Only You Can 'Cure' Yourself

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Only You Can 'Cure' Yourself

by Ann Lawson

Norwich, UK

 

Mental illness has an extremely poor image. It's been called the

last taboo. Unfortunately those who suffer or have suffered from

being diagnosed with a mental illness tend to be dragged down by

this image.

 

Once you have been diagnosed or initially admitted to an institution

for treatment, it is almost impossible to escape the stigmatization

which automatically follows. Nor is it only those on the outside of

the caring professions who carry these prejudices. Blind ignorance

is also rife within psychiatry. There is currently a research

article which connects

schizophrenia to the incidence of being cross-eyed or being born in

a month with particularly intemperate weather.

 

It seems we have progressed little from when entrails were read in

Ancient Rome to anticipate events. The fact is no one has a clue

about what causes schizophrenia,

although as with most things these days a genetic cause is being

sought, so far with little success.

 

The most widely held theory for nearly all kinds of mental illness

is it is due to a chemical imbalance in the brain.

I find this fascinating since no patient these days avoids the use

of chemicals from first diagnosis, often till death. So how do

psychiatrists' determine that there is a chemical imbalance when the

brains of mental patients have been bombarded with powerfulchemicals

from the beginning?

 

What is even more disturbing about this theory is that if the drugs

themselves have caused this imbalance, is that not

good reason for stopping them?

 

Psychiatric drugs do not in any way cure the patient or even make

him or her feel better. The side effects are appalling. They include

the onset of neurological disorders. They include diabetes due to

weight gain and innumerable minor and not so minor discomforts. It

is seldom claimed that the drugs are therapeutic:

They merely mask symptoms - symptoms which probably were less

troubling than the effects of the drugs.

 

The drugs do this by crudely interfering with the normal chemical

makeup of the brain, making thought processes difficult and sleep

(or unconsciousness that appears to be sleep) hard to avoid. Did

youever wonder why mental patients are like zombies? Well, there's

your answer.

 

Psychiatric drugs are making them feel ill and cause them to see the

world with only half a brain.

 

Drugs are the current historical sequel to long term

institutionalization and chains - and lobotomy. Basically

psychiatry is a violent and intrusive way of controlling people who

do not conform to other people's expectations -

or those who are vulnerable.

 

Remember that treatment is not voluntary once force is used.

 

Mental patients do not have meaningful civil rights.

 

In the UK, often they are not even allowed to vote.

In " hospitals, " " medication " is routinely administered by force if

the patient refuses or is " non-compliant " .

 

Mental patients have no right to privacy even when living in the

community: " Health " workers may go round neighbors asking

about the " patient's " behavior, among other ploys.

 

Medication is usually administered for a lifetime. There is no way

anyone ever gets `better'

on psychiatric drugs. Being `mentally ill' is a social status, not a

medical condition. And the hospitals are merely prisons.

 

Why has psychiatry not been abandoned, since it is based on overt

ignorance and involves obvious abuse? Why does the myth of mental

illness persist?

 

Of course, we all suffer from time to time - usually depression

resulting from life experience. There are various strategies which

can be used to lift ones spirits and improve one's health.

 

They include exercise and diet. However the idea of the mentally ill

as a category of persons distinct from the rest of the human race

continues. I think this happens partly because of vested interests:

 

The companies that market the drugs, which are the current

treatment, make vast profits exceeded only by share prices for

Internet companies.

It is in the interest of these drug companies and their

shareholders, which include many doctors, that psychiatry widen its

net, constantly bringing more and more people

into the sphere of those who are forced to ingest psychiatric drugs

for the rest of their lives.

 

Their motives and their lack of a sense of social responsibility are

like those of the tobacco companies.

 

A drug has recently been developed which makes people less shy.

 

Suddenly a new illness, a new diagnosis, was created to make use of

this drug:

" social phobia. " Now people are being diagnosed with this and -

surprise! surprise! - are prescribed this new drug. The need to sell

this drug and make a profit actually created the diagnosis!

 

Tobacco companies do not need to force their customers to smoke

since tobacco is highly addictive.

Most people find psychiatric drugs almost intolerable.

 

So drug advocates create such fear and paranoia concerning mentally

ill people (who are statistically considerably less dangerous to

others than the general population) that a hysterical policy of

containment and pharmacological control of mental patients is

adopted and enforced.

 

Some researchers search for the causes of mental illness,

particularly schizophrenia, ad infinitum. Science is no where nearer

to understanding it than when it was first defined. Based on

considerable experience and with great confidence, I argue that the

whole course of this " illness " is created by the way it

is " treated. "

 

It is the confinement, the stigmatization, the ignorance, the

physical and emotional abuse, the drugs, the prejudice of employers

and consequent poverty, and the overbearing attitude of

psychiatrists and others that cause this " illness. " For most people,

mental illness has a career path from which there is no escape.

 

There is a vast industry profiting financially from the abject

misery of mental patients whose problems are exacerbated by

an effort to create hysteria, thereby making them outcasts. This

makes sense of the otherwise cruel and senseless profession of

psychiatry.

 

The mentally ill are an essential part of what supports a very

profitable psychiatric drug manufacturing industry. And psychiatry

maintains the status quo by drugging into oblivion those who

challenge it.

 

I'm not saying there are not vulnerable individuals, individuals

with problems, and unhappy people - even people who are not healthy.

 

But I am saying that conventional western psychiatry does not even

attempt to cure them but simply to contain them and perpetuate them

as " patients. "

Secondly, western psychiatry often creates problems, such as in the

case of schizophrenia, where there were none before, by its attitude

and it's " treatment. "

 

The widening grip of psychiatry also has been at the expense of less

intrusive, more friendly and wholesome approaches to

helping mentally or emotionally troubled people.

 

What might be a temporary problem due to some minor upset or even a

mistaken diagnosis,

psychiatry can and usually does convert into a dramatic condition

which requires a lifetime of treatment.

 

This damages the individual to the core of his being. The mentally

ill are not more dangerous than anyone else despite the way they are

mistreated.

 

Paranoid schizophrenia is a logical response to psychiatric

treatment and not the result of some unfortunate genetic

modification. Any fool should be able to understand

this, but try explaining it to a psychiatrist!

 

It makes more sense to them what the temperature was outside when

you were born. Who is mad here - psychiatry's patients or its

defenders?

 

http://www.antipsychiatry.org/lawson.htm

http://www.drugawareness.org/ICFDAwarning.html

 

 

Taper off very, very slowly. Dropping " cold turkey " off any

medication, most especially mind altering medications, can often be

MORE DANGEROUS than staying on the drugs. The most dangerous and

most common mistake someone coming off the

SSRI antidepressants makes is coming off these drugs too rapidly.

 

Tapering off very, very, VERY SLOWLY--OVER MONTHS (and for long-term

users—a year or more), NOT JUST WEEKS!—has proven the safest and

most effective method of withdrawal from this type of medication.

 

Thus the body is given the time it needs to readjust its own

chemical levels. Patients must be warned to come very slowly off

these drugs by shaving minuscule amounts off their pills each day,

as opposed to cutting them in half or taking a pill every other day.

 

This cannot be stressed strongly enough! This information on

EXTREMELY gradual withdrawal is the most critical piece of

information that someone facing withdrawal from these drugs needs to

have.

A REMINDER: IT IS EASIER TO GET DOWN OFF A MOUNTAINTOP ONE GUARDED

STEP AT A TIME THAN TO JUMP FROM THE TOP TO THE BOTTOM.

 

To order Dr. Tracy's book or audio cassette tape, " Help, I Can't Get

Off My Antidepressant, "

http://www.drugawareness.org/ICFDAwarning.html

 

Study by Harvard Psychiatrist:

 

11 of 15 " Bipolars " Successfully Taken off Medication

 

An article in the December 2001 Journal of Clinical Psychiatry by

Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Charles Popper reports on a recent study in

which 11 of 15 people diagnosed with bipolar disorder were

successfully

removed from medication for 6 to 9 months at the time of the article.

 

Results were achieved when the patients were treated with a

nutritional supplement made by the Synergy Group of Canada. The

groups website is

at

http://www.truehope.com.

 

_________________

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjo-

DietaryTi-

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