Something I know all too well, because my father suffered from mental illness. And he knew their terrible side effects. Some meds used for mental illness cause excruciating pain. Here, read about it for yourself: Akathisia - Wikipedia (Read especially how they're used for torture in Russian mental hospitals.) So, people should have the right to refuse them, under certain circumstances? Am I wrong? I don't mean every circumstance. Sometimes mentally people can't speak for themselves. And sometimes the situation may warrant it. But if they're in their right mind, and they are in a place where they essentially have them over a barrel, then, yes. I think they should have the legal right to refuse. Agree? Disagree?
Once upon a time, people with severe mental illness were treated in State mental hospitals. Often disastrously underfunded and poorly staffed, they were at least relatively clean, safe, fed, and housed, although sometimes in appalling conditions. Then in the 80's Ronald Regan led the charge to close all of the mental hospitals under the banner of humanitarianism and human rights; people could be better cared for not by involuntary commitment to institutions, but through a network of community mental health centers with new, less toxic psych meds. So we closed all the ancient, decrepit mental hospitals, some of which dated from the 1880's. However, they failed to pass legislation necessary to fund the shiny new community mental health centers. So, Regan took the money saved from not establishing a national mental health system, and the paltry savings from the closure of the asylums...and gave it to the rich, establishing a reverse-Robin-Hood economic policy that exists to this day. And the chronically mentally ill? They were turned out onto the streets; to starve, freeze, and be preyed upon by sociopaths and terrorized by their untreated fears and hallucinations, while you and I, Republican and Democrat alike, walk quickly by, stone-faced, staring straight ahead, pretending that they're invisible. Fair disclosure: I have a Master's in Social Work, and worked at one of those State asylums, and one of the few community health centers that did get built. Case loads were beyond Herculean (more like Sisyphean), and outreach was nil; if you couldn't find the mental clarity and organization to contrive a way to get to my office from 40 miles away, tough shit. We believe in each client's inherent right to self determination and free agency. We offer a service, if they choose not to avail themselves of it, that's their inalienable right; to freeze to death in a back alley, starving, terrorized, diseased, and alone. If they wanted to live with even a modicum of dignity, they would have come to our office. You know; Freedom. Liberty. All of that. While there, I came to understand the true role of a Social Worker in American society. We're a merciless and ravenously Capitalist society. We're also a deeply Calvinistic one, where my good fortune proves that I am one of God's 'elect', and you're misfortune (even if it's to be bled dry through no fault of your own by the vampiric pursuit over profit over people; Lehman Brothers, anyone?) is a sign that God hates you...and my selfishness, indifference, inhumanity, and even sadistic schadenfreude, is actually sacramental; perhaps we should ban the wearing of blankets in public, or feeding the hungry in parks; after all, it's God's will they suffer. It's preordained. However, some folk aren't completely sociopathic; there's this annoying little bit of guilt niggling at the back of their consciousness. What to do? WE'LL HIRE A SOCIAL WORKER! We'll task them with resolving every social issue imaginable, but we won't pass the legislation or funding necessary to actually change anything (don't want to be slandered as a "tax-and-spend Liberal", do we?). So nothing changes...but at least we as a society have someone to blame; those bleeding-heart Liberals whose social welfare programs always fail and do nothing but sap our profits. With a scapegoat properly designated, America can now sleep at night, well fed and safe in their beds, albeit fitfully; plagued by nightmares of lazy and shiftless welfare queens driving brand new Cadillacs full of little pickaninnies at their expense.
You should have the legal right to refuse any medication unless it's proven you are a danger to yourself and others without it. In which case you should be under closely guided mental health care... ... which no longer exists, as seen above.
"In 1973, a federal district court ruled in (Souder v. Brennan) that patients in mental health institutions must be considered employees and paid the minimum wage required by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 whenever they performed any activity that conferred an economic benefit on an institution. Following this ruling, institutional peonage was outlawed as evidenced in Pennsylvania's Institutional Peonage Abolishment Act of 1973. Many assume that the advent of modern psychotropic medications was the catalyst for deinstitutionalization in the U.S. However, large numbers of patients began leaving state institutions only after new laws made unpaid patient labor illegal. In other words, when patients no longer worked for free, the economic viability of many state institutions ceased and this led to the closing of many state hospitals. In an ironic twist, patients' unpaid labor had, for decades, helped prop up and support the existence of the very institutions that held them captive." Read more www.commongroundprogram.com/blog/lead-shoes-and-institutional-peonage
Haven't looked at the mindfreedom site in a very long time, they are still quite active, Link > Alert: Charles Helmer last scheduled shock for Friday April 23rd was cancelled and there are no new shocks scheduled on the horizon. Thank you Shield members for the hundreds of letters and emails! The battle is still ongoing however until Charle's legal rights are restored. Please read the update below on ways that you can take action! - MindFreedom International (MFI)
