Sunday, April 2, 2023

Comments by J

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  • The abusive families of Mad people, whose views dominate public policy and mainstream media, would scam you into believing that Mad people really aren’t worthy or capable of being loved or understood by any of their relatives. My experience has proven otherwise, and I’ve always suspected that people like Ms. Biancolli are, at least, a large, but silenced minority. I love that Mad in America, unlike most other “mental health” forums, builds room for entire families. Welcome aboard, Ms. Biancolli!

  • I don’t mean to bright-side this atrocity, but I think Mayor Adams’ instinct to tuck tail and hide is actually a GOOD sign. If he knows it’s political suicide to abuse Mad people in full public view, like his predecessors did with “stop and frisk”, this forced-psychiatry scheme will be short lived. A public policy scam cannot be remain a secret in city with a population of 8 million people.

  • You’d think at least one critic would have asked the million dollar question about that quack “research”: What if it had never been done? What if the Galvin “sick boys” had all just abandoned their “family” and psychiatry forever?

    Real science wouldn’t make everyone petrified to ask what might happen if its subjects chose to live beyond it.

  • Basically, the quacks didn’t want you in proximity to any belief set aside from psychiatry.

    Throughout my many psychiatric hospitalizations, I’ve seen all sorts of books confiscated from inmates: Bibles, Korans, romance novels, college textbooks, cookbooks. If any excuses were given for stealing that property (many people, including me, never got it back), they were all BS.

  • Yeah, It’s scary, all right. But, that quack has a point – just not the point he thinks he has.

    In fact, there IS a high probability of violence from one of the thousands of unhoused Mad New Yorkers who are soon to be targeted by Adams’ “plan” to drag them off the streets, cage them, and drug them. There’s only so much a person can take and the people Adams intends to hunt down have already been stripped of pretty much everything. If their law-abiding lives – sustained through some of the WORST injustice America has ever seen – aren’t enough to keep them free, some of them will decide to punish our #shithole society. And, society will deserve it.

  • The two most destructive aspects of psychiatry – psychiatric exile and psychiatric drugs – loomed over Ms. Van Tosh’s life and seem likely to end it early. Those were the punishments she faced for seeking any amount of rest from work, retribution against her abusive relatives, or opportunity for a drug-free existence. No one deserves that, and certainly not when they’re working as hard as Van Tosh did for so many years. I’m so glad she’s able to take it easy now, but it’s enraging to know she’ll pay the ultimate price for surviving 40+ years of psychiatry.

  • Ms. Higgins, like many kids, had no way to know that psychiatry’s job is to exile them from society, much like their families exiled them from their RIGHT to have a childhood. She expected genuine care from those quacks – they were supposed to be “professionals”, after all. One easy way to help would have been to state the obvious: Explain how her pathogenic family drove her Mad and how psychiatry mostly enables pathogenic families. Then explain why she must run away from all of them. Simple.

  • This is horrifying! Self-help is a human right! To criminalize or allow Tech Bros to erase discussion about health/healthcare experiences really IS a “high tech lynching”. Abstaining from psychiatric narcotics has saved my life, and I probably would not have successfully abstained without Mad/prescribed harm online communities. Members of those communities need to contact their representatives in Congress TODAY!

  • Susan Inman is a fascist. She’s willing to immediately defund ALL care, if the person seeking care does not submit to psychiatry’s most outrageous and lethal abuses of power. In short, she’s telling Mad people to rot in a psychiatrized “life” or did.

    No one should be listening to that Munchausen maniac!

  • This was outstanding! That last insight – a hero’s daughter gets quacked by adherents of the very ideology he gave his life to crush – moved me deep inside.

    I’m so, so glad you went back into your profession, healed in your own way, and lived well on your land with your family. You lived the American Dream as a Mad ex-patient. What an achievement!

  • If I “predicted” a future where quacks, Munchausens, and ableist were controlled by a technocracy ruled by me and my cronies, I’d be caged until my bones turned to dust.

    Dr. Yager’s plan will never materialize unless it includes a way to survive a bomb or multiple gunshot wounds. I’m not the only person who would kill to protect myself from that much tyranny.

  • Well, how about that? Bro’s boner for #FAKESCIENCE went away when HE got quacked. While your loyalty to him is admirable, I can’t resist pointing out how ridiculous his situation is and how often it happens. Kate Millet went through the same thing with her mom, who had developed dementia and was being tortured in senior housing. Because of Kate’s decision to care for her at home, she got to live out her final years in safety, liberty, and comfort. It would take a society more civilized than ours to categorize that hypocrisy as “sick”.

  • Psychiatry is not science. Its objective is social control, secured mostly by preempting life prospects for “different” or “difficult” people. That’s why your quack was enraged at your decision to discontinue your drugs, while offering no reason why your life should be derailed by his feelings. The same thing happened to me when I quit psychiatry. And, though I’d like to believe my quack is still rotting in his musty office, waiting for me to “relapse” and come back to him, I’m sure he’s moved on. Mad liberation isn’t a “problem” for greedy and bigoted people. There is never a “collateral cost” to pursuing a standard of living enjoyed by most of America.

  • It was Jay’s extraordinary luck and intuition that allowed him to live until age 74. For normies, that’s an ordinary death. But, Mad people are often killed by psychiatry in their 60’s, 50’s, and even their 40’s. Jay’s determination to live a full lifespan was already inspiring, and reading about his long career in Mad health care fills me with pride and hope. Though he should have had a little more time, I’m glad he achieved so much in his life.

  • I love it when MIA posts stories from veterans. You would think lamestream psychiatry would be less inclined to scam them, torture them, and kill them. Who would have guessed that a veteran with trouble sleeping would be treated like a “loser and a sucker”? Thank God Ms. Shea got away from psychiatry before it ruined her life forever.

  • To a normie, this story would appear to recount the most horrific sort of health care fraud. But, survivors of psychiatry know well the trajectory and fallout of mental health “treatment” that can maim a body and upend a life. I sense a collective shudder at themes of Dani’s story: how she was expected to remain “loyal” to everyone (friends, employers, quacks, etc.) but herself, a “standard” of medical progress that she couldn’t reach without subjecting herself to more and more torture, a demotion from woman to “baby” when she acted upon her intuition, which had developed from decades of life experience. Let’s hope she sues her quacks for every last cent.

  • So much “mental illness” and “learning disability” originates from dysfunctional schools. Dana, fortunately, was not thrown *too* far down the psychiatry/behavioral health #shithole . But, her schools forced her to “learn how to do school” through trial and error, which wasted years of her time; they withheld support whenever she questioned her “diagnoses”; and they held her self-worth hostage to teachers who sometimes excluded her from “mainstream” or “advanced placement” classes, despite her ability to complete those classes. This trajectory of manufactured “failure” could have wiped Dana’s life out. Her strength and determination were instrumental in salvaging most of her future. She should be very proud of herself and never lose sight of her capacity for self-protection and growth.

  • Daniel was maimed – elevated prolactin, ulcers, migraines – almost exactly as I had been, on psychiatric narcotics which had also been prescribed to me, in response to stressors I had also experienced (toxic schools, no escape, unaccountable law enforcement), and under circumstances (“Suburban Lifestyle Dream”, conscientious parents who were duped by quacks, same age) identical to mine.

    We aren’t an outrageous coincidence or two disgruntled losers who simply need “more Lithium”. Psychiatry failed us; it nearly killed us, and vocal ex-patients are a small minority of psychiatry’s abject failure.

  • Ted’s work is so important. Psychiatry survives, in part, by scamming people into viewing it as more powerful than it really is. But, logistics work against that ruse. If psychiatry can’t wreck your life in 5-10 years, it stands very little chance of EVER wrecking it, permanently. By sharing that information with his clients, Ted improves their life chances, no matter how they fare in court. We need many more advocates like him.

  • Psychiatry’s excuse for throwing unsuspecting people into iatrogenic apocalypse boils down to, “They were dysfunctional *before* I treated them!”. And, Sherry’s story exposed it as an absolute lie. Diagnoses and VERY dangerous drugs really are psychiatry’s first-response to “ordinary” stressors. The irony in Sherry’s life was what psychiatry had subjected her to, for so many years, as she maintained a state of imperiled existence that would have been viewed by any clinician as robust, “ordinary” health. She was working hard, conscientious in meeting her domestic obligations, trusting – and paying – her authority figures, and requested support while she managed her “ordinary” life, which sounded quite nice, but also demanded a LOT, perhaps an excess, of her energy and time. Psychiatry’s refusal to care for Sherry in a safe and basic way (Those quacks eschewed so many better alternatives to drugs: massage therapy, counseling, referrals to elder care services for her mother, etc..) was a direct consequence of its unconditional animus towards ANY level of individual need. That “profession” is a #shithole of hatred, recklessness, and waste.

  • This piece was one I knew I would love, and still I’m stunned by its passion, variety, and spirit of defiance toward everything Jaffe profited from and, possibly, stood for. I was one of the MANY Mad people who heard about Jaffe’s death and knew I would, for the foreseeable future, breathe more freely. Lobbyists as evil as he was come along, maybe once in a generation. Ms. Gilmore is right about the DECADES of work ahead of us to end Jaffe’s reign of terror. But, his death will make our journey to progress that much more attainable.

  • Whew! I didn’t expect to hear a hopeful answer to the question of psychiatry’s potential for redemption. Throughout this piece, psychiatry’s failure, predation, and excuses were prominent themes. They definitely should have been presented first, even if readers couldn’t help but steel themselves to answer Susanne’s question, “Will Psychiatry Ever Change”, in the negative. And, Kudos to NYT for giving her a platform. When her article was published a few months back, I read it and shared it with everyone I know. Thank goodness it made a positive difference to a few clinicians.

  • I’m glad you could wring a bit of humor from that. When I read it, I could only gasp in horror. It should be hard to believe that an author could be such a callous and brazen liar. But, indeed, Kolker is. Thank goodness he’s being called out now.

  • Hidden Valley Road is, certainly, the most overhyped, intellectually lazy, and outlandishly abusive book of the century. Kolker, apparently, hoped for his book to transcend the “misery memoir” genre, but that’s exactly where he landed. And, how could he not? All of his “facts” about “schizophrenia”, Mad life, and the Galvin family HAD to come from Lindsay and Margaret Galvin, as they were the *only* members of their family to decide who could write the “family story“, to borrow their disingenuous shorthand for Hidden Valley Road, their magnum opus of absolution for Mimi, their menace of a mother.

  • Jesus! Lisa is too much. 30 days and 30 nights of #FAKESCIENCE torture was her “punishment” for being visibly traumatized by her 17 years of sexual abuse. Her family deserved every insult, death wish, and damning criticism she could hurl at them. Same for her quacks. Instead, she focused on reform within the psychiatric establishment, as if that were a realistic goal.

    While I admire Lisa’s self-discipline and unshakeable decency, I’m sure I can’t begin to comprehend it. And, few of us possess her level of self-awareness. She knew she would not break one of the “rules” for speaking openly about Madness: Take it easy on your family, even if that means taking it hard on yourself. This obedience might keep her true to who she is – a follower of rules. But, it cuts a break to so many abusers. It’s appalling to know they’re still getting ahead on the strength of Lisa’s integrity.

  • So much torture, scam, and legal overreach for . . . “alleged” loitering?

    Good Lord! It would have been cheaper and more humane to jail her for 90 days. And, even that would have been excessive. I believe she was terrorized by psychiatry because she had the audacity to live into her seventies, while maintaining some quality of life. In first-world countries, people like her are not “supposed” to exist. She was a visible reminder of the limits on psychiatry’s power to wreck Mad lives. Her elder-lifestyle was ideal – calm, autonomous, and supportive. But, it also posed a significant liability to psychiatry. #FAKESCIENCE couldn’t afford to let a woman like her survive.

  • Well, this is an especially cruel encounter with psychiatry. That quack-fest sold its dangerous “care” to a loving and productive mom who needed help for her son, killed him, somehow, after only a few years, and then quacked mom out when she could not “adjust” to her massive and eternal loss.

    If I were her, I’d probably take a knee on those brutes.

  • During every one of my psychiatric hospitalizations, inmates were subjected to staffers’ knees on their necks. Most of their lives were spared only by the fact that assault was a means to an end for their perpetrators, whose goal was to chemically rape them, as opposed to killing them. No one should endure this brutality or ever suggest it as a palliative for the fallout of systemic racism. Even if it were “less” abusive and prejudiced than traditional incarceration (and, it’s NOT), it’s still enabling the nouveau-Jim Crow society that drives POC Mad to begin with. We need to #DefundPsychiatry right after we #DefundThePolice .

  • Should we diagnose Cheeto? Absolutely not. Psychiatry is more dangerous than he is, and it will become impossible to control, if we allow it to topple the most powerful person on earth.

    There are better ways to rid ourselves of Disaster #45, starting with this year’s election.

    VOTE FOR BIDEN!!!

  • I suspect our Corona woes will shape up to be a boon to Mad Americans in the 2020’s, just like Rep. Tim Murphy’s disasters (legislative, political, and personal) of the 2010’s. Both the virus and its mismanagement are primed to boost public support for Mad-friendly laws and policies. Perhaps it’s callous to say, but I urge us not to let this crisis go to waste.

  • Rosenberg’s “relationship” to his sister was downright horrifying. He characterized her as “hopeless”, and a “burden”, and, despite her permanently marginalized status in her family, he held *her* accountable for everyone’s problems. Then he entered a profession where he could easily prey on vulnerable, hated, and death-bound strangers. There’s a reason why he created this documentary AFTER his sister died – at age 55! – from 30 years of “treatment”. Destroyed as she was by her family, he was, nonetheless, threatened by her ability to rebel against the power he exerted over her life.

  • Outstanding interview! And, this book is a treasure. That much is evident from the question posed to Segrest by her *very* triggered colleague, “Is your book ‘anti-psychiatry’?”. He just HAD to interrogate her motive for writing this book, despite her generous description (“I find psychiatrists doing both execrable and very commendable things . . . “) of psychiatry’s potential and despite her decade-plus of research on her subject matter. Anything that prompts this response from the establishment is right up my alley.

  • Right now, we’ve got a front row seat to the “decompensation” of America’s able-normative majority. #CoronaPanic has turned them into hoarding, doomsaying, reclusive, bigoted freaks. Their aggressive and irrational behavior (40 packages of toilet paper? Really?) has brought society to its knees. And, in the midst of a global pandemic, their antics are especially threatening to our health and well-being. Yet, nobody wants to put them in the cage. Not even when their burdensome choices are shown to be part of a pattern with them, one that predates the Coronavirus. So, I don’t want to hear a damn thing about the “intolerability” of Madness in its hostile state. No one should be put under a psychiatric choke-chain.

  • If the Boston Globe weren’t staffed by sanist hacks, it might actually try to do its job and force this quack to PROVE how “noncompliance” would impose ANY measurable detriment to anyone’s life outcomes. Plenty of people, some of whom read the Globe, have ditched psychiatry and resumed their lives: completed their educations, launched their careers, raised their families, found their voices. #FAKESCIENCE should not be allowed to hype its overblown and baseless “predictions” for ANY population, and particularly not one as vulnerable as ours. Whether we’re healthy (as demonstrated by the vitality of our LIVES, not our score on a BS DSM checklist) or not, quacks would sooner kill us than to deal with the inconvenience we create for them, merely by *existing*. Realistically, there are very few people whose lives are *worse* off without psychiatry. Biswas hawks his sanist “psycho killer/corpse”, because, literally, everyone else – the homeless, the hermits, the mainstreamed or semi-mainstreamed noncompliant Mad – belongs to a large and “silent” majority of psychiatric dissidents, most of whom struggle less or no more than they did “as patients”.

  • Edward Shorter, the quack whose “opinions” NYTimes included in their backhanded obit, could give a shit about Mad Rights or Mad survival. That he was allowed to pollute Bonnie’s obit made it clear to the reader whose agendas truly mattered: those of psychiatry and the NYTimes, which may, perhaps, be correctly viewed as one and the same. By denigrating a woman they couldn’t ignore, yet did not want to recognize, Mad people, those of us who own dogeared copies of Bonnie’s books and who owe our liberty to her brilliant vision, got similarly denigrated. We got smeared as crazy dupes who don’t deserve to mourn the scholar that led us to the lives we cherish. More #FAKENEWS from the “failing” New York Times.

    MIA, please let NYT know how offended we are at its hatchet job on Bonnie’s obit and request that Shorter’s quotes be removed from this final account of her life.

  • No one should dismiss the close parallels between a fundie upbringing and a quacked-our adulthood. Each form of tyranny presents the same atrocious patterns of social dysfunction – censorship, lies, a coerced surrender of personal will. Worse yet, the endgame of psychiatry is, literally, a plight of biblical proportions: physical illness of an iatrogenic nature that is painful, debilitating, and lethal. Jane’s 40 years of “treatment” dragged on without a single moment to validate its mammoth cost to her health, her safety, her happiness, and her abundant potential. If anyone else but me has ever wondered about psychiatry’s capacity for fraud, stop. After reading Jane’s story, we can state with confidence that its fraud is an infinite scourge.

  • Makes perfect sense. You recovered from a re-traumatizing relationship in your own way: through safe and wide open dialogue, restorative stillness, and, yes, a dash of Madness. Unlike a lot of Mad people, you’ve been blessed with the freedom to practice self-care throughout your life as an adult. That probably explains why your healing began immediately, and ended with zero drama. It’s the outcome we can count on, once we’re ready and able to grow without delay and without psychiatry’s burdens.

    I give thanks for this essay.

  • Yeah . . . I remember these “symptoms” of withdrawal. In addition to many of those experienced by Mr. Blumke, I also developed internal bleeding, which led me to the ER, where I immediately was threatened with involuntary commitment, if I didn’t “consent” to “go upstairs” as an inpatient. Like Mr. Blumke, I was lucky to get out of psychiatry alive. His life is a miracle, and I’m glad he’s safe and free today.

  • YES!!! You won the comments section, Noel! That’s yet another reason to dump the BS “schizophrenia” Dx. Basically, it assaults trauma survivors a second time. On top of enduring the real-world trauma that drove you Mad in the first place, you’re expected to contend with even more trauma, under the guise of “help” for your initial injustice or loss. While you’re desperate for care and totally defenseless, you’re hastily shuttled into an epic bio-scam, which depletes the last of your agency on a perp-apologists’ concept of trauma. Specifically, it dictates a “threshold” of trauma that can only be set by a network of authority structures, none of which are duty-bound to you, the survivor. Antagonize those goons, and they’ll designate you as “sick”, not “wounded” and “victimized”. If you become too “needy”, too “unruly”, or too “strident” about your rights, you’ll get quacked instead of healed. Or, perhaps, if you exist in dark or female flesh, you’ll be quacked on sight, and bypass an phony debate over how you hurt and what you need. And, your best-case scenario? The Annita special, where a quack can see value your full potential? That puts you where she is now – successful in every possible way, yet constantly forced to qualify her worth with her “Dx upgrade”. No thanks!

  • Annita, your recovery and achievements are extraordinary and much-deserved. For anyone who reads your story, the takeaway will be a new or renewed trust in the healing power of patience, respect, and purpose. Any of your readers can heal exactly as you have. They understand that we can counsel, educate, and employ *any* Mad person. Whether or not they’re in “treatment”, they’ll attempt to save their lives, in the same way that yours was saved – with loyal, reciprocal, and comprehensive support. You didn’t “need” a “better” Dx, in order to build your life. Neither does anyone else. And, I hope you’re cognizant of those facts, while you’re caring for your clients. Despite your apparent faith in the #FAKESCIENCE “schizophrenia” label, it remains a useless, biased, and hateful slur, and as potent an agent of atrocity as it was in decades past. For your client’s sake, if not for your own, please don’t ever forget that.

  • Woooh! This woman’s biggest problem wasn’t even #FAKESCIENCE . It was those Munchausen parents, who used psychiatry as a means to “parent” Jennifer forever. They, clearly, resented their duty to respect her as an adult, and offer her the sort of support that one provides an adult: domestic care (caring for grandkids, cooking meals, pep talks for overwhelmed spouses, etc.) and strategies (tips on setting schedules, fending off unreasonable demands, etc.) for balancing their day job, their family, and their lofty professional goals. So, whenever Jennifer’s life became a life-sucking trap, they quacked her out of it, instead of helping her stay in it, and fix it up. Jennifer need to quit psychiatry, for sure. But, in order to achieve that, she’ll probably have to quit her parents, too. Were it not their possessiveness, she’d easily have ditched psychiatry a decade ago.

  • Yeeesh! Women were treated like POWs in this family! Psychiatry or not, they had NO chance to live well. Somehow, I suspect that psychiatry was, primarily, a legal means of battering these women, as opposed to a clumsy and brutal tool for disciplining them. For the men in this family, a slow-motion homicide by #FAKESCIENCE had been a handy replacement for a quick and unlawful homicide by assault.

  • You were NEVER “worthless”, Graciela. Not at your “sickest”. Not at your most pathologized. Not ever. And, those “opportunities”? All an illusion. I’ve enjoyed years off the psychiatric narcotics, and my liberty has allowed me to finally grasp the truth about potential: It’s NOT a bitter, and, inevitably, futile fight between you and the world. If *anyone* is waiting, fighting, obeying, and learning, and STILL falling further and further behind, they’re NOT “failing”. Rather, they’re BEING FAILED, MISERABLY! Even the biggest self-saboteur will pull back before they put themselves in the gutter. The instinct to survive is universal and unstoppable. And, it’s especially potent among victimized people, such as those who’ve been tortured by #FAKESCIENCE . For now and forever, LOOK AROUND when you’re plummeting into the abyss. Odds are, you’ll see a loud and prowling mob of sick f*cks. And, at your age, you’re bound to quickly recognize their lying, brutish, and manipulative antics. Despite the massive cost of your experience, it’s, nonetheless, a gift, at this point. Use it. When whack-jobs start to invade your life, run FROM them, not TO them. No psychiatry. No toxic family members. No dead-end schools or jobs. Restructure your life to lock them all out of it. Then, make your next move. No matter what you’ve been told or what your fears are, you CAN stay away from the #FAKESCIENCE clown world. Except for psychiatry’s “true believers”, there is NO ONE “too sick” or “too undeserving” of an un-quacked life. So, get it, hold onto it, and don’t let it go.

  • Well, I suppose I’ll start my comment with a judgy aside: “Special occasions” are packed with petty pressures. They DO NOT mix with booze!!! My special occasions have been substance-free for years. If you *really* want to let the good times roll, don’t jeopardize them with poison. Most of your guests are people you see infrequently. On any given day, they’ll carry burdens that you’ll never see and never try to fix. So, don’t force them to “moderate” their consumption of your “treats”. Celebrations can not accommodate the testing of human limits. They’re meant to be joyful events, not scrutinizing ones. To acquire the former, you’ll have to ditch the latter.

    And Ms. Wildhood was right – Mom and Pop set this mess in motion long ago. Honestly, it seems like Sis sat on too much resentment for way too long. If she’d been raised to speak when she was hurting, she wouldn’t have tried, in vain, to drown her feelings. A better family would have encouraged her to speak by herself, for herself, regardless of the outcome. By the age of 24, one should not still feel compelled to undercut their efforts to manage their relationships. Megan’s sister MUST find a way to break that habit. Otherwise, she’s doomed to lose her marriage, along with everything else in her life.

    The same can be said for Megan. She also paid the price for that boozed-fueled engagement dinner. When people get invited to parties, they expect to be welcomed or asked to leave. They shouldn’t expect any less than that, even if they’re feuding with the host. As resentful as Megan’s sister was, you really have to wonder if she ever wanted Megan at her dinner. I wouldn’t put it past Mom and Pop to guilt-trip Megan’s sister into adding Megan’s name to the guest list. The drama totem is high in this family, and those two clowns are at the top of it. Megan may not be owed an apology from her sister and brother, but she’s probably owed one from her parents. Their antics were outrageous and deeply hurtful, and they shouldn’t be repeated. Neither sister deserves to go through this again.

  • Hey, all. I got quacked in high school, too. Only, by then, the public schools were defacto “brokers” for our friendly neighborhood pill mills. By the time I quit high school, I was already butchered by #FAKESCIENCE .

    Fortunately, I escaped psychiatry, in much the same way that Starr did. School and work were essential to my post-psychiatry life. But, first, I spent YEARS on my trial-and-error efforts to de-quack. I had to. The psychiatric narcotics had weakened and destabilized my body. My plans had to go on hold, until my body was able to pursue them.

  • Actually, Manuela, your desired system of care would be INCREDIBLY productive. You hit the ice pick on the head, when you said, “We have more bean counters than we have beans.”. There would be PLENTY of time and resources, if we only trimmed the fat of #FAKESCIENCE . That racket is rife with fraud and force. And, those are guaranteed wastes, no matter the context.

  • Once again, we see how absolutely evil psychiatry is. Through neglect and force, it has wrecked Anja’s life. She would have been fine, if psychiatry had done its job – put a reasonable, prompt, and thorough plan in place for her. Instead, it neglected her, until she couldn’t be ignored by ANYONE. Then psychiatry caged her, as it knew it would do from the start. Every moment of Anja’s caging was premeditated and preventable.

  • Well, there it is – mom and dad must not be narcoticized, despite their obvious shortcomings. But, their kiddos? Drug them early, shut them up, and never think twice about gambling with their futures. That double-standard is the sick moral calculus of #FAKESCIENCE psychiatry.

    I remember how affirming it felt for me to live with as much freedom as the average 70 year old. By then, I’d logged about 7 months off the psychiatric narcotics. There I was, twenty-something years old, and happy to live as though my life were almost over. Yet, it was a ‘YUGE improvement, compared to my years in “treatment”. My unwanted intimacy with death was my existential breaking point with #FAKESCIENCE . It was the moment when I’d reached a long-term resolve to bail on that lethal fraud. My prior “noncompliance” was driven by short-term needs – my appearance, a temp job, a diploma. But, years of psychiatry had taken their toll, and slowly exacted a long-term cost to my life. And, so, I quit psychiatry only then, once I’d borne the heaviest of burdens.

  • Don’t blame yourself, George. You got duped by the #FAKESCIENCE , as millions of people have been. People shouldn’t pay an unbearable price for trusting the so-called “experts”. They alone deserve to be blamed for the death of your daughter. I extend my deepest condolences to you and everyone who loved her.

  • The caging process is nearly as unbearable as the “care” you’re subjected to, once you’re locked-down. To have all your liberty erased by a lie is a deep and inexcusable injustice. It’s so easy to perpetrate that terror, and virtually impossible to escape it. An abuse of power is at least comprehensible and, possibly, vulnerable to counteragression. But, outright fraud is an ambush, not the start of a fight. Extreme retribution is the only hope to rectify it.

  • See, this is the difference between a COMPETENT caregiver and a total quack. Chaya consistently and carefully balances her needs with the needs of those she’s helping. A quack, on the other hand, will immediately sink to aggressive means of dodging even the slightest inconvenience. If there was a professional like Chaya in every town, psychiatry would never rise again.

  • Christ! Ekaterina is doing more time for Madness than most folks do for a f*ck*ng DWI!!! Adherents of #FAKESCIENCE are “threatened” by ALL identities which are self-made or self-selected. It was easy for the quacks to pounce on Ekaterina’s bond with Anne Frank. Most people know who she was, and would, obviously, prefer to detach from her wretched existence. But, really, Ekaterina’s quacks have, essentially, forbade her from preserving any life or sense of self. She could describe her identity in a manner that sounds “normal”, or openly aspire to “normal” adult goals, and she would STILL get quacked by those abusive psychiatrists. When psychiatry saw that I wouldn’t quit school, wouldn’t quit work, and wouldn’t really “accept” my so-called “illness”, it went f*ck*ng nuclear on me, just as Ekaterina’s quacks did to her. So, she’s absolutely right. There is no room for psychiatry in any *real* life. And, psychiatry will not spare you any shred of personal integrity. To keep anything of yours, anything at all, you have to bail on the #FAKESCIENCE forever.

  • To fuel this momentum of liberty, the Mad ex-patient will need to secure a safe and sustainable role within society. It’s, primarily, a game of defense, regardless of the person’s pre-psychiatry status. #FAKESCIENCE is meant to be a form of social homicide, like being convicted of a major felony, or getting #MeTooed . So, when a Mad person starts their post-psychiatry life, they’re bucking a universal fear – of the undead. Whether they thrive without psychiatry or not, they’ll be aggressed upon, simply for trying. The public has no desire or ability to cope with a “corpse” (i.e. YOU). That’s why it tries again to bury you, and why it grabs a new kill-bag. This one holds the less-potent substitutes for psychiatric terrorism: unattainable “benchmarks” of “recovery”, homogenized narratives on ANY Mad-related issue, and reckless demands that we “sink or swim”, should we ever seek help away from psychiatry. Sera’s observations are painfully, frighteningly accurate. ”Muh hipster sanism” is Mad oppression and Mad genocide, Act II.

  • For Mad people who wish to self-actualize, perhaps for the very first time, the disengagement stage is probably the most important. To speak plainly, I’ll call that stage “The End”. It’s the stage when you’re physically, if not emotionally, unable to “comply” with #FAKESCIENCE . It took me years to construct even one clear thought for my life-changing journey to me. And, it began when I, literally, repelled – not rebelled – from psychiatry.

  • You’re absolutely right. That IS a win. We see a film about a real human being who got murdered by psychiatry – the very system which was so flagrantly touted as “helpful” in an American court of law. Hell, I’ll watch this movie, if only for its painful, yet glorious moment when #FAKESCIENCE gets exposed as a barbarous scam that kills you long before you’ll ever expect it to!

  • This is so true. Quacks could always predict my plans, recognize what my dreams were, and, initially, convince me to confide in them. Shamefully, I’d gotten to the point where I’d begun to call them “mom” by mistake. These are the reasons why it took me so long to leave them. Spend enough time around folks with no boundaries, and you’ll start to believe that you can’t have them either.

  • Whatever your views are of Laren’s wild youth (drugs, debt, premarital sex, elaborate vacations, etc.), there is no disputing one obvious fact: It should NOT have ended with psychiatric assault and torture. Plenty of people have pushed their lives to the limit, and society has let them alone to learn and enjoy and atone for their choices. Laren deserved that freedom, as well. Especially since he didn’t go wild on his own. None of Laren’s desires would have materialized, if not for the insane greed of his creditors. Had quacks not stuffed him full of poison, Laren’s mind would have been sharp enough to notice his need to de-escalate his lifestyle. It’s also deeply traumatizing for ANYONE – let alone a young man – to suffer a de facto loss of parental rights. Laren’s behavior was caused by all the vipers in his life, not by a so-called “chemical imbalance”. He was the last person to mess up, but the ONLY one to ever pay for his decisions. On top of that, Laren’s punishment FAR outweighed the scope of his humdrum blunders (Remember, we’re a nation of people whose appetites are big, in every way, for everything.) And, the long-term benefit from his “treatment”? Zilch. For these reasons, Laren’s judgments of psychiatry have always been correct. Its sole purpose IS to cripple and disempower society’s “undesirables”. Good on him for rejecting that #FAKESCIENCE and moving forward with his life.

  • Lord, this was stunning! And it hits so close to home for me. A “wide open hold” is, basically, what my family did for me. They never stopped me from preparing for my suicide: buying a gun, keeping it at home, leaving me alone to use it, etc. But, they never accelerated my race to the grave. My family told me they loved me, and that I could lead a good life. They told me to just try a little longer to live, that I deserved to live, and that life could become safe for me again. I’m still alive because of their love for me AND their respect for my liberty. Sera’s right. There is NEVER a good time to criminalize suicide.

    We must also do a MUCH better job of condemning the #1 precipitant of suicide – TOXIC FAMILIES!!! The vast majority of people DO NOT “commit suicide”. That is, they don’t assess their lives, identity some intractable, intolerable problem, see NO ONE who caused or hyped it, and, then, decide to rest forever. Instead, the typical suicide results from at least one lengthy period of abuse, neglect, manipulation, and COMPLETE disempowerment. And, intimate relationships are ground zero for that constellation of atrocity. If cops should be called on anyone, they should be called on the Munchausens and domestic abusers. Cage enough of them, and there will be fewer suicides. Believe it! Hell, it’s about the only way to quickly, easily, and permanently achieve a ‘YUGE reduction in death-by-despair. But, do we have the balls to even propose that? No way! We’re ALL stained with the blood of suicide. Until we get tough on perps, our humanity will continue to drown in that filth.

  • You’re right about all of this, Noel. Psychiatry’s cruelty and quackery are salient, once more, in its latest perpetration of crimes against humanity. This time, #FAKESCIENCE has targeted youth who are undocumented immigrants. In American society, we’ll valorize ”muh rights”, yet STILL tolerate a large number of abuses, any one of which could singlehandedly wreck this country. Our Overton window is pretty much wide open. To close any amount of it, people normally endure years of oppression, and, still, more years in a hard fight for justice. They must perpetually spearhead their own progress. By contrast, undocumented youth got their kidnappinngs outlawed in two short months. Without confronting psychiatry at all, these kids have cut it off at the knees. Parented kids are FAR less likely to get quacked than unparented kids – even if they’re “symptomatic”. I’m immensely proud of our nation’s undocumented immigrant youth, and I urge us all to LEARN from them. If they can secure de facto protection from psychiatry, there’s no reason why we can’t.

  • Thank God you’re free and safe today. What I liked most about this piece was how it underscored the true goal of pro-force psychiatry: creating lifelong “patients”. Most people aren’t aware that a caging is a caging is a caging. When you’re released from a snake pit, you’re debilitated, displaced, and stigmatized, just like a felon who has been released from prison. Pro-force psychiatry would prefer to NEVER free a single detainee, but it can’t do that. So, it elects, instead, to torture and disenfranchise you, as a short-term investment in your long-term “compliance” and misery. People, if you can, RUN from the goon squad.

  • God, that book sounds frightening! While, I’m sure it’s well-researched and well-written, it is also a tale of suicide-by-quack. I got suckered into the #FAKESCIENCE . No doubt, that’s how many of us became “patients”. But, Ms. Slater knows that psychiatry is a death sentence. Though her upbringing had surely hurt her chances of escaping psychiatry, she had amassed enough resources to do just that. As Julie pointed out, she has an education, a career, a home, and a partner. For anyone, those supports are significant. And, compared to most Mad people, she’s immensely privileged. I quit psychiatry with FAR fewer resources than Slater has. Really, her book is a testament to psychiatry’s power to brainwash. Despite everything Slater has achieved, her quacks have convinced her that she’s still unworthy of life. I’m terrified for her and enraged, as always, at psychiatry. Anytime someone scolds me to “stop romanticizing ‘noncompliance’”, I will refer them, to Slater’s book and/or obituary.

  • Brilliant, Eric. Just brilliant. I’ve been saying this for years: Everyone’s life and thoughts have meaning. And there are no “incomprehensible” Mad people. Just a lot of interpersonal laziness among the able-normative members of society. Top notch article, brah!

  • Christ, it’s a miracle that you’re even still alive. And, then you’ve beaten ALL of the odds by pursuing and attaining a productive, healthy, and free life. I sure hope you’re in a position to tell the truth: Munchausens like your mom are lethal and very, VERY sick themselves. They hate their kids, yet are too ashamed and fearful to torture them on their own. So, they use psychiatry as a means of outsourcing the child abuse. Not only is this way easier, it’s also more effective. The law sets a few limits on parents who abuse their children, but virtually none on quacks who abuse children, at the behest of those parents. Right now, the Munchausen/quack duo is FAR above the law. You’re a hero for building justice for others, despite having had none for yourself. I hope you continue to live a happy, safe life.

  • “Recall bias”? Boy, that’s rich! People suffer substantial and enduring “side effects” (i.e. debilitating iatrogenic illness) from psychiatric narcotics. For f*ck’s sake, there’s NOTHING to “recall”. Thanks to the #FAKESCIENCE, you are imprisoned in an ugly, uncomfortable, dangerous body 24/7!

  • Wonderful! People don’t know and/or don’t care about the snowball effect of rejection. You, literally, began a large part of your healing in an instant. And, the interpersonal support you received was pretty basic. Had your surroundings been halfway decent when you were younger, you could have just lived your life, rather than endure years of pain to get there. Congratulations on your new, authentic, autonomous life.

  • What is the point of psychosis? Well, my theory is this: Our world is ruled by a tiny block of people, who dictate a set of norms which “bigly” accommodate their MAMMOTH dysfunctions. You and I are not among those people. And, so we get tortured with psychiatry, unless we get off the grid BEFORE our “leaders” deplete us. Extreme states are really that simple. Bodies MUST NOT withstand any and all social decay. Nor can societies charge into that decay, unobstructed by the people they’ve destroyed. Psychosis is part of the debt we ALL pay to egotism, intolerance, and sloth. Hassling you was a futile attempt to duck that debt. If you won’t solve a problem, nuke the people who call it out. That’s social engineering 101.

  • “. . . and I was researching bipolar treatment facilities instead of hanging out with my family on the beach.”

    That sounds like me on a family vacation in 2001. I was in bed, semi-unconscious from my Zoloft, and not at the theatre watching the Blue Man Group. These quacks WANT us dominated by their lies and poison at all times. There is ZERO foundation to their “science”, which is why the quacks confine your life to “treatment” and “illness”. They can’t afford to let your life expand beyond that vise. For, if it does, you will probably learn how to TRULY feel well again. The real world tends to work that way, as it has VERY little tolerance for parasitic, shyster quacks. More life = less #FAKESCIENCE.

  • Sandra, it’s not self-pity to feel annihilated whenever you’re CENSORED! We all need a voice in the world. Plus, the world SHOULD hear everything you have to say. If Mad people can’t speak, then our lives are the territory of every quack and sanist. So many of us have lost enough already. We must not also lose our very existences.

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