-WHY WHY WHY, WON'T YOU FIGHT BACK-

NoM8s wrote:Well, let's say that someone is drunk and disorderly. The cops would probably have to use coercion and force to get them under control. Might have to lock them up against their will even.

That comparison is not right.

One, I was not disorderly and never harmed or threatened to harm or even thought about harming anyone, including myself, when they decided to violently lock me up. I was f.e. just sitting in my room praying. If someone is drunk but doesn't harm anyone or disrupt order, in my country nobody uses force on them or lock them up...there's masses of youth getting drunk each day and nobody harms them in any way.

Second, I don't even mind about the locking up part. I do mind the fact that they violently and against my will administered poisonous chemicals for months that injured my brain to such an extent that I can't function anymore and can't love anyone anymore and want to die as a result of their decision. If destroying someones brain with poison is not violence, I can't think of anything that is. There is loads and loads of evidence of the toxicity of haldol.

NY Times says forced administration of haldol to political prisoners in Russia is "spiritual murder"...why isn't administration of haldol to someone with a trauma not the same...since the result is the same?

And yes, the problem is that the system is sick. You won't win a court case in my country saying psychiatrists used force on you or used haldol to destroy your capability to love and feel joy. People who did not experience that, find it normal, as is demonstrated here.

So I chose to fight in another way. There is a psychiatrist in my country, someone with schizophrenic family members, who says psychiatric care is backwards here and not good for patients and should change within 5 years. There is a parents organization saying the same. I have sought contact with them to see what I can do for better mental health care.

Are patients routinely beaten by staff?

Beaten up, no, not routinely.

Jumped on by 8 people to violently hold them, undress them and administer toxic chemicals - yes, routinely.
Joked about and humiliated - yes, regularly.
Denied access to proper care (doctor, second opinion, psychologist, drug withdrawal specialist) - yes.
Use of physical force for stupid reasons - yes. (f.e. using all her physical force to get a scared patient to eat with the other patients instead of in her room).
Having essential stuff taken away (f.e. walking stick, needed to walk) - yes.
Locked up and left alone inbetween sexually harassing men - yes.
Locking people up in solitary confinement, sometimes longterm - yes, regularly.

In a statement to a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 4, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment called for a ban on forced psychiatric interventions including forced drugging, shock, psychosurgery, restraint and seclusion, and for repeal of laws that allow compulsory mental health treatment and deprivation of liberty based on disability, including when it is motivated by “protection of the person or others.”

This - yes, routinely:

"The woman who has been on my mind the last couple of days was young. She had dark long hair and she was wearing a nightgown. My memory begins when I noticed the loud scuffle moving towards me on the floor. She, a relatively small woman, and several large men struggling violently. Her being forced and pulled and yanked and screamed at like some rag doll that might not be real at all. Her being thrown violently and with a thud onto a restraint table, being tied into four point restraints and injected with drugs. Her sobs. Her screaming sobs. Her nightgown. Pulled up to above her waste revealing her nakedness. Her nightgown being left like that for far too long, revealing the staffs inhumanity and profound disregard for her dignity and well-being.

I remember myself screaming, “stop it, stop it!” Her fear and terror was so obvious to me. It was so obvious to me what she actually needed. Gentleness. Love. WTF was going on." (Beyond meds)

-Marian- etc... The beauty of -PRO SE LAW- is that -YOU- don't have to win the court case because it will cost the other side ten's of thousands of dollars to fight your case and next to nothing for YOU.... Now if a bunch of -YOU- with mental illness sue everybody and or any organization etc... -YOU- will cost them millions of dollars in court costs..... THEY WILL NO LONGER MAKE MONEY ON YOUR MENTAL ILLNESS AND OR THEY WILL HAVE TO TREAT YOU WITH REPECT ETC. ETC. ETC...

I will look into what is possible in my country, sueing and getting lots of money for it is more of an American thing. It's not really in my system to think like that But I will most definitely look into it!

I want to however fight in a another way as well...SUPPORTING positive alternatives, instead of fighting against the evil ones. Like f.e. there is this runaway-from-psychiatry house in my country were people can hide that were locked up in psychiatry. I went there once when I was court ordered to stay in a ward and I donated money. They really help people in a more decent way, enable them to get stronger, get their lives back, find a good home and job after their stay there, and carefully help them withdraw from meds too.

I've been really angry at my parents for example that they handed me over to such a horrible practice... but if there is no alternative, it's really hard for bystanders what to do if someone becomes psychotic or traumatized. There is hardly an alternative now...

Is this improper treatment or not?
http://beyondmeds.com/2007/07/18/my-forced-treatment/

In the UK you can't forcibly detain someone in a mental hospital unless they're judged to be a danger to themselves or others and it takes two doctors signatures. It's called being sectioned under the Mental health act. I've got a relative that's had problems with psychosis and one night when he was really disturbed and we knew that we had to get him to hospital we had to take him to a regular hospital first because that's the procedure. They have to check that it's not just drugs.

I used the drunk and disorderly comparison because there's no reason to section someone that's not having some sort of "episode" and they are likely to end up in a worse place than hospital if you don't get them there.

I had a girlfriend with BPD that was in and out of the hospital all the time. She got into a situation where she was charged with attacking a guy with a blade. They didn't send her to prison. She had a short stay in hospital and got away with it in court. It's not all bad. If she had been judged sane she'd probably be in jail by now but they bring out all those psychiatric and social worker reports every time they're up on a charge.

Now You're saying that you don't like this antipsychotic medication. I think that you're granting though that it allows you to function in society. It's about getting you out of hospital.

I don't know how it's in other countries, but here officially there has to be a danger to self or others...practically there quite often is no such thing.

I know people who/I myself have been locked up or drugged, sometimes with real violence (biting police dogs, being beaten, etc) because of things like being too happy, praying in the garden, standing on a chair to look outside, walking to a window to look outside, taking my son to my brother to ask for help, fasting for a couple of days, arguing with his abusive mother, his ex-girlfriend making up a story about abuse, being too scared to respond. They instead register things like that differently...f.e. slowly walking to a window to talk a look at nature outside would become "x was probably trying to jump out of the window" or standing on a chair in a completely closed room would become "x was trying to escape". If they WANT to lock you up, they WILL.

Antipsychotics do not help me to function in society, that is an outright lie. I functioned in society BEFORE antipsychotics and I do not now. Right now I am out of the hospital, yes, but I don't function. Not because of some illness, but because of meds. I can't even love of care for my son - because of antipsychotics. Even in my deepest psychosis I could still love my son and care for him. I preferred my original problem "adjustment disorder with anxiety" and even withdrawal psychosis above my current state and many people say the same.

Harrow has actually compared people on and off meds. The functioning in society, the relapse rate, the anxiety rate, etcetera in the long run is better with people who are OFF drugs than those ON drugs.

BTW - I do think there are situations (not the ones mentioned above) where you want to put someone against his will in a safe environment. That doesn't mean you have to use violence (police, dogs, restraints, yelling, jumping on top of them, etc) and forced drugging. Instead, they could have tried to offer a SAFE environment with people gentle talking and making real contact. Whenever someone tried that on me for a few minutes I would come out of psychosis and start to have more trust.

-- Tue Feb 09, 2016 9:33 pm --

I saw this one somewhere: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” – C. S. Lewis

Well, it's different here if for no other reason than that there's a shortage of hospital beds. There's no medical insurance scam here. It's the taxpayer who pays for it all.

You've got stories about being locked up for absurd reasons and I can tell you stories about hospitals irresponsibly letting patients out when they weren't well. I had a phone call at midnight one time from that girlfriend and she was only supposed to be out on a one hour pass but was having a manic episode. I know other people that just escaped and these were seriously paranoid dudes that didn't know where to go or what to do. I knew guys that wanted to be locked up because they were scared about what they would do. The cops just dismissed them as cranks or time wasters and now they're dead.

As for the drugs, I'm not qualified to say much about that. I'm not your doctor and that's something that you would have to discuss with him. If I'm not misrepresenting what you said, you would rather be psychotic and possibly there is an element of social control there. Then the question arises again as to whether it's to prevent people from becoming dangerously psychotic. You could perhaps compare it to chemical castration or ask if you would still say that it would be wrong if the person was a psychopath and he prefered being like that than being on drugs.

That doesn't sound to good either!

About the chemical castration thing... even when people have been judged psychopaths with a history of sexually abusing children I believe nobody should have the right to chemically castrate them. Locking them up, yes, chemically altering their body and mind, no.

In my case...I was an extreme pacifist, even more so in psychosis, and never harmed anyone. I think the measure they took - permanently altering my consciousness so that I can't feel love and joy, and thus any sense of meaning in life - is way beyond the idea of chemical castration and I would not wish it on the most extreme criminals.

It is imho more equal to killing someone than to castration.

They could have locked me up permanently, that would have been more humane. I think there is just no justification for what they are doing in psychiatry.