Sheelzebub at Pinko Feminist Hellcat comments on this Oregonian article, documenting a pattern of abuse and rape by Oregon State Hospital workers at Ward 40, a treatment center for children and teenagers. Even worse, the hospital had a pattern of hushing up these crimes.
The article itself is a litany of horrors, such as a fired hospital staffer using his knowledge of the hospital’s scheduling to kidnap and rape a teenager. (This same staffer apparently raped or molested five other patients; two later committed suicide). The most distressing thing for me, however, is the hospital staff’s apparent refusal to treat sexual abuse of patients as a serious problem. For example, regarding hospital employee and rapist/molester/abuser Ronnie LaCross:
Records show that staff confiscated the tag when Darcey used it to carve bloody wounds on her arms.
About a month later, two teenage patients demanded that staff stop LaCross from abusing Darcey. But hospital officials failed to take action.
The hospital waited almost three days before calling her caseworker at the state’s children’s services agency. The hospital did not inform police as required by law. After pestering the hospital for two days to report the suspected abuse, the caseworker called state police herself, records show.
Five months later, Mazur-Hart, the hospital superintendent, ruled that Darcey’s allegations were true. LaCross, who spent several months on paid leave, was eventually fired and convicted of second-degree sexual assault.
The girl who made the first complaint about LaCross more than a year earlier was named as an “additional victim” in police reports in the Darcey case. She told police that besides fondling her breast, LaCross had sex with her three times on the ward. LaCross was never charged in that case.
KATU’s story (based on the Oregonian’s reporting) includes this tidbit:
The only reason most of this is known is that sealed court records from 1994 were misfiled in a public-records area. There’s good reason to worry that Ward 40 has continued to be a home for rapists, pedophiles and abusers since 1994. The Oregonian discovered seven cases of alleged child sex abuse in the last four years that were never reported to the chief DHS investigator.
Needed security measures that have become standard at other hospitals have not been taken:
In a letter to The Oregonian, Frank Milligan detailed a litany of oversight problems at the hospital, including “far too many blind corners” and a “lack of cameras or even simple surveillance equipment.”
“Should a staff member be so inclined, he/she need only wait for an emergency situation, or a patient to act out and draw the attention of the other staff, to take advantage of the chaos and slip away with a victim.”
Hopefully, the Oregonian article will be a start towards getting Ward 40’s appalling conditions fixed (or better yet, towards getting Ward 40 closed down and replaced with modern small-group homes). If you’d like to write Governor Ted Kulongoski a note asking him to take action, here’s his contact information.
Monstrous. Death penalty offenses, in my book.
I’d be quite interested to know how those records got sealed.
I agree, at least as long as there is DNA evidence it really doesn’t make much sense to merely keep these sort of people alive. It’s irresponsible, the danger of recidivism outweighs any moral imperative to attempt to reform these individuals. They should find out who enabled this behaviour and charge them as well. I wish people wouldn’t tolerate the corruption in our society, but they do.
I agree, at least as long as there is DNA evidence it really doesn’t make much sense to merely keep these sort of people alive.
This is satire, right? Please tell me this is satire…
DNA evidence is useful for proving the innocense of someone, but it should never stand alone as evidence for guilt (oops, we killed the wrong twin….)
Wondering how did the records got sealed
In at least one case, accoridng to the article, the State paid the victim $50,000 to agree to having the records sealed.
You know what? Oregon State Hospital is just the tip of the iceburg. My only regret is that I wasn’t able to go into the hospital system years ago and expose it. We survivors of psychiatric abuse/torture have known this shit for years. This is what you normies have been sitting back and laughing at for years….the “crazy” jokes, the “I’m nuts” comments don’t fall on deaf ears. The next time you make a comment like that, just remember there maybe a survivor of psychiatric abuse/torture who is standing by listening. Chances are you’ll never know the person has been in the psych ward due to the fear of “outing” themselves. Once a person does this, their history is always used against him/her. It is easy to sit back and talk about how awful it is. But what are you going to do about it? Log onto http://www.crackedproductions.org. I’m going down to film at the hospital on December 3. I need crew. Anyone interested? I’ll being filming the 3,500 canisters of cremented remains of dead victims and several other sites. I have obtained permission from the hospital to film. Please call me at (503)490-0714 if you are interested in crewing.
Wow. I’m a bit late on reading up on these events, obviously. I was doing an internet search for information on the Oregon State Hospital, because for a period of two years, I was a patient there – from December of 1997 to January 0f 1999, in ward 40-C. To my knowledge, there weren’t any such abuses in my ward during the time I was there, although it can certainly be said that there was occasion for it, with alcoves that were quite hidden, and of course the fact that bathroom visits were supervised. I suppose it could be said that I was lucky – if spending two of my formative years in a psychiatric ward could be considered “lucky” – but I had experienced no assaults whatsoever in my time there. It’s rather shocking to find out that this has been going on, although, in retrospect, it doesn’t really surprise me.
I am a bit late going up against the world of stigmas of mental flaws, you know it seems odd that I signed forms at 17 years old without a gaurdian
or parent present, little did I know asking for help would cause me total grief and suffering for years. I had gone to get a job at 15 years old, got involved with the owner of the diner. He actually had a harem of girls.
Jim Jones wanna be, Incidently I was just collateral damage as I ran away from the group, I was drugged with a drug that caused me to physically not speak. for months I felt I was held hostage inside myself. My girlfriend who was 18 at the time
came to visit at the hospital, told the doctor I was 1/2 year younger
than her, 17 yrs old. put on an adult ward.
I witnessed a man put in restraints then I heard a nurse Say ‘Oh my God you gave him an injection too”? As the screams of agony and the death screams echoed the ward, then an utter silence came. he was dead.
They administered two much thorizine.. twice the required dose. Why I was forced to see this age a young age is beyond me.
An aid said” No one will listen to these crazies”.. Well 30 plus years and I am ready to stand up. I believe,murder has no statues of limitations even if it was a mistake done by the nurses. 1973,1974 at OSH in Salem, Or.
I wonder if the guy who died is in one of the unmarked canisters of ashes at Oregon State hospital? I was there, I witnessed the mistake. I have kept silent oh so too long. One of my girlfriends who had electro shock therapy ended up hanging herself there. Tommy White .. Maybe I will stand up too make the powers to be listen..
Oh by the way they wanted to steralize me at 17 years old, I told them No thank you.. And promised one day they will know what kind of fools they were. I have already contacted Congressmen and senators and told my story, I also have contacted 3 different reporters one on the east coast and two on the west coast.. My suggestion to all of you on the blog write to the state attorney generals office ,and your state representative, don’t stop there. Tell your story to every governmental official you can. Stand up for them who can’t take a stand on their own. It is the right thing too do, Thanks Deb
i was there! my best-friend was abused we tried to tell i got put on th lowest level and was told to “stop lieing i was making a fool of my-self”
The terrible events that are reported and substantiated are now past. THANK GOD. The 40 building is now closed and all the children are in private run community facilities.
The hospital has replaced Dr. Mazur-Hart with a superintendent that is open, honest and caring. He often does rounds to check in with staff and patients alike. The hospital has oversight by the office of investigation and training and all suspected abuse cases go through their office and are investigated by this agency and not hospital or DHS staff. Back ground checks are done on all employees. Extensive training on abuse and abuse reporting is done with all new hires and annually for all employees . There are security cameras in parts of the hospital now. The worst thing still is the overcrowded conditions and lack of enough staff to adequately treat patients. These are being worked on as more and more of the patients are being released to community based treatment. The money for extra staff is finally being given by the govenor and legislature as they realize the scope of understaffing the hospital has. The whole mental health delivery system is being overhauled and in the process a replacement facility will be built for Oregon State Hospital. Changes that are long overdue are happening. Yes the past had some terrible incidences happen and they should never be forgotten but the future is looking bright for our mentally ill in Oregon.
In closing I would like to state one last thing. The staff of Oregon State hospital do a great job taking care of the patients. If there needs to be blame placed anywhere look to the citizens of Oregon and the Legislature who have consistently underfunded our mental health system and allowed services to be cut time and time again for one of our most vulnerable populations. As we transition to a community based system of care I hope that the good citizens of Oregon embrace their fellow citizens with mental illness . It would be terribly disheartening to see the “not in my back yard” attitude rear its ugly head. If we, as citizens of Oregon and the United States of America, truely believe in equality then we need to embrace our fellow human beings who need help and not store them away in a delipidated state mental institution.
I hope this information could be use ful and could use all the help I can get to shed some light I would be greatful .
I’am a victim of psychiatric abuse its a crime, and in hospital I have witnessed the twisted mentality of mental health professionals such as abuse like punishing me with force drugging of antipsychotics , chemical restraints ,isolation for days at a time with in appropriate meals, and nursing staff threating me with anything they thought of and it just depends on how mad you got the staff that day. I never did anything out of control or did I get violent,yet I was just standing up for patients rights and making my argued opinions in result I would get tortured with over dosing of forced antipsychotic drugs. I have even witnessed nursing staff murder a co-patient and it was sickening,frustrating and very sad part of my life. I also have a young friend who got an E.C.T done and it has completly fried his memory. after the reinforcement of drugs I have had tremors symtoms of N.M.S head pains, heart cardiac pains,weight gain ,dizzyness and sleepiness all caused by side affects of antipsychotic drugs. I suffer each day with the symptoms and I don’t think I will live that long on psychiatric medication its deadly look at the statistics if anyone can help me with this prosectution I would appreciate all the help I can get please I can name a few people who were responsible for the murders of some people:
Dr. David Cochrane (psychiatrist)
R.N: Mark Samuel ,R.P.N: Sandy ,Robb
All this took place at the Northeast Mental Health Center abbreviated N.E.M.H.C use to be called the north bay psychiatric hospital
P.O. Box 3010 4700
Highway 11 N
North Bay, ON,CA
25 GOOD REASONS WHY PSYCHIATRY MUST BE ABOLISHED
1. Because psychiatrists frequently cause harm, permanent disabilities, death – death of the body-mind-spirit.
2. Because psychiatrists frequently violate the Hippocratic Oath which orders all physicians “First Do No Harm.”
3. Because psychiatrists patronize and disempower people, especially their patients.
4. Because psychiatry is not a medical science.
5. Because psychiatry is quackery, a pseudo-science which lacks independent diagnostic tests, testable hypotheses, and cures for “schizophrenia” and all other types of alleged “mental illness” or “mental disorder”.
6. Because psychiatrists can not accurately and reliably predict dangerousness, violence, or any other type of human behaviour, yet make such claims as “expert witnesses”, and with the media promote the “dangerous mental patient” myth/stereotype.
7. Because psychiatrists have caused a worldwide epidemic of brain damage by promoting and prescribing brain-disabling treatments such as the neuroleptics, antidepressants, electroconvulsive brainwashing (electroshock), and psychosurgery (lobotomy).
8. Because psychiatrists manufacture hundreds of “mental disorders” classified in its bible called “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (a modern witch-hunting manual); such “mental disorders” and “symptoms” are in fact negative, class-and-culturally-biased moral judgments for dissident ways of coping with personal problems and alternative ways of perceiving, interpreting or being in the world.
9. Because psychiatrists, blinded by their medical model bias, fraudulently pathologize and label people’s serious life or existential crises as “symptoms” of “mental illness” or “mental disorder” such as “schizophrenia”,”bipolar affective disorder”, and “personality disorder”.
10. Because psychiatrists compound this fraud by falsely claiming, without scientific proof, that these “mental disorders” are caused by a “biochemical imbalance” in the brain, genetic factors or “genetic predispositions”, despite the fact that there are no genetic factors in “mental illness”.
11. Because psychiatrists frequently misinform their patients, families and the public by claiming that brain-disabling procedures such as the neurotoxins (e.g.,”antipsychotic medication” and “antidepressasnts”), electroconvulsive brainwashing (electroconvulsive therapy/”ECT”), psychosurgery (lobotomy) and other behaviour modification-mind control procedures are “safe, effective and lifesaving”. The exact opposite is tragically true.
12. Because psychiatrists routinely deceive or lie to patients, prisoners, their families, and the public.
13. Because psychiatrists routinely and willfully violate the medical-ethical principle of “informed consent” by misinforming or not informing their patients about the numerous toxic, disabling and frequently permanent effects of the neuroleptics such as memory loss, tardive dyskinesia, tardive psychosis, parkinsonism, dementia (all signs of brain damage), and death.
14. Because psychiatrists routinely threaten, intimidate or coerce many patients – particularly women, children, the elderly, and prisoners – into consenting to health-threatening/brain-damaging “treatment” such as the antidepressants, neuroleptics, electroconvulsive brainwashing, and hi-risk experiments.
15. Because psychiatrists frequently fail to fully inform psychiatric inmates and prisoners about existing safe and humane, non-medical alternatives in the community such as survivor-controlled crisis centres, drop-ins, self-help or advocacy groups, diet, massage, wholistic medicine, affordable supportive housing, and jobs.
16. Because psychiatrists are sexist in frequently stereotyping women in crisis as “hysterical” or “over-emotional”, blaming women whenever they voice real complaints and assertively express their feelings and emotions, prescribing massive doses of tranquilizers and antidrepressants to disproportionately large numbers of women, and in sexually assaulting women in their offices and institutions.
17. Because psychiatrists, particularly white male psychiatrists, are homophobic – the American Psychiatric Association (APA) once labelled homosexuality as a “mental illness” or “mental disorder” – and have used forced electroshock on lesbians, trying to coerce them into adopting a heterosexual life style.
18. Because psychiatrists are ageist in prescribing tranquilizers, antidepressants (“medication”) and electroconvulsive brainwashing for disproportionately large numbers of elderly people – a form of elder abuse.
19. Because psychiatrists are racist in disproportionately incarcerating and drugging people of African descent, aboringal people, other people of colour and labelling them “psychotic” or “schizophrenic”.
20. Because psychiatrists routinely violate people’s civil rights, human rights and constitutional rights such as imprisoning innocent people without court trial or public hearing (“involuntary commitment”), and subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishments or tortures such as forced drugging, electroconvulsive brainwashing, psychosurgery, solitary confinement, “chemical restraints”, and 4-point or 5-point restraints.
21. Because psychiatrists masterminded the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people including disabled children, the elderly and psychiatric patients during The Holocaust in Nazi Germany, and “selected” hundreds of thousands of concentration camp prisoners for death (“T-4 euthanasia” program) – historical facts still missing in psychiatric textbooks and histories.
22. Because psychiatrists have willingly participated in and administered mind-control experiments in the United States and Canada since the early 1950s – its chief targets have been poor patients, women, dissidents and prisoners.
23. Because psychiatry, particularly institutional-biological psychiatry, is based on the 3 Fs: Fear, Fraud,and Force.
24. Because psychiatry is a form of social control or punishment – not treatment.
25. Because psychiatry, particularly institutional-biological psychiatry, is fascist – a direct threat to democracy, human rights and life.
http://www.cchreus.org and click on fraudulent marketing
When school authorities tell a mother that her son is sick and needs to be on drugs ,how in the world is she to know that ,that is simply a lie . How is she to recognize that what experts now call “SCHIZOPHRENIA” is simply not a disease now,such a mother is not an expert in the history of psychiatry,she does not know that psychiatrist have for hundreds of years used diagnostic terms,so called diagnostic terms,to stigmatize and control people I will only give you a few aromatic examples when BLACK SLAVES in the south ran away to freedom, it wasn’t that they wanted to be free they suffered from a disease called dropetomania from drapetes run away slave,and mania I’AM NOT MAKING THIS UP ! . This was a a legitmate diagnosis just like SCHIZOPHRENIA woman half the population of mankind,of course, if they were foolish enough to rebel against domination by man well then they had a serious disease called HYSTERIA , which was due to their wandering womb.now none of those behaviors was ever a disease and, of course, is not a disease nor is SCHIZOPHRENIA disorder a desease no behavior or misbehavior is a disease or can be a disease. that’s not what diseases are so it doesn’t matter how child behaves . there is nothing to examine . if he is sick then there must be some objective science to it . which can be diagnosed by physicians and objective test . that’s why as soon as you go to a doctor they take a lot of blood and take x-rays. they don’t want to hear how you behave. when I went to medical school sixty years ago there were only a handful of mental diseases . I think there were no more than six or seven . now there are more than three hundred .And now ones are quote,” discovered”every day . labeling a child as mentally ill is stigmatization,not diagnosis. giving a child a psychiatric drug is poisoning ,not treatment .Diseases are malfunction of the human body ,of the heart , the liver the kidney,the heart, the liver the kidney,the brain and so forth . typhoid fever is a disease, you all know that , you don’t question that spring fever all you have to know is English . Spring fever is not a disease. the task we get ourselves, to combat psychiatric coercison is important. I think it’s important you all think it’s important not enough people think it’s important , it’s a noble task, a task in the pursuit of which we must , regardless of obstacles, persevere, our conscience commands that we do no less.
#13 reads like a Scientology-inspired manifesto. :)
14 read that way to me, too.
#13 reads like a manifesto because it is one. It is a manifesto of the anti-psychiatry movement. As such, it doubtless comes across as every bit as “strident” and strange to those unfamiliar with that movement as a list of similarly strongly-worded radfem precepts might look to someone profoundly unfamiliar with Feminism 101.
The anti-psychiatry movement has done a lot of good work over the past thirty years. It has had significant impact on the law, and by doing so, it has reduced some of the really disgusting injustice which has been perpetrated on a genuinely oppressed class of people. Alas, however, as with feminism, the movement still has a long way to go if it wants to continue to reduce or eradicate the injustices that it exists to fight, and the suffering that those injustices cause.
I mean, okay, I get that (a) this isn’t an anti-psychiatry blog, and (b) many of the drive-throughs who have posted on this thread have been on the…errr, wacky/inarticulate/”strident” ends of the movement’s spectra, shall we say? But all the same, it pains me to see them mocked, or their rhetoric compared to scientology. What you are reading here is political anger. And it is justified political anger.
Everyone’s fiery manifestos look absurd to those who are not invested in the same cause.
It’s interesting that you find the mention of scientology to be, in itself, mocking.
On the other hand — just because you’re passionate about something does not in any way obligate me to treat your manifesto as valid. I think parts of those rants are interesting and true. I think other parts are dangerously ignorant. You don’t get to be exempt from criticism — or even mocking! — just because you say your anger is “justified” or “political.”
You want to defend what they said, then defend it on its merits as well as its passion. In this context, the existence of anger alone is not an argument.
Mandolin,
For shame!
Your first statement is flagrantly dishonest. It is not the “mere mention of scientology,” it is the manner in which it was done, and the fact that the mere mention of scientology was the entirety of the argument made. Also, it was followed by a smiley face. Are you actually trying to argue that hun’s comment was not mocking, or just trying a reversal?
Neither you nor hun attempted any argument, nor acknowledged any part of the manifestos as true or valid (in your intitial posts, you now say you agree with some of it, but disagree with other parts, but you haven’t said which – how on earth is someone supposed to engage in argument with your disagreement with a position if you don’t even bother to say what your disagreement is?). To demand that someone defend the specifics of a position that you are merely dismissing with contempt is absurd. If you and hun are merely dismissing the position with contempt and mockery, it would be pointless to try to argue the case point by point with you. You have already been given a point by point manifesto and dismissed the entirety of it with contempt.
If you object to parts of the manifestos, say what parts you object to. Mockery is not an argument. Dismissal is not an argument.
I disagree that the reference to scientology is mocking or contemptuous. When scientology is the movement that represents these concepts in the public square, it’s disingenuous to assume that the reaction to anti-psychology is not going to be “that sounds like scientology.”
It’s the anti-psychiatry movement, not the anti-psychology movement.
So which portions of that manifesto is it that you agree with, which portions that you disagree with?
How familiar are you with the anti-psychiatry movement? Do you agree that it has played a beneficial role?
The comment I read closely was 14, because I wasn’t sure whether or not to let it through moderation. The positioning of the link looked like spam, and on first blush, I thought the comment was an attempt at religious conversion.
“When school authorities tell a mother that her son is sick and needs to be on drugs ,how in the world is she to know that ,that is simply a lie .”
This is a large assumption.
“How is she to recognize that what experts now call “SCHIZOPHRENIA” is simply not a disease now”
Unless we’re swapping the definition of the word ‘disease’ around, then I have to disagree. We have evidence of schizophrenia in every culture. It appears to be biologicaly based and have a genetic predisposition. Compared to other kinds of psychiatric illness, which may be debatable, schizophrenia is extremely predictable.
“psychiatrist have for hundreds of years used diagnostic terms,so called diagnostic terms,to stigmatize and control people… they were foolish enough to rebel against domination by man well then they had a serious disease called HYSTERIA”
I can’t speak to the running-away disease because it’s the first I’ve heard of it — but it’s extremely interesting. Hysteria, of course, I’m aware of.
I agree with this as a critique of psychiatry. It is a danger for psychiatry to over-medicalize, just as it’s a danger for medicine to over-medicalize.
Of course there are long-standing arguments over which diseases should be included in the DSM. The patterns shift. There’s an argument about whether or not the DSM is even useful, of course. The brain appears to react to stress in predictable ways. Still, when two diagnoses overlap, they become an unuseful guide – as far as I’m aware, psychologists (word chosen deliberately) are supposed to bear them in mind, not dictate all their decisions based on the diagnoses.
Overuse of medicine is, of course, also an issue. Psychiatry has a tendency to rely on medication even where therapy is proven to be more effective. That’s not an issue with the discipline in and of itself; it’s an issue of the interaction between institutions and the discipline.
Both hysteria and the other disease that was mentioned in this rant have systemic components. What systemic goal is served by creaating schizophrenia as an illness? Or bipolar disease, which I imagine is not exempt from this scrutiny?
“it doesn’t matter how child behaves . there is nothing to examine . if he is sick then there must be some objective science to it . which can be diagnosed by physicians and objective test .”
Why? And how is this any less anti-psychology than anti-psychiatry?
“that’s why as soon as you go to a doctor they take a lot of blood and take x-rays. they don’t want to hear how you behave.”
Many diseases have behavioral components.
“when I went to medical school sixty years ago there were only a handful of mental diseases . I think there were no more than six or seven . now there are more than three hundred .”
If I recall correctly, inclusion in the DSM requires that a disease cause significant distress to the sufferer or to society. One can make the argument that there are too many classifications for this, or that they are over-diagnosed, that they are overmedicated, and that some syndromes reflect social prejudice over reality. There are systemic issues with the discipline. That doesn’t mean that a blanket statement like “schizophrenia is simply not a disease now” or “medication is poison” is justifiable.
“Diseases are malfunction of the human body ,of the heart , the liver the kidney,the heart, the liver the kidney,the brain and so forth . typhoid fever is a disease, you all know that , you don’t question that spring fever all you have to know is English . Spring fever is not a disease.”
Spring fever is not a disease because it is culturally ubiquitous and doesn’t cause significant discomfort to self or society.
I’m not, except from being aware of debates within psychology, and things like anthropological critiques of psychiatry. Given that, I couldn’t say, because I’m not sure what changes within psychiatry that I’m aware of have been prompted because of external activism.
I see potential for good in re-emphasizing the systemic problems of psychiatry, and in examining the social components of the discipline.
Obviously I don’t find mention of scientology to be, in and of itself, mocking. In the context of comment #15, however? Why, yes. I did read that as mockery, or at the very least, as “dismissal-with-a-wink-and-a-smile.” There may be some difference between the two, but it’s not a very large one.
Reading over the manifesto delivered in comment #13 (which was the one that I refered to), I see nothing “dangerously ignorant.” I consider some of the points somewhat over-stated — I am not personally fond of the rhetorical device of slinging Holocaust parallels about, nor of the characterization of things other than actual political philosophies as “fascist” — and many others over-generalized. I do not, however, think that the generalizations about “psychiatrists” are very different than similar rhetorical generalizations about, say, men (ie, “men rape”), or white folks, or any other oppressor class. Psychiatrists do, in fact, do all of the things that Samantha’s manifesto accuses them of; even more to the point, the psychiatric establishment fosters a culture which encourages them. Not all psychiatrists are guilty of doing all of those things, but then, not all men rape, either.
The points on which I would outright disagree are #4 and #10.
I think that there is scientific evidence to suggest that there are genetic and biochemical aspects to certain types of “mental illness,” although I also think that the psychiatric establishment has a nasty tendency both to pretend that it understands those correlations far better than in fact it does, and also to overstate the extent to which these correlations have been “scientifically proven.” The conclusions of studies on the claimed genetic predisposition to schizophrenia, for example, are all over the map. Studies done in Scandinavia yield very different results than studies done in other parts of the world. It’s possible that this is because the constellation of symptoms that we define as “schizophrenia” may in fact be a number of completely different conditions, each with a completely different cause. Nonetheless, I would absolutely disagree that “there are no genetic factors in ‘mental illness.'” I think that there are likely genetic factors for many conditions; we just don’t quite understand how they work yet. At any rate, I would never claim that those factors point-blank don’t exist.
As for #10, I’m honestly not sure what it means to say that psychiatry is “not a medical science.” Truthfully, medical science isn’t a “medical science” either, if by that one means a practice that never suggests remedies for ailments without full understanding of the process by which they work. In other words, I think that “medical science” often operates on exactly the same trial-and-error, “we don’t really know why this works but what the hell, sometimes it does, so let’s give it a shot” basis as psychiatry does.
For the rest, I would quibble mainly with the phrasing. (Then, I’m not much of a manifesto person. They always read like foolishly overstated propaganda to me, even when I approve of their agenda.) I think that it is necessary to read the manifesto with the understanding that its points refer to an entrenched psychiatric establishment which is often extremely malign in its practice, as well as dangerously (and often dishonestly) secretive and protective of its hegemony. I know people who have been helped by psychiatrists, or by psychiatric medications. But many others have been very deeply harmed, and part of the reason for that is that the psychiatric establishment itself is desperately in need of radical reform. I don’t know if I would myself call for the “abolishment of psychiatry.” But I can certainly understand why those more radical than I am, or more pessimistic about the possibility of useful reform, would do such a thing. I think that radicalism is a necessary aspect of any movement which seeks to change the status quo, even if I personally tend to more moderate positions.
Edited to add:
I was not aware that scientology was the “movement that represents these concepts in the public square.” Perhaps I don’t frequent the same public square that you do, or maybe I’ve just not been paying sufficient attention to what goes on in the square these days. :) I do know that scientology is opposed to both psychiatry and psychology, but I had not realized that they had become the public face of all criticism of the psychiatric establishment.
Elkins:
I was primarily reacting to comment 14, not the manifesto in 13. It was in comment 14 that I found the things I find dangerously ignorant — in re: the assertion that schizophrenia doesn’t exist, that all psychoactive medications are poison, etc.
I should have been clearer about that when I was replying to you. My apologies.
Mandolin, yeah, I get you. #14 struck me as pretty much an incoherent rant as well, containing much with which I would quibble.
Bean, I think we agree on the fundamentals in terms of “what ought be done.” However, it is not a “lie” that many psych meds cause brain damage. Tardive diskinesia, tardive akathisia, tardive tourettism and NMS are all neurological disorders caused by the use of neuroleptics and SSRIs. This isn’t even in scientific dispute–hell, not even among psychiatrists!
People being prescribed those medications these days are now often warned about the possibility that they will develop these disorders (although far too often, they still are not — nor sometimes even told what it is that they are being forced to ingest). Thirty years ago, that was absolutely not the case. Why did that change? Activism had a lot to do with it.
(Activism is also the reason that you can no longer be given ECT against your consent without a judicial proceeding. This has made it much harder for hospital staff to use the threat of ECT as a way of cowing or deterring difficult patients and would-be whistle-blowers, something that used to happen with depressing frequency. This, IMO, is a Very Good Thing.)
Many of the newer anti-psychotic medications are much safer. This has not, however, caused the most toxic of them to be retired from use. Haloperidol/Haldol is still widely used in mental hospitals across the country. In fact, they’re now developing year-long implants of Haldol. The idea is to implant it into people’s bodies, in order to make it impossible for them to choose to go off of their meds for at least a year.
Is neurological damage a fair trade-off for the suppression of symptoms that some people enjoy while on these drugs? In some cases, maybe it is. If you can hold a job and take care of yourself on a neuroleptic like Haldol, but you can’t do those things when off of it, then yeah, I can see why you might choose to accept the side-effects, even including the risk of developing severe neurological damage. Most people do not in fact want to accept that trade-off, though — the “non-compliance” rates for these drugs are absolutely astounding, possibly because in addition to having very unpleasant side-effects, they also just don’t work very well for many people — but I can see why, if they did work for you, you might choose to accept the risk. I think that should be up to the individual to decide.
Unfortunately, psychiatric patients are often not recognized as people for whom consent is a meaningful concept.
As for the “brainwashing” claim…well, these drugs are used in hospitals to render patients more compliant, more tractable. The term “chemical straitjacket” was originally coined by a doctor in support of the (then-new) neuroleptics, not by a patient’s rights activist, even if patient’s rights activists are the ones who most often use it these days. Is that “brainwashing?” I don’t know, but I sure do know that I don’t like it.
Sure. The problem with psychiatry in particular, though, is that the APA is a very powerful, very entrenched organization that has a history of blindly defending its wrong-doers and protecting them from investigation, while strenuously resisting attempts at dialogue, much less reform. Organizations like the American Federation of Teachers don’t have quite the same history of defending and protecting their rapists and abusers, marginalizing their would-be reformers, etc., which sort of weakens the comparison to my mind. A better comparison, IMO, might be with the police force, another organization whose very serious problems at the institutional level have the effect of enabling individual abuses of power.
Bean’s right on.
The way it usually works in these things (see, e.g. homeopathy, home birth, scientology) is that the “alternative” group is really about rejecting something. It’s not about providing MORE alternatives, it’s about providing equally limited (and often less substantiated) alternatives, all while trying to claim the elusive moral high ground.
Interestingly, all the psychiatrists I’ve known and worked with support full and open disclosure. So, as a general rule, do their professional organizations. Does everyone meet the perfect ideal? Of course not–they’re human–but they try.
They’d get my full support for increasing disclosure. But I’ll fight them if they try to limit it. And that’s what this manifesto is. I don’t tend to trust anyone without doing my own research… but if they force me to choose between an M.D. and a manifesto, I’ll choose the M.D.
You don’t think that organizations and their cultures/philosophies can perpetuate deeply-entrenched attitudes which foster “bad seeds?” I’m very surprised to hear that. Are there any organizations which you do think have a harmful internal culture, a culture of damaging philosophies? What served as the proof to convince you that this was indeed the case?
I’m really not sure where you’re getting this. Organizations run on the Soteria house model accept as residents both people on anti-psych meds and those who are not taking them. Neuroleptics and the like are no more forbidden in that model than they are compulsory. How is that providing fewer alternatives than a residential mental health model in which medication is strictly compulsory?
Nor, for that matter, are most midwives who aid in home births opposed to medical intervention when such intervention seems appropriate, indicated or necessary. Many, many OB/GYNs and hospitals are fully supportive of home birth these days. Honestly, I had no idea that home birth was even considered all that “alternative” any more, far less that people were still frightening themselves with boogies of crazy midwives who lock their charges in the bedroom to keep them from going to the hospital if they need to.
I’m a part of this movement too. The claim Bean makes about activists indoctrinating people off their medication and onto pet rocks is a myth. You really ought to attach some names to these accusations.
I don’t hear prescriptives from the folks at the Icarus Project, David Oaks at Mindfreedom, Phil Dawdy at the blog Furious Seasons, or any of the grassroots groups, besides scientologists, who I think we’ve established do not represent the dominant view. In fact, it’s prescriptivists like bean here who explode into cant when some heretic comes around and lets loose a manifesto that harshes their religion. All this certainty about the biologic underpinnings of mental illness, pharma-babble, outrageous claims of pathogenisis and aetiology, it’s all very predictable and unwarranted, really, based on the stimuli that activated the torrent. These are straw men.
Grass roots advocacy among consumers/x-patients and psychiatric survivors is about telling one’s narrative and respect for autonomy, including the autonomy of your allies. I don’t know any activists besides scientologists who lay down the law, but they’re all fucked up. It is arguably psychiatrists, psychologists and journalists on the front lines of critical psychiatry today, spurred by the takeover of the biological model of mental illness and cozy big pharma fix for what ails us.
I think the pro-med verses no-med battle between activists is overstated. At any rate, when it comes up we can talk about why it’s not so good to yank another off their path and onto yours. But to imagine having such a reasonable conversation means assuming we critics of psychiatry are reasonable people, and not dangerous, harmful pit of hell wreckers who want to take your meds from you. Bean, you can let that terror float, there is no possibility that anyone is ever going to confiscate your medication. We’re just trying to keep it out of the water supply.
As for the incoherent and strident posts by people in this thread who have lived through terrifying experiences at the hands of the psychiatric establishment, what do you expect? These folks are traumatized, and recognition of that has been denied them. Trauma doesn’t just disappear over time or go into abeyance when you write a blog comment. Where’s the compassion for what they’ve been through and so clearly have yet to recover from?
” All this certainty about the biologic underpinnings of mental illness, pharma-babble, outrageous claims of pathogenisis and aetiology, it’s all very predictable and unwarranted, really, based on the stimuli that activated the torrent. These are straw men.”
They aren’t straw men. They are responses to claims that were made on the thread.
“Trauma doesn’t just disappear over time or go into abeyance when you write a blog comment. Where’s the compassion for what they’ve been through and so clearly have yet to recover from?”
Whatever trauma they’ve been through, of course is regrettable/terrible. But, at least in 14, that wasn’t the context of how the commenter approached the thread.
“I’m a part of this movement too. The claim Bean makes about activists indoctrinating people off their medication and onto pet rocks is a myth. ”
Since Bean was describing a personal experience and not something she’d heard, you’ve got some gall — you’re basically accusing her of a direct, bald-faced lie.
And certainly, there are accusations that scientologists have done this kind of thing, to the detriment of individual psychiatric patients. Your line about scientologists “laying down the law, but they’re all fucked up” didn’t make sense to me, because it wasn’t clear whether you were representing your actual position or satirizing what you think Bean’s/mine/Sailorman’s positions are.
Right. Well, that speaks volumes, doesn’t it? It’s hardly unexpected, however. Trying to talk about these issues with people who are intrinsically hostile to the discussion is always a little bit like trying to have a meaningful exchange on alt.feminism back in the early 90s. It’s the sort of thing at which Amp excels, but it’s really not my cup o’ tea. Flawedplan has given a nice list of places readers can go, though, should they decide that they do want to educate themselves.
At any rate, since somehow I can no longer, as flawedplan put it, “imagine having such a reasonable conversation” in this particular venue, I am happy also to let the matter drop.
And not a moment too soon, for my home city of Portland, Oregon!
(Oh dear. Literalizing my metaphors again. What will people think?)
ETA:
Mandolin, I think the passage that confused you is probably meant to be parsed like so:
“I don’t know any activists besides scientologists who lay down the law…”
Translation: “The only activists I know who try to dictate others’ choices re: treatment are those scientologists…”
“…but they’re all fucked up.”
Translation: “…and, yeah, the scientologists are fucked up.”
Thanks for the translation, Elkins. That makes sense.
I said it was a myth. You should look that word up. There’s always a little bit of truthiness in a myth.
Bean has let this fringey, dogmatic and authoritarian radical from her workplace define her perception of the psychiatric survivor movement, but she sounds equally dogmatic to me, and that’s what we’re trying to cure.
Even the federal government under George Bush can do better than that, the SAMHSA home page describes the consumer/survivor/x patient in respectful terms. Like anything, it comes down to being educable.
At any rate, it’s good to see this discussion turning up here, and I appreciate the dissident voice. Listen to Elkins, read Mad In America, learn of these matters or get used to the pushback.
I’ve no doubt that some critics of psychiatry (or of many other aspects of institutionalized medicine) are reasonable people. Similarly, I have no doubts that some psychiatrists or M.D. are horrible evil people.
And, of course, even UNreasonable people can be right. So can horrible people.
But I have spent a fair bit of time in discussions with a variety of alternative groups, and so far I have yet to find one that is generally presenting reasonable arguments, esp. as compared to the medical/scientific community. Labels like “prescriptivists” and “heretics” together with general allusions to “big pharma” conspiracies don’t do a huge amount to increase my confidence that you can discuss this reasonably. How many posts before someone invokes Galileo? People always bring up Galileo….
Anyway.
Are there some claims in post #13, say, that are correct? Surely there are. But not all of them.
And that’s where the alternative groups and scientific groups usually differ. Make a scientific claim, and a scientist somewhere is likely to attack it, test it, disagree with it, disprove it, and so on. The more incredible the claim, the more likely it’ll get attacked.
Scientists don’t always give each other a break–the self policing isn’t perfect, but it exists. However, I have rarely (almost never) seen an alternative medicine proponent attack one of their own, even for statements that are blatantly false. That, for me, is a big credibility issue. It also makes arguing with folks who do that fairly unprofitable.
Do you police your own? If so: pick out the statements in #13 that you agree with, and those you think aren’t true. Then, maybe, we’ll have something to argue about.
flawedplan writes:
“I said it was a myth. You should look that word up. There’s always a little bit of truthiness in a myth. ”
Okay, so what you meant to say was “this happens infrequently, but is reported with a frequency and vehemence that is out of proportion and has helped it gain legendary status?”
Otherwise, I refuse to get into an argument with you about the word “myth.” My reading was possible, even likely, from the words that you used.
Sailorman writers:
“Do you police your own? If so: pick out the statements in #13 that you agree with, and those you think aren’t true. Then, maybe, we’ll have something to argue about.”
To be fair, I think Elkins did this.
“Alternative medicine proponent”, that’s not what this thread is about. You’re conflating bean’s experience with some nonsense in your own head about what critical psychiatry is about.
This is a civil rights issue.
We are resisting the biological model of mental illness.
The model that tells a rape victim that her lived experience is irrelevant, that her emotional problems are the result of a genetic defect. We miss our therapists. They are gone.
Blow away, sailerman, are you a cop? “Police our own,” policing sucks. Let me remind you what this is about. People who have done no harm to anyone yanked by cops into psych wards and forced to take drugs that make them sicker. Three year old foster kids on six psychotropics a day. Rape and murder in state institutions, these are norms, do you live in a bubble?
Have you read the NYTimes this week? Morality, justice and yes, science is on our side. The blogosphere is filled with professional smackdowns by ethicists, academics, clinicians, and researchers, have at it.
The Texas Youth Commission has over 2,000 investigations going on right now, Massachusett’s Judge Rotenberg Center continues to flourish, you don’t know what’s going on is because you avoid learning. Georgia? Look, look at this child. Look at her face. She’s dead. That is the norm, which is what the first c/s/x commenter tried to tell you, before you scratched your collective chins and decided it must be scientology.
Shame on you for demanding living victims adhere to your rhetorical template. You speak of privilege a lot here, but you don’t practice what you preach. And it’s complete assholery to jump on post 13 as if it is representative of anything but the desperate soul who has a google alert for “anti-psychiatry” and spams blogs with it when the opportunity presents. Assholery.
What is the matter with you people? It’s all about the defamation. I really wish I knew what you get out of that. Speak of this, what you have against people who have suffered more than you, send me a link to your blog, I will read it with objectivity and respect.
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Eh. I suck at bowing out.
Sailorman, although the anti-psychiatry/consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement emphasizes grassroots, and is therefore focused more on psychiatric survivors and mental health consumers than it is on professionals, many of its most influential members and allies are scientists. And yes, they spend a good deal of time attacking, testing, disagreeing, and debunking the unsupported claims of their colleagues. That’s where much of the emphasis on controversies over the internal workings and policies and politics of the APA comes into the picture. (It’s also one of the reasons that even the non-professionals involved in this movement have a funny tendency to throw around words like “pathogenesis” and “etiology” without blinking an eye — it’s a side-effect of reading far too many medical research abstracts.) Loren Mosher was the chief of NIMH’s Center for the Study of Schizophrenia, for heaven’s sake!
The assumptions you are making about the movement are interesting, but I think that they may be coming more from what you imagine it might be like than from any actual knowledge of it.
MindFreedom International is not a bad place to start if you want to learn more.
Wow. I accidentally found this blog…very interesting. I found that last ‘discussion’ re: Scientology and psychiatry and medication, etc sort-of ENDLESS.
I was a forensic patient at OSH for six years, as an adult, and several friends died there. One as a result of “use of excessive force” that caused him to stop breathing, and the other was a heart attack. He had been telling the staff for several days that he had chest pain and shortness of breath and they did nothing. He dropped dead of a cardiac arrest about 30 feet down the hallway from me. A bit traumatic.
I was also a ‘victim’ of “use of excessive force” and had torn ligaments in my knee. This was done deliberately by a certain staff person. Long after he quit (or was fired for another offense) a friend of his told me that he had admitted to him that he had done it on purpose, though the Office of Investigations could not find evidence to substantiate my claim. He had a black-belt in Karate. I still have problems with my knee. Oh well, huh?
There are plenty of studies done on staff being traumatized by patient violence in mental institutions, but in my humble opinion the patients are much more traumatized just by being in the hospital. It’s dehumanizing, a lot of the staff are condescending, patients are traumatized by other patients violent behavior towards them and staff, and it’s a giant case of PTSD–if you didn’t already have it before you got there! Pramagram
“MindFreedom International is not a bad place to start if you want to learn more.”
Thanks for posting the link, Elkins.
I’m going to chime in here with just a small comment. My daughter stopped talking[as in once a chatter, now mostly mute]over a year ago, and exactly 13 days after a children’s hospital dumped her to an adult county facility on the morning of her 18th birthday. What she witnessed, I did as well, there and inside Western State in Washington. There is no doubt the trauma affected her; and still does. I got her out of Western within days of my letter exposing the sexual pretator comment a nurse told me when she was kicked into that setting, after I won a battle to get her back to Children’s as an”exception” to their no-treatment of 18 year olds in our psych unit rule. Once the 6 weeks was up, and she was awake for 10 days on boatloads of antipsychotics, childrens deemed her “unable to stabilize”. Thus the shipment of her to the state hospital, for what children’s called “need of long term care”. She was mute, scared and terrified. I stayed there as many hours of the day as possible to be a staff person and watch her, when the nurse asked me if she could “say NO to sexual assault, because we have many sexually pre-occupied patients on this ward.”
Why would any person, man or woman–have to say no to sexual assault, watch their backs, in the name of psychiatric treatment is deplorable to say the least.
This is reality behind the closed doors of state hospitals, and whether it be by staff or patient, sexual assault, physical violence, is sadly the accepted norm.
It spoke volumes to me, when I saw the Director holding the letter in hand that I had written to the Governor. Someone read it, and guess what their answer was?
Discharge the patient. Fix the system? nah–why would we do that?
Hey Stephany. Congrats that you were ABLE to get your daughter out of there, and that you were ABLE to spend a lot of time with her while she was there. That’s highly unusual.
Not only are there highly sexualized patients, but people who are slightly higher functioning than the average bear often form close relationships with staff, thinking they are in love. The staff person, in THEIR own mind often convinces themselves that they truly love and care about this patient, too, and a relationship begins that is in actuality, abuse. The staff person can be married or whatever and go home to their families, yet the patient is locked up. How convenient! The element of dangerous excitement heightens the infatuation and it proceeds until the patient is truly building their world around this person because they have such a strong need for touch, for love, for affection. The staff person may want to back off, which often blows up into a suicide attempt by the patient. There is denial by the staff if it comes out, because they are very careful to cover their tracks. If they get ‘busted’ then the staff is put on Administrative Leave and there is an investigation.
Then there is the other side of the coin…sometimes sick mo’fo’ ‘s want the affection or attention of another patient who is not at all interested in them, so they claim that a certain staff and that patient have something going on. It is a horrible ordeal for the patient and staff to go through an unwarranted investigation. This is not too unusual either.
There are always people who have been working in the ‘system’ a long time and know the ins-an-outs very well. Last year, a male staff that I would never have thought would do something like that was arrested for sexual assault on a 13-year-old AT HIS HOME! He was one of the GOOD GUYS when I was in the hosp!
When you’re a patient in there, you never know who to trust, because you will ALWAYS be surprised. And your fellow patients that you thought were so nice or who were kind and you were friends with…they get out and start doing meth and you hear they were arrested for rape, kidnapping and murder!!
It’s sad and it IS scarier than hell. I thank GOD I’m not there.
“Congrats that you were ABLE to get your daughter out of there, and that you were ABLE to spend a lot of time with her while she was there. That’s highly unusual.”
This is one thing I never forget, and is mostly how I remain grounded now. Knowing she is out of there is such a relief, I think I will be relieved my entire life. It was very unusual for me to be inside there, and other places as well. I learned quite a lot, and saw much room for improvement. I seriously never cried for people I didn’t know so much—when meeting many people who I wish too—could get out. Sadly, some never will. The way the patients were maintained [who crossed boundaries, or became violent] with medication. Pramagram, I’m glad you aren’t there too.
I’ll second what flawedplan wrote May 11th, 2007 at 7:07 am. Anti-psychiatry, or more relevantly, critical psychiatry, is a very broad school, and one not typically beset by ideological stoushes and insurrections. Rather mature of us, don’t you think, given that some of us are supposed to have a few screws loose!
It’s simply not true that there are a pack of non-Scientologist purists running around telling people to throw away their pills. (It is in fact a favourite manoeuvre of mainstream psychiatry to stereotype all its critics as scientologists in order to homogenise their various critiques, and ultimately, have them dismissed as a bunch of crackpots.) While Philip Dawdy, the author of Furious Seasons, one of the more widely read blogs, spends of lot of time critiquing the practices of pharmaceutical companies in testing and marketing their drugs, there is nothing on his blog that says “Don’t take your medication.” Indeed, he cites his own 98% medication compliance rate! There is (I think) a general distrust of the practice of poly-pharmacy (i.e. loading patients up on multiple drugs, often at high doses), but if someone is in a lot of pain, what you reasonably say to them if they find a medication that helps, and they are knowledgeable about and comfortable with its side- and long-term effects? That’s it just the placebo effect? So what – if it’s helping, it’s helping!
I’m somewhat closer to the more radical end of the spectrum, as I chose not to take medication – however, I have, as a consenting adult, chosen to take it in the past, and who knows – maybe one day I’ll be convinced to try it again!
I just read several articles about this subject, and it made me so sad. When I was a teen, I spent over 2 months in the Oregon State Hospital. Yes, sexual abuse happened. Yes, it was covered up. It surprises me that any has come to light. The number of victims- many more than ever reported.
While I was there, I caught a worker on the night shift watching us change our clothes. That evening the couple of girls that actually had a room were standing in the common area, we were all in various states of undress when I had a strange feeling and looked at the doorway. He was standing there, just watching. I reported the incident right away to the staff in charge- the other girls who also saw him reported as well. Each of us was punished until we recanted. I was the last, and only did when staff threatened retribution on the others- threatening me did no good.
The outcome? The man was reassigned a different unit- one with more vulnerable children. There was never a police report.
Of course the hospital covered up abuse. Who should believe a bunch of crazy kids, anyway?
It was a sad place. My memories- they hurt.
Well folks I had the luxury of attending the” hotel of horror” here in Eugene Oregon a police hold for me to go to a phyc ward. My fears were extremely out of control considering the beat down and assault on me because I was sitting in my car not doing anything except gathering my thoughts/and they grabbed me the pepper spray was inserted right by my ear canal and the bastard filled up my ear so it was dripping out of my ears and my eyes because the door on my car was jammed( they accused me of RESITING ARREST? THE KNEW I HAD THE DIAGNOSES OF BI-POLAR/ THE KNEW I WAS UNDER PROTECTION OF THE FEDERAL LAWS OF THE LAND NAMELY THE AMERICAN DISABILITIES ACT OF 1973…. …. …. I wonder what a FEDERAL JUDGE WOULD SAY TO THIS TREATMENT BY A ROOKIE COP THAT WAS IN FEAR OF A 50 year old woman who happened to be sitting in her car on private property???? GIMME A BREAK!
Recently seems like I spent more time in jail than real criminals. I guess I am a non-conformist and that is good in some ways. You see I told them that I was having problems and yes the stress was high in my life. I had tried to make a difference in the county budget by getting rid of a nice $637,000 per year place that is used for people who power trip.(A COUNTY PROGRAM THAT ONE ALREADY HAD EXISTED AND BY DISBANDING THIS PROGRAM THE GENERAL FUND COULD HIRE REAL HONEST COPS INSTEAD OF MEAN ONES) On the day that this program was to lose its general fund money some body Some idiot!!!spiked my coffee with LSD. At least that is what the shrink said after 5 days on a police hold. I had never gone to jail before it was utterly disgusting. Old food left to rot with mold all over the corner in the holding cell.
I know if a health Dept. person was to see the toilet paper that was thrown up on the ceiling over a air circulation vent they would just shut the whole jail down in order to protect people from germs that are multiplying because of the Lack of Cleaning people? GUESS THE COUNTY CAN”T AFFORD A JANITOR?? . THEY should have tested for any germs that apparently were circulating around my cell. THE CIVIL RIGHT TO A PHONE CALL WHAT A JOKE ??You are suppose to get to call someone to bail your ass out?Yipes!!!! a collect call? TWENTY EIGHT DOLLAR( for a four minute call to my mom) just to tell my folks I was O.k. RIP-OFF DOT COM??? They make big bucks on violating FEDERAL LAW to have access to the family or friends ( if you don’t have long distance and you use an access code? YOU DO NOT CALL YOUR HOME BECAUSE COLLECT CALLS FROM JAIL ARE BLOCKED!!!!) Soon things will pull together and change. NOW SOONER THAN LATER WOULD BE GOOD enough for me. I so wish things like THIS MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE ON ME and MY FAMILY Didn’t matter but it really does matter because I will make the powers to be LISTEN AND THEY WILL HEAR MY SCREAMS and at the endof this particular chapter in my life; I will walk away … After all the injustices turn around. I WILL LOOK UP INTO THE SKY AND ASK THE OLD MAN UPSTAIRS HEY GOD>>> DO you think ????THEY CAN HEAR ME NOW???
It doesn’t matter. The doctor in the phyc ward? He insisted I must be delusional/They gave me drugs I was highly allergic too, they fed me raw bloody Roast Beef sandwich on my tray**** because I didn’t conform too their game ( I REFUSED TO PUT POISONS IN MY BODY)I knew something was up, actually I threw the sandwich away and didn’t eat food for two days because of trust issues on the thought…. I may get sick after rebelling against the ORDERED TREATMENT PLAN ( I informed them ‘We don’t live in RUSSIA’ and my relatives spilled their blood to have freedom to CHOOSE about our own bodies and what we PUT INTO OUR BODIES!!!! and the “Bill of Rights”. I told him in Eugene Oregon to Call my regular doctor/ CAll the pharmacy and see how many drugs I am allergic too??? The begging didn’t help{ THE DEAFNESS IN THE DOCTORS EARS HAD SETTLED IN AND HE HAD ASSUMED I WAS CRAZY} You can’t treat me like a regular person( I tried to warn them I told the truth what the hell good is it to tell the truth when No one Listens unless you have a Lawyer sitting by your side??. I am one in a million to be allergic to most drugs on the market these days. I saw an old lady in there she was 62 years old she said …. She had called the police because someone new in the foster home was stealing her money and clothes Because it happened to be a mentally
ill person ? THE COPS TREATED A Little old lady this way!! Hauled her butt down a wheel chair ramp dragging her from the foster home Stomping on her face ????ON MOTHERS DAY?? ONLY A FEW MONTHS AGO, she has been in maximum security JOHNSON WARD because she made a call believing the PUBLIC SERVANTS WORK FOR US?? I GUESS NOT!!! DON”T ASK FOR HELP UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET BEAT DOWN IN EUGENE OREGON> and she got laced with drugs and three electroshock.. treatments? The old lady developed tremors?? After the second or third SHOCK TREATMENT WE all in EUGENE SHOULD BOW OUR HEADS IN SHAME FOR ALLOWING THIS TO HAPPEN TO A LITTLE OLD LADY!!! HOW ON GODS EARTH DID OUR MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEM GET SO FAR OUT OF CONTROL???We all live with our heads so far stuck in darkness that everyone sits by and does nothing??? GIMME A BREAK!
she looked as if she had RING WORM on her arms. It was in reality the BURNS ON HER ARM FROM ELECTROSHOCK. THIS was disgusting and totally inhumane.. The man who ran the place? He may have cared a long time ago but it seems that he is a bit overwhelmed and burned out from caring about people with problems. True compassion/ no matter what/ darkness. I said Hey life’s too short ”
You have to make the best out of a bad situation” The doctor TOFU didn’t like me because ” I TOLD THE TRUTH” He wanted me to take drugs and a few nights I complied I felt like saying {RESISTANCE IS FUTILE} What really makes me burn is that many people just needed guidance/NOT DRUGS.
There are injustices in this world but why do they insist shocking your brain to create a mental block, with the thought well maybe it will work who cares about these poor people they don’t matter is the prevailing attitude in the general public they are too busy to care to find out the truth?? THE NEWS REPORTER THAT I CALLED WHILE I WAS THERE?? They never bothered to call me back at home.. Thats o.k. I have a woman in BOSTON that would gladly tell my story.. The REAL story of my life dealing with a diagnoses of mental illness. If they had a volunteer task force to enforce the federal laws of the ADA 1973 a federal law was passed to PROTECT THESE PEOPLE? The DOCTOR HERE MUST HAVE JUST FORGOTTEN HE TOO IS BOUND BY THE LAWS OF THE LAND> Oh thats right he is a doctor he doesn’t have to follow the LAW HE IS ABOVE THE lAW.. BECAUSE HE HAS ALL THE POWER RIGHT??? PEOPLE LISTEN AND HEAR ME GOOD WE CHOOSE> THATS WHAT FREEDOM OF CHOICE IS ALL ABOUT!
STAND UP AND STAND TALL BELIEVE IN YOURSELF ENOUGH TO SPEAK UP AND TELL THE TRUTH> JUST LIKE ROBIN WILLIAMS SAID WE ARE LIKE SHEEP AND WHEN WILL WE LEARN TO SPEAK OUT WHEN AN INJUSTICE IS BEING DONE TO OUR FELLOW NEIGHBORS/ OUR FRIENDS OUR FAMILY IN EUGENE OREGON WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOWN WE ALL MATTER>> QUIT ALLOWING THEM TO WALK ON US>> AMERICAN JUSTICE>>> DON”T TREAD ON ME>>> The freedom fighters and the revolutionists in the 13 colonies used these words and they still echo JUSTICE LIBERTY PEACE? WHEN will they ever learn? On that Note.. Its early am and “GOOD MORNING VIETNAM”!!!! We are about to get this train going A OUIET rebellion to right the wrongs, and get back to not fearing your neighbor.. make friends each day! Take time to play! It is IMPORTANT to learn to live and just relax!!! Life goes on..Just take a walk look up and see the birds quit worrying about your bills.
Enjoy the freedoms that are bestowed upon us from the Military men who fought so hard to keep these rights alive in the Americas. The great experiment
(THAT HAS GONE TERRIBLY WRONG) We really did have a BOSTON TEA PARTY?? Some school teachers don’t have a clue why anyone would throw tea into the Ocean BAY on the EAST Coast? mustv’e been those wacky weirdos??
Take back! Your Civil Liberties and rights to be /who you are/ and stand tall /with your head up high/, Never be Ashamed to have a mental illness.
It has made me terrible strong willed because of all the abuse I have survived Here in our lovely town of Eugene OREGON.. 97402
THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE LEFT IN THIS WORLD>> >> THANKS FOR LISTENING>> YOUR WEB SITE IS SO COOL…
SOME PEOPLE JUST HAVE A BAD DAY? THATS WHEN YOU NEED POSITIVE INPUT around the ones that are depressed. your in a process to gain your strength back and your life back? Just make sure and document/ what you can prove in court.. Because they will get the message/ I am out of lock up/ and need some very complex legally versed in FEDERAL LAW ASSISTANCE ? Good independent ? Opened minded guy/or gal: who loves too really see justice PREVAIL AND IS NOT GREEDY NEED NOT APPLY IF THEY CARE ONLY OF MONEY.. I need a decent lawyer, ya know they say just ask so i am using this venue to ask,,, I would surely appreciate some real legal help D> Hope… ,, …
All right, now it is obvious for me that #13 was not a Scientology-inspired manifesto; it is an independent (from Scientology), grassroot-originated anti-psychiatry manifesto. Thanks for the additional info for all.
How did a post about rape and abuse of psychiatric inpatient teenagers and children turn into a an argument about whether psychiatric survivors have any legitimacy? This is so sad. And the blind belief in the myth of a biological basis of schizophrenia is sad also on an educated blog. There is no proof of such in fact cutting edge researchers are now saying schizophrenia is NOT one disease but many different ones and others are finally admitting that trauma plays a huge role in triggering the onset of serious mental illness. The federal government under George Bush admits it, 70%+ of psychiatric female inpatients have a history of sexual or other abuse.
This is hardly radical knowledge. I just recently went to a federal conference of mental health planning councils since I am president of Virginia’s and there was a great presentation on trauma in psychiatric care and trauma causing mental illness and causing mis-diagnosis of trauma based disorders, especially in women, as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Are folks here thinking the feds are scientologists?
And to the apologist for current conditions at Oregon state hospital, it is still under Dept. of Justice investigation for CURRENT conditions, which are appalling.
This is so disheartening to read. So sad, we have so far to go. Sometimes I just want to give up talking to non-survivors.
OHSU uses drugged surgical patients at PDX VA, Three Rivers, and other locations to teach pelvic, rectal, and breast exams. They also employ bait and switch surgeries, that is tell you one person will perform the surgery or procedure when students, residents and fellows will be stepping in with various levels of supervision. If you request this not be done, or even just request no members of opposite sex for intimate procedures once you are under anesthesia they will do as they please. This is called medical rape, it sets up conditions conductive to sexual abuse and there are indications (including post surgical patients suffering unexplainable STD infections) that this is also happening.
McKean,
I’m interested in reading more about this. (The abuse of drugged surgical patients, or patients suffering from post-surgery sexually transmitted infections.)
Can you point me to any sources for this?
Phil,
Why are you interested? Are you interested in OHSU/PDX VA. or just the general practice? for general practice see below, if you want to know more about OHSU/PDX VA in particular you need to email me, tell me who you are and why you want to know.
Just google “unauthorized pelvic exams” and you will find a lot.
Also, see Arrogance, Abuse, Fraud, Medical Malpractice: How some Physicians Beg for lawsuits for a well researched story with many references.
McKean,
Thanks! I found that helpful.
Basically, I’m a teacher, and I try to assign research topics that are significant and different each semester. I think this is worth finding more about.
Phil,
what do you teach. this is acutally a great subject for a college ethics class. also good material for law students on medical battery, consent issues, and such. Also, you should know that this is a woman doing a documentary on practice exams. I am not sure of the details, but you should be able to find them out w/a little research.
Well I am back again on the Blog re-read my long e-mail posting. All I can say is that being a survivor takes its toll when people don’t believe what you say.
I try hard to tell the horror stories only to find myself wondering how do I take my life back? I want a do over… It has been all a big joke to laugh at I suppose.
I wondering in a few weeks who will be laughing last? I plan on filing complaints to the correct powers to be… I hope that one gal gets fired, considering her actions of refusing to let me talk to my friends. This I can prove in court, and i will refuse on a Plea( when I did nothing wrong.. Go figure.. Just hope the public defender acts
as if she really cares.. usually you know within a few minutes if they care But in the last few years the good guys are dwindling. I think that all shrinks should take the drugs they prescribe in a closed monitored setting. see how they react to these drugs? why not? Wouldn’t it be beneficial for understanding what these drugs actually do? Lets take a vote.. Oh thats right we live in a little Russia.
we couldn’t possibly have a real 185 dollar per hour person try out these drugs?
I wonder why? Who made that law? I think it should be a requirement for these doctors to really see what Hell the certain drugs do? Got to hit the hay.. catch you on the rebound DEBBIE HOPE
I scored very high on my application to work in the State hospital. Funny thing is, I was not able to work there on the account of a reference who said I was not reliable because he didn’t want me out of his company. I asked them to check my other references KNOWING I they would only have good things to hear, but wouldn’t. Yet, there are rapists there??? YIKES!
There is more sexual abuse now in the news at the Portland campus, a custodian and a female patient, he’s been arrested after being caught in the act. Hard to imagine a custodian being alone with a patient without help from somebody else who worked there or negligence on the part of other staff but he’s the only one in trouble.
Just discovered through my own investigation that physicians are trained to lie to women who request the absence of male care while they are under anesthsia. They are taught to stage a little play that goes something like, “Oh, look an all female team. How rare, it will be like a slumber party….” As soon as you are compleatly under a gang of males will enter for prep, practice exams, and to perform the procedure. You will be told afterwords that, “when women say no men they mean it and they followed your instructions”. Check your medical records, they attempt to cover, but more often than not you will find evidence of violations of your wishes.
I have heard of female patients under anesthesia at OHSU being left fully uncovered while janitors cleaned around them.
Female patients throughout Oregon, and many places in Washington and Idaho are subjected to OHSU contracted bait and switch student procedures. That is Oregon patients are being subjected to gangs of students performing pelvic, breast, and rectal exams while they are under anesthesia waiting for surgery, they are not being given surgical care by the doctors the contract to do the procedures, but students step in and perform after patient is drugged. Female patients are often left in the care of males without female supervision in the state of Oregon. There is no law against practice exams on drugged patients and consent for procedures are being acquired after patients are drugged.
Women are suffering both medical and sexual rape while they are under anesthesia in the state of Oregon at a rate higher than most other states. It is time for a change. It is time for the criminal prosecution of a few doctors, residents and students, for battery.
We could start with Dr. Judith Collins at OHSU, who after I repeatedly asked her not to bring in males in any capacity during a colonoscopy, and she stated she would not, she ordered I be drugged and then escorted in male students and techs to perform procedure and do practice exams.
We can also start with Dr. Karen Kwong of OHSU/PDX V.A. who after I wrote “no males” on consent form she tried again to get consent while I was heavily drugged, again I said no, but he did it anyway. There were males participating in practice breast and pelvic exams, practice caths (by male students supervised by male doctor), surgery, prep, and post op care.
Then we can go after the Chief of General Surgery at PDX V.A. the man who supervised the cath lab rape, and insisted my requests be ignored.
Then I can go after the residents, students, nurses, techs, CNAs, who conspired to commit these acts of patient battery.
Then perhaps when they have nothing left to protect themselves from, I could get a little cooperation finding out which of these criminals infected me with Herpes 2 and how.
FYI, I promised not so file a lawsuit against these rapists if they would just tell me the truth and help me track the source of the infection. They not afraid of a lawsuit. Patient knowledge and revolt against some of their practices stands to lose them a lot more money in kickbacks then they would lose in a single lawsuit.
MC Kean, your website address is missing a letter.
Regards
Daran – owner of feministritics.org :-)
thanks
Alison,
do you have a link to a story or any more info on the recent case?
i was in ward 40 is there any site where past patients can talk?
thanks
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I was in ward 40 frome 1997 to 1999 I was admited as a wourd of the state win I was 15 by age 17 9months before my relas I sustaned a hart atack from to meany meds thay had me on 19 downers antidepressent and anti sycotics and to counter the zomby afects thay put me on 19 upers the last one being dexatrin at a 150mg all my meds wear make doseg and as for the rape and abuse I witnesd 3 acounts of rape new of 4 counts of rape and to meany to count abuse neglet of pasionts rights and needs n short we waer nuthin more than sex slave n gineypigs with no voice or power and eany one work workt thear was fierd I spoke out of line about wut wint on with inside the unit
I would like to first say that I was in the youth word from 1993 to 1995. I came there when I was 8 years old and left when I was 10 years old. The thing that I remeber now give me PTSD. They like to put you in the safty rooms then tie you down to a bed and inject you with mediation. I would always tell them that I got sick when they did that, but they keep on doing it. I see everyone talking about the adalts that abused youth, but a lot of time it was other youth that did it. One time I remember be pulled in to a circle and forced to suck other kids dicks. They would pull my hair and just make me feel sick. A lot of time when I would get out of the safety room after getting the injection they would but me in my dorm room where other kids would play with me in a sexual way. It was not only the adults it was other kids too. There was not a lot of supervistion going on. Like most young kids I keep this to my self until now. Thenk you for letting vent.