Read the entire memoir here:

www.freedom-center.org/pdf/Denizen-of-the-Back-Ward.doc

 

 

After being deemed mentally ill for over 32 years, I'm now learning what it is to be "normal". After 32 years of psychiatric units, psych meds, psychodrama, individual and group therapy, etc... I've been given a clean bill of mental health (except for PTSD).

Now, this does not mean I am no longer seeing a therapist. I am being followed by the Chemical Dependency Rehabilitation Program (CDRP) at Kaiser Permanente. I have over 9 months clean; and I'm learning to be a responsible adult. I was once asked what the difference is between the care I'm getting now compared to the care I was receiving (through the department of Psychiatry)? I can sum it up in one word, "accountability."

 

 

12 Shades of Snow

By Anne Onimous

 

1)

I Dreamed A Dream That Was Bestowed

By Higher Beings In The Know

I Dreamed A Dream I Thought Was Fake

Until The Moment I Awake

My Sleep Drenched Eyes Gaze 'Pon This Place

As Pillows Nestle To My Face

My First Thought Of The New Day Springs

What Is Rainbow's End To Bring?

 

2)

Like Sun O'Er Meadows Alone I Rise

And Float To Mirror's Familiar Eyes

A Glint Appears, A Light Turned On

A Day On Which To Shine Upon

I Twist A Loop Within My Hair

For Mirrror Knows Who Is Most Fair

 

Below is the talk I wrote for Narpa.  Feel free to
pass this on to others. 

I did not read it (below) word for word, but refered to
it and touched on most of these points.  Other topics
I mentioned that I gleaned from Freedom Center
organizers were:

new leaders
more funding for young people to go to conferences
new speakers
dangers of teen screen
reach out to schools
internet communites for young people
college campus outreach (from activists)
make the movement fun
address the ADD/ADHD drug emergency

I recently went to a CPS training that ended with a
talent show.  I realized that if everyone in the room

Wednesday April 4, 2007

Joanne Lutz

Anonymous

 

Leah Harris

 

 

chayagrossberg.com

 

for poetry:

chayag.gather.com

chayag.livejournal.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I was in 9th grade, I was under a lot of stress because I was active in about 3 or 4 activities after school. I went on a Speech and Debate tournament, actually a Student Congress, and I felt alienated from everyone else there. We were watching Nine and a Half Weeks at the motel room. I felt like sadism and pleasure seeking seemed to indicate that God did not exist, and that there is no meaning in life.

I went to a psychologist because I was depressed. He sent me to a psychiatrist.

The world of mental health law and policy is filled with riddles: How do we recognize competence to make fundamental decisions? How can guardianships, which remove one's basic legal decision-making authority, be challegned? Should we civilly confine a person when that means foreclosing them from having consensual sex? Mental health law is also plagued by chronic under-recognition as an area deserving of dollars, expertise, and other resources.

Growing up I truly had it all: a great family, tons of friends, nice home. Besides my brother's death at age seven, before I was born, my childhood was happy and trauma free. The death of my brother shook my parents up so they were very protective of me, but I had a great life growing up in.. As early as age 9 or 10, I experienced acute anxiety that only lasted five or ten minutes where I felt spacey and disconnected from everything, but still knew exactly what was going on around me. Nothing particular seemed to bring it on emotionally, spiritually or physically, but it occurred several times a year. As a child, I also worried a lot and things like talking in front of people terrified me.

i spent many hours sitting beside myself in that tiny blue room. i spent too much time staring at myself, at the girl in the * full body straight jacket lying on the floor. *safety coat was the euphamism used to describe this particular piece of equipment. i don’t know who was supposed to feel safe… maybe staff, certainly not anyone actually bound into it. she looked like a piece of luggage lying there. dropped. forgotten. waiting to be claimed.

Some Thoughts About Oppression

As a person born with a physical disability, I have always experienced oppression. In every realm of life, I was subjected to negative assumptions and presumptions of incompetence. This was never more apparent than when I entered a graduate program in psychology at a local university. Throughout my time in the program, I was repeatedly told that my disability made people too uncomfortable and that I could never be a good counselor. In evaluations, my disability was referred to as a "deficit which could not be overcome." Since I have always been very strong-willed, I stuck it out and obtained my degree. I then got my real education when I went to work at a local community mental health center.

(you can also listen to an interview with Michael, where he reads this poem, on the Madness Radio page)

 

 

From the Forbes.com website philanthropic focus on Freedom Center, August 2008:

 

Born in 1950 the only child of a military man, i grew up in an abusive & compulsively ordered family universe in which there was only one right way to do anything. My father was prone to unpredictable fits of rage & sulking, & a cloud of gloom often hung over the house, increasingly so as i got into adolescence & really began to have a mind of my own.

To escape the rage & rejection i withdrew into my own world of fantasy, nature, & books, often experiencing ecstatic experiences by all these means.

Being highly sensitive, i hated the authoritarian, overcrowded, sports-worshipping ethos of high school, but a did always have a friend or 3 along the way.