addicted to illegal drugs. I had the good sense then not to get hooked but little did I know that I would be a victim of much more lethal drugs prescribed by doctors!!

    I think if we can educate the public to realized that all mind altering drugs can be addictive and very dangerous then at least they will be informed. However, while forceful help is so much part of our society, even when people know the truth we are all in danger of being spellbound.

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  • Thanks so much for your encouraging replies! You continue to warm my heart and feed my soul! Thanks also to all those who shared and liked this article on Facebook. Thanks to Mad in America for giving me the opportunity to share my voice with many people – to become stronger and more courageous. We are the change we want to see in the world while love makes the world go around!

    “When to power of love overcomes the love of power then we will have peace.”

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  • Thanks Aine! When we fellow survivors of psychiatric oppression love and support each other we are all stronger. Unfortunately there are many like my friend Helena King RIP that do not survive. Then we will be nearer the day when we too will no longer be treated as sub human and we will achieve our right to be and act as human beings. While any section of society are deprived of their human rights we are all deprived of our humanity! Thanks so much to everyone who is bringing this glorious day about sometime! Hope we do not have to wait too long but it will arrive! We Can and We Will!

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  • Yes that was what we did realize when I was taken off Surmontil cold turkey after some time. I also realized years afterwards that all the most horrific physical, emotional and mental experiences I endured were in fact drug induced. Both when I was on them and coming off them. I am also aware that other prescription drugs I consumed changed my personality too. The first time I took panadol I experienced hallucinations but fortunately I did not tell anyone at the time!
    Thanks for sharing your own valuable information because indeed the drug can be your problem!!

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  • Thanks Fred! I have been reading most of your insightful replies to other articles and I feel so much in common with you . I think we are about the same age and are both electroshock and long term psychotropic drug survivors also. I loved this quotation: “Ask not what coercive psychiatry can do for you ?” “Ask what you can do to at least abolish coercive psychiatry” We have a difficult task ahead in debunking psychiatric power but with people like you on board WE CAN and WE WILL!

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  • In a few short decades, the biomedical model as a treatment model has yielded a population of death, suffering, and trauma on a level known by no other medical entity in history. However, as our collective history has shown, human resilience is powerful. ”

    You show this in your every word and deed Patrice! I met you first of all through CVNI and thankfully I have gotten to know you well since! If I continued to express how much I appreciate connecting with you years ago I would run out of paper!!!

    You are warm and loving and you spread it around for those who want to receive it.

    Thank you for the solid solidarity and support you have given to MindFreedom Ireland https://mindfreedomireland.com but above all thanks for being YOU!
    Shine on Patrice!

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  • Thank you Tina for your solidarity and support! You inspired me so much right from the beginning when I met you in Denmark in 2004! It was great to get to know you better over the years since and to have you visit us in Cork some years ago. You are an outstanding woman and all psychiatric survivors are so fortunate you are a tireless campaigner for human rights!

    We can and we will find our lawful right to be human! and then the business of madness will be put out of business!!

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  • Thank you Fiachra! Everyday I am alive I am so thankful that I managed to escape psychiatric oppression, find myself and learn to live as I was created to BE! One of the reasons I continue to share my story every creative way I can is because I so wish it for everyone too!

    It will always remain very difficult while the truth is hidden or distorted and people labeled by non scientific ‘diagnoses’ continue to be deprived of their basic human right to be human! Hopefully we are getting nearer and nearer the day we will no longer be deprived of our humanity!
    “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” C.S.Lewis and the one which is the most difficult to expose!
    Our cause is really a cause to create an awakening to the injustice of the tyranny of good
    will!!
    “The salvation of the world lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” Martin L.King

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  • Thanks so much for all your encouragement and support Leonie! Thanks for all the important, consistent, selfless work you continue to do both in Ireland and internationally to help people to be informed about the truth about prescription drugs! I hope you will get more of a platform to continue your campaign because the more we unite the more the public will know the truth!

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  • Thanks so much Ted! It was meeting people like you through MindFreedom Internatiomal which inspired me so much to speak out and I continue to do it today more than 15 years later because we will find our basic human right to be human if we do not give up! The seed is sown and the plant will flourish! It is only a matter of time! Psychiatry Out Humanity In

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  • Joanna I congratulate you on the work you do. It is not easy for a psychiatrist to see the harm they can do but I like Seth think that neuroleptics are particularly dangerous psychotropic drugs. I consumed many of them without informed consent and did not know at the time that the akathisia and many other terrible adverse effects I experienced were from these neuroleptics. I think if anyone who prescribed these drugs experienced akathisia, even for a few hours, they would refrain from using any drug which could have this effect. Unfortunately many of the people who are still prescribe these drugs do not know the adverse effects people endure because of their spellbinding effects. I think that doctors only use them because they do not know what else to do. I like Dr Lars Martennson RIP think that neuroeptics should not be prescribed for people when they can cause so much harm and suffering for many.

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  • MindFreedom Ireland are delighted that Laura will be with us in Cork for the launch of our first documentary! We are so looking forward to meeting you Laura!
    http://www.mindfreedomireland.com

    “WOO HOO!!! the Launch of my ” MindFreedom Ireland” Documentary in The Bishopstown Bar on June 22nd is going to be a very exciting event!!
    This is the second Mental Health Documentary I’ve produced!!!
    I want to thank to Ian Downing and Sarah Faye for their fantastic camera work and also beautiful work on the first edit.
    I’m currently greatly expanding the film in length with extensive overall editing adding additional footage, photos, interviews from RTE, original music, slideshows etc I’ve been at it a few weeks solid but will be finished this week at last!! ” Jerry Omullane
    Also I’m honoured to have american writer and activist Laura Delano launch the film!!! “EXCITED!!!http://www.madinamerica.com/2014/01/announcing-mad-americas-international-film-festival/

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  • http://www.casper.org.nz/
    My thoughts on suicide
    I have lived for 66 years. The only time I was suicidal was when I was on maintenance electroshock in ‘hospital’ while also being experimented on with various neuroleptics and other psychiatric drugs. At the same time I was separated from my first born baby while breastfeeding three days later. We continued to be separated for 4 months. At the same time I had a loving family and with the man I still love today with all my heart. I had a baby I wanted to be with all my heart and soul also. It is very clear to me today that psychiatric harm can cause suicide. Many other people have taken their lives because of psychiatric ‘ diagnoses’ and the so called ‘treatment’ it doles out. Let there be more ‘See Change’ about this cause of suicide!

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  • Thanks so much for your encouraging comments. I hope someday we will be free from medical harm which poses as ‘treatment’. I hope with excellent blogs, websites and other alternative media fora we will eventually convince the public that causing brain damage cannot be helpful. It is amazing that most people still think that it could be a solution for human distress.

    It is so difficult for those who are severely damaged by electroshock and drug spellbinding to realize that they are indeed brain damaged by psychiatry but those who work in the so called ‘mental health’ system should be aware today because of all the information they can find now. There is no excuse for ignorance. There is no excuse to continue brain damaging people in the name of ‘help’. If I could put the pieces together after severe brain damage for two decades surely so called ‘mental health’ providers who have not been brain damaged should know they are harming innocent victims now!
    It is outrageous that they still forcefully brain damage people they feign to ‘help’.

    Here is a little piece I wrote about our electroshock protest which took place in Cork, Ireland yesterday. There was another protest in Montreal, Canada the same day.

    https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=755592271151535&set=a.755592507818178.1073741830.100001023071469&type=1&theater

    Many of the people who took part in our protest this year travelled some distance to be with us, some very long distances! It shows the commitment they have to our peaceful revolution. Many of them as you can see from this photo were women! They care for all the women worldwide who are in danger of receiving electroshock without informed consent. In Ireland even a 92 year old woman received electroshock. The weather was cold, windy and wet but that did not stop people who want a better way for everyone. When some people are treated unjustly then we all suffer the consequences! One of the best results for all who took part was that we bonded together as a community with a common purpose!

    Long live our peaceful revolution!

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  • I was at one of the talks which Patricia Casey gave in Cork sponsored by Lunbeck. She said last night on the TV3 programme that she gave these talks. When she spoke then she clearly BELIEVED that psychotropic drugs were much more important than psychotherapy. Most psychiatrists still think there is a pill for every ill. They are trained to be bio – psychiatrists. They spend very little time with the people they’ diagnose’. They call people ‘mentally ill’ and they have no biological test to establish people they ‘diagnose’ are in fact ‘ill’! Bio – psychiatry thrives on FEAR, FORCE AND FRAUD!
    Congrats Maria!

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  • Thanks Maria!
    I, Mary Maddock, who has survived psychiatric abuse strongly support the right of those who did not survive to cease being hounded and abused by psychiatry as they lie in their graves.

    “Psychiatry is the one field of ‘medicine’ that has spawned a huge international survivors movement peopled by those who have suffered psychiatric abuse. The practice of conducting psychological autopsies is in my view another form of psychiatric abuse. Those of us whose children have died as a result of an acknowledged adverse reaction to psychiatric drugs are standing up for our rights – and theirs – not to be stigmatized with psychiatric labels following their deaths. We believe that psychological autopsies are unscientific and unethical. We know they are disrespectful and cause pain to families.

    We demand that psychiatrists like Professor Casey cease and desist from this practice forthwith and we ask that the psychiatric survivors movement support the right of those who did not survive to cease being hounded and abused by psychiatry as they lie in their graves.”

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  • We are so proud of Leonie Fennell in Ireland. All of us who have been victims of harmful prescription drugs and those who know they can indeed do more harm than good feel she is a light in the darkness. We hope that our light will get brighter so more people will join us until we do know the truth about prescription drugs and that other helpful alternatives will be the norm rather than the exception. Then people will want the help they receive and will not be forcefully drugged or electroshocked.
    This report was published in 2007 two years before Shane’s terribly tragic death. It is clear from this that people in authority knew that psychotropic drugs can cause suicide and that conflict of interests abound in Ireland and other countries.

    http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/committees29thdail/committeereports2007/side-effects.pdf
    SUBMISSIONS TO THE SUB-COMMITTEE
    .
    Psychiatric Medicines
    4.1 As noted in paragraph 1.2 there were a total of 17 written submissions and eleven oral presentations by individuals or groups. A substantial number of these were submissions comprising reports of ADRs resulting from psychiatric medications
    prescribed for the witnesses themselves, their close relations or their patients. These submissions made a number of points about these drugs including that:
    • their use in therapy represents unwarranted medical intervention in what are often emotional difficulties within the normal range;
    • though intended for moderate to severe conditions and for relatively short periods, some medicines are prescribed for mild conditions and for extended
    periods;
    • the drugs are often prescribed on the basis of very limited observation of the patient;
    • they generate side effects which are misdiagnosed as causal,leading to further medication;
    • the side effects include, behavioural disorders, physical illness, dependence,
    suicidal ideation and even SUICIDE;
    • the drugs in question carry inadequate warnings about these side effects;
    • even where the risks of these side effects are well known they seem not be fully appreciated or are ignored by prescribers;
    • even setting aside the risk of side effects, some of the drugs are of doubtful….
    Thank you for writing this excellent article Maria!

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  • Congratulations Olga! Thanks for being so aware and writing so well. I did not know until now that your were a psychiatric nurse also. What a life experience you have had! I hope we meet someday. Maybe you were at the WNUSP/ENUSP conference in Denmark many years ago. It was just before then that I got a copy of ‘Mad in America’! It is brilliant that Robert Whitaker has touched so many hearts. It is no wonder that psychiatry is afraid of him and the lies he exposes. Thanks so much for all you do! http://www.mindfreedomireland.com

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  • “Mainly what I do is try to change the world in his name. I try to create a world in which he would have been able to live rather than die. To that end, I started a charity that supports families bereaved by suicide and challenges thinking in medical and policy circles on how we treat distressed people and prevent suicide.”

    As a mother and grandmother myself I admire the work you do to inform and support others Maria. You are indeed part of the change we want to see in the world! You are an inspiration to all mothers! Thanks so much!

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  • Psychiatry as it always has been practiced by the overwhelming majority of people thinks it knows what is best for everyone it thinks needs its help whether they like it or not. It is the tyranny of good will. It thinks it has the right to force its way on everyone for their own good. It is not scientific. It intimidates its costumers. It mostly does not believe or listen to what anyone says and then it forces them to do what it thinks is right. The fact that some psychiatrists believe in informed consent and may help people does not change the fact that the vast majority do not.(Probably 99% versus 1%!) Psychiatry causes much more harm than good. Therefore it should be abolished. Any professional practice that believes to violate someone, chemically engineer them and leave them without most of what makes them truly human should be scrapped. I am non psychiatry.
    Imagine no psychiatry Its easy if you try!!!

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  • Congrats Steindor! You are an inspiration to all of us especially all those who have been hurt by psychiatric drugs and deceived by their prescribers. It is so good to hear how you educated yourself and overcame this most horrific onslaught on your person-hood.
    It took me decades to find out how psychiatric drugs almost killed me and hurt my family so much indirectly.
    I hope many more people will write their life stories also because the public need to know the truth about our prescription drugs.
    THANKS SO MUCH! http://www.mindfreedomireland.com

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  • I have never met you Michael but your love shines through your words and your photo. Your responses are so encouraging and supportive.
    It is so good to be part of our peaceful revolution. We love variety. We want to be true. We want to experience life with its ups and downs. We want to determine our own lives – to make our mistakes and learn from them.
    Thanks to all the people who have shared their special insights in response to your outstanding article.

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  • If psychiatry is moving in the right direction why is it continuing to label more and more people including children? Has labeling some people not given more power to those who label to view themselves as perfect? Discrimination feeds on ‘them and us’. Psychiatric dogma is only a belief that is gaining momentum daily while it more harm than good in it’s wake.
    We who have survived psychiatric abuse know there are effective ways to help people in distress without describing a person as a diagnoses. We even know that when we realise this well on the way to knowing who we really are! Then we have no need for diagnostic psychiatry. No More Psychiatric labels!

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  • “I don’t think I was ever closer to killing myself than back then, and that was because I was getting the medications, rather than the other way around.”
    The psychotropic drugs caused horrendous problems for me also Polly. Thankfully, almost 14 years drug free years have helped me to live an amazing life to the full now. It is so good to be ME finally! I am so glad that you have found out the truth about coercive psychiatry much sooner than me. I wish you every success with your book and hope that many other people will follow suit. I was at a family event this weekend and was talking to a former psychiatric nurse who felt that the system was causing untold harm. He said that the people he found the most difficult were the people he was working with not those who were unlucky to find themselves defined as ‘psychiatric patients’!

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  • Thanks so much for you compassionate heart Michael and highlighting so well the very opposite forced treatment!
    You prompted to share this song I wrote in response:
    We are not, We are not, We are not your slaves anymore.

    Find another job, find another job, find another job to earn you bob.

    We will find our liberty,
    We will not live in misery,
    We are not, we are not, we are not your slaves anymore.

    No more ‘ECT’ ,
    no more ‘ECT’,
    no more ‘ECT’ anymore.

    No more brain damage,
    no more brain damage,
    no more brain damage anymore.

    We will find our liberty,
    We will not live in misery.
    Cause we are not, we are not, we are not your slaves anymore.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USs3sYB9_6A&list=PL522606C97D363822

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  • Thanks so much! It is great to be free to express myself again after long years of psychiatric torture in the name of ‘help’. It is brilliant to be able to think and feel again – to have joined the human race
    .
    Your earlier words touch my heart and inspired me to comment. Thank you for writing such powerful words like these- “When the disgusting and morally indefensible activity of forced drugging is in play, when biological rapists, professional government chemical tranquilizer deploying social control squads masquerading as physicians, have ‘reached in’ by force and stuck their filthy gloved hands of mind rape into the never-proven-diseased neurons of the target, whatever distress the person wanted to express, has been made impossible to communicate, thanks to the horrific, World War 2 level human rights lines being crossed in the forced drugging scenario, the most invasive thing nation states do to citizens bodies short of the death penalty. All done to non-criminals no less.” You speak for so many people who cannot express it so well! THANK YOU! I hope the day will come that you will not feel you have to be anonymous. The best of Irish luck to you!

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  • Is’t psychiatric practice which most doctors reinforce the problem? Most people who are given neuroleptics, often against their will, end up on them for a long time if not for all of their shortened lives. They do cause terrible adverse effects. The most horrific is the loss of self, the loss of the inner spirit, the loss of the most precious aspect of being human.
    Do psychiatrists and doctors think that anyone wants to be less than human? Do psychiatrists and doctors think it is better to be lobotomized than to experience severe distress? Do they have no heart themselves? Do they not realize that they are also dehumanized by their unfeeling actions? Why are they so afraid? Why do they deny reality and destroy beautiful people? Psychiatry has been a dismal failure. It has got plenty of time to improve and help people but it acts for the most part in a violent, unfeeling way and has raped countless lives. It is time we had a peaceful revolution of freedom, human rights, equality, truth and compassion which psychiatric practice is totally ignorant. Therefore psychiatric practice with its forced neuroleptics,other psychotropic drugs and electroshock should be scrapped! Let us have peace not torture!

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  • I have practiced Mindfulness daily for a decade. It is common sense that if you keep your mind on what you are doing that you will feel much better. You will concentrate better. You will remember better. You will solve problems better. You will create new ideas and things better etc. etc. You will be much more content and enjoy life as it is. We don’t need any research to find out what our senses enjoy but we live in a world which unfortunately needs to have evidence for the obvious! Or worse still creates false evidence for what people in power want others to believe!

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  • Thanks Ted! When I was in San Francisco many years ago I heard you speak for the first time. I cried then in solidarity with you. I have shed buckets of tears for my own loss of self to psychiatry and for all those who have been hurt it. You are outstanding in your commitment to our common cause over the decades. You have helped so many people to break the silence of oppression and continue to do so. Hopefully many more will speak out fearlessly until the firm, toxic, overbearing, fraudulent chains of psychiatry will be no more. WE SHALL OVERCOME!

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  • “If a therapist or friend or family member is the only one to hear your story, they may feel a heaviness, a sense of responsibility to help you or solve your problems. If a wider audience hears or reads it, the heaviness virtually vanishes. Each person holds a listening ear and that’s it. There’s no burden or weight or sense of responsibility in most cases. The community holds each member together; many hands make light work.”
    When I realized I received so much psychiatric abuse I felt like letting the public know it happened so much, Chaya. This in turn helped me to feel good again. It is why I wrote ‘Soul Survivor – A Personal Encounter with Psychiatry’ with my husband Jim and one of the first songs I composed was ‘I am one who was abused’ It is why I became an activist, joined organizations like MindFreedom International, other organizations and co-founded MindFreedom Ireland ten years ago. It is so good to break the silence of oppression as you then you can find true peace of mind, body and spirit. When we hold each other the universe is in harmony.
    Thank you so much for writing this powerful, enlightening article.
    http://www.mindfreedomireland.com

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  • Thank you so much Robert! I like so many others have been a victim of terrible prescription damage prescribed by many doctors over a long period of my life. I was forced to take many different neuroleptics very soon after childbirth. I continued to be brain washed to take Largactil for 15 long, tedious years while I experience horrific adverse effects no human being should have to endure. I am 13 years free from these drugs. I am also free from their dehumanizing effects. Before I encountered these drugs I never experienced the terror I later experienced on them. As Dr Lars Martensson wrote in 1985 ‘neuroleptic drugs should be banned’! They do not allow human beings to be the people they were created to be.
    Thanks also to all the people who are adding their voices daily to Mad in America, other websites and blogs to let the truth be known about our prescription drugs. Let our combined voices grow stronger and louder!

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  • “Benzodiazepines are highly addictive drugs which cause severe damage. The real Benzo Hysteria is the denial of the medical establishment.” Amen Nancy! Also the denial of the medical establishment to the fact that most psychotropic drugs are addictive, have serious adverse effects and all cause brain damage. Thanks for writing this excellent article. Congrats for surviving the holocaust of Pharmagedon!

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  • Thanks so much Olga!
    Psychiatrists and doctors are brainwashed themselves by the indoctrination they receive. It is difficult for them to have open minds, hearts and spirits. It is also very difficult for the people they can sincerely try to ‘help’ to realize they are so damaged by the ‘ treatments’ psychiatry has to offer. Yes, people should have choice in a free world. Where is the choice for people who have been severely damaged of lost their lives to psychiatry? Lets face it psychiatry has very little to offer people in real distress. Many people have to be content to sacrifice their humanity to exist in this world and they have no choice. Many of us are the lucky ones who managed to survive and thrive against all the odds. It is difficult to work outside the system but in the long run we need to go slowly and make sure we don’t join forces with the ‘tyranny of good will’ many of us know as coercive, deceptive, fear driven psychiatry.
    Thankfully all the people who have received tunnel vision training are not brainwashed and are doing their best to expose psychiatry as we have come to know and dislike it. We who know how it works, how it is so power driven, cannot join forces with our oppressor.
    “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the MOST OPPRESSIVE.” C.S.Lewis
    Your soul sister,
    Mary.
    http://www.mindfreedomireland.com

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  • Congratulations Faith! We can be the change we want to see in the world! We can be very effective as a united group. We can sew seeds of encouragement and hope even though many of us were abused by psychiatry. We can let the world know that we have all the goodness and special gifts that all citizens of the world have in common. I like you always wanted to turn the world upside down and I still do at 65!!
    Thanks for being YOU!
    In solidarity,
    Mary.

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  • What powerful words from a lovely woman, Dorothy. When I met you for the first time at a MindFreedom International conference some years ago I immediately bonded with you and felt I knew you all my life maybe because of our shared terrible experiences. However we both survived and while we will never forget the onslaught on our personalities, the quenching of our spirits we have found ourselves again. We will not be silenced. We will continue to let the world know that the same destructive force is still at work today. I like you believe that we are beginning to be heard. We are becoming stronger daily. We will not be moved until the world knows that the wolf is indeed in sheep’s clothing and that everyone is in risk of having similar experiences today.
    Thanks so much for being YOU!
    Love and blessings,
    Your soul sister,
    Mary.

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  • Congratulations Loretta! I know too well what is like to endure the perils of coercive biopsychiatry. You have survived this battering so well. You are an inspiration to others. You have shown that with determination and courage we can indeed survive and thrive. We do belong to the human race. We are not a diagnoses or a disorder and we will never be. Thanks so much for sharing your story!

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  • Congrats to Jacqui Dillon and the Hearing Voices Movement! You show so clearly that we are human beings with human feelings. We cannot be categorized or put into boxes. We cannot be fixed.

    Now that many of us have survived oppression in the name of ‘help’ we refuse to be labeled and are helping and encouraging each other. Psychiatry cannot help while it refuses to recognise us a human beings, while it diagnoses ‘diseases’ that do not exist. We are helping each other to overcome the trauma of psychiatric maltreatment.
    I still remember the first time I heard you speak in Manchester. I was so delighted to hear your powerful, heartfelt words that I stood up to give you a standing ovation! Many others took to their feet also. You are an outstanding woman and I am proud to add my voice to yours to be part of the change we want to see in the world!
    MindFreedom Ireland also celebrate our 10th anniversary with you this year. Happy Anniversary!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA9YyytURwY

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  • ” All we want is love not force”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL4IMfF4IXI

    This was sung for the first time publicly when Robert Whitaker visited Cork, Ireland.

    People need to be free to live their lives as they know best to be able to let go the fear of being oppressed by those who ‘know better’! Thankfully some of us have got better but too many people fall by the wayside not of their own choosing but because the are now allowed to be themselves. They are forced over and over again to receive damaging, toxic drugs and electroshock which denies them their right to be human. The people who cannot see the harm they are causing also are denied their own humanity!

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  • I have recovered and transformed mainly because I found out that psychiatry is such a fraud, that I did not have a diseased brain but it was severely damaged by psychiatry’s useless efforts to cure the symptoms it was causing, that I could detox safely from the poisonous drugs which were killing me, that many other people had done it also, that I was able to reconnect with music and learn many new skills, that the world was a beautiful place to be enjoyed and that I was part of it! Above all that I discovered MindFreedom International! My life has been enriched and since my own mind freedom thirteen years ago everyday since is a beautiful day! Now I feel I can determine my own life! Thanks to all the people who help me on my way!
    Knowledge is power and mutual support and compassion is the essence of love!

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  • David Oaks is an exceptional man. I send my first email to him over ten years ago when I had just learned how to get in touch with MindFreedom International. Before this I looked up the website http://www.mindfreedom.org and was amazed at the work this group of dedicated people had done over the years. I was particuarly impressed that survivors like David were prepared to go on hunger strike because they knew that psychiatry had no evidence that their many ‘diagnoses’ were bases on fact. They also knew that there was plenty of evidence that psychiatrists and doctors were causing brain damage by very bad use of psychotropic drugs and electroshock. They challenged the psychiatrists to give them evidence that this was not true and they failed to do so!
    A short time before this I had succeeded in becoming drug free having been a prescribed drug addict for the most part of two decades. At the age of 50 I was almost dead in mind, body and spirit. I was just a very faded shadow of my former self. As we said in our book ‘Soul Survivor – A Personal Encounter with Psychiatry’ I was a piece of psychiatric flotsam! I had lived a lifetime of twenty years no person should have to live. Psychiatry told me I was lucky to be living at home. I was lucky I was not in hospital. But was I lucky to be a prisoner in my own home? Was I lucky to have my mental, emotional, physical and spiritual capacity severely dimmishhed? Was I lucky that this terrible damage was done by doctors who were blind to the fact that they were harming me daily? Was I lucky that not matter how much harm they did to me I would not be able to legally have the false diagnoses of bi-polar removed from my records because psychiatry still carries on as if it is a medical science with the support of governments, the legal system, the educational system and the wider public. The iatrogenic harm I endured was for my own good. It would still be seen as evidence of the fact I am ‘mentally ill!!!!! I never had any such problems before I consumed psychotropic drugs daily and for the past 13 yrs drug free I can say the same!!! 13 is lucky for some!
    Soon after becoming a member of MindFreedom International with Jim’s help we started an affiliate of MFInternational, MindFreedom Ireland. We will be ten years strong in January. We have been very active over the years. This year we have been especially active and as David woud like, we are finishing up this year more active than ever! David and MindFreedom International continue to inspire us. We hope with all our hearts that David will be back with us stronger than ever soon! We hope that MindFreedom International will also grow stronger and stronger!
    We love you David!

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  • Thanks Terry! You have inspired us, many other Irish people and people worldwide to continue our heartfelt dedication to a very worthwhile cause. Something IS inside so strong and will remain as long as we live and breath. Hopefully it is passing on to others and will continue to do so!

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