One N.A.M.I. Mama

By Patricia Lefave

There is a mother of a young man in the United States who is known to have advised other family members of the labelled to call the police if their labelled family member does not want to swallow the drugs willingly. She also advises them to knock over a bit of furniture and knock a few pictures off the wall etc. before the police get there. This is done to indicate the need and justification for forced drugging.

Her son, on the other hand, has “claimed” that his mother has “set him up” to appear to be violent and out of control. When the police arrive after she does this, he is very angry and of course, since he is already labelled, this is assumed to be a  “symptom” which has nothing at all to do with concrete reality, or the situation, and/or relationships to which he is reacting. In fact, it is not seen AS a “reaction,” but rather part of his self contained illness. His psychiatrist you see, knows paranoid delusions when he hears them...as did MINE.

His mother justifies her own “covert” behaviour, which many people actually know about, on the basis of her son's diagnosis. His psychiatrist has told her that if her son does not take these “medications” as prescribed for him, for his illness, an illness that causes him to “think” his mother “sets him up to look crazy to others”, he could become violent. So his loving mother makes sure that he takes those drugs to PREVENT him from becoming what she tells the police he IS NOW, so that it won't happen IN THE FUTURE.  She does this “for his own good” and she also advises other N.A.M.I. members to do the same with their labelled people.

Her son hates her.

She tells others that, this is just his illness talking and not really him.

They tell her that she is so very strong and so brave to see it that way.

Is she really though?

Do you know which business is said to financially support the American National Organization for the Mentally Ill? The pharmaceutical company that manufactures the drugs which are being forced into this N.A.M.I. Mama's son, for the “brain disease” he has that causes him to “think” that is mother has “set him up” to look like he is violent and dangerous.  A twelve year old could see a conflict of interests in that; yet bio psych apparently, does not.

This case is not unusual. Is it “always” the parents or family members who do this? No. It can also be other people as well, playing the same kind of role but power and domination, along with hidden agendas, seems to be a very common theme in this. It is also not unusual that those defined as inherently “defective” cannot get a word they say about their own experiences in this, as the “subject,” taken seriously by anyone.

You see what this mother's son doesn't understand is that his experience, from his point of view is not seen, heard or understood as harm because it is being DEFINED as “help.” His “resistance” to accepting the “help” he is told he needs, is then defined as a “lack of insight into his own condition.” So now, in a way that is quite similar to my own experience and that of many others, it really doesn’t MATTER any more WHAT he says or does not say, does or does not do, feels or does not feel, understands or does not understand. That is because his LABEL now defines him for everyone else and it has done so from the moment it was bestowed upon him. The Label IS the stigma.

The only people who really understand how utterly hopeless he feels and how helpless he has been made, to change anything about the situation he is in, are other 'defectives' who have had the same kind of experience, and this power play, used on them, along with a handful of mental health mavericks of various titles, who have awakened to it themselves and become shocked and appalled by the reality of it.

I know this feeling personally.

I have trying to be heard since late 94, early 95 and have gotten precisely nowhere from the effort to do so. I am not “allowed” either to “think” that I have been “harmed by others” without being called crazy BY those “others” as well as being openly mocked and ridiculed for the effort to BE heard, and for refusing to “accept” that I am just “ill.” This result is called “help.”

They also call my defining of group harm and the concealment of it “which THEY call “help” MY perception/reaction problem...just like this N.A.M.I. mama's son.

So does this prove something? I think that it does. It is more about WHAT it seems to prove, depending upon HOW you HEAR it, then whether or not it proves anything.  HOW you hear it may well depend upon the filter through which you have been trained, or taught to hear it, and REALITY may have little, or nothing, to do with it.