Sunday, August 03, 2008

Let's Ask The Experts


By Patricia Lefave, Labelled, D.D.(P)

First posted in November of 2005

On Mocking and Ridicule That Doesn't Exist:
When we tell psychiatrists that we are mocked, ridiculed, treated with contempt and disdain by many people in public, they rarely believe it and instead, define our complaints of it as "symptoms": Paranoia, hallucinations, attempts to seek attention. ( the last one of which is ironically TRUE on a certain level!)
My question is: If this kind of group behaviour does not exist, why did humanity invent the words to describe it? Are those who did trying to promote delusional beliefs? Also what is the difference between "confidentiality" and "secrecy"? Or between "secrecy" and "privacy"?
Do psychiatrists SEE any difference? They don't appear to see one.


On Psychiatrists' Brain Chemistry:
Since you cannot test brain chemistry as either ''normal'' or ''abnormal'' how do psychiatrists know their own brain chemistry is EITHER normal or abnormal?
Perhaps the reason you believe MY problem was by brain chemistry, rather than the reality of an event involving human relationships is because you suffer from a brain chemistry problem, but just don't know it. Do you think some of you might be those you yourselves define as crazy who just don't know it?
Do you feel angry? How do you know it's real anger and not just the simulated anger of an imbalance? Or are you just getting angry (or perhpas pretending to be angry) in order to seek attention/fame?
As a group, you have actually caused a lot of people a lot of problems, myself included. Should I assume then that you are all "Borderline Personality Disorders" using your careers as a socially sanctioned outlet for your disorders so that you can deny you are sick and avoid treatment? Do you, as experts, think it is possible that almost anyone could define almost anyone else in this same way, and that the only real difference is in who has managed to manipulate well enough to get the concrete power to do so and have it enforced legally?

On Being ''In Remission'':
If someone who works for the psychiatric establishment telling other ''schizos'' they must take psychiatric drugs for the rest of their lives, like he does, also claims to be ''in remission,'' how does he KNOW he is ''in remission''? Doesn't he need to be drug free to know that?

I have heard many psychiatrists claim that it is only the drugs that are keeping people out of psychosis and there is no such thing as bieng ''in remission'' for that reason. So, is the one who says he is ''in remission'' really drug free and just lying about it to others? Or is he just deluding himself about being ''in remission''?

To Label or Not To Label?
When surrounded by people who habitually deny reality, even the concrete evidence of it, HOW do psychiatrists decide WHICH people need interventions, psychiatric labels and drugs forced into them for their own good?
Let me use a concrete example so we don't all go off on the usual abstract tangents.
Comparing myself to our former citizen Ernst Zundel, Holocaust Denier.
As you know, I was given the label "Delusional Disorder, Paranoid" for stating my own experience which was not believed, despite concrete evidence of it found in 1999.

My question is, "Why was Zundel deported rather than "helped" like me?" In the face of all the evidence of the existence of the events of Nazi Germany, isn't the denial of that classified as "delusional? How is it that I am "delusional" for telling the truth but Zundel is not delusional for denying it?

Once again I am confused by what appears to me to be an absence of logic in psychiatric practice. . Imagine how much time and money would have been saved simply be planning an "intervention" and taking only ten cost effective minutes to apply the appropriate label to force him out of his life and into the system of psychiatric diagnostics, endless circular arguments and total control.
Why was that not done and why was his denial of reality defined as a hate crime and not madness?

Testing A Theory
Can you understand this?
In order to get a clear picture of the reality of the aggressor's "game" you have to be able to put together physical reality with the metaphysical "play?"
Or
If you prefer it in terms of forensics, you must be able to match the hypothesis to concrete evidence? Either one without the other is not proof, it's just a hunch, an impression or a theory. They must fit to be proof. That usually takes longer to examine and investigate than ten cost effective minutes.

Wondering?
If you tried year after year, to talk to a group of people about the reality of your life and feelings, and you were consistently invalidated for it, or just ignored, (no response at all is the dysfunctional group's favourite you know) why does it surprise anyone when the person making all the effort simply has no further interest in attempting to do so?
Now, guess what the dysfunctional wonders judge giving up the attempt to be? Go ahead. Guess. If you said, "withdrawing from reality" you passed my little test. Just another flaw in the one they have worked so hard to ignore.
Since their manipulative ploy finally worked then, what are they upset about now? You see, if I don't keep trying to talk to them while they ignore me, the flaw is still found in me for that too AND if I continue to try, it's "inappropriate" thinking and behaviour on my part also.
This is the "mystery" relationship that no one understands. We loons sure are odd, aren't we?

Next question:
Why would you expect people you rooutinely manipulate and to whom you frequently lie, to "trust"you? Is it because you think we are just too stupid to see your duplicity? That's the impression we nuts often get of psychiatrists. (no doubt it is because we are "too sensitive") Apparently, it is only if I willingly take the role of town idiot that I will be able to please the ''authority" figure who has total power over me, which he is not afraid to use if i dare to tell him he "has no clothes." (want me to explain that metaphor to you ? Or will you be able to get a team together to work it out OK?) Does it not seem like convoluted thinking on YOUR part to define my awareness of you, and your ''team",which is accurate, as MY "paranoia?" Where do you suppose the "delusional"belief that "people are trying to harm us" comes from? Do you not think I have been "harmed"? Are you NOT "people''? Are bus drivers, nurses, doctors, lawyers, landlords, handymen, and all their friends realitives and neighbours gossiping non stop NOT "people"?
if not, what are they? Aliens?


Filters?

If you met someone who was actually saner and more conscious than you, but, you were sure that as an expert you had the superior understanding, do you think you would see her as she REALLY was? Or would you be blinded by the filter of your won training?

Circular Arguments

Has it occured to you that the reason us lunatics perceive the circle is because the circle exists?

Has it perhaps further occured to you that if you don't see the circle, the perception problem actually belongs to YOU?
As a psychiatrist has stated to me:

"If you were really crazy, you wouldn't know it."

Does the psychiatrist think he's crazy? Yes or No?
Perhaps your customary "No Response" response might be the best choice here if you don't want to be forced out of your job and given the help you obviously need no matter which way you answer the question.

Appropriate "Confusion"?

A psychiatrist I was told about told her colleagues regarding us loons, something to this effect: "God only knows what they are hearing when we are try to talk to them!"

I would agree that "God knows" but I would like those mystified psychiatrists toknow also.
So I am trying very hard to SHOW you what us "nuts" are hearing coming from you.

Taking a Spin

If you were trying to tell someone what had happened to you and to resolve a problem and that person told other people he or she really couldn't accept anything you said as valid, how long would you try to keep attempting to resolve the problem with that person?
If you did keep trying and you were told the problem was YOUR failure to "let go" of the attempt, so you were getting what you deserve, would you stop trying then?
If you stopped and were THEN told that if you didn't speak up for yourself, you deserve what you get for your failure to do so, would you start again?
Which would you rather do?
A. Keep talking and get what you deserve?
OR
B. Stop talking and deserve what you get?

For some people this is the story of their life and it goes the same way, decade after decade, without any change possible. It is like a game; a very sad, sick co-dependent game, but still a game. This is the foundation of a system which has been created to solve this problem by denying there is a problem to solve. The same game. Like being caught in a revolving door, the only help offered being awareness reduction medication so you won't feel quite so dizzy while reality is being spun for you.

Contrast And Compare:

If you define the thoughts and feelings of human beings by reducing them to "bad" chemistry, to whom are those thoughts and feelings being compared and contrasted as "good" chemistry?
For to define "abnormal" in such sweeping yet simple minded terms You must also be able to define "normal" in the same way. Would you then define "normal" as an abstraction, equal and opposite to that used for "abnormal"?

Understanding your Own A.C.T.T.

This is a little test for you to see how your brain is working.
Can you tell me what this idiom means?

" Too many cooks spoil the broth."

Write down your answers and I will let you know your test results later. A full test is soon to come tentatively titled: Idioms for Idiots.


Grandiosity

Are people who are spreading rumours, and who believe they understand the life experience and feelings of people they don't even know, showing signs of grandiosity?

1. If no, should I start doing that so I can be normal too?
2. If yes, should I call Homewood and provide you with a list of these peoples' names for their own good?
( I should mention that quite a large number of Homewood employees are ON this list)

Objects of Observation

Do you understand yet (Homewood Psychiatrists) what "You are objectifying me" means?
Do you understand that when you discuss someone's thoughts or feelings with third parties, while telling the "subject" she is not "allowed" to speak or react, that you have reduced that person to the level of an object?
Do you know what my statement, "I am a person" means yet?
Or will you need to get a group consensus on that?
Can you understand the difference between having a chemical imbalance as the source of your experience and your feelings about it,
AND
being told chemical imbalance is the source of your non existent experience and your simulated feelings about It?
In such a situation, who would you rather be? The assessor or the assessed?


Another Test?

If you thought the psychiatrist who was assessing you was giving you a "message" to test you, and you knew that getting the message could be assessed by the psychiatrist as a "symptom" (ideas of reference) for which he could expertly assess you as crazy, would you:
A. Get the message and be proved crazy?
or
B. Not get the message and be proved stupid?

Talking and listnening go together in a binary relationship. If both talk and both listen, something changes between them. If either one talks but won't, or can't, listen or if either listens but won't , or can't, talk, nothing changes. The genius "Pale Duck" would no doubt agree. As Quackers might put It, "It's about communication."


What is Chemical Balance?

Since psychiatry claims to understand what constitutes chemical imbalances in our brains, it follows that they also must understand chemical balance in our brains, since logically, one must understand that first in order to understand what lies outside the parameters of ''normal.''

So, please define ''normal'' brain chemistry for us. Many of us all over the world, are dying to hear it.

(I sort of suspect that ''normal'' is going to produce some sort of very bland ''affect''....but then...I am all emotional about this...I'd blame my ovaries for it but it's too late now I'm afraid. I already have my label so I can't go for the PMS brand of crazy now. I guess I will have to fall back on my primary ''delusion'' and blame all those poor, innocent, mystified ''others'' who have never had any idea what I am talking about.)


If you took an M.R.I. of the brain of a human being who had been caught in an extremely stressful situation for a long time with no possibility of escape or resolution, and compared it the the M.R.I. of a control subject who had NOT been in such a situation, would the excess in the production of epinephrine, triggered by the flight or fight reaction appear comparatively as chemical differences between the two brains?

Is balance or imbalance related to circumstances and other outside factors or is it a fixed intrinsic state?

Do you really find the total integration of mind and brain defined by psychiatry as inseparable? If so, can you tell us which chemical reaction in your brain is causing you to think that particular thought?

Can you tell us in relation to that chemical reaction how you have identified the thought and it's inseparable chemical aspect as "correct" or within "normal" thinking parameters?

Could you please define "normal" thinking parameters and the normal chemical balance that goes with that?

When you are in training as a psychiatrist, do you question what you are taught, or do you just accept it without question because experts are training you?

Is there such a thing as an expert who has been proved to be wrong about what he believed was his expertise?

Does expertise equate to perfect understanding?

If an expert were to be proved wrong, where would the error exist? In the expert, in the one who trained the expert, or in what the expert was taught that made him an expert?

As psychiatrists, do you ever: manipulate people, have hidden agendas,or lie?

1. If no, is that because that would be considered to be abnormal behaviour? If it is abnormal behaviour, should the psychiatrist who indulges in it be forced out of his/her job, into the mental health system, and onto drugs ?(for his/her own good)

2. If the answer to the previous question is yes, is that behaviour acceptable; a/ in an abstract sense?
b/ in a specific sense?

If people psychiatrists, psychiatrize manipulate people and lie to them is that an abnormal pathology?
If so, could you explain the subtle differences which allow the same concepts to be both good and bad at the same time depending upon WHO is employing them?

These are the things which tend to confuse us nuts.
Are psychiatrists ever confused? If so, is that a symptom? If not, is it because you do not see anything to be confused about?
If you don't see anything to be confused about, is that because there is nothing there to see, or because you are not capable of seeing what actually is there? How would you be able to answer this question and be sure you were right if you did not see what was there?

How many psychiatrist would you estimate to be labeled "mentally ill" themselves, and who now promote their belief in their own Self definition to those who come to them (or who are forced to see them) for help? Do you think their may be an element of Self validation for the psychiatrist in that?
Do you think such psychiatrists might, at times, get defensive, perhaps even angry or frightened, if the framework for their Self definition was denied and rejected?

Do you think that might adversely affect their relationship to such a patient?
Do you think a co-dependent relationship might be created in such a case? Perhaps even one which the patient could not escape since the psychiatrist doing the defining of the other would be holding all the power? If the patient felt fear in such a case, would the fear be real fear or just a simulated fear-like reaction caused by the patient's bad brain chemistry?

Do you think such imbalanced power relationships in general could be termed "healthy?"




onCP

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

to me it's more like there ARE people threatening, insulting us, and controlling our thoughts.

The question is: where are they? Are they part of society or not. They could also be somewhere else, on a different sphere.

The problem I see is that psychiatry does not reckognize that we are threatened by someone , they say its our heads, without even having proof, and that makes psychiatry unprofessional and untrustworthy for me. Either they know and have something to hide or they're just controlfreaks, who have nothing better to do that treating us like fools.
This is all suspect.

LP