Treating Oppression and Depression ++

[Guest guest]

BRAVO!!!

This reflects what I have recently come to understand. I mentioned in an

earlier post the need for community involvement. I tried to say it with

mostly all the wrong words.

In the past three months I have made some significant changes. I kicked my

diet-coke habit. I quit taking Premarin. I quit taking Lexapro. Yes, just

quit taking it, cold turkey might be the phrase. I've increased several

supplements, and added some. I've reached out to friends and family for

support and prayer.

I feel better than I have felt in years.

I've had bouts of depression most of my life. My mother died when I was

three. My dearest and well loved Daddy remarried. Enter the witch!!

Talk about oppression! Great scot. An alternate personality emerged. I was

in a battle for my life, it *probably* shaped how I view everything in life.

 

Today I'm struggling to come to terms with many things. The disabling

depression that prohibited me from returning to work in January 2000 was by

and large created through oppression, and I simply didn't have the capacity

to deal with it any longer. Not even with my alter personality.

I am a bit concerned with what my psychiatrist will have to say, but since I

won't see him until August 16th, maybe I'll have a plan.

Yesterday I consulted with an acupuncturist/herbalist. I took with me my

most recent blood work and for comparison, my first liver work ups from 4

years ago. I also took with me all the medicines and supplements that I take

and the teas I'm currently using. At the end of our hour and a half consult

he sold me two additional supplement/herbals. Only charged me for the two

bottles...not the consult, which I greatly appreciate because after my

mortgage payment, I have a grand total of 400$$$ to spend for whatever I

like. Seems I tend to like water and electricity, natural gas and gasoline

for the car that I like to keep insured. I like a telephone and an internet

connection, and I like to keep my little dog well fed and healthy. After

that...I also tend to like to feed myself.

The herbal supplements he added are " Zhu Dan Tablets " 4x2 and

Salvia-Ligustrum Tablets " 7x3. The print is too small for me to read the

ingredients, but he read them to me and explained each ones' purpose. He

advised me to add more anti-oxidants which I will see about today. He also

took the time to suggest some alternative therapies for my leg ulcer. These

would include honey and or the membrane from the eggs of free range chickens

My hundred dollar wonder car does not take me to where they raise such

chickens, but I'll see what they have at the health foods store when I go to

see about some broccoli sprouts and the extra anti-oxidants.

The teas I currently blend are Essiac, ginko leaf, Dandelion root, gunpowder

ginger. I add some ground cardamom and nutmeg, sometimes some Stevia.

In addition to a fair dosage multi-vitamin w/o iron, I take 2.5G vitamin C

(500mg x 5), 150mg chelated zinc (50mg x 3), 100 mg balanced B complex (25mg

x 4), Beta Carotene 25,000IU x 2-3, Nutrilite Calcium Magnesium Plus, Ginko

BE 120x3, Bepleurum Liver Cleanse 800mg 2x2, Maximum Milk Thistle 240mg x 4.

I understand that none of these supplements will cure Hepatitis C, however

they will help prevent further liver damage. By " healthifying " my body and

some support from friends and neighbors I hope to live a longer, happier

life.

MaryKaye

 

----

 

 

07/16/04 06:01:02

alternative_medicine_forum

Treating Oppression and Depression

 

JustSayNo

Thu, 15 Jul 2004 21:14:43 -0400

[sSRI-Research] Treating Oppression and

Depression

 

Treating Oppression and Depression

 

http://lark.phoblacht.net/treatmentsf.html

 

Sean Fleming . 14 July 2004

 

It is known that in the north of Ireland there

is a very high rate of prescription in relation to

anti-depressants and tranquilliser 'medication'. In

areas where there has been serious conflict and poor

economic investment this is particularly in

evidence. It has been established that these drugs

are often addictive, harmful, disabling and

debilitating in their effects. It reflects a

world-wide trend whereby psychothropic drugs are

seen as the answer to severe mental distress. It is

important to note that psychiatry views depression,

certain states of anxiety and various forms of

mental suffering as illnesses related to brain

pathology. The fact is that psychiatry has never

been able to prove a physical cause to any of the

so-called mental illnesses. Given the symbiotic

relationship between psychiatry and the drug

companies it is in their interests to perpetuate the

myth that 'mental illnesses' are the result of brain

pathology and that drugs help to redress some

supposed biochemical imbalance.

 

One of the tragedies of our time is that a

social model of psychiatry has not emerged to

replace the biological bias in the present model.

This model views 'mental illness', or to use its

preferred term, severe mental distress, as often

being the result of poverty, unemployment, poor

housing and many other social ills or interpersonal

conflicts. If one looks around the world the

'disease' or biological model of psychiatry doesn't

stand up. It is the Irish in Britain and other

ethnic minorities who are more likely to end up in

psychiatric hospital, detained, given a diagnosis of

'mental illness'. African Americans are also much

more likely to suffer the same fate, Aborigines in

Australia, The Maori in New Zealand and black people

under the old apartheid regime in S.Africa suffered

appalling psychiatric abuses. It is very often

minorities and those suffering poverty and

deprivation who are much more likely to be affixed

with the label 'mentally ill'.

 

Psychiatry argues that certain groups show a

genetic vulnerability to psychosis yet no biological

marker or genetic defect has ever been found in

relation to any of the many and increasing number of

invented psychiatric disorders. These ever expanding

'disorders' create new markets for the drug

companies. Their drugs often have serious adverse

and devastating effects.

 

Psychiatry is without doubt a force for social

control and serves Big Pharma. George Bush's plans

to screen the entire US population for 'mental

illness' as recently reported in the British Medical

Journal, beginning at pre-school level, will provide

enormous profit for these companies. This plan has

grown out of a political/pharmaceutical alliance

with strong drug company ties to the Bush

Administration. The reader can check out this link

to the journal's website:

 

ttp://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7454/1458.

 

 

It is essential therefore that the issues

surrounding psychiatry be politicised. The proposed

Community Treatment Orders which may be introduced

under the new Mental Health Bill in Britain will

ensure that 'patients' living in the community are

forced to take drugs if it is thought they are not

taking their 'medication'. It will provide no choice

or availability of other ways in which the person

feels they could be helped. Only presently in

Britain and Ireland if someone is 'sectioned' can

they be forced to take drugs against their will and

even given electro-conlusive 'therapy' (ECT). The

British government also intends to pre-emptively

lock away some people who've been 'assessed' as

being dangerous, even if they've never committed a

crime. This is fundamentally against the spirit of

human rights and a policy that panders to the

prejudices of the right wing press and elements in

society. It is psychiatry itself which stigmatises

people. They apply a non-existent disease to them

and deny them their rights when they are deemed to

'lack capacity'. Their problems are objectified as

being inside their brains and their bodies poisoned

with psychiatric drugs.

 

Instead of telling the poor, the marginalised,

the alienated and those simply 'different' within

society that they have brain illness or disorders,

we need a new radical approach to psychiatry which

will help to build better societies by drawing

attention to the societal and environmental factors

involved in severe mental distress. Let's take the

deeply distressing and painful subject of suicide.

Suicidal thinking is increasingly being seen by

psychiatry as related to psychiatric comorbidity, in

other words, 'psychiatric illness' related to

alcohol/substance abuse, etc. This then provides

further justification for psychiatric expansive

interventions in communities where people have

tragically taken their lives. They then advocate the

use of drugs that paradoxically increase the

likelihood of suicide as the recent scandal

surrounding the drug Seroxat has shown. This drug is

worth £2billion a year to GlaxoSmithKline -

Britain's biggest drugs firm which recently caved in

under pressure and revealed hidden research which

showed that its so called anti-depressant can cause

children to attempt suicide. It has also been linked

to suicide in adults and the drug regulators have

now banned its use in under-18s in Britain. There is

a further irony in that this same shamed drug

company donated a grant of £25,000 in 2002 to the

Institute for Counselling and Personal Development

in Belfast which offers support to the victims of

the conflict and those experiencing mental health

difficulties. This group's work tends to be

concentrated in areas like North and West Belfast

where there has been an alarming number of tragic

deaths as a result of suicide. It is highly likely

that in its work this group supports the so-called

anti-depressants as being essential in treating

depression despite the growing doubts about their

efficacy and the corrupt activities of the drug

companies involved. The behind the scenes

machinations that were involved in the approval and

promotion of Prozac is another case in point. It is

also a fact that all the state funded 'mental

health' organisations support the present biological

psychiatric model. It is also a sad but hardly ever

reported fact that there is a clear link between the

heavy psychiatric or neuroleptic drugs and suicide.

Many psychiatric patients in the end take their own

lives after suffering the lethal ' side - effects'

of these drugs for many years. Psychiatry is also

targeting children now with drugs for so called

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and

'conduct disorders'.

 

Instead of masking problems with drugs we need

to understand how oppressive structures in society

affect people and cause disharmony, stress and

tension which can then precipitate severe mental

distress and even suicide. There needs to be a much

clearer focus on these economic, social and class

structures and the effects they have on mental well

being. It is becoming increasing clear that in the

future people and communities may have to find a way

of managing their own mental health by not leaving

it to psychiatric propaganda eager for 'cash cows'

in a system that would collapse if it actually made

efforts towards truly helping others. A new social

or holistic psychiatry would therefore seek to

understand and explore'life experience' and the

'problems of living'. The north of Ireland could

take a leading role here. We know that the levels of

mental distress are greater here than in other parts

of Ireland or in Britain. Instead of a system

inextricably linked to pharmaceutical companies,

which supports delusional projects like the Genetic

Epidemiology of Mental Illness In Northern Ireland

(GEMINI) in its search for the elusive defective

gene in 'mental illness', why not put money into

projects that help people to rebuild their lives and

deal with the root causes of their mental suffering.

Forums could be established whereby people could

make their voice heard and their mental/emotional

distress understood. For psychiatric 'patients'

therapeutic housing could be set up where they are

helped to withdraw from neuroleptic drugs and to get

their lives back again. The Soteria therapeutic

housing project founded by radical American

psychiatrist, Loren Mosher, who sadly just died (12

July 2004) proved to be a great success for many

psychiatric patients and yet was totally ignored and

arrogantly dismissed by the psychiatric

establishment. This is a model for the future and a

common-sense alternative run by ordinary caring

people that actually worked.

 

Instead of creating depressed and alienated

communities awash with addictive

benzodiazepines,'anti-depressant' and other

psychiatric drugs, activists for a radical or

holistic approach to mental health should seek to

build supportive communities. In this model strong

social ties and inclusive networks would bind

communities and ensure that people are not left

isolated, disempowered and impoverished by a system

driven by pharmaceutical interests. The great

radical psychiatrist, R D Laing recognised the need

for this wider social change if the psychiatric

establishment was to be overthrown. Biological

psychiatry is also seen today in the current fashion

for Western medical and mental health agencies to

develop projects for victims of war in other

countries, often wars provoked by Western

governments. They seek to objectify mental suffering

as an entity apart. They make it into a clinical

problem to which they apply Western 'treatments'.

They often dismiss indigenous knowledge or ways of

treatment. Often they ignore the fact that what

people really want is not to look inwards at their

own mental lives but help in rebuilding their

devastated social, economic or cultural ways of

life. It is this exclusion of the wider context that

makes the present system so reprehensible. This is

in clear contrast to the innovative work of the

British Inter-war years psychiatrist, Harry Stack

Sullivan, who for a period helped to steer the

traditional psychiatric focus away from the

individual to the interpersonal and who highlighted

the need for more socially orientated and holistic

therapies.

 

A social model of psychiatry better serves

societies and communities that have suffered

conflict, war and economic deprivation. Those

labelled mentally ill or are seen as suffering from

one or other 'psychiatric disorder' are being

demeaned and harmed by the present practice. It

seems to me that by building therapeutic housing

projects and communities those who have been

targeted with psychiatric drugs could draw attention

to the societal, environmental and political causes

of severe mental distress and thereby help to effect

real and radical change in society by exposing

biological psychiatry for what it is - pseudo

science and psycho babble that serves Big Pharma. A

new radical psychiatry would work with people in a

non- pathologising way and help to understand the

real origins of their mental pain. The way forward

is through self-determination for those who suffer

severe mental distress and a new social and healing

model of psychiatry that understands and relates to

the experience of the person in context with others

and the wider society. This clearly calls for a

strong and active movement not afraid to challenge

and end the present oppressive psychiatric system.

 

 

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