Written in praise admiration for fellow writer Desha Blue

I highly recommend Desha Blue’s book, Abducted by Aliens, or anything else she has written. This is an amazing collection of poetry about psych abuse. All I can say is, wow. I can sure relate. Everything she says is absolutely true about what “they” do.

I write this to honor Desha and I support her efforts 100%. I truly believe in what she is doing to show the world precisely what psych abuse does to a person.

I can’t say it was that bad at first otherwise surely, I wouldn’t have ever gone back. I’d say the last 6 years for me were bad. The last three, Living Hell. As soon as they claim you lack insight, you become worthless shit.

It’s true that psych abuse wrecks lives, breaks families apart, and is the #1 cause of suicide.

I am writing this also remembering Diane Daw. She was a good friend of mine. We were hospital roommates.  We laughed together many nights. After that, we remained friends.

Diane was an amazing artist. A painter. She was witty and, I’d say, brilliant.

In 1986, I left Vermont and moved to the Boston area. I begged Diane to move and leave the incompetent quacks she was seeing. Namely Carl Burak, MD and the other incompetent she saw. However, Diane was rather taken by these doctors and praised their expertise. In the same breath, she said she knew they were not only humbugs but that she was getting nowhere with them.

That’s how it is with folks that get immersed and too deeply into it. Psych abuse sucks you in just like spousal abuse and you can’t get away.

I sent Diane a letter in 1988 and her roommate wrote back that she had died. The letter said she had been buried in Connecticut. Nothing

Healing from Psychiatric Abuse, embedded

I made this a month ago! It was originally a video, but it seemed that the audio and video didn’t line up properly. Rather than fuss with it, I decided to convert it to “audio only” and post to Spreaker.

With quite a bit of effort I finally got the Spreaker post up on You-Tube, and from there, to here.

I like that on the video I smile and laugh a lot. I’m not sure if you can tell in this audio that I was cheerful and felt uplifted. Surely, a year ago I didn’t look happy at all! Times have changed.

Is the only way to get validation to admit to a psych diagnosis? But….

It’s so contradictory. PTSD from psych abuse is real, yet to say, “I have PTSD from psych abuse,” is rather contradictory. First of all, I am using THEIR language to describe a normal reaction to some horrible things they never should have done to anyone. So in adopting their language, I am saying that I am diseased and thereby, excusing the terrible things they did.

I am not “overreacting.” No way. They abused me and that’s fact. Some get the trauma reaction worse than others, but whether I get PTSD or not from it doesn’t erase or lessen or excuse what they did. People’s reactions to anything are varied and no two are alike.

For instance, compare PTSD, or, shall I say simply “trauma,” to grief. It’s accepted now that every person grieves differently. We see this in kids and in older people, too. Say you have a family of many kids, and the family dog dies. Don’t we see some kids in the family taking it harder than others? Maybe one kid seems extremely sad about it for a long time. Some take a very, very long time.

Same with trauma. Some shake it off, others take it harder. That doesn’t mean the person who takes it harder should be labeled such newfangled things as “highly sensitive” (this excuses all the wrongs done to such person), or any DSM-sponsored mental illness, because again, stating this means that the person’s perceptions were incorrect, and the abuse itself ends up downplayed. All focus is on the diseased person and the abusers are excused.

What was done to me was wrong. I didn’t get a trauma reaction as badly as I did until 2011 when the abuse worsened.

It was a blessing to get off meds. I HAD to anyway due to organ damage. But now, I am able to see those quacks clearly for who they were. I am no longer blind to their deceit.

Every time I get into yucky arguments, I am off-kilter for days and I cry a whole lot, never mind the PTS__ stuff. I am aware of my irrational behavior…not that I am trying to excuse it, but it’s caused by a problem that currently has no solution.
I have no clue what to do. Continue on this way, or what? My own therapist denied that it happened. NOW do you understand what a terrible thing these therapists do by telling patients “psych abuse is all in your head”?

Thanks, Julie Greene and Puzzle

Truth disclosed about persecution of a 56-year-old woman in Watertown, Massachusetts

My original plan was to print out this document and to leave it stashed in my freezer. I wrote it in May. That’s the freezer where I so carefully stored Puzzle’s meat that I cooked for her every day to make delicious homemade meals, at Woodland Towers.

We aren’t there. We haven’t been there for a long time. I had to abandon many belongings.  Eventually, they’ll figure out I’m gone.  Someone will go in there.  If I were to leave this note in the fridge it would be found much sooner.  Truth was, I was really medically sick when I departed, in a frightful state, and had no time to think to leave any sort of “note.”

Here it is, copied and pasted:

THIS IS HOW I GOT BULLIED OUT OF TOWN

I was raped by my neighbor on March 25, 2008. Here’s what happened afterward…..

1. I tried to tell my therapist, Goldie Eder, what happened, but she ignored what I told her. She wasn’t a good therapist.
2. I tried to go to an ER (Mount Auburn) but was misdiagnosed with the “common cold” and sent home.
3. When I fired my therapist, and ended my treatment with her, my psychiatrist, Dr. Kimberly Pearson at Mass General literally yelled at me over the phone and told me I had bad judgment.
4. A local mental health crisis team heard my psychiatrist yelling through the phone and all the way across the room.
5. I found out about a local organization, called BARCC, that helps people who have been raped. I went to this organization.
6. I was advised to move away from my neighbor, who had raped me, especially since he was continuing to assault me.
7. I moved a few blocks away because the Housing Authority, by coincidence, was moving their tenants around anyway due to construction work being done on my building. The Housing Authority had no clue I’d been raped.
8. It turned out that this building I moved to is run down and barely livable. I have had to fight to get my basic needs met, such as access to hot water for a shower.
9. The neighbors were hostile to me for no reason ever since the day I moved in, so I never made friends there.
10. My physical health began to deteriorate. I lost weight and suffered from anorexia nervosa. Still, I managed to finish graduate school in July 2009.
11. About ten of my friends decided they didn’t want to be friends with someone who was a lot skinnier than they were (I think they found this intolerable), so they kicked me out of their group. Because of what they did, I felt disappointed in humanity. My attitude became pessimistic.
12. I had a decent therapist for a short while but she got laid off. The next one, Maria Mellano, turned out to be a controlling abuser who should by all means not be practicing psychotherapy.
13. In December 2010, I broke a tooth during a binge eating episode, and to treat my broken tooth, Maria Mellano sent me to a psychiatric ER at Mass General, and from there, I was sent to McLean Hospital for three weeks.
14. McLean told me my toothache was “all in my head.” They gave me new drugs. The worst of these was Trileptal. It took me months to figure out that this drug had caused me to have trouble with balance (from ataxia) and caused me to become so confused I could barely manage.
15. My two best friends decided not to be friends anymore. I didn’t think I’d ever get over the extreme loneliness I felt. To make things worse, many people then told me I had brought this upon myself.
16. My therapist continued to bully me. Bad therapy is far worse than no therapy at all.
17. By summer 2011, my weight dropped dangerously low. I was put into Mass General, suffering from dehydration and slow heartbeat.
18. The hospital abused me. There were multiple abuses. Mass General broke the law, and violated my basic privacy. They even refused to give me a drink of water. When they found out that I was blogging about their abuse, they lied to Dr. Pearson and told her there was a medical reason for the water restriction, however, this was untrue. I was a caged animal there.
19. My so-called friends said that I was “sick” to blame Mass General. They claimed that it wasn’t possible for a hospital to be wrong or to mistreat someone. However, I have since learned that I am not the only one who was abused in hospitals!
20. Both Mellano and Dr. Pearson denied that I had been abused. I would think that most mental health professionals would at least be supportive. I noticed my personality was changing as a result of the continuing, ongoing devaluation and subsequent lack of support.
21. I went to another hospital, Walden, to “recover” from my experience at Mass General. However, the doctor there said I needed to be incarcerated in the state hospital! Why? Because I refuse to shut up about what was done to me? I managed to get home again.
22. I joined a church, First Parish of Watertown, thinking I might find support there. I began to attend church every Sunday and get involved in events.
23. I tried to make friends at church but every friendship flopped. I had no clue why. It seemed that many church members wouldn’t even give me a chance, because it was known that I had a mental illness.
24. Maria Mellano threatened me every time I saw her and accused me of behaviors I did not do.
25. In February, I was locked up at Walden’s eating disorders unit, Alcott. It was then that I realized that “mental health care” was doing me no good. I made the decision to leave my therapist, Maria Mellano, and devoted my life from then on to helping other sufferers of eating disorders. I continued to see the psychiatrist, Dr. Pearson.
26. I lived in social isolation. No one called or visited and I rarely went out except to walk my dog, Puzzle. I was shocked when I realized that no one really cared about me. I never spent time with other people and was entirely alone. Why was this happening?
27. I made hundreds of calls trying to find “help.” I was turned down by therapists and treatment centers, every single one.
28. I was still suffering the consequences of having taken an antidepressant, Imipramine, and withdrawal of that drug.  Over the years I had been given so many drugs, multiple antipsychotic drugs I never needed and mood stabilizers as well. This irresponsible polypharmacy has left me with the inability to sleep.  I only had an eating disorder and no mental illness at all.
29. In 2012 I had a caring student acupuncturist. She and her supervisor encouraged me to go to police and report the rape, even though four years had passed.
29. However, because I couldn’t stop binge eating, and because I couldn’t get any help and very few people truly cared anymore, I made secret plans to kill myself.
30. I followed through with what I had promised my acupuncturist, and went to police to report the rape, even though I knew I was going to die anyway. It was rather strange talking to them, knowing that should this report go anywhere, I wouldn’t be alive to see the results. However, I felt that I was helping others, possibly preventing Cahill from assaulting further.
31. It was clear to me, though, by the response of Watertown Police that nothing would be done about my report even though I stated that Robert Cahill posed a threat to other tenants where he lived. The police stated that I had no physical proof that I had been raped. I realize now that the police only saw me as a crazy lady who was crying wolf. Not true. That man raped me and on other occasions, assaulted me. I felt as though I had no voice.
32. I was on my way to London. My CBFS state worker called me on my cell to inform me that as soon as I returned to this country, her boss would be coming with her at her next visit. I realized that the state workers wanted me hospitalized and silenced because I had complained about the poor quality of Edinburg CBFS services. I had threatened my worker’s boss, Phil Moncreiff, head of Team 2, that I would report his obvious negligence to the DMH. I knew he wanted to stop me.
33. On the day I was to kill myself in London via overdose, I filmed myself and showed the camera the pills I was going to take. I accidentally fell asleep. Then, it was too late to taking the pills. Bad timing caused me to change my plans and instead of dying, I went home on the plane, back to Boston. Upon arrival, I felt only glad to see my dog again.  I didn’t want to see humans.
34. Unfortunately, CBFS did send me to the hospital, however, they had been unaware of my suicide plan. I was hospitalized at Walden Behavioral Care’s Alcott unit for eating disorders. I was never really sure why they sent me to the hospital except perhaps to keep me quiet.
35. The care at Walden seemed pointless. They didn’t know anything about binge eating. They never listened even though I tried to tell them about my narrow miss with suicide.  They walked away from me each time I asked them to listen.
36. I was shocked that after I had struggled with an eating disorder, anorexia and binge eating, now for 32 years, and had never been able to get humane care for it. For decades I never found anyone with knowledge, and the only find out there specifically for eating disorders involved cruelty and force, not compassion. I asked to leave and told myself I would never go back.
37. After I got home I tried to tell Dr. Pearson about the poor quality of care at Walden, but she decided that my reports of uncaring staff were surely untrue. She said I must be delusional and paranoid. Of course, everything I said was correct, not paranoia at all. However, I was beginning to notice that Dr. Pearson accused me of paranoia every single time I complained of irresponsible, negligent, or abusive staff or therapists. She had given me antipsychotic medication, thinking this drug would erase my “paranoid thoughts” about abuse. However, the abuse really happened. Instead of being supportive and helpful, Dr. Pearson ignored abuse. Providers are supposed to report these things!
38. I went along with the drugging for a time, then stopped the Abilify. It was worsening the insomnia I already had due to my eating disorder. Abilify was not going to erase abuse!
39. The following March 2013, I went to a therapist named David Alpert. He told me I wasn’t paranoid. However, he tried to ask me out on a date on our third session, and also he acted in many other irresponsible ways, and lacked any knowledge about eating disorders, so I fired him.
40. Dr. Pearson yelled at me for firing David Alpert and she accused me of being delusional.  Again, Dr. Pearson shouldn’t have ignored my report of abuse.
41. I went on a rampage. I ate nothing around the time of the 2013 Marathon bombing. Then, I binged for four days straight. I gained 30 pounds in those four days. I feared that I was in medical danger. My doctors had been deceptive with me and not told me my kidneys were functioning under 40%. When I saw I had so much swelling in my body, I tried to ask for help and at least get my blood tested. Lindsay Brady at the Multi-Service Eating Disorders Association attempted to phone my primary care physician, Dr. Marian Klepser, as well as Dr. Pearson, on my behalf, trying to advocate for me. Lindsay said these two doctors were not returning her calls. I felt betrayed.
42. I was desperate to lose the weight I’d gained. I ate very little for the next few months. No one cared about me anymore. Some tried to tell me to go to therapy. That wasn’t caring. That was “doing their duty.” The church members rarely called me back when I called them. I wanted friendship, not therapy. Why did they not care?  Why were these people keeping themselves so distant?
43. I lost a lot of weight and finally dropped under 90. I kept losing. I reached close to 80 at the beginning of August.
44. August 12, 2013, I weighed 78 pounds and went into kidney failure. I was 55 years old. I was a full code in the Mount Auburn Hospital ER.
45. Everything after that went all wrong. Dr. Bibek Koirala contacted Dr. Pearson. I’m sure Dr. Pearson warned them I was a “liability case” because I had spoken out about abuse. Why did Dr. Pearson not even care about me as a human being after I had almost died?  I later learned that this was the only thing Dr. Pearson told them. She hadn’t told them any vital information about me that would have helped me medically, for instance, about the medications that I’d had bad reactions to in the past. I tried to tell the hospital staff myself but they cut me off and were rude to me.
46. Mount Auburn staff destroyed my spirit. The abuses are too numerous to list here. I have been listing these over and over in my blog for months. I cried and cried for months. I suffered post-traumatic stress.  There were so many lost friendships over this.
47. While I was incarcerated at Mount Auburn, someone, probably the police, conducted an illegal search of my apartment.
48. After I got home from Mount Auburn, I cried alone for a month, traumatized by their abuse. No one called me, and many told me how disgusted they were and called me “ungrateful.” My church turned against me because I put in a legal claim. I also reported Mass General from 2011. In November, the Disability Law Center finally got back to me.
49. I realized in September that the church minister, Mark Harris, never even liked me in the first place. He badmouthed many people right in his sermons, even though he edits these remarks out before the sermons go online. I gave up on church. I ended CBFS because they had acted irresponsibly and had not provided anything helpful.
50. Over the next few months, I noticed the medical care given by my current new providers was poor quality. I felt on an assembly line and vowed I’d get out of Harvard Vanguard. I tried to see other doctors, but each time, I was profiled because of past association with the mental health system. I realized I was going to have to move away from here and start my whole life over if I was going to survive at all.
51. I found new friends, others who had been abused either in hospitals or by mental health practitioners. I attend meetings and protests and I continue to write to try to help others.
52. I have been suffering a severe, long-standing “post-trauma” reaction to what happened to me at Mount Auburn. I appear fearful and angry, and I snap at people easily. I feel terrified of sirens, police uniforms, and the proximity of a hospital building. I live in constant fear of the police appearing at my door and taking me away against my will, to be locked up and abused again.
53. There is no excuse for abuse. When people justify what was done to me they invalidate me and insult me. I can no longer tolerate this dismissive attitude.
54. After Mark Harris wrote something in our January church newsletter that was discriminatory against folks with mental illness, I contacted the UUA office in Boston in a private e-mail that revealed many other things I’d seen and heard at church that I felt were discriminatory.
55. On January 10th, 2014, two church members came to my home with a member of the police force (Melissa) and they tried to accuse me of planning to kill Mark Harris. I told them I wasn’t planning this and that their accusations were completely unfounded, in fact, so ridiculous that I nearly laughed. I told them I felt discriminated against by their accusations, and that they would never do this to someone who didn’t have a known psychiatric diagnosis. They had barged through the front door and into the building without ringing my buzzer. The church members told me I could come back to church but I would be restricted, censored, and silenced. I told them that I should be respected as a writer with something to give society, instead of being always seen as “needy.”
56. What the church did to me by coming to my home and wrongly accusing me was a hate crime. Were they trying to get me locked up again just for speaking the truth? I wondered, alternately, if I had gotten Mark into trouble by writing to the UUA.  I had mentioned other church members in this private e-mail, others with mental illness diagnosis that I felt had been discriminated against, including Rachel Ann Klein.  The church people seemed desperate to shut me up.
57. I noticed that a number of times I saw church members on the street and in stores,but they deliberately avoided me. It felt like that was the last straw.  I made several arrangements to move away, and each time, my plans fell through.
58. I tried to at least leave this building and transfer down the street. My next-door neighbor played her TV too loudly, all day long, and I could not stand the constant noise. She was an elderly, hearing-impaired lady, and her son was a Watertown first responder, I happened to know.  It was sad that he was clearly neglecting her.  Even my request to transfer was denied, put off, excuses made.
59. I suppose the most devastating thing of all is that my two brothers, Phil and Ned, raised their families without their Auntie Julie. Phil lived only an hour away for decades, and I never saw him or his family. This broke my heart. These two brothers, whom I loved so much in our childhood, are now awaiting big money they are trying to get from our mom. They’ve put our mom into an institution.
60. I am 56 years old. I am short and thin, and I wear glasses, the same as when I was a kid. I have a lovely dog. I did nothing wrong. I was raped. I was abused in hospitals and by my therapist. I chose to speak out and to write in my blog about what happened. None of these things are crimes. And yet, my community has nearly destroyed me.
61. Since the summer, my kidney function has been around 30%. I believe much of the damage prior to the summer was from lithium, which I took for 16 years. I now suffer from anemia and constant fatigue. I wish I never turned to the mental health system for help with my eating disorder. It was a mistake, a wrong road taken. I feel like over three decades of my life were stolen from me. I started off as a talented student composer, and now, I feel like I’ve been swindled.
62. Cahill was honored. The police who ignored what I told them are hailed as community heroes of Watertown Strong. The doctors and therapists and other personnel who destroyed my life are continuing to live cushy lives. Why are perps glorified? Why are victims treated like unworthy criminals, denied basic needs, forced into the fringe of society?
63. It was always my intention to speak out to prevent others from having to endure the abuses I experienced, particularly what’s now known as psychiatric abuse. Instead, I ended up hated in my community.  I knew if I stuck around, I would not survive given the amount of prejudice I was dealing with. It looked like those accusing me had been working very hard to retaliate and ruin my life, except for Cahill, who died last year.
64. My plane left Logan Airport May 13, 2014. Rachel Ann Klein died May 23, 2014.  I have stated that Rachel died because people in the community did not love her enough. The people of the community turned their backs on a person like me who was suffering.
65. I won’t be back.  Puzzle and I did what we had to do to remain alive and together and free.

 

My motto: Never, ever shut up.
Julie Greene and Puzzle
My blog: Juliemadblogger on WordPress.
First Written early May, 2014.  Modified.
copies to be sent to the media.  Or that was my original intent.

What do you do if you are raped or assaulted and then are told, “You are mentally sick.”

I would suggest immediately leaving the situation or “therapist” that claims you are sick.  You maty have a broken bone or sexually transmitted disease or bruises, or other physical ailment that needs to heal. You may be traumatized. This is a normal fear reaction.  But never allow a so-called “mental health professional” or anyone else (police included) to try to convince you that the rape was trivial or never occurred or that you should not legally pursue it.  A doctor should not ignore abuse.  However, many sweep these “complaints” under the rug or are too busy to pay attention to their patients.

I would suggest immediately going elsewhere.  If you are being called “crazy,” for reporting that you were raped,

LEAVE,

because to stay is just as harmful as staying with the perpetrator.

NOTE: There is NO Article in Wikipedia on PSYCHIATRIC ABUSE! Why?

I am shocked at Wikipedia!  I was looking up bullying because I am currently writing a short blog entry.  There are many categories of bullying listed. I was only seeing if a legal definition of bullying existed.  However, not one word in the bullying entry on psych abuse exists, nor anything on medical abuse.  Why no article on psych abuse? This should be a separate article, a huge article, folks! Hop to it! Where are our journalists and researchers?  And psych abuse causes so, so many suicides, and has been the MAIN cause of suicide for decades!

Please sign this petition to help stop forced drugging for our friends in OHIO!

I feel strongly about this.  Please sign and share!

http://petitions.moveon.org/thanks.html?petition_id=74168&from_source=c.em.mt&id=-10574315-4ju%3Dug

 

I’ve been busy, folks, but I am certainly around!

Excuses we are told when we try to report abuse

Have you ever reported abuse? What excuse were YOU given for having to undergo such trauma, and for NOTHING to be done about what happened?

1) Your story isn’t credible. You don’t have enough cold hard evidence. Therefore, it’s not possible that it even happened, and we are going to assume that you are inventing the whole thing. We see no reason to pursue.
2) It was done for your own good, and the abuser was “just doing his job” to protect you and give you “care.”
3) You were misbehaving or acting out of line. Therefore, anything inhumane done to you is entirely justified within the Institution.
4) There were no witnesses. Therefore, it couldn’t possibly have happened.
5) When you reported the abuse, you approached the wrong person, and now, the statute of limitations is up. Therefore, the abuse never happened, and your trauma is nonexistent.
6) You are too poor to get a lawyer, therefore, we won’t pursue if you try to report the abuse. What’s the point?
7) You are a sick person with mental issues, therefore, nothing you say is credible. You don’t stand a chance, and the Institution and its personnel can do anything they damn please.
8) You were drugged, therefore, your perceptions may have been off. Probably, you imagined it.
9) You are a child and deserved what happened. Children don’t have rights. They deserve punishment, after all.
10) You are elderly, probably senile. Nothing you say can possibly be true. After all, you are a batty old lady full of silly notions. Go back to your teddy bear.
11) You are physically handicapped, blind, or you have had a stroke, or you are developmentally disabled. Who can blame someone for taking advantage of you? We assumed you simply wouldn’t notice that you were assaulted.
12) The perp wasn’t well educated. Try to see things from the perp’s point of view. I mean, consider the suicide rate among perps. We should have National Perp Day. A charity for perps. Have you loved your perp today? Please, have pity on these folks.
13) You have serious anger problems and that’s why you are complaining. Go to anger management. You are so sick and you need antidepressants.
14) Pray and forgive. And give money to our church. This is “help.” You’ll probably be abused more, but pray harder and forgive the church over and over, too.
15) Go to a hospital or mental health care if you have been abused. The hospital will see to it that you are made “happy” so you’ll never, ever speak of the abuse again. However, if their tactics don’t work, expect Medical Abuse or Psychiatric Abuse, in the form of forced drugging, further imprisonment, and the like.
16) Above all, do not form a support group or website about abuse. Never blog about it. This is a threat and this will make you a liability case. You will be blacklisted at medical institutions and denied even the most basic care.
17) Are you still speaking out? We can ignore you, but should you be found dead by the side of the road someday, surely it was only a random killing, right?

When I come across as too angry

I have to remind myself that it’s okay to be angry. That I don’t have to justify my anger anymore to anyone or to “prove” myself to anyone anymore. Or to say why. Or to say over and over that anger isn’t a disease. This is a fact and if no one likes it they don’t have to stick around.

If they don’t believe me they don’t have to. I am who I am. I choose to speak up and many others are grateful that I continue to speak up. The doctors that wronged me can do nothing to silence me now.

Either I die, or I won’t. Everyone dies eventually. Either way, those doctors and therapists that wronged me will lose. As long as I live, I will continue to speak out, and if I die, others who have also been abused will continue onward.

Never, ever shut up.

What has been started will not end. It was a spark, now a roaring fire. I was abused in so-called “mental health care” and in so-called “hospitals” and the reality stands. I am not delusional and I am not lying about what happened. This “help” is not help. This “care” is not care. Force isn’t ever healthy, nor does it lead to anything resembling wellness.

Do we want to live in a rigid police state? Or do we want love?

There is no gray area here.

There is no excuse for abuse.

There is indeed such thing as saying, “Julie, I am sorry.” I do, in fact, accept apologies. In fact, if those shrinks had only said to me, “I admit I was wrong, and I deeply apologize that I caused you such harm.” I surely would have accepted their apology. But no, they did not. Instead, they tried in every way they could to force-drug me and incarcerate me and take away every Constitutional right I have as adult citizen of this country.

That I know of, they will continue to attempt to do this until the day I die. They are so desperate to shut me up. I hate to inform them, but I have no plans to do so.

 

Another horrific story of abuse…please share! Stories should be told and we will NOT SHUT UP!

Please “like” and “share” the following link if you have a Facebook account, if not, the text is below…and my commentary, as usual….below that.

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/157785354331129/permalink/498271443615850/

 

“At 14 years Michelle was bright sensitive child, a straight A student, but then was diagnosed with early schizophrenia at age 14. Her extreme mental and emotional problems took her life, her personality, her dreams, her dignity. She now believes she is a “retarded abnormal subhuman” with no quality of life.

“Doctors and social workers look through her. They see her as a label, not a person. She has been on every medication possible. Zyprexa’s side effects made her gain 300 lbs. in one year. Then it was discontinued because she was pre-diabetic.

“During her lifetime Michelle has been hospitalized over 30 times, often 100’s of mile away from family and friends with no Ronald McDonald house for me. At Merced California hospital her daily activity was to go walk in the graveyard. I have been her only caregiver and provider as she has never lived independently.

“Broken relations with self, society, family – this is the essence of receiving a psychiatric diagnosis. With no purposeful work or activities, she is brainwashed that there is NO Hope and will have to take drugs the rest of her life which destroy the mind, body and soul.

“We have witnessed many friends in their 20’s 30’s 40’s drop dead over the years from side effects, overmedication or horrific withdrawal. One young man jumped to his death a few blocks from the hospital after being denied services. Michelle has many, many times – wracked with unbearable emotional pain — been denied services and left to walk home in her jammies barefoot in the middle of the night, totally vulnerable.Many many times when she REALLY needed help she did not get it as no “crime” had been committed and no one was yet hurt. Police would laugh at us and tell us that we liked “to fight.”

“Lack of basic services, being hurt and afraid CONSTANTLY, taken advantage of, loss of dignity, inhumane treatment, discrimination, isolation, no voice in treatment, violation of rights, torture — these are accepted as the norm within the mental health system.

“I filed many grievances with the county and state for lack of basic services. My statement was “My daughter is like a drowning person, who, when thrown a lifeline , will l not touch it as she is afraid of it.” We won “services” that time.

“Four years ago, at the last grievance her counselor didn’t get her to court on time and we lost by default. I’ve written letters to the local paper titled “I can get help for my cat easier than my mentally ill daughter” but they didn’t print it. They refused to interview me or Shell and I was told by Paul Hurley with the Times Delta that lack of and inadequate mental health services was an “open secret.” I wrote to senators, representatives, mayors, governors, presidents, civil rights groups, lawyers, with a few replies for best wishes and a phone number but no end results.

“Then, in 2004, Michelle was sentenced to 90 days for small charges. Twice she was electrocuted by a TASER gun in Bob Wiley JAIL in Visalia, CA, WHILE SHE WAS PREGNANT and forcibly taken from her cell at least twice.

“Michelle spent 100 days in solitary with no treatment. Her charge? Being under the influence and resisting arrest. After serving over 100 days Michelle was involuntarily sent to California Patton State Hospital to “understand the charges.” There, she was locked up with murderers and rapists. She was then sent back to court, found guilty AGAIN and released. Total time for this? Almost 1 year. She was sent to Patton state hospital locked with rapists and murders. At Patton State Michelle gave birth to daughter Audri chained to a bed, and was not allowed to hold her own newborn baby.

“Michelle was a wonderful mother and she was happiest holding her babies, cuddling them, loving them. This was the happiest time of her life. Audri and Andrew were her whole reason for existing. After the birth of her second child she was given the wrong meds and she decompensated AGAIN. Then, she said an inappropriate comment to a social worker while in extreme emotional distress. CWS took her babies without a fight as she was locked in the hospital with no phone available and unable to speak up for herself. We have never seen the babies since. AudriAnna and Andrew were not abused, drug exposed nor abandoned. She was discriminated against and violated, for having a psychiatric disorder. She has never recovered from the grief. I call it legalized kidnapping.

“In 2002 she was hospitalized at Kaweah Delta In Visalia, CA. There she was assaulted with seven stitches to her face. In May of this year she was hospitalized at this same locked facility and assaulted AGAIN by another patient, this time receiving five stitches to her forehead. This month she was hospitalized AGAIN at this same facility I couldn’t even give flowers or balloons to Michelle she was shut away like a leper. I called her case manager and supervisor and didn’t get even a return phone call for five days. Michelle is now in a licensed group home and the last I heard she had been raped. She is now on Neurontin telling me she’s hearing voices again for the first time in many years.

“Housing is a huge problem as unlicensed , unsafe group homes cram Mental Health population into windowless rooms and move them at the landlords convenience. They suffer in silence as to speak up would not be tolerated and would be punished. Licensed group homes are rare.

“The MEDIA is guilty of generating misinformation and half-truths and misconceptions always portraying the MI as derogatory and dangerous. They laugh at them and point fingers. Would you laugh at a child with cancer? Psychiatry as we know it is not an exact science, often dangerous. My daughter is a human guinea pig.

“The Mental Illness System is broken and it doesn’t work. The discrimination against people diagnosed with psychiatric disabilities is shameful, talked about in secrets in the dark. The media portrays one suffering generally as to be pitied, a danger, one to be feared and not tolerated.

“The STIGMA and treatment itself are barriers. That must be smashed before the eyes of the general public so the community can understand and change old ideas into new methods of treatment, of healing. Lobotomies were inhumane and eventually outlawed. Electroshock therapy is a modern form of lobotomy. Ask ten people, “What is schizophrenia?” and I get ten different answers.

“Survivors need a voice AND choices in their own treatment, community based, family based treatment, compassion, Christian love, understanding. Gently guiding sufferers back to reality is a new form of treatment successfully working in the country of Finland. Dr. Jaakko Seikkula is pioneering and revamping the treatment of the people diagnosed with psychiatric disabilities, with approximately 80% success rate of restoring one’s dignity with minimal medication use. Canada and Australia are also working on more effective treatments. Our own Mr. Bob Whitaker is writing books on this tragic and terrible epidemic in our country.

“Med compliance has never been her problem. She does well in structured settings and can live independently with minimal supervision. There are many caring and concerned individuals here. Again, I wish to thank you all for coming and thanks to David Oaks for allowing me to share. As a MOM == Mother’s of MindFreedom – I urge you to support David and MindFreedom as his work is essential to end this living nightmare for our children. Mother’s of MindFreedom are uniting and breaking down barriers and searching for more effective treatment. We will never give up.”

****

God bless moms that never give up!  Yes, MindFreedom does do wonderful work.

Yes, it is true that this abuse does exist and it is indeed commonplace, the NORM for mental patients, not the exception. This is the life we live. This is what is the accepted truth of our existence. You must submit to “treatment” to get well. Treatment is supposed to hurt.

I do not for one minute accept that abuse is justified or acceptable. Ever.   This needs to stop. It’s time to speak out.  Never allow someone to yap to you about “acceptance.”  Acceptance of what? The status quo? The status quo MUST CHANGE NOW.