Only You Can Cure Yourself

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Only You Can Cure Yourself

JoAnn Guest

Dec 22, 2006 18:17 PST

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Only You Can 'Cure' Yourself

by Ann Lawson

Norwich, UK

 

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

last taboo. Unfortunately those who suffer or have suffered from

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

this image.

 

Once you have been diagnosed or initially admitted to an institution

for treatment, it is almost impossible to escape the stigmatization

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

the caring professions who carry these prejudices. Blind ignorance

is also rife within psychiatry. There is currently a research

article which connects schizophrenia to the incidence of being cross-

eyed or being born in a month with particularly intemperate weather.

 

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

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

about what causes schizophrenia,

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

sought, so far with little success. The most widely held theory for

nearly all kinds of mental illness is it is due to a chemical

imbalance in the brain.

 

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

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

psychiatrists' determine that there is a chemical imbalance when the

brains of mental patients have been bombarded with powerful

chemicals from the beginning?

 

What is even more disturbing about this theory is

that if the drugs themselves have caused this imbalance, is that not

good reason for stopping them?

 

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

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

the onset

of neurological disorders. They include diabetes due to weight gain

and innumerable minor and not so minor discomforts. It is seldom

claimed that the drugs are therapeutic: They merely mask symptoms -

symptoms which probably were less troubling than the effects of the

drugs.

 

The drugs do this by crudely interfering with the normal chemical

makeup of the brain, making thought processes difficult and sleep

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

ever wonder why mental patients are like zombies?

 

Well, there's your answer. Psychiatric drugs are making them feel

ill and cause them to see the world with only half a brain. Drugs

are the current historical sequel to

long term institutionalization and chains - and lobotomy. Basically

psychiatry is a violent and intrusive way of controlling people who

do not conform to other people's expectations - or those who are

vulnerable.

 

Remember that treatment is not voluntary once force is used.

Mental patients do not have meaningful civil rights. In the UK,

often

they are not even allowed to vote. In " hospitals, " " medication " is

routinely administered by force if the patient refuses or is

" non-compliant " . Mental patients have no right to privacy even when

living in the community: " Health " workers may go round neighbors

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

is usually administered for a lifetime.

 

There is no way anyone ever gets `better' on psychiatric drugs.

 

Being `mentally ill' is a social status, not a medical condition.

And the hospitals are merely prisons.

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

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

illness persist?

 

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

resulting from life experience. There are various strategies which

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

include exercise and diet. However the idea of the mentally ill as a

category of

persons distinct from the rest of the human race continues. I think

this happens partly because of vested interests:

 

The companies that market

the drugs, which are the current treatment, make vast profits

exceeded only by share prices for Internet companies. It is in the

interest of these drug companies and their shareholders, which

include many doctors,

that psychiatry widen its net, constantly bringing more and more

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

drugs for

the rest of their lives. Their motives and their lack of a sense of

social responsibility are like those of the tobacco companies.

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

Suddenly

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

drug:

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

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

this drug and make a profit actually created the diagnosis! Tobacco

companies do not need to force their customers to smoke since

tobacco is

highly addictive. Most people find psychiatric drugs almost

intolerable.

So drug advocates create such fear and paranoia concerning mentally

ill

people (who are statistically considerably less dangerous to others

than

the general population) that a hysterical policy of containment and

pharmacological control of mental patients is adopted and enforced.

Some researchers search for the causes of mental illness,

particularly

schizophrenia, ad infinitum. Science is no where nearer to

understanding

it than when it was first defined. Based on considerable experience

and

with great confidence, I argue that the whole course of

this " illness "

is created by the way it is " treated. " It is the confinement, the

stigmatization, the ignorance, the physical and emotional abuse, the

drugs, the prejudice of employers and consequent poverty, and the

overbearing attitude of psychiatrists and others that cause this

" illness. " For most people, mental illness has a career path from

which

there is no escape. There is a vast industry profiting financially

from

the abject misery of mental patients whose problems are exacerbated

by

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

makes

sense of the otherwise cruel and senseless profession of psychiatry.

The

mentally ill are an essential part of what supports a very

profitable

psychiatric drug manufacturing industry. And psychiatry maintains

the

status quo by drugging into oblivion those who challenge it.

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

with

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

I am

saying that conventional western psychiatry does not even attempt to

cure them but simply to contain them and perpetuate them

as " patients. "

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

case

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

it's

" treatment. " The widening grip of psychiatry also has been at the

expense of less intrusive, more friendly and wholesome approaches to

helping mentally or emotionally troubled people. What might be a

temporary problem due to some minor upset or even a mistaken

diagnosis,

psychiatry can and usually does convert into a dramatic condition

which

requires a lifetime of treatment. This damages the individual to the

core of his being. The mentally ill are not more dangerous than

anyone

else despite the way they are mistreated. Paranoid schizophrenia is

a

logical response to psychiatric treatment and not the result of some

unfortunate genetic modification. Any fool should be able to

understand

this, but try explaining it to a psychiatrist! It makes more sense

to

them what the temperature was outside when you were born. Who is mad

here - psychiatry's patients or its defenders?

 

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

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

 

 

Taper off very, very slowly.

 

Dropping " cold turkey " off any medication, most especially mind

altering medications, can often be MORE DANGEROUS than staying on

the drugs.

 

The most dangerous and most common mistake someone coming off the

SSRI antidepressants makes is coming off these drugs too rapidly.

 

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

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

most effective method of withdrawal from this type of medication.

 

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

chemical levels.

Patients must be warned to come very slowly off

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

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

 

This cannot be stressed strongly enough! This information on

EXTREMELY gradual withdrawal is the most critical piece of

information that someone facing withdrawal from these drugs needs to

have.

 

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

STEP

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

 

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

Off My Antidepressant, "

 

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

 

Study by Harvard Psychiatrist: 11 of 15 " Bipolars " Successfully

Taken

off Medication

An article in the December 2001 Journal of Clinical Psychiatry by

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

which 11 of 15 people diagnosed with bipolar disorder were

successfully

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

 

Results were achieved when the patients were treated with a

nutritional

supplement made by the Synergy Group of Canada. The groups website

is at http://www.truehope.com.

 

_________________

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjo-

http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Botanicals.html