Comments by Ekaterina Netchitailova, PhD

Showing 221 of 221 comments.

  • Mhh. I was Jesus in my first life?
    Otherwise, Nijinsky, you are absolutely correct to point out that Christianity became way too strict (and also boring). Me, with extreme faith in God, I found solace in another religion since someone mentioned it under one of my other articles in the comments and became a Scientologist.
    It literally saved my life.
    What I really don’t like in Christianity is the attempt to eradicate the devil. But he was also a son of God and fell from grace. I met him several times and he is definitely, not boring.
    https://porcupineswisdom.org/2021/06/24/bad-hair-day/comment-page-1/#comments

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  • Hello,
    just to let you know that I am reading all your comments, but because of lack of time, I can’t respond to each comment individually, unfortunately.
    Lots of food for thought, lots of critical reflection, and lots of encouragement.
    Thank you so much for reading me!
    On the topic of Jesus, I wrote another post today on my blog and you might find it interesting:)
    http://www.porcupinewisdom.com

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  • Aripiprazole can be used (I feel good on 10 ml) only together with pracyclidine (it’s other name is Artane, 5 ml). Artane relaxes muscles and has an amazing effect on someone in a depressive mood. I really found cocktail for my schizophrenia/ bipolar disorder. I feel good and happy on it, while still enjoying my schizophrenia. I would benefit though from a good Scientologist and audit session, as well as Scientology’s rehabilitation retreat.
    The only other thing I am missing is a good sleeping pill, capable of knocking me out to have undisturbed quiet, nice sleep. Once I find what it is as medication, I will let you know!

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  • I think the main problem is also in doses they use.
    Low dose of abilify is actually not bad and can help the patient to stay away from ‘problems’ for a long time. But it’s always about taking it back under your own control, and listening to your own body.
    How they prescribe it (the psychiatrists) and usually ‘what’ makes the patients not being able to function normally in their daily lives.

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  • @bradford.
    Dear Bradford.
    Thank you for leaving such a wonderful comment under my article. I will send you a card: we should do it more often: write real things and use real post.
    As to Scientology, of course I discovered by now their mission and that they do amazing work via the Commission for Human Rights, if anything it helped me on my journey to discover that someone more organised fights such a battle.
    I also, obviously bought the Dianetics but got stuck in it, as it needs a calm environment to enjoy reading it, while I am not yet there. I am there meeting a ‘nice’ psychiatrist or making a nice psychiatrist out of any psychiatrist is what keeps me staying in the fight, on my side of the equation where I am determined to have a nice life.
    Of course, I am not crazy. I am unusual. I can be weird and I went through initiation into shamanism. I am a very powerful shaman if I am still here and living my life rather well, with full intention to continue so.
    Scientology from what I read, seems like a party of nice people or at least this made me see them that way, after glancing at how many rumours are there. Taylor Swift once was a subject of rumours and so was Britney Spears, my favourite singers who fought for their reputation and made me love them more. Usually behind the modern ‘rumours’, something wonderful is a target of our ‘normal’, mediocre thinking, an unfortunate development of our humankind.

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  • @l_e_cox the best people I met are all diagnosed with a ‘psychiatric disorder’ because they tend to be genuine people who are not ‘fit” for our greedy, calculating society.
    Yes, I also noticed that some people envy the absence of fakeness, because they don’t know how to do it sincerely – to live one’s life in truth, kindness and embracing of the beautiful things and sad things with one’s all might. The trend of today is to teach us how to be superficial from a young age.

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  • It is the best (while very sad) read I have had for a long time. Thank you for writing it. Yes, the medicalisation of the ordinary has truly arrived, yes, being a parent today is running next to constant anxiety of being judged, yes, everything can be diagnosed, and yes, we forgot how to talk to people and instead send them to seek ‘professional’ help. Very, very depressing (ironically so) trend. If it’s the case, then no one will be able to be truly happy beyond the superficiality of it all, where mental health narrative hides behind the start of diagnosing our children more and more, teaching them that one can’t experience any strong emotions any longer.

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  • @boans,
    you are spot on about the devil having a good taste in bars. I visited his residence in one of my lucid-dreaming and if you would like to know more, check my blog http://www.russianpatient.com for more information. My last post talks about the devil’s ball.
    The new ‘normality’ is a new ideology where no ‘daring’ thoughts or behaviour are allowed, and I do fear for all remaining souls trying to resist the doctrine. If it’s not the psychiatry, then it is stigma, but they go hand in hand, of course, marching in unison.

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  • Hello Sam,
    actually most readers here do look for other perspectives and views!
    So, please, don’t feel as we aren’t listening, we are.
    Lots of us, survivors, are so broken by the system, that it sounds like invalidating, while, for many, it is actually the only space to express themselves, and validate their experiences, and it sometimes gets heated etc, but usually the motifs behind are good. With the exception when someone wants you to believe in ‘mental illness’ and embrace it as a valid choice. Equally those, in their journey, who do survive solely in the mental health system, also shouldn’t be chastised. We are all humans, and we all decide how to live, and sometimes, the ideology of psychiatry is so strong, that many don’t see alternatives outside it. I was there as well, briefly, but I was.
    i also personally don’t like the chastising of those who do work in the system as peer support workers, or in any capacity out of the heart, and trying to help those who need help the most, coming from compassionate and kind heart.
    As it stands at the moment, the revolution in mental health system, its radical change can only come from within and from outside together, including medical profession, psychologists, survivors, and peer workers. For instance, the stance of the Ministry of Health in Belgium in rejecting the system of diagnoses, is a step in this direction, in some countries, in some places.
    The rest is just lost in academic arguments, in debate, while this is too important to just talk about when real people struggle because of what the psychiatry does to them.

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  • Hello Bippyone,

    my comment on brutality was referred to people who commit horrendous crime.
    If you feel you are helped and you manage to live your life well, that’s what you should be doing. And I respect it, and genuinely wish you all the best, and your family too.
    But some of us (me including), don’t find the current mental health narrative helpful, and manage to live well their lives outside the main biomedical paradigm, and this choice should be respected and honoured too.
    Take care of yourself.

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  • Hello Chuck,

    yes, you are right.
    I used it metaphorically.

    Still, there is a huge difference between ‘mental illness’ which is used as an umbrella term for all cases of human malaise, distress, unusual experience, or just a natural reaction to life events, and the expression ‘suffer from a sick mind’. Bit it might get medicalized too. It is actually getting there already, with the hashtag ‘sick not weak’, makes me shatter every time I see it.

    But the acts of brutality are that they are. There is no justification for them, none.

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  • You get used to this poison eventually. The body readjusts, provided you are on a relatively low dosage (you can’t indeed function on a high dose).
    It also stops working eventually, and leads to drug-induced ‘psychosis’. Psychiatrists don’t recognise it, of course, they just switch you to something else or dramatically increase the dose. It is almost funny, but you can also die from the experience, like happened to me.

    It is probably the most addictive of the range of the new anti-psychotics.
    I take it, at 50 ml a night. I can’t even start thinking about tapering it off, due to my life responsibilities (raising a child, taking care of the cat, loving my work, etc). I would try, if the psychiatric hospital was a safe place to be to check in for a while if you feel you are distressed.
    But it isn’t. And the long-term consequences of the anti-psychotics are a time bomb. They ruin you, they make you addictive, etc.
    This stuff can be used only for a very short while in case of real emergencies, but currently? It is a harmful drug.

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  • Dear Sam,

    your wife is lucky that she has you!

    Yes, I understand why many people find also the term ‘madness’ very offensive, because of its very negative denotation nowadays.
    I find the term interesting as a researcher (its evolution, its interpretation, etc), and also as a linguist (different terms in different languages, which appear not as offensive, with different terms for different ‘madness’), and because I am Russian. We have the concept of ‘holy fool’, which personally I found very helpful, and therefore, I am interested in the trajectory of how we look at ‘madness’, etc, also in different cultures, and how it is looked upon as unusual, and sometimes also divine experience.
    This runs in parallel with my own experience of psychiatry and lived experience, which is slightly different but also is now my topic of interest. I am an academic, a writer, and now I also see myself as an activist, and as a survivor but it’s all a process, and sometimes a long one. The amount of knowledge I learned from this site though, and how it helped me in my personal journey, is really very valuable.

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  • Thank you so much for sharing your experience David,
    there is quite powerful message here: yes people can recover from what they call ‘psychosis’, even if it may return, and then you recover again, and can lead a productive and happy life.
    I don’t find though that the current mental health system supports the person to recover, it often makes it worse, and unfortunately, at the current moment it totally falls on the individual, where the knowledge is the key to be able to advocate for oneself. Most people lack this knowledge and have no voice or choice about their ‘recovery’.

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  • Hello George,
    yes, the sentiment was probably good to start with, but then it went out or proportion, with some of these ‘advocates’ promoting drugs they take.
    As if being ”mentally ill’ is something glamorous. Without looking at the term itself anymore, which is a big problem.
    It is not ‘glamorous’, and when you promote it as ‘sickness’, it becomes incomprehensible.
    Terrible and really frustrating.
    It comes as well from the charities which are funded by the government to advance their ‘mental illness is like any other illness’, to deal with all malaise with the help of drugs, and forget about the individual and individual approach.

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  • Bippyone,

    ah, where did you find such ‘medical’ definition to describe ‘psychosis’? This interpretation (true and valid) comes from looking at it as manifestations of the spiritual world.
    The common definition of it, as provided by the psychiatry is: ‘a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.’

    The most important thing is that you feel that you are getting the support that you need. I totally agree that not all psychiatrists are bad, some of them are quite nice people. Some of them even disagree with the psychiatry after discovering that it can harm people, but are unable to speak out or leave, as it means the immediate loss of the job.
    And one single psychiatrist, one single stay in the hospital can ruin one’s life, and it is putting people’s lives at stake, coming from a field which often doesn’t understand what it is doing, and sometimes does, when it is in cooperation with big pharma, and people’s lives don’t matter anymore but profit and one’s ‘career’ advance do.
    But you do need to think of yourself, and do what you find helpful, to enjoy your life.

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  • Bippyone,
    I am based in the UK too.
    Yes, you are right, everything changed in the past couple of years or so. That’s because of the government and their slogan ‘mental illness is like any other illness’. It is terrifying where it is going. It is going into privitization and big pharma (what do you think will happen after Brexit?).
    You are right that here, most people in MH services really are there because they think they do something good. But they have no clue what they are doing. But yes, they are mostly nice people, they just don’t know what they are doing.
    I escaped all that in the past in the UK, the ordeal of it because of nice, pleasant experience, where after my terrifying ordeal in Amsterdam, I just checked in into the hospital (in the UK) because I was again afraid that I was becoming ‘ill’, had a nice pleasant stay, nice chat with the ‘psychiatrist (she had to find out though ‘quietipine’/ seroquel in her book when I mentioned it for my sleep, agreed on my dose, laughed with me about my ‘voices’ and was in fact slightly ‘crazy herself), pleasant escapes to the nearest pub from the premises, great walks, baths, etc.

    And then they built a wall, it is all secure. The psychiatrists now have no clue, no understanding of the individual. They see ‘bipolar’ in the notes, and argue for lithium because you are supposed to have mood swings (which I don’t), nurses are no longer nice because they have to spend their time on writing notes on computer instead of taking the patient on a walk (which they want, but can’t), there is no choice but to be drugged to be released, you are degraded by some staff members (employed via private agencies, not the NHS ones, which are all nice and compassionate people), and I finally saw, two years ago, what it is (the psychiatry), and what people here were talking about.
    It almost ruined my life, my last psychiatric experience.
    Never again. I keep seroquel precisely for this reason. If I feel I am vulnerable, I will sort myself out.

    But yes, you are vulnerable, because you can access ‘that other reality’, and you are always vulnerable when you are fully there.

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  • Hello Bippyone,
    I just saw now your comment on ‘schizophrenia’.
    The wording is precisely what it is, and it is what it is called here in the West.
    It is labelled as an ‘illness’. And that’s why there is stigma. It won’t go anywhere while it’s called ‘mental illness’. Trump just proved it.
    It is not an illness.
    It is the experience of being able to access the other reality, sometimes it can be terrifying, sometimes not.
    I was labelled with this first, but they removed it and put ‘bipolar’, as I do too well for their diagnosis of ‘schizophrenia’, while it is exactly what i have (according to their labels), and it is not an illness.
    Here, they ruin it. They ruin it by words (if someone from authority, a ‘doctor’ says you are ill, it is very, very difficult to look at it differently), and then they force very damaging ‘medication’ on you, which actually ruins the whole experience and does make you ill. it doesn’t remove the other reality though, and thus, you start thinking that, that’s it, it’s chronic.
    Psychiatrists have no clue what it is, and they don’t want to admit it, because they don’t want to loose their power of regulating the society of undesired, challenging, clever ‘elements’. They want everyone the same, complacent.
    In other countries, they look at it as shamanic call, or spiritual awakening and work with you on it.
    But I know now, I am not a shaman. I am a holy fool, something I found in Russian culture, and which immediately shed a light for me on my experience. I see churches in my dreams, I talk with angels.
    Both experiences are valid and should be honored (shamanism or another dimension). I work with both.

    Once they ruined you, yes, you are more vulnerable to stress. You do need to be extra-careful. Sleep patterns, regulating stress levels, etc, healthy food, walk in nature, etc, very important.
    Take good care of yourself.

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  • Hello Oldhead,
    yes, we had this conversation before about the term ‘psychosis’. Yes, it is extremely offensive.
    I use it for a very specific reason, as I do want to study it as an academic, and there is no other way, but to use the term, I do write a book about it (not academic work), and it is the term so much used now, that I simply want to challenge its core. I blog about it too.
    What is it??? What? psychiatrists use it as if it conveys something, as if they understand anything, annihilating the other reality. But the other reality is there, and I want to challenge it. The whole look at it.
    So, again, I am sorry if some of you are offended by it, yet again, really sorry. I have a reason for it.
    Oldhead, if you go to my site http://www.russianpatient.com, click contact and send me an email if you don’t have my original email.

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  • Bippione,

    your husband had withdrawal reaction not ‘manic episode’.

    These drugs are addictive, and to stop them, you need to reduce them very gradually, very carefully.

    I agree with you about giving something when something happens, not to give it all the time. Because then you believe it is chronic and believe in ‘illness’, then you actually become ‘ill’. It acts as a curse. The only way out is to undo it, really. Stop believing in it. And if you become unwell, well, it is just temporary and will pass.

    in my case I know now for sure: they should never ever drug me when I ended up ‘in their care’. I would be able to process it, and come out happy and enlightened.
    I did eventually, but with the delay of 15 years, and only when I left the mental health narrative for good.

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  • Hello Bippione,

    people get unwell sometimes, and it is true. Now, whether it is a ‘condition’, it is a topic of debate.
    The theory of ‘chemical imbalance’ has no scientific argument.
    I agree with you that in exceptional cases, ‘medication’ can help, but it is all appropriated by the psychiatry, and it is misused very often.
    For instance, some examples: 1. distressed people who exhibit what they call ‘psychotic symptoms’ (in reality, no one knows what is going on, and each ‘psychosis’ is totally different for everyone. I am sorry I use this term. I use it because my experience was called ‘psychosis’, while it was a spiritual liberation and still is. I was prescribed killing dosage of risperidone and almost died, because I couldn’t see the aim of life after the hospital, where the most beautiful thing I ever experienced was called an ‘illness’.
    It took me years to process and come to the understanding that it isn’t an ‘illness’, and psychiatry almost ruined me. Well, almost, I am addicted to small dosages of seroquel now, and terrified to try to reduce (even if I take only 50 ml a night) while I am raising my son, because the psychiatric experiment brought me insomnia.
    The dosages they inflict in the hospital start from 300 ml – it is a nightmare, and sedates the patient to the total absence of any desire to enjoy life any further.

    The anti-depressants, their ‘miracle’ cases lead often to inability to stop them and to massive problems with withdraw, when even deeper depression follows. For privacy issues I can’t provide a name, but a close person to me, a former GP (!!!) can’t stop them now, had to leave his job, and I do fear for his future where anti-depressants don’t work anymore, make him unable to enjoy his life, but where he can’t stop them either. It is hard to watch.

    So, yes, medication works, just take it away from the psychiatrists. Because under their ‘care’, it isn’t medication, it is psychiatric, harmful drugs.

    Sanctuary is often necessary, but sanctuary doesn’t exist in a psychiatric hospital. As it stands now, it is a huge laboratory of human experiment, where patients are degraded, forced medication they don’t want, and released back, with inability to function as before. I don’t know a single patient who is happy after the ordeal in a psychiatric hospital, and till now, I met many, really many.

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  • Thank you for sharing the story Eric,
    terrifying as usual, to hear about the psychiatric ordeal.

    May I ask you more about your voices? As you, I took it in my own hands (I don’t hear them all the time, but I definitely see another reality), and decided that it’s all consistent and makes more sense than the age of reasoning. I like ‘my voices’, it is an integral part of who I am.
    I am curious, but it’s a very personal question.

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  • Many here know my journey, and helped me a lot. I learned so much thanks to this site.
    I am a survivor like many others here, so the journey is never really totally happy, especially when one decides to speak out outside of the ‘mental health narrative’. It always attracts anger.
    But it also attracts the kindred spirits and it’s the main thing, especially when we can help each other.

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  • you wrote a beautiful poem.
    Everything is offensive for survivors, unless there is some message of hope.
    Otherwise, it is often inflicted from the position of arrogance, and we had enough of it.
    Distress, spiritual seeking, enlightenment, feeling lost, hopeless, whatever you feel comfortable on your specific journey at any moment of time.
    And there are those who accept some ‘illness’, I was there too, and it is a process, sometimes a long one.
    I don’t anymore, but I respect those who do, because it is an impossible task often, especially when one is ruined by their ‘drugs’. Some also find it helpful, and this should be respected too.

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  • Hello ‘Slaying the Dragon of Psychiatry’.
    I speak Russian (native), English, French and Dutch. I lived in Russia, Belgium, The Netherlands, again in Belgium, and then the UK. But you can find more about me on http://www.russianpatient.com, where I write about my own ‘madness’ (apologies if anyone finds the term offensive).
    Szasz was the first to debuke the construction of ‘mental illness’ and ‘mental diagnoses’, and therefore, his book (and articles) are extremely valuable.
    But so were Foucault and Laing, extremely valuable.
    More recent works try to bring the debate back (in ‘Mad Studies’), but it’s all very challenging due to the prominence of biomedical discourse, and thus, sometimes even impossible. One of the recent examples of great writings are ‘Madness Contested’, and ‘Mad Matters’ (edited by Brenda Lefrancois), but also works by Bonnie Burstow, Peter Beresford, and some others.

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  • Hello May-May,
    I meant by ‘speaking the truth’ in its general meaning. I actually would advise against speaking ‘the truth’ while dealing with the psychiatrists, who are seeing things only through bio-medical lenses. If anything, it can be detrimental.
    I meant, leaving the life truthfully. Recognising that you have your unique path, which can be different from other people’s paths, but also beautiful and unique. Trusting in the path ahead of you, not feeling down because of someone else trying to make you feel that way.
    And well, you are among very few who talks about your experience openly, which is a very, very brave act. You are already speaking the truth.

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  • Hello May-May,
    very interesting story and life experience, I have been thinking about it since yesterday when I saw it.
    There is a concept, very unique to Russian culture, of ‘holy fool’, it was a ‘foolishness’ for Christ, with origins and justification found in the Bible. These ‘fools’ would walk around and talk the truth, acting often weirdly. Many of them were later recognised as saints.
    It is very sad that today, these experiences are indeed called as ‘psychosis’, relegated firmly into the domain of ‘mental illness’. I totally understand why you use this term, it is the current discourse, which is hard to avoid, and gives it a ‘meaning’, even if some people are offended by the term.
    I think that without the intervention of the ‘doctors’ you would eventually find yourself in your ‘psychosis’ and connect even more with God, but it isn’t possible in the current age, and thus, you can only do what you are already doing.
    i have a very, very similar experience.
    Good luck to you and thank you for sharing your story. Read about the ‘holy fool’ in Russian Christianity, it might help you to understand more.

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  • no, I don’t worry not to be understood, my points I try to make them clear in my articles, though my view on ‘madness’, ‘parallel reality’, etc, does change with time.
    I don’t want to offend anyone in the comments, as I realised it is a very sensitive topic for many, and using such terms as ‘psychosis, ‘bipolar’, etc, causes distress for some.
    Comments is where discussion takes place, and where ‘feelings’ etc, emerge, and my main purpose with writing is to share my inner world, uplift feelings, provoke an interesting discussion.
    Writing for me is to create something positive, it is a sharing also a piece of myself, and exchanging energy with others.
    In the most positive way.
    I try, at least.

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  • yes, ‘drugs’ or whatever they prescribe. I tread each word carefully within the comments, but still get it wrong:)

    Mhh, i would prefer to avoid the discussion of ‘psychotic’ symptoms, it is land-mine, for which I don’t have enough of energy at this moment, as I know I will say something wrong, lol.
    There is no real understanding of what is ‘psychosis’ to start with.
    They don’t know what it is.
    The person ‘presents’ some ‘symptoms’. They are defined as something that the ‘observer’ can’t see. Therefore, it is delegated to domain of ‘loss of touch with reality’.
    My position comes and remains: there is a parallel reality. It is there, it is real. It is magic, it isn’t ‘hallucinations’ or ‘hearing rubbish’. It is a parallel universe.
    Some people get more frightened of it than others, or have a worse ‘trip’, but it is a unique experience, and changes will come once here, in the west, we acknowledge that.
    Like they do in other cultures, such as with shamanic experiences.

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  • Just to specify my point:
    I use the terms ‘psychosis’ and ‘bipolar’ so that people can understand. Otherwise, I absolutely, don’t agree with these terms as definitions of anything!
    I once came to a group of ‘bipolar’ support, full of ‘bipolar’ people, to realise that I had absolutely different and unique experience from any of other people in the group. And ironically, they also had totally, unique, unrelated experiences!
    Actually, a classic ‘bipolar’ person rarely has ‘psychotic’ symptoms. They have a surge of creativity, which is labelled as ‘period of mania’. Please, forgive me for using the terms, ‘bipolar’ etc, I have no other vocabulary to describe my visit to ‘bipolar’ group, as it was defined as such.
    I had vivid, often very beautiful ‘psychoses’ (journeys into parallel world), but as the psychiatrist told me once: they are obliged to give a diagnosis if you come into the attention of psychiatry more than once.
    As to ‘schizophrenia’, yes, i strongly believe that medication is to blame for deterioration in the general health, stigma and also self-labelling, as well, as misunderstanding of the society of different experiences.

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  • Yes, i am in sociology/philosophy field.
    I just want to make my position clear.
    From an ‘academic’ point of view, one needs to use some kind of terms, otherwise, there is no debate at all, no point of and for discussion.
    ‘Mad studies’ is the only field in academia which is conducted by ‘survivors’, ‘service-users’, or those who prefer to keep their diagnoses for one reason or another. As I see, it is the only field which can make an interesting contribution in the ‘scientific’ debate.
    From personal perspective, I think that everyone has different experience, view and approach. We are all completely different, with totally unique, unrelated experiences. I can understand all of your arguments, but as someone who writes about it, I need to speak from some kind of position, and it is ‘mad studies’.
    Otherwise, I write about my ‘psychoses’ (and I intend to keep the term for the time being, as I am not writing about or inventing a new terminology), and it will be mostly a comedy. It is on http://www.russianpatient.com and it will be in English, even if I have some posts in Russian in the beginning.
    In academia without any ‘theory’ or ‘terms’ one can’t go anywhere.
    As to psychiatry, it is an institution, which has an over-increasing power, and ‘critical’ psychiatry is one domain which can change things for the ‘sufferers’ in the foreseeable future, in practical terms, for the better. I don’t see any coordinated effort anywhere else, apart from ‘debates’. Mad in America is really a site which actually brought coordinated debate into the public, and it is marvelous to see.
    Psychology is of course, a valid academic field, with many interesting and useful contributions. Personally, I am fascinated by the subject.

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  • yes, the story of St Frances of Assisi is an interesting one.
    I will include it in some other writings.
    Psychiatry creates lots of things, and especially the narrative of ‘chronic’ mental illness, which can convince a person that he or she is ill.
    It is bad.
    As to ‘schizophrenia’, I read recently an article in Russian, and their view (the psychiatrists there) is that this ‘illness’ always leads to loss of brain functioning.
    I felt really bad after reading it.
    There are indeed two recent published articles which argue that it is the use of ‘neuroleptics’ (anti-psychotics) which lead to long-term damage.

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  • I don’t know what to say Lametamor,
    I heard terrible things about the psychiatry in Russia. And terrible things about what they do to people in hospitals, and how the society as a whole looks at it.
    But then again, my friend from the Netherlands writes to me from a psychiatric hospital there, where he is ‘treated’ by forced injections, telling me that he wants to end his life, that there is no hope left, that he is finished.
    I could have ended up like that too, if i resisted them in the hospital. I almost did last time, until self-preservation instinct told me to ‘remain’ quiet while sectioned, since one has no rights if sectioned.
    I recovered, and I recovered from their diagnoses. I won’t go back to any psychiatric hospital ever again.

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  • Hello Streetphotobeing,
    I don’t remember the name of the tea, but it did treat my gastritis,
    yes, I developed insomnia, and I was hopelessly in love and couldn’t process the disaster of September 11 for two years, it was a huge psychological trauma for me, especially with everything which followed (Iraq especially). Childhood trauma as well.
    But despite all this, my visions were real:)
    I made a video about it today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHx6tn7c9xs&t=33s
    and more on my blog lately http://porcupineswisdom.blogspot.co.uk

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  • JanCarol,
    I agree with everything you say.
    ‘Witchcraft’ as ‘bad witchcraft’, probably not a right word, maybe to call it ‘mass hypnosis’ is a right word. I apologise if the word’ witchcraft’ caused offense and I need to re-frame it, you are right.
    I don’t recommend anti-psychotics! Anti-psychotics are created by the psychiatry! I recommend a ‘potion’ and only for those who struggle to claim their voices and visions in peace!
    I do consider myself a witch too, but good witch, white witch.
    I am developing the blog so it is in the stage of ‘unveiling’ and is for now, addressed to those, who sit at home under a huge amount of ‘anti-psychotics’ and struggle to exit the system.
    I un-diagnosed myself long time ago (on the matter of ‘diagnoses’ and the absence of logic in it, will be in my next post) and embraced my ‘madness’ too. My choice for my ‘potion’, created by myself, is to be ‘grounded’ in my daily life, where I am a single mum, have to work, look after my son, and still enjoy my ‘madness’, etc.
    I obviously plan to stop my ‘potion’ at some point, when I have firm stability and when I can’t risk to get back in the system for the sake of my son. I have to be grounded, well-thought, and lucid. But with my ‘potion’ I also enjoy meeting with angels, talking with fairies, etc, etc.
    Something very bad happened to me last year, when under massive stress (provoked by terrible car accident), I felt i was in ‘psychosis’ and went to the hospital in search of a safe place, and where I was detained under Mental Health Act, and where the ‘doctor’ was experimenting with three types of drugs for two months on me (while seroquel had worked just fine for me, previously), and where I was ‘recovered’ a week upon my arrival to the hospital, but they wouldn’t release me, with shouting nurses, terrible noise and constant partonising. During two months of the ‘nightmare’ my mum had to look after my son who wanted his mum and needed me. It was such a nightmare that it opened my eyes finally at the evil of the psychiatry. Before, I was living outside the psychiatry.

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  • LavenderSage,
    1. yes, of course, people, have a right to talk to each other. I am extremely glad that my article provoked so many discussions and possibility to exchange opinions.
    2. My exchange with Oldhead is interesting, but I don’t allow myself to be partonised, when I see it clearly. Including from you.
    3. To come back to ‘I don’t think she’s gonna get it’, yes, I would like to know myself as what exactly I can’t get. I am a researcher and an academic, and am always interested to learn, exchange opinions and understand the logic behind each argument, including when it seems I don’t understand something. I also admit when I am wrong if I see absence of logic in my own opinion.
    4. To make clearer my point: psychiatry in all its manifestations is ‘witchcraft’, since it isn’t based in science or medicine. Mental distress is real, mental illness is a myth. Psychiatrists make people ill. Medication is different from concoctions created by the psychiatrists. Biology and medicine are real sciences. Diagnoses damage people and are based in fiction of an evil mind. So, yes, i am curious what I don’t get.

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  • Oldhead,
    you have a right to your opinion, and i mostly agree with you. Psychiatry is not a dialogue, including ‘critical’ psychiatry, as it is still based in the narrative of ‘mental illness’. There is no such thing as ‘mental illness’, but mental distress is real, and many people struggle after they enter the system, and especially when they are reassured that they are ‘ill’, which damages them as individuals. Therefore, an alternative needs to be in place, which would abolish the narrative of ‘mental illness’, the main concept which gives psychiatry its legitimacy.

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  • psychiatry is not a trap, it is witchcraft, and it is ‘holocaust’. You need first to remove the curse from those who are under their ‘spell’. It is those people who can then fight the psychiatry. Others can help once they understand what is really happening, and they can understand when they hear ‘the stories’ about ‘the curse’ from liberated people. I do try to address all this on my blog http://porcupineswisdom.blogspot.co.uk, as well as on my video channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtlCAtS3PmLg3mX_1IVp-eA?view_as=subscriber
    I only started, and it is not a promotional activity. It is an urgent need to stop the ‘human’ experiment of the psychiatry before it becomes too late. It is not a science, it is not medicine, it is an evil mind behind all this.

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  • Psychiatry is an ideology actively penetrating the society through their discourse of ‘mental illness’. They do actively destroy ‘different’ individuals by proclaiming them as sick. The only way to claim back humanity is to challenge them by proposing a firm, holistic alternative. I am happily mad and I am on seroquel, by researching my Own medication and my own dose. And I can still own my visions, voices, life and intelligence. I exited the narrative of mental illness by believing in my own journey. Psychiatry doesn’t own drug companies, and there is medication which helps to navigate the journey until one is ready to drop it. Psychosis is a real thing, but it is Not an illness. I try to tell how you can exit the mental health system on my blog http://porcupineswisdom.blogspot.co.uk I know that ‘psychosis’ can appear as an offensive term, but I use it because I researched it. They Don’t know what it is (the psychiatry). Le psychose est une jounee, la follie n’est pas une maladie, c’est un etat de difference. Я с психиатрией лично давно закончила и тихо над ними ржала, пока не дошло, что я одна так легко выживаю со своей ‘болезнью’ и что другие люди конкретно помирают. Выжила со смехом, но многое изучила и пора действовать, чтобы искоренить это зло

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  • JanCarol,
    no, i know you didn’t call me ‘an idiot’ lol, but i do appear quite ‘off’ in the video:) I will make more!
    Yes, one has to be very very careful as how to present oneself and talk with others, while undiagnosing oneself and navigating the system. Totally agree! I wrote a post about it today(in terms of navigating the system, but how to ‘appear’ then to the public, yes, very important, i will address it in my next post. ‘How to play normal’ to the rest of the world, something like that. My post of today is, if any interest, on: https://porcupineswisdom.blogspot.com/2018/11/second-step-in-your-journey-towards.html

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  • I put the video back on public mode for the time being. JanCarol said I look like an idiot in it, and I agree:) I need to make more videos to deconstruct the ‘vision’ of ‘psychosis’. Yes, I am going straight for their definition of it, such as ‘loss of touch with reality, accompanied by hallucinations and hearing voices’. ”Hallucinations’ are visions and they are real, and voices are real as well. And it isn’t loss of touch with reality, but an altered state of consciousness. And it isn’t an illness. They tell you it’s an illness, which makes you ill. Once the person claims back the power of his visions and his gift of hearing voices, one reclaims the power of self-identity, and starts a journey of self-healing. At this moment, they make people ill. I probably explain it better in my post on my blog: http://porcupineswisdom.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-journey-to-recovery-from-severe.html

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  • Yes, I agree! That’s what the person experiences in altered state of consciousness! Having visions which can be accompanied by hearing voices, and they are real, they aren’t ‘hallucinations’. My particular aim (on my blog) is to deconstruct first their medical language. They ‘shame’ these experiences by calling them a ‘disease’ by attaching a specific label such as ‘psychosis’ or ‘schizophrenia’

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  • Hi JanCarol,
    thank you for the links, i will also look at your website.
    Yes, i am at that stage when i finally realised that it isn’t an illness, and that all my visions were real. Yes, i did have the chance of having ‘beautiful’, ‘amazing’ ‘psychoses, and am reclaiming my own personal power that it was beautiful and that magic is real.
    But I need to be careful in terms of how I address all this, since ‘psychosis’ can be a very traumatic experience. It is an experience, it isn’t an illness.

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  • Hi,
    thank you for the comments,
    I have to rethink, since more people agree that ‘psychosis’ is too embedded as a very negative experience.
    My particular aim is to help to understand what exactly happens in that state, such as ‘voices’ and ‘hallucinations’ (visions), and that they are real, not a sign of disease. That in fact even in its most frightening manifestation (psychosis), if the person is believed for what he says or hears, instead of ‘debunking’ it as total nonsense, then the person can work on what is happening in that parallel reality, and be helped better in the recovery journey.
    But i have to think indeed how to communicate what I want to say in a better way.

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  • that’s fine! Yes, i will continue using the term for what i want to do, i don’t see any other way if i want to reach people who experienced the phenomenon and know what I am talking about. This is how it is called, and adopting a different terminology which isn’t recognized will be talking into the void. Here, on this site, we know of different terminology which is still building up. Those in the hospitals with diagnoses are familiar with a different, very embedded in the daily life term. I want to address these people, by explaining that when they are told they experienced ‘psychosis’, it isn’t an illness, that nothing is wrong with them, and that it can be healed, transformed and even enjoyed. And I will change the term in due time. I might be wrong as how I decided to talk about it, by using ‘their’ terminology, but for now I trust my intuition. First of all, I am interested to help those who are stuck in the system and think that something is wrong with them after they had what they call ‘psychosis’ by explaining what it is really ‘psychosis’. A healing process from trauma, which can also be magical.

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  • yes, i was there (not on anti-psychotic drugs) and I was doing very well. This was when I learned another language and moved two more countries. But it was in fear of what would happen if another psychosis arrives. Until i finally realised (after my last hospital) that you know what? I love the state of psychosis, especially when you can enjoy it while still being able to be a full member of the society. I can’t achieve this stage if not on anti-psychotics (I can’t go into psychosis then at all). I could do without coffee and alcohol (I don’t consume them too much, a cup of coffee in the morning, a glass of red at night), even if I did have it all while also not being on anti-psychotic. Now, I am actively learning how to enjoy my ‘psychosis’, still live well, and be fully here, in this society, for my son. I don’t know if a drug could be developed which would just heal the sleep and relax you, maybe it could, once they start looking at the right thing, and not at what they are looking now. I do take paracetamol for my headaches and so i actually do believe in medicine. I don’t believe in the institution of psychiatry, but i do believe in humanity and that some people do want to develop a drug which helps but doesn’t harm, that there are doctors who come in order to help, and that some people are interested in other people doing well.
    Thank you for liking my video lol:)

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  • yes, i see what you mean. I will from now on say why i use the term. My aim is to actually help people, and people who do experience psychosis can’t be helped until there is a firm alternative in place. It does include re-educating the psychiatrists who come into the system because of a genuine desire to ‘treat’ something. It will stay in the domain of health for a very foreseeable future. In one of my comments I argued that as long as they have ‘psychosis’ in their dsm, the will claim legitimacy, since people in ‘psychosis’ do experience real distress and do need a safe house when they are in that state, they are extremely vulnerable. Psychosis is a real thing, it is simply not an illness.
    Having studied psychosis for 15 years as a person experiencing it, i see it as a way to help concrete people in concrete situations, such as people who end up in the system because they are brought there due to what they call ‘psychosis’.
    For the rest, it needs to be addressed as precise, separate aims: highlight that they have now such a disorder as ‘antisocial personality disorder’ which makes fighting any stigma impossible, highlight what other disorders they have (labeling different personalities and normal childhood behaviour), etc. But they created the whole thing, starting from ‘psychosis’, and my personal interest is in helping people who always end up in the system (health, medicine, asylum, on the streets, psychiatric hospital), even if the whole psychiatry will be abolished. In psychosis, one does loose touch with reality, and therefore the person needs urgent help, just not the help what it is provided now. Not when it is looked upon as an illness, instead of a healing process of the person, or some emerging spiritual search. In my videos my particular aim is to help people who had concrete experience of psychosis but also address those who are ‘treating’ it. I am not refuting doctors who want to genuinely help, they just don’t understand the phenomenon, but neither does the society, and ‘psychotics’ will be the ones who will always suffer until there is a very good, holistic alternative, where they would emerge from ‘safe houses’ as happy, strong, fulfilled people knowing that they are simply special and unique.

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  • Lavendersage, I do understand what you are saying! The term psychosis is also used in movies books and tv. I aim at explaining first of all that psychosis isn’t an illness, the symptoms they treat are behaviour related and that’s why Schizophrenia and bipolar get diagnosed and receive a label. My mission is to help people diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar by revoking that it’s an illness and by looking at ways how they can exit the system of labels, diagnosis and heavy medication which harms them as individuals by treating a normal human experience. My aim is to find a way as to how ‘psychotic’ people can enjoy who they are but not end up back on the streets or asylums. Schizophrenia and bipolar are diagnoses for people who are highly gifted, spiritual and fun. I want to start helping these people by removing the label that they are mentally ill once and for all. But it will be a long slow process and I might not achieve what I want, but I come from sincerely

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  • Oldhead, I am not looking at a substance to get into that state! I am already there, naturally! I am looking at ways how to control it and have it at the same time. Psychosis is called a disease but it is not a disease. From the literature of how they describe it, it is clear they don’t understand it, and since the term is so embedded I want first to transform it into a positive thing and then start proposing new terminology.

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  • Oldhead, I am not looking at drugs to treat it but am positive that a new drug can be developed which can make psychosis as a daily experience to be enjoyed not to be feared. I use the term psychosis because I look at it in a positive way and want to change perception of what it is exactly. Yes it is an altered state of consciousness which is a normal human experience that some people are blessed to enjoy! Calling it a hate speech is yet another act of diversion from what I am trying to say

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  • Thank you so much for the links! Yes I am actively learning how to come off AP in a safe way, I was without them for years but my approach was avoiding psychosis and only recently I learned that psychosis is a positive experience for me and part of who I am, therefore I need to learn how to have the state of altered consciousness without loosing it totally and still enjoy my life. So I am looking at how it can be done! If they developed a medication which just provided deep profound sleep and relaxed you, I would try it

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  • streetphotobeing,
    it depends on what exactly you want to achieve while being out of the system. There are people who managed it and there are people who managed to get off anti-psychotics drugs and be well, but it requires strict routine, no alcohol, and no coffee, and it is hard to preserve then that beautiful state of ‘altered conciousness’.
    I was for years without medication but it was in the framework of mind that I should avoid then psychoses. I did end up in psychosis, i was put on medication, and still managed to have psychosis while being on low dose of seroquel- my biggest mistake was that I contacted the hospital myself, and this was my own big learning lesson. I can stay on seroquel of 50 ml, because it helps me to sleep, while still enjoying ‘altered state of mind’. Getting off anti-psychotic totally is in the future, but i want to do it while still being able to enjoy my wine, coffee, etc (which I do now). I want it all: happy life with small pleasures and being able to enjoy my ‘altered state of consiousness’. I am actively learning how i can do it all without seroquel at 50 ml, and once I am ready (once I have a more stable situation from what I am in now – being a single mum with not enough teaching hours, in a foreign country), i will do it. I might have to wait until my son grows up, since he is my biggest and most important priority.
    seroquel is not good, but on 50 ml it is manageable. And so, to get out of the hospital, i do accept medication (otherwise, they won’t let you out), but am always asking for seroquel (I tried them all), and then stop it or reduce it by myself.
    This helped me to stay ‘functioning’ for 15 years now, with also years in between when I wasn’t on any medication. But taking into account my current stress in life, i personally have to be very careful for the sake of my son’s future.

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  • JanCarol
    yes, all experience is different, totally agree.
    I’ve been in the system for 16 years now (not in the system per se, but around it, since I did have to learn indeed how to continue living well and enjoy my life while having experienced ‘psychosis’). Shamanism – we don’t know what it is (and you don’t train in shamanic methods), because there are no shamans around, apart from the fake ones who ask for lots of money. One doesn’t teach shamanism unless one is a real shaman, one becomes a shaman. And the only way to become a shaman is to experience ‘psychosis’ and learn how to control it, and then progress to the stage of helping other people. Shamanism – it is knowing how to live in the magic of the altered state of consciousness.
    I did meet enough of ‘patients’ from lots of hospitals to start talking about the experiences in such a way that it will appeal to some, but not to everyone, as is the case with everything. I will continue making videos from now on about all this, as an academic, as a person who had many psychoses, as a person who manages to lead a happy and fulfilled life in between and actively learning how not to deny myself this altered state of consciousness, because this is simply who I am. Doctors make it painful, not the patients themselves. What is painful is what happens before the psychosis, you are right about this. The reason they call it ‘psychosis’ is precisely because as you highlight it can be a traumatic experience for the person.
    To start making real changes, we do need real actions and people who are brave enough to start speaking out in public, and bring message of hope to others. It is a process. The terminology is so strongly embedded that by using their terminology to turn it upside down and make something positive out of it is the only way. I did think about it for very long time (terminology). But this is my opinion, others might disagree.
    But you are right that it is an altered state of consciousness, and it is amazing in itself because it is magical. Hospitals make it painful, doctors make it painful. Psychosis is usually a reaction of the person to something very bad in his or her life, it is actually a healing process, which needs to be navigated etc.
    but hey, no one understands psychosis (and i read enough of academic literature by now and met enough ‘doctors’), and someone has to start explaining what it is from the point of view of the ‘patient’.
    My first aim is to explain to people who have been in psychosis that what they ‘hear’ and ‘see’ as visions and voices, are real things, situated in the parallel world. And this is there the most damage is done, when they tell you that it isn’t real. They deny you your self-identity, they deny you who you are.

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  • yes, anti-psychotics damp your emotions as well as who you are as a person.
    When you come off them, you can experience terrifying withdrawal symptoms (especially if you were on them for years). You need to make sure you sleep (really, really make sure of that, including asking for melotonin), take vitamins (B especially), and take warm baths to calm yourself down. Breathing exercise also helps.
    Follow the link to Chaya blog and download her free book, it really helps to know that some people really care and been there as well: https://chayagrossberg.com/free-ebook/

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  • Communism, yes, where i was growing up, psychiatry was thriving to a terrifying extent, together with suppression of any religious awakening. It was a badly managed apparatus, made of greedy people in need of control. How they brought it up via their revolution is a terrifying exploration of mind. Personally, I can’t claim anymore my aristocratic roots, my grand-parent was in Siberia in a political prison, and free thought was suppressed. But, as a child, I experienced good manifestations of socialism as an idea, such as free education, enjoying the school and friends, having food on the table, having access to free medical care. I also witnessed what it meant ‘bringing capitalism’ to Russia, and how it effectively destroyed humanity in some people.
    As to psychosis, I recorded a video today about it. Psychosis is a real thing, and it is beautiful thing. I love it and am actively learning how to live in that state while still being able to be part of the society. The link to the video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9QX-Z2_eS4

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  • I have to come back here to the phenomenon of ‘psychosis’. It is a real thing, I was there 7 times. It can be a wonderful thing if handled properly and it does need safe handling, just not what is currently on offer. It is not an illness but a healing reaction of the mind/soul/body and should never lead to diagnosis etc. But it does need input from real medicine for strong sleeping aid, and negation of medicine is NOT what I will ever do when it is based on evidence and has real benefits for humanity. I do believe in science.

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  • Yes, i think i should highlight I talk from where I am (the UK), where psychiatry is deeply embedded in the system of general health, and where the system of health itself is presented by an organisation which does amazing things for people. But where ‘psychiatric’ prescriptions are now provided by general doctors. Therefore, the only tool left is to fight the DSM and European system of diagnoses (derived from DSM but rebranded), and highlight what they are hiding in the system of general health.

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  • Oldhead, but I agree with all your comments! The word ‘alternative’ arises in the discussion of what to do with people who are in the system for years, and in highlighting that psychiatry is a deep situated institution of control with massive power, in all levels of our society! To really fight it one needs to come with precise ‘alternative’ or ‘counterforce’ so that patients, survivors, and others don’t end up in the system of another control. And this is a current trend where they are encouraged to be ‘talk’ peers used as affective labour with a label of being sick. They are actively patronised by the system to accept that something is wrong with them. In the UK for instance if one says he or she is anti-psychiatry one is accused of being anti-science or anti-health or anti-medicine. Psychiatry became invisible within a system of health itself.

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  • oldhead,
    on the question of your alternatives, your answer was ‘socialism’.
    This is not an answer to a society based on institutions, whether socialism or capitalism, you should research ‘functionalism’ and how current governments base organisational structure on it, and where psychiatry plays a role as an institution regulating social control, presenting itself under ‘medical establishment’. Health is a different domain all together, as well as medicine. What you propose is not socialism, but chaos and denial of all terminology, which is a denial of the current discourse and language, and not helpful if you want to make a real change, so that people actually listen when they are familiar with a language they can recognize, otherwise, there is a risk of ‘blah-blah-blah’ without leading to any concrete results, such as radical change for the better, liberation of mad (crazy, different, bipolar, schizophrenic, patients, survivors, psychotic, visionaries, prophets – they all prefer their own terms, and you need to be aware of it) people, and recognition of difference in humanity.
    To make it easier: socialism is an ideology, psychiatry is an institution based on discourse (which became an ideology) within a system of other institutions, and where ‘mental health’ is currently a discourse, and while it is in the stage of discourse one can still make changes before it becomes an ideology based on control, coercion and further suppression of agency.

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  • ok, if you put emphasis on the term ‘alternative’. Yes, we do need alternatives. There are cases of real ‘mental’ distress and where people do need help. Cases of depression, psychosis, etc, are all real things, and people do want and need help. But it is how we look at it, and how we help these people, instead of damaging them and making out of them invalids.
    Exposing the psychiatry shouldn’t be negation of medicine and advances in biology, psychology, etc. It should be pointing to the damage that ‘labelling’ such as a diagnosis brings (and that they call it now ‘physical sickness’), it should be about fighting against the legislation which derives mental health patients of their rights, it should be about providing safe houses for people who need them, including giving them medication, just not the medication which damages the brain, brings side-effects and disability. It is advancing research that one can recover from psychosis, depression, etc (and that by calling some people as suffering from ‘chronic illness’ derives these people from the possibility to recover). It is about exposing their assumptions that it is a disease and disease of the brain, when in reality it is all a subjective opinion of one psychiatrist who bases it all on ‘observation’. It is about exposing the lies abut how they construct their diagnoses.
    It is also about helping those who are trapped in the inhuman system which currently exists. And it shouldn’t be about negation of people who come into ‘mental health’ in order to actually help people. It is about reforming mental health, as it stands now.

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  • Oldhead,
    there are millions of people trapped in the system who, yes, do need urgent alternatives to survive. These are people who are on anti-psychotic drugs for years and need extremely careful planning as how to come off them, or live on them (if they choose so or are unable to stop them) and still conduct a meaningful and happy life.
    They do come on this site to find alternatives, and since the thread is under my article, I do want to keep it practical for those who have experienced the same story as me.
    Some people are trapped in the system of diagnoses, it is a fact. One has to be almost inhuman to come out of it, because of the ‘mental health’ system. People are asked to seek help, and then they seek it, they get a diagnosis and are put on medication, without knowing how damaging and addictive it is. Some don’t seek help, they end up their by accident, because of ‘psychosis’, which is a real thing to which I tried to provide an alternative explanation. One can recover from psychosis and live a productive and happy life, and THIS is exactly what no one in the system wants to hear. No one wants to hear that psychosis can be beautiful, magical and divine, and some people experience enlightenment or spiritual revelation.

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  • @the_cat, thank you so much for your advice and the link. They put me on seroquel years ago (without saying, of course, how damaging but also addictive it is), I know my organism is now addicted to it, as sleep just goes if i stop it. I am on minimal dose as a result (and I read that seroquel is prescribed as a sleeping aid), but before I go off it completely I need to find a really good natural alternative which works. I think that people who are on seroquel experience the same problem.

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  • Hi Chaya,
    what a great idea to teach practical skills to those who have been there and can help others! It is very very hard to come off the psychiatric drugs, and some of them are so addictive that it becomes almost impossible, especially if you depend on them to sleep. Do you have any advice for very strong natural remedy for sleep?
    I enrolled into your course, when does it start? I am glad that you launched this!

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  • @survivingthesystem
    why not using the actual names wasn’t a question, it was stating the fact. Do you think I am not aware of what it brings as a problem on a daily basis? Since I published my first article on Mad in America, I am facing constant stigma, discrimination and patronizing. I get calls and messages from relatives and friends advising me to stop being so open about it, to stop writing about it, etc. I even asked once to remove my article from the site, which they did (https://www.madinamerica.com/2015/04/being-mad-is-liberating/), to ask to put it back a couple of years later.
    But hey, if no one talks openly, no one will ever know the truth and fight for the rights of the oppressed openly. How many academics are talking about their ‘mental health’? Maybe ten in total, and only if they are already in well-established positions (I am not). Others keep silent. They are moving it all to the next stage now, where mental illness is marketed as a physical illness, where it is marketed that it is ok to seek help, but where it is not okay to be ‘mentally ill’. They are silencing everyone with their new campaign of marketing actively the mental illness as any other physical illness.
    Yes, i have lots of friends in the system who are even still in the hospitals, on injections, actively reassured that something is wrong with them.
    It is the most brutal act on humanity.

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  • @Oldhead,
    socialist revolution and exposing the harm of psychiatry are two totally different things. I grew up under the socialism (one of the best experiences of my life in terms of enjoying my life, while learning values, having fun at school, learning how to socialize, how to think, knowing that everyone should have the right and chance to succeed in life, caring after other people, knowing that whatever happened to you, you would still have a place in the society, be protected, have food on your table, be able to send your child to school and university). But psychiatry was still there, because the society, as whole, doesn’t understand ‘mental distress’ and why it is happening and what to do with it.

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  • ah, i am not biting into anything, Oldhead!
    Scientology- i know nothing about it, indeed, but they seem to attack the core of the matter: DSM and the diagnosis system.
    There is no real coordinated system elsewhere, it is all non- coordinated ‘talk’ at this moment. And people in real life have nowhere to go, apart from the system of ‘mental health’. Psychiatry and mental health are the same thing, they just rebranded themselves and penetrated all spheres of life. Attacking psychiatry therefore, looks like attacking all doctors, which try to help and heal people. There is misunderstanding of the mind, and therefore, it is delegated into the field of ‘illness’, and the ‘attack’ should be at the level of ‘DSM and diagnoses’, while doing research on the mind and theorising that ‘cases of distress’ are a natural reaction to major events in life, stress, and current capitalistic system which makes some people poorer and unable to enjoy what should be enjoyed by each individual.

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  • @Frank,
    well, you just summarized the biggest problem, and indeed, it has all moved into ‘mental health’ domain, with extremely disturbing marketing campaign happening in parallel (it is ok to be ill, it is just a physical illness). Therefore, any anti-psychiatry initiatives look like you are talking against ‘health’ in general, like you are attacking all health professionals at the same time. This is definitely happening in the UK. The psychiatry has become a system within a system.

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  • an example of a survivor where I am (the UK), a girl diagnosed with schizophrenia, years on medication. She is anti-psychiatry, she can’t stand it. She stops her medication, because she knows how harmful it is, and she can’t work on it or lead any active life while on anti-psychotics. Anti-psychotic medication, however, alters something in the brain, making it addictive to it, to an extent that when one tries to stop it, it leads to medication-withdrawal psychosis. She ends up in the hospital, she is sectioned under mental health act, she knows it is wrong, but there is no other place to go, there is nothing available as an alternative. So, in the hospital, she is put back on medication, there is no choice, unless you want to stay in the hospital forever. And her journey starts all over again. But she is anti-psychiatry, she is a survivor, like many others. There are thousands of such people, and they don’t know what to do, where to turn, how to get out of the carousel unless there is a clear, real-life alternative.

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  • I think that there are different groups and different survivors. Groups probably do include academics but also health-professionals, activists, journalists, etc. As to survivors, i think one needs to be very careful and make them welcome on this site, instead of trying to partonize them. Many people have been smashed for years by psychiatry, are addicted to medication which they are prescribed, are surviving within the official paradigm of ‘mental health’, and until there is an organised group which can receive the survivors in real life to help them, one has to be careful as how to address them and try to make them feel as if they aren’t in any group. Taking a clear academic stance, or becoming an activist is a different thing.

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  • She was bullied on Twitter and she is a psychiatry survivor herself, I was very worried about her as a fellow human being. Bipolar disorder is a label, I agree, a label of the experience of being human.
    Anyway, she seems to be managing, with her Muslim friends helping her, so i don’t want to discuss it anymore here. When I wrote about her first time, i was hoping that some other people would support her on twitter from her bullies

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  • there are too many people in the system who are ‘disabled’ by the system and therefore, while the system exists it does need peer-workers.
    To give some insight into the discussion On Szasz, Cooper and Laing, they all provided contribution into anti-psychiatry. There are plenty of psychiatrists who, also are at a loss themselves as what exactly they are doing (and I know a few). But proclaiming oneself as an anti-psychiatrist is, in practical terms, a loss of a job and professional reputation, with one recent example (from just criticizing some (!) practices within a profession, written on this site quite recently and all over the news.

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  • Oldhead,
    but about which demographics are you talking about? There are real people in real life who either ask for help (so, your answer, is to turn them away?), or people who are long enough in the system and are ‘disabled’ by it. I don’t understand what is your stance in terms of offering real solutions for real life, apart from just arguing against the psychiatry?
    As to Scientology, they just released an interesting documentary which frankly speaking, says the truth about the whole ‘bogus’ psychiatry thing, so I am interested in them more and more while i am researching them and looking at what they are doing in practical terms. https://www.scientology.tv/documentaries/diagnostic-and-statistical-manual.html

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  • @ Desinquisiteur
    I can’t answer directly under the thread as it finished for comments.
    To answer your question, to advance any changes within the secular field, it is a way that academically can sort this out indeed for the time being (the psychological but also sociological approach), in terms of helping real people in real life and while operating within the official ‘mental health’ ideology.

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  • Well, while commenting I came to distinguishing between fight against the oppression of the psychiatry, and a fight in understanding ‘psychosis’.
    Most official religions have indeed become an oppressive apparatus in themselves, so sociologically, the fight does need to be at the level of institutions, power discourse, human rights and individual agency, and it is sociologists and philosophers who can make a difference in the discourse.
    But from a personal point of view, I am interested in psychosis. I saw god and met the devil, and no one, no one can ever convince me that it never happened. In this respect, psychiatry, even if it says it accepts ‘religious’ beliefs, actively denies them, because it gives a definition to ‘delusions’, which are in their majority, expressions of seeing something else out there.
    To be clearer: the anti-psychiatry fight is one thing, understanding psychosis is another thing, and it has to be taken out of ‘psychiatry’ for those who are oppressed within the machine.
    As how to help others, well, i am trying to do it, but the outlets of doing it in a practical way, are non-existent (where I live) if one needs to earn some money to feed one’s child and survive at the same time. As I argued in another comment, most people are actually hiding behind pseudonyms, because stigma is smashing, and so i am not sure where exactly the ‘fight’ (apart from this site, of course) is taking place and how help other in more practical ways.

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  • I agree that people can agree or disagree without shaming. The main disbelief actually came from Christian people when I was saying I was ‘Jesus’ and seeing parallel reality. I already know that psychiatrists don’t believe in such things. But Christians should actually sit me down and say that: 1. You are discovering Jesus and this is what is happening, you are discovering faith, or 2. You feel close to Jesus and Jesus is in everyone, instead of agreeing that it is a mental illness. A Christian nurse told me while administering medication that ‘You aren’t Jesus, and never were.” Personally, i do find it problematic that those who say they follow any faith, are unable to actually experience faith in real life, and spiritual awakening.
    Not believing in anything is a choice which should be respected, but doesn’t help in understanding psychosis.

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  • Steve, yes, I agree. It has become some sort of ‘religion’ in itself, and it uses a very powerful discourse, which is hard to fight as a whole. Therefore, the fight at a global level does need to come from those who do believe in God, and then fight at an individual level for those who actually encountered the parallel reality, and had the privilege to meet both god and the devil.
    As to being called ‘a Scientologist’, it only triggers a natural interest on my part. What Scientologists are doing exactly? And why it seems that most people are terrified of them? More I read about them, more I become curious about them, in all honesty.

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  • the problem is that the society as a whole doesn’t accept any forms of madness and psychiatry acts as an institution which took on the task of regulator of all forms of ‘weirdness’ and will continue doing so, especially with its umbrella term of ‘medical regulator’, while being in reality a regulator of ‘behavior’ and ‘societal malaise’.
    In practical terms, i think that as a fight from survivors it has to come from individual groups with their individual experiences. People with autism almost won the fight because they distanced themselves from being perceived as people with ‘mental illness’, even if autism is still defined by the association of psychiatry. So, people who experienced psychosis, should also unite and change the perception of psychosis and how they are perceived in the society.

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  • Oh I totally agree that the main change needs to come from within the social order, in terms of how we view things in general! Psychiatry is an institution within a very regulated system, it is not a medical system, it is an ideology, which says it is a ‘medical’ system. And it is an ideology very actively promoted by governments arguing the discourse of ‘mental illness as a physical illness’. It created a cacophony which is difficult to fight. It is not an illness and it isn’t a physical illness. It is an experience (I am talking about psychosis). In other words, the fight against psychiatry doesn’t address the main problem, and those who actually address it (arguing that mental illness is a myth) come from psychiatrists themselves. And while they were very prominent in the seventies, there aren’t that many today, because the control now is at the government level, and those who are in the profession, have to feed their families, or risk being ousted and public disgrace.
    As to survivors, i don’t see any organised effort, apart from forums where one can ‘talk’. I see only a couple of people who even talk from their first names, others are smashed under stigma, and other concerns that ‘talking openly’ about all this can involve.
    Psychosis is a term adopted which is a term utilized indeed by a medical profession, but i see it as a positive experience and thus, don’t see a problem of using the term for the time when one wants to change the perception. Offering another term is an enterprise in its own making. But in the majority of case, it is an experience when one get a glimpse of ‘other reality’, which is indeed there, but not believed because of lost of belief in the society as a whole. Religious institutions could probably play an important role in changing the perception once they accept that those who do approach this parallel reality, can indeed certify, that there is something there, and there is God.
    But there are different types of psychosis, and not all of them are about ‘spiritual awakening’, some of them are triggered by drugs, and do require an urgent help, but I also believe that with all other types of psychosis, one can’t leave the person unattended, whether the help comes from a shaman, priest or someone else, this is indeed a question. Ending up in the hospital is not the end in the world, it’s what happens in the hospital (when one gets a label of shame because it is immediately delegated into ‘physical illness’ and treated by drugs or coercive treatment) this is the problem.
    Again, the ‘fight’ of survivors is happening at the level of some anonymous speakers, who are the survivors who openly talk about their experience? One can count them by fingers, and some of them indeed do important work, such as changing perception within academia, or having an initiative about drug withdrawal. Others sit at homes, hiding, afraid to speak out. While others, through the use of medicated drugs, are now indeed incapable to work, and rely on benefits which do require an official diagnosis (what to do with these people?). Getting off anti-psychotic drugs can trigger drug-withdrawal psychosis, how to help these people? Etc, etc

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  • Yes, i will contact you via your blog. I can’t possibly afford that thing you mentioned, but vitamin B12 – i’ve heard indeed that it is useful.
    I’ve seen psychotic junkies and drugs can induce psychosis, it is a very dangerous territory.
    There is a lot of criticism of psychiatry, but no alternatives in terms of an organised system, it seems. Why? Because no one wants to take the responsibility of dealing with a psychotic person without some ‘legal’ terms in place, or risking to end up in prison. So, which leads me again to conclusion that the change has to come from within somehow, more humanistic approach, no diagnoses or patronising. As a person who had psychosis, i can certify that you can’t just leave the person to their devices, a safe house is needed, or there is a risk to life of this person. What i think is needed are spiritual workers within the system, who understand psychosis.
    Psychosis is actually the main hurdle in the whole game. Because no one figured out yet how to deal with it, and it gives justification for other ‘illnesses’ and ‘diagnoses’. As long as they have ‘psychosis’ in their category (and it is the considered as the most serious mental illness officially), one can’t win any fight with psychiatry. Figure out ‘psychosis’, and then there is a chance for change. But since it is in the spiritual domain, it can be understood only by very few.

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  • I have to re-read my comments to see whether I mentioned anywhere that i believe i was Buddha in my past life. In my article I say I thought I was Buddha. I felt like one and told the doctor so. Yes, i do think that it was a process of spiritual awakening, however, i find it extremely wrong when someone tries to take advantage of it and turn it into an official religion of some sort. I am good where I am in terms of my faith.
    Again, my question is: if not the psychiatry, then what are the alternatives? What are the practical proposals to help people who ask for help? How to help a person in psychosis (whether we agree or not with the term). Leave the person to their own devices? What if they actually want help? If they do need a safe house? How to help these people?

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  • Hi, many thanks for the links!
    I will have a look.
    I was thinking more of how to help people in real lives, especially that some people have no access to the Internet. There is a lot of criticism of psychiatry but what would be the alternatives? What would be the alternatives for people who ask for help? Soteria? How to help people to recover, how to help them to combat with stigma? How to educate them in practical ways? How to reach all those who are heavily drugged, sit at home hiding, with no desire to live? There should be a more coordinated network of survivors, because even if some of them do exist, I don’t understand how they help people in real life. Everything is isolated, in other towns, somewhere in an abstract place on the internet, while real people in real life, continue to struggle.

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  • Well Jesus was referred to somewhere as a paranoid schizophrenic so Shakespeare probably still escaped the labelling because of their subconscious understanding that nothing will be left for ‘entertainment’ while they build their next generation of slaves. Lametamor, напиши мне на мой блог! http://porcupineswisdom.blogspot.co.uk там есть форма для контакта! Я тут если честно, охренела в серьёзных дискуссиях (не на этом сайте, mad in America это англо-язычное спасение) а в том что пишут в академии и политике), а ведь в вопросе псиахтатрии без чувства юмора не выедешь. Булгакову диагноз поставили?

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  • Hello Julie,
    once you come into the grips of psychiatry, you encounter abuse. I believe you. My first experience was in the Netherlands, which was a reason as to why I left the country. It was where that the doctor insisted on speaking Dutch to me, while I wasn’t speaking it yet, saying that ‘we are in the Netherlands’ and his English and French were perfect, where I was given medication while I was just extremely happy, and where I was told ‘I was mad’ when I said I was Buddha. Once, when I sung in the corridor a song by Robbie Williams, I was put into isolation room for a night. My only ‘salvation’ was a Jewish psychiatrist who clearly didn’t believe in psychiatry and asked not to give me any medication when I came myself for help in search of a ‘safe’ place, but he was ignored because as they said in the hospital: ‘we don’t have space for something like that (to treat someone without any medication)’. He was a reason as to why I thought that the psychiatry could be transformed from within for a while, but of course, it has just adopted a ‘pseudo-humanist’ approach since then, positioning it in ‘mental health’ debate, while at the same time, things have become so much worse. Now, everything gets a diagnosis.
    There is nothing apart from Mad in America website to help those who try to look for alternative explanations and views. Nothing. While there is an urgent need to actively help those who suffered in a more active way, such as self-education.

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  • Hi guys,
    thank you so much for the support! I shouldn’t have reacted to that disrespectful comment. I am not in the hospital to ‘argue’ my case! Well, yes, Buddhism teaches that everyone can become Buddha, that was my first stage, before I became ‘Jesus’, which led to the most traumatic hospital experience. Again, just a belief which doesn’t sit well with the psychiatrists, who don’t understand that I am just in the middle of spiritual transformation.
    I am not sure I am right or am doing a right thing, but how many of you know Sinead O’Connor, an Irish singer? There is a witch hunt on her today on Twitter and from the press due to a couple of embarrassing tweets. I had a look at her tweets when read that she had some ‘mental’ health issues in the past (including an overdose and a time in the hospital), and it might be totally a wrong guess but i think she is in the middle of ‘psychosis’ and needs understanding and some help rather than ridiculing her with all kinds of nasty comments all over the net today. Could someone else have a look? Her Twitter is https://twitter.com/magdadavitt77?lang=en
    I might be absolutely and totally wrong but as a person who had ‘psychosis’ I recognise some signs and wish that someone would be there for me, asking how I was doing rather than deleting me from friends or laughing when I said i was ‘Jesus’ on Facebook.

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  • Ohwhattisthatlight, i would honestly rather argue with a psychiatrist than someone like you. What you wrote is extremely disrespectful and damaging. It showed in one go what is wrong with the system and demonstrated stigma that is much more harmful to survivors than the psychiatry.
    I don’t know where you got this idea but people in psychosis don’t want to harm other people, less alone kill anyone. It is indeed very damaging that some murderers claim the insanity. It should be abolished as a practice.
    You don’t know whether I was Buddha or Anne Frank. If I believe so, it is my belief. It doesn’t damage anyone. I went for help myself because I was in the outer reality which is beautiful but I was scared and needed a safe place. The safe place turned to be more damaging than safe. I honesty don’t know what you are doing on this site, but the psychiatrists showed me much more respect than someone like you.

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  • Hi Igor,
    ah, i managed to have some kind of life only because I never took the psychiatrists seriously. And functioning on 300 ml a day on seroquel is impossible, it is a fact. I was taking it all as a laugh (a survival strategy, I guess) until very recently when I decided to start research in mental health and finally took stock of what the psychiatry is doing. My last ‘crisis’ was an eye-opener, they effectively make invalids out of people. Also, because I always knew that what I experienced in my psychosis was real, the diagnosis never mattered, especially that they debated about it for like years, by first ‘trying’ schizophrenia and then discarding it because I appeared too high-functioning for such a damaging diagnosis (their words). How can one take them seriously after that?

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  • Hello Annette,
    I would be interested to learn more and take part. That’s a thing, one does need a safe place! If i am in psychosis, I do want to process it in a quiet way, not to remain in community and be terrified. But there is no way I am going back into the hospital after last time. They destroyed me in my first psychosis when treating something wonderful with massive amount of absolutely awful medication, after that it became a battle to get off it.

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  • Thank you all so much for the comments!
    Yes, the overall picture is very sad, and it is extremely sad that when one actually asks for help, one ends up being mistreated and derived of human rights. As someone mentioned, they also put you on medication which is almost impossible to stop, as it can effectively induce psychosis. Very slow tempering is probably the key, i am almost there myself. It is also sad that there is no way to experience any spiritual awakening nowadays, and Jesus or Buddhas of today would indeed be inside a psychiatric hospital. I heard of open dialogue, which seems much better than the mainstream approach, I also think that something like Soteria is a way forward for those who are in need of a safe and welcoming place.

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  • Omg,
    this is a witch-hunt within the psychiatry itself, eliminating any alternative views and showing us quite clearly the power-play within the domain of science. Being a supporter of an alternative network ‘hearing voices’ is wrong? Asking for the results of a research is wrong? It isn’t just about what is wrong with mainstream psychiatry, it shows what can go wrong in terms of questioning authority in such a ‘liberal’ domain as scientific research.
    Of course, doctors themselves don’t understand what they are prescribing, they say themselves upon questioning that they don’t know how the medication works precisely (anti-psychotic, for instance). But the main matter is that psychiatry as an institution maintaining the functionalist approach of the society we have nowadays just totally discredited itself with this story in terms of its capacity to conduct interesting and challenging research, demonstrating lack of creativity, empathy and ‘insight’. Shame

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  • I am at a low dose of anti-psychotic (seroquel) which i don’t plan to stop for now, as indeed, i am at that stage where i enjoy magic and can work and look after my son at the same time, and be full member of the society, something i do like as i love working and other things life has to offer. In the past when i would stop medication, i could be without it for 2 years but in case of major stress, could get psychosis. So, i rather not risk full blown-up psychosis which will incapacitate me for good 2 months and will affect my son, who is my priority. I think that a good balance can be found on low dose of anti-psychotic.
    What do you mean by slow taper?

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  • Hello,
    well, yes, everyone has different experiences, etc, we should respect that.
    I replied to this blog only because of reference to PhD lady, which I figured out was me, ha-ha:)
    As to this article, i heard from many people that anti-depressants are terrible with terrible withdrawal effects. Not sure i can get off seroquel myself, since it helps me to sleep and now i depend on it.

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  • anyway, it was wrong to share my opinion about drugs, you are right. I shouldn’t have done it. In my case, seroquel helped, but i am not sure about its long-term effect, and as to lithium, i only shared what a friend of mine told me, but i am really not a specialist, only have personal experience with ‘mental illness’ which i believe is misunderstood. In my experience it is a beautiful thing for which I fight.

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  • excuse me, but i don’t recommend drugs to anyone:) And my PhD is in philosophy:) But just so that we keep some suspicion and some paranoia thinking, how about that Russians are on board?
    Just saying:)
    (This PhD lady, well, i am not hiding beyond any identity), and if you read my article, then you would probably recognize that i am totally against categorizing people, insulting them, calling them names, and if anything think that madness is a gift from God- i have another article published on this site arguing for that.

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  • Hello Alex,
    for some reason, I can’t reply to your last comment directly under:)
    Well, one day, yes, i might try to go of the meds completely. I am on such a low dose though that I decided i continue for now as it is the only thing which helps me to sleep and switch off my over-creative brain:) Otherwise, I can become too busy (with writing). I tried it last year after 5 years of nothing but it went wrong, and I ended up in the hospital, where i went by myself as was terrified and wanted help. I regret that decision now, but on the other hand, it did open my eyes on how psychiatry has changed in the past 5 years and for the worse. It can be due to the fact that NHS (medical system in the UK) is indeed facing a crisis and there is no plausible way to be a good doctor when you have 20 patients and can spend only 5 minutes with each of them in two weeks. They tried to put me on lithium, which thanks god i stopped on time, immediately after, and now, i can say, that i was ‘tricked’ into taking it. I am back on the old, proven for me, Seroquel, at a minimal dose, without seeing any psychiatrists.
    I think, apart from forced drugs, looking at people experiencing ‘magic’ as some sort of invalids, etc, etc, is also the doses they prescribe. There is no way one can lead a productive life on 300 mg of Seroquel a day. I am on 50-75 and manage to work across 3 jobs with it. But one day, i might try something different and say goodbye to meds. I also know that stress can trigger psychosis in my case, and you are right saying that we live in very stressful times, and raising my child is a priority:) Can you share a link with your film and also the book?

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  • true, the true freedom is to believe in oneself and find one’s own freedom and choice about how to live. It is a pity that while this article was intended to help other people in the similar situation, some try to discourage me, which is morally wrong and insulting. I believe I found a way which allows me to stay in this society (and since, we are here, then maybe, there is a reason) while also seeing the magic and parallel world. I am also not hiding beyond any other identities and speak from my heart. But then, the hearts which are open, will hear the message. And I am not ashamed to admit that in my case modern medicine did help. If I didn’t end up that first time in the hospital, after 12 days on no-sleep, I would simply be dead.

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  • that attitude towards ‘mental illness’ is similar all across the Western hemisphere. As i explain in the article I did fight with stigma or rather fear of it for long time, and decided enough is enough. In terms of medication, i have very low dose of seroquel, and it is my personal choice. I am not complying with anything and don’t have to see any psychiatrist. Last time I saw one, was my own choice, as well. I think we should accept different truths,etc, and my own truth is that i like my job, my friends, and especially my son, and living in this society while being also in communication with the divine is my choice as well. I hope you don’t feel discouraged by the fact that some people look down on you, this is wrong.

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  • so that you don’t misunderstand me, i think that what is wrong is when things are forced on an individual. But it is also wrong to blame all doctors and psychiatrists. There are bad people in every profession, but there are also bad people among those who claim they are mad, and personally i am fed up of seeing the media blaming people if they commit a crime on their ‘mental illness’. It is just bad people who give a bad name to the real, good, mad people. As i try to say in the article, i believe madness is a gift from god, and one needs to hear good things he/she is trying to say. I also know that some people get ‘mad’ because of how they were treated by psychiatry, and this is totally wrong as well.

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  • again, i met some good psychiatrists and also bad, and one way to go is indeed to come prepared. I want this, try this, at this dose. I also had a psychiatrist (the one i mention in the article) who agreed with me about not trying any medication when i landed up in the hospital, but we changed our opinion (together), after I started to go deeper and deeper into psychosis. If everyone had more time (and also the hospital in terms of beds), then maybe, yes, it would work. But it didn’t. And for me i find it important to be a full member of the society and still slightly mad, and change things from within.

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  • well, how about i passed the stage of resistance? resistance to what? Society hasn’t yet accepted madness, and if there are individuals around who manage to stay mad and still stay in the society, then maybe it is a way to go.
    My opinion, yes, and don’t try to change it, please. As to psychiatry, the only way to change it is from within. No one will abolish it as institution any time soon, so a way to go is to change it for the better, make it human.
    There is a difference between well-thought resistance and negation of things for the sake of negation.

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  • thank you for categorizing, but never mind.
    no one ever called me ‘bipolar 1’, and definitely not the doctors. It was just something which i found while reading about diagnoses and which helped me to understand why seroquel does help in my case, such as leading a productive life and avoiding the hospitals, even if with my dose, i can still end up in psychosis and need to monitor it.
    As to MIA mission, i don’t know if you noticed but i actually go against their most articles, by arguing that a dialogue with psychiatry is needed. There is massive amount of scientific research, as well as meds which do work. I am sorry but I did meet violent individuals who refused any sort of medication and would put themselves and people around them at such a risk, that i wonder what the solution indeed should be. Definitely not forced injections, but some sort of monitoring perhaps. I had to change a country of residence due to such an individual. As to lithium, honestly, i have no idea, i know that i should never take it myself. But a friend of mine has been happy on it for years, while in the past he struggled, lost his marriage and couldn’t work. Nowadays he is happily married and has a great job and tells me that lithium saved his life.
    I think there are always different sides of the story and negation of psychiatry (and any sort of medical care) and science as such is simply wrong.

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  • yes, and it didn’t go well with the public:) In my first psychosis when I stayed at hotel Krasnapolsky in Amsterdam, I sat in the pose of a yogi in front of a conference room, being in perfect Buddha state. Next thing which happened, the security called the police, thinking i was a junkie:) Also, later, when I was in the hospital, the doctor had a problem with me being Buddha. So, yes, numerous technique to no avail:)

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  • I don’t know:( from what i read here, things in the US are in particular terrible, a total reform is needed. They still prescribe drugs that do so much harm, while in the UK, the tendency is to avoid them, such as benzo-drugs. I think that someone, with actual experience of mental illness should come in, and then just travel around and compare different approaches in psychiatry, etc. In my case, the decision to stay on anti-psychotic (but where I decide on my own dose) is mine. No one can force it on me and no one can ever guess I am even bipolar, but after several hospitalizations I realized that it does help (medication), and after some research I discovered that I am bipolar 1, so i don’t have lows, but can get psychotic, a state i like, but i don’t want to loose touch with reality either, since i have a son, and do like my work, etc. But in psychosis, as beautiful as it can be, i do loose touch with reality. I can go way too high. Now, i experience it in low doses, but also try to lead a productive life, because i enjoy it.

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  • Right ok,I hope someone else will comment on it as well! Good job you are fighting and surviving! Don’t forget there are other people in similar situation! You are also very clever and did your own research, keep at that! You might be able to help other people in similar situation after! You mentioned seroquel and that it didn’t help, if you are bipolar 2 (with mood swings during the day) you might try lithium at very law dose,you will need to monitor kidneys though and not drink too much. Lithium is good for those who have constant mood change! I don’t have it, and therefore seroquel works for me fine, but your case does prove that each of us should be treated individually

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  • Can you change a psychiatrist? You need to find someone who is aware about what you experienced and advice you accordingly! Otherwise you seem to be clever enough to do your own research. I am sorry but I don’t know anything on benzo drugs but is there any advice on the net? The only advice I can give is that if you have the tendency to go high, (like me) then seroquel is the best medicine and you can adjust your own dose, but it isn’t best medication if you also go low. I hope someone else will comment and give you some hints so that you just come to your psychiatrist with a list!

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  • Hello, thank you so much for sharing your experience! Benzo drugs as well as such med as respiridone should be abolished. I am sorry to hear that you had to experience this! This is what should be banned from psychiatry and yes, I am aware about the nightmare you face in the US, but things are not that different any more in other parts of the world! That’s why I wrote for this site and pray to god that a reform on mental health is going to happen, and I think you have chances with President Trump! Well, I hope so!

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  • Ah, thank you so much! It was massive amount of work with me and the wonderful editor of Mad in America, Emmeline, working on it non-stop for last 4 days! We wanted something nice and positive for holiday period, especially that there are indeed good psychiatrists around who try to help, there are good cases when people do recover and lead their lives fully (me, mhh), with the help of meds, we have to be thankful to medical staff working on Christmas, and there is hope for us all!

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  • This is a very sad piece and which, unfortunately reflects the alarming trend of medicalization of our society when children start to be treated for ‘behavioural’ problems from a very young age. As a former user of psychiatric services I was put once on Risperdal and I almost died as a result (I became suicidal). This drug should be banned all together, both for adults and especially kids. There are some other drugs on the market which actually do a good job (such as Seroquel), but more research is needed into side-effects and what these drugs do to one’s personality and life.

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  • Ha, as an academic I can tell you that without at least some entertainment during conferences, one is just bored to death. You should specify: ‘ if you want me to provide entertainment at your conference then please, pay me accordingly’ (there are rates for entertainers), or send a check after.
    Personally, I find it very irritating when such conferences provide space for people with ‘lived experiences’. They should rename it, full stop. They should provide space for ‘real specialists in the domain’, since this is who we are. Doctors write treatises, we, however, ‘live’ the real stuff.

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  • Beautiful, inspiring story. I think it does show quite clearly that while psychiatry as institution failed us as a society, some individuals help still within and out of it. John got lucky because he met someone who wished to help, but how many of such people have indeed no voice and are left rotten behind hospitals, jails and housing estates? This points to the problem of the society as such on an organisational level. Psychiatry is simply one of its facets.
    I am also one of the lucky survivors but maybe because I had a few degrees behind me and had a voice which helped me to apply for a PhD after I was diagnosed as bipolar.
    And I also met a wonderful psychiatrist who was willing to think ‘differently’. Which just shows that not all doctors are ‘bastards’ and a dialogue is needed.

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