The symbolic language

From volume 4 of the BEINGS book series
 (enlarged versions of these pages, in the book, and also on the Beings books facebook page)

 

 

When an artist draws distress and the interpreters fail to see…

We don't want distressed young people strapped down on stretchers/ beds while psychiatrists get paid to tell nurses to stick pricks in the young person. We don't want that happening to adults either. But it happens all the time.

It's strange that the public doesn't recognise strapping a person down in a stretcher,  forced drugging and electrocution as abuse, when it's done by a psychiatrist's assistants.

That even though psychiatric abuse occurs so more often than other forms of ‘human trafficking’, it is not even considered as the cause of a distressed state. Such denial of reality the world has. That denial means a person tries other symbols to communicate the suffering that is denied. These symbols get diagnosed, instead of understood. A person's communication then is really violated. Literally gagged? Well, they don't tend to use literal gags, the white rag around the mouth killed too many and looked obviously violent.

It's strange that Australia still doesn't recognise that forced drugging is a horrific crime, accept in their signing of the UN CRPD ratification. Recognise if you are in the medical profession and ever do forcefully drug a person, you can be taken to court and if you are not convicted in Australian courts, you will be in the International Court. Psychiatric abuse is not okay, it never was.

the United Nation's CRPD ratification Australia has recently signed:

'Article 14 - Liberty and security of the person

1. States Parties shall ensure that persons with disabilities, on an equal basis with others:

(a) Enjoy the right to liberty and security of person;

(b) Are not deprived of their liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily, and that any deprivation of liberty is in conformity with the law, and that the existence of a disability shall in no case justify a deprivation of liberty.

2. States Parties shall ensure that if persons with disabilities are deprived of their liberty through any process, they are, on an equal basis with others, entitled to guarantees in accordance with international human rights law and shall be treated in compliance with the objectives and principles of this Convention, including by provision of reasonable accommodation.

 

Article 15 - Freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

1. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his or her free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.

2. States Parties shall take all effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent persons with disabilities, on an equal basis with others, from being subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.'

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CRPD/Pages/ConventionRightsPersonsWithDisabilities.aspx

If you can't see how human rights can occur, try doodling for a bit to let the automatic part of your mind show you possibility that social restraints deny you... cities were built this way.

 

 

Protecting normal people like you, from people like me...

Activist poetry doesn't always have a place in the Melbourne poetry scene, particularly if you're talking psychiatric abuse. The audience tend to not listen and hear anger only. So, I rarely perform this style poetry in venues.

The ODDie poetry night was an exception, it was all about activism.
           These two poems I’m performing are about that shushed voice and the inability of society to listen, when activists speak, to anything but their memory of cruel propaganda campaigns.

 

The first poem, 'I've been trigger' talks about the idea of psychiatric abuse being justified because of the belief that 'but, they're violent, aren't they?' which is said about any marginalised group that governments wish to crush, or use in a way that infringes on standard human rights. Also the unjustifiable fear of symbolism and creativity, that is attempting to put OUTRAGE into peaceful means of protest, that ends up being called 'wrong' and 'ill' by psychiatrists.

The second poem, 'Unshushable' is a shortened version of this poem. It speaks for itself, or it should. 'We're already LOUD because we have every right to be allowed!'

ODD is a support group for activists, that ran the ODDie night. The ODD group are reclaiming of the term that diagnoses youth for their ability to recognise the need to defy abusive authorities.

Oppositional, disobedient, disordered, but with good reason!

Our outrage has been ignored and hushed for too long. Psychiatric survivors should be allowed to have a voice and psychiatric abuse should not be allowed!

Appreciate though, how difficult talking about this abuse is, because of where society is at, and because of what we’ve been through.

awareness is everything!

for awareness hat click here

click here to purchase awareness mug

Forced and coerced penetration: it’s not okay

Methods and lines used          …	to force and coerce sexual contact	to force and coerce psychiatric drugs
You’ll get used to it…	the unwanted touch or sexual contact that is upsetting you	the unwanted, harmful 'medication' you may well be highly allergic to, that is causing you discomfort
It's about finding the…	right position	right medication and dose
This works for most people…	sexual position	type of medication  and dose
If you don’t want it…	you’re not being a good girlfriend/boyfriend... I won't be your friend if you don't. You want to make me happy don't you?	you don’t have insight into your illness. You can't give informed consent. You want to get well don't you?
Ultimatums and threats…	you must have sex with me or else...	you must comply with treatment or else...
Use of force, penetration, violence and violation	rape	forced injection
When threats and intimidation are affective…	nice and accommodating	docile and compliant
Destruction of ability and violation of identity…	realising her/ his place	manageable and medicated

Please sign our petition to stop psychiatric abuse

Where does your opinion come from? What validates it?

That question, ‘Does Art therapy work?’ has me giving the answer, ‘Much better than psychiatry, because it’s about treating people as individuals with valid opinions, even if that person is caught up in a symbolic parallel sense, that doesn’t meet with consensual reality.’

                There is a group of people, who are probably typical of most Australians, with assumptions about people who have been forcefully drugged and end up suiciding because of the pain and dysfunction caused by the psychiatric drugs. There is an opinion that, ‘they’d suicide anyway, those people, so what’s the difference?’

                The difference, for a person, even if they were at all suicidal, is in how we treat them. If a person is helped to explore what is driving the suicidal feelings, encouraged to follow through with things that they love, that have been dampened by society, enabled to find safe housing, encouraged to make friends, given hope, then they’re more likely to reason that life is sometimes good and worth pursuing. If they are drugged so they feel worse than they felt before, then that’s not going to happen. The worst case scenario is.

                Why is that such a hard concept for people to grasp, that treating a person in a way that’s friendly, rather than violating, is going to have better results?

                There is this smear of ‘other’ placed on anyone who has been diagnosed with mental health issues. Society doesn’t want to believe that it’s something that can happen to anyone under stress who has been traumatised. No, ‘these mental people’ are somehow, ‘Neanderthal or something akin to something that’s not fit to be treated humanely and given autonomy over what goes into their body.’

I’m sure if the public media propagated further propaganda they probably could convince society to use ‘these mental people’ for body parts. They would, of course, have to stop the use of the chemical strait-jackets, so that the recipient wouldn’t be infected by these damaging chemicals. (A person using psychiatric drugs cannot even donate blood because these chemicals are so toxic.)

I wonder at things like neuroleptics that are so horrible they could never be sold as a street drug. Benzos, such as Valium, yes, but not any of the ‘anti-psychotics’. People would pay good money to stop psychiatrists from forcing them on them though. No one wants the bad feeling they give, the emotional-dulling, the twitching, the aches, the inability, the weight-gain, the diabetes, the chronic fatigue, the mental shut down, the memory loss, the depression… no one wants that.

I wonder at people who adamantly say, ‘I don’t agree with you,’ when I advocate choice; that people should have a choice of therapy. If they really want drugs, fine, give them that, but if they don’t ,there are plenty of ways of working with people to enable them, rather than disabling them with drugs for fear of what ‘madness’ might ‘do’.

Stupid, stupid fears. Ignorance and people trained to have opinions that are based on never listening to anyone who actually has experienced the effects of psychiatric drugs. ‘Oh, no, no, no, no, don’t listen to them, those Neanderthal things or whatever they are, they can’t have an opinion, they’re not in their right mind. They can’t work out anything for themselves. Best drug them so they are more pliable and drug them more if there’s a peep of complaining out of them. Show them who’s boss!’

Um. Yeah. I find that kind of opinion rather nasty. I’m happy I’m not a stupid ignorant psychiatry follower like them. Sure, I’m marked and mustn’t behave too eccentrically or I’ll be carted off and tortured again, but at least I’m not ignorant like them. They’re like fat Nazi followers, when it comes to that opinion of theirs. They don’t know how really how offensive it is for psychiatric survivors to hear them assert their beliefs that support torture regimes our country really needs to put a stop to.

People must listen to the right people. And who are the ‘right’ people? Well, just think about it… Do you listen to those trained in how to torture? Or, to the people who have been tortured by them? Ask yourself, where does your opinion come from? What validates it? Recognise the truth. If you’re not listening to those with lived-experience, if you don’t consider them to be the experts in this scenario, then shut up and learn! Because you don’t know what you’re talking about, if that’s you. Your opinion is based on a power regime. It is not ethical and it is not ever going to be valid, except to the pockets it lines and the ignorant public fears it subscribes to.

Society is to blame for psychiatry. And, psychiatry tortured me amongst many others. So, society must recognise their wrongs and change things so people aren’t continually harmed in their name. Being duped by propaganda is stupidity. Don’t let your opinions be marked by that.

If I hear one more opinion damning a ‘patient’ for fighting while they’re being held down to have torturous chemicals injected in them, I’m going to laugh in that person’s face and say, ‘You deserved it. What did you expect? That they’d let you hurt them without a fight? You're not injecting them with vitamins. You're injecting them with disabling, stupidfying torturous chemicals to make them sleep all day. Chemicals that cause them to feel physically sick, that cause epilesy and suicidal feelings. It's not as though it's any good for them at all. Prevents them from doing much at all though. So that means you don't have to do as much.’

There are psych nurses who get into a lot of trouble when they even complain to a psychiatrist about a medication that’s causing seizures or Parkinsonian movements. A psychiatrist doesn’t want to know of patient complaints! And, psych nurses can’t get a pay rise, let alone go on strike to stop things like forced drugging. But at some point the harm has got to stop. At some point recognition of all the really damaging psychiatric practices has to happen. Compensation should be then given to those subjected to the regime, or at least some kind of apology and assurance that the horror isn’t going to continue.

The only way the necessary change is going to happen, is by people recognising what does and doesn’t make sense. Torture isn’t okay. All those who are of the opinion that it is okay, get with it and stop wearing your swastika like a badge of honour. Your psychiatric cult driven opinions are ugly, ugly, ugly stupid ignorant dribble. Keep your dumb mouth shut and learn some respect for those who actually do know what they’re talking about.

‘Or what?’ they say, ‘You’ll post another angry little blog?’

Yeah, something like that.

In the mean time I'll wear this:

 

 

Memories of trauma are surfacing as symptoms

The things that are

Called surfacing symptoms

Are on my tongue to say again

And I am making peace

With them, this time.

I am recognising that

Yes it did occur and yes

It was bad enough to

Harm me, but now I’m healed.

The wounds in my psyche

Have had recognition enough

To realise they don’t need

To worry about the worry

That existed in the past.

I am past that danger zone…

I drop those thoughts in

To the part of my mind

That is on remote control,

Drop those thoughts in…

Like a person with stomach

Ulcers trying to relax

The stomach that dissolves

The food in it automatically,

I drop those thoughts in…

Like an asthmatic meditating

And singing to get the automatic

Breath back to where

It is most comfortable.

I drop those thoughts in…

I am making the memory

Muscle of my mind relax

And stop being a problem,

Because it isn’t really,

It’s just a memory of trauma

That needed more conscious

Recognition that those things

That happened over years

And years, then happened

Again in other ways

With different people,

Weren’t okay and I won’t

Allow myself to be

Controlled that way again.

I know that love isn’t

An ambivalent thing,

It never should be

Extracted via fear, and if it is,

Then that is not okay

And should be acknowledged

For the wrong that it is.

Chipmunka… publishing first-hand experiences

Chipmunka has just recently published a memoir of mine called, Naked ladies about two psychotic episodes following the death of my father. It’s in ebook at this stage, but will be in paperback in a few months’ time. http://chipmunkapublishing.co.uk/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2264

 

            So wonderful it is to find a publisher that wants first-hand experiences of people diagnosed with psychiatric conditions. In Australia, people have some fears regarding attempting to understand people who have delved into the symbolic world of waking-dreams. They seem to worry that it might somehow ‘get them’ too. That the schizophrenia ‘disease’ is contagious by hypnotic suggestions of art from these 'deranged' people.

I studied Professional Writing and Editing at Melbourne’s RMIT University. I got into this course on the strength of something I’d written when I was 22, before I’d experienced what psychosis meant. I knew somehow that what I was writing at age 32, wasn’t going to fit with consensual reality. And, it didn’t.

            I had burning things to say, but I had to think about how to say them, so that the public could be able to read them. Tutors and students really helped me get to this point. I really got a lot out of my time at RMIT.  I realised there is so much ignorance around what happens in psychiatric facilities. There was so much prejudice and that belief that there is no market for is regarded as a ‘dirty tissue.’

            In Naked ladies I was able to take raw material I wrote while in an episode and write it in a way that can be comprehended. This book allows people to understand how I was able to be lured into the fantasy world of waking-dreams that lead to waking-nightmares, not just once, but again, with the same science-fiction themes.

            If you want to understand what it is like to hear voices, or have other sensory ‘hallucinations’ and strange ‘delusional’ belief systems, this book takes you through my journey of this. It’s a fast-paced book. Lots of things happen all at once. Very much what psychiatrists would term, ‘mania’, ‘paranoia’, ‘conspiracy theories’, ‘florid psychosis’, and ‘positive symptoms of schizophrenia.’ There are also breaks in between the ‘psychotic episodes’, where I resume a ‘normal state of being.’

The book also includes illustrations and paintings I did at the time, but it is a decent sized book. I like books to be at least 70,000 words, when they’re not poetry books or novellas.

I hope Australia will start publishing more first-hand experiences about altered states of consciousness that get labelled ‘diseased’ by psychiatrists. There is a growing market for these books. It is peer support. And books like this help people realise that people with lived-experience are not ‘consumers’ and ‘useless eaters’, we are people who have had unusual experiences. These experiences are our coping mechanisms. Yes they are flawed, but how nightmarish they become has to do with how these symbolic manifestations are treated by society. Treat unusual experiences with fear and prejudice and psychiatric torture and what does society expect will happen? A cure? Apparently that is the current belief… But that is not the truth of what’s happening. The truth will be found in books by those who have experienced psychiatric conditions first-hand.

Chipmunka has just recently published a memoir of mine called, Naked ladies about two psychotic episodes following the death of my father. It’s in ebook at this stage, but will be in paperback in a few months’ time. http://chipmunkapublishing.co.uk/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2264