Category Archives: Abuse

Abuse, Health, Hospital

My Statement to the Police About July Assault in ER

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Dear Reader,

This is only part of what i have not been able to write about for months. And there is a great deal more. Now that “Mike” is formally being charged with Assault, i feel i can share this much. In the future i will say more. But for now, at least i will share this statement that i wrote for the police, some weeks later, which is only a second statement, as they already had the statement I originally wrote the very day the assault happened.

Alas, I do not have a copy of that statement, which another ER nurse had to transcribe for me as I was not permitted the use of an ink pen at the time. It was also after I had been illegally but forcibly administered IM Haldol, despite the fact that the record itself shows that I was lying on my bed in my room with my headphones on and the lights off. The record also shows that  an order for PRN 4-point restraints was entered into my chart at that same time. And this PRN order was kept there for the entire 8 days that I was held captive in that Emergency Room, a matter that the lawyer’s grievance deals with but for which a mere grievance seems hardly adequate.

Let me start at the sort of beginning, which is to say only that I had been hospitalized by force at R— at the State Hospital Unit there — and I will talk about that experience in a whole different post. But after 6 weeks I was discharged to a step down facility largely because I had so alienated the hospital doctor that he wanted to get rid of me…Let’s face it. I told him each time I saw him, “Get lost, I do not want to talk with you, You are useless!” Needless to say, this did not go over well, useless though he may have been. And though I found the Social Worker very helpful and so too many of the nurses and mental Health workers and the Occupational Therapist was wonderful as well, but ONLY THE DOCTOR mattered. At least in his own mind, and so he arranged to discharge me somewhere I would no longer get under  his skin or on his nerve i.e. anywhere but in his hospital!

That this step down facility had no medication supervision, beyond opening a safe and having a resident take whatever she or he wanted, this mattered little to the doctor, apparently. Despite his insistence that I needed the medications to such an extent that I have been on a so-called ONH or “order of non-hospitalization” for months now, meaning that wherever I am, I can be hospitalized if I do NOT take the meds, as contradictory and gobbledigoookish  as that sounds! SO I was sent off to  R–, Vermont, to await a bed first at Alternatives and then a more or less long term placement at MRR in Brattleboro, where I am today. (Though how I got here was not via that route as it turned out.)

But in R, Vermont, I did not last longer than a week at the step-down facility as I failed to take the meds and I suppose this is why I ended up trying to set my hair on fire, after receiving commands from “on high.” That is also why I was at the ER when what I describe below occurred.

I knew when the staff member left me alone in the ER, after she walked away and left me there, that I was sunk, that I was going to end up back in the hospital, and with that realization, my heart plummeted. I did not want this, I did not want it. I  decided then and there to do all i could to be compliant  with the doctor and the crisis team, even more so than I already had been, which was plenty. I asked if I could take 10mg of Zyprexa. I even suggested it before the Crisis Team could get there. But it did me no good. They took one look at the report from the step-down facility staff member, who told them about how I had waved lit cigarettes near my just-washed hair and singed it, and they decided — in the lingo of Emergency Crisis teams, that I was “a danger to myself” and could not leave and had to be hospitalized against my will. This would not do. I said as much. I said,”I do not want to go to any hospital. I do not do well in hospitals. I want to go back where i was. Please do not make me go to a hospital. I want to leave”. And with that. I got off my gurney, as I recall, and I am sure the hospital chart can correct my memory if faulty for details now, and proceeded to walk slowly towards the door. I walked slowly because I did not want to trigger an assault by the goon squad. And I did not want to scare anyone into thinking I was doing anything besides deliberately and consciously choosing to leave. But as I did so, a man, a nurse, followed me. I walked slowly out the main door, still dressed in hospital pajamas, since where was I going to obtain any clothing? And I took about 10 steps when he yelled at me, “You go any farther and  I am calling the police!”

Now I will let my statement take over the account.

“I want to scream to someone that i saw in the eyes of the nurse who attacked me someone who recognized Satan and that was why he started screaming at me so uncontrollably before i did anything as “Pam” to “deserve it.” Do you understand this? This should have been obvious to anyone watching the video, but i do not yet know where we go off camera…i only know these facts: that he told my body that if it took another step away from the hospital (i had already walked slowly out the main hospital doors) he would call the police. I believe i shrugged and said, “Go ahead and call them.” Then i decided, remembering the Springfield VT police brutal tactics not to trust them in R—– and so i turned around maybe fifteen feet from the double doors deciding to return and proceeded, again slowly, back towards the entryway. It was then that this nurse started to scream at me. i was shocked at this, because i had already reconsidered and was returning under my own steam. i objected to his screaming and i asked him, likely also loudly, why he was screaming at me when i was already complying. He continued screaming even louder and then he grabbed me and bear-hugged me in a suffocating restraint hold that set me off big-time. He is a big man, and i could not get away from him. He dragged me into the hospital lobby, where, desperate for release, i kicked backwards at his shins.

This must be what so enraged him that his reaction was to throw me forcefully to the ground and jump on top of me, mashing my face into the carpet in such a frenzy that i feared he was going to kill me. I could not breathe or even scream for several long seconds as he continued to grind my face into the carpet. I was terrified for my life and did not know when or whether he would stop. Finally –i never knew what made him stop – maybe someone came out of the nearby ER and saw him attacking me? Whatever was the case, he hauled me back to my feet. At this point i was breathless and extremely frightened, but i nevertheless screamed at him in fury, “You rapist!” I may even have screamed, “You fucking rapist!” I really don’t know. I only know “rapist” was the worst thing i could think of to call him as he had violated every ethic of nursing and emergency care-giving possible and as far as i was concerned he had raped me just as completely as any man who violated my sexual parts.

Unfortunately for me, this only served to further inflame a man already too out of control for explanation, except as someone who felt face to face with Satan: his reaction was to haul off and slap Pam’s face, to shut her up, grabbing my mouth so i couldn’t scream that word any longer.

Maybe someone came out and helped her at this point but I do not recall, even though it might have happened. The next thing i remember is screaming from inside my room in the Emergency Department for a long while and when the police officer appeared, begging him to listen to what the nurse had done. He clearly did not believe me. All he did was leave a statement form for me to fill out –i repeatedly informed him that the Emergency Department staff did not permit me access to pens — and he told me i would have to somehow transmit my statement, signed and notarized, to the police station on my own.

In the meantime, i overheard the same nurse, who i believe was called Mike, telling falsehoods about how i had run into traffic while heading towards the train station. I objected loudly and vociferously. All i got for this was to be restrained yet again, this time by the same police officer among others, and despite my repeatedly asking what medical emergency justified it, to be forcibly injected with Haldol, a medication that my Advance Directive — which the ED had noted and logged in that very night– explicitly directs is never to be administered. This same drug was given to me against my will and over my strenuous objections, even though i lay on the bed the whole time. I was not overtly agitated by this time. At no time was i was more than tearful and most certainly never out of control.

I later complained of ribs (left ) pain — from how hard Mike had compressed me either in his restraint hold or when jumping on top of me, and knee abrasions (right) the latter from being dragged on the carpet. i told the ED personnel several times that night and over the next few days i spent in the Emergency Department. They never looked at my ribs or my knee to appraise these injuries, not until a few days later when Dr Sandy C——     ordered x-rays.
Because no one would document these injuries i was forced to photograph them myself in the mirror.

Ribcage bruise a week later

Abuse, Health, Psychiatry

I Will Be a Gadfly or Die!

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How very similiar Michael and Charlie look...and and no wonder, since they share the same sadism genes!
How very similiar Michael and Charlie look…and and no wonder, since they share the same sadism genes!

In the next few days I will be writing and having a guest post from someone but today I want to write about a frustration that has got my goat bigtime. It has to do with the letter that I wrote to Kathryn Power, “bigwig” at SAMHSA or, for those of you who wonder what the letters stand for, the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration, for Region One, which covers the New England region.

 

Apparently she took my letter very seriously, which I did not know. This may have been because I never received her reply, if she sent one, having given her the wrong return address ( I did not know the proper one where I was to be living at MRR in Brattleboro.) Or it may be because she failed to copy me on any of the emails she sent to any of the parties she subsequently wrote to, both in the Federal government and at the state level. Whatever the case may be, apparently she wrote to several officials, including the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and possibly the Department of Protection and Advocacy ( which dumped me completely after assuring Susan Stefan, Atty at law known for her work against seclusion and restraints, that they were working closely with me). I never knew this, nor have I learned the outcome of these contacts. I only just today received faxed records of these initial emails.

 

So I know that Ms Power contacted Mirian Dephin-Rittmon who is the new commissioner of mental health in Connecticut. I would like to think that Ms Dephin-Rittmon responded somehow, but I have no such evidence, and if the response from Patricia Rehmer, her predecessor, is any hint of what I could expect, then the answer will b: NOTHING, nada, zilch, a big fat zero. And why is that? Because in Connecticut the Commissioner of Mental Health and Addiction Services, while she may nominally be serving all citizens with mental health problems, actually has no such mandate. Not at all. She serves in fact ONLY those who are hospitalized in STATE facilities, which are extremely limited, and how lucky for her, and in fact for them, because they get protections that none of the rest of us ever got.

 

It was not that we were not indigent and also on Medicare and Medicaid, and also on SSDI and possibly on SSI. Most of the patients at general hospital psychiatric units in Connecticut, if they are repeat offenders of any sort, are usually on assistance of this kind. How could they not be? Most have been “disabilified” – that is, disabled and made into disabled-thinking persons — by medications if not by illness and by the systematic undermining of their personhood by the State. (I know, that is an argument that needs to be enlarged, but elsewhere, elsewhere…) But they are not in State facilities, decidedly not. Why is that? Because courtesy of the State Government, most state facilities, especially for adults, have been closed down or turned into prisons.

 

So if you need a hospital, you must go to a general hospital psychiatric unit where the Commissioner of Mental Health and the Department of Mental Health actually have no jurisdiction or sway. Literally the only way you can get into the safety zone of a State Hospital, that is to say, into the ONLY state hospital that now exists in Connecticut, Connecticut Valley Hospital, is by being thought such a bother to the nursing staff at a general hospital that they want to get rid of you, and they send you off to CVH for “longer term treatment.”

 

But this, mind you, is a punishment, it is not something that they do out of caring or attempts to render better treatment. Not at all, and I should know. After all, I have been threatened with such “treatment” several times, and the last time was when I was at New Britain Hospital in 2014. There, because I was labeled “a borderline” and therefore dismissed as manipulative and dramatic. Every word I said was disregarded…Nothing I could say was taken seriously. And every act was regarded as willful and deliberate. So they could justify punishment and torture as my just desserts, and they tortured me by dragging me to the seclusion cell for swearing under my breath, and four-pointed me for hitting my head lightly against a wall, after they stripped me naked in the cell and I begged for a blanket they pointblank refused me ….

 

You see the picture? I was “so impossible to deal with” that they were going to “send me away” as punishment and in revenge.

 

We all knew this, we all knew that CVH was the last stop, their last resort and final punishment for those of us so obstreperous as to object to their outrageous brutalities and keep objecting rather than bow our heads and submit. In the end, because I was so determined to get out, to escape to Vermont, I did, I gave in and gave up and submitted, and it worked. I played their game and got out of their abysmal unit. I submitted, for which I cannot forgive myself…

 

My point here though is that it is only when a patient has been deemed such a pain in the ass that she is sent away, sent down the river to CVH that Pat Rehmer or Miriam Delphin-Rittmon ever comes into the matter. Before then, they are not interested or concerned with what happens or happened for that matter. They do not give a damn. Not that they don’t care about torturous seclusion cells or four-point restraints in general, it just ain’t their juris-my-dicktion to care about what happens to patients in city hospitals. Sorry, but it ain’t. So they don’t pay attention. They just can’t and so they don’t. It is, as my friend Josephine says, always as if newly minting the expression, what it is!

 

That said, there is Capitol Region and the Connecticut Mental Health Center too, but they serve exclusively the uninsured, so that of course was not for me, who have been covered by Medicare and Medicaid for years. So lucky me, I could luckily go to New Britain General Hospital and be tortured by the likes of Michael E Balkunas, with utter impunity because DMHAS has no oversight or jurisdiction over these psychiatric units, NONE WHATSOEVER.

 

Did Kathryn Power not understand this when she wrote to Miss Miriam? Apparently not. She might have believed that the Commissioner of Mental Health in Connecticut could or would do something to help a mentally ill elderly citizen who had been tortured in a psychiatric unit in Connecticut. Foolish Kathryn! And then maybe she thought that Protection and Advocacy could be called upon to help me as well? Oh, what a sad, sad day for Ms Power when she learned, or did she, that P and A in Connecticut has no interest in helping anyone? Did she really think I had not applied myself to anyone for help before I went to her? Where does she think I have been for the last year? Doing nothing? I have tried and tried and tried and tried. But no one answers and no one does a thing!

 

Oh, I could laugh if I were not so broken and so sick at heart. But I will not let the fuckers win because then the torture will just continue unabated. No, I will continue to nip and snap and irritate Mikey B. and the nurses at W-1 at HOCC in New Britain until they themselves cry “uncle” and change their ways. I will not stop until they are stopped in their brutality and stop hurting people. I will never cease this campaign until I know that patients at W-1 are safe from harm or W-1 is closed down and I am certain that Dr. Balkunas has lost his license for good.

 

But the worst thing was that Ms Power finally sent the letter to the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in Boston which was directed to open a Complaint! Yes! But just whne I had hope for this, bizarrely enough, they closed it on the basis, get this, that my complaint “alleges abuse at MANCHESTER MEMORIAL HOSPITAL IN APRIL OF 2008″ — Say what?????? Huh? !!!!! My letter does no such thing. It never mentions Manchester Hospital at all.  Why would it? I had never even been there in 2008 or before 2009. And the first time I was EVER at MMH was in October of 2009, so WTF??? THis is so bizarre and so outrageous and so disgraceful a reason to deny my complaint a basis to go forward that I have had it…To say in the first paragraph that I allege torture at New Britain Hospital in 2014 and then in the fourth or fifth paragraph to somehow segue in this extreme non-sequitor to alleging something in Manchester Hospital in 2008, when I was NEVER THERE…just gets me down completely, because  you know, no one in the chain of information who saw this and they did, NO ONE CALLED THE OCR  on this or told them to get their act together and fix their mistake,.no they essentially let it go and made me suck it up…

FUCK THE THE ASSHOLES I cannot take this shit any longer.  FUCK THE WORLD I WANT TO GET OFF! I have had it. I’ve had it, No one gives a damn about anything…I give up.

Abuse, Michael E Balkunas MD, Seclusion and Restraints

Hartford COurant Article (that won’t be) about Michael E Balkunas, MD, Chief of psychiatry at HOCC

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Patients placed in Seclusion or Restraints are to be debriefed afterwards. To see standards of care, see below this reprint article.

I moved to Brattleboro Vermont on February 4, 2015, leaving my home state of Connecticut where I’ve lived for nearly 60 years. l had to move because of the horrific psychiatric abuses I experienced in Connecticut hospitals and my fear that if ever I were hospitalized again I would be killed.

I feel guilty, however, just getting out without accomplishing something to stop what continues to happen in Connecticut psychiatric units and hospitals.

The experience of mechanical four-point restraints – leather cuffs that are tightened around the wrists and ankles to immobilize a patient to a bed – or being isolated by force in an often freezing seclusion cell is almost universally terrifying. Nevertheless, both cell and/or restraints are routinely employed to curb loudness and undesirable behaviors at the Hospital of Central Connecticut on Grand Street in New Britain. I know this because I was subjected to both seclusion and restraints multiple times in the spring of 2014, despite a diagnosis of chronic paranoid schizophrenia, as well as PTSD that was triggered by precisely this sort of thing.

Bizarrely, the hospital psychiatrist, Dr Michael E Balkunas, treating me at HOCC challenged my PTSD diagnosis. “Patient misperceives her treatment as traumatic,” he wrote in my chart. Well, maybe so, but I don’t know how I can be accused of misperceiving three entire days callously abandoned alone, tied to the four posts of a metal bedstead at U-Conn’s Dempsey Hospital (for trying to escape the locked unit) as anything but brutality, even if it was in the 1990s. I also think it is nearly by definition traumatic to be forced to defecate in one’s own clothing while tied to a bed which is what they did at Hartford Hospital’s Institute of Living in the winter of 2013. This was after I was told to lie down and place my own limbs in the leather cuffs (“as a consequence but not a punishment”) for walking away from the very same “Side Room” that I had just been assured was “not a seclusion room unless you call it a seclusion room.”

Again, maybe I misperceived being grabbed and held face-down and nearly suffocated numerous times by staff at Yale Psychiatric Hospital in August 2013, who injected 10-20 milligrams of Haldol, a known drug of torture. Maybe this was just kindliness that I misunderstood as traumatic, maybe it was merely a “psychotic misperception” on my part? Maybe, and maybe not.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that in the ED of New Britain’s HOCC, a security guard in May 2014, grabbed me by my left shoulder immediately after he was warned by the nurse that it was my left shoulder that had a rotator cuff tear.

My New Britain chart records that I was admitted to that hospital, and to the IOL and others with a detailed Psychiatric Advance Directive, the first page of which states that seclusion, four-point restraints and forced medication invariably result in regression to “primitive states and severe worsening of symptoms.” It also makes several concrete suggestions how better to deal with me when I am upset. Even though I spent many hours on this document, Psychiatric Advance Directives have no legal clout in Connecticut and doctors can and do ignore them freely.

Perhaps because of this, HOCC staff literally forced me (“escorted me”) to seclusion and/or restrained me again and again. They took to stripping me “for safety’s sake,” and even though I put up no resistance, they had the male guards spread-eagle my limbs while still naked and put restraint cuffs on without even covering me.

Is it any wonder that what resulted was someone who would wash her hair in her own urine, defecate on the floor of her room and smear feces on the wall? Yet Dr Balkunas, the director of W-1, the general psychiatry unit at HOCC claimed that my trauma was imaginary. Why? Because treatment cannot be traumatic. He simply never got the connection between my horrendous decompensation and his so-called “therapy.” Maybe he never appreciated that he was torturing me, like a person who ripped the wings off butterflies as a child. Someone like that would not have understood how those creatures suffer either.

——————–

These are the NURSING De-Briefing standards for after restraints and/or seclusion:

APNA STANDARDS

DEBRIEFING AFTER RESTRAINTS/SECLUSION

Standard: As soon as possible, following the release from seclusion or restraint, the nurse, the person and others as appropriate should participate in a debriefing.

– See more at: http://www.apna.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3730#Release

Intent: A debriefing is done with persons who have been secluded or placed in restraints to:

  • Discuss and clarify any possible misperceptions the person may have concerning the incident.
  • Ascertain the person’s willingness to involve family or other caregivers in a debriefing to discuss and clarify their perceptions as well as identify additional alternatives or treatment plan modifications.
  • Support the person’s re-entry into the milieu.
  • Identify alternative interventions to reduce the potential for additional episodes.
  • Hear and record the person’s perspective on the episode.
  • Ascertain that the person’s rights and physical well-being were addressed during the episode and advise the person of processes to address perceived rights grievances.
  • Address any trauma that may have occurred as a result of the incident.
  • Modify the treatment plan as needed.

NONE of this was EVER done, ANYWHERE, in any hospital I have ever been in. Why? Because they all knew perfectly well what they had done to me and WHY…Not because I was dangerous to anyone, but as punishment…Naturally they did not want me to have a chance to tell anyone.

– See more at: http://www.apna.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3730#Release

Abuse, Art, Health

The Marionette and the Golden Pot: Does Art Mean Anything?

Image 3 Comments

Maybe this is meaningful, since I was thinking about con-artists, and maybe not…but I did not know what I was drawing or why until hours later…

Does Art Mean Something and if so, What?
Does Art Mean Something and if so, What? (unfinished drawing)
Abuse, Health, Michael E Balkunas MD, Seclusion and Restraints, Truth

Article about Michael E Balkunas,MD !

8 Comments

I moved to Brattleboro Vermont on February 4, 2015, leaving my home state of Connecticut where I’ve lived for nearly 60 years. l had to move because of the horrific psychiatric abuses I experienced in Connecticut hospitals and my fear that if ever I were hospitalized again I would be killed.

I feel guilty, however, just getting out without accomplishing something to stop what continues to happen in Connecticut psychiatric units and hospitals.

The experience of mechanical four-point restraints – leather cuffs that are tightened around the wrists and ankles to immobilize a patient to a bed – or being isolated by force in an often freezing seclusion cell is almost universally terrifying. Nevertheless, both cell and/or restraints are routinely employed to curb loudness and undesirable behaviors at the Hospital of Central Connecticut on Grand Street in New Britain. I know this because I was subjected to both seclusion and restraints multiple times in the spring of 2014, despite a diagnosis of chronic paranoid schizophrenia, as well as PTSD that was triggered by precisely this sort of thing.

Bizarrely, the hospital psychiatrist, Dr Michael E Balkunas, treating me at HOCC challenged my PTSD diagnosis. “Patient misperceives her treatment as traumatic,” he wrote in my chart. Well, maybe so, but I don’t know how I can be accused of misperceiving three entire days callously abandoned alone, tied to the four posts of a metal bedstead at U-Conn’s Dempsey Hospital (for trying to escape the locked unit) as anything but brutality, even if it was in the 1990s. I also think it is nearly by definition traumatic to be forced to defecate in one’s own clothing while tied to a bed which is what they did at Hartford Hospital’s Institute of Living in the winter of 2013. This was after I was told to lie down and place my own limbs in the leather cuffs (“as a consequence but not a punishment”) for walking away from the very same “Side Room” that I had just been assured was “not a seclusion room unless you call it a seclusion room.”

Again, maybe I misperceived being grabbed and held face-down and nearly suffocated numerous times by staff at Yale Psychiatric Hospital in August 2013, who injected 10-20 milligrams of Haldol, a known drug of torture. Maybe this was just kindliness that I misunderstood as traumatic, maybe it was merely a “psychotic misperception” on my part? Maybe, and maybe not.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that in the ED of New Britain’s HOCC, a security guard in May 2014, grabbed me by my left shoulder immediately after he was warned by the nurse that it was my left shoulder that had a rotator cuff tear.

My New Britain chart records that I was admitted to that hospital, and to the IOL and others with a detailed Psychiatric Advance Directive, the first page of which states that seclusion, four-point restraints and forced medication invariably result in regression to “primitive states and severe worsening of symptoms.” It also makes several concrete suggestions how better to deal with me when I am upset. Even though I spent many hours on this document, Psychiatric Advance Directives have no legal clout in Connecticut and doctors can and do ignore them freely.

Perhaps because of this, HOCC staff literally forced me (“escorted me”) to seclusion and/or restrained me again and again. They took to stripping me “for safety’s sake,” and even though I put up no resistance, they had the male guards spread-eagle my limbs while still naked and put restraint cuffs on without even covering me.

Is it any wonder that what resulted was someone who would wash her hair in her own urine, defecate on the floor of her room and smear feces on the wall? Yet Dr Balkunas, the director of W-1, the general psychiatry unit at HOCC claimed that my trauma was imaginary. Why? Because treatment cannot be traumatic. He simply never got the connection between my horrendous decompensation and his so-called “therapy.” Maybe he never appreciated that he was torturing me, like a person who ripped the wings off butterflies as a child. Someone like that would not have understood how those creatures suffer either.

Abuse, Michael E Balkunas MD, Seclusion and Restraints, Truth

Google Review of Michael E Balkunas, Unit Chief of W-1, Adult Psychiatry, Hospital of Central Connecticut

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NOTE: THIS may be Dr Michael E Balkunas’s forgotten relative, also apparently an MD or he plays one on TV, I dunno! All I know is that the men look amazingly alike!  They could be cousins like the twins on that Patty Duke show many many eons ago…What is important to remember is that they DO share a certain number of aberrant genes, and I believe that one of theirs leads to sadism…

(Note that My GOOGLE Review (edited)  follows)

How very similiar Michael and Charlie look...and and no wonder, since they share the same sadism genes!
How very similar Michael and Charlie look…and and no wonder, since they share the same sadism genes!

In May 2014, Michael E. Balkunas, MD, chief psychiatrist of the W-1 unit of the Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain, angered by my rejection of him because I could not speak (he refused me the use of any writing materials) decided to diagnose me with Borderline Personality Disorder despite having asked for in-put from my family and my outside psychiatrists who all stated that no such BPD or any PD symptoms ever existed. He did this despite my having been admitted with a decades-long Axis 1 diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia (and with PTSD since 2009 due to hospital brutality and abuses).

I believe he added the PD diagnosis in order to justify the implementation of an inhumane Behavioral Treatment Plan which resulted in four-point mechanical restraints and the use of a horrific  and freezing seclusion cell. As my Advance Directive stated clearly, even at the time, none of these modes of “treatment” in the past  ever led to anything but disaster.

At HOCC I was repeatedly secluded and even restrained, naked in a spread-eagle position, in 4-point leather cuffs for many hours, yet never was this because of any behavior indicating “imminent danger of causing serious bodily harm to self or others” as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid require. They did this to me always and only because I was too loud, or because I disrupted the unit “milieu.”

Before I was double-locked into one of W-1’s soundproof isolation cells, the nurses might have the male security guards strip me naked “for safety’s sake.” No matter how compliant I was, they always injected me with three “punishment drugs.” Even when I said I would take them orally or offered my arm, they could choose to push me onto my face on a bare mattress, forcibly hold me down until I couldn’t breathe, and administered them in my buttocks.

I informed the guards about CMS rules regarding appropriate uses of seclusion. To their credit they seemed taken aback, but in the end they were always willing to follow orders and to inflict pain in order to ensure my rapid compliance.

Dr. Balkunas insisted again and again on the diagnosis of BPD yet he never treated me with any modality but antipsychotic drugs and never wrote about my exhibiting any BPD symptoms in his notes. In fact his whole stated rationale for starting commitment procedures to the Connecticut Valley State Hospital was that “antipsychotic drugs take time to work.”

The staff of Nurses and Mental Health Technicians at New Britain General Hospital W-1 and most certainly Dr. Michael Edward Balkunas, Adult Psychiatry Unit Chief, must to be re-educated about the evils of employing punishment or torture in mental health care. They should be given, in addition, many hours of intensive in-service training on trauma-informed treatment. But frankly, as a penalty for the extraordinary and sadistic abuses they long inflicted (knowingly with impunity) upon the mentally ill taken into their care, they deserve nothing less than to summarily lose their jobs and their licenses to practice — for good.

Listen Up Collage -- A message more than art.
Listen Up Collage — A message more than art.
Abuse, Poetry

POEM THAT CAN FORGET BUT NOT FORGIVE

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THE POEM THAT CAN FORGET BUT NOT FORGIVE

 

This poem is afraid

because I am afraid.

This poem is always cold,

and shivering, making my teeth clatter

like cheap tin tableware

on a bare plate.

This poem wants to die,

and be rescued too late

to regret it.

 

This poem has been all its life scared,

and still is: scared, trembling

on the brink, trembling,

knowing the truth that lies

beyond the lies

told over and over,

though it has never been taken in.

 

This poem has a voice

small, smoke-rasped, hungry,

and it has much to say

about what really happened

when no one else was there

to stand to protest.

 

This time it wants to be heard.

This poem wants to be heard!

It will spit and curse and claw

out bejesus if it has to,

this poem means to be heard!

 

This poem will tattle-tale

sit back and smile smugly.

This poem will wring satisfaction’s neck

and revenge will taste like chocolate.

This poem is sad as water, poor as sand.

This poem wants to live well,

but it doesn’t know how.

 

© Pamela Spiro Wagner, 2009 (from WE MAD CLIMB SHAKY LADDERS, CavanKerry Press, Fort Lee, NJ)

I may have posted this before but it is especially relevant at the moment because i have been mute for more than 6 weeks now and do not know why it has lasted or what to do about it…

Abuse, Acceptance, SOUL MURDER, Truth

You Can’t Really Change Your LIfe, After All, Can You?

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You Spew Poison into the World
You Spew Poison into the World

 

Of course you can’t change your life. Your “giants go with you wherever you go,” as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote many many years ago, and it is still sadly true.

 

I left Connecticut, thinking I could escape, at least the hospital torture, but I cannot escape the voices that hate me and the demons that I carry with me, the fact that I burden the world, poison it when I exist in it, and that wherever I go I leave a slime of pollution and hatred..I cannot help that. It is a genetic flaw, no matter what good I try to do, the generosity I practice, the kindnesses I have done and preached, it all goes for naught in the end, when the poison leaches from my marrow and through my skin and permeates the world. People feel it then and run away, screaming…

 

I know this and feel it. and I cannot take it any longer. I have had it. Lord knows I have tried and tried to obviate it, to deny it, to remove the stain or fix it, but it has never worked. I am done. I can’t do it any more. It is over. I cannot deal with the voices and the evil that I am and cause any longer. It is so clear to me that others want this end from me too, because although they talk a good game about help and programs to assist me, they actually refuse to make them available to me, and deliberately– DELIBERATELY —  turn a deaf ear when I overtly say, I NEED HELP NOW…How much more obvious and clear spoken can I be?

I will NOT beg for my life or my skin. No. I do not deserve that. And if not one wants me alive or intact, then there is a reason for it…and I know what it is, as I have stated. So if I get the message that “this is it” today, at my appointment again, that We HAVE NOTHING FOR YOU, that YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN, that “we do not really care what happens”. then it is OVER…I cannot care for myself, the devil, and I know what must be done…

I have done all I can, I really have. Do not try to tell me I haven’t tried for 62 years as bravely and carried on ALONE as I could possibly do it and be. But I cannot do it any longer, I am sorry, But this is it. Either PROVE to me that YOU CARE THAT I EXIST AND DO NOT WANT ME TO DO…whatever.

 

No , in fact YOU cannot do anything, any of you out there. Frankly. This is strictly between me and the folks here tasked with making sure I am safe and it is clear that I have poisoned all of them already, I have used up my quota of caring and assistance and that is that. It’s gone. It’s over. I’m gone. GET LOST. YOU BAD RUBBISH. We have had it with you. You are worthless shit.

 

Goodbye.  I don’t know what will happen to me. But I can’t do this any longer.

Abuse, Health, Trauma

CONNECTICUT, YOU DROVE ME AWAY, IN FEAR FOR MY LIFE, BUT…

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(you’ll need adobe flashplayer to watch this youtube video…)

Abuse, Health, Michael E Balkunas MD

PRESIDENT OBAMA LECTURES DR MICHAEL E. BALKUNAS ON THE MISTREATMENT OF PSYCHIATRIC PATIENTS

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angry obama

I think everyone who can play this file will find it both instructive and illuminating and actually very very …”interesting”…So go ahead, Mikey. LlSTEN TO YOUR PRESIDENT!!!!! Tee hee.

Abuse, Health, Music

MICHAEL E. BALKUNAS, MD: LISTEN TO THIS RAP – YOU MUTHA FUCKA!

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Okay so here is another rap lyric. I suggest that you try to play it on an apple or iphone/ipad device as people have said that these won’t play with Internet Explorer. Perhaps because they are created through Garage Band and with ITunes? Anyhow good luck! (This is a TRUE STORY about what happened in the New Britain General Hospital in May 2014, Hospital of Central Connecticut…NOTHING IS IMAGINED OR MADE UP IN fact things were much worse even than this song describes….) If these end up being popular enough, I will redo them with a good microphone and perhaps a video…

DR. MICHAEL E. BALKUNAS, SHRUNKEN-HEAD MUTHAFUCKA RAP

Doctor Balkunas, you think you can fuck with me?

Doctor Balkunas, you think you can punish me?

Doctor Balkunas you head shrunken mofucker

G’wan, have another headfucking think on it, mofo…
They brought me by ambulance, silent and broken

Terrified, mute, and on an “involuntary”

Not even speaking and mentally ill

I could make no choices, every word unspoken.

Do you know what it means when I say I was mute,

when I could not speak and words did not work

and the world was too loud and my head was too full

and there was no bridge and no hand to pull

me out from that in-between. Even security

wasn’t there to protect me, only nurses and from me

and even the first nurse who coldly appraised me

grabbed my one book and then took my phone and fled

as if she were plotting to fuck with my head

because she had only to ask me and take it politely,

and promise to take care of things, and do it nicely.

Such fierce flames of outrage surged in me, and anger!

So not even thinking, I went running after her

wanting just to reach her and grab my book back from her

Little did I know the reaction if I touched her.

Mike Balkunas, you thought you could fuck with me?

Mike Balkunas, you thought you could punish me?

Mike Balkunas, you thought you could shit on me?

Mikey, you mofo, have a new headshrinking think on it.

Quicker than quicker everyone was sicked on me,

from the aides to the orderlies, even the nurses.

Burly armed guards went piling up hard on me,

and the worst of the worst was patients made versus me

a 100-pound 60-year old lady of five foot three

upset that my two last possessions were snatched from me

without any reason or rhyme in the world really

by the usual criminal in the ER, the head RN

who knew I was powerless alone in that warren

of ER rooms, so she had me dragged me to seclusion.

where I had to bare-knuckle the dark in confusion

battling anguish and fear, with the voices’ profusion.

So to get someone to come in and hear my screaming

I pulled all my clothing off, for clothes had no meaning.

Mike Balkunas, you think you can fuck with me?

Mike Balkunas, you think you punish with impunity?

Mike Balkunas, you really think you can shit on me?

G’wan, Mofo, Have another headshrinking think, now, Mikey…

I screamed from the base of my lungs for an hour

but was utterly ignored by all who had power

to relent or release me. I hadn’t a notion

of what else to do, to get help or attention

or have them return to the room, but to start

hitting my head and even tearing apart

things I could throw, chair, clothes and chart.

Then came the goon squad of six beefy men

who easily brought me facedown on the floor again

I screamed and I struggled but it did me no good,

if you fight them they justify all that they would.

Much better to lie still and let them abuse you

and get discharged and hope against hope you can sue.

The ER in peril from the dangers I posed

such a monster as me, poorly muscled, unclothed,

they wanted me, mute, completely shut up.

so they rammed three injectables into my butt.

Mike Balkunas, honey, you thought you could fuck with me?

Mike Balkunas, sweetie, you believed you could punish me?

Mike Balkunas, sweetheart, you thought you could shit on me?

Aw, little boy, Balkie, do your headshrinking mofo thing with it…

Mikey? Mikey? Mofo…I’ll bet you won’t forget me for a lo-o-o-ooong time, will you?

Ha ha ha!

I wish to god I could forget you. You mofo. You mother fucker. Let this rap song be a lesson to you, not to fuck with poets and writers or you’ll get written into a history you might rather be forgotten.

Doctor Michael Balkunas, dare you fuck with me now?

Doctor Michael Balkunas, dare you punish me now?

Doctor Michael Balkunas, you head shrunken muthafucka

Mofo, Mikey go fuck another headshrinker and think on it.

Abuse, Health, Poetry

TO MY “PROTECTOR” AT THE MENTAL HOSPITAL: NO THANKS!

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 Mushroom-Head in Four-point Restraints: Cannibalism as RAPE by Michael Edward Balkunas, MD, the instigator…

Raped at New Britain General Hospital thanks to Michael Balkunas MD's orders...
Raped at New Britain General Hospital thanks to Michael Balkunas MD’s orders…

TO MY “PROTECTORS” AT THE MENTAL HOSPITAL

You nurses who, wanting a quiet shift, shackled me into four-point restraints: you ought to have known better: violence only begets more violence…

I came to you, broken —

speaking only splinters of syllables –

“ma-ta-o-tam, ma-ta-o-tam..”

on fire to burn down

the house of my body,

for the meaning of my life

but I was not nice,

not nice, not nice, no,

I was not nice and quiet enough

for the balm of art supplies and human kindness.

Your uniforms ex-cruciated me, tying me

me naked to the four corners of a bed

so your eyes could flay me, the silent shame

gouging my brain to a darkness

years later still vacuumed blank.

Nurses, healers, thieves,

racked there, I lay helpless before you,

even as you raped what was left

of my human dignity.

So intent on getting satisfaction,

you violated my soul

with your smirks

and conspiratorial smiles.

Abuse, Health

MICHAEL EDWARD BALKUNAS, MD, YOU MURDERED ME!

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TORTURERS AT NEW BRITAIN GENERAL HOSPITAL: YOU HAVE KILLED ME!
TORTURERS AT NEW BRITAIN GENERAL HOSPITAL: YOU HAVE KILLED ME!
Abuse, Health

READ THIS, Michael Edward Balkunas, MD of Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain, CT, Before You Throw Another Psychiatric Patient Into Your Supermax Seclusion Cells!

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Hospital Seclusion Room
Hospital Seclusion Room (Supermax Cell at New Britain General Hospital)

This is from the Special Rapporteur to the UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON TORTURE 2013:

As the previous Special Rapporteur stated: “Torture, as the most serious violation of the human right to personal integrity and dignity, presupposes a situation of powerlessness, whereby the victim is under the total control of another person.”14 Deprivation of legal capacity, when a person’s exercise of decision-making is taken away and given to others, is one such circumstance, along with deprivation of liberty in prisons or other places (A/63/175, para. 50).

32. The mandate has recognized that medical treatments of an intrusive and irreversible nature, when lacking a therapeutic purpose, may constitute torture or ill-treatment when enforced or administered without the free and informed consent of the person concerned (ibid., paras. 40, 47). This is particularly the case when intrusive and irreversible, non- consensual treatments are performed on patients from marginalized groups, such as persons with disabilities, notwithstanding claims of good intentions or medical necessity. For example, the mandate has held that the discriminatory character of forced psychiatric interventions, when committed against persons with psychosocial disabilities, satisfies both intent and purpose required under the article 1 of the Convention against Torture, notwithstanding claims of “good intentions” by medical professionals .

Medical care that causes severe suffering for no justifiable reason can be considered cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and if there is State involvement and specific intent, it is torture.

63. The mandate has previously declared that there can be no therapeutic justification for the use of solitary confinement and prolonged restraint of persons with disabilities in psychiatric institutions; both prolonged seclusion and restraint may constitute torture and ill-treatment (A/63/175, paras. 55-56). The Special Rapporteur has addressed the issue of solitary confinement and stated that its imposition, of any duration, on persons with mental disabilities is cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (A/66/268, paras. 67-68, 78). Moreover, any restraint on people with mental disabilities for even a short period of time may constitute torture and ill-treatment.78 It is essential that an absolute ban on all coercive and non-consensual measures, including restraint and solitary confinement of people with psychological or intellectual disabilities, should apply in all places of deprivation of liberty, including in psychiatric and social care institutions. The environment of patient powerlessness and abusive treatment of persons with disabilities in which restraint and seclusion is used can lead to other non-consensual

Domestic legislation allowing forced interventions

64. The mandate continues to receive reports of the systematic use of forced interventions worldwide. Both this mandate and United Nations treaty bodies have established that involuntary treatment and other psychiatric interventions in health-care facilities are forms of torture and ill-treatment.79 Forced interventions, often wrongfully justified by theories of incapacity and therapeutic necessity inconsistent with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, are legitimized under national laws, and may enjoy wide public support as being in the alleged “best interest” of the person concerned. Nevertheless, to the extent that they inflict severe pain and suffering, they violate the absolute prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment (A/63/175, paras. 38, 40, 41). Concern for the autonomy and dignity of persons with disabilities leads the Special Rapporteur to urge revision of domestic legislation allowing for forced interventions.treatment, such as forced medication and electroshock procedures.

JUST THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW,  MICHAEL EDWARD BALKUNAS, MD, YOU MOTHERFUCKER…BUT THEN YOU ALREADY KNOW THIS, BECAUSE YOU DO WHAT YOU DO TO PATIENTS DELIBERATELY AND WITH PURPOSE!

Abuse, Health, Music

Mental Patient Anti-Psychiatry Rap

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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, you can read them along below…Enjoy?? Or at least you  will understand, if you are familiar with Wagblog, where I am coming from. Please let me know if this file does NOT play for any reason.

Mental Patient Rap

by P.Wagg

CHORUS:

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, mad and bad.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, I ain’t nothing but a nomad

in the white-coats’ lab.

They say fake it till you make it, so I take it, take it, take it,

Careening through a maze of rules that make me wanna break shit.

Sanity won’t save me, nor all the pills they gave me.

Their remedy’s my enemy, so we mad go fucking crazy.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, mad and bad.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, I ain’t nothing but a nomad

in the white-coats’ lab

VERSE 1:

I remember being locked in, tied down, drugged up,

nurses in control of me, rushing me, coercing me.

Worse than their forcing me was all the pills they pushed on me

then Thorazine or Stelazine jammed into my ass cheeks.

Abuse was inexcusable. Psychiatric orderlies

cuffed my wrists and ankles to a bed when I refused them.

Bruising me, mis-using me — and black and blues-ing me,

A/C cold as ice; retaliation taken twice.

Tied down, naked, there, I shit myself but who cared?

Just another everyday mental patient nightmare.

CHORUS:

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, mad and bad.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, I ain’t nothing but a nomad

in the white-coats’ lab

They say fake it till you make it, so I take it, take it, take it,

Careening through a maze of rules that make me wanna break shit.

Sanity won’t save me, nor all the pills they gave me.

Their remedy’s my enemy, we mad go fucking crazy.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, mad and bad.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy I ain’t nothing but a nomad

in the white-coats’ lab

VERSE 2:

As bad as leather cuff restraints their isolation cell was hell.

so supermax it made me faint, don’t tell me they meant it well.

No one should have dumped me there, hearing voices, terrified

they stripped my clothing off then left me locked alone inside.

and told me that they had the right to keep me there both day and night

or as long as it would take, for me to learn from their mistakes

I might never get out, never get out, never get out, never get out–

but I started freaking out. I shouted, “I will not bow down

to those with nothing more to do than cause me pain, you cowards, you

you have no heart, you’re inhumane. You torture me to entertain.

CHORUS:

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, mad and bad.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, I ain’t nothing but a nomad

in the white-coats’ lab.

They say fake it till you make it, so I take it, take it, take it,

Careening through a maze of rules that make me wanna break shit.

Sanity won’t save me, nor all the pills they gave me.

Their remedy’s my enemy, so we mad go fucking crazy.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, mad and bad.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, I ain’t nothing but a nomad

in the white-coats’ lab

Verse 3:

Let’s sing ring around the posey-o: “Hospital Guantanamo!”

Isolation, prison SHU, and mental patients just like me who

traumatized and tortured just go c-c-c-crazy, too.

Abuse is S.O.P. from doctors of psychiatry,

Pusher docs who love to dish out electro-shock therapy

and chemical lobotomies, but it’s all about their money.

Crocks of shit! You’re so wack. You psycho-quacks, you pricks

sized us up and tricked us. But didn’t we wise up quick?

We won’t take no more horseshit, we won’t take no more crap

Take your fucking psycho-meds and ram them up your —-!

CHORUS:

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, mad and bad.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, I ain’t nothing but a nomad

in the white-coats’ lab

They say fake it till you make it, so I take it, take it, take it,

Careening through a maze of rules that make me wanna break shit.

Sanity won’t save me, nor all the pills they gave me.

Their remedy’s my enemy, so we mad go fucking crazy

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, c-c-c-crazy, mad and bad.

C-c-c-crazy, l-l-l-lazy, I ain’t nothing but a nomad

in the white-coats’ lab

Oh, you know, you know, yes I know you know,

that I ain’t nothing, never been nothing, never been nothing…

I’ve never been nothing, except a lonely nomad

in the white-coated doctors of psychiatry lab

Spoken CODA:

PT:“I want outta here.”

RN: “Uh uh, not so fast. We’ve got your ass for fifteen days.”

PT: “Fifteen days?! No way, José. You can’t keep me here. I want a lawyer!”

RN: “Doctor, we need to calm her pronto. She’s disturbing the whole unit.”

MD: “I agree. Give her 20mg, IM Haldol, stat.”

PT: “What do you want? What’s going on?! No no! Don’t touch me…Wait!

He-e-e-elp! Help me! Please somebody! Help! Help me…!”

Abuse, Health, Punishment

“Punishment is Just Abuse with An Excuse”

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THis is how abused children become abusers, or how spanking gets engrained in culture as appropriate to do to "things" smaller than ourselves...
THis is how abused children become abusers, or how spanking gets engrained in culture as appropriate to do to “things” smaller than ourselves…

 

We think this TIME OUT punishment is better for children, less violent, but behind it is the THREAT of corporal punishment, ALWAYS...
We think this TIME OUT punishment is better for children, less violent, but behind it is the THREAT of corporal punishment, ALWAYS…

spanking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See the website Punishment Hurts Everyone, at http://abusewithanexcuse.com. This is an amazingly brave site with writing and thoughtful insights that might upset those who think that spanking kids is good for them, but for most of us, who know it only traumatizes and harms them, it will be an illuminating page indeed. Check it out! Great stuff here from a man who has put his ideas into practice and never once punished his own children, teens now and well-adjusted and happy to boot. Who’da thunk it could be done? (Well I did, for one, and maybe you too!)

Abuse, Health

“Protection and Advocacy” Agency in Connecticut is a Crock of Shit…

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CT PAIMI What a Crock of Shit
CT PAIMI What a Crock of Shit

 

Dear Attorney General George Jepson and DMHAS Commissioner Patricia Rehmer,

I was a client of Mr Wiley Rutledge at the Connecticut Office of Protection and Advocacy, PAIMI, (Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness) for several years, ever since I was held in seclusion and put into four-point restraints as disciplinary measures at the Behavioral Health Unit at Middlesex Hospital in 2010. In July 2014, while he was attempting to get my complete medical records, unsuccessfully despite many attempts, from the Institute of Living at Hartford Hospital for my January-February 2013 stay, as well as records from my Yale New Haven Hospital 1971 stay, which he claimed to have obtained, he dropped out of the picture altogether. I emailed him and called but got no response. Finally I called the P&A office and was told he was “on leave.”
 I was given no explanation, told nothing. Instead, Mr Bruce Garrison, his supervisor, simply sent me all the files that he found in Mr Rutledge’s office, then he summarily dumped me. He has offered no substitute or anyone else to take up my case at CT PAIMI despite all these unresolved issues that are still pending. I wrote him that Mr Rutledge and I had been filing a case in Superior Court against Hospital of Central Connecticut  in New Britain for dragging me into a horrific seclusion cell numerous times when I was never violent or dangerous to self or others, in other words, as retribution and punishment. Also, the male guards forcibly stripped me naked while putting me in seclusion then placed me naked in four-point restraints.
All that said, Mr Garrison, had no response but to drop me from the caseload. Then in addition to the scant files that he sent, without the information from either Yale or the IOL that he promised, he sent me the case files of someone else. I now have the most private information on a certain A— H—- who was psychiatrically evaluated by Centegra on 12/17/02. How this could have happened I do not know but it should not have and I believe that action needs to be taken to see that it never happens again.
I want to know who will be working with me from now on at PAIMI because I cannot afford a lawyer (never did have any legal representation even from CT PAIMI) and why I have been summarily dropped from PAIMI case loads, after working with them so patiently for so many years.
Thank you for your urgent assistance in this matter.
Pamela Spiro Wagner
Abuse, Health, Schizophrenia

Does “January” Have Schizophrenia or Is it Her Family That is Disturbed?

8 Comments

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 were my feelings at the time and they are still my feelings though I have not been able to stomach “keeping up with the story” over the years. Frankly, I would not be surprised if this case did not rise to a matter of Munchausen’s by Proxy, though no one is saying any such thing (of course not!)…

 

This article is an important OPEN LETTER  that I just found at BEYOND MEDS:

https://beyondmeds.com/2009/10/18/an-open-letter-to-oprah-regarding-jani-the-seven-yr-old-schizophrenic/

FROM MAD IN AMERICA dot com – January 21,  2013 (I couldn’t find any sharing buttons that would allow me to reblog this but the direct link can be found below)

The Hearing Voices Movement: In Response to a Father – ‘My Daughter, the Schizophrenic’

Jacqui Dillon

January 21, 2013

There was a heart-breaking and disturbing story in this weekend’s Guardian newspaper entitled ‘My Daughter, the Schizophrenic’, (1) which featured edited extracts from a book written by the father of a child called Jani. He describes how Jani is admitted into a psychiatric hospital when she is 5, diagnosed with schizophrenia when she is 6 and by the time she is 7, she has been put on a potent cocktail of psychotropic medications:

”Jani is on three medications: Clozapine, lithium and Thorazine (known in the UK as Largactil). This combination has been the most successful. Are her hallucinations completely gone? No, but as she will tell us, they are not bothering her. It’s like having the TV on in the background, volume turned down, while you’re doing something, and every so often you look up at the screen to see what 400 the cat and other hallucinations are doing. They remain on Jani’s periphery, but she can still function in our common reality.”(2)

This harrowing description exemplifies the worst excesses of responding to a deeply troubled child’s distress as if it were a pathological illness, with the full psychiatric arsenal. What ensues can only be described as an account of psychiatric, human rights abuse.

If only Jani and her family were offered alternative kinds of help such as that developed by Voice Collective, (3) a London-wide project set up to support children and young people who hear, see and sense things others don’t. Voice Collective works with children, young people & families, and with professionals and organisations offering a whole range of services including peer support groups, so young people can meet with other young people with similar experiences, creative workshops, 1-2-1 support around making sense of voices and finding coping strategies, an online support forum. Voice Collective also offers a range of support services to families as well as supporting schools, social services, child and adolescent mental health services and other youth agencies to work with children & young people who have these experiences.

As one parent who has been supported by Voice Collective said:

‘You have brought us ‘normality’ within these experiences. You have taught us that with the appropriate support young people can lead happy and successful lives. You recognise the love we have for our children and have taught us how to support them”. – (Mother of a 12 year old)

How different things could be for Jani, her family and countless other children and families around the world if there were greater awareness that such humane and healing alternatives exist; approaches which help without doing more harm. (continued below the break)

——————————

(Questions, comments and/or reflections are welcome on this website or via Twitter @JacquiDillon
Jacqui Dillon’s website: http://www.jacquidillon.org
  1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/19/my-daughter-the-schizophrenic
  2. January First: A Child’s Descent Into Madness And Her Father’s Struggle To Save Her, by Michael Schofield, published on 1 February by Hardie Grant Books.
  3. http://www.voicecollective.co.uk/)
 ———————————

Jani and her family originally appeared on the Oprah show in 2009. Many of us within the Hearing Voices Movement were so saddened and disturbed by Jani’s treatment that we wrote an open letter to Oprah Winfrey. Here is the open letter from INTERVOICE – the International Network for Training, Education and Research into Hearing Voices – an international organisation dedicated to spreading positive and hopeful messages about the experience of hearing voices across the world, reprinted again.

Dear Oprah,

We are writing in response to your programme about “The 7-Year-Old Schizophrenic”, which concerned Jani, a child who hears voices, which was broadcast on the 6th October 2009. We hope to correct the pessimistic picture offered by the mental health professionals featured in your programme, and in the accompanying article on your website. What upset us most and moved us to write to you, is that parents will have been left with the impression that they are powerless to help their children if they hear voices. We are also concerned that the programme gave the impression that children with voices must be treated with medication. We note that the medications mentioned in your programme all have very serious side effects. (For example, antipsychotics such as Haldol cause neuronal loss, block the dopamine pathways in the brain required to processes rewarding stimuli, and carry a high risk of neurological and metabolic side effects such as Parkinsonianism and diabetes. Their effects on the developing brain are largely unknown and, in our view, they should only be given to children as a treatment as absolutely last resort.)

We have been researching and working with adults and children like Jani for the last twenty years, and our work has led us to very different conclusions from those reached by the mental health professionals on your programme. One of our founding members, Dr. Sandra Escher from the Netherlands, has spent the last fifteen years talking to children who hear voices, and to their parents and carers. This work is the most detailed and thorough investigation of children who hear voices carried out to date [1, 2]. The most important findings from recent research on hearing voices are as follows:

Prevalence of Voice Hearing in Adults and Children

Recent large-scale population (epidemiological) studies have shown that about 4-10 % of the adult population hear voices at some time in their lives [3-5]. Only about a third seek assistance from mental health services. Amongst children, the proportion hearing voices may be even higher [6] and, again, only a minority are referred for treatment. Hence, it is wrong to assume that voice hearing is always a pathological condition requiring treatment.

Psychological Mechanisms

Everyone has an inner voice. Psychologists call this phenomenon ‘inner speech’ and it is an important mechanism that we use to regulate our own behaviour (plan what we want to do, direct our own actions). Child psychologists have long understood that this ability begins to develop at about 2-years of age [7, 8]. Hearing voices seems to reflect some kind of differentiation in the mind’s ability to tell the difference between inner speech and the heard speech of other people [9, 10].

Link to Trauma

A common theme in research with both adults and children is the relationship between hearing voices and traumatic experiences. In adults, around 75% begin to hear voices in relationship to a trauma or situations that make them feel powerless [11-13], for example the death of a loved one, divorce, losing a job, failing an exam, or longer lasting traumas such as physical, emotional or sexual abuse. The role of trauma was identified in 85% of the children we have studied, for example being bullied by peers or teachers, or being unable to perform to the required level at school, or being admitted to a hospital because of a physical illness. In short, our research has shown that hearing voices is usually a reaction to a situation or a problem that the child is struggling to cope with.

Voices have a meaning. A related and equally striking finding is that the voices often refer to the problem that troubles the child, but in an elliptical manner. To take just one example from the children studied by Sandra Escher:

The voices told an 8-year-old boy to blind himself. This frightened his mother. But when we discussed whether there was something in the life of the boy he could not face, she understood the voices’ message. The boy could not cope with his parents’ problematic marriage. He did not want to see it.

We wonder whether anyone has attempted to establish why, in Jani’s case, the rat is called “Wednesday”, why the girl is called “24 Hours”, and why is the cat called “400″? What do these mean for her? Why does Jani want people to call her “Blue-Eyed Tree Frog” and “Jani Firefly”?

Good Outcomes Without Treatment

Recently, Sandra Escher conducted a three-year follow up study of eighty children who heard voices, aged between 8 and 19 [1]. Half received mental health care but the other half were not given any specialist care at all. The children were interviewed four times, at yearly intervals. By the end of the research period 60% of the children reported that their voices had disappeared. Very often, this was because the triggering problems were dealt with or because the child’s situation changed – for example, following a change of schools.

Helping Children Who Hear Voices: Advice to Parents

It is important to appreciate that the desire to make voices disappear, although usually the goal of the mental health care services, is not necessarily in the best interests of children. Some children do not want to lose their voices. If children can find within themselves the resources to cope with their voices, they can begin to lead happier and more balanced lives.

The most important element in this process is support from the family. Unfortunately, we have found that mental health services often fail to have a positive effect on children’s voices, because they foster fear rather than coping. However, we have found that referral to a psychotherapist who is prepared to discuss the meaning of voices is often helpful.

It is important that parents do not assume that hearing voices is a terrible disaster but instead regard it as a signal that something is troubling their child. If parents assume that voices are a symptom of an illness, and are afraid of them, the child will naturally pick up on this feeling. This can lead to a self-defeating cycle in which the child becomes fearful and obsessed by the voices.

We would like to offer this 10-point guide for parents, indicating what they can do if a child tells them that he or she hears voices:

1. Try not to over react. Although it is understandable that you will be worried, work hard not to communicate your anxiety to your child.

2. Accept the reality of the voice experience for your child; ask about the voices, how long the child has been hearing them, who or what they are, whether they have names, what they say, etc.

3. Let your child know that many other children hear voices and that usually they go away after a while.

4. Even if the voices do not disappear your child may learn to live in harmony with them.

5. It is important to break down your child’s sense of isolation and difference from other children. Your child is special – unusual perhaps, but really not abnormal.

6. Find out if your child has any difficulties or problems that he or she finds very hard to cope with, and work on fixing those problems. Think back to when the voices first started. What was happening to your child at the time? Was there anything unusual or stressful occurring?

7. If you think you need outside help, find a therapist who is prepared to accept your child’s experiences and work systematically with him or her to understand and cope better with the voices.

8. Be ready to listen to your child if he or she wants to talk about the voices. Use drawing, painting, acting and other creative ways to help the child to describe what is happening in his or her life.

9. Get on with your lives and try not to let the experience of hearing voices become the centre of your child’s life or your own.

10. Most children who live well with their voices have supportive families who accept the experience as part of who their child is. You can do this too!

Conclusion

In conclusion we would like to stress that, in our view, labelling a seven-year-old child as schizophrenic and subjecting her to powerful psychotropic medication and periodic hospitalisation is unlikely to help resolve her problems. Indeed, the opposite is most probable: children treated in this way will simply become more powerless. Because your well respected, award winning show reaches out to so many people, we are concerned that there will be many viewers who will be left with the impression that the treatment Jani receives is the only method available. We fear that this may cause some children to be subjected to an unnecessary lifetime in psychiatric care. It is very important to recognise that hearing voices, in itself, is not a sign of psychopathology.

We hope you will give consideration to the possibility of making a future programme showing the other side of the story, one of hope, optimism and with a focus on recovery. Perhaps you could make a programme about a child with similar voice experiences to Jani, who has been helped to come to terms with her or his experiences and to discuss with the child, parents and therapists how this was achieved? If there is any way we could help make this happen, please contact us.

We look forward to hearing from you on the issues raised in our letter.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Baker

INTERVOICE coordinator

(Letter re-edited with the kind assistance of Professor Richard Bentall)

For the Selected bibliography please see original piece at Mad In America.  http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/01/the-hearing-voices-movement-in-response-to-a-father-my-daughter-the-schizophrenic/

Here are the first several comments that followed:

  1. Thanks for posting Jacqui.

    The Guardian article and story about the little girl pathologised by psychiatry and her father was harrowing to read and think about. I remember it being promoted before. Like a circus act in bygone days but more sinister and scary. Subjecting a child to these strong psychiatric drugs it’s a wonder she can function at all.

    It’s encouraging to hear of the Hearing Voices movement’s work, Chrys

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    • Thanks Chrys.

      This story is horrifying and aside from Jani’s ‘treatment’ one wonders why her family and the professionals working with her think it is acceptable to invade her privacy in such a way. That in itself disturbs me, never mind what else she is being subjected to.

      To counter-balance such a disturbing story I felt it was crucial to highlight the work of the Hearing Voices Movement which offers such a humane and hopeful approach and a viable alternative for Jani and other children like her, who are suffering because of scary voices and visions. There is always hope.

      Jacqui

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  2. While reading “Blue-Eyed Tree Frog”, thing in the left side of my head said “cognitive dissonance”.

    I’ve never heard of cognitive dissonance so I had to look it up to see if it exists. It does.

    I cannot claim “cognitive dissonance” as my own thought. It distinctly is NOT my own. How’s that for a real-time example of mental hearing?

    I don’t know if cognitive dissonance is “professionally” observed in Jani. I think it would benefit her greatly, and she would do remarkably well, to prescribe the treatment of: study linguistics. The greater her vocabulary becomes, the better she will be able to know and understand her own mind, and effectively communicate what she experiences to others.

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    • Interesting how those words came to you – from the collective unconscious perhaps?! – but I wonder who is actually suffering from cognitive dissonance. Is it 8 year old Jani who seems to be able to articulate and communicate about her frightening experiences so clearly, or is it the adults around her? How do they fail to see and hear the meaning in her experiences, rendering them a symptom of schizophrenia instead? I wonder if it is they who need study further…

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      • I love Jani. I’m fascinated by her. I wish I could meet her and talk with her.

        I believe in my heart that she really was born exactly as she is. I think her mind / psyche very much IS a real issue. I don’t know if I’d call her “schizophrenic” but I would call her Psychic (psychic, meaning – her psyche is distinct and remarkable and very active, obviously). Psyche is NOT a disease but that doesn’t mean it is always easy to live with. It can be outright brutal and even Hellish (such is life). There are various states of Psyche. An active one is *psychic*. It shouldn’t be so complicated.

        If she is renaming herself, it seems that “cognitive dissonance” could be an accurate description of what she’s doing. I read that she HATES her name “January” – which I think is really significant and needs to be understood. SOMETHING is motivating her to find a new name for herself. That’s a big deal.

        I don’t blame her family (or the rest of the world) for calling her schizophrenic. As of right now, people don’t know any different. Who could honestly deny the fact that she IS how she is? I can’t.

        To be real honest, I resent the fact that people are trying to spin the “abuse” angle, suggesting that abuse or neglect is what is causing her condition. That is BS. There very well may be some of those issues, but the girl IS born as she is. I think she DOES have something “genetic”. I think she IS a genuine psyche-active person. I don’t see her as “sick” but I do see her as somebody who needs a LOT of support to know and understand what she “has” and how and why she has it. I see her as 100% GENUINE: whatever it may be, she’s BORN that way.

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        • I am not sure that people are trying to ‘spin’ anything, just reflecting on what comes up for them when reading and hearing about Jani and her treatment and providing factual information that has previously been in the public domain.

          I appreciate your wish to not blame but seek to try and understand. However I don’t believe in schizophrenia. I think it is a damaging concept and that so called symptoms are reactions, often to traumatic or overwhelming experiences. I also feel deeply troubled by what is really going on here although ultimately, all we can all do, is speculate, muse, discuss…

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          • Let’s take a closer look:

            http://www.thefreedictionary.com/schizophrenia

            Do you see where it says

            “2. behaviour that appears to be motivated by contradictory or conflicting principles”

            ?

            Now let’s take that and pair it up with “cognitive dissonance”

            http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cognitive+dissonance

            A condition of conflict or anxiety resulting from inconsistency between one’s beliefs and one’s actions

            It seems to me (with my very basic, uneducated intelligence) that “behaviour that appears to be motivated by contradictory or conflicting principles” and “conflict or anxiety resulting from inconsistency between one’s beliefs and one’s actions” are PRACTICALLY THE SAME THING.

            For the record, I state and declare that I DID hear “cognitive dissonance” inside of my mind and did NOT previously know that term in ANY way, not even “unconsciously” or “subconsciously”. I simply have NEVER heard of “cognitive dissonance” ever before except FROM RIGHT INSIDE OF MY OWN HEAD, LIVE, AS I WAS READING. I was “brave” and “courageous” enough to actually type (publicly) exactly what I experienced (heard) inside of my “psycho”, “schizo” head.

            Hallucinations CAN’T BE CORRECT. About anything. And if they are, it isn’t a hallucination.

            Let the professionals look for “cognitive dissonance” in Jani. If they can confirm that, to support their schizophrenia diagnosis … hold on.

            Is anyone truly interested in actually helping the child? Is anyone truly interested in UNDERSTANDING HER?

            Let’s take it a step further:

            What is her INNER CONFLICT? Here’s a clue: she HATES her name. She is RENAMING herself.

            Why?.

            The inner-world is a REAL place. Lots and lots of activity (on the inside). One more time: psyche is NOT a disease.

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          • In reply to mjk: “2. behaviour that appears to be motivated by contradictory or conflicting principles”. It “appears”. To any unengaged observer, like an mh professional for instance. It may also “appear” so to a parent whose need to himself appear as the perfect parent isn’t met by a child who reacts to the parent reflecting the parent’s imperfection. A psychiatric “symptom” is a reaction to life that is taken out of its context with life. Thus the cognitive dissonance doesn’t happen in the person who’s labeled with “mental illness” on the grounds of psychiatric “symptoms”, but in those who label.

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  3. This story is all over You-Tube, too and it made me so sad I couldn’t watch the whole thing. I remember seeing this letter to Oprah a few years ago and thinking that this list of suggestions was great. So glad to see it re-posted here.

    It’s sad to think how many creatives, spiritualists, or entrepreneurs in our society are being snuffed out by this stuff. I’ve had to do some grief work around this off and on. What’s helped lately is a Bible verse from Jeremiah about “He will restore what the locusts have eaten.” [No offense meant to Non-christians] Much of what I’ve lost to psychiatry has now been restored in my life. Hopefully we can build a way to do this more often for our brothers and sisters and step-children like this in bondage.

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  4. I’ve been following Jani’s case for a while and think her treatment with a mega drug cocktail and her exploitation by the media and her parents is unconscionable. The work with children who hear voices, on the other hand, is inspiring.

    Jacqui, Did they ever receive a response from Oprah? And have you considered sending this letter to the author of the book (Jani’s dad) via his publisher? I do believe he wants to help his child — who I see as creative and gifted as well as disturbed — perhaps, perhaps he would listen.

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    • I agree that the exploitation of Jani is unconscionable. It is also heartbreaking that her creative attempts to survive, i.e. the voices and visions that she experiences, have been so comprehensively misunderstood.

      Fortunately, healing alternatives do exist and the fantastic work of the Voice Collective project in London is a brilliant example of this, an approach that I sincerely hope will become more widely available to children like Jani and their families.

      We never received a response from Oprah but as you suggest, it might be worth trying to send this letter directly to Jani’s father. Perhaps he would listen…

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  5. Here is the family’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/janifoundation?ref=ts&fref=ts

    I resisted medicating my son for three years. Along with the voices, he had painful tactile hallucinations and frightening visual hallucinations. An array of therapists did not help. He is on meds now, which makes me very sad. However, he is no longer tormented by seeing demons cutting off people’s heads, for example. I’m hoping that the new therapist will be able to help him resolve this stuff. My guess is that Jani’s family is simply beside themselves, as am I. My heart goes out to them.

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    • I am sorry to hear about the awful time you and your son have been having. I have met and worked with many families who have been beside themselves with worry about their kids. As a parent I can entirely empathise. That is why I posted the 10-point guide for parents, indicating what they can do if a child tells them that he or she hears voices: from our experiences, the less alarmed parents feel, the better the outcomes for their children.

      I hope that your son is able to get the support from his therapist to make sense of the tormenting experiences that he was having. Wishing you both all the best.

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  6. Prior to her being subjected to the abuse of coercive-medical psychiatry, Jani was severely abused in her home.

    A few years back, Jani’s father was surprisingly forthright, in writing about this, online; yet, some time ago, he began scrubbing his tracks.

    For example, he removed the following two paragraphs from his own blog,http://www.januaryfirst.org (and then took that blog offline):

    “We tried everything. Positive reinforcement. Negative reinforcement. Hitting her back (I won’t tell you how many people told us that all she needed was a good beating). We took all her toys away. We gave her toys away. We tried starving her. We did EVERYTHING we could to try and break her. Nothing worked.

    “The violence became so bad that at times Susan and I both lost it and hit Jani as hard as we could. We hit in impotent rage.
    We got a referral to a psychiatrist. Two months later, Janni was hospitalized for the first of what has since been four times, but in truth will be many more times. Today, Jani is no longer a brat. Today, Jani is schizophrenic.”

    Source:

    http://bipolar-stanscroniclesandnarritive.blogspot.com/2009/07/los-angeles-times-reporter-defends.html?showComment=1314932254631

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      • Jacqui,

        If the exact nature of Jani’s current ‘treatment’ can’t be discovered by reading her father’s new book (which I have never read, but which I know is now being featured in the Guardian), I believe we can, nonetheless, reasonably surmise, that Jani is a young person whose parents are – with the help of psychiatrists – drugging her behaviors continually; for, in the course of their seeking help for her, years ago, Jani’s parents came to developing a ‘mental health’ lobbying platform, vis–à–vis Jani’s mom (Susan) hosting her own weekly radio show called, “Bipolar Nation,” and by way of Jani’s dad (Michael) often co-hosting…

        Both parents are outspoken, in their opinions, on that show (as, of course, most radio show hosts will be); sadly (for their kids), not infrequently, they are inclined to broadcast their children’s ‘mental health’ issues on that show. (That said, now, hesitantly, I mention the link to their free podcasts):

        http://www.latalkradio.com/Bipolar.php

        In your comment, above, at January 22, 2013 at 7:50 am, to Chrys, you say:

        “This story is horrifying and aside from Jani’s ‘treatment’ one wonders why her family and the professionals working with her think it is acceptable to invade her privacy in such a way. That in itself disturbs me, never mind what else she is being subjected to.”

        I share your sense of horror. (Indeed, *never* do I cease to be troubled, by the latest example of parents publicizing their kids’ ‘mental health’ issues; personally, I struggle, wondering: is it OK even to discuss the most trivial matters pertaining to my child’s life, online? Hypothetically speaking: can I even mention what I may consider a disappointing report card, in good conscience? I think not. (But, of course, mentioning ones child’s doings, from a position of relative anonymity, might not be so bad. I’m uncomfortable with it, when people do it; but, the anonymous approach may be somewhat more acceptable.) Certainly, I’d not want to be one to attach *any* kid’… read more

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  7. First of all, sorry I did not know about the possiblity to sign the paper. In my daily work I meet far too often children and young people coming to our place with psychiatric diagnosis and prescriptions of drugs. Fortunately I am often part of a change, I have the joy to work with people who believe in other things, people who believe in the importance of being present and participating in a relationship to try to find out how come it is like this. And there are answers, always! Not necessarily easily found, not necessarily comfortable, sometimes very painful issues to discover, sometimes with a lot of guilt and sleepless nights. So it is important to be there together with the child and his / her family (if possible). There are no other way. It can never ever be acceptable to define a child or a young person having a psychaitric illness without taking into account the context, life conditions, family, society, etc… And sad to say, but have also very many times met children and young people getting worse in a “professional” context with its manuals, methods, and different criterias. I have a dream about a different approach, about a knowledge which include many people, also the professional “helper”, a knowledge which has to do with trust, hope, taking a responsibilty and to find ways to collaborate.

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    • I agree Carina that there are ALWAYS answers, even if they lead to some very painful, uncomfortable issues. No experience, nor person is utterly incomprehesible, if we are simply willing to be with people, relate to them and really hear what they have to say. Sadly many ‘treatments’ actually make matters so much worse which is a travesty. Fortunately, there are a growing number of us who are expressing our outrage at such misguided attempts to help and who also have the knowledge and experience to advocate ways of working collaboratively that really do help.

      Looking forward to collaborating with you and others in Sweden in April, to help spread the word about what works!

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      • Yes it will be great to see you, and to listen to you of course!
        This morning on my way to work I met a mother and her four years old daughter on their way to day care (or how to call it in English). In the beginning of last autumn a colleauge Hanna and I met the girl and her parents who at that time were in a chock since a psychologist after meeting the girl ONE time had told them that the girl has a very severe autism and has to start medicating and go through psychological tests. They were also told that the girl will never be able to live “a normal” life. Well, to make a long story very short, we have seen the parents during some months and listened to their story over the last ten years and how different things have happenened in their life, and not to say that everything is totally ok by now, but they again trust their own feelings and experiences towards the daughter and have decide not to go back to child psychiatry. Welcome to Gothenburg!!!

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        • This is an all too common experience, in many parts of the world it seems Carina. It just makes me more determined to continue to raise awareness of the harm caused by those who are supposed to help, and of the many excellent alternatives that are developing across the world. This web site is a fantastic way of spreading awareness of both of these crucial issues. Pleased to ‘meet’ you here – very much look forward to meeting you in Gothenburg in the Spring!

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  8. Jacqui,

    This family has received a great deal of publicity in recent years, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the parents have encouraged the child’s dysfunctionality for their own gain. As long as all the criteria for these so-called illnesses are behavioral, this kind of thing is almost inevitable. Most commonly, this takes the form of parents coaching the child with a view to obtaining disability income. But more exotic versions can and do occur.

    Philip Hickey, PhD
    http://behaviorismandmentalhealth.com/

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    • Parents coaching children in order to obtain disability income isn’t something I know much about but I can imagine it happens. As to whether so-called illnesses arebehavioral is open to debate. It seems to me that troubling behaviours are the manifestation and consequence of overwhelming emotions, reactions to the environment, impact of significant relationships etc. Simply switching the frame from illness to behaviour isn’t the answer for me. A focus on it may be part of what helps makes sense of the whole person and their experience…

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  9. I so appreciate this, Jacqui.

    I have been suicidally depressed many times, but I have never heard voices. I have talked with voice-hearers in the hospital very matter-of-factly, but I never thought about this approach until I heard of HVN, just a few weeks ago.

    Your post is enlightening. I am a peer specialist, and I am so grateful for the information I get at MIA. I am in your debt.

    Pam

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  10. I wrote about Jani as an exams project and did a lot of research as her father has used her to promote his blog and later the book based on his blog – and to beg for money. It is one of the most tragic public exploitations of a child I have ever been a witness to. He has been investigated for sexual abuse of jani but never convicted. He has himself written about the violence he and Janis’s mother exposed Jani to before he found out that that was not a smart thing to do on the net. He becomes infuriated if he is criticized on his blog and no form of critique is tolerated so no dialog is ever entered into unless it is basically praising especially him. There are clips when Jani is just weeks old and he is talking about her hallucinating! I concluded after reading, watching video clips and listening to their radio program that we have here a case of what could go under the heading of Munchausen by proxy syndrome. The interview with Oprah btw shows clearly (my opinion) that Oprah is out of her depth and that she believes Jani is ill and addresses her as such.

    However what is also dreadful is we have a psychiatric system prepared to drug Jani to the gills and ignore the family life which in Jani’s case is plastered all over the internet, though now-a-days it is carefully planned and orchestrated. There are clips where it is so obvious Jani is trying to please mom and dad (and the camera) by waving a plastic knife around so that the staff can say she needs to be admitted as violent(!)

    Thanks Jacqui for bringing the plight of this poor child to our attention again, and who knows maybe one day she will read and hear that another truth also exists…

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Abuse, African American

RIP ERIC GARNER: Man Killed By NYPD for breaking up a fight…

Video 2 Comments

http://youtu.be/_-5UY9I1EbU

 

This video is pretty sickening and difficult to watch. However it is brief and necessary, if you care about what the police are doing tp everyday citizens in this country… (Need I mention that Eric happens to be African American, which I believe was significant in his treatment, just as a mental illness would have been or other supposedly extraneous factors…

Abuse, Bullying, Health

A Blog Post Reply to “Alice”

14 Comments
Broken... This is what abuse and bullying does to a person
Broken… Because this is what abuse and bullying does to a person

I think it is time to explain the trigger for my being mute these five days now, and what happened to start the voices unloosing their barrage of hatred on me. In order to do so, I take a huge risk, because I may unleash more of what happened rather than less. But at least part of what happened was real, the trigger was at least, and it disturbed me deeply. I need also to say that when I tagged yesterday’s  audio file “abuse” as well as “health” I meant it. It is almost always abuse of some sort, verbal, emotional or physical abuse that triggers the voices and self-hatred has in the past triggered muteness.

 

So let me be up front: It was “Alice’s” comment five days ago in which she said, “I think you are a bit of a bully”…which was the specific trigger for all of this. Now, as I read through it — reposted below — I see that nothing she wrote has any bearing on either the post she commented under (which I didn’t write) or anything else I have had to say. But first let me take it point by point. Note that Alice’s comments, for clarity, are in color.

 

Alice, you wrote: “I must say there is no consistency in your writings. You say about how well Yale New Haven Psychiatric – Hospital treated you and the next entry indicates the opposite- how awful they were to you.”

 

I must write about inconsistencies and the facts as they happened, and I am sorry if that discomfits you, Alice. But the first experience in the early spring was very gentle and positive, and the other, as I wrote before, was brutal. Nonetheless that is not an “inconsistency in my writing” just an inconsistency in my treatment. You must be someone who is very unhappy with the world as the world tends to be “inconsistent.” Even the weather has a habit of changing, at least  it is famously so in New England and I suspect that nowhere in the US has entirely “consistent weather.” Of course there are those people who need hobgoblins…

 

Alice continues on the issue of consistency: “You say you don’t like anti-psychotic medications yet you take them (and you also don’t like anti-depressants – yet you take them…”

 

In my defense,I think mature adults often do things they don’t like, even taking medications they don’t like. Most cancer patients hate chemotherapy but take the pills etc anyway. I don’t think merely disliking a medication is reason by and of itself not to take it. Nor to criticize anyone for being inconsistent. There are plenty of reasons to do things you may not like. Many people don’t like eating vegetables, but they sure as shooting ought to eat them!

 

On one other hand, I more than dislike antipsychotic drugs, I deeply distrust them. I do not believe they work. I do not believe they were developed on any scientific basis or are necessary on any but the shortest of short term bases, if that.

 

That said, on the other other hand, I both took and was forced to take antipsychotic drugs for decades, from the oldest Thorazine and Mellaril at doses up to 1500mg, to weekly IM injections of Prolixin, then on to Clozaril, which nearly killed me, transitioning to seizure-inducing Seroquel  to catatonia-inducing Risperdal then eventually to 35 mg of Zyprexa, which made me gain 70 pounds. Given this history, I think I can be excused from blame for withdrawal-induced psychosis when I try to stop my present two anti-psychotic meds, a very real and difficult situation that a growing number of researchers and physicians now acknowledge, including Robert Whitaker and Joanna Moncrieff among others.

 

Alice notes: “for example why would you need your Zoloft reinstated when you had your sudden “depression” after it was taken away. )I thought these pills didn’t work.”

 

What I said was that SSRI’s do not work as their developers state they do. They do not relieve depression by selectively inhibiting serotonin re-uptake at the pre-synaptic neuron. Yes, they DO selectively inhibit this process, but it isn’t necessary, and it isn’t an anti-depressant mechanism. Why? Because the serotonin levels in depressed people’s brains have been shown NOT to be lower than anyone else’s. If you had read what I wrote, you would have understood that I indicated that SSRIs are not placebos, they are not inactive substances, so they do something. They are psycho-active, after all they alter serotonin levels! So they change something in the brain, and that change — any change – may make a depressed person feel better, temporarily. But I have never met anyone who felt permanently better on a single level dose of an SSRI and no one knows for certain what these drugs are doing. I think this is problematic. But I especially think it is FOUL and dangerous to tell a depressed person that they have a chemical imbalance of serotonin that the drug is regulating. That is just a downright lie.

 

As for my sudden “depression” when my dose of 75mg of Zoloft was lowered? Who can say what happened? It may have been that the nurse/director who was my protector at the hospital was away for a few days too at the time, and I sensed the difference…All I know is, well, what happened. I only report the events, neither justifying them nor attempting to make the case that Zoloft “works.” In fact, 6 months later at Yale, when I was down to 50 mg of Zoloft, Dr Milstein felt that I should just come off it entirely, which I did without difficulty. I have no wish to start it again

 

Oh yes, Ritalin you take but that’s for a “physical” problem so that’s Okay.

Yes, in fact that is the case. My question is, why is it any of your business and why do you care?

 

Alice, you then proceeded out of the blue to write: “I think you are a bit of a bully and I think that you think you are profoundly smart. But I’m not taken in…………”

First I want to say, Alice, that I’m not too concerned about my intelligence…I’m certainly not worried about you think about my intelligence, in any event. But it was here, where you called me a bully, that the voices were triggered. Instantly, specifically, instantaneously. In fact, the minute I read those words, the trouble began. And even though I managed to pen a calm enough response, my heart started beating rapidly and the  voices muttering louder and louder in the background even as I wrote. I cannot explain — though of course this whole post is trying to — just what happened.  I felt my ears explode with the pressure of deep sea diving and as if a huge bell were clanging in my head.

You called me a bully. Me, a bully? Why? Were you just reaching for the worst name you could call me? Certainly, it incorporates my worst fear in the world and it was as if you just knifed my jugular… I didn’t know how to defend myself. Before I knew it, the first thing that happened was that the voices zeroed in for an attack, snarling, blaming me for everything wrong I’d ever done. Believe me, they remember every detail! And more and worse, they blamed me for everything wrong ANYONE had ever done! Before I knew it, I was Dr Mengele, Heinrich Himmler, and Adolf Hitler rolled into one.

Did you, Alice, know this? Did you intend for this to happen? Did you want this shit to hit the fan and intend for me to feel so terrible? Did you want me to feel in fact God-forsaken? I sensed that you did. I sensed that you wanted me to feel desperate, and desperately alone. I sensed then that you wanted me to HATE myself and perhaps even to KILL myself as a response…After all, you called me a bully! You would only do that if you wanted repercussions to ensue: Bullies make people commit suicide, so wouldn’t the punishment for bullies be to kill themselves in turn? What else can they do to make up for the evil that they have caused? (NOTE: I would never ask anyone else to so punish themselves; only I myself can never be forgiven for the evil I have done. I am unforgivable, nothing I do can ever be forgiven…But you, Alice, who know me so well, knew this, didn’t you?)

You see, Alice, what you unleashed? Do you see?

No, you wouldn’t see. You couldn’t possibly see. You would have no idea, because you don’t know me at all. You don’t know anything about me, not in the way you pretend you do…The person “Pam” you think you know is all in your mind, a fantasy created out of your imagination to suit your own angry needs and purposes.

But the thing is, Alice, you know what? It is not I who am the bully in the end. I understand this now. I may be a lot of things, and I may be Evil, but I am not a bully. You do not know me. You know nothing of me but my writings. Even if lurking incognito on my blog you are actually one of the staff members at Yale or Hartford Hospital, pursuing me, you would still know nothing about me, not really, and would never be qualified to call me a bully. None of my friends have ever called me a bully. No one who has ever met me socially even briefly or just once has ever called me a bully. Why? Because I am nothing even remotely like a bully.

 

Instead, Alice. you have proved yourself to be an abusive person who lashes out at strangers and who says harmful and hurtful things to vulnerable strangers, regardless of whether you know these things to be true or not. Look in the mirror, Alice. Look  yourself square in the face because you are angry and you are bitter, and you, Alice, YOU ARE THE BULLY.

 

Now,  let me tell you something else. You think you can get away with it because you did not use your last name, safely tucked away at several states distance or at least protected by your anonymity.,. That because I don’t know who you are, I can do nothing about it.  But ALICE, I have my methods of investigating and I know your last name. I also have two photographs of you — and I will post them and name you publicly right here on my blog if you EVER write anything cruel or abusive like this to or about me or to or about anyone else on my blog again.

 

 

I hope I make myself perfectly clear on this.

 

Now, you know what? I was going to go on to “disprove” the rest of your comment, but suddenly I realized I don’t have anything more to say you. Nothing you wrote holds any value .

 

I’m tired, and it has been a long devastating night. I am going to bed…We will see what the day brings. Whether it will bring back speech or more devastating voices I do not want to say. I can only hope things improve…If not, at the very least you know where I stand.

Pam