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Who Needs Alternatives? (Erick Fabris) The saddest situation confronting emotional beings like us happens when we are forced into lives that have the fewest choices. As an institution that resists change at all cost, psychiatry continues to offer us the fewest choices when we are in difficulty and pain. The Patients Council held a forum on "alternatives to psychiatry" on January 16 to start the new year. Forum speakers have given us (in-patients, out-patients, survivors and consumers in the community) a view of the many choices that lie outside the walls of Queen Street--choices such as homeopathy and naturopathy, Oriental medicine, creative therapies, healing arts such as Reiki, reflexology, community activism and self-help, spirituality and many more. It's sometimes hard to find the right option and make it work. But the trying is what counts, and trying is what helps us heal ourselves. If you would like more information on the presentations, call our office and come speak to us. Again, thanks to those psychiatric survivors and consumers who have written for Psycho Magazine, and for showing us some choices beyond psychiatry. The least possible editing has been done (for the sake of space). The Council cannot endorse the opinions of participating writers but it supports their call for providing everyone in Queen Street with alternatives, choice and power to make decisions ourselves. Lunatics' Liberation Movement (Irit Shimrat) I feel that it's important to put energy into telling people about psychiatry-- about how the drugs can give you serious neurological diseases like tardive diskinesia, and many other physical, emotional and mental problems. About how electroshock causes brain damage and memory loss. About how devastating it is to be told you have an incurable brain illness, when really you've just flipped out because of too much stress. I want to bring in [another] element here, which is the lunatics' liberation movement. Which doesn't exist yet as far as I can tell. But here's what I would like it to be: a movement whose aim is to help people who are crazy, and like being crazy, be crazy in the best way possible. To promote the importance of craziness. I see lunatics' liberation as being about keeping people out of trouble with the system. But more than that, it's about the importance of being different. It's about the expression of emotion, and of creativity. It's about recognizing that this is a crazy world, and there are good reasons for people going nuts. Everyone talks about people getting "sick." Everybody talks about "chemical imbalances in the brain" and how there's this disease and that disease, and you can get this and that drug for it. I want people to talk about what it's like to go crazy. Not only what we can do about it if we don't like it, but what we can do with it. Many artists and musicians and writers and thinkers are crazy. Lunatics have lots to be proud of. The content of anyone's madness has value and meaning. Psychiatry devalues that content. Psychiatry says, "You want to save the world? That means you're schizophrenic, and you need Haldol." Lunatics' liberation says, "You want to save the world? Why? How?" I want to be able to talk with crazy people and respect what they're saying, and listen to them. The whole experience of madness needs to be looked at and treated very differently. Let it be seen, if not as a communication from another dimension, as a lesson about how our society makes people feel. Let us learn from it somehow. Walk Therapy (Geoff Reaume) Heard of talk therapy? Why not walk therapy? Better yet, why not walk and talk therapy? This can be done individually or in pairs, and it doesn't cost a penny! Many times over the years, going on walks has proved so very helpful in getting through difficult times, whether these episodes last a few days, weeks or months. Of course, it is not a cure-all. But it helps to get out of a confining physical living space that can become an emotional tomb, as four walls keep in all sorts of unpleasant thoughts. Walking away from this suffocating world, even for a short time, can make another day a little less depressing. Of course, it depends where you wish to walk, especially when venturing out alone. Issues around personal safety and emotional needs are obvious factors that will determine which direction to take, just like when choosing any therapist. Sometimes, when I wish to be around other people, wandering up on Queen Street West to Lansdowne, or around Church and Wellesley, over to Parliament, south to Gerard, are nice places to go. Other times, when wishing to avoid contact, going south up Jarvis, crisscrossing across Richmond and Adelaide over to King Street West, past Bathurst to Dufferin, is a good urban walk, without worrying about having to get too close to many people. But my favourite place beyond any other for walk therapy is the
Don Valley trails, entering at the Riverdale Park pedestrian bridge.
It is here that walk and talk therapy has meant so much. It doesn't
matter if other people see a vibrant discussion between different
sides of a single person, rambling about the trails. What is important
is being able to chat away, free of the inhibitions that so often
repress feelings and lead to more despair by burying everything. One day in early 1993 during a snowstorm stroll, I remember seeing a white rabbit hopping about, camouflaged against everything around it. This rabbit was also trying to hide from people, though likely for better reasons than me. It stopped to stare at this strange person, who must have looked like the abominable snowman, covered with winter's wonder. For a few minutes we gazed at one another, curious about what the other was up to, before I moved on through the rolling snowdrifts of the valley. This brief moment of companionship, as fleeting as it was, encapsulates how soothing walk therapy can be, as the tranquility it brings makes one realize how much life is worth living. Love Is the Drug for Me (Jennifer Chambers) We are born full of feelings, bright with intelligence, and eager to live. Our emotions allow us to heal from our hurts as we go. Children are a wonderful example of what is natural. A child who feels hurt will cry and scream until they are done, and then they will stop-- and once again be lively and open and ready for more of life. Children know that for the healing to work best, they need loving attention too. Often they will wait until they have attention before they really let loose. Many of us cannot escape serious harm, like neglect and abuse. To heal from such harm we must grieve, and we need love and a safe place to do it. Unfortunately, there is a twisted idea in our society that being 'mature' and 'well-adjusted' means no strong feelings. When we are hurt, but are not allowed to show feelings or get loving attention, we start to have difficulty thinking. No one thinks well when hurting. When we have difficulty thinking, this piles on new hurts like being punished, or called 'stupid,' or 'crazy,' or 'retarded.' Having to hold in hurt feelings also does us damage. We may have difficulty feeling anything, or feel everything really strongly. We may end up being called 'mentally ill'-- 'manic-depressive' for instance. Psychiatry and pharmaceutical companies have replaced real attempts to heal people with drugs. They do not provide or profit from what people need most-- to have feelings, to be safe, to be loved, and to be seen as unique and precious. It is dangerous to show feelings in the psychiatric system. Everyone I've met who's been there knows it. Feelings are treated as symptoms and met with drugs, seclusion, restraints, and shock (when I was 16, I was threatened with electroshock "if I didn't cheer up"). Like Martin Luther King, "I have a dream." I imagine a place for people to go that welcomes all feelings. It is full of people that offer love and attention. It's safe and it's free. The doors are always open. Has our view of ourselves and our possibilities become so small that institutions, labels and drugs are all we can offer? Is there any reason not to offer a real alternative? I invite you to dream too. Diseases Caused by Psychiatry May Have Antidotes (Randy Pritchard) Perhaps the only real disease in the entire psychiatric industry is that of "Tardive." Tardive is a family of untreatable , mostly incurable neurological disorders that are caused by the long term use of neuroleptics and some antidepressants. The symptoms range from mild involuntary muscle movements (primarily in the facial area) to wildly exaggerated styles of walking. In 1989, I met with Doctor Fornazzari who headed the only Tardive clinic in Canada. Ironically, it was located at Queen Street Mental Health Center. She was quite open about her research into the disease, and while her findings were overall quite depressing, there was one glimmer of hope. The basis of all disease is "free radicals." With the onset of Tardive, free radicals are unleashed in increasing numbers through the victim's neurological system, thus creating the physical symptoms of the disease. At the same time, it is not uncommon for the victim to experience a drug-induced dementia. Rather than acknowledge the great harm they have done, the psychiatric industry uses these symptoms to validate their theory of a pre-existing 'mental illness'. Fornazzari tried using vitamin E as a means of combatting the disease, with limited success. Vitamin E (an anti-oxidant) is a natural enemy of free radicals. It acts much like PacMan, roaming around gobbling up the disease-causing free radicals. What she found was that in 30% of cases there was a measurable improvement in symptoms. In 50% of cases there was no change, and in 20% the victim continued to deteriorate. Of course, this vitamin E was given following a victim's total withdrawal from all neuroleptics so as not to add further fuel to the disease. The Tardive clinic no longer exists and no mental patients are being treated with vitamin E to combat the disease which psychiatry itself created. The bastards should be in jail. Look How Far You've Gone (S. L.) One day you woke up with everything gone. Next day you woke up, no longer was everything gone. Next day you could take. Next day you woke up and knew that not everything was gone. Now look back. Tibetan Buddhist Medicine and Psychiatry (Stuart Mair) People should have choices in healing other than the medical model. Spirituality is one choice towards the path of healing. We all have inside of us the ability to heal and to help others heal with loving and caring which is so important. Our mental health system does not understand life and suffering but holds on to ignorance and the emptiness of power and control that helps very few and creates more suffering. They cannot see what is important in life and healing because they are blinded by a delusion of ego. If we look with our hearts, true awareness and compassion show us the way. Tibetan medicine is basically holistic, using some plants, a model of mental and psychic healing, ethics for healers, and it uses illness to understand and develop wisdom. The medicine of Tibet is unique for its blend of spiritual, magical and rational healing practices. It is now a system in exile, struggling for existence like the rest of Tibetan culture. Tibetan Buddhist medicine heals through spiritual and psychological practices for realizing the nature of mind and controlling the negative emotions. It includes meditation, moral development, prayer, and other religious practices. The concepts of karma and reincarnation are central to Buddhism and Buddhist medicine. Karma can be understood simply as the working out of the laws of cause and effect. Every activity of body, speech and mind, conscious or unconscious, is believed to create its inevitable result in this life and future lives. In all kinds of Tibetan medicine, the interactive role of the healer is important. Affectionate care is considered to be an important factor in the recovery of the person. The moral quality of the healer, his or her depth of wisdom and compassion, is believed to be directly related to the ability to effect a cure. Since the effects of the karma of previous lives may be felt in the present, some diseases are said to have a purely spiritual or karmic cause and will not respond to ordinary medical treatment, but demand instead spiritual-religious treatment to cure them. Buddhism is primarily a psychological religion as opposed to a theoretical one. Tibetan medicine is a unique system of healing and one of the world's oldest medical traditions. It aims at understanding the nature of mind and developing awareness and compassion which are so important to healing. Some of this information was found in: Tibetan Buddhist Medicine and Psychiatry: the Diamond Healing, by Terry Clifford (York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1992). Cat Therapy (J. S.) To most people, cats are just another pet, but to people who suffer anything from loneliness to acute clinical depression, cats can be very helpful. When you go home after a long day at work, it is nice to have a furry little cat eagerly awaiting your arrival. All she or he asks for is food and water twice a day, and a clean litter pan. For this and kindness, she will love you unconditionally. If you are feeling sad she will heighten your mood with her play antics. Also, cats are very tuned in to their owners. They know when you are feeling low. Sometimes my cat just likes to sit near me for a while when I'm feeling sad. If you are clinically depressed and inclined to stay in bed all day, you know if you have a cat you have to get up and feed her and change her water. Then you have to clean out her litter pan. Three ways to get you up out of bed and keep you up. Because once you're done all that, hey! you might feel better and stay out of bed all day. In the last ten years it has become known that pets, in this case cats, can greatly benefit people who suffer loneliness, depression and also help the aged. I wouldn't know what to do if I didn't see Minni's and Mikki's face when I go home. They mean the world to me. So! Go out and get yourself a cat!
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