So if Price Waterhouse can apologize for a catastrophe no one cares about, then……

I am laughing my fool head off. So Price Waterhouse was “embarrassed” and saw what happened, an incorrect envelope passed from one person to another, as a “catastrophe,” then apparently apologized, what does this say about those that don’t apologize for far worse catastrophes?

Let’s say the doc operates and leaves his cell phone inside the patient’s body. It rings. Do we hear an apology? No, we hear beeps and buzzes.

The doc gives Randy Prozac. The Prozac causes Randy to become manic. Then, the doc claims Randy had “latent bipolarity.” This causes Randy to be diagnosed as “bipolar” for the next 20 years until he figures it all out. He approaches the 25 docs and therapists who had him pegged wrong, and demands an apology, but instead, they lock him up all over again.

The doc performs (performs?) 60 ECT on Mrs. S. Mrs. S can’t seem to find her way home, and instead, unfortunately, ends up at the doc’s office. Does the doc apologize, or tell her, “I think we need to do ECT #61!” We don’t even need to ask this! By default, it’s more shock.

The drug Zyprexa gives thousands of people diabetes, and causes still thousands more unwanted weight gain they were not properly informed about prior to being given it. Many were told “It’s for sleep.” This was a lie. Many of these thousands of harmed patients approach their former doctors and demand an apology, saying, “If Price Waterhouse can apologize for an envelope mixup, then you can apologize for wrecking our lives.”

Really? These docs won’t hear any of it. “You were the exceptions,” they exclaim to the thousands who have gathered outside the APA convention. “Go away. Ninety percent of our patients tolerate Zyprexa without any problems at all. We’ve heard nothing from them. No complaints whatsoever.”

The docs close the doors on the crowds, mumbling to themselves. In the back rooms, they whisper to each other, “Nice job getting rid of that psychotic antipsychiatry crowd with your phony facts and figures. How did you come up with that tally, anyway?”

“That was easy. I figured in all the dead ones.”



I just took the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Test and here are the results……

I tested nondeviant for everything. There were no concerns whatsoever. Anything that wasn’t quite normal was accounted for by cultural differences, for instance, the fact that many other who earned higher college degrees also scored similarly to what I scored on one or two of the scores. Age and gender are also taken into consideration.

I took this test back in 1982. This was administered by Dr. Brown in Bennington, Vermont. I was upset that I even had to take these psychological tests at the time. I wondered why I was being asked to do so since prior to all that, they repeatedly told me I was LYING about my eating disorder. They told me I didn’t have one, then, they told me eating disorders were “nothing.” They told me over and over I must be exaggerating, or “faking it.” Then, finally, when I appeared to be “complaining too much,” they insisted on doing that grueling testing.

I wondered why they simply didn’t believe me. Why were they doing this instead of listening? I was already realizing I would have to invent some other disorder to get their attention. I knew they didn’t know anything about eating disorders at all. They claimed you couldn’t die of it, and they claimed I was “making a mountain out of a molehill.” But I wasn’t! How could I tell them what I was going through?

I didn’t want to lie. But already, it was looking like I’d have to. i’d have to tell some big horrible fib just to shake them some, just to get them to listen. What could I say? I tried saying I couldn’t sleep. Maybe they’d believe me. But they didn’t. I tried faking anxiety but that didn’t work too well. I could only copy other “anxious” patients I had seen, copy what they did and said. I can tell you that did not work. It only looked like med-seeking! In fact, I only looked like I was planning to get drugs and then, sell them to my med-seeking roommate. Ah, what a plan! Did they really see it that way? Did they see me as her pawn?

So finally my therapist said I’d have to have those tests with Dr. Brown, and then, MAYBE the psychiatrist would see me. I wondered if the tests had anything to do with ED, that is, with my eating disorder. On the test there were NO questions about ED, maybe one about weight but other than that, it had nothing to do with how I felt about food or my eating habits or anything related to particulars of the problem. I was baffled about how they would know whether I had an ED or not based on a bunch of inkblots and repetitive questions.

Yeah, I remember that day well. How on earth would I get through this? I felt judged. Very judged. Yes, I did fake my way through their stupid tests. I had no idea how to fake it that I was mentally ill, are you kidding? I had no idea! I had no way of knowing how to act nutso. I wondered why they wasted my time. And why I had wasted theirs. Actually, they had been wasting months of mine, because I had told them, over and over what the problem was, and frankly, telling a patient she’s faking it when she isn’t faking it isn’t solving anything.

After all that, they never told me the results, and the psychiatrist still claimed I was faking it and refused to see me. I fired that agency.

I suppose they shouldn’t have felt that bad. Even the great experts at McLean  assessed me and claimed I was “faking my eating disorder for attention.” I suppose they just looked at my old records and did a carbon copy.

If you are seen as a nut, you become one.  If you are seen as a different sort of nut, you become that new diagnosis. Guess how I got better? Get out of the nut jar! It’ll work wonders.

French Citizen and Holocaust Scholar Detained by USA, in Houston Airport

Here’s the link:

As I have been saying, are we to be so surprised? Why is it taking so long to become enraged over atrocities in USA when these things have been going on for decades now? Trump is a figurehead, the end result of ignorant people’s ignoring the facts, people’s outright disregard of racism, hatred of minorities, hatred of the poor, and hatred of those with dark skin. It is the result of people simply not caring.

As a buddy of mine once told me, “Why are you whining? Can’t you see that no one cares about the things you are talking about? So what if people that no one cares about are locked up in mental hospitals? Don’t you understand that no one cares about these things?” If you don’t care about the least advantaged of us, you simply do not care about anyone.

And that is EXACTLY why these things, such as random deportation and ridiculous policies  and apparently a racist in the white house (who may, or may not have been voted in) have occurred.

So I don’t get why all the whining now. You all’s deserved what you got. Because most people didn’t listen and because didn’t care.



Whenever I am asked a question that begins, “After you got off the drugs…” I don’t know how to answer these questions.

I don’t know how to answer a question that begins, “After you got off drugs, did you….” because it’s more than pills. I don’t know how to explain this to folks who are pill-centered and can’t seem to see beyond the pills to gain an understanding of the greater picture. Until they do, they’ll continue to ask these questions.

They’ll continue to believe that what happens is that you get off pills, and then, suddenly, you have this huge awakening. That’s not true. You don’t. Getting off psych drugs does not cause a big light bulb to turn on over your head. Getting off pills does not cause enlightenment.

Getting off pills won’t do a thing for you if you are still brainwashed and still believe the medical model. However, that’s not what usually happens. Usually, getting off pills means fewer appointments with mental health professionals. Usually, the person has fewer visits to traditional practitioners and seeks nontraditional modalities, trying out new things and new approaches, broadening her view of her life and what may have driven her to seek “help” in the first place.

She may now try out new things. She may now be asking her friends for advice rather than asking her MD-type doctor. She may try getting a pet for the very first time in her life. Maybe she tries a new type of exercise she never tried before, or travels to a new place, visiting an old friend who has moved there and invited her to stay a while.

Maybe she always suspected she might have affection for other women, but never dared try dating other women because she was too busy going to therapy appointments. Is now too late?

She decides to try a pottery class but finds it doesn’t interest her much. There, she meets an interesting man who becomes a good friend. He introduces her to a recreational drug that she tries once, but decides it’s not to her  liking. She wonders why she never tried such things at a younger age.

The pottery instructor hires her to do some web designing for his art website. This is her first job in a long time. They agree on a fee for the work.

Suddenly, she realizes she is no longer addicted.

Why do I say this? What addiction am I referring to? I am NOT referring to psychiatric drugs. I am referring to psychiatric appointments such as therapist appointments, which “patients” attend dutifully and become hopelessly hooked on.

Addicted mental patients have trouble making decisions on their own. They defer to others. These others are often their therapists, but in the absence of a therapist, a “patient” who is still brainwashed, regardless of how drug-free that patient is, will defer to another she sees as authority to make decisions, and will also seek approval of that authority figure.

Making your own decisions is tough, and it’s not an easy thing to learn after leaving the System. The addiction to therapy is not an easy addiction to break. Many then leave therapy and then rely on their parents’ approval, or even grandparents, even if these folks are in their 90’s and having cognitive problems and decisions aren’t so easy for them, either.

One of my biggest “relationship” problems that I have had to face, after I got over the first few hurdles, was that in group situations I tended to brown-nose too much. Hindsight tells me that my former patient days taught me to seek approval from authority. So when I joined a group, I had that built in to my psyche, while others probably didn’t. That “approval” was a patient’s only pass, her only way to validation, the only route to “Yes, you are real.” Without it, she was not real.

Even outside the institution, outside of once-a-week therapy, having long ended appointment addiction, I often catch myself in approval-seeking mode in group situations. This will harm relationships, and might be why Facebook is not working for me very well.

Crisis-addiction is a deeper form of appointment addiction that mental patients get into when they’re hooked even worse into the System. This might include an awful lot of ambulance rides, emergency room visits, in and out of the hospital, medical crises, and getting family and friends worried. The worry is the object, of course. Unfortunately, the patient repeatedly gets the wrong type of attention. Try as she might, she can’t seem to get the right type, but she keeps trying, frustrating everyone. Usually, the patient is blamed. (I think we need to examine what’s happening in the therapy office, though.)

I remember a long time ago, in 1997 I was having many panic attacks and many emergency room visits. I was 39 years old. Looking back, from what I recall, I heard talk of “attention-seeking” from my doctors and therapist, but now of course I realize that I was asking for attention and receiving the wrong kind, again and again. Calling me “attention-seeking” and simultaneously failing to be honest with me was doing me great harm. I realized this only years later.

I had been harmed by Electroshock and was demanding to know why I was having so much trouble thinking clearly. I asked over and over What Is Wrong With My Brain? Instead of being honest and upfront with me, ALL my doctors and therapists were dishonest. They failed me miserably, telling me I was “coping poorly.” This was not true. This was the reason for the panic attacks, because of the inconsistency between what was true and staring me in the face, and what was coming out of their mouths.

When the horrible cognitive aftereffects of Electroshock finally wore off after about 18 months, the panic attacks also ended. I didn’t end up in emergency rooms  much after that, nor accused of “crisis addiction” anymore.

The addiction is not pills, but much, much greater. I can’t answer the question, “When you got off psych drugs, did you…” because the point is, ending up a mental patient has very little to do with drugs. If you think it does, you are totally missing the point.

It’s so, so easy to give a person a phony psych diagnosis…so what does this say about the validity of so-called “real” psych diagnoses? Are they valid?

Check out this link that came into my inbox courtesy of PsychSearch:

Doctors gave fake medical opinions to help win citizenship

If you want to become a mental patient, it’s so easy. I have the simple formula. In fact, it’s FREE, and free is a good thing, isn’t it? Do you have insurance? I bet you do, since insurance these days is required by law. All you gotta do is walk into the office of a mental health professional. If you don’t happen to have an appointment with one, then call that handy 800 number. They’re up on all the walls, even in public bathrooms these days. Ask your doctor! If all else fails, call 911 and use the word “suicide” in a sentence. That very well  may be the “fast track method” to the nuthouse if you’re in that much of a hurry. Don’t do it up too much or you’ll get killed before you get to the nuthouse, though. And if you’re in a nuthouse, you are an instant mental patient. Sorry, but you are. Good luck getting out.


Reasons why social rejection is totally different from solitude

Please check out this link:

Note that the people who participated in the study were well-adjusted college students. And yet, they responded to social othering (rejection) by acting inappropriately aggressive. Please note that the researchers found the results of this study extremely disturbing.

If you have ever felt super pissed off after being socially othered, and then, been criticized or blamed or told your anger is a “disorder,” please do not blame yourself. You are among the well-adjusted, apparently.

Solitude is chosen. “We’re so glad to have our weekend away from the kids. Let’s go have sex in the sauna.”

“Gee, this expensive writing retreat is just what I needed for my break. Nice and quiet away from my highly-paid faculty position. My department chair is such a pain. Ah, listen to the birds chirp away…..”

Social rejection is entirely different from choosing to be alone. It’s not a feeling. It’s something that really happens to a person. Although I must say that many who have had too many bad experiences find that being alone ends up preferable after a while. Folks I have talked to seem to give up, then make the claim that they strongly prefer being alone, but actually I think they are rationalizing.

“I can’t seem to win at this social game. So I wasn’t designed to be playing it to begin with.”

or even, “I’m above it all. I don’t need people.”

But I think both are a bit of machugana.

Both are rationalizing. Let’s face it. No one likes to admit defeat in any form. We don’t want to face any further rejection, so instead of trying anymore, we stay alone, refusing to admit we desperately crave to be wanted, cherished, and appreciated just like anyone else.

I think if 100% of humanity, as individual autonomous human beings, were wanted, cherished, and appreciated, all the world’s problems would be SOLVED.

Love thy neighbor.



Writing prostitution

There are ways to make money as a writer but most are prostitution. i went to college and studied very hard to do a specific type of writing that I love to do. I was not trained as a journalist. Journalists make a bit of money doing slave work for the media. If I wanted to make money that way, I would have trained to become a journalist and gotten myself hired out as a slave, but I doubt I would have liked it very much.

I am a creative writer and creative writers usually make money, if any money is to be made, teaching students how to write. That’s not really making money directly from writing itself. The other way you can make money is to write books and sell them, but that means SELLING. I do not want to spend any energy twisting the arms of the few pals I have getting them to buy my books. If you self-publish, that means you have to have LOTS of friends. If you go the traditional publisher route, your publisher will take almost all your royalties no matter how many rich friends and family you have. Many agents are ripoffs who merely circulate your book to email lists (which won’t make any sales at all!), then charge you. They promise so, so much, but your money will be gone.

Creative writers often have to prostitute themselves by writing advertising or doing journalistic type work. I refuse to do this. Writing journalism isn’t what I was trained to do. I know I am being used when I am asked to do this. Often this comes in the form of bribery. “We’ll publish you if you write an op-ed article.” This means they don’t want memoir, they want statistics and studies. I don’t write journalistic stuff because I know everyone else is writing it, and to do so is not using me for my potential. Any college kid can write that crap.

My memory is my source. not only that, I am blessed with a rather detailed and accurate memory, formerly praised by my college instructors as “photographic.” My memory of over three decades in mental prisons is unique and only I can access that memory. Anyone can do a library search and access the exact same studies and statistics. Only I can access my unique memory and put all that down in words. Why waste my time writing stuff anyone else can write?

I am almost 60 years old. My time on earth is limited. I am saddened that venues such as MIA are turning away so-called “personal stories” not only from me but from other psych survivors claiming they already have enough. I am saddened that MIA continues to uphold the authority of mental health degreed people as “experts” because this is the exact opposite of what our Movement is all about.

In my search for another venue I have discovered that very few are doing live performances so this is how I am proceeding. i am NOT doing you-tubes unless one of my performances happens to be taped. I am, however, making demos, audios, and previews. I have posted several here. Thanks to those of you who have commented, both on here and offline.

(In light of the fact that after 13 years of nearly daily blogging on here, readership here at my blog has dropped to an all-time low, I am going to go ahead and assume that very few have read what I have written here, have noticed the audio posts, or come to take a look despite my efforts, nor seemed to care. Yes I know several of you do!!! Thanks from the bottom of my heart!!!

I laugh because I wonder what crazy things I could get away with saying before someone noticed and called the thought police on me.

God bless those of you who have stuck around. Yes, the passage of time teaches us who our friends are.)

The problem with online communication

The problem with online communication is that those who normally aren’t writers are forced to become writers. Those to normally do not communicate via written correspondence are suddenly now corresponding. Some of us were just fine with popping a letter in the mail. I used to have about 20 pen-pals all over the world. But most people didn’t have that many, if any, pen-pals and rarely wrote letters at all. Most folks I knew found writing thank-yous and memos a drag. Now, though, folks are texting away, thinking that these stupid 140-character tweet-like memos are a great substitute for face-to-face talking. “I love you” can so easily be rattled off in text that now there are plenty of heart smilies you can send. How idiotic are we going to get?

Online communication is no substitute for real conversation. I had to laugh when I saw today on a forum a total miscommunication due to cultural, generational, and gender differences between two users. One person posted his reaction to part of a filmed TED talk (the link had been posted). The other interpreted his reaction as “rage.” I have to laugh, though, because she was not reading his brief post correctly.

He answered back that by all means, he was not enraged nor, as she had put it, “frustrated.” However, it wasn’t possible, given the mode of communication, for her to be with him at that moment, to understand where he was coming from, within the context of an online forum.

The high school I attended ranks top in Massachusetts……

According to Niche dot com, Lexington High School was #1 this year. Well, it all follows the money, they say.

Dear fucking asshole shrinks….

My Life Matters. My brain, which you tried to destroy because you claimed it was “defective,” matters. I did indeed have a great high school education and I was one helluva smart kid. You didn’t like it. Well, screw you. Screw your System that thought that dumbing me down was an “improvement” to get me to “fit in.” Screw your System that silences people like me. Screw your drugs and your therapy that forces thousands of smart kids like us to “conform.” Fuck you all.

No, I will not “take a deep breath.” Certainly not when asked to do so by some two-bit “staff” who is half my age. I been breathing twice as long and ten times better! I’m alive to prove it, too. You didn’t kill me with your drugs and tortures, and you won’t.

I won’t be silent till you let out everyone. I won’t be silent till you stop torturing, stop diagnosing, stop imprisoning, stop killing. I won’t be silent and I won’t back down.

You said i lacked insight and rolled your eyes. Go to fucking hell. I was right all along, assholes, and you’ll probably find that out, if you haven’t already.

Dear Dr. X,

I am writing to you in reflection on our recent session. In considering whether to continue as planned and scheduled, I have to think about a few aspects of this thing “trauma.” What is “trauma” and why should a person seek “help” from a person who practices a certain type of “therapy” for trauma, and why would a person seek a professional of that type, say, instead of simply letting the passage of time heal that trauma?

They say that time heals grief better than any other remedy.  That the best thing to do is to do nothing at all, to let oneself grieve in the way that one might naturally do, and that there isn’t one right nor wrong way to do this, nor formula, nor cure. Each culture has its rituals. Interestingly enough, I have read that some cultures have rituals for victims of rape, ways that communities embrace, rather than witch-hunt those that have been harmed.

I am thinking of the story Sasha Menu Courey, who committed suicide because she was socially othered, made into a mental diagnosis by the University of Missouri’s counseling center instead of embraced by her college community. I am thinking of Toni Morrison’s amazing first novel, The Bluest Eye. And yet rape in itself is not an uncommon event in a woman’s life.  Many are raped. It is how those around her react after the rape that matters more.

Most people experience trauma in their lives, even horrific traumatic events. You can reframe just about anything and using the right suggestions, a person might interpret an event as “unusual traumatic event.” You might also add the suggestion that the brain gets “stuck” in trauma. Then, the person might start noticing that they need “fixing” by a trauma expert.

Here’s where I object to the trauma claim about “stuck in fight or flight mode.” I do not agree with the claims. I don’t care how many studies and how many statistics you can throw at me. I don’t care how many degrees you have on your wall and how many “experts” back up these claims. I do know that YOU and a few others are profiting off of telling people they’re stuck and that ONLY experts such as yourself and your “methods” can get us unfortunate souls “unstuck.”

Now this looks like an amazing selling point, doesn’t it? Given the number of people out there who have had traumatic events in their lives, you’ve got quite the market. If you were to truly advertise just a bit more, you could rake in the profits to the psych survivor community and have a line going out the door and all the way across the continent.

I don’t think folks buy it, though. And I think that’s why the lines aren’t out the door. I suspect that folks are healing from trauma via the passage of time anyway.

As I spoke to you the other day about how I was horribly abused in the hospital in 2011, I noticed a few things.  Back in 2011, and certainly 2012, I couldn’t have spoken to anyone in the relatively calm way I did while in your presence. In fact, while trying to explain it all to attorneys over the first few years following the abuse, I found my speaking rate was so fast that my words became too garbled for them to understand.  This tells me that surely my “condition” has vastly improved. It also tells me that by all means, a person is capable of improvement, entirely on her own. I don’t think I’m “stuck” in fight or flight at all! In fact, I’m in much better shape than I was before.

Because I was abused in a hospital I became short of temper and could not converse very easily with other people. This was because I was reminded of the abuse in my everyday life very frequently. However, just a day prior to my meeting with you, Dr. X, I conversed over the phone with three “customer service” type representatives and navigated through these conversations just as well as I had done prior to the abuse. I was amazed that I stayed on the phone with them for a full half hour dealing with financial “red tape” and didn’t lose my cool.

If I believe the trauma experts’ claim of stuckness, I’ll stay stuck. If I throw off the claim and make the choice to refuse to believe that the brain and body really do get stuck, I can heal. Either way, making this choice isn’t even necessary as I already have healed. I can choose to see the obvious staring me in the face, or I can choose to ignore my own improvement, and see an “expert” to “cure” what doesn’t need curing.

Although I am grateful that after telling you about the hospital abuse, you didn’t say, “The abuse didn’t happen,” nor did you say, “The hospital must have been right,” I feel that trauma therapy isn’t quite necessary at this point in my life. I fear furthermore that to go to therapy could potentially do more harm than good. The very act of being a “patient” again even for one more appointment will re-traumatize me. I cannot afford to take that risk.

Nonetheless it was nice meeting you.