"Here's to double-sided instead of one-sided brain damage" ???

I never thought I'd consider to defriend anyone on Facebook, but when I yesterday learned through my home page there that a Facebook friend of mine obviously is a proponent of ECT (and in addition also a friend of a certain Ronald Pies, MD ...), I suddenly found myself seriously considering to defriend. Is it me who's judgemental? I can't help it, it feels a little in conflict with my integrity to be as much as Facebook friends with someone who's a proponent of something I regard torture, and that in my opinion ought to be banned entirely. - No, I'm not "pro choice" when it comes to ECT.

On another note, the person in question states on her blog that "most sources [concerning the difference between unilateral and bilateral ECT] were dated in the last century and not very reliable". So, Harold Sackeim's study, though not "dated in the last century" (makes it sound like "dated in the Middle Ages", doesn't it? And guess if that's not what is intended... ), obviously is "not very reliable". Prejudice, anyone?

More Saturday fun

This morning, before I went to work, on a quick tour checking out the blogosphere for new posts, I came across the comment thread at this post at Furious Seasons that had me die laughing. Why? What's so special about it? Nothing. That's the point.

Last month, Philip had a post up telling us it was his 2,500th post. I bet, at least half of them have comment threads completely identical to the one I mention above: "Mental illnesses are biological brain diseases!." - "No, they aren't!" - "Mental illness kills!" - "No, it doesn't!" - "Psych meds help people cope and save lives!" - "No, they don't!" And so on, and so on... Basically the same people, the same arguments, over and over again. At Philip's blog, and I don't know at how many others - also here, btw, from time to time.

This morning, instead of feeling inclined to weigh in, I took a step back, looking at the picture, and, well, I was dying laughing. - No need for me to weigh in, btw. "MsPiggy" already did a great job over there. Factual, intelligent and eloquent. Thanks "MsPiggy"!

A little Saturday fun

...and two more pieces of good advice for the person who inspired this post: 1. The comment field of a blog isn't the best place to have private conversations. Maybe you should consider e-mail instead. 2. Since you seem to have such great difficulty understanding English, consider another language!

Hope, I expressed myself clear enough this time, and won't get misunderstood, again again.

Freudian slip of the month

The Danish media today reported that the "battle against suicide among the mentally ill has been fruitless". Statistically, once every other week a labelled person commits suicide while incarcerated at a psych prison. In spite of, as the media has it, an increased focus on the problem, various plans of action, increased screening for suicidality, and a lot more controlling measures applied to those, who are assessed to be suicidal, the number of suicides at psych prisons has remained stable. "In spite of"??? Well well...

While surfing the net for blog entries about the matter, I came across a post entitled "Kamp mod psykisk syge slår fejl", which translates into "the battle against the mentally ill has been fruitless".

My comment: "While I suppose the choice of words wasn't a conscious one, the title of the post is right on. It is indeed a "battle against the 'mentally ill'" psychiatry (and society) are conducting. Unfortunately though, there's a limit to how fruitless it has been so far. Psychiatry is actually quite efficient, as the unchanged suicide rates suggest."

Who needs shrinks?

From The Last Psychiatrist's blog: "However, most of these 'patients' do not need these medications, most do not need psychiatry at all.  Of course many do, they are truly sick and but for psychiatry their lives would be chaos."

I'd say, the only reason why the lives of those "many" and "truly sick" people he obviously refers to here, and of whom I'd have been one myself, aren't chaos is that psychiatry has, successfully, destroyed these lives. Not perhaps because it has helped the people sort things out.

But well, he's a psychiatrist, right? And he's no Loren Mosher...

BTW: Last time I was "truly sick" was in 1999, when I'd caught the flu.

Something about intellectual property and copyright

It's not that I don't feel honored, finding out, that someone thinks my latest reply to Will is worth reposting on their blog.

What pisses me off is that, while I wasn't asked whether I'd agree to a reposting, I'm not given any credits, no link, nothing, on the contrary, to make the impudence complete, at the bottom of the blog it says: "Copyright 2008 Seven Human Needs". WTF is the meaning?! Rhetorical question. Just watch the Google ads at the blog...

Of course, I'm not the only one. Robert A. Senser at Human Rights for Workers obviously is a favorite of this spam-blogger.

Gianna on Madness Radio

Will Hall has interviewed Gianna Kali of Beyond Meds for Madness Radio. Gianna talks about how she got into the mh system and her experiences with it, about spirituality, psychiatric drug withdrawal, the damage these drugs can do, her blog, and much more. She also reads a couple of posts from her blog. Especially listening to Gianna reading "Undiagnozing myself" was a deeply moving experience for me.

"So now I continue on my journey and I am undiagnosing myself. I am human and I have problems. That is the only diagnosis I am willing to live with now. Human problems. My life has not been easy. It has been no different from that of hundreds of thousands of people labeled bipolar. I still consider all who call themselves bipolar my brothers and sisters. And for that matter anyone else who has ever been labeled with any psychiatric disorder. We are family."

I remember someone once saying to me, that he got the impression, the critics didn't have much else in common than their criticism of the mh system. Well, that seems to be the impression the system communicates. Divide and rule. It seems to be the impression people get, who've never really listened to anyone of us, and who've never met someone like Gianna.

Listen to the interview here: http://www.madnessradio.net/madness-radio-beyond-meds-gianna-kali

Misconceptions

I just stopped by one of the blogs, I only visit once in a while - only once in a while, because it's quite bio-oriented, and whenever I need the bio-bs, I prefer to go to "professional" sites, where I can get the real McCoy. Nevertheless, this blog is "alternatively bio-oriented", so, I stop by, once in a while.

And today, on one of my occasional visits, I read the - sad - news, that a family member of the blogger - It's hereditary, right? Yep. Non-genetic, familial inheritance. - got incarcerated and put on a neuroleptic. The blogger reports the family member to be "getting better".

That means, a week or maybe two or so more on the neuroleptic, and the family member should be able to do without it, improved as s/he then would be, thanks to the "medication", right? Nope.

People do not "get better" on these drugs. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of drugs: the ones that help a diseased/injured organism to heal itself by strengthening the organism's own immune system, and the ones that simply mask symptoms, unfortunately often with the result, that the organism is prevented from healing itself, since symptoms usually are the incentive for a healing process to occur.

Psychotropic drugs belong to the latter category. Although some of them, LSD in particular, once were - and by some people still are - believed to belong to the former. I don't think so.

Psychotropic drugs mask and suppress symptoms. It looks as if the drugged individual is getting better. Both to the environment, and often also to the drugged individual him-/herself. While the drugs see to, that the underlying problem, that gave rise to a healing reaction, i.e. to symptoms, thrives and flourishes. Undisturbed. The individual isn't getting better, s/he is actually often getting worse. Underneath the lid, or: behind the mask.

Give someone who's confused, scared, angry, agitated, etc., a neuroleptic, i.e. a major tranquillizer, and, yes, sure, since the major tranquillizer, as the term suggests, reduces their overall vitality, they won't be able to react to their underlying problem with the same amount of confusion, anxiety, anger, agitation, etc, as before. Probably they won't even have the energy left to realize the fact, that the problem still is there, unresolved. This then is called "improvement". How about giving someone who has broken a leg some strong pain killers, that enable them to get on and move about, and call it "improvement"?

"You give someone a tablet, and it shuts them up. It makes them dumb and stupid. People then have the ignorance to think, the medication is making someone better. You're not making someone better. You're making them stupid." -Rufus May in The Doctor Who Hears Voices.

Nothing is more essential to someone going through an existential crisis, and trying to resolve it, and truly "get better", than their ability to work it all out, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, etc. Someone who broke a leg, and did nothing but pop strong pain killers, while they kept on moving about as if nothing ever happened, would eventually drop dead, from gangrene (make that an intellectual, emotional, spiritual, etc., death in regard to crisis). Or from the pain killers' side effects.

Blog awards - and Happy Holidays!

I hadn't really given it a serious thought before, had just noticed somewhat mixed emotions in passing. The thought that it might happen one day had crossed my mind a couple of times, but I'd passed it off just as quickly as it had popped up. So, I was badly prepared. My fault. I should have thought this through, and made an announcement in advance.

Well, as some of my readers probably have noticed, it happened the other day: Mark at psych survivor 2.0 gave me an award.

I'm happy, I'm grateful, really! But I also have these mixed emotions, that make it impossible for me, to accept the award. My mixed emotions have nothing, absolutely nothing to do with anyone out there in the blogosphere personally.

Partly, they have to do with the concept of receiving an award for doing something, that actually might be called rather egoistic. - The question is: Why do I blog and for whose sake? The answer is: Because I need to understand - the world and myself - so, consequently, I do blog for my own sake. Primarily.

If my understanding of the world and myself can be of any value to others, that's great. But the truth is, the more of a dialogue - here or anywhere else - the more I understand. I would have to give an award to virtually everyone I do communicate with, have communicated with in the past, and will communicate with at some point in the future, disregarded whether there's agreement or not. And, frankly, do we need to award each other for something as basic to humanity as communication? Other than by respecting the other and being compassionate?

The other part of my mixed emotions is of a more "profane" nature: There's just too much "chain-", sometimes even "pyramid-", about many blog awards. "Chain-" and especially "pyramid-" stuff ranks under "noise" in my universe. I don't like noise.

Now you can call me a spoilsport, a fusspot, holier-than-thou, ungrateful, whatever. But know, that I don't judge anyone who accepts these awards. It's totally fine with me, if you accept them. I would have loved to give you one. It just doesn't feel right to me to accept one myself. My pain-in-the-behind-intuition, yeah.

Thanks to you Mark, again, for considering my blog!

And now to something far more cheerful (although not half as hilarious as this):

Non-Denominational Holiday Record