"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?

A perverted theory, or a perverted culture?

Instead of a comment at Doug Bremner's blog, where I don't want to start anything about this particular issue:

In his latest entry Doug Bremner [writes] wrote:

"There were two psychiatrists there named Fleiss and Lizt who had come up with [perverted] theory years ago that mothers drove their children crazy." (my italics) [Update: Doug Bremner changed his post. Actually before he read this rant. You rock, Doug! :D]

Now, as even I, who is relatively new to Doug Bremner's blog, have realized in the meantime, he lost his mother at the age of four and a half, and, of course, blamed himself for her death: PTSD. - Btw Doug, if you read this: it seems, you forgot to link "here and here and here". Whatever. Which strikes me, is that something so radical and undeniable as the death of one's mother obviously can serve to spare one's acting "artificially" from being labelled as, for instance, "schizophrenic", and thus brain-diseased (???), while less radical, tangible things obviously can't.

Here's some of the radical, undeniable, but nevertheless, compared to a physical death, rather "invisible", truth from my own past:

I cannot recall to have witnessed as much as one single incident of mutual affection between my parents. What I have witnessed, continuously, from day one to the bitter end, was my mother wiping the floor with my father, and, ultimately, since my father made himself scarce, pursuing his career, with me. My mother was the incarnation of suffering and neediness, and, of course, her misery was everybody else's responsibility but her own. With "everybody else" in the absence of my father being me, sure.

There simply was no such thing as unconditional affection - not to mention love - at our house (I can't really make myself call it a "home"). There never was any such thing in my life. And it was my own fault. If you'd asked my mother, that is.

Did I believe that, too? Sure I did. So I started to search for the "magic word", that could break the spell of my mother's misery, and that only I could find. If that makes anyone think of "schizophrenics'" somewhat "different" relationship towards language, words, the "loss of significance", because no word seems to do the trick: right on. While the double bind is just another aspect of the same game. "Find the 'magic word', and free me from my misery, and, no, don't find it, because I am my misery." Fact is, my mother was scared to death of me, because she'd made me responsible for her misery, that is, she'd put me in control of her existence.

Did that drive me crazy?...

Just some random, slightly incoherent - it's still a little touchy - thoughts an early Monday morning. Nothing but a rough outline, a few hints. The "original" consists of a good 250 pages. And yes, the concept of the schizophrenogenic mother is indeed perverted. It wasn't her as an individual. It is our whole perverted culture. Which she, too, was a product of.

Unfortunately for this culture, I wasn't told that it altogether were just meaningless "symptoms" of some obscure and completely meaningless biological brain disease and drugged up over my eyeballs, but guided and supported on my way to becoming conscious of my past. By a therapist, who isn't quite as perverted as our culture as a whole is.

I wonder, what Doug Bremner would have done.
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One more random thought: When I was 29, my mother suffered a stroke during one of our regular arguments. After ten days in a coma, her doctor asked me, if it were all right with me, if they'd pull the plug, which was, what he'd recommend.

I argued with her, and I said "yes".

Diversabled

Yah, I know. I haven't been posting anything here for almost a week now. Not even a music-vid. And it's not that I don't know what to write about. The list of possible subjects is long, and it gets longer and longer for every day, that I don't get a thing done about it. Well, at least I do get done a lot about it at my Danish blog, and that's one of the reasons why this one is left a bit unexploited, for now. The other reason is that I promised myself, not to engage in the production of any major piece for this blog, before I haven't made a certain phone call. A phone call, yep. A frigging phone call, I've tried to make for the past, uhm, how many months?... The thing is, I loathe having to make phone calls to people I don't know, and I especially loathe having to make phone calls to authorities. And this is a phone call to an authority. That I will have to make in order to get a translation finished, that would/should/could have been finished, yeah, months ago... "Disabled"??? Did anyone say "disabled"? I'll show you "disabled"!

Well, in the meantime, here are some pictures of Bibi and her son Sasha.

catnap

This is all I have to offer for now and probably for some few more days ahead. I just finished a major piece on Loren Mosher and Soteria, both virtually unknown in Denmark, for my Danish blog, that turned out not only to be enormously time and energy consuming, but also somewhat emotionally challenging. Especially since the "colonized" are on the streets again these days, demanding more hospital beds... - Will they ever get it?? - I met one of the less colonized the other day. He started fishing, but, 'no, sorry, don't count on me as long as you want hospital beds'. It's a tragedy. It's literally the (colonized) inmates running the asylums. This is how Don Quijote must have felt...

Psychdiagnonsense II - ...and some more frustration

This is a thing, I'll never get. I just ended up surfing the blogosphere a bit. It happens sometimes. Someone has a link to someone who has a link... etc. I came by some of the V.I.P.s in the mental health blogosphere, too. Especially one of them - no names here - actually breaks my heart, each time I come by there.

Well, nevertheless, I keep on wondering. Most of these people have had no less than horrid experiences with the mental health system. And most of them seem to be rather intelligent people. Still, it doesn't seem to enter their heads, that there might be something essentially wrong with psychiatry in itself. They seem to think, it were just them, and maybe one or two others, who have been unlucky. Or, at most, that there are some few unfavourable tendencies, like the tendency to overmedicate, that would have to get adjusted, and everything would be fine with psychiatry. No, sorry folks. Nothing would be, is, has ever been, or will ever be fine with psychiatry as such!

Never mind, I just sometimes get really desperate about all this blindness, or naiveté, or whatever...

Well, now that I allowed myself to vent a little frustration - I'll move on to vent some more. Although the following frustration already has been vented at my Danish blog, this past weekend. Here's part two of the discussion about psychiatry's status as a medical science and, in particular, about psychiatric diagnoses.

As I wanted to address the question whether psychiatric diagnoses were of any benefit for the diagnozed, but as feelings still were running somewhat high the next afternoon, after I'd posted the first part, I decided to concentrate on quoting others' accounts of how they perceived psychiatric diagnoses, just adding a few remarks of my own.



"Powerful words with much and little meaning. They help to classify, but not understand. They act as excuses, but not answers. They make it easy to describe, but not really explain. They separate us from ourselves and others. So do you fear me or trust me, do you help me or punish me, do you believe me or call me a liar if I am diagnosed with one of these labels? Do you not think it hurts me to be labeled like this? Do you not think it takes away my dignity, hope, and initiative to do better or be better in life? We have to hide now to keep the system from forcing one of these diagnoses on us or using it in such a way that it hurts and stigmatizes us for the rest of our lives." Janie Lee, M.Ed.
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"Psychiatric diagnoses like schizophrenia always risk harming people, always risk becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, always deny people the right to define and understand themselves for themselves, always mislead people about the facts of what is truly known and not known about mental illness, always unfairly promote narrow drug treatments against holistic alternatives, and always impose an interpretation on based on subservience to power. Psychiatric diagnoses perpetuate a long legacy of mistreatment of the mentally ill, who should be embraced as humans deserving of full dignity, not labeled as broken and different.

I believe that our system of helping people in extreme states of consciousness and severe suffering can and should dispense with pseudo-scientific psychiatric diagnoses. I believe we can find ways to care for people without harming them." Will Hall, co-founder of Freedom Center
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"I had an experience in the early 1950's, shortly after I started in private practice, of how psychiatric diagnosis can harm. A young mother was referred to me for aftercare upon her discharge from Hillside Hospital, where I had trained and where I was on the clinic staff. We met, I took a history and I saw no obstacle to our working together psychotherapeutically.

At the end of the meeting, she asked me her diagnosis, and I told her 'schizophrenia' - her hospital diagnosis which, even then, I did not consider irreversible. But that's apparently how she saw it, because she went home and hanged herself.

Since then, I have never used that term with a patient or a family; for those disorganized enough to meet the diagnostic criteria, I merely say they are somewhat disorganized and that our therapeutic task is to help them get their heads together again.

The basic problem with psychiatric diagnosis, as I see it, is its denial of the ease with which people's minds can change. Someone facing a difficult situation can be anxious on Monday, depressed on Tuesday and a bit disorganized – 'schizzy' - on Wednesday. Whichever day he is seen by the psychiatrist will determine his 'diagnosis,' which will in turn magnify his related symptoms and dampen the others.

Even more important is the permanence which "diagnosis," (schizophrenia especially,) is supposed to possess. Although I had a schizophrenic break (my response to drugs during that episode is described in Bob Whitaker's superb book, 'Mad in America'), many of my psychiatric colleagues insisted that the diagnosis had to be wrong because I recovered. This means that whenever these colleagues diagnose someone as having "schizophrenia," they are convinced in their hearts that the patient will never recover. This attitude is hardly helpful for the patients they care for!" Nathaniel S. Lehrman, M.D.
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A remark in connection with Nathaniel S. Lehrman's account: So-called "schizophrenia" - psychiatry's sacred cow - has always been defined as an incurable illness, a "life sentence", and still today is defined the same by psychiatry - disregarded the large number of people labelled with "schizophrenia", who at any given time throughout history have achieved full recovery, and do achieve full recovery today. Though, as mentioned in other contexts before, it is only people who either manage to completely avoid the system, or who manage to leave the system at some point, who do fully recover. People who stay in contact with and dependent on the system do not recover fully. With the exception of those, who use the system's services to emancipate themselves from it, that is. - Having Gianna at Beyond Meds in mind, yep. - Since only those who stay inside the system do appear in the system's statistics, "schizophrenia" thus is confirmed to be an incurable illness.

Still today, psychiatry doesn't hesitate to tell every person with a diagnosis of "schizophrenia" - or of any other "severe mental illness" - that this diagnosis is irreversible, a "life sentence". While it, at the same time, is tried to explain away the high percentage of especially first-time "psychotics" who commit suicide as a "symptom" of the "illness" - rather than that suicide is acknowledged to be a completely natural and rational - not at all "insane" - reaction to receiving the message of having a life-long, incurable brain disease. Rather than that full recovery is acknowledged to be possible, and rather than that the consequence is taken in regard to the by now well-established fact, that psychiatric "treatment" prevents full recovery. Instead the system stops at virtually nothing in order to legitimate itself as a "medical science"... "Forgive them, for they don't know what they do"?

The above quotations are retrieved from Paula J. Caplan's website, PsychDiagnosis.net. Paula Caplan has been a member of the DSM V writing group, leaving the group when she realized how little real science actually provides the basis for diagnoses to be approved respectively dismissed. Again, I want to outline that psychiatry is the only "medical science" that approves respectively dismisses diagnoses alone on the basis of voting, and not on the basis of any given behaviour to be scientifically provenly a symptom of illness, or of any other scientifically provable diagnostic criteria for "mental illness" to exist. An interview with Paula Caplan can be listened to here.

I want to contrast the above quotations with a quotation from an article at a Danish website, that clearly shows the false ego-identification, that is promoted by psychiatry and its diagnoses, and that in a decisive manner contributes to the diagnozed individual becoming stuck in irreversible crisis, "chronic mental illness":

"Following this [having experienced increasing signs of an extreme state of mind] Jacob is admitted to a psychiatric ward, and, after three months of hospitalization, is told that he has schizophrenia.

'Subsequently, I entered into the OPUS project, and got started with the so-called social skills training together with four other young, mentally ill people.'

He describes his experience with OPUS like this: 'I experienced it as an awakening... it was like finding my identity, an explanation for the feelings and thoughts I had. From feeling odd man out, it was like I'd went to find my right place'."

The example is taken from J.A. Jensen (ed.), Sindets labyrinter. Seks beretninger fra mødet med psykiatrien. (Labyrinths of the mind. Six accounts about the encounter with psychiatry. - And, sure, Jacob's example is meant to illustrate a successful encounter with psychiatry. As if there were such a thing!) Copenhagen, 2002.

Jacob found an identity, yes - as a "schizophrenic". But is this who he really is? And what will happen the moment Jacob realizes, that he has become a victim of a huge self-/deceit, realizing at the same time, that he cannot leave the place he found - as a "schizophrenic"?

Choose your battles carefully

Of course, I stirred up a hornets nest with my criticism of the latest issue of Outsideren, especially of the article about psychosis.

The first reaction (by the chief sub-editor) was to take my criticism as a FORMAL such, and thus to refer to the "rules of journalism", "how to write an article", something. I replied:

To leave everything, that is said in this issue (and not only in the specific article) unchallenged alone, not only as ONE but as THE truth (and still the question is, whether some of it is as much as ONE truth at all...) is, yah, simply a bias. No matter however perfect style and layout may be.

If it really is the case, that things preferably are to be spelled out, some few and vague remarks on one of the last pages won't do (while the vagueness is of an extent, that lets EVERYBODY read whatever they want into these remarks). Doubtful truths maybe should get investigated further (research), and commented in their direct context, in order to not be misleading? Now, that everything is supposed to be so easy to get.

On the other hand, also this issue quite correctly reflects the Danish information level. So, yes, we do have a lot of DANISH truths here. Hardly anybody will realize. So, let's continue to ignore possible doubts: our belief system says the earth is flat, in consequence, it can and must not be other than flat...

And, yes, I fully understand: You DO risk to get burned at the stake (to lose subscribers and funding) [Outsideren is awarded both governmental funding and has recently been awarded a fund by Lundbeck, producer of the SSRI Cipralex and the neuroleptic Serdolect. Outsideren says, this doesn't have any influence on the contents of the zine, and I do believe, that they really do believe that...]. Rather be good! [Outsideren wants to be "Denmarks most well-behaved magazine", also giving the "experts" a chance to speak - and, geez!, yes, they get that chance!]
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As a response to this, the chief sub-editor asked for people to comment on the article and/or tell about their own views of psychosis. He also asked for me to write an article on my view of psychosis, in detail. Praiseworthy.

Nevertheless, once bitten twice shy, I replied as follows:

Articles, or whatever you like to call it, from my computer, will in future only be published at places, that also have space for the deviant, the odd, the maladjusted.

No hard feelings: as said, I fully understand. And, as I also say at my blog, I have no ambitions to go on a mission, in the sense that I'd want to force anything on anybody.

But in order to be accepted around here, I'd need to identify as "mentally ill", and I'd need to subscribe to an overall view of psychiatry as blameless and indispensable in regard to contents (there maybe aren't enough beds at psych wards, places at half way houses, whatever, available, there maybe should be some more focus on overmedication, we'd maybe need more "therapists" like Torben Schjødt, i.e. on a purely FORMAL level there maybe are some things that would need improvement, but otherwise everything is just as it has to be).

I don't identify as "mentally ill", and, although I can accept that there are a lot of people, the majority, actually, who regard psychiatry as blameless and indispensable as far as contents is concerned, mine isn't such a view, I can't subscribe to this myself. So, what am I actually still doing around here?? "Let go of whatever you can't change."

As mentioned: no hard feelings! It's been exhausting and frustrating at times, but it truly also has been very pleasant on a personal level, and it certainly has contributed to me gaining some more insight in who/what I am (not), too.

Criticism Anxiety, part III - or: Maybe next time?...

So the latest issue of Outsideren, the users magazine I no longer write articles for, though still do some research for, was in the mail box today. 'Will reading this issue maybe be a better experience than reading the previous couple of issues was (that were rather disappointing reading)?' I wonder, and start to read, about "medicine": "It is very rarely the ambition to get the patient completely out of the medical treatment", a psychiatrist (Jan Nielsen) is quoted. "He is convinced that the medications, that are being used today basically do have a positive effect", the article tells. And, another quote: "In addition, medication has shown to have a protecting effect on areas of the brain, among others on parts of memory (...) I think, the medication we administer today, contributes to preserve the personality." He really said that. No typo.

I read about coming off of psych drugs, another article, another interview, another psychiatrist (Anders Fink-Jensen), basically the same message: "No one should start reducing their medication without consulting their doctor." (Fact is, studies have shown that just as many people succeed reducing or coming off completely, with as without consulting their doctor first. But be careful! Quitting cold turkey is never a good idea! Get all the information you can about coming off, before you even think of starting. - I'll add relevant links to my sidebar here on the blog, as soon as I've found out, what makes Safari running this absolutely maddening slow, and have fixed the problem, that is.)

The pattern continues throughout the magazine. "Expert" after "expert" is given huge amounts of space to, at length, spread their "knowledge". By and large unchallenged. I soon realize: No, it will not be a better experience this time. It isn't a better experience. It is a worse one. Much worse. I'm rudely roused from my just recently regained, and thus still somewhat frail, Buddhist inner peace.

And it gets even worse. I had my suspicions. In context with an e-mail correspondence with the chief sub-editor, who also is the author of an article about - psychosis.

On Outsideren's blog I wrote:

Now I could take apart article by article. However, I will settle for one of them. The one about something I imagine to know quite a deal about, via first hand information, additionally to the second hand information, I otherwise mostly have to resort to. When it comes to drugs, for instance (even though I've tried also this, once - and never again!). I will settle for the one about something, I imagine myself to be an expert on, via my own experience.

"Psychoses are a defence", the headline goes. 'Hm, all right', I think. I don't agree completely, since I'd chosen the term "healing attempt" instead of "defence", 'but what', I think, 'maybe this anyway will...'

It won't. "I don't agree to this purgatory-understanding that goes, if only it gets sufficiently bad, it'll arguably get all right afterwards, Torben Schjødt says. [Torben Schjødt is the leading psychologist at Psykiatrisk Center Bispebjerg]. It just isn't true in regard to psychotic individuals, that there would be unconscious conflicts, that only would have to be made conscious."

'Where does he know that from?' I ask myself. 'Has he ever been there himself? Has he ever talked to someone who has been there, without getting immediately psychiatrized and drugged?? Someone who has received the support necessary to get through and out of purgatory without the interference of psychiatry?' Obviously not. The quotation reflects the article's essence, but also that of "Ude i galaxen" on page 7 [An account by someone who went in and out of psychosis - in each time she stopped taking her drugs - until staying on these very same drugs "saved" her: hurray for the drugs! - and for psychosis to be a meaningless brain disease that needs drugs for proper treatment!]

The essence is, that some people are more sensitive to the world - certainly because of their genes! - than others, and because of that sensitivity experience psychoses. [Actually, I find it very interesting, that Torben Schjødt says, these people experience a meaninglessness with life because of their sensitivity, the sensitively experienced meaninglessness triggering psychosis. This implies, that he regards life as being completely meaningless himself, although neither he nor most other people have the - genetically predetermined - sensitivity to react psychotic to the meaninglessness. Uhm... and this guy is supposed to be a psychologist?!]

The Stress Vulnerability Model, yah. That, by and large, is nothing else than pure biological psychiatry, spiced - and disguised - with a little "psychology", in order to make it acceptable even for those, who maybe are a bit sceptical towards pure biological psychiatry.

In addition, it also is a very appreciated model for "psychologists" like Torben Schjødt, i.e. for the majority of psychologists. Because it reduces their responsibility to only having to practice "the slightly more sophisticated" version of psycho-education. Instead of having to guide an individual through and out of "the dark night of the soul", purgatory. This being an incomparably more demanding task than the first. In human terms.

"Many of the patients Torben Schjødt has met have never overcome their illness completely." No, I have no doubt about that! It needs something quite different from what Torben Schjødt wants/is able to offer, in order to be able to give useful support to an individual in crisis. Apropos of "Psychotherapy - is there a meaning with it at all?" [A post on Outsideren's blog, that questions the effectiveness of therapy, all therapy.] There's no greater meaning with "organizing the psychotic experiences a little bit", nor with "developing coping strategies". These measures are nothing but a bit sugar-coating on top of bitter pills. And thus only suited for one thing: to keep the individual in crisis even more stuck in the crisis, than "medicine" is able to keep them.

"It is almost impossible to discuss the imaginations that emerge during psychosis,... ", the article ends. Strange. How then was it possible for Jung? Or for John Weir Perry? How is it possible for Sean? Or for Dorothea Buck? How is it possible for me???

This article isn't "the dark night of the soul". It's the dark night of psychosis-understanding. Sleep tight!

"Toxic and violent", Jane the other day wrote in a comment on my blog, the English one, about psychiatric institutions, with Torben Schjødt being the leading psychologist at one such institution. Which explains a whole lot... 'Toxic and violent... Yes, you bet!' I think, "putting down" Outsideren no.64, to go and meditate for a while - 'I'm angry. It's ok to be angry.' Yes, I certainly hope so! 'I say yes to my anger.' Hereby, this has been done! - for then to return to Sean's A quiet mind, to some much healthier reading thus, and to, hopefully soon, regain my Buddhist inner peace.

But, all in all, I guess, I'm just a little more "sensitive" than most people. Certainly because of some defective genes, yes!

P.S.: I want to point out that I'm not that much angry with Torben Schjødt. Unconsciousness and fear can hardly lead to any greater insight than the one he shows. Which I am angry with, though, is biased journalism, that only listens to the mainstream, keeping everything else at arm's length. Unless it can be ridiculed [this article not only was another brilliant example of biased journalism, but also portrayed me as some kind of complete weirdo, freak who has no clue what she's talking about] or more or less hidden away in a book review. What is Outsideren afraid of ??? ('The next issue, maybe...' , I nevertheless also think. 'It may be...')
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'What is this,' I actually thought while reading the magazine, 'The American Journal of Psychiatry in a Danish translation??' But no, each time I checked the front page, it still said Outsideren - "Denmarks largest independent users-magazine on psychiatry".

Now, I've no intention to go on a mission. If people want to believe in their "mental illness", their drugs, their shrinks (and their ego)... be my guest! I really don't want to take this from anyone. I just wonder whether I would have to expose myself to this continuously ongoing disrespect for anyone, who doesn't share their beliefs, and thereby expose myself to feeling threatened, time and again. Since, even though I deep down know, that no one (neither Jan Nielsen nor Torben Schjødt, nor Outsideren, for that sake) can get at me, unless I let them get at me, I still have more or less trouble putting up with regular confrontations with such an amount of, well, toxicity and violence. And I also wonder in how far I make myself an accomplice to the toxicity and violence (the lying and deceiving and the suppression of anything that doesn't altogether fit Outsideren's/psychiatry's belief system) by still doing research for this magazine. "Turn away from whatever you can't change"...

One last update to "Strokes of insight and blind spots"

A reply to Anonymous' comment on my first update on "Strokes of insight and blind spots":

I thought, I'd leave this alone. I changed my mind after I read another account by someone who has directly experienced NAMI's discriminating practices.

a) I definitely will read the book. And, just as definitely, I will do a piece on it, especially if I find, that I was wrong.

b) Some facts about NAMI:

- NAMI, just as mainstream-psychiatry, is extensively sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry. It is no longer a secret, that NAMI between 2003 and 2005 received about three million dollars from Eli Lilly for downplaying the risks of Zyprexa. And alone in the first quarter of 2007 NAMI received 544,500 dollars from Eli Lilly. Correspondingly, NAMI advocates pharmaceutical "treatment" for people in emotional crisis with substances that provenly shorten the life expectancy of those "treated" with them, cause brain damage, especially at long-term, "maintenance" use, that have a chronifying effect on the course of the crisis, thus drastically reducing the chances for recovery, and that have several other serious and sometimes life-threatening "side"-effects. In other words: NAMI advocates the drugging of people with life-problems with disabling health- and sometimes even life-threatening chemical substances, and, as a matter of fact, the organization has shown itself to be open to bribery.

- NAMI primarily is a support organization for relatives of people in emotional crisis, although people in emotional crisis themselves are also welcome as members - though not always at NAMI-meetings, apropos of "Nothing about us without us!". This implies another conflict of interest, in addition to the above mentioned financial one: Often family members are part of the problem. The medical model efficiently covers up this part of the problem: "It's not our responsibility, it's your genes and brain chemistry that something is wrong with." In consequence, NAMI exclusively advocates the biological model ("the mentally ill", Jill Bolte Taylor's "schizophrenic" brother,...), leaving no consideration to psychological/social causes, although these, as mentioned, are at least as, if not more, likely to be the cause for emotional crises. There is no evidence for neither of these theories. Yet, there is a lot more circumstantial evidence in favour of a psychological/social cause, than there is in favour of a biological one. However, since there is no evidence, the only honest thing to do would be to allow both theories the same amount of consideration, and to offer real choice to people in crisis. Unfortunately, this is not NAMI's politics. Just as it isn't the politics of the mental health system in general. There isn't much "grassroots" about NAMI.

- Further, NAMI supports discriminating programs such as Teen Screen, the Mother's Act, and organizations like Treatment Advocacy Center, that advocate "assisted" (i.e. forced) outpatient treatment. A slogan like
"Nothing about us without us!" in this context becomes meaningless.

c) If Jill Bolte Taylor really took the role I recommend, and showed true compassion for her fellow human beings, she would, as the president of NAMI Greater Bloomington Area, distance herself explicitly from NAMI Indiana, and NAMI in general. She does not do so. Her note at NAMI Greater Bloomington Area's website states: "I LOVE NAMI".

If Jill Bolte Taylor had true compassion for her fellow human beings, she would distance herself explicitly from labelling people's life problems as "mental illnesses", "schizophrenia", "bipolar disorder", "ADHD", you name it. She would distance herself explicitly from labelling people as "mentally ill", "schizophrenic", "bipolar", etc. She does not do so.

As indicated, her not doing so implies that Eckhart Tolle himself would have to be labelled "mentally ill", "severely depressed", though recovered, by her. It implies, that he, according to Jill Bolte Taylor's conviction, suffered from an imbalance in his brain chemistry, that his past had absolutely nothing to do with his development as a human being, and that thus his (and many other philosophers' and spiritual teachers') insight, that emotional suffering is part of the human condition and often, actually as a precondition to it, can lead to enlightenment, is of no value, and indeed an illusion (a delusion of an ill mind??), whatsoever. You can't both have your cake and eat it!

As someone who has experienced extreme states of mind, which the mental health system, Jill Bolte Taylor advocates for, fancies to label "psychosis", or even "schizophrenia", who has experienced the destructiveness of labels - and nothing is indeed more destructive, no label is more negating the labelled human being than that of "mental illness" - , as someone who has seen what the mental health system, Jill Bolte Taylor advocates for, does to people, who has experienced the enormously consciousness-suppressing power of psychotropic drugs (though luckily only once in a non-psychiatric context!), Jill Bolte Taylor advocates for, and who was given the chance to experience the deeper truth of teachings like Eckhart Tolle's - the suffering-part very much included - I don't see true compassion in Jill Bolte Taylor's statements so far.

Which I see in both her and NAMI's statements is a whole lot of (self-)pity: "The horror of mental illness", "The tragedy of mental illness", etc. ("What have we done, that we have to put up with the horror and tragedy of mentally ill relatives?" - This question uttered in a NAMI-context being a purely rhetoric one. Watch Jill Bolte Taylor's attitude when Oprah mentions her "schizophrenic" brother!) While (self-)pity is more like the opposite of true compassion than non-compassion is.

Strokes of insight and blind spots

Yesterday, I watched the webcast of Oprah Winfrey's Soul Series-interview with Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. In her Soul Series-interview with Eckhart Tolle, Oprah calls him a "prophet", and I agree to that, although it, of course, again, is a label, a concept, and in certain contexts can be applied to diminish a human being to an object - of disdain.

Unfortunately, prophets continuously throughout history have been misunderstood. In "the right belief's" favour. One might think, that this would be difficult in regard to a "message", that just exactly says, that essentially there is no right or wrong, thus neither a right or wrong belief. A "message" that says that the only truth is found nowhere else but beyond any such thing as a conceptual belief-system, if it's called "Christianity", "Buddhism", "Socialism", "Neo-liberalism",..., or, well, "biological psychiatry". While the need to label, to conceptualize, is an egoic (narcissistic) one, that does nothing but inflicts harm and suffering both on the labeller and the labelled. A need, that devalues both of them, turns them into objects (of disdain), and in the end inevitably destroys them.

Being the inevitable result of the human mind's compulsion to conceptualize, judge (morally) and label, all wars in human history confirm this. You can only disrespect others to the annihilating point, war is a manifestation of, if you don't respect yourself. You can only disrespect anyone or anything to such an annihilating point, if you don't respect yourself.

Apart from the obvious wars, that are going on, in Iraq and Afghanistan for instance, there are wars going on worldwide, that are not always recognized as such: humanity's war against nature, against the planet Earth, as well as all those against all kinds of minorities: human beings fighting human beings.

As I see it, we're frighteningly fast moving toward a situation, where everyone fights everyone, in a more or less obviously war-like situation. Or, as Eckhart Tolle puts it, never before in human history has man inflicted greater suffering on his fellow human beings.

One of the wars that are going on is the war against people who experience extreme states of mind, people who are labelled "mentally ill". And especially in this war's context, I can't but think of the quote "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". I don't doubt this war's soldiers' good intentions. I don't doubt Jill Bolte Taylor's not only good but best intentions. Unfortunately, they are the result of a profound misunderstanding of a prophet like Eckhart Tolle's "messages". Good intentions are almost always the good intentions of an Ego. The parallel to psychoanalyst Wolfgang Schmidbauer's "helper syndrome" as rooted in what with an analytic term is called "narcissism" is striking. Thus neither Eckhart Tolle fails to mention the myth of Narcissus when he talks about the human Ego.

Jill Bolte Taylor is the president of NAMI Greater Bloomington Area, an affiliate of NAMI Indiana. The website of NAMI Indiana states as "Mental Illness Facts" among other things, that "severe and persistent Mental Illnesses are brain disorders (...) [that] cannot be overcome through will power and are not related to a person's (...) upbringing nor his/her age, race, religion or economic status". Further it is stated, that "[e]arly identification and treatment accelerates recovery and protects the brain from further harm related to the course of the illness. (...) Most people with serious mental illness require medication...". All these statements are, put forward as facts, simply lies.

Jill Bolte Taylor, author of the book "My Stroke of Insight", is a neurologist, specialized in brain research in regard to "mental illness". She is also known as "the Singin' Scientist", lobbying for people, especially those labelled with "mental illnesses" and their relatives, to donate their brains post mortem to research.

Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a stroke in 1996, that affected her left brain hemisphere, thus forcing on her the experience of having no Ego. An experience that lead her to a deeper insight into the aspects of human nature, our modern, western society usually suppresses.

The interview on Soul Series gave me the impression of a highly conscious and compassionate human being. Nevertheless, it also left me somewhat disillusioned. There obviously are limits to insight, consciousness, and compassion, even for people, who not only have read "A New Earth", but also themselves have experienced what Jill Bolte Taylor calls "Nirvana". There obviously are limits, and, just as obviously, misinterpretation is possible.

It seems to me, that the blind spot is due to Dr. Taylor's brother being labelled with "schizophrenia". The same blind spot that is obvious in regard to Edwin Fuller Torrey.

If Eckhart Tolle ever had asked the very same mental health system, Jill Bolte Taylor advocates for, for help, he would undoubtedly have been given a label of "severe depression with suicidal tendencies", he would immediately have been put on an antidepressant, he maybe even would have qualified for ECT, and we would neither have "The Power of Now", "A New Earth", nor any other of his prophetic writings today.

I couldn't help it, all enlightenment disregarded, my own Ego won, and I had to share my impressions with the interviewee, just as I share them here - I still have a long way to go, trying to find a less egoic form for activism, I know that!
Here, however, is what a truly enlightened human being has to say about psychiatry:

"...Restoring mental health does not mean simply adjusting individuals to the modern world of rapid economic growth. The world is ill, and adapting to an ill environment cannot bring real mental health. Psychiatric treatment requires environmental change and psychiatrists must participate in efforts to change the environment, but that is only half the task. The other half is to help individuals be themselves, not by helping them adapt to an ill environment, but by providing them with the strength to change it. To tranquilize them is not the way. The explosion of bombs , the burning of napalm, the violent death of our neighbors and relatives, the pressure of time, noise, and pollution, the lonely crowds-these have all been created by the disruptive course of our economic growth. They are all sources of mental illness, and they must be ended." (Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist peace activist, The Path of Compassion, 1995. Quotation: Freedom Center)

Find the Soul Series-interviews for free on iTunes.

Psychiatric drug withdrawal - a warning

I remember my therapist say that, oh no, she hadn't experienced people being really troubled by withdrawal symptoms when tapering off of psychiatric drugs. I'd mentioned how difficult coming off actually can be, especially naming the antidepressant Effexor, that usually causes by far the worst withdrawal symptoms among antidepressant drugs.

Now, unfortunately, it isn't only that coming off can be difficult. It can very well also be dangerous, seriously damaging your physical health, as the example of Gianna Kali shows.

Gianna, who, because of the damage coming off did to her physical health, has decided to take a break from posting on her blog, has posted a WARNING in regard to coming off as the last post on her blog, at least for a while - I, and I guess everybody else who reads this too, hope, that you'll be back in better health some day, Gianna! - and I strongly recommend it to everybody who considers coming off their drugs. Just as I recommend it to mental health professionals, my therapist very much included!

Some thoughts in context with this: It baffles me, time and again, to see the discrepancy between what professionals are fond of calling "quality of life", and what I witness psychiatric drugs, taking them as well as tapering off of them, are doing to people's actual quality of life. I somehow suspect, that which they're really talking about is not the quality of life of the individual in crisis, but that of everyone around the person concerned.

As I imagine it has been and is the case for many of you, me too, I had to put up with persistent yatter about these drugs being able to enhance my quality of life - the guidance was brilliant, yes, not perfect! Luckily, I was bloody-minded, or resilient (or just "poison-paranoid"??), enough to turn the "offer" down, just as persistently. And luckily, my refusal was respected in the end. One of the things I today am most grateful to my therapist for. Indeed, I think, if I back then had known what I know today about psych drugs, I might very well have left her office at the first mentioning of "something", never going back. My decision then was a purely intuitive one: Always trust your intuition! And, as Gianna calls on in her post, the signals your body sends you.

However, what really both saddens and maddens me is to see all too many (not so bloody-minded, resilient) people get their health, and by this their quality of life, destroyed by the drugs. Sometimes permanently. Sometimes, and all too often, with death as a consequence. Did Mikkel die from drinking, or from diabetes? No, sorry. Mikkel died from taking Zyprexa. Does Sidse have to live with increasing obesity and deteriorating general health, AND the obvious deterioration of her quality of life these cause, because her "mental illnesses" (they can't even agree, so she's labelled both this and that, and the third in addition, and, sure, stuffed with the respective drugs!) is more serious than the loss of quality of life (and, maybe in future, which is worse)? Is it all right, as the NHS of Denmark concluded, that Luise died after she'd been forcibly injected with a drug (one out of nine! psych drugs she was on at the same time) she couldn't tolerate, the staff being pretty much aware of this? Again and again, Luise had stated, that she felt the drugs were killing her. No one listened, other than in order to label her "poison paranoid", too. While the "expert" who actually killed her, in the meantime became employed in a leading position at the Patients' Complaint Board, assessing the validity of complaints very much the same as that, Luise's mother filed against him/her. Can which Gianna is going through be justified in any way?? Sorry, but the answer is NO! No conception of "quality of life" can ever justify any of this.

The people who prescribe these drugs claim to be medical doctors and to practise which they themselves are fond of calling "medical art". I'd say, real medical art is being able to see when people's quality of life is deteriorating or being destroyed because of health issues, and to do everything possible to re-establish the quality of life, the health, respectively to prevent the destruction from taking place. In my opinion, everything else is to be called ignorance, quackery - or cynicism.



"Which gives me a hard time isn't that much what has been anymore. It's what is, what I see is going on in this world, here and now", I stated at my last therapy session in December last year. I was speaking in general. But this statement certainly also, and not least!, applies to what I see is going on inside the mental illness system.

Which in addition gives me a hard time is the persistent reluctancy to really openly deal with these issues in society. While I find it especially frustrating to witness this reluctancy in context with certain "insider"-media. Partly, this is responsible for my anger toward this certain media, that some of you maybe have observed finding expression in some of my recent posts.

Oh and, by the way, Gianna did taper off of her drugs under the surveillance and with the guidance of an "expert", practising "medical art", yah. She did not try to do it on her own, as you immediately might think, regarded the outcome.

Information about "mental illness"

I went to the monthly meeting I use to attend, the day before yesterday. The topic "information" came up. Someone said: "They didn't give me any real information about my illness. Nothing really useful." 'No, of course they didn't', I thought (I didn't say it aloud, though). 'What information did you expect? The only real information, they could have provided, would have been: "Well, we don't know anything about this state of mind you're in. We have theories about illnesses, about genes and brain chemistry, which we usually tell people, so we can sell them the drugs. The drug companies appreciate that, financially. So we keep on doing it, even though we don't have a clue, really. No physiological tests, scans, whatsoever. No scientific evidence. Since there's no profit in it, not for us nor for the drug companies we depend on, we don't bother to obtain the skill to talk with you about the existential dimension of your experience. And since we don't want to seem as ignorant as we actually are, we simply avoid the subject by telling you that there is no existential dimension to your experience at all." '

Listening to people, calling themselves "ill", when there's no proof of any real illness, really makes me feel depressed. But, yah, for most people buying into the illness-delusion is the only way to get the recognition and appreciation of their suffering, they so long for. Since the mental illness system is the only place, where you can get recognition and appreciation, although it's nothing but a PSEUDO-recognition and a PSEUDO-appreciation. And it's pseudo-recognition and pseudo-appreciation maybe ARE better than nothing...? Maybe I just would have to accept that? Nevertheless, it made me feel sick to listen to that. So demoralizing and disempowering. And I wonder: what if the mental illness system wasn't a mental ILLNESS system (which it is, although it officially uses the term "health" instead of "illness"), but a mental WELLNESS system, telling people that what they're going through are meaningful and solvable existential crises, not physiological chronic illnesses, would people still refer to themselves and ask others to refer to them as "ill"?

At the end of her autobiography "Auf der Spur des Morgensterns", Dorothea Buck says, that she's pretty much aware of that there are a lot of people, who experience drugs as helpful. "But", she asks, "what would have happened if they, at the very first time they reacted with a psychotic experience to an emotional shock or existential crisis, had got help to understand and integrate the experience into their life, instead of splitting it off of themselves as purely 'ill'?"