I've wanted to write a review of Leo Regan's The Doctor Who Hears Voices at its IMDb-page ever since I'd seen the film and read the, at that time, only and rather negative - indeed society's prejudice against people who experience or have experienced extreme states of mind confirming - review of it at IMDb.
Eventually, last night I did write it, so, here it is.
It goes a little more into detail than my previous review here on my blog, which actually is more a short announcement than a review, while it, admittedly, still struggles very hard not to become too much of a reply to the mentioned, negative review alone.
Of course, in as far as I identify as one of the people shes_dead in line with society in general obviously holds rather strong prejudice against, I felt offended by his/her review. Why I decided it wouldn't be wise, to try and write a review of my own back in November last year, but wait until I'd hopefully cooled a bit down, managed to distance myself somewhat from the identification as the discriminated against, and the resulting anger. Well, I still didn't manage to be compassionate altogether - that discrimination usually isn't due to viciousness but to ignorance, a lack of ability to see beyond the end of one's nose, becomes evident alone from the fact, that shes_dead confuses Rufus May with a psychiatrist, while the film explicitly points out, that he is a psychologist, a fact, that hardly would have escaped the truly attentive, open-minded, and unprejudiced viewer - and still had to fight some feeling offended, and angry. Which sabotaged my quest to write the perfect review to a certain extent.
So, no, it certainly isn't the perfect review. But well, let the one who wrote the perfect review throw the first stone!
First of all, go to Stan's blog, and read the e-mail exchange between him and the LA-Times reporter Shari Roan, who chooses to defend what in my opinion is a crystal-clear case of severe child abuse.
Now, while many in the meantime seem to have noticed that Jani's father Michael Schofield openly admits to have both beaten her up, starved her and subjected her to numerous other kinds of what without doubt must be termed severe child abuse, there's something, no one yet has explicitly mentioned, as far as I can see.
In this blog post Jani's father talks about the basic needs of infants:
"Simply having to feed another person on schedule is a chore. After years of only having to take care of yourself, you have to take care of another. Feed them. Clean them. Wipe them. Feed them again. Bathe them. Again with the feeding.
These simple tasks are difficult enough because we are not used to it. Society trains us to take care of ourselves, not another human being.
Since the focus of baby care classes is basic infant care, it lulls you into a sense of believing that infants will only complain if their basic needs aren't met. You believe all you have to do is feed them, clean them, keep them warm, and maybe hold them a little bit.
That's bullshit.
It turns out that "basic" human needs are not so basic, nor are they the same for every infant. The baby care classes prepare you to feed the baby and change a diaper, not how to meet your child's emotional and psychological needs. It is assumed that infants do not have such complex needs. This is just as much crap as the stuff in the diapers. Humans are born complex, psychological creatures, and can have needs that far outstrip basic needs."
Read between the lines: "No one told us, that human beings need love - so we assumed, we didn't need to love Jani as long as we changed her diapers and fed her."
Narcissists are people, who don't know, what love is. They've never received it, thus they are unable to give it, if it is in regard to themselves or others. All they've ever experienced is need, being ab-/used by others to fulfil these others' needs. This is all they know about relationships: how to ab-/use others to fulfil their own needs. Narcissists are not able to love.
To start with, Jani was physically probably provided for in a satisfactory way. Although one may wonder even in regard to that, taken the "difficult enough", and Michael Schofield's somewhat wistful description of the good old days when he and his wife would spend days in bed, doing nothing, into account... However, it stands out quite clear to me, that Jani emotionally was left high and dry in a more or less complete vacuum, that she spent her life in an emotionally ice-cold environment from day one.
Schofield blames Maslow, says Maslow was wrong. Maslow wasn't wrong. Schofield chooses to misinterpret, in his own favor. Love is a "D-need" in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. And while one can argue if it is right to split up basic human needs into levels, like Maslow did, or if they should be grouped together at one single level, as some critics suggest, they are all deficiency needs, that, if not met, cause suffering.
Schofield also blames Jani, or the "illness", which is basically the same, says that the "illness" made her different, special, more needy than "normal" infants, who would be content, having their basic, physical needs fulfilled. Again, he is dead wrong. Any human being, infant or other, will inevitably suffer if they are deprived of love - or any other basic human need, physical or not, listed by Maslow as a D-need, for that sake.
This is what so-called "schizophrenia" is made of. It is the manifestation of the suffering, that is caused by being deprived of love, by being objectified, and ab-/used to fulfil others' needs. It is the manifestation of protest against that abuse.
Sometimes it is mentioned as a "symptom" of "schizophrenia", that "the schizophrenic" feels s/he's an unwanted child. It's not a symptom of a brain disease. It's the truth. Michael and Susan Schofield didn't want a child. They needed an object, a something, to act out their own trauma.
That this isn't recognized, that it even is blatantly denied, by Shari Roan for instance, but also and even more important by those, who should be the first to recognize it, the "experts", doesn't surprise me the least. It's only symptomatic of a thoroughly narcissistic culture. _______________
P.S.: As for Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, if at all I'd split up the basic human needs, I'd place "love" at the very bottom of it. Human beings can handle a whole lot of suffering if only they are loved. If they are not, they will inevitably go to pieces, sooner or later, with or without other kinds of suffering. And no one who really loves their child, would ever put him/her through, what Jani has been put through by her parents, especially her father.
I had a hunch, that some kind of abuse or neglect probably was involved, also in Jani's case. - And I want to emphasize, that my definition of "abuse" is a quite broad one, that is not restricted to parents battering or sexually abusing their kids. It may or may not be the parents, and it may or may not be physical abuse.
Now I just read the following, which I haven't been aware of, at Stephany's blog:
"It saddens me to say the least to read on the Jani's father's blog that the father talks about beating (hitting) , and starving Jani, taking away her toys, and ultimately drugging her spirit. (to break her) before she was placed on psychiatric medications this child suffered child abuse."
So, no, one doesn't even need to apply my own, broad, Derrick-Jensen-influenced definition of abuse to come to the conclusion, that Jani indeed is a victim of child abuse.
To enjoy some real NAMI-pathos and -defensiveness, go here - to get an idea, what the whole thing is about, check out "Parents Cope With 6-Year-Old With Schizophrenia" at Philip Dawdy's blog - read the post, then read David Oaks' comment, Wednesday, July 1, 2009 - 04:34 PM, 9th comment from the top, and then Michael Schofield's reply to David, Wednesday, July 1, 2009 - 06:11 PM, 11th comment from the top.
Well, and then tell me, that these parents do anything else than feeling sorry - for themselves. Drowning in self-pity. And they actually thrive on their misery. So much, they forget everything about being polite (or just pathetic...), and indeed become rude and defensive, as soon as someone comes around, and mentions, in the most empathetic, friendly way, the possibility, that to be in the mh system might not be the right thing for their daughter, and that they maybe should have a deeper look at the matter: "Don't you dare to question the necessity of our suffering to continue indefinitely!!! We are special! Our misery is more miserable than anyone else's in the whole wide world! And we will fight for it! (Even if that costs Jani her life.)" Narcissists?...
What really is utterly disturbing to me, is people who are disturbed by a six-year-old who is drugged into a stupor with huge doses of psych poisons, while they fail to acknowledge the assault it is on this six-year-old to be labelled with "schizophrenia" - a label that, like all psych labels, lacks any scientific proof of its validity - and thus fail to acknowledge, that it is the blame-the-victim-label, that justifies the silence-the-victim-drugging.
"I did some thinking about this issue in the wake of Gianna's post on it. It seems like just another "symptom" of our culture's sickness, its profoundly alienating dynamics, that we have to pay for supportive human relationships, that there is a whole industry, that is able to make a living on offering something, to which each and everybody should be granted free access. Wasn't it Freud, who came up with the demand for people to pay for that service, because it would force them to go and get themselves a job? First step towards "recovery". Ok, but then "recovery" means (re-)adjustment to the capitalist system... So, to a certain extent you might say, this makes therapy repeat the dysfunctional, alienating dynamics, that caused crisis: "It's not enough, that you are who you are. I only listen to you, if you pay me money for it." (...) It is as it is. Unfortunately, we need that industry. A lot of other things would have to change, before we could do without it. And I think, the really "good" ones inside that industry actually can contribute to bringing some change around through their work - that they need to get paid for in order to survive."
I don't think what really matters when it comes to helping people in crisis would be the ability to practice certain, during several years of academic education and clinical training acquired therapeutic techniques. I think what really matters is the ability to establish a genuine human relationship. - And indeed, I think that years of academic education and clinical training actually have the potential to destroy that ability in an individual. I'd even go as far as to say, they are designed to destroy that ability. - Can human relationships be genuine when they are offered as a paid-for service, as consumer goods? Isn't this, too, kind of a "toxic mimicry" of what would be natural?
So, me too, I took The Feminism Test I found the link to at Sigrun's blog.
Your result for The Feminism Test...
Revisionist
You scored 83% Gender-Abolitionist, 60% Sexually Liberal, and 80 % Socialist
You are the Revisionist Feminist! You are, by far, the most philosophical, the most sexually-liberated, and the most politically extreme variety of feminist. You are very, very freedom-oriented. You abhor oppression in all forms. For instance, your views on sexual liberation and reproductive control adequately reflect your devotion to personal freedom. Not only that, but you also feel gender needs to be destroyed to maximize equality and freedom, because accepting socially-constructed gender roles binds women into false categories and places upon them an unneeded identity. Gender should not be a part of one's identity, but rather an irrelevant aspect of their physical bodies, such as their hair length or nose shape. Not only that, but Revisionist Feminists are political extremists and feel very strongly that the oppression of class society is a big part of the cause of women's oppression. Basically, a Revisionist feels that cultural ideas of gender, political class, and repressive sexual morality all work together to oppress women, and the only way to truly escape this oppression is to challenge all of these problems directly and extremely. You are a Marxist, a Gender Abolitionist, and a Liberal Feminist all rolled into one.
Jan Olaf writes: "The mental violations which the psychiatric system causes to persons are much more hidden than many other physical violations other systems do to other persons – but the mental violations caused by the forced psychiatric system are very real, they also – indeed!"
"Before you can exploit someone you have to silence them." -Derrick Jensen. By far the most efficient way to silence someone is to label them "insane". More efficient than directly murdering them: murdering their words. And then you can proceed to murder the person herself, while no one will listen to her protesting anymore. Psychiatry is totalitarianism's most efficient tool.
Abdulle Ahmed is a young man, refugee from the civil war in Somalia, who has become victim of Danish totalitarianism. No one, not even those among you, who, unlike me, believe in "mental illness" to be real diseases, can seriously claim the following time line to reflect the history of a person with a "mental illness":
• 1991 - Together with his family, Abdulle comes to Denmark, 11 years old. He lives a normal life, and only dreams about getting an education and a good life. • 1996 - Abdulle suffers from back pain. His physician can't find out what causes it. • 1997 - in March. Abdulle again turns to his physician because of back pain, and is prescribed Zyprexa, which he takes believing it's a pain killer. Abdulle has an adverse reaction to Zyprexa. He's convulsing and suffers from nausea. A doctor is sent for, who admits Abdulle to hospital. • 1997 - Abdulle is admitted, though not to a somatic ward but a psychiatric one [remember: the adverse reaction is caused by Zyprexa, an "antipsychotic"...], where he's administered electroshock without the knowledge of his family. • 2001 - Abdulle's family is told he'll soon be discharged, and come home. • 2001 - Abdulle is not discharged. On the contrary, he has an argument with staff [he continuously rejects the idea that he would be "mentally ill", while staff keeps on trying to convince him, leading to several clashes with staff throughout time with this one being of the louder kind] which results in him being court ordered to receive "treatment" on November 8. • 2001 - eleven days after the court order is released, on November 19, an order of dangerousness is issued against Abdulle, who is transferred to "Sikringen Nykøbing Sjælland", a secured psychiatric hospital. • 2007 - the court order for "treatment" is extended. • Since, Abdulle has been incarcerated at "Sikringen". He's been restrained daily for several years [years, yep!], and forced to take huge amounts of psych drugs, so that he today no longer is capable of walking, hardly can speak, is shaking all over and got his teeth ruined. (translated from Danish, LAP's newsletter, 06-25-09)
Clearly, Abdulle, who was labelled with "schizophrenia" by the "experts", never suffered from anything else than an adverse reaction to Zyprexa, prescribed to him off-label for back pain. To diagnose "schizophrenia" under these circumstances, to me amounts to incompetence of criminal dimensions. Nevertheless, the "experts" reject to admit their mistake and to release Abdulle. On the contrary, the responsible shrink, Benedikte Volfing, has restricted visits by Abdulle's family to him to half an hour once a week, because his family doesn't believe in Abdulle's "mental illness" either, and thus undermines the "trust in the staff", that according to Benedikte Volfing is decisive to recovery, she has denied Abdulle's brother Mohamud, who is Abdulle's legal guardian, to see him for two and a half moths, which according to Danish law is illegal, and tried to get Mohamud replaced by another less concerned guardian, and she plans to further up the dose of neuroleptics Abdulle is on, and stated that it might be necessary to try out new, unapproved substances on Abdulle. This is murder!!! This woman, not Abdulle, is dangerous!
Never mind the absolutely mind-blowing amount of xenophobia that lies in a statement like that neuroleptics "simply aren't effective in Africans". Has it ever occurred to anyone among the "experts" that these poisons might not work, because the diagnosis is bull, and nothing but another disgusting act of discrimination?! And has it ever occurred to anyone among them, to try and stop poisoning people with these substances, when the latter obviously don't "work", even make the drugged-up person worse, "more aggressive", as Benedikte Volfing says to Politiken?!
What has happened and is happening to Abdulle - and everybody else in a similar situation - is a gross violation of human rights, it's a crime, a crime against humanity. It's got nothing to do with help and care. It's all about power tripping and social control.
Last week, I sent an e-mail to the Danish politician Sophie Løhde, who recently proposed a bill for involuntary outpatient "treatment" to become legal in Denmark too. A bill that is widely supported by our government, and thus is very likely to be passed in the near future.
In my e-mail, I expressed my view, that Danish politicians' support of involuntary outpatient "treatment" to me seems to rather be based on a wish for more social control than a true wish to help people in crisis. I asked Sophie Løhde to correct me, if my view is wrong. So far, Sophie Løhde has chosen not to correct me... But well, I signed the e-mail as someone who's "fully recovered thanks to the fact, that I had received 100 per cent drug-free help". And that of course, in the eyes of someone like Sophie Løhde, makes me an "insane" person, whose words by definition are to be ignored.
What is more is that members of the youth organization of the Danish conservative party recently proposed to ban people on benefit, disability included, from voting. A proposal, also the youth organization of "Venstre", the party in power, has been into. Just so you get a picture of the tone in this country - democracy??? -, and don't think, I'm exaggerating grossly when I talk about social control and discrimination, and choose to post a vid like the one above to illustrate what is going on in this country.
Please help us fight human rights violations in Denmark! Help us free Abdulle!
If you live in Denmark, join the demonstration for the immediate release of Abdulle Ahmed from the psych prison on Monday, 6th of July (Abdulle's birthday), at 1.00 pm, Slotsholmsgade 10 - 12 (behind "Børsen"), Copenhagen.
Visit the website, Abdulle's family has set up to support him here.
"...If Martin Luther Was Living, He Wouldn't Let This Be." _______________
P.S.: "Parental Discretion Advised"??? Wouldn't it be better to let kids know the truth about our civilization, that it is abusive to the core, that it, also, killed Michael Jackson?! Instead of pretending everything to be just fine, and thus protecting the abusers??
All the while Danish politicians recently have agreed to make more human rights violations in the shape of involuntary outpatient "treatment" happen in this country, because it is "ethically irresponsible that some very sick individuals can't get treatment because they lack insight", uhm yahhh, their German colleagues have had a moment of true enlightenment, and have made psychiatric advance directives legally binding.
So, from now on, if you live in Germany and have an advance directive, any psychiatric "treatment" your advance directive lists as unwanted by you, becomes bodily assault, and any detention on a locked ward against your will becomes deprivation of liberty in the eye of the law.
But read for yourself, here's the press release:
(This press release was translated and forwarded by Rene Talbot - please snowball this message in e-mail lists and newsgroups)
Finally, coercive psychiatry can be put to a stop! In Germany a new advance directive („PatVerfue“) makes it possible Berlin, 18/6/2009 After years of discussion, today a new law on the legal rules for advance directives has finally been adopted by the German parliament. The legislature has clearly and with votes from all political parties agreed to make valid the will of the patient and by doing so also the self-determination in any situation against any medical and state paternalism, regardless of the type and stage of an illness.
The time finally belongs to the past that others - doctors and judges - define what the supposedly "objective" best interests of a person are and what should be undertaken or refrained from, against his/her declared will, with regard to these supposedly "objective" best interests of a person! This will have far-reaching effects with regard to court ordered guardianship: For the first time there is the chance that guardianship may no longer be enforced against the wishes and needs of the person in question and thus guardianship now has the potential to be transformed into a service that is loyal to the person in question.
The patient‘s will is now to be regarded as being legally binding in medical decisions, as already promised in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany and for over 60 years in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Each case of "medical" treatment against the written and actual will of a "patient" thereby becomes bodily assault and incarceration in a locked ward becomes deprivation of liberty.
On this occasion we would therefore like to make known our specific form of an advance directive, the PatVerfue, with a built-in representation agreement, in which any torture-like bodily harm in the form of unwanted psychiatric treatment and any deprivation of liberty whatsoever due to a slanderous pseudo-medical psychiatric diagnosis is legally binding excluded. The associations publishing this form have joined forces to help this parliament´s promise to be accepted in the judiciary. It is this promise with which the validity of basic, civil and human rights for all, also for the psychiatrically slandered, hopefully becomes reality. By supporting and encouraging all those with a PatVerfue who would nevertheless be incarcerated and endure coercive treatment and/or are threatened with these acts, to create precedents at all judicial levels Germany, it is our aim to make the PatVerfue „watertight“ ["waterproof" I suppose is meant] in the courts. Our aim is that in the future all judges be made to adhere to this new law, to accept the patient‘s will without restrictions and to implement it with their decisions.
Our proposed form of an advance directive prohibits all psychiatric diagnoses from the outset. We do not believe in the existence of these so-called "mental illnesses", because there is no objective criteria to prove them. The PatVerfue thus ensures the self determination of the person against psychiatrists trying to deny his or her free will, by claiming that they have an illness-incurred lack of „insight or the ability to behave in the light of this insight ".
Today is for us a day of joy!
The rigid implementation of this law would mean the end of forced psychiatry in Germany.
An illogical fact remains, however, in that psychiatric diagnoses and treatment against the declared will of a person can only be staved off by a PatVerfue and - to the contrary - is not excluded at all.
Actually, each psychiatric - just as with any medical - treatment should only be made with the "informed consent" of the individual, i.e. it is explicitly a g r e e d to by the person after extensive consultation on the pros and cons thereof.
Thus, with the entry into force of the law, unfortunately a prior legally binding refusal of psychiatric coercive measures is only possible for those who already know that a PatVerfue is a loophole to prevent coercive psychiatry. This is therefore the right occasion for a broad information campaign to make the PatVerfue public, so that increased use widens the loophole into a "door out of coercive psychiatry".
At www.PatVerfue.de information and the appropriate form is now free to download for noncommercial users.
To celebrate this day of joy, the Werner-Fuss-Center publicly invites everybody to a barbecue at 8 p.m. today on the kleinen Bunkerberg in the Volkspark in Friedrichshain in Berlin. Please bring something with to celebrate. _______________
Meanwhile, the Danish version of involuntary outpatient "treatment" will make it possible to also drug up people, who are not psychotic, who do not suffer of any "symptoms", if only one or the other self-appointed "expert" at some point of time has assessed the person to be "very sick". That is, you risk to get drugged up with substances, that provenly are harmful, not only but also in a way that can make you "psychotic", when actually you are recovering or even recovered... Can it get less respectful to peoples' human rights, and more maliciously oppressive?? I don't think so.
Concerning the reaction from the only Danish user/ex-user/survivor organization, LAP - oh, sorry, wrong link, this is the right one, or is it?... - I suggest to send even more loving kindness along with its "Oh please, don't!"-press releases, as that definitely will make an impression on Danish politicians. Just as it obviously does make a huge impression on Darth Vader in "The environmentalist version of Star Wars"...
Well, although I couldn't join the Germans at their party in Berlin, you bet I celebrated. Here's to the Germans!
Until June 14th you can watch Yann Arthus-Bertrand's film HOME on YouTube. HOME is a fascinating film about life on this planet, and about the devastating impact that our civilization has on it.
I don't quite agree to the film's conclusion. Technology has brought us into the situation we are in today. I don't believe, it will save us. Apart from that, I don't think it is five minutes to twelve, but five minutes past. Yah, I believe, it's "game over" as far as civilization is concerned. Has been so right from the start.
Comments on this blog are moderated. These are the three golden rules to follow if you want your comment published here:
- Keep it on topic.
- Keep the language sober. Try some meditation if this is a problem. It works!
- If you don't like what I have to say,"This is bs" won't do. You'll have to come up with some real arguments.
If it takes some time before your comment appears, it's probably because I'm not online - or your comment went against one or more of the three golden rules.
I am a creatively maladjusted human being who has experienced some extreme states of mind - also termed "psychosis". I've been as lucky as to get the chance to go through these states of mind without the interference of psychiatry. Instead I've had brilliant guidance during my search for myself... (continue reading)
Scroll down to the bottom of the page for some awesome videos - subject to occasional change
Lorna Doone
Thoroughbred mare, 1985 - 2006, Tshainik - Fantasia Ligré
Lord Tennyson
Thoroughbred gelding, *1994, Mago - Lorna Doone
When God created the horse, he said to the magnificent creature: I have made thee as no other. All the treasures of the earth shall lie between thy eyes. -Qur'an
