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 powerful

chemicals 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 you ever 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?

 

 

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