By Patricia Lefave
The job of the psychiatric establishment is to dismiss the opinions, input and opposition coming from those they psychiatrize by dismissing it as psychiatric nonsense, the existence of which then validates psychiatry for psychiatrizing all these really annoying people who are, of course, “just seeking attention.”
Is the Irony of that lost on you?
When Paula Caplan showed opposition to the construction of the DSM, and worse, went public with it, they did the same kind of thing to her that they do to ALL of us; they found the fault to be in her, so that it WON’T be found to be in the system’s architects or in the system itself.
THIS is the essence of all dysfunctional systems. One must avert one’s eyes from such systems by focusing on the “flaws” of those who are making the effort to get others to focus on the dysfunctional system.
This is why, as I recently told an activist who can’t quite HEAR what I am saying, that “we” can’t deal with this in the same way that other activists focused on human rights, deal with this, because it is not quite the same thing for us. That does NOT mean that our struggle with psychiatry and the society that supports this outlook is NOT a human rights problem. of course it is. it means the people we are DEALING with do not see it or hear it that way, because they do not see or hear “us” as equally human. So, we must talk about this publicly on THIS level.
Not, “We want human rights!”
But,
We ARE as human as psychiatrists and all of their followers, who define us, and all that we say and do, in sub human terms, because doing so justifies THEM and their system.
I don’t need anyone to “give me equality” or to “get me (“them") out of isolation.” I am already equal. I am pushed INTO psycho-spiritual isolation by a system that silences me. just stop pushing me OUT.
I want a system which currently defines me and all like me as “less than”, as irrelevant, to STOP stop promoting itself at my expense and at the expense of others. when I say “I am not expandable,” I MEAN exactly that, so take it please at face value. None of us want to be dismissed as irrelevant for pointing out a reality that the dysfunctional system wants to keep “hidden.”
In other words, my fellow psychiatrized, you can’t talk TO the system. You can only place a lovely podium and a microphone close to, but outside of, the system and then talk ABOUT the system ITSELF to those who don’t really know about it.
It is like taking a support group for victims of bullies[1] to go and take a look at the bully and then talk about the bully from a few feet away. You can’t deal with a bully by bullying back nor can you ignore the bully, keep silent and hope for the best. Neither of those will work. What DOES work is the exposure of the bullies' motives, actions and emotional pay offs, discussed calmly and matter-of-factly, for all the previous victims and the potential victims to hear, and to discuss it together while the bully watches them do it, treating the bully for a change, like s/he is the one who is now irrelevant.
Logic does not penetrate illogic; but sometimes embarrassment does.
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