[toffee]

Many people with Severe Mental Illness who have been in hospitals or had other contact with the psychiatric system have also been traumatised by this system and the people who work in it. I am referring to the traumatic experiences that are because of the system and staff - not the inherent difficulties caused by the illness itself.

Recently another poster linked research showing that many of the worst incidents in hospital are caused predominantly by the staff rather than 'disruptive' patients.

I don't think there is enough recognition in practice of the trauma the psychiatric system causes. it is all very well having research papers acknowledging anti psychiatry etc... but when it comes to actually dealing with psychiatric staff it is like all that research and knowledge goes out of the window and it is either their way or the highway and there is no genuine acknowledgement and response to the fact the 'service' they provide traumatises people.

Sometimes that service is inherently traumatising by its nature (e.g. locking people up) and sometimes the trauma is even worse through misuse of what is already controversial practices e.g. using threat of injections as punishment to control patients.

Either way people end up severely traumatised by it and many I believe end up with PTSD as a result.

Why is the effect of psychiatry not recognised and acknowledged in practice?

If I had been sexually assaulted on a single brief occassion by a man and said I did not want to see a male care co-ordinator as a result that request would be treated respectfully and with dignity and I would be allocated a female care co-ordinator.

If on the other hand, I am incarcerated against my will for 6 months,frequently forced to strip naked in front of a gang of nurses and regularly given non-consensual injections, forced to witness other patients being bullied and mistreated by nurses, watching other patients - old ladies - lying in their own urine because nurses won't help them as they apparently need to 'take responsibility', watching other patients collapse spewing blood and then dying because nurses wouldn't listen when they were told they were giving the wrong meds...if I have to go through all of that and then say I do not want to see a psycahitric nurse as a care co-ordinator then I am apparently unreasonable?

[Universal Credit]

Same territory people have gone over on this site for years. They tolerate our dissent because they hold the syringe and all the cards. Preach change but don't change anything much - straight out of machievelli because machievellian sociopaths is what a lot of the shrinks are in my experience, my thinking. Not like they haven't got blood on their hands as a profession? being guilty of kickstarting the holocaust and the continuing unnecessary and unhelpful 'bloodlibel' against service users would almost indicate some guilt transferance, typical of sociopaths.

[orderlydisorderly]

I agree with both of you. It is hard to challenge psychiatry and I got involved in trying to expose the abuses of psychiatry in the 70s along with many good people who had begun the fight back before me. Mostly it's been ignored, a few sympathetic responses and some ridicule.

It's been a long time for me since I was in the psychiatric system and I'm mercifully free from it and am autonomous but you know I still have bad dreams about what happened and fear it happening again.

The threat of injections is the all time classic of course; taking your clothes from you is another, not being allowed off the ward and so on. Often this is for really petty things like answering back and not agreeing with what is being said about you or wanting to change the hospital routine a little bit: i.e. stay in bed longer on Sunday mornings.

They have the power, especially the power to influence those who haven't been through the system and who will listen to them and not to us who have had some bad experiences. How to change it? I really don't know, just keep plugging away and not give up. Other struggles go on for gay rights and other causes so why shouldn't this?

No struggle has ever been easy, it's always a long, hard road and hopefully we'll get there.

[Mau]

i was rugby tackled for picking a scab !!! then injected

[Universal Credit]

Mau, on 21 April 2012 - 04:54 PM, said:

i was rugby tackled for picking a scab !!! then injected

I got the hard sell, and 48 hours seclusion, for shaking a bottle of lemonade. I guess they thought I was a danger to myself and others?

[manic666]

Spartikus Rex, on 21 April 2012 - 05:18 PM, said:

I got the hard sell, and 48 hours seclusion, for shaking a bottle of lemonade. I guess they thought I was a danger to myself and others?

REX are you sure it was lemonade

[Universal Credit]

manic666, on 21 April 2012 - 07:35 PM, said:

REX are you sure it was lemonade

It wasn't, I'd replaced it with water but the staff didn't know that and freaked out. They'd just decorated I think.

[ramboself]

one flew over the cuckoos nest is on tonight. said to have encouraged american care in the community. is the abuse any different when your living in the community, these social workers are the gatekeepers to housing and benefits and have a lot of power nowadays

[Universal Credit]

ramboself, on 21 April 2012 - 07:54 PM, said:

one flew over the cuckoos nest is on tonight. said to have encouraged american care in the community. is the abuse any different when your living in the community, these social workers are the gatekeepers to housing and benefits and have a lot of power nowadays

There is a big power imbalance and the future is more than ominous but what can be done except wait this coming nightmare out?

[ramboself]

i think the mental health system is slightly better than no tretment at all. which is what the antipsychiatry language would create in practice, if people left did magically get bettter, one guy i know the only way he could get help was to turn up at the police station and ask to be sectioned, he said getting the dla is the only good thing that happened to him since

[Universal Credit]

ramboself, on 22 April 2012 - 05:59 PM, said:

i think the mental health system is slightly better than no tretment at all. which is what the antipsychiatry language would create in practice, if people left did magically get bettter, one guy i know the only way he could get help was to turn up at the police station and ask to be sectioned, he said getting the dla is the only good thing that happened to him since

The mental health system isn't working because it lacks a global societal mandate in part. Only by acknowledging the existence of societal level mass-pyschosis will it start to function as it should, for the good of the vulnerable.

[manic666]

shrinks dont really do anythink a GP couldent do, an the GP remember,s your name. SHINKS just ask routine questions a kid of 5 could ask an gives you some meds. Never look in your medical records to see if you have allergies to any meds, just looks in the NHS bible an says try these, an if you dont die come back in six months, close the door on your way out.

[Universal Credit]

manic666, on 22 April 2012 - 06:14 PM, said:

shrinks dont really do anythink a GP couldent do, an the GP remember,s your name. SHINKS just ask routine questions a kid of 5 could ask an gives you some meds. Never look in your medical records to see if you have allergies to any meds, just looks in the NHS bible an says try these, an if you dont die come back in six months, close the door on your way out.

That about sums it up. Experts on reading med company advertisements.

[ramboself]

It's talk like that about shrinks been unneccessary that has resulted in brent in cases been closed unless your under a section of the mental health act or have been in hospital recently, some would say thats a good thing

[Universal Credit]

ramboself, on 22 April 2012 - 07:53 PM, said:

It's talk like that about shrinks been unneccessary that has resulted in brent in cases been closed unless your under a section of the mental health act or have been in hospital recently, some would say thats a good thing

They are not necessary. Advanced artifical intelligence and expert systems are quite capable of doing what they do with greater accuracy and less bias.

[ramboself]

i think they're neccessary for the benefit reference, something that concerns me now they've closed my case, they were a name that could be given as a reference

[Universal Credit]

ramboself, on 22 April 2012 - 09:16 PM, said:

i think they're neccessary for the benefit reference, something that concerns me now they've closed my case, they were a name that could be given as a reference

You'll soon be on jobseekers and have to cut back on the pin therapy altogether. How do you plan to deal with the withdrawels from the pins?

[ramboself]

when they cut the money, i won't be able to afford the relaxation that allows me to cope, i'll go into hospital at 1000s a week when i come out i'll have a social worker under aftercare who'll get me the benefits at a high rate

[Universal Credit]

ramboself, on 23 April 2012 - 10:14 AM, said:

when they cut the money, i won't be able to afford the relaxation that allows me to cope, i'll go into hospital at 1000s a week when i come out i'll have a social worker under aftercare who'll get me the benefits at a high rate

You'll be OK until the 'normals' elect a 'far-right idjut' to get this country back on track - then?

[Aladinsane]

That's a very good point sparticus rex as in times of usterity there is often a political swing towards nationalism, just look at Greece. As Oscar Wilde put it, "Patriotism is the virture of the vicous".