Sunday, November 8, 2015

The 'Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act' Doesn't

[In progress, comments welcomed!]

Short summary:
Despite its attractive name, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (H.R. 2646/ 'The Murphy Bill') would hurt families in mental health crisis rather than help them.  Just as conventional mental health has done for decades, the Murphy Bill pits family members and identified patients against each other as a time when we need each other the most.

Longer article:

With Congress in August recess and a new ‘Murphy Bill’ on the table,  the "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act" (H.R. 2646) by Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) may seem like history. Actually, it is more like repeating history. For families in crisis, there little help or substantive reform to be found in either bill.  Just as conventional mental health has done for decades, the Murphy Bills continue to pit families members and identified patients against each other in their mutual time of greatest need..

When you think about it, family members and identified patients have a lot in common:

We are both trying to make sense of important life changes
We are both vulnerable to discrimination, marginalization, judgment and othering by the larger community based on stereotypes about ‘mental illness’.
We often come to the mental health system already smarting from and acutely aware of those hurts.
We are both facing life difficulties that have exceeded our existing capacities and natural supports.  (Otherwise, who would use mental health services?)
We both find ourselves at the mercy of conventional mental health system  -- the socially designated default for ‘when all else fails.’
We both come in worried about finger pointing.  Perhaps this is already going on.   Perhaps we are already a bit on the defensive.
While something clearly is not working, none of us wants to be seen as -- or blamed for being -- ‘the cause’ of ‘the problem.”

The fear of being blamed and labeled is perhaps the most damaging part of all. Historically, it’s been a competition between families and identified patients to prove where the ‘fault’ lies.  According to the family, Uncle Bob sees martians and can’t be left alone.  According to Uncle Bob, the family just wants his money - and won’t stop pestering him for a ride in the spaceship.

This kind of dynamic is no doubt distressing for all concerned. ,Moreover, it’s hardly unique to mental health.  In the 1930s, AA/ Al-Anon split the difference and simply called it ‘the family disease.’  Multiple therapy approaches since then have been developed to assess and treat dysfunctional families.’  Mothers, have taken a particularly hard hit for their thankless role as socially designated primary caregivers.

Personally, I’d lose the labels and the illness metaphors all together. In the first place, life is tough all around.  There are abundant avenues to distress and derailment in any given lifetime.

Secondly, this is so much bigger than any one person or family. The fact of our existence starts with a single fragile cell, ends in certain death, and in between consists largely of a survival dance involving a zillion factors beyond anyone’s control.  So assigning blame for mental diversity - or how anyone expresses it - makes about as much sense as blaming people for thunderstorms.

Thirdly, it’s patently unfair.  What families, as a whole, do better than any other social organization to date is to care and commit.  What happens to one of us matters to the others.  We tend to stick through thick and thin.  This means that our futures - and our future happiness - are connected.  The kind of relationships we have today factor heavily in the lives we predict for our years to come.

It's fair to say then that the effects of a 'mental health crisis' affect us all. There are relational shifts afoot that feel difficult and confusing.  There is the stress of adapting to change. There may be fear, loss or grieving as capacities or opportunities appear to change.  There is the ‘stigma by association’ almost certainly comes the family’s way, compliments of the larger community.

All of this is natural, rather than pathological.  It comes from our caring and the intertwined nature of our fates and lives. It is exactly because we have 'skin in' in such powerful ways, that we feel vulnerable and uneasy about how this will resolve. Here, the insight of AA/Al-Anon is no less true today than it was decades ago:  We feel 'powerless - that our lives have become unmanageable.'

It is at this point of collective desperation that the most families come into contact with conventional mental health services.  If the Murphy Bills have their way, this will happen more often and more intensively in future years -- not less.  What’s the harm in that?

Here is the issue. As noted above, families arrive at conventional mental health services in a vulnerable state.   They are beyond their known resources and desperate for solutions.  Everyone wants relief (whatever relief means to them) - and they want it yesterday.

Next thing you know a curtain is swept aside.  A man in a white cape strides in and announces a seemingly simple explanation and a seemingly simple solution.  The designated patient is very ill -- quite possibly too ill to recognize that s/he has a problem. The problem is the result of a ‘brain disease’ that causes a 'chemical imbalance.'  The disease/ imbalance can be fixed with a simple pill.  Compliance with this simple regimen is all that is needed. If the patient takes the pill, the problem will go away.  Everyone's life can go back to 'normal.'  (Okay, as 'normal' as it can be for a family that has been diagnosed with the social stigma equivalent of AIDs)
Not surprisingly, the approach is highly attractive.  People come in begging for answers and immediate results.  Someone in a white coat offers them.  What’s not to like?,

Sadly, it is becoming increasingly apparent that families need to take even the advice of professional helpers with a grain of salt.  According to Independent analysis, both the chemical explanation and pharmaceutical solution are demonstrably partisan.   They appear to be more reflective of industry financial and guild interests than objective medical science.

Indeed, critical examination of relevant research suggests that conventional mental health has vastly overrated the benefits and effectiveness of  pharmacological solutions.   Families are routinely told medications are 'essential' for treating their loved one.  Yet, independent analysis suggests that the medications are associated with higher rates of long-term disability, poorer overall functioning, loss of brain tissue, damage to the basal ganglia and increased susceptibility to relapse. Concerns like these led Jonathan Cole, the former head of the NIMH Psychopharmacology Service Center to ask “Is the Cure Worse than the Disease?”  He further urged that “every chronic schizophrenic outpatient maintained on an antipsychotic medication should have the benefit of an adequate trial without drugs.”

Equally disturbing is this:  In general, people with 'serious mental illness' are dying fifteen to twenty-five (15 - 25!) years before the rest of the population.  Medication compliance - and associated health risks like heart attacks, metabolic syndrome and tardive dyskinesia - appear to play a significant role.

In other words, when you look at the non-Pharma studies, by all appearances, taking medications as directed lowers our life expectancy and increases our disability rate.  This is tantamount to saying that non-compliance with current, conventional mental health treatment advice is an evidence-based practice.

Yet, families are routinely trained by mental health providers that medications are the 'only' treatment available. When loved ones question medications or request alternatives, professionals commonly tell concerned family that this is 'part of the illness.'  When loved ones complain that medications aren't working or are in fact making things worse, professionals routinely school family members to ignore these complaints and convince 'the patient' to follow professional advice. Anything else, family members are sternly admonished 'would be irresponsible.'

This is inexcusable.  We live in an age where many safe, effective psychosocial alternatives are emerging. At a minimum these promising practices produce far less harm and, from the reports of many, lend themselves to far better results. Such alternatives include: Consumer operated services like Intentional Peer Support, the Hearing Voices Network, Alternatives to Suicide, Wellness Recovery Action Planning, Emotional CPR, peer respites and drop-in centers,  Icarus project groups and online communities.  They also include many professional modalities, including: Open Dialogue, Need-Adapted Treatment Method, person-centered therapy and trauma-informed therapy. Information about these approaches can be found on line or through the numerous the peer-run wellness and recovery initiatives are now offered in practically every State.
 

There is good reason why psychosocial approaches are both safer and more effective than pharmaceutical approaches. According to the National Council for Behavioral Healthcare, ninety (90!) percent of those who end up in the public mental health system are survivors of trauma.  Trauma includes things like interpersonal violence, sexual abuse, harassment, discrimination, bullying, homelessness, poverty, crime, witnessing abuse, overwhelming life transitions, grief, loss, disaster, or significant relational conflict.

While the causes of trauma are diverse and varied, the effects of trauma commonly have distressing impacts for individuals and/ or those who love them. Yet, biological psychiatry, in partnership with the pharmaceutical industry continues to ignore these obvious, proven life affects.  They continue to insist, instead, on an out-dated 'chemical imbalance' theory that, despite countless industry-funded studies costing millions of dollars, has never been validated.

The travesty of this intentional (“almost willful”?) ignorance on the part of the highest status professional group in mental health is that they are irreparably damaging the very people who trust and need them the most. Their most loyal patients are in fact paying with their lives for the price of psychiatry's proprietary allegiances. (Not sure what “proprietary allegiances” means.) Moreover, the most devoted, caring family members are, far too often, put in the painful position of having to choose between stern professional admonitions that medications are 'absolutely necessary' and listening to their loved one's self-reports that the medications are damaging them and making it harder, not easier, to deal with their distress.

Sadly, even the most devoted family members are frequently cowed and intimidated by such 'expert opinion.'  At the same time, the relational stakes could not be higher.  The unfortunate, but very real, practical impact of giving into professional pressure is that you end up betraying someone you dearly love in their time of greatest need. Many relationships never recover.

Unlike other life traumas, this trauma is entirely avoidable, and it has to stop.  It is produced entirely by the psychiatric profession - with the assistance of pharmaceutical industry advertising and public relations money.  The profession needs to be held to its hippocratic oath.  It needs to embrace - for the first time in its history - not its status as 'scientific brain experts', but its actual mission of helping people.  Perhaps it could start by predictably delivering some semblance of the miracle cures -- including the smiling faces and attractive lifestyles -- that its industry advertising dollars promise in every American living room every night on TV.

No one can do this with the real human traumas involved in only 5-15 minutes a month.   - Or with the press of a button. -- Or with the pop of a pill.  It is insulting to human dignity, reason and conscience to even imagine this.

That our government officials have been lobbied, catered, and campaigned into supporting this farce that passes for medicine with our public health dollars (literally trillions of dollars) is madness.  This madness, like the trauma induced by psychiatry, is entirely preventable.  One only needs to look at the independent evidence on psycho-pharmaceuticals, and their vast counter-productiveness becomes obvious. Yet, U.S. taxpayers continue to pay billions of dollars every year for a primary treatment strategy that causes far more harm than it ever prevents, and is not even close to the most safe or effective public health response that we could be offering.

The sad fact, however, is that this is a madness that only We The People can stop.  The pharmaceutical lobby is the most effective lobby in the United States.  It is hardly surprising, therefore, that our politicians - like psychiatrists - have surrendered to its influence.

So it's up to us to stop the madness.  It will only keep getting worse until we stop it.

To do that, we need you.  We need your voice and your vote. Demand better for yourself.  Demand better your family.  Demand responses that offer humanity not technology when people come in hurting.  Demand providers who take time to get to know you and your loved ones and who ask about what is really going on for you.  Demand providers who have time -- and organizations that offer it -- when you most need it, for as long as you need it, and as much as you need of it to actually feel and get better.  Demand providers who really listen to you and your loved ones.  Demand providers who treat you all with the respect and dignity to which you are entitled as members of the human family.  Demand professionals who are capable of supporting you to communicate, to make sense of differing realities, to learn together, to work together, to move forward into something new, healing and far better than you ever imagined.

Those are mental health services worth paying for. And, it really is possible. In fact, that's exactly what Open Dialogue does in Finland.  As a result, they have eliminated schizophrenia in their region over the past 25 years.

So, if someone tells you it can't be done, demand your money back.

Better yet, take your life back.  Join the movement, find a peer.  We're here.  We can do it. Differently. Together.  Way better.


On Jul 31, 2015, at 1:02 AM, skknut@gmail.com wrote:

The "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act'  Doesn't.  Please Oppose It.

Despite its attractive name, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (H.R. 2646/ 'The Murphy Bill') will hurt families in crisis rather than help them.  Families are routinely trained by mental health providers to ignore the loved ones who need their support in favor of 'professional' advice.  This advice has repeatedly been shown to be partisan and consists primarily of coercing vulnerable individuals to take psychiatric medications in times of intense distress.  While cosmetically attractive in the short run, independent research demonstrates that these medications actually render up to 80 percent of those those who take them worse off rather than better over the long term.  They also reduce the average life expectancy of those who take them by fifteen to twenty-five (15 - 25!) years when taken as directed.  Thus, people who comply with their doctor's orders will die (on average!) fifteen (15!) to twenty-five (25!) years ahead of their time as a reward for their obedience.

This is inexcusable in an age where we know that many safe, effective psychosocial alternatives exist and produce far less harm and far better results. These alternatives include: Consumer operated services like Intentional Peer Support, the Hearing Voices Network, Alternatives to Suicide, Wellness Recovery Action Planning, Emotional CPR, peer respites and drop-in centers, Icarus project groups and online communities.  They also include many professional modalities, including: Open Dialogue, Need-Adapted Treatment Method, person-centered therapy and trauma-informed therapy. Information about these approaches can be found on line or through the numerous the peer-run wellness and recovery initiatives are now offered in practically every State.

There is good reason why psychosocial approaches are both safer and more effective than pharmaceutical approaches. According to the National Council for Behavioral Healthcare, ninety (90!) percent of those who end up in the public mental health system are survivors of trauma.  Trauma includes things like interpersonal violence, sexual abuse, harassment, discrimination, bullying, homelessness, poverty, crime, witnessing abuse, overwhelming life transitions, grief, loss, disaster, or significant relational conflict.

While the causes of trauma are diverse and varied, the effects of trauma commonly have distressing impacts for individuals and/ or those who love them. Yet, biological psychiatry, in partnership with the pharmaceutical industry continues to ignore these obvious, proven life affects.  They continue to insist, instead, on an out-dated 'chemical imbalance' theory that, despite countless industry-funded studies costing millions of dollars, has never been validated.

The travesty of this intentional ignorance on the part of the highest status professional group in mental health is that they are irreparably damaging the very people who trust and need them the most. Their most loyal patients are in fact paying with their lives for the price of psychiatry's proprietary allegiances. Moreover, the most devoted, caring family members are, far too often, put in the painful position of having to choose between stern professional admonitions that medications are 'absolutely necessary' and listening to their loved one's self-reports that the medications are damaging them and making it harder, not easier, to deal with their distress.

Sadly, even the most devoted family members are frequently cowed and intimidated by such 'expert opinion.'  At the same time, the relational stakes could not be higher.  The unfortunate, but very real, practical impact of giving into professional pressuring is that you end up betraying someone you dearly love in their time of greatest need. Many relationships never recover.

Unlike other life traumas, this trauma is entirely avoidable, and it has to stop.  It is produced entirely by the psychiatric profession - with the assistance of pharmaceutical industry advertising and public relations money.  The profession needs to be held to its hippocratic oath.  It needs to embrace - for the first time in its history - not it's status as 'scientific brain experts', but its actual mission of helping people.  Perhaps it could start by predictably delivering some semblance of the miracle cures -- including the smiling faces and attractive lifestyles -- that its industry advertising dollars promise in every American living room every night on TV.

No one can do this with the real human traumas involved in only 5-15 minutes a month.   - Or with the press of a button. -- Or with the pop of a pill.  It is insulting to human dignity, reason and conscience to even imagine this.

That our government officials have been lobbied, catered, and campaigned into supporting this farce that passes for medicine with our public health dollars (literally trillions of dollars) is madness.  This madness, like the trauma induced by psychiatry, is entirely preventable.  One only needs to look at the independent evidence on psycho-pharmaceuticals, and their vast counter-productiveness becomes obvious. Yet, U.S. taxpayers continue to pay billions of dollars every year for a primary treatment strategy that causes far more harm than it ever prevents, and is not even close to the most safe or effective public health response that we could be offering.

The sad fact, however, is that this is a madness that only We The People can stop.  The pharmaceutical lobby is the most effective lobby in the United States.  It is hardly surprising, therefore, that our politicians - like psychiatrists - have surrendered to its influence.

So it's up to us to stop the madness.  It will only keep getting worse until we stop it.

To do that, we need you.  We need your voice and your vote. Demand better for yourself.  Demand better your family.  Demand responses that offer humanity not technology when people come in hurting.  Demand providers who take time to get to know you and your loved ones and who ask about what is really going on for you.  Demand providers who have time -- and organizations that offer it -- when you most need it, for as long as you need it, and as much as you need of it to actually feel and get better.  Demand providers who really listen to you and your loved ones.  Demand providers who treat you all with the respect and dignity to which you are entitled as members of the human family.  Demand professionals who are capable of supporting you to communicate, to make sense of differing realities, to learn together, to work together, to move forward into something new, healing and far better than you ever imagined.

Those are mental health services worth paying for. And, it really is possible. In fact, that's exactly what Open Dialogue does in Finland.  As a result, they have eliminated schizophrenia in their region over the past 25 years.

So, if someone tells you it can't be done, demand your money back.

Better yet, take your life back.  Join the movement, find a peer.  We're here.  We can do it. Differently. Together.  Way better.

References:

1. Whitaker, R. & Cosgrove, L. (2015), Psychiatry Under the Influence: Institutional Corruption, Social Injury and Prescriptions for Reform New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.; Whitaker, R. & Cosgrove, L., Psychiatry Under the Influence: Institutional Corruption, Social Injury and Prescriptions for Reform (Palgrave Macmillan 2015)

4. Whitaker, R. (2010). Anatomy of an epidemic: Magic bullets, psychiatric drugs, and the astonishing rise of mental illness in America. New York: Crown Publishers, and studies cited therein including those contra-indicating routine, prophylatic use of:
5. A comprehensive review of the current science, suggests the following as best practices:
  1. avoiding exposure to psychoative medication when at all possible - including for first-episode 'psychosis' 
  2. before offering medications, allowing first for an initial trial period of non-medication alternatives 
  3. if after a period of sincere trial, no response is achieved from non-medication approaches:
    • a. if sleep is an issue: conservatively offering psychoactive sleep aids like benzodiazapines;
    • b. if sleep is not an issue (or does not resolve with less intrusive sleep aids), offering antipsychotics at low doses and carefully evaluating the response to assess whether - on whole - they are making things better or worse - not only from the provider's and family's point of view- but also from the point of view of the person of concern.
Posted by at 1 comment:

Saturday, November 7, 2015

Lone Wolf Speaks - And It's Madder Than You Think

[in progress, comments welcomed!]

Ok I'm going to go heretic right now. I know the right thing to say among Mental Health Activists is that there is NO connection between violence and madness.  I really would like to be able to tow that Iine.  The problem for me, however, is that I would be lying.

In my lived experience, there is a huge overlap. But not necessarily in the way you might think.

The first thing to get is a principle of Science 101:  Correlation is NOT causation. As Matthew Cooper pointed out in a great article in Newsweek earlier this week: ‘The sun doesn’t come up because the rooster crows, even if they happen at the same time.” Maybe Oregon Shooting and Others Aren’t About Mental Illness, http://www.newsweek.com/maybe-oregon-shooting-and-others-arent-about-mental-illness-378875.

How does this play out in fact?  Well, a lot of us who act violently toward others - whether verbally, morally, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, materially or physically - either have a pre-existing mental health diagnosis, or someone eventually gives us one.  That does not mean that mental illness ‘causes’ violence, however.  In fact, making that assumption is bad science.  To be sure, fish that fly together often fry together.  But that does not mean that being fish made them fly - or that it made them fry.

On the other hand, both the flying and the frying may be connected with the same root cause.  To see that root cause, however, you have to look deeper than surface associations.  That’s what I think is going on here.

My best bet, from painful experience, is that the connection between mental health diagnosis and violence is 'marginalization.'  Let me say up front that I don’t think marginalization is necessarily the ONLY cause of either phenomenon  But I do think that marginalization is an important common denominator that can explain a lot.

Here is why:

1. Marginalization not only follows psychiatric labeling.  It routinely precedes it.  


It's now well known that 90% of the public mental health population are 'trauma survivors.'  Equally, important the same is true for other groups -  the substance use, corrections, homeless -  that society sees - both as 'problems.' and as groups with a propensity for violence.

The reality for those of us in these groups is that our marginalization preceded our 'problems.'  From childhood, we were already dealing with heavy duty stuff like abuse, neglect, domestic violence, sexual predation, discrimination, bullying, family conflict, poverty, homelessness, caregiver unemployment, etc. Moreover, when these things happened to us- not because of us or anything we did -  all too often the rest of society put its head in the sand.  Or worse, we were shunned for just for being in these situations.  A lot of time, people with power who were supposed to change things actually betrayed us.  They turned around and labeled us the cause of the social torture that was careening our way.

In other words, we live in a society that is marginalizing, literally, millions of people.  This happens in different places and by different means for many of us.  But, the fact remains that marginalization has been - and still is - a painful reality of far to many of lives.

Equally important, the consequences of marginalization - both personally and politically - are drastic and dire.  Literally millions of us are being marginalized and treated as if our needs (and lives) do not matter.  The message we get - and not just from 'perpetrators' but from upstanding community members and society at large - is that we have no worth, we do not deserve to belong, and there is no room for us in the world community of human peers.  This kind of marginalization is happening everywhere and every minute - in all kinds of relatinships and in every organ of society: - families, friendships, neighborhoods, schools, churches, workplaces, agencies, offices.  It is even happening - and perhaps most painfully happening - in the very organizations and institutions - that society has set up to 'help' 'problem' people like us.

2. Marginalization produces the kinds of biopsychosocial responses that get labeled 'mental illness.' 


This practical effect of mass marginalization that millions of human beings are growing up in a constant state of fear and threat.  This fear and threat occurs on 2 levesl.  It is not only about the pain and threat social exclusion - although - to be sure - and is vast and crippling in an of itself.  It also has to do with the effect of social exclusion.  In other words - what it is like to try to live and survive when no one you know gives a shit whether people like you live or die, have a place to live, enough to eat, clothes on your back, etc.

3. This is where the violence becomes predictable. 


Violence in these circumstances is a matter of statistics and odds.  It is no longer a matter of individual morality of self-discipline.  It is not about bad actors who need to learn how to calm down and 'act appropriately.'

It is about what happens when so-called civilized society has pushed people too far.  When threat, fear and pain reach the breaking point. In human beings who might otherwise think about consequences.  In citizens, friends and neighbors who might otherwise be inspired to care.

Enter the human survival response.  This is the place of live or die.  Where conscious thought stops - and sheer instinct takes over.  All that matters is self-preservation.  All choices that follow reflect this concern.

The world through this lens looks incredibly simple:  Friend or foe.  Predator or prey.  You are actively for me, or else against me.  If you want to live, make up your mind.  Declare your loyalties now.

To navigate this frightening space - where reasonable people can no longer think and compassionate people no longer care, nature, in her wisdom and kindness, gives us three basic tools:  fight/ flight/ freeze.

A lot of people flight or freeze.  There are many benefits to this.  Flight and freeze, on the whole, are a great thing for society as a society.  The nature of threat in the modern world is becoming less immediately physical and less life and death - at least in a immediate existential sense.  Maximizing responses that allow all concerned to see another day are, therefore, a very good thing.  Understandably, civil society prefers this as the social order.

On the other hand, flight and freeze have their limits -- even in modern society.  This is especially true, when - as now -  we have created a society where many people understandably feel it is not safe (emotionally, materially, economically, socially, politically) to take on the dominant structures of power and privilege.

When only flighters and freezers are allowed in this kind of world, nothing ever changes.  Flighters and freezers habitually ignore or avoid threat.  So, there is no effective counter-voice.  The powerful take more power.  The rich get richer.  The compliant become more compliant.

Thankfully, however, flight and freeze are not all we have.  Some of us will fight.  Even when threats are not immediate.  Even when they are not life and death.   This is not pathology, it is human diversity.  It is good and necessary.  It ensures not only the survival of the human species, but also protects the quality of our collective lives together.

While few people recognize this, the existence of social fighters keeps the rest of us safe and able to sleep at night.  We count on them and we need them.  The virtually assure the following:  When things get bad enough - or stay that way for long enough - some fighter, some where is going to break the tension.  They are not going to run or hide.  They are going to face the facts and take the problem on.   Hence, far from being an frustrating, inappropriate burden on the rest of humanity, the human 'fight' response - and those who wield it - serve and incredibly valueable social function.

4. Crisis meets opportunity.


Given the underlying social function, the sparks are bound to fly when the human 'fight' response collides with social dynamics like marginalization, exclusion and oppression.  The statistical incidence of both phenomena in the modern world (fight response on the one hand, marginalization on the other), guarantees this will happen.    A substantial percentage of the human population will default to fight under threat or stress.  A substantial percentage of the human population is living in daily fear/ threat/ despair due to marginalization and the other impacts it produces.  Routinely and regularly these states will collide.  

When they do, we can and should predict what will happen.  The fighters will target this source of their threat -  whatever that is in their eyes.  And they will try to take it down.

These are the 'lone wolves' of modern society.  They are doing what fighters do.  Consistently.  Across marginalized groups.  They are standing alone and taking on threat, because someone has to and fighters and freezers have ceded the field.

For this reason  - and this is really important for the rest of dominant culture to get - you can't stop violence by marginalizing people.  In fact, there's a really good case to be made that that will get you experiencing a lot more of it.

5. A personal appeal


To bring the point home I am going to say everything I just said again.  But instead of saying it generally, I will say it personally.  I frankly identify with the lone wolves and lone wolf violence.  It's hardly fun to be "Wreck It Ralph" - or the person that everyone loves to hate.  It's even more frightening to contemplate getting marginalized in this community and being considered the mad activist that other mad activists love to hate.

Be that what it may. I can't help myself.  Something in me says this issue is important.  Too important for us not to get.  So I'm going to try to share how I understand it, and what I understand to be going on, as frankly and relevantly as I can.  My hope is that some of those here will consider the points and engage in a meaningful dialogue around these issues that can take us further as a whole.

6.  Lived experienced of one lone wolf, speaking about myself and also from what I have heard from others who, like me, personally connect with that term.  


Those of us who society calls lone wolves frequently do not respond 'nicely' to oppression.  We do not think tactically, speak softly, or consider consequences.  We rarely live to see another day - at least in a metaphorical sense with regard to the issues of concern.  Frankly, that is not our top value or core function - either personally or from a socio-cultural standpoint.  It is also not the purpose of the energized responses that our bodies tend to favor, time and again, when exclusion, marginalization or indications thereof appear to us to lift their ugly heads.

The function we serve is simply this:     Lone wolves target and try to take down the relational and cultural dynamics that we see and experience - in our heart of hearts - as the source of our oppression.  In the heat of the  moment, when those associations are triggered, there is no arguing or being rational.  We are not leaving the room, running, hiding, or spacing out like everyone else.  Those are legitimate responses and lot of people do them in order to survive.

But that is not us.  We are the fighters.  We are protecting what we value.  We are the mother bears of what we see as the essential dignity of the human condition.  Whatever threatens this, beware.  We are taking it on and taking it down.  And the last person standing, turn on the rights.

Please also note: This response in us does not come from the fact that we are mentally ill, adcicts, uppity, black, poor, homeless, uneducable, unemployable, inconsiderate, inappropriate, anti-social, etc. - at least as we see it.  It comes from the marginalization - the socially constructed disabilities - that puts us in situations where we have to fight for human dignity - as we undertand that  - in the first place.

7.  Hoped for response


This is all pretty new territory to be articulating. At the same time, I'm betting there are a lot of lone wolves out there who, like me, have been secretly hoping for a different response from mental health advocates.  To date, mental health advocates have mostly been backing the dominant culture band wagon, which amounts to marginalizing and castigating people who get violent.

Ultimately, I think this is a disservice - both to the mental health cause, diagnosed people and society at large.  As a community, we have been making the same mistake with the lone wolves issue as the larger society has made with psychiatric labelling:  Both reactiions, while understandable and holding surface appeal, amount to some people (with power) marginalizing and writing off other people (without power) instead of making a thoughtful, considered effort to try to understand and make sense of what is going on from the perspective of lived experience.

The fact of the matter is that lone wolves attack for a reason.  In a very real way, this is violence that human beings of good conscience can make sense of -- and arguably must.  Lone wolf violence has both meaning and message.  You only need to scratch the surface to get a glimpse of the extensive, extended desperation and devastation that precedes (and builds into) the ultimate expressions that end up making the national news.

In almost every case, what you see is cultural outsiders, living in isolation, with no hope of ever belonging. As a group, we are people with few if any friends. We have virtually never experienced ourselves -  for any sustained or expended period - as welcome or wanted in the neighborhoods, communities, schools or offices where 'the people of value' work and live.  We have learned again and again that we do not fit in, that our best efforts are not enough and there is no reason to expect that they ever will be.

Year after year there is painful struggle.  There are new insults every day. Every time we walk down the street or enter a store, others walk or look away.  We are the fly in the ointment of human conversation.  We know - can see, feel, tell - the way others put up with us for as long as they have to and then change the subject, leavel the room, close the door. -- So that they can get on with the real busines of their life.  -- The real and really meaningful business.  -- The business that has nothing at all to do with us, or who we are -- and never will.

Suffice it to say, these things mount.  They reinforce, remind us, daily, of what we know to be true:  There is virtually no possibility of becoming regarded as community members of worth and value given how the social rules are currently being written - and by whom.

Far too many of us feel this way.  This is a source of boatloads of pain for boatloads of people who consider ourselves social refugees.  We are people without a country, always adrift, with no friendly shores.  To our knowledge, is no place in the known world that we can safely land and call our home.  We have no loyalties because we have no citizenship.  The politics of marginalization have stripped our birthright as human family.   Once that birthright was gone, the other things followed.  We lost, or lost faith in, our abiity gain digified work that would sustain our existence.  Without that, our access to participation soon followed -  the resources needed to create a community that speaks our language and that feels remotely relevant to what we care about and who we are.  The cycle was vicious.  The ending not good, no matter what route you chose to the bottom.

If these look and sound like mad peoples issues, they are.  If this looks and sounds like mad people's message, it is.  Mad people have been trying to this same message across to the dominant culture for years:

People react to real life concerns.  They aren't simply 'mad.'  They are 'mad' about something.   The biomedical response of locking and drugging serves nobody well - including society.   There are alot of things we can make sense of - but we have to look beneath the surface.  We have to stop labeling human beings and start trying to understand human doings.  We have to get to causes and conditions.

If we make a conscientious effort to do those things, everyone will be better off.  Not only will we begin to understand the seemingly inexplicable, we will learn a lot about human nature.  This in turn can help us transform our relationships with each other.  It can also help us create a more just, welcoming, mutually responsible world.

This message is our legacy as a movement.  It is the hugely important, critically necessary contribution that mad people have to make to human society as we know it.  But it is not just about the polite 'disorders' like anxiety or depression that everyone can understand.  And it's not just about relatively harmless eccentricities and quirks that, while troubling, create no real threat to anyones safety or property.  It's really about everything - even the hugely awful offensive stuff that is so vilified in modern society that no one dares speak its name (except to say it's bad, bad bad)

On the other hand, when we finally bite the bullet and begin to face this shit, it can -- and literally will -- transform the entire domain of human relations.  Not just personal and family relations, but entire communities and countries.

Moreover, given the dynamics of marginalization interacting with fight/flight/freeze, I'd also venture to guess that the route of trying to understand / make sense of experience is far the safest and most highly protective option.  At a minimum, there is a world of learning and transformative potential to be had - both for individuals, families and commuities as a whole.  Added to this, when practiced as intended, embracing a cultural ethic of curiosity, learning and understanding seems like exactly what we need to innoculate the the flighters and freezers from killing us softly by running away from problems.  Better yet, these same values build our community capacity to embrace lone wolf intensity and to clarify, appreciate and integrate it's core messages.  This means that instead of marginalizing lone wolves, we are using their gifts in the manner nature intended - and plus making an honored space in the pack for diverse people and insights that can benefit and enrich the quality of life for all.

This stands in stark contrast to the statistical probability, if we continue to marginalize and exclude, sooner or later, the lone wolf nature that is inherent in our species will boldly kill us all.
To me, that seems like a predictable outcome of the current course our culture is on.   Yanno, the one where we continue to marginalize and then ignore or suppress the voices that are trying to raise our consciousness.  It's just a matter of time.


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Friday, November 6, 2015

Virtual Drop-In / Crisis Respite - Weekly Schedule / Special Events

Hi there!  Glad you found us!  Our group call format is in transition.  If you need peer support, want to offer it, or want to learn more about either or both, please contact us:


Our basic approach to people helping people ('peer support') is summarized below, as well as a flavor of what we've offered in the past.

PRIOR OFFERINGS

Tuesdays 



Fridays 




Join Us:




Need More Info? 

Contact:  Sarah Knutson

ABOUT US:


The Virtual Drop In/ Respite is a project of the Wellness & Recovery Human Rights Campaign, https://www.facebook.com/groups/WellnessRecoveryRights.

For more information about the Wellness & Recovery Human Rights Campaign and what we stand for, http://right2bu.blogspot.com/

Mission/ Vision:  Human community for all states of mind


  • To create an active, vibrant 24/7 community on-call that feels like human family and advances human rights.
  • To offer a rich array of drop-in spaces for people to connect around shared values, needs and interests.

Core Values: No pros, no cops, no 911

  • We are run by and for ourselves and each other.
  • We exist to serve our own needs and values, both individually and collectively.
  • First and foremost, we are accountable to our own consciences and to each other - not to the current mental health system or its values, practices, standards or laws.  
  • We respect the expertise and right to self-determination of our members. 
  • We check our degrees and credentials at the door.
  • We participate as human beings on a human journey.  
  • Professional opinion and experience carries no special weight here - it is just the opinion and experience of other fallible, mortal human beings like ourselves.
  • We support each other's capacity for reasoning and conscience rather that substituting or imposing our own viewpoints or values. 
  • We respect and learn from the diversity of our experiences, preferences and viewpoint.
  • We work to share space and negotiate differences.
  • We stay flexible to the emerging needs of the moment, rather than imposing hard fast rules about how every group should operate all of the time.
  • We are self-funded solely by those who participate in our community.  

One Firm Rule:   

No pros, no cops, no 911.

Helpful Links:

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Monday, November 2, 2015

Federal Minimum Standards for a Community Mental Health Infrastructure

An Outline for Public Policy Reform and System Overhaul Legislation 

[Draft in progress - Suggestions, comments, recommendations welcome]

Principle 1:  Grow and Support Community Capacity.  

We must reverse the alarming trend toward permanent disability that results when people come into contact with our current system of mental health services.  This system "treats" mental health crisis by yanking people out of their lives, dislocating them from natural supports and making their issues the exclusive perogative of 'experts.'  When public or private health insurance runs out, this profit-dependent system of professional dumps these same people back into the real world with even fewer supports and resources than they had before their crisis began - and then blames them (or their families) when they fail to successfully reintegrate.  

 To counter these harms and reverse this trend, we must build the capacity of ordinary people to support each other through difficult times.  Far from being the aberration, challenges and hardships are are a normal part of life as vulnerable beings in an uncertain, high-stakes, resource-scarce world.  We therefore should anticipate difficulties and breakdown, not pathologize them.  

 To this end, every community and every citizen in United States should have access to: 

 1. A safe place for respite



 2. A peer support center



 3. Hearing Voices groups and training



 4. Intentional Peer Support groups and training



 5. Emotional CPR crisis supports and training


 6. Icarus Project groups and training



 7. Wellness Recovery Actions Planning (WRAP) training and wellness supports/ groups that make available health- promoting, capacity-restoring activities like art, exercise, creativity, writing, social interaction, nutritious eating, meaningful vocation, relaxation, meditation, spiritual development, body work, massage, yoga, dance, etc.


8. Alternatives to Suicide training and groups


9. Peer and professional support for coming off psychiatric drugs 


10. A 24 hour support line staffed with people who care and want to listen 


 11. A "When Johnny & Jane Come Marching Home" (citizens listening to veterans) Project to support, honor and begin to appreciate the experiences of our veterans.


12. Trauma informed local governments, agencies and policies. 


 13. Open dialogue as a support for family communications during times of distress or crisis


 14. Support for human rights
  • Center for the Human Rights of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry, http://chrusp.org/home/index
  • Campaign to Support Absolute Prohibition of Commitment and Forced Treatment, https://absoluteprohibition.wordpress.com/
  • Universal Declaration of Human Rights, http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
  • Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=150
  • MindFreedom.org
  • Wellness and Recovery Human Rights Campaign, http://right2bu.blogspot.com

Principle 2: Fund Technical Assistance 


 The above are cost effective promising and/ or evidence-based practices that have the potential to vastly improve the quality of community relationships for citizens at all levels, including individuals, families and neighbors.  To make these activities accessible and sustainable, Federal and State Governments must invest the resources necessary for communities to know what that these options exist and how to develop and sustain them.  The federal government should therefore expand, prioritize and/or redirect existing funding to a nationwide network of technical service centers that support States, communities, organizations and interested individuals to:
  
1. Develop and offer the TA support and training infrastructure needed to build the above capacities.  

  • Examples:


 2. Ensure that new and existing practitioners are supported to grow and develop their skills


3. Design and implement a robust and integrated public health research approach for collecting broad scale system performance data.  
  • The data collected should include not only not only costs and outcomes but also service users' subjective ratings as to how their lives have improved (or deteriorated!) as a result of services received.  
  • It should affirmatively seek out service user recommendations for improvement;
  • It should follow service users over time and see if they continue to rate services the same over the long haul and also to capture the learning effects of hindsight and reflective insight into what, in the long run, was most helpful (and what wasn't!)
  • This publicly funded research initiative is necessary to counter the current abuses where the only research that gets done into what works is done by corporations with products to sell and profits to make, thereby creating huge incentives to distort and massage results. 
  • Resources for development: 

 4. Develop independent oversight and regulatory infrastructures needed to ensure that communities and provider organizations meet these standards and support them in meaningful ways. 

Principle 3: Leverage Existing Federal Funding to Gain Local Buy-In


Without spending a penny more of federal tax dollars, existing federal healthcare funding has tremendous power to encourage local communities to change in the above directions. To this end, no State, community, organization, agency or hospital should be able to receive federal funding or any taxpayer healthcare dollars unless it: 

 1. Offers individuals and families non medication alternatives on a par and as an equally respected alternative to invasive high-risk interventions like medications, ECT, TMS, psychosurgery or other procedures.  

  • This is necessary to counter the strong alliance between traditional services and the corporate interests that benefit financially from the medical/ high-tech model of services. This alliance has been resulted from the billing considerations - not participant service needs.  It stems from the reality that Medicare and insurance reimbursers have conflated concepts like 'health' and 'wellbeing' with the delivery of traditional medical services. Thus, in order to bill for services, mental health providers are required to offer services that fit the insurer's criteria of 'medical.'  This steers treatment recommendations in the direction of expensive high tech services (like Pharmaceuticals, ECT, TMS and psychosurgery) that benefit corporations and 'experts' - but which, in reality, few people in crisis really want or need.  
  • To the contrary, the vast majority of those who find themselves interacting with the mental health system would vastly prefer, if given a choice, to be offered basic human qualities like caring, listening and hands on assistance.  These services are no more expensive compared to the high tech options.  They are time and labor intensive, however,  and therefore would require service systems to shift resources away from expensive impersonal technologies and into adequately staffing mental health organizations.  It would also require organizations to shift hiring priorities from finding professionals who are good at technology, regulations and paperwork to people who can offer personal qualities like caring, interest, flexibility, creativity and a willingness to meet someone from their own frame of reference in a way that makes sense to them.  
  • Resources for making this shift include: 

 2. Monitors, reports and makes publicly available data related to any and all symptoms and reactions from all high-risk high tech interventions like neuroleptics, ECT, TMS, psychosurgery, seclusions, restraint, hospitalization and the like. 

 3. Monitors, records, reports and makes publically available data on any and every use of force by any service, program or law enforcement 

 4. Conducts a post-incident debrief with regard to the above that invites the person of concern to share their experience and recommendations; 

 5,  Implements an ongoing community-based research and system like that above to insure ongoing learning and quality improvement as a result of the federal dollars expended.  Such a system should, as a minimum assure that an outside, independent body collects customer satisfaction and recommendation data and that a sincere effort is made to collect such data from every person who uses its services; and

 6.  Has a community review board staffed by at least 50 percent of current or former service users that reviews all services, programs and incident reports and customer satisfaction surveys and makes enforceable recommendations.
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Friday, October 16, 2015

Recovering Humanity in Mental In Mental Health Policy.

With public violence happening somewhere nearly every day, it's natural to feel scared and concerned.  It's also great to give serious thought and consideration to the issues that scare us.  It would be hard to dispute that things are out of control at the public level.  There is more and more rage being expressed more often and more extremely.

The temptation in these circumstances react.  To go back to 'the basics'  - what we have learned to think of as 'tried and true.'  Stress is high, patience is low.  With this balance, we don't care that much how it is done.  Mostly we just want it to get done.  We say to ourselves, "Somebody really needs to get with it and fix this problem."

Usually this means telling people we trust to 'take control.'  It's pretty natural to want someone 'up there' to make it happen.  Not only is it the stuff religions are made of, it's the stuff of empires as well.  God knows, in the wake tragedies like Oregon et al., we could use a bit of that empirely feeling now.

Unfortunately, however, doing what we've always done is not likely to fix the problem.  And, doing more of the wrong thing is likely to make it worse.

When you get right down to it, the core questions are moral and existential.  They turn on what you believe is the real nature of human nature.  They also turn on what you believe turns people violent, including what you think makes people 'sick' enough to do horrible things.

In these trying times, the Human Rights Paradigm has much to offer us.  It offers a cohesive theory theory of violence.  It also suggests why many other pressing social issues, like 'mental illness', 'addiction', 'crime' and distress, substance use, homelessness, poverty, racism, have become as entrenched as they are.

Just as important, and perhaps even more, the Human Rights Paradigm offers a workable path to the other side.  The basic principles are elegant and unassuming.  In a few minutes, you can get a basic idea of where you are going.  This won't begin to scratch the surface.  But, it's enough to get oriented and make a start on a journey.

Not unlike the perspectives of Buddhism and Eastern Religion, the human rights paradigm posits that our problems, essentially, stem from ignorance. People aren't aware of rights - or don't grasp how important they are - to a civil, just society.

This results in judgment lapses. Not just in some of us, but practically everywhere. As individuals, families, schools, workplaces and communities, we have ignored the needs of some and favored those of others. We got scared, felt bad, wanted something - and a lot. The next thing you know we were intentionally using someone else - or our power - to get our own needs met. Not just a few of us, but pretty much all around.

The thing that made it even worse is we couldn't stop the cycle. If someone stepped on us, or shorted us, we didn't understand how to respond in a way that advanced the rights of all - and not just our own interests. Because of that, our reactions to injustice or inconsideration tended to make things worse instead of better all around.  That there would be both winners and losers - and a battle of wills/ resources that produced them - was pretty much guaranteed all around.

The human rights paradigms challenges this way of thinking.  It says we can free ourselves from this cycle. The key lies in:

  • knowing about rights;
  • understanding their value; and
  • developing still in using them to work for both (all) people.
Once we're aware of this is possible -- and that it matters human rights - and see how they matter - we start to treat each other differently. This helps us to avoid causing the kinds of distress that lead to breakdown, overwhelm and reactivity. It also creates more access all around to the resources that every one needs to live and feel well.

When issues do arise, we're more careful about our responses. We rely on human rights principles - instead of raw self-interest - to navigate delicate terrain. This helps us relate in ways that make things better instead of worse. With consistency and persistence, the vicious cycle of escalation almost always slows to a crawl.

Beginning to use this paradigm is a whole lot simpler than you think. The entire Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides a pretty good orientation - and it's only 4 pages long. Better yet, the important principles are summarized in the preamble - and a few key articles (Art. 1, . All, in all, less than a page of reading can get you up and running.

Human Rights Principles for Psycho-Social - and Socio-cultural - Well-Being


A lot of how we treat each other depends on how we see each other. And a lot of how we see each other depends on what we believe about human nature.

The human rights paradigm is far from neutral on this topic. It has very clear opinions about the nature of human nature. The good news is that the concepts are fairly universal. As a practical matter, human 'rights' don't become 'rights' until a lot of people from every country of the world see them as important. So there's a good deal of face validity to the conclusions that are reached.

The following are key:

1. Human family


Under the UDHR, this is our birthright. We are all members of a human family. No matter what we do, we can never lose this. No matter who we are, we must strive to live up to this. The quality of the lives we create with each other depends on this principle. We are members of a human family and should treat each other that way.

2. Inherent, equal dignity


Again this is something we are born with. We have the same dignity as anyone else. No one has the right to take ours away.

When you think about this long enough, it eventually becomes clear that the human rights paradigm sees human nature from a strengths based perspective.

Inherent dignity means that that everyone of us have worth. Worth means we don't come to the table empty handed. None of us, ever. There is always something to value if people our willing to look.

The fact that dignity is a right thus implies an obligation. If everyone is capable of offering something of value, then we have a duty to look. WE don't just get to write people off - not for a moment - and certainly not for life. Our obligation is to seek and find something of value in everyone we meet.

3. Rights


Rights in the modern world can get pretty tricky. In our dog eat dog world, they have become, largely, symbols of self-interest. "You can't [walk your dog here, say that word, play your radio, take my firearms, etc.], I KNOW MY RIGHTS.'

Rights in the human rights sense, however, go both ways. What's good for the gander is good for the goose. This has a lot to do with that the mental health system terms 'boundaries.'

In mental health and elsewhere, the function of boundaries/ rights is two-fold. They both (2) keep out and (2) keep in.

In keeping out, rights/ boundaries say to each of us: 'Your freedom to dominate ends where my personhood begins." (And vice versa.)

In keeping in, rights/ boundaries challenge everyone to ask: "How can we support each other’s access to the resources that all of us need to live, feel and be well?"

4. Reason


In the human rights paradigm, everyone is born with the capacity for reason. What does this mean?

Reason means that we can learn from the consequences of our actions. We have the ability to appreciate cause and effect and make sense of what we experience.

Reason also implies something very important. When people act in certain ways, we do this for a reason. It might seems strange on the surface, but there is a reason underneath.

This counsels us to judge less and question more. Even the most baffling or hurtful experiences might have a cause that could explain what happened and create understanding.

This brings us to conscience.

5. Conscience


Conscience overlaps a lot with what some people call motivation. On a basic level, conscience is about our capacity to care. Things (called values) matter to us. We care about some values (our priorities) more than others. We express our values through the choices we make. We evaluate our choices based on the results they get us. (Now we're back to reason)

Conscience is what makes us more than robots. It's about the values we live for, the results we want, and the subjective experiences we hope to achieve. Thus, how things affect us - and how we affect others - matters to us. In fact, it makes all the difference in the world.

6. Reason-conscience interaction.


If we put them together, the principles of reason and conscience have a lot to teach us about ourselves and each other. Reason asks us to look for why something makes sense. Conscience helps us see things in terms of meaningful (values-based) choices.

Viewed through this bifocal lens, every thought, feeling and action provides a clue for understanding human experience.

Per conscience: Some part of someone cared to produce it. Otherwise it wouldn't exist.

Per reason: The question is why?

Per both in tandem:


  • What kind of effect were we hoping for?
  • How did that particular outcome fit with our values?
  • Why was that value preferred over others?
  • What life experiences shaped those preferences?
  • What conclusions were drawn at that time and why?
  • Do those conclusions still hold true?
  • Are there impacts we didn't foresee then that matter now?
  • Are there new options now that could be considered?
  • With everything out on the table, does this still seem like our best choice?
  • If so, how will that impact the choices of others, including relationships we care about sustaining?


Get Ready for Blast Off


On the surface, these are simple concepts. But if you unpack them, they hold a world of potential. The implications are, truly, vast and revolutionary.

With these simple principles we can make sense of the entire realm of human experience. We can ge to the causes and conditions of our concerns. We can understand why we do what we do. We can right our relationships, heal old wounds, and stop new ones from forming.

Equally important, none of this stuff costs us a nickel. The most important stuff we can offer each other doesn't either.

Better yet:


  • No profession can license this.
  • No corporation can patent, bottle or sell this.
  • No Government can withdraw our funding.
  • There is no higher law.
  • There is no better law either.
  • We can't afford to ignore it.
  • We won't be happy until we live it.
  • It exists if we create it.
  • We can get there if we honestly try to.


Welcome to the human family.
There is no other.
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Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Anatomy of "Othering": How Human Rights Neglect Creates Social "Others"

Missing human rights can cause a lot of distress. Think about what it’s like to be treated unfairly, go hungry, be thirsty, have nowhere safe to sleep at night or no meaningful way to make a living. Think about what it’s like to be disrespected, hurt, called names, beaten up, pushed around, held somewhere you don’t want to be, or forced to do something you think is bad for you.

These kinds of things are highly distressing for most of us. When human rights are violated or insecure, nobody does well. We don’t have what we need to live and feel well. Our survival is at risk in some important way – physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially… We may even be literally fighting for our lives.

Our normal response when our rights feel threatened is anxiety and concern. If nothing changes, this can grow into full-blown mental distress. A lot of time this is what people are talking about when they say “I have an anxiety disorder” or “I’m depressed.”

Intense, prolonged mental distress can lead to even more extreme states. We can end up totally disconnected from ourselves, others and the communities we live in. We can stop feeling like a part of things. We can stop feeling human. We can even stop feeling like living or being alive.

We may also stop caring how our actions affect others. We may look for anything we can that deadens the pain. We may become so physically or emotionally reactive that we lose our capacity to think or be aware.

Once these things get set in motion, they may stay that way for a very long time. We may get called “suicidal”, “borderline”, “addict”, “chronic”, “unmotivated”, “help-seeking”, “anti-social” - or even “psychotic”, “psychopathic”, “delusional” or “schizophrenic.”

Seeing Ourselves Differently


If that happens to us, it is important to look beyond the labels. We need to remember that the root cause is not our “mental illness.” It is not our “addict nature.” We are not 'inappropriate', 'impulsive' or 'manipulative.'

These surface appearances are merely effects. We can predict they will happen when human beings are overwhelmed by pain and have limited options for how they can cope.

To see the real root cause, then, we have to look deeper. Once we get beneath the surface there are things we start to see:

Something we needed was missing, disrespected, or threatened. There was no one to help us find our way. While some people may have tried, they didn't really understand. Their help wasn't all that helpful. Things got worse instead of better.

In the final analysis, we were on our own and continuing to fall. Eventually, we were in so deep that we didn’t know if we’d ever get out. True, every so often a passerby might come along and poke their nose in our hole. But, as soon as they saw how low we'd dropped, they’d turn up their nose and high-tail it on their way.

This kind of disconnection – both from the things we needed and from other people -- undermined our confidence in life itself. Neither the Universe nor those in it felt the least bit welcoming or worthy of trust.

This insult to our humanity was the real root cause.

Where to go from here?


If this has happened to you, you are not alone. It's happened to far too many of us.

But that's hardly the end of our story. Now that we can see where we've been, we can begin to see where we are going. We have a life to live, and we can decide to make it count.

One life, one vote. Each of us, no exceptions. Let's vote for a better world. Let's recover our humanity.

Our birthright is human family. It's time to stake our claim.
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Human Rights ARE Mental Health

It's not just that human rights are important in mental health. They are mental health! People talk as if these are different concepts. But in practice, principle and ultimate impact, these concepts are one and the same.
Sarah Knutson, Organizer, Wellness & Recovery Human Rights Campaign. 

Most people have heard about the need for mental health recovery. Yet, very few have considered the need for ‘human rights recovery.’ In truth, you can't separate them.

All too often, wellness and recovery are seen as individual matters: A private problem develops. The 'person of concern' is expected to address it. It is their job to make progress and stop imposing their 'stuff' on unwilling others.

The human rights paradigm challenges this idea. It argues that mental health, fundamentally, is a shared responsibility. When respect for human rights is lacking, people don't have what they need to feel or live well. We treat each other poorly and relationships suffer. The resulting dynamics damage the quality of life for everyone. 

In these circumstances, the first person to break down is not weak. They are a warning to the rest of us. 'Pay attention! Something isn't working. Fix it before more people get hurt!'

The human rights paradigm was articulated in 1948 to steer us on a better course. It arose in the wake of Nazi Germany, with a global commitment to ‘never again.’ Everyone recognized that this was a tall order. If we wanted world peace, we would need to change how we were treating each other. We would have to learn how to relate in ways that led to well being, good will and collaboration - instead of exclusion, distress and retaliation. 

The human rights paradigm is not just for nations. - It's for all of us. People from around the world got together and agreed: There are just some things that human beings do not do well without!
What they wrote became the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/  (UDHR).   Here is a summary of what they said: 
As human beings we have a lot of things in common. We all long for respect and dignity. We all want to belong and be seen as valued members of the human family. We all are capable of developing our reason and conscience. We all need safety and security - and not just on a material level: Our mental, moral, vocational, creative, social, and political needs also require protection. 
The UDHR is a recipe - not just for world peace - but for mental and behavioral health. Without these things, there is no wellness or well being. There also is no support for recovery - or any reason to work at it. 

In other words:
Human rights = mental health. 
No rights, no recovery. 
Well-being leads to well beings.
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