Showing posts with label Derrick Jensen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Derrick Jensen. Show all posts
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Trauma Survivor
Description at YouTube:
"Elemental Ireland
Those termed "psychiatric patients" are in fact trauma survivors. Many who find themselves caught in the net of bio-psychiatry are responding to the abnormal circumstances of a traumatic childhood; the hated child, the abandoned child, the neglected child, the exploited child, the defeated child and the silenced child, to name a few.
Exploring 'The Roots of Violence' by Alice Miller. This video contains quotes by Alice Miller and by Elemental Ireland.
'For some years now, there has been proof that the devastating effects of the traumatization of children take their inevitable toll on society - a fact that we are still forbidden to recognise (a fact that is commonly denied). This knowledge concerns every single one of us and - if disseminated widely enough - should lead to fundamental changes in society; above all, to a halt in the blind escalation of violence'. Alice Miller
Having recently discovered Alice Miller, as a parent I found her work a welcome challenge. She has made me think deeply both about the way I parent and society's attitudes to children. It is a matter of urgency for me to heal my own wounded inner-child, so I can parent my children in the best possible way. She has tapped into great truths that I knew deep down but was afraid to voice to myself and in public. A good website exploring Alice Miller's work is Daniel Mackler's iraresoul. Daniel has made an excellent film called 'Take These Broken Wings' about recovery from (so-called) schizophrenia without medication.
Many trauma survivors are terrified and find it difficult to trust. They struggle with repressed rage and anger. Many are further punished for being trauma survivors by coercion and forced 'treatment'. They are further battered and broken by bio-psychiatry.
In most cases, the trauma survivor is silenced three times; firstly by their families, then by society and then by bio-psychiatry.
Wouldn't this make you angry?"
Some time ago, I lent Derrick Jensen's A Language Older Than Words to a friend. Earlier this week, I got it back: "I couldn't read past the first pages. Too painful to read about all this violence and abuse." Yeah. It certainly is a lot less painful to close your eyes to reality. It just won't change anything.
Friday, 27 November 2009
Hallucinations
In a reply to a commenter who says she hasn't been able to see anything "in this life with a painful connection", Sean writes: "Yes, not all trauma is from our childhood. Sometimes its from adulthood or the peri-natal stage, and sometimes it certainly looks like the traumas are more related to karmic issues, past lives, etc..."
I've heard people maintain they weren't traumatized many times before. Most often in order to defend the medical model: "I haven't been traumatized. So, consequently, I must suffer from a chemical imbalance in my brain." In this case, it's not a chemical imbalance, it's karma from some past life. I'm sure, I don't believe in the chemical imbalance bs. I'm not quite sure whether to believe in past lives, karma and stuff. What I'm sure I do believe in is that there's a lot in this life that is traumatizing, while we don't recognize it as traumatizing. Like being human in an inhumane world, for instance. Whether someone is able to cope with that challenge without having to ask for help, or not, depends on a number of often rather subtle, individual distinctions in their life experiences. Distinctions that often are overlooked.
Thursday, 24 September 2009
apples and elderberries
In Scandinavian and English mythology elders give protection from evil, so they mustn't be cut down without asking for the spirit of the tree, the Elder Mother's, forgiveness first, or she will take revenge.
I always ask for forgiveness. Not only elder trees. Nature isn't a resource. It's there in its own right.
Thursday, 3 September 2009
The end of suffering - genes and schizophrenia
This is a post I wrote for Gianna Kali's blog Beyond Meds. I publish it here too, as Gianna's blog has no comment function for now. So, feel free to tear me to pieces. Still, it would be nice if you considered this blog's comment politics...
The end of suffering- genes and schizophrenia
"Det är synd om människorna," is an often quoted line from August Strindberg's A Dream Play. Translated into English, the line becomes: "Human beings are to be pitied," which is a correct literal translation. Nevertheless, it fails to capture the very essence of the Swedish original, and often leads to the misunderstanding that Strindberg intended to say, human beings were to be pitied because of the suffering that is - being human. No, human beings are not to be pitied because their suffering in the world is without comparison, inevitable, and sometimes even endless. They're not to be pitied because of the suffering that is both humanity's greatest challenge and its greatest gift at the same time. There's nothing in nature, human or other, that doesn't serve a purpose. And there's only one purpose: life.
Human beings are to be pitied because they fail to recognize and acknowledge this. Because they have made suffering their worst enemy, whom they fight with all their power and strength. Because they have waged war on nature, not least on their own nature, on themselves, on life.
That is what Strindberg's line and A Dream Play, which Strindberg himself said was "the child of my greatest pain", as a whole is all about.
The Danish newspaper B.T., a tabloid, ran an article on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009, under the headline "Skizofrene fostre kan sorteres fra" - "Schizophrenic embryos can be screened out".
According to another article at the website of University of Copenhagen, "Genetic Causes of Schizophrenia", a group of European researchers has found chromosomal changes in individuals labelled with "schizophrenia", that they interpret to be the main cause of the "illness". Their research is now granted a fund of additionally 30 million Danish crowns, in part paid by Lundbeck, a Danish pharmaceutical company, specializing in drugs for the "treatment" of "mental illnesses", Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Cipralex/Lexapro is a Lundbeck-product, as is Serdolect, a lesser known "atypical antipsychotic", in part by the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation, and the Danish Medical Research Council.
The additional funding is granted in order for the researchers to develop diagnostic tools, a new generation of drugs, targeting the mutated, "defect" chromosomes, and tools to screen embryos for the chromosome changes in question, so that parents to be can choose an abortion if the embryo shows these chromosome changes.
The few critical voices that are heard here and there in the media don't go beyond questioning if it is "ethical" to screen out and dispose of embryos, that may or may not actually develop "schizophrenia" later in life, since the researchers admit, that it takes more than the identified mutated chromosomes for the "illness" to manifest. They also have found the specific chromosome changes in individuals who are not labelled, and do not display signs of the "illness", just as they found labelled individuals without the changes. So, basically, the results are not significantly different from what we have seen this kind of research conjure up so many times in the past.
Which obviously is significantly different, increased, once more, is our culture's belief in Social-Darwinism, and eugenic weapons in its war against our existential suffering, against our own nature. Because what the researchers really have found is not the cause of any biological brain disease, but the formal, biological effects of the challenges, humanity faces: social injustice, violence, abuse, exploitation, alienation...
At least since Paul Hammersley and John Read's meta study, we all know, that most people who are labelled with "schizophrenia", are survivors of abuse. And while Hammersley and Read concentrated on physical and sexual abuse, abuse has many faces. Most of what our culture values as "normal" in fact is unnatural, actually alienating us from (our) nature. It is a "toxic mimicry" of nature, to use Derrick Jensen's terminology. To expect our nature to submit to this toxic mimicry without resistance, and deny itself, is a kind of abuse. We're all traumatized by this abuse. It's what the Fall Of Man refers to. No one is innocent.
What we also know by now is that childhood trauma can change both neuronal pathways in the brain and genes. Like all form in this world, also genes react and adapt to the environment they're surrounded and influenced by. The form, our body and also our genes, is always a symbol, a sign, a "symptom", reflecting on a formal level whatever formal, existential, spiritual, psychological, social, etc. challenges we face by reacting to these challenges. A nonreactive entity, if it is a human being, a person, or a single gene, is not fit to survive in this world as it is defenceless exposed to it's destructive abusiveness.
Mutated chromosomes are not the cause of anything. Neither of "schizophrenia". They are a symptom - of the challenges, the social injustice, the abuse, the alienation, the violence and destructiveness we face in this world.
We can try to eliminate our suffering, our reaction to the challenges that surround us, and to gene-manipulate respectively abort humanity into a state of nonreactivity. It will be exactly this, the abortion of humanity. As nonreactive to our environment we will no longer be able to survive. Nonreactivity to the challenges we face will allow this world's destructiveness to unrestrained destroy not only the basis for our biological survival, but, and even worse, since our biological survival depends on it, the basis for our spiritual survival, for the survival of what makes us human: our souls, our suffering souls. We can try. While the researchers, and everybody else, are positive to have found the cause of "schizophrenia", as long as there's one single alive human being left on this earth, they will react to the world. To eliminate existential suffering, we will have to eliminate humanity. Although the Nazis were extremely efficient, murdering people who suffered in the way that is labelled "schizophrenia", although they sterilized everybody whom they did not murder, preventing them from having children, the percentage of people who met the criteria for "schizophrenia" did not decrease in Nazi-Germany. The percentage of Jews did. Remarkably. What does this tell us about the "genetic causes of schizophrenia"?
In the meantime, it nevertheless looks like humanity won't rest until it has not overcome but eliminated suffering by perfectionizing its cultural nightmare's alienation and deadness. It looks like we will eliminate nature, both our own and that around us - and end up perfectly inhumane. The latest research on the "genetic causes of schizophrenia", and the consequences it inevitably will have, is another huge battle won in our war against ourselves, on our way toward a perfectly inhumane world.
So I ask: Is it "ethical" to eliminate life's greatest gift to humanity - humanity itself?
I know, that this is a controversial viewpoint. 'You want people to suffer?!' I hear you, with disbelief. Yes. I want people to suffer. So that they can become aware and conscious. So that they can wake up in the dream, wake up from our cultural nightmare's emotional alienation and deadness. So that they can overcome suffering, realizing that what they thought was their worst enemy in truth is their best friend. So that they can become alive, in the true meaning of the word.
You may accuse me of romanticizing suffering, of being detached from reality, having my head in the clouds. You wouldn't be the first to do so. I'll answer you, that I've suffered myself. Indescribably. And I still do suffer. From being an alive human being. I wouldn't want to trade that for anything in the whole wide world. Suffering isn't a - romantic - accessory to life. It is the incentive necessary to bring about change, to have us keep walking on the road of constant change. And only as long as we keep walking that road are we truly alive. Suffering is not a superfluous accessory to life. There's nothing superfluous, dispensable, in nature. And suffering is natural. It is life.
The end of suffering- genes and schizophrenia
"Det är synd om människorna," is an often quoted line from August Strindberg's A Dream Play. Translated into English, the line becomes: "Human beings are to be pitied," which is a correct literal translation. Nevertheless, it fails to capture the very essence of the Swedish original, and often leads to the misunderstanding that Strindberg intended to say, human beings were to be pitied because of the suffering that is - being human. No, human beings are not to be pitied because their suffering in the world is without comparison, inevitable, and sometimes even endless. They're not to be pitied because of the suffering that is both humanity's greatest challenge and its greatest gift at the same time. There's nothing in nature, human or other, that doesn't serve a purpose. And there's only one purpose: life.
Human beings are to be pitied because they fail to recognize and acknowledge this. Because they have made suffering their worst enemy, whom they fight with all their power and strength. Because they have waged war on nature, not least on their own nature, on themselves, on life.
That is what Strindberg's line and A Dream Play, which Strindberg himself said was "the child of my greatest pain", as a whole is all about.
The Danish newspaper B.T., a tabloid, ran an article on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009, under the headline "Skizofrene fostre kan sorteres fra" - "Schizophrenic embryos can be screened out".
According to another article at the website of University of Copenhagen, "Genetic Causes of Schizophrenia", a group of European researchers has found chromosomal changes in individuals labelled with "schizophrenia", that they interpret to be the main cause of the "illness". Their research is now granted a fund of additionally 30 million Danish crowns, in part paid by Lundbeck, a Danish pharmaceutical company, specializing in drugs for the "treatment" of "mental illnesses", Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Cipralex/Lexapro is a Lundbeck-product, as is Serdolect, a lesser known "atypical antipsychotic", in part by the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation, and the Danish Medical Research Council.
The additional funding is granted in order for the researchers to develop diagnostic tools, a new generation of drugs, targeting the mutated, "defect" chromosomes, and tools to screen embryos for the chromosome changes in question, so that parents to be can choose an abortion if the embryo shows these chromosome changes.
The few critical voices that are heard here and there in the media don't go beyond questioning if it is "ethical" to screen out and dispose of embryos, that may or may not actually develop "schizophrenia" later in life, since the researchers admit, that it takes more than the identified mutated chromosomes for the "illness" to manifest. They also have found the specific chromosome changes in individuals who are not labelled, and do not display signs of the "illness", just as they found labelled individuals without the changes. So, basically, the results are not significantly different from what we have seen this kind of research conjure up so many times in the past.
Which obviously is significantly different, increased, once more, is our culture's belief in Social-Darwinism, and eugenic weapons in its war against our existential suffering, against our own nature. Because what the researchers really have found is not the cause of any biological brain disease, but the formal, biological effects of the challenges, humanity faces: social injustice, violence, abuse, exploitation, alienation...
At least since Paul Hammersley and John Read's meta study, we all know, that most people who are labelled with "schizophrenia", are survivors of abuse. And while Hammersley and Read concentrated on physical and sexual abuse, abuse has many faces. Most of what our culture values as "normal" in fact is unnatural, actually alienating us from (our) nature. It is a "toxic mimicry" of nature, to use Derrick Jensen's terminology. To expect our nature to submit to this toxic mimicry without resistance, and deny itself, is a kind of abuse. We're all traumatized by this abuse. It's what the Fall Of Man refers to. No one is innocent.
What we also know by now is that childhood trauma can change both neuronal pathways in the brain and genes. Like all form in this world, also genes react and adapt to the environment they're surrounded and influenced by. The form, our body and also our genes, is always a symbol, a sign, a "symptom", reflecting on a formal level whatever formal, existential, spiritual, psychological, social, etc. challenges we face by reacting to these challenges. A nonreactive entity, if it is a human being, a person, or a single gene, is not fit to survive in this world as it is defenceless exposed to it's destructive abusiveness.
Mutated chromosomes are not the cause of anything. Neither of "schizophrenia". They are a symptom - of the challenges, the social injustice, the abuse, the alienation, the violence and destructiveness we face in this world.
We can try to eliminate our suffering, our reaction to the challenges that surround us, and to gene-manipulate respectively abort humanity into a state of nonreactivity. It will be exactly this, the abortion of humanity. As nonreactive to our environment we will no longer be able to survive. Nonreactivity to the challenges we face will allow this world's destructiveness to unrestrained destroy not only the basis for our biological survival, but, and even worse, since our biological survival depends on it, the basis for our spiritual survival, for the survival of what makes us human: our souls, our suffering souls. We can try. While the researchers, and everybody else, are positive to have found the cause of "schizophrenia", as long as there's one single alive human being left on this earth, they will react to the world. To eliminate existential suffering, we will have to eliminate humanity. Although the Nazis were extremely efficient, murdering people who suffered in the way that is labelled "schizophrenia", although they sterilized everybody whom they did not murder, preventing them from having children, the percentage of people who met the criteria for "schizophrenia" did not decrease in Nazi-Germany. The percentage of Jews did. Remarkably. What does this tell us about the "genetic causes of schizophrenia"?
In the meantime, it nevertheless looks like humanity won't rest until it has not overcome but eliminated suffering by perfectionizing its cultural nightmare's alienation and deadness. It looks like we will eliminate nature, both our own and that around us - and end up perfectly inhumane. The latest research on the "genetic causes of schizophrenia", and the consequences it inevitably will have, is another huge battle won in our war against ourselves, on our way toward a perfectly inhumane world.
So I ask: Is it "ethical" to eliminate life's greatest gift to humanity - humanity itself?
I know, that this is a controversial viewpoint. 'You want people to suffer?!' I hear you, with disbelief. Yes. I want people to suffer. So that they can become aware and conscious. So that they can wake up in the dream, wake up from our cultural nightmare's emotional alienation and deadness. So that they can overcome suffering, realizing that what they thought was their worst enemy in truth is their best friend. So that they can become alive, in the true meaning of the word.
You may accuse me of romanticizing suffering, of being detached from reality, having my head in the clouds. You wouldn't be the first to do so. I'll answer you, that I've suffered myself. Indescribably. And I still do suffer. From being an alive human being. I wouldn't want to trade that for anything in the whole wide world. Suffering isn't a - romantic - accessory to life. It is the incentive necessary to bring about change, to have us keep walking on the road of constant change. And only as long as we keep walking that road are we truly alive. Suffering is not a superfluous accessory to life. There's nothing superfluous, dispensable, in nature. And suffering is natural. It is life.
Thursday, 2 July 2009
The human relationship industry
From an e-mail I recently wrote:
"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?
"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?
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Help us stop further human rights violations in Denmark! Help us free Abdulle!
I stole this from Jan Olaf's blog:
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 months, 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!
Sign the petition for the release of Abdulle here: http://onlineunderskrift.dk/Vis/Skriv%20Under/FREEABDULLE, and become a fan of Freeabdulle on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Freeabdulle/70553338778
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??
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 months, 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!
Sign the petition for the release of Abdulle here: http://onlineunderskrift.dk/Vis/Skriv%20Under/FREEABDULLE, and become a fan of Freeabdulle on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Freeabdulle/70553338778
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??
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Don't
Three video clips about the real violence - and some thoughts about delusions.
Something I notice, again and again, is that more often than not it is people, who've experienced the violence close up themselves, who've experienced it in a very concentrated form, who achieve an awareness and an understanding of it, like Derrick Jensen or R.D. Laing for instance have achieved it.
It really seems, that one has to get to a point where it becomes unbearable, before one has the courage to let go of all the delusions and to face reality. And the more I think abut it, the more it seems to me, that working in the mh system actually is the ultimate protection against having to face reality and having to let go of the delusions. Unconsciously as close to enlightenment as one possibly can get without actually achieving it. And at the same time, consciously, light years away from it. The ultimate insanity: normality.
Something I notice, again and again, is that more often than not it is people, who've experienced the violence close up themselves, who've experienced it in a very concentrated form, who achieve an awareness and an understanding of it, like Derrick Jensen or R.D. Laing for instance have achieved it.
It really seems, that one has to get to a point where it becomes unbearable, before one has the courage to let go of all the delusions and to face reality. And the more I think abut it, the more it seems to me, that working in the mh system actually is the ultimate protection against having to face reality and having to let go of the delusions. Unconsciously as close to enlightenment as one possibly can get without actually achieving it. And at the same time, consciously, light years away from it. The ultimate insanity: normality.
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