first published at https://www.blog88.org by Phoebe Sparrow Wagner I used to be “crazy.” Labeled CMI, chronically mentally ill, prone to psychosis, i was a revolving door mental patient, one who spent almost as much time in her adult life in the hospital as out of it. Although I had various diagnoses, the … Continue reading CRAZY OR NOT, HERE I COME
Reposted from 2017, and 2013. I wrote the bulk of this piece back in Connecticut in 2013, when i still believed in the concept of mental illness yadda yadda. i am adding this preface in Vermont, from a place of much greater stability and even more firmness. Asexuality is not a common orientation but it … Continue reading “I am Asexual, not an Amoeba…”
Dear Everyone, I spent more than three weeks at Yale’s psychiatric hospital in August being tortured, if not by seclusion and mechanical restraints (my PAD restricted the use of those and at least at Yale they listened) then being held down by armed security guards (only their guns removed) and injected innumerable times with … Continue reading I Will Not Be Sick Forever…Schizophrenia is Not A Life Sentence!
Let me state this plainly so there is no misunderstanding: I am tired of people thinking there is something wrong with me just because I do not have a husband or boyfriend/lover or even a girlfriend/lover or a love-interest of any kind. I am not interested in sex and have never been interested in sex for … Continue reading I am Asexual, I am not an Amoeba
What is real? Is anything true and factual? Or are we all just deluded and mad as hatters? This is a serious question. What I recall and what was written down in my chart about a certain four days in July 2012 are so different it is difficult to figure out whether my experience was … Continue reading Am I Crazy? Hallucinations, Delusions or Consensual Reality
On Medscape yesterday they ran an article/video by a Dr Jeffrey Leiberman, lamenting the failure of three psychotropic drugs –one for the treatment of schizophrenia, and the others for Alzheimer’s — to pass beyond either phase 3 or phase 2 clinical trials. This is part of what Leiberman had to say (please note that the … Continue reading Psych Meds: Are We Crazy to Take Them?
Rossa Forbes wrote a fascinating article at the Mad in America website — see my permanent link — about her son’s schizophrenia diagnosis and his on-going recovery from treatment. One thing among many struck me. She freely admits that when she learned his diagnosis, one of her reactions was to treat her son as if … Continue reading When is Schizophrenia not Schizophrenia? To Be or Not to Be…
The biggest barrier to my recovery from what had always been diagnosed as schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder was, I regret to say, the mental health system and psychiatry itself. Yes, for many decades I had been told I was ill and needed interventions like medications and the hospital for my “brittle psychosis”. I was told … Continue reading What are/were the most significant barriers to your recovery from “mental illness”?
I wrote the bulk of this piece back in Connecticut in 2013, when i still believed in the concept of mental illness yadda yadda. i am adding this preface in Vermont, from a place of somewhat greater stability and even more firmness. Asexuality is not a common orientation but it is not unknown or in … Continue reading I’m Asexual, and LGBTQIA should have a letter for me…
I do not know where this photo came from originally nor who made it but i obtained it from Sarah Grace Wolfram’s facebook page, so i am crediting her. In any event, what it says means the world to me. I DID NOT CHANGE…IN FACT, MAYBE I NEVER NEEDED TO CHANGE, I … Continue reading AWAKENING
I wrote some or most of this in 2009 but I want to rewrite and update it.. Art, capital A, saved my life. It did more than that. Art gave me a new life, new hope, and something to get up for in the morning. It’s not that I’ve stopped writing. But I had been … Continue reading Papier Mache Art and Recovery: An Update on Thanksgiving 2014
AAC FILE (MIGHT PLAY WITH INTERNET EXPLORER TRY ON IPHONE OR IPAD OR APPLE …DOES NOT WORK ON INTERNET EXPLORER…Okay, this may not please everyone and it isn’t exactly ready for Primetime, but if you can’t hear the lyrics (and in any rap song it is difficult to catch all of them the first time, … Continue reading Mental Patient Anti-Psychiatry Rap
I first saw videos of January on Youtube years ago, and I was appalled by the inappropriate nature of taping your supposedly disturbed child. I was also skeptical. I felt deeply that the parents had decided to label and encourage Jani to behave/answer questions in “schizophrenic” ways in order to garner publicity. Sorry, but those … Continue reading Does “January” Have Schizophrenia or Is it Her Family That is Disturbed?
(***SEE PAMELA’S COMMENTS AT BOTTOM OF PAGE…) Connecticut Hospitals Responding to Psychiatric Restraint Numbers By DAVIS DUNAVIN View Slideshow Pamela Spiro Wagner and her art. Davis Dunavin WNPR 1 of 3 “They don’t want you to get out. They pull [restraints] as tight as possible to the sides of the bed.” Pamela Spiro Wagner Pamela Spiro Wagner’s apartment is … Continue reading AUDIO Interview with Pamela Spiro Wagner: WNPR on Connecticut Hospitals’ Use of Restraints and Seclusion
and they really work for you, then don’t listen to me, keep taking them and the more power to you. Do you work at a job and earn a living while you take anti-psychotic drugs? Do you support a family or take care of one while your wage-earner partner can keep her or his job … Continue reading THE BITTEREST PILLS ARE ANTI-PSYCHOTIC DRUGs but if they work…
I swore that after I left Hartford Hospital’s Institute of Living last January, 2013, having spent the better part of a month in seclusion and many many hours brutally and punitively four-point restrained, I swore I would never go anywhere that would treat me like such an animal again. But then, having twice been … Continue reading Sometimes it Takes a Village …to avoid the Hospital
To explain the picture/letters above, I was practicing some lettering, briefly, and did not know what I was writing until later…which makes what I wrote all the more interesting a message from my subconscious. Clearly I agree with almost everyone else I have ever heard from: Haldol is the drug from hell! About the rest … Continue reading Antipsychotics Block Pleasure in Life: It’s All About Dopamine…
I feel like screaming, I am a human being, you effers, treat me like one! But of course, that is what I would say only to one group of people, the hospital personnel who so tortured me, and not everyone does that. Though I get this sense that a lot of people treat me … Continue reading Depressed, Disconsolate and Distressed…Why??? With updates
As I have been having a hard time dealing with things, I do art and do art and do art…It is as good a way to cope as any other I suppose. Anyhow, I hope to get back to writing here soon. In the meantime, I am investigating more … Continue reading Doing Art to Save My Sanity
POEM IN WHICH I SPEAK FRANKLY, FORGIVE ME GOMER: ER-speak for a troublesome, unwanted person in the emergency department, acronym for Get Out of My Emergency Room So many times gurneyed in by ambulance and police escort “dangerous to self or others,” and too psychotic to cooperate or scribble consent, you suspect by now you are just … Continue reading SISTERS OF NO MERCY
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My Life is Art, My Art is Life
“In India when we meet and part we Often say, ‘Namaste’, which means: I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides; I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace. I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us." ~~Ram Dass~~
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The opinions expressed are those of the author. You go get your own opinions.
One minute info blogs escaping the faith trap
Kate Greenough's daily drawings
portraits & figures by an older woman artist, with blue collar roots
Apprenez les langues !
Life is too short to be petty-minded
What sense in chaos.
A pause to admire nature's unparalleled beauty.
Strange Anatomy, Awkward Perspectives
Yeah nah...
Thoughts on all things Autism and mental health
Not your third grade paper mache
Artwork, data analysis, and other projects by Jon
My Life is Art, My Art is Life
WAGblog: Dum Spiro Spero 