Deeper Than Words

This is a quote from Derrick Jensen’s book, A Language Older Than Words:

There is a language older by far and deeper than words. It is the language of the earth, and it is the language of our bodies. It is the language of dreams and of action. It is the language of meaning, and of metaphor. This language is not safe, as Jim Nollman said of metaphor, and to believe in its safety is to diminish the importance of the embodied. Metaphors are dangerous because if true, they open us to our bodies, and thus to action, and because they slip – sometimes wordlessly, sometimes articulated – between the seen and the unseen. This language of symbol is the umbilical cord that binds us to the beginning, to whatever is the source of who we are, where we come from, and where we return. To follow this language of metaphor is to trace words back to our bodies, back to the earth.

Happy Earth Mother’s Day

The work here at Mad In Vermont isn’t always grim, depressing, alienating, scary, and frustrating; there are times when I take my activism with a little mischief. To paraphrase Emma Goldman, if it’s not fun and a little naughty, I don’t wanna be in your revolution!

Yesterday I was feeling miserable with my usual weltschmerz, so I turned to my favorite mood-altering activity, (the one I was routinely punished for as a child for the crime of wasting time) and got out my metal lunchbox full of Sharpies and trashbag full of clean, used milk cartons I’ve been saving up, and started to color my way out of my despair.

I’m not sure about all of the positive thinking stuff. I have read Barbara Ehrenreich‘s book, Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America and I know how this philosophy can be used to oppress people who complain about unfair conditions in society. But, I also believe in sympathetic magic and in generating spiritual energy and in doing things that surprise and annoy people who aren’t paying attention to the danger we are in on this planet right now.

To that end, I realized it would be a hoot to tape the one word affirmations that I painted on recycled milk carton backs to store windows here in downtown Hardwick, VT and to thereby celebrate Mother’s Day for the Mother Of Us All.

 

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The Nicest Kiss Off

On May 1st my friend Wendy drove me and another friend to Montpelier. The other friend was attending a May Day parade and festival that was being held at the Vermont Statehouse lawn. We got hung up behind the colorful marchers as we made our way to the offices of Otis and Kennedy a couple of doors down from the Vermont Statehouse. I had an appointment to discuss the possibility of their firm taking my case against The Plainfield Health Center and Washington County Mental Health for misdiagnosing me and recklessly overmedicating me.

We met at a big table in the conference room, Theo Kennedy and his associate Ron Ferrara were on one side and Wendy and me and my huge boxes of 25 years worth medical records were on the other. As a trauma survivor with a lifetime of experience in being able to function and to be articulate in threatening situations, I was able to separate out my consciousness a bit, to disengage from the traumatizing effect of having to recount my early incest abuse to strange men. I’ve been telling the same story to police, social workers, lawyers, doctors, and counselors of every stripe all of my life, so I’m practiced in detachment. But the toll of having to recount the damage and abuse the doctors perpetrated against me was a little harder to bear.

They declined right away to take the case based on the amount of hours it would take to comb thru all those records. The fact that I had previously won a settlement for damage that was caused by seroquel, a drug that was prescribed by the doctors, adds no weight to my complaint. I wanted to leave the instant that they declined, but I was in shock because having to recount the medical abuse so my reaction time was off.  I wound up listening to invalidating remarks about what a waste of time my case is and how things are tough all over and everybody’s got problems. They did suggest that I contact the Vermont Human Rights Commission, which I have already done, along with the Vermont Board of Medical Practice and the Vermont Agency of Human Services. They also suggested that I make a chart listing the dozens of (bogus) diagnoses and hundreds of drugs I was prescribed and their effects and the dates of prescriptions and that might look better to a lawyer. I didn’t even bother to remind him about the iatrogenic brain damage that makes this kind of an endeavor very difficult for me.

The worst thing that was said, though, was the remark that, “There will be a question about why you didn’t get a second opinion.” First off,  if these lawyers were planning to take my case and were preparing me to deal with cross-examination by opposing counsel I could understand the disheartening remarks, but they were unnecessary and only spoken in an attempt to shame me. Kind of like what abusers do to keep you off balance and unable to defend yourself. What make this statement suck so bad was the fact that I was on Medicaid and my choice of doctors was extremely limited. Doctors only take so many Medicaid clients. And of course the remark was absurd because it contradicts the argument about community standards of care, which is the first obstacle lawyers always tell me about.  The standard of care is the legal term that describe the elements of medical care that any reasonable practitioner is expected to follow. So, even if I had had a choice of medical doctors they all would have chosen to chemically rape me. Lawyer Theo Kennedy blamed me for my own medical rape. Thanks, Theo.

Sigh. The statute of limitations for the abuse I suffered was three years from the time I left the practices that were poisoning me and the treatments that almost killed me and did destroy my life. But it is pointless to even talk about statutes of limitations when my case is so large, over so many years, so many drugs. No lawyer wants to do the work of reading thru 25 years of medical records. It’s a case of too much evidence, another of the horrible ironies that rule my life.

When I sued my father for incest in 1985 one of the arguments that pundits in the press were making was that if they suspended the statute of limitations for me based on the severe, lifelong damage that 12 years of violent sexual assault left me with, that the courts would be flooded with cases, hopelessly tying up the judicial system. The arguments now are that since all the docs were poisoning incest survivors and Medicaid moms with speed and downers and muscle relaxants and other neurotoxins, that all the doctors are protected from having to face the consequences of their bad medicine.

I have written to Robert Appel, who was the director of the VT Human Rights Commission, twice and received no reply. I wrote to Floyd Nease of Vermont Association of Mental Health and received no reply. I filed a report with the Vermont Medical Licensing Board.  I have called innumerable lawyers and was told that they couldn’t take the case because of conflicts,  and the ones I have visited have been misogynistic and pompous and dismissive. I was called a crackpot by one lawyer and told that since I am ok now I should not go looking for trouble. (Lawyers Ferraro and Kennedy also said this.) I have written to newspapers, I have consulted with Vermont Disability Rights , but I can’t get anyone to take me seriously or give me good information about how to fight back.

I gave the team of Kennedy and Farraro my brightest smile as we were leaving the offices. They shook our hands and said good luck. When we were outside Wendy laughed and said, “The was the nicest kissoff I’ve ever received!”

What Happened to You?

Reblogged from Beyond Meds:

• 

Excellent video high-lighting the link between trauma and severe mental health problems (emotional distress)

http://youtu.be/ij0TgjBqzA0

Below I collect Trauma and PTSD  info, commentary and links from Beyond Meds

As a social worker and clinician working with “the seriously mentally ill” for many years, I never came upon someone who didn’t have fairly severe traumas in their histories.  Yes, I can say those who I encountered who were in that particular labeled segment had a solid 100% rate of trauma in their histories.

Read more… 1,037 more words

This is an excellent collection of links to information about the effects of trauma and how to effectively address and heal trauma reactions that usually get labelled as biopsychiatric brain diseases. And then this leads to people getting chemically neutralized so that they can't feel their bodies and their emotions. And, baby, if you can't feel it you are never going to heal it!

Why Do Boys Hate Girls?

I’m thinking about misogyny. What is it about our culture’s obsession with hating women? Why do men (and women) hate, fear, distrust, vilify, abuse, harass, annoy, rape, pollute, and murder women and the “nature” that we apparently symbolize? I don’t fucking understand it and I’ve been studying this problem from deep inside it for 60 years.

This is the Amazon review of the book Woman And Nature: The Roaring Within Her by Susan Griffin:

In this famously provocative cornerstone of feminist literature, Susan Griffin explores the identification of women with the earth—both as sustenance for humanity and as victim of male rage. Starting from Plato’s fateful division of the world into spirit and matter, her analysis of how patriarchal Western philosophy and religion have used language and science to bolster their power over both women and nature is brilliant and persuasive, coming alive in poetic prose. Griffin draws on an astonishing range of sources—from timbering manuals to medical texts to Scripture and classical literature—in showing how destructive has been the impulse to disembody the human soul, and how the long separated might once more be rejoined. Poet Adrienne Rich calls Woman and Nature “perhaps the most extraordinary nonfiction work to have merged from the matrix of contemporary female consciousness—a fusion of patriarchal science, ecology, female history and feminism, written by a poet who has created a new form for her vision. …The book has the impact of a great film or a fresco; yet it is intimately personal, touching to the quick of woman’s experience.”

I just asked my 30 year old daughter, who has some experience with fathers and lovers, what the basis of the woman-hating might be. She says that it’s a testosterone thing, the imperious urge to attack, defeat, dominate and control. I said, “So you are saying that it’s basically a chemical imbalance in male brains that is congenital and is expressed on the Y chromosome?” Where have I heard something like that before? Oh, yes, it was when the misogynist authorities in the form of doctors and Mental Corrections personnel told me that my discomfort with my incest experiences were a symptom of my inherently defective female brain, which they then proceeded to rape with behavior-control chemicals.

So, I’m not keen on the “It’s the biology, stupid,” theory of human behavior. Wish it was. Wish we could outfit males at birth with an anti-misogyny device attached to their gonads. Kind of like the clitoridectomies and hysterectomies and incest and rape and footbinding and psychiatric chemical control that are forced on women to enslave them to produce wealth for the bullies at the top of the pyramid. No girls allowed up there.

Some theorists propose that the misogyny problem arises from the fact that the only things men can squeeze out of their bodies are shit, piss, sweat, and the occasional tear. Whereas women can also produce living creatures and the milk to feed them. Marge Piercy, in her novel,  Woman At The Edge Of Time, suggests that one solution to men’s virulent reproductive jealousy is to create an artificial womb and separate the birth process entirely from the human body. This is an interesting idea and sadly, it is becoming more real as “we” fuck with human reproduction and turn it into a machine process. Personally, I think it is a psychotic idea, especially when the crux of the problem is the alienation “we” suffer from our own physical bodies.

Men say they suffer because they have to go to war. Well, who invented war? Maybe war is something men do to each other because of their repressed homosexual urges. Got to kill other men because they can’t handle being attracted to them. And of course rape all the women within reach, especially the women in your own army. But, don’t go to war for me. I never asked any man to kill other people for me. Really, I think you are an idiot for fighting for stockholders’ wealth. Really stupid to die for EXXONMOBILSHELL. How is that manly? It’s oil whoredom, selling your ass to plutocrats.

Another informative book about the mass rape of nature that “we” are so busily engaged in is  The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and The Scientific Revolution by Carolyn Merchant. The way “we” are behaving is not random or accidental. The mass murder of nature is a deliberate act that has been planned and executed by wealthy male bullies and their scientist lackeys. I am sorry that “we” killed the planet for the profit of the greediest fuckers at the top of the heap. What a terrible waste. The artist in me is appalled by the ugliness of what “we” have done to the very fabric of life. Disgusting.

Sometimes I imagine that sentient beings on other worlds are observing our degrading acts of rape and torture and pollution and are using us as an object lesson in how NOT to be. DO NOT DO AS THE HUMANS HAVE DONE!

Mary Ann’s Place In The Crisis

I’m reblogging this essay from Mad In America . This story is another example of how this sexist, misogynist culture identifies, poisons and neutralizes victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence. I particularly identify with the “despiritualization” that she experiences as a result of the drugs. The behavior-control chemicals destroy our inner sense of connection to our creativity. Killing the goddess within with chemicals.

Mary Anne April 2, 2013
Editor’s Note: To ensure the security of her job, the author has opted to use only her first name.

My relationship with the mental health crisis laid out in Robert Whitaker’s book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, is deeply personal. Not only have I seen its effects on my clients, but I have experienced the effects myself.  There is no way to briefly summarize the enormousness of the epidemic. However, the story we have been told by psychiatrists and the pharmaceutical industry backing them is one, like many in our country, that has been deceitfully woven over time to profit business over well-being. The story that mental illness is a chemical imbalance of the brain that requires a specific combination of medications to correct it, just like diabetes requires insulin – a story I actually taught for years as a volunteer for NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) – is incomplete at best. I personally find it to be false.  As difficult as it is to admit, I feel I must share some of my mental illness history as a thread in the fabric of rampantly accumulating evidence that medications used to manage mental illness have gotten completely out of hand.  fabric threads  As a result of unresolved childhood trauma, I am aware of being diagnosed with at least nine psychological disorders over the past fifteen years: major depressive disorder, dysthymia (chronic depression), bipolar disorder – type I and II, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention deficit disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, dissociative identity disorder, and borderline personality disorder. While I agree that I meet the criteria of most of these diagnoses as they are outlined in the DSM-IV-TR, I have come to realize that these labels are only shadows of my true identity. However, the twenty medications I have been prescribed (some multiple times) to control my mood have transformed me into less than a shadow of a person at times. Zoloft, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Lexapro, Prozac, Seroquel, Zyprexa, Depakote, Efffexor, Klonopin, Abilify, Geodon, Risperdal, Celexa, Lorazepam, Invega, Latuda, Lithium, Lamictal, and Ritalin are the ones I have records of being prescribed. I know first-hand the effects of short- and long-term use of psychotropic medications, and I consider myself one of the more fortunate ones. Due to my sensitivity to immediate side effects and my skepticism of medication in general, I have not stayed on many medications longer than a few months. Those I have stayed on for more than a year, however, are still battling their way out of me.  I am quite certain I am still experiencing long-term effects from taking Lorazepam, Lamictal, Risperdal, Lithium, and Ritalin. I do not have specific evidence of the direct effects of Lorazepam on my health, but I took it regularly for more than two years every night to help me sleep. Researchers have found that there is a great increase in depressive episodes and generalized anxiety disorder, as well as long-term cognitive impairment for those who have used Benzodiazepines regularly. Lamictal and Lithium markedly deepened my depression and perpetuated a numbing apathy I have not been able to overcome. Risperdal, which I was prescribed upon being hospitalized in 2009 to stabilize me for having a suicide plan, I actually took for only a few months. I stopped only because I had such painful tension in my neck that I could hardly move. I still have a facial tremor in my mouth from taking it.  Ritalin, which a seasoned psychiatrist offered me as a last desperate attempt to revive me out of deep depression in January 2010 – just after I was released from my psychiatric hospitalization – has had the most severe short-term and long-lasting effects on my being. I was technically a few pounds underweight to be taking the adult dose, but my doctor allowed me to take 60mg of Ritalin a day – the maximum adult dose. The morning I took my first dose of 10mg, I knew deep down it was too good to be true. I literally felt a switch go on in my brain that awakened me into a state of motivation and focus I did not even know existed. It was beautiful and frightening all at once. I felt I could accomplish anything. I had experienced mania and hypomania before, but I had felt really out-of-control and quite delusional during those episodes. This was different. About forty minutes after taking a dose, I felt completely in control . . . for less than two hours . . . and then the dose wore off and I experienced great anxiety, followed then by an extreme let down leading to more fatigue and apathy than I had in the first place. I had to strategically time when I took the next dose, and the cycle began again.  To get through grad school while raising three children, I stayed on 60mg of Ritalin per day (eventually switching to an extended release caplet to ease the transitions between doses) for about eighteen months. It was enough time to trigger some intense mania, followed by several months of sheer anxiety, which had me in a constant state of panic. I also believe that my already sensitive skin and teeth further deteriorated from use of Ritalin, not to mention the experience of other physical side effects I will not describe here. There seems to be no end to the negative long-term effects from using this drug. I should not have been surprised, since it was similar to being on a daily dose of speed or meth. But I was desperate, and I trusted my psychiatrist.  I knew I had to stop taking Ritalin by the middle of 2011. I also knew by then that drugs would not cure my anxiety, so I rarely used the Lorazepam I was prescribed, and heavily relied on mindfulness to endure the extreme bouts of panic during the summer of 2011, often when I was alone late at night. There is no other way to describe the depth of my panic than sheer hell. I felt completely alone, as if there was not even the existence of any kind of higher power that could help me. In fact, I actually believed that I would eternally live in a state of pure terror; almost exactly as outer darkness is described in the religion of my upbringing. I came close to being hospitalized several times that summer, but somehow was able to avoid it. I think it was the miracle of mindfulness practice and a merciful God, whose presence I could not feel, but who must have cradled me through those dreadful episodes of panic.  Since going off of Ritalin about a year ago, the panic has settled back into generalized anxiety, but my depression has continued to deepen. My apathy is so debilitating that unless I am at work, or I have to do something for my three children (such as meals or getting them somewhere), I can be found in my bed. I am not always sleeping, but I can barely function if I do not have a specific plan or obligation. It is another kind of hell. Thoughts of suicide constantly invade me and I fight them with my best Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills. Otherwise, I begin justifying why my death might actually be a good wake-up call to society. But the truth is, hundreds are taking their lives every day, and society is not waking up for the most part. Even recent tragic events in our country, such as mass shootings, seem to instill more fear and create more bi-polar reactions from society than meaningful change.  While there are some valuable efforts being made in the mental health arena, there has not been a drastic decrease in the use of psychotropic medications to control moods. To me this is catastrophic. Not only do I feel the effects personally, I see the effects first-hand as a mental health counselor. I could tell you multiple stories of how medications have exacerbated mental illness symptoms in my clients and their family members. There are some stories I am not able to shake, but I will not be sharing them here, out of respect for the confidentiality of my clients. I hope, in time, that these individuals will be able to share their stories in the way that will best help those they have the ability to influence.  For now, let me be clear about this: most of the clients I have worked with who have taken more than one psychotropic medication at a time have felt that these drugs – meant to control their mood – end up taking control of them in some way. They have often expressed that they were not given enough information by their health-care providers, and have found that they have had to taper medication use to combat negative side effects. They have most often experienced confusion over clarity, and have attempted to put together a puzzle for which there is no complete picture available. In some cases, the result has been death – often after months or years of losing themselves slowly through the use of too much medication.  This is the truth. I have seen it over and over again as a volunteer for NAMI, and as a professional in the mental health field. While those taking one antidepressant, usually for mild to moderate anxiety or depression, seem to be the least affected, they are the exception and not the rule to “success” with use of medications used to manage moods. Even in those cases, the most common report I hear is that the medication “takes the edge off” so that the person can get through a difficult time. Stimulants, Benzodiazepines, and antipsychotic drugs seem to have the most negative effects on individuals with whom I have worked.  But don’t simply take my word for it.  Robert Whitaker’s book contains many individual accounts of people he met with, along with lengthy chapters containing hard evidence that these medications used to treat moods are literally creating mental illness instead of eradicating it. At best, they have only been proven to temporarily help people with symptoms of mental illness. For some, years go by before the negative effects truly set in, and for others the effects are immediate.  When I began reading Whitaker’s book, I decided to gather all of my remaining medications – some of which I have had for several years – and take them to the police station, where they have a place to dispose of them. It was an extremely freeing moment. I recognized that the only reason I had been hanging on to them was for a possible suicide attempt, and I knew that I could not leave that open as an option. Besides the fact that I could never leave my children, I could not let the pharmaceutical industry have yet another victory.  pill bottles  I have now been virtually free of these medications, with the exception of taking a small dose of Lorazepam occasionally (maybe twice a month) for sleep, for over a year. And still, I do not feel like myself. It is fair to say that before I ever took any medication, I did not feel like myself in many ways, due to issues from my childhood. However, the use of medication has only worsened my condition, and I do not yet feel like I have crossed a threshold in my journey where I have confidence in living a full life. Even as I write this, I am deeply aware of my limitations. It is still difficult to form sentences and connect thoughts, due to lingering cognitive impairment from psychiatric medications . . . and yet I must speak. Even if what comes out on the screen seems like a conflicted mess. Even if people I am trying to please or be strong for discover this post and wonder what in the world I am doing with this much baggage. I simply am not able to keep quiet.  So what now? A combination of reading Whitaker’s book, my own life experience, and witnessing the experiences of my clients and close friends has fueled in me a rage I hope I can channel into something that will help people instead of leading to my own death. I know that sounds dramatic, but I can hardly stand to sit in my office helping one person at a time, when there needs to be a massive revolution in the way mental illness is managed. The current trend appears to be a magnifying of the crisis through avoidance of the actual problem. I want to join the forces that are opening eyes to reality and actually helping work through what has become a mental health nightmare in this country and throughout the world.  Who is with me?

Discharge Mummery

Today, for your edification, I offer up two discharge summaries, one written about me when I was released from a psychiatric ward in 1969 when I was 16 and the second that was written in 1984 when I was discharged after a brief stay after a bad reaction to a movie I saw about incest. I was 31 and had two daughters, aged four and one.

I think you will see that not much changed in the intervening 15 years. The  prevailing attitudes about mental illness, women, and domestic abuse and sexual violence did not evolve. In fact, the sexism and outright misogyny of psychiatrists and their ilk has become even more lethal as one in four American women has been pressured into consuming psych drugs because she has been convinced she has a defective brain with congenital chemical imbalances.

These documents are part of the medical record that I obtained in my effort to force the psychomedical system to stop it’s widespread abuse of women and children. I have linked to the original posts that I wrote about these two documents.

First Discharge Summary

R.J. Meyer Hospital      November 20, 1969

Smith, Jeanne A. of 645 Northumberland Avenue, Buffalo, NY  age 16, d.o.b. 6/8/53, white, single,  protestant,  female,  admitted 10/7/69, discharged 10/21/69

Presenting Complaint: The patient was brought to the hospital by the police because she threatened to kill herself on the day of 10/7/69.

History of present illness: The patient left home to stay with one of her girlfriends two days before admission.  The patient resisted to go home after her parents requested her to do so.  The police were then asked to bring the patient home, but she still persisted and threatened to kill herself anyway.

Course of the patient’s problem: The patient’s mother died four years ago from cancer of the uterus. The patient’s father remarried one years after her mother’s death. She was the first of four siblings (one from her stepmother) It was felt that the stepmother caused problems to the first three children, as she was the strong,  domineering person in the family. She was described as a very strict person, but underlying, very anxious and dependent.  The father is described as a very weak person and was once hospitalized for a mental breakdown.

Mental status: The patient on admission was crying and said repeatedly that she wanted to die. She was depressed and admitted that she threatened to kill herself. Her insight was fair,  as well as her orientation, memory and general intelligence.

Hospital course: The patient stayed in bed the first few days and looked sad and kept crying. Her emotional affect was rather labile and impulsive. She refused to see her parents and said she didn’t want to go home anymore. The patient was on no regular meds except librium 25 mg. prn.

Final psychiatric diagnosis: Adjustment reaction of adolescence.

Prognosis: Fair.

My comment: This piece of fiction fascinates me. They blame my stepmother for the problem and fail to mention that my male parent was a batterer and had been hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital for months of electroshock in lieu of being jailed for raping me. He was placed back in the house to continue the rapes. I was nine years old.

It makes me so sad to see how no-one listened to me and that threatening suicide in my desperation to escape constant rape and battery led to my being stigmatized and drugged.

Erie County Medical Center

Second Discharge Summary

Erie County Medical Center        January 19, 1984

Jeanne A. Smith,  61 Lasalle,  Kenmore, NY 14217

30,  White,  Female,  Married,  file # 300358-A

Major Depressive Disorder     Adm. 1/15/84    Discharge 1/18/84

History of Present Illness: Patient has past psychiatric history (age 16) She has been involved with Corp 2 (outpatient care) doing well for years but became depressed before Christmas when her husband was laid off.  Precipitating factor for this admission was patient viewing T.V. movie (“Something About Amelia”)  Patient began suffering “flashbacks” about incestuous relationship she had with her father. (emphasis mine - RAPE IS NOT A RELATIONSHIP!) Patient relates she was sexually abused by her father from age 6 months to 12 years. Patient admitted because of depression.

Mental Status Examination: Patient appears stated age,  casually dressed, kempt.  She is co-operative,  affect is fearful and depressed mood is highly anxious,  hands shaking.  Thoughts slightly fragmented,  speech is clear and coherent,  slightly pressured thought content,  obsessive thoughts about incest,  somatic complaints possibly related to incest.  Depressive thoughts,  self-illness (what is self-illness? )   Suicidal thoughts and thoughts of harming her nine month old baby. (I said I felt like I might hurt her because no-one was taking my anguish seriously.) She denies hallucinations,  is well oriented,  memory fair – judgment poor (what were the criteria for judging my level of judgment? Did the fact that I was in pain and complaining about it mean my judgment was bad?),  insight good.

Hospital Course: Patient was extremely hysterical and demanding throughout the course of her treatment.  She offered many complaints about staff treatment of her,  demanded an increase in her medication because she felt she was “out of control”.  Patient demanded to see her chart – threatened to hire a lawyer if she was not allowed to see her chart.  After three days patient’s mood abruptly changed, she became much less depressed,  said, “Having a good cry helped.”  Demanded to be released.  Patient appeared to be no longer in danger of harming self or others.  Discharged in husband’s care.

Discharge Service Plan:  Patient referred to Child and Family Services for follow-up.  Patient returned home to husband and children.

Dictated by Grace Emblidge, M.S. O.T.R.

My comment: I like reading that I threatened those idiots with a lawyer. Two years later I went on to sue my male parent for sexual assault throughout my childhood. This piece of writing clearly shows that according to the psychomedical system my experience as a survivor of years of sexual assault was trivial and possibly imaginary. Any tears or complaints were seen as symptoms of pathology and my attempt to assert myself was seen as a threat and evidence of my basic unreasonableness.

The dismissive tone of these documents is simply heartbreaking. Psychiatry is the philosophical rationale for rank misogyny, it erases women’s experiences of abuse and exonerates batterers and rapists.