Olga Runciman is the Chair of the Danish Hearing Voices Network. Originally a psychiatric nurse, she herself became a patient, and experienced the full force of psychiatric treatment before making a full recovery. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
As a person who has experienced involuntary commitments, seclusion, restraints, forced medication, and intentional humiliation as part of my “mental health” treatment, I am still working through the severe and persistent effects of force and coercion. Being in relational dynamics in which I had no voice and in which I was not treated as a human being with viable thoughts and legitimate feelings impacted my sense of self in ways that were incredibly destructive. I didn’t have a word for it when it was happening. Torture was something that happened to prisoners of war in faraway places and in terrible movies. It was not something that happened to young Americans in modern hospitals. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
it's clear that the collection of phenomena that is labeled bipolar varies from individual to individual and they have many different etiologies. Labeling them as if they are all the same monolithic thing only serves to muddy the waters and often serves to trap the individual in a toxic prison of confusion and psychopharmaceuticals that are difficult to get off of. ... this post includes an article and then a collection on the subject.
Please read this article by Dr. David Healy. Many of the readers of this blog are the living victims of what he speaks. Some of us did believe that the drugs "saved" us for some time before discovering that the pay off was far worse than the temporary save. … [click on title to read the rest]
Conclusion:
In well coordinated mental health services the imposition of compulsory supervision does not reduce the rate of readmission of psychotic patients. We found no support in terms of any reduction in overall hospital admission to justify the significant curtailment of patients' personal liberty. … [click on title to read the rest]
John Grohol at Psych Central wrote an article about withdrawal from psych meds in response to an email exchange he and I had in which I encouraged him to cover the very serious issues with psychiatric drug withdrawal...well, the conversation has been started but the severity of the problem has simply not been addressed...for example... Continue Reading →
I have only lived four decades, but I hope never again in life, even at its end, to experience suffering like I felt while taking and withdrawing from the drugs. At essence, looking back six years after swallowing my last psychotropic medicine and feeling saner, healthier, and happier than ever, all I can see is a vast black storm behind me: the physical illness, emotional lability, and compromised cognition caused by the pills; the hopelessness of being told that this chemical abomination was some underlying “organic” and “lifelong” “disease”; and the even bleaker hopelessness of having my autonomy stripped away in the hospitals, of forced drugging on a host of ever-more dangerous and unnecessary pills.
Often I wonder, just what the hell was I thinking, entrusting my brain — the very seat of my soul — to other people?
If you’re not aware of just how brutal and coercive psychiatry can be, it's well worth understanding. Some of it is so extreme it's hard for those uninitiated to conceive of but, sadly, it’s very common. The bottom line is psychiatry, in general, at best, is subtly coercive. Drugs are generally presented as necessary rather than one, often far less than ideal, possibility for treatment. This means one is made to believe through somewhat more subtle coercion that they have no choice but to take drugs with very dangerous adverse effects that include disabling physical illness and very early death.
I've been documenting correspondence with the prescribing psychiatrist that led to the acute and chronic withdrawal syndrome I now live with for a few years. I've written what is most likely a final email to him. I do not regret any of the correspondence and would do it again, but this is what it has come to for now.
Watch the Stories of Harm the APA Refused to Hear: This is important and it happens ALL THE TIME. Since I've started working on this blog I can't tell you how many hundreds of similar stories I've now encountered. The sad part is it happens even more often but is rarely recognized.
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