I sincerely doubt that any chemist, psychiatrist, or dope peddler could find a more effective antidepressant than a good cigar.

Mental illness has become so loosely defined that in 2005 the National Comorbidity Survey found that 25% of Americans had a diagnosable mental illness withing a timespan of one year and half of Americans had a diagnosable mental illness at some point in their lives. When we're talking about numbers like on fourth and one half, we're no longer talking about "illness"   we're talking about natural variation. A lot of people are being misdiagnosed, when what they really have is BAD.

Today marks 2 years since I was released from Cahill 3, the last time I was on a locked psych unit.

For years, I was constantly in and out of hospitals. Throughout that time I was put on various medications: prozac, geodon, seroquel, zyprexa, depakote, lithium, ativan, klonopin, celexa, zoloft, and too many others to list here.

At times, the medications seemed like it was helping, but what it was really dong was preventing me from getting better. It wasn't until I stopped taking the medications that I started truly improving. It wasn't until I stopped taking the medication that I was able to stay out of the hospital.

Mental problems need a mental solution. Mental "illness" is not like diabetes or cancer. The speculation that mental "diseases" are biologically based is just that — speculation. There is no evidence to back it up, but the idea is treated as gospel. It is more religion than science.

Without the medications obscuring my real issues or slowing my brain down to the point that thinking was a labourious activity, I was able to directly address my problems and I was able to make myself better. I've been out of the hospital for 2 years and I'm sure that if I had continued to take their drugs, I wouldn't be able to say that.

I met with the psychiatrist from cambridge hospital today. It was nice to have a even-keeled dialog with a psychiatrist. I wasn't a patient, i was just discussing the system. And it felt like he was actually listening. Not just about transgendered topics and my experiences on Cahill 3, but to a wide variety of my criticisms of the psych system. I know that I've been fairly anti-psychiatry in my writings, and I haven't changed my views. I still oppose psychiatry as it is generally practiced today, however I have always thought that psychiatry could be a good thing. This sort of open dialog between consumers and providers is exactly what is needed to make psychiatry a better thing. More of it needs to happen. However, the biggest problem is that open dialog can only happen in a non-coercive environment — and when dealing with the mental health system, those environments are exceedingly rare. I'm lucky enough to have had the opportunity.

I've been invited to talk to a psychiatrist at Cambridge Hospital regarding appropriate treatment of transgendered persons in inpatient units. I hope that I responded to the message in time, they called me last week but my cell phone does an extremely poor job at telling me I have voice mail (remember that if you leave me voice mail and I don't respond). They suggested that after my experiences in 2005, I'd surely have some input, and I definitely do. I will say this though, even with all the problems I had and witnessed on Cahill 3 a couple years ago, I'd still rate the Cambridge Hospital impatient units as the best of the many that I've locked up in. I hope I can be of assistance in making improvements.

Three days with no caffeine. I've managed to stay relatively wakeful today, even with the oppressive heat. I see that I felt like I need caffeine a lot more than I actually needed caffeine. I don't think I've gone this long without caffeine since high school. Even in the madhouse they'd let us have real coffee in the morning. I doubted if I could do it, but the only real hurdle was that doubt. Yeah, I've had a bit of a headache the last few days, but I've gone through Geodon withdrawal - compared to that, this is a piece of cake.

Found via dkmnow in _psychmedfree_ and antipsychiatry:

People diagnosed with schizophrenia who are not on antipsychotics are more likely to experience recovery than those taking the medication, according to an American study. Over 15 years, schizophrenia patients not on antipsychotics showed more periods of recovery than those taking antipsychotics, states a research paper in last month’s Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. Researchers reported that, after 10 years, 79% of patients on antipsychotics were psychotic, whereas 23% of those not on medication were psychotic. After 15 years, 65 per cent of patients on antipsychotics were psychotic, whereas only 28% of those not on medication were psychotic. ... The research was part-funded by America’s National Institute of Mental Health. full article

While I don't have schizophrenia, these results do not surprise me after my experiences with Geodon, Zyprexa, Risperdal, and Seroquel. At first I was a believer. I "felt better" when I took them.

Zyprexa was the first with it's horrible weight gain effects. Then came risperdal, then came seroquel, then Geodon. I was given Haldol inpatient a couple times, the only old school antipsychotic I've been on. It wasn't much different than the newer atypicals.

They all made me "feel better" at first. But, what "feeling better" really meant was not thinking. The major side effect of not thinking when you have mental problems is that you can never work through those problems. Working through problems of the mind requires thought, requires figuring out coping mechanisms and how to break old loops.

I definitely wouldn't say I'm perfect at this point, there's still progress I need to make, but I've made so much progress since I broke free of Geodon addiction. Much of what I'm working through now is the damage done by the psych drugs and not the problems I had initially. The point is, I'm able to improve despite my experience on psych drugs not because of it.

Treatment Advocacy Center President E. Fuller Torrey announced the appointment of Dr. Alan Stone, Touroff-Glueck professor of law and psychiatry at Harvard University School of Law and former head of the American Psychiatric Association, to the Treatment Advocacy Center advisory board. The Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC) is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating barriers to the timely and effective treatment of severe mental illnesses. TAC promotes laws, policies and practices for the delivery of psychiatric care and supports the development of innovative treatments for and research into the causes of severe and persistent psychiatric illnesses, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. “We are pleased to welcome Dr. Stone as a steward for this unique advocacy organization,” said Torrey. “I have known Dr. Stone for more than 35 years. He has been a leader in all aspects of law and psychiatry and has been one of the few psychiatrists who have spoken out for the rights of patients to be treated. ... “The Treatment Advocacy Center is taking a forceful stand to help people with severe mental illnesses in a way no other organization will do,” said Dr. Stone. “For too long, society has chosen to ignore the severely mentally ill in the name of civil rights. I am proud to be part of an organization that is stepping up to advocate for real, long-term treatment for this underserved population.” full press release

Just how close is the relationship between the American Psychiatric Association and the Treatment Advocacy Center? Giving each other awards and now swapping leadership. It's unseemly at best, but I have a suspicion it's not at best. Their message seems clear at least: civil rights are annoying anyway, it'd be silly to let something so petty get in the way of forcibly drugging people.

The recent horrific massacres of 32 students at Virgina Tech by Cho Seung-Hui has sparked a lot of political discussion. Here is my opinion...

Psychiatry

The pro-psychiatry people were quick to make some points about the need for coercing people into treatment. Even the revelation that Cho Seung-Hui was receiving treatment and was on psychiatric medication has not silence the "control the crazies" crowd. I cannot see how he could have been controlled any further without permanently locking up anyone displaying moderate mental illness - and that comes with it's own problems, principle people hiding problematic thoughts and feelings at all, and processing them internally with no outside checks or influence.

Gun Control

The anti-gun lobby sees events like these as political gold. Obviously guns are evil and vile and nasty and wrong. But I firmly believe if just two of the people at Norris Hall beside the shooter had guns, a lot less people would have been killed. The problem isn't a surplus of guns, the problem is a lack of guns. If more citizens had the ability to defend themselves against this kind of massacre, this scale of massacre by a lone gunman couldn't happen.

Westboro Baptist Church

Fred Phelps and his gang have been protesting at funerals of queer people and queer supporters for over a decade. Most of America didn't care one lick. A couple years ago he started protesting military funerals. That really pissed people off, because unlike (known) gay people, those people mattered. Avoiding the political pitfalls of banning protests at the funerals of the filthy gays, congress passed a law banning political protests at military funerals only.

Last year, the Westboro Baptist Church announced plans to protest at the funerals for the victims of the Amish school house massacre in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. These people were definitely not loathsome queers. FOX News gave a couple representatives from the Westboro Baptist Church an hour of uninterrupted air time on their news radio station in exchange for WBC cancelling the protest.

What will come of their planned protests of these victims funerals, I do not know. Will FOX News give them more air time? Will the law banning protests at military funerals be extended? Who knows?

ganked from lady_babalon:

Gov. Eliot Spitzer and legislative leaders Thursday announced agreement on a bill that allows for convicted sex offenders to be confined after they complete their prison sentences -- a measure that could affect hundreds of inmates and cost the state more than $80 million a year to carry out, officials said. The still-to-be-introduced legislation -- which must be approved by both houses and signed by the governor -- will create a new system by which mental-health experts would decide at the end of a sexual predator's sentence if an offender is fit to return to the community or should be held in a psychiatric center. full article

What better place to house violent sex offender than with heavily drugged mentally ill folk who are undoubtedly aware that no pays attention anything they say. Wouldn't a better plan be to actually keep violent sex offenders in prison? They claim these sex offenders are a risk to the public, but apparently putting at risk mental patients (who've often committed no crime) is not a concern because "crazies" aren't people.

Under this new law, in New York you will be drugged and locked up with a mass of outgoing convicted sex offenders if you say the wrong thing to a therapist or psychiatrist. The safest option if you live in the State of New York: never under any circumstance say anything to a therapist or psychiatrist.

Neighbors noted that the house was unkempt and the parents were seldom seen. Teachers told investigators that Rebecca Riley came to school in clothes that were too big or not warm enough. The 4-year-old was so lethargic, they said, they sometimes had to help her up the steps in school. Pharmacists questioned the refills of clonidine, one of three psychotropic drugs the little girl was taking, two of which contributed to her death, according to the state medical examiner. ... The affidavit submitted by State Trooper Anna C. Brookes, one of three lead investigators of Rebecca’s death, paints a picture of a family in extreme crisis despite having access to social services and medical treatment. Rebecca, her 11-year-old brother, her 6-year-old sister and mother were all on medication for mental illness, and their father told investigators he had intermittent rage disorder but was not on medication. Denise Monteiro, a spokes-woman for the Department of Social Services, confirmed that the agency has had an open case on the family since 2005, when Michael Riley, Rebecca’s father, was accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl. He had been ordered to leave the family’s house, then in Weymouth, and was allowed to have only supervised visits with his children. ... An unidentified social worker from South Bay Mental Health in Weymouth began visiting the family in May. Her concerns about the amount of medication the children were receiving prompted her to contact their psychiatrist, Dr. Kayoko Kifuji of Tufts-New England Medical Center. The social worker told Kifuji that the amount of medication Rebecca was receiving was unusual and that she saw no evidence of the diagnosis of hyperactivity for which the girl was being treated. Rebecca was also diagnosed as bipolar when she was 28 months old. full article

I'd really like to know how you diagnose a 2 year old with bipolar disorder. No child should be on these drugs. None, zero, zip, zilch. There is absolutely no excuse for drugging a child. The psychiatrist should be criminally charged as well.

It's amazing that the only one in the whole family who wasn't drugged was the sexually abusive father.

From a post by jeywolf in without_meds:

People don't like to discuss who was killed in the holocaust. People don't like to discuss the fact that a higher percentage of European Roma were killed than of Jews. So thorough was the extermination of the Roma people of Bohemia that the Bohemian Romani dialect went extinct. People don't like to discuss that the gas chambers were originally designed for and operated in mental hospitals as a way of getting rid of the most undesirable undesirables: the mentally ill. People don't like to discuss that gays, "social deviants", Jehovah's Witnesses, communists, Freemasons, and the disabled were all sent to the death camps.

When you include Soviet POWs, political dissidents, various Slavic peoples, and members of "non-Aryan" races and you include the Serbs kill by the Nazi-puppet regime in Croatia – Jewish deaths, while still numbering higher than any one other group, account for a third or less of the holocaust victims. 6 million is the most cited number of holocaust deaths and it is an horrific number on its own, but it only represents the number of Jews killed. The total number of holocaust victims will never be exactly known, detailed records simply don't exist. But when taking into account all the victims, that number is in the neighborhood of 18 to 20 million.

The crimes of the Nazis against the Jews should not be forgotten, nor should they be downplayed. However, the crimes of the Nazis were not only against Jews — they were crimes against humanity.

The holocaust did not begin with the Jews or gays or the Roma peoples or even the political dissidents. The holocaust began in the psychiatric institutions. The first gas chambers installed by the Nazis were in the "hospitals". The skills that would in later years be used against other groups were developed in those institutions. It was under the auspices of psychiatry that it began.

The politics of psychiatry are dangerous, and recent history shows the appetite for forced psychiatry has not abated. Mental patients are one of the most vulnerable groups. "Normal" people fear the mad. They feel they need to be protected from us. We need to be controlled. And of course - they always know best for us.

I've heard people who would cringe at the oppression of any other group casually declare "Why would I care about a bunch of crazy people?". When people take the attitude that something needs to be done to "help" the mentally ill, they usually take the NAMI/TAC approach of forced drugging/electroconvulsive therapy/imprisonment. These approaches are not really about helping the mad, only about shutting us up. The website of the NAMI affiliated Treatment Advocacy Center , which purports to be about helping mental patients, instead relies almost entirely on fearmongering — the evil crazy people are coming to kill your cops and throw you under a train. They must be controlled.

In my more optimistic moments I hope that "sane" people figure out that what is now done to us may effect them also. The realm of psychiatry is expanding, more and more of who were once considered "sane" are being given the label "insane". The expansion of who is insane is aimed at anyone who isn't happy and productive and non-questioning of the standard paradigm. No one is "safe" from being redefined, and if you find yourself in mourning for longer than two weeks when you most dear loved one dies, you may be joining the rest of crazies who may have at one time been called human.