Before I get into the heart of this diary, let me first say that I am not a Scientologist, nor am I in any way affiliated with Scientology's Citizens Commission on Human Rights. In fact, this group is routinely spurned by the human rights movement about which I am going to write.
I have thought about writing this diary for some time, but was moved to do so by a comment in which someone referred to "the crazies." This language is so deeply insulting and humiliating, I thought it was time to introduce to Daily Kos another human rights movement that has been around for decades, yet seems to be unknown to Daily Kos. Lots of us in this movement read Daily Kos, though, so let's get started.
The movement to which I refer is commonly known as the consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement (or c/s/x for short). This is a movement of people who have used psychiatric services--many of us unwillingly--but who are determined to either eliminate or radically transform the way in which "mental health" services are provided. We see this as a human rights movement because labeling a person as "mentally ill" is one of the easiest ways in which to relieve a person of his or her rights. Witness Kamilah Brock, who was recently detained for eight days in a psych ward because she dared to proclaim that she really owned a BMW and worked for a bank.
More below the orange antipsychotic pill.
Let's go back to some history and science. In the earlier parts of the last century, bipolar disorder was a rare condition and was never seen until at least late adolescence. Now it's incredibly common, and even toddlers are diagnosed as bipolar.
Both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, as diagnostic labels, were seen as rare and it was known that people could and did recover. Even people who were locked away in back wards recovered. Courtenay Harding, Ph.D. did a study indicating that something like 60-70% of people who had been locked in back wards as hopeless, actually left the hospital and never returned. These people went back into the community and had successful lives, without a return of symptoms.
So what happened? How did these human challenges become "mental illness"? And how did "mental illness" become a lifelong challenge? In the mid 1950s, Thorazine was introduced--the first "psychiatric" medication. Although it was known to be a major tranquilizer rather than a specific "antipsychotic," it gained that name because it allowed for quiet hospital wards. Thorazine basically stopped people in their tracks. These meds were not the reason why people were released from hospitals in huge numbers in the 1960s and 1970s: the actual reason was that benefits became available for disabled people. Now they could live in the community. Unfortunately, the planned outpatient services were never adequately funded. And the myth about drugs solving a "chemical imbalance" was born out of a need to sell more drugs. No chemical imbalance has been identified as a factor in any kind of mental health challenge--that idea arose from knowing how psych drugs work. But psych drugs don't work on everybody: about a third of the population gets no benefit from them, and many more have horrible side effects.
For more details, read Robert Whitaker's thoroughly documented book, Anatomy of an Epidemic. For more of the history of how mental health challenges have been treated, read Whitaker's earlier work, Mad in America. And understand that this has become a human rights movement because those of us who are diagnosed with a major mental health challenge are seen as 'having no insight': in other words, we don't know what's good of us, or we don't know what we're talking about. Often we have to rely on others to speak for us: attorneys, advocates, social workers.
I fully expect to hear from some of you how wonderful your psych drugs are, and how they have saved your life. Congratulations. If you're one of the lucky ones for whom meds work without awful side effects, you are truly lucky. Many of us have found that we are better without meds, but getting off the meds can be a nightmare. And let's not confuse your anecdotal evidence with the hard science, which is spelled out clearly in Whitaker's books.
We've also found that traditional "mental health" services that are offered today are coercive, infantilizing, and create learned helplessness. As part of the c/s/x movement, many of us work to create alternatives to help people heal from trauma, hopelessness, grief, voices, fear, unusual beliefs, and the many variations of human suffering. I work as a provider myself, in addition to having my own lived experience of challenges and psychiatric services, so I have seen this problem from many sides.
I write this diary as a way to introduce to Daily Kos readers this human rights movement that is often ignored and often attacked--after all, we're just the crazies and we don't know what we're talking about. I also write this diary as a way to ask for more respectful dialogue about people who suffer: calling people "the crazies" is not helpful or respectful. And, I would be happy to open a dialogue about the c/s/x movement, and the struggle to create services that are supportive, helpful, and even attractive to people who need help--so that they come on their own, rather than being forced. And let's talk about the fact that we can AND DO recover.
Finally, I write this diary as a way to speak out against the various Murphy bills now before Congress. The first Murphy bill, started last year in the House, was terrifying with its move toward more coercion and more hospitals. It also disallows some of the most effective kinds of services that have been created in the last few decades. There is a similar Murphy bill in the Senate. We work together with the Bazelon Center for Disability Law to help prevent these awful bills from becoming law.
Thanks for reading.