I'm off anti-psychotic medication!
Steve Wallis
psychotic medication of one form or another, in tablet or injection
form, for virtually all of the last ten years since I first became a
political prisoner after the 1998 European School of the CWI. I have
sometimes come off briefly while AWOL, but there have been terrible
withdrawal symptoms from all except olanzapine (my most recent which
is also a mood stabiliser and has the main drawback of weight gain
[not making you hungry but putting on more weight for the same amount
of food]). I have now been off antyi-psychotics consistently for at
least three weeks and thinking much more clearly. It has become
obvious why those devious psychiatrists have never previously let me
get away with coming off them. [Obama's victory has the main reason
I've finally got away with it, but even now I have to refuse it every
medication time and take a mood satabiliser (carbomazepine, that has
no noticeable effect; Deapakote was awful).] With forced medication in
the community as well as hospital now, in the whole of Britain, a
revolution is necessary to get patients out of this quagmire!
[Incidentally, a hospital I was at briefly in Barcelona had wonderful
hallucinogenic medication that made a croissant taste of fruit, and
they got people so well very quickly that everyone seemed to speak and
understand English in a country where the natural language is Catalan!
Whenever I asked, they also told me it was "medication", and I have
never been able to find out what they get there, but maybe putting
this message out far and wide can help radically transform the
medication regime in the UK based on Barcelona practices![
[An aside about the politics: The CWI linked the Militant Tendency
(later becoming Militant Labour and the Socialist Party of England and
Wales) to like-thinkers in 30-40 countries of the world. Miltiant had
a serious history, inflicting both major defeats suffered by Margaret
Thatcher (leading Liverpool City Council that won large amounts of
extra money for that city from the Tory government in the first year
before disastrously sending out redundnancy notices to the entire
workforce in the second year, and later leading the mass non-payment
campaign involving 18 million who hadn't paid a penny or were in
arrears at its height, which defeated the poll tax and ultimately
brought Thatcher down). I joined Militant in 1990 after it proved
itself serious at defending non-payers. Some of the other CWI secions
had led mass actions too. At the 1998 European School, the main debate
was between leaders of Scottish Militant Labour who had achieved some
success building the Scottish Socialist Alliance, notably carrying out
mass non-violent direct action against a motorway extension in the run-
down Pollok area of Glasgow, which notably recruited the brilliant
socialist Rosie Kane (later a Member of the Scottish Parliament and
now winner of The Factual Radio Prize at the Mental Health Media
Awards for her BBC Radio Scotland show "Tales From The Flip Side"
focussing on mental health issues - Rosie, if you read this,
congratulations and please let me know if it is on again since I'd
like to phone in to discuss such issues live on-line with you!), who
were argued against by the British and International leadership, when
proposing transforming the alliance into a party, becoming the
Scottish Socialist Party. One of the arguments by the opponents were
that the alliance hardly consisted of anybody apart from Scottish
Militant Labour, but I had heard quite a bit about Rosie and reckoned
that even if it was just SML plus Rosie herself (which it wasn't) that
could actually be quite a strong argument in favour! Many criticise
the project of uniting revolutionary socialists and reformists in such
a broad party because it ultimately collapsed, but the six Members of
the Scottish Parliament it achieved in the meantime weren't a
pointless achievement and people won't forget! A socialist solution to
Scotland and Britain's problems now can't occur partly at least
through the Labour Party, but a split in that party as a result of its
efforts to deal with the credit crunch (and inevitable bankruptcy of
UK plc when it literally can't borrow any more debt through issuing
bonds), but the successes in Scotland will help a real good socialist
party come out of the mess able to lead some sort of vital revolution
of one sort or another (ethical capitalist if not socialist). Anyway,
at the European School, I was the only member from England or Wales to
speak in support of the proposal (but we did have majority support for
it in my region Manchester/Lancashire with my help),on which my main
point was the demise of left reformism (an excerpt from the speech is
on my socialist website www.socialiststeve.me.uk). I came under a lot
of pressure not to make my speech, and make a muck up of it otherwise,
which I did somewhat by running out of time, having a tussle with the
chair and storming off the platform.]
The circumstances around my first and later incarcerations are too
complex to go into here, but you will soon be able to read the full
account in my on-going autobiograhpy "Revolution Destroyed? Have I
ensured that a world socialist revolution will never happen?", which I
will hopefully soon complete and publish on-line free of charge
(although I also intend to seek a commercial publisher because I am
over £8000 in debt and currently homeless, but I will insist it
remains free to download and sold at such a price that it is cheaper
to buy in book form than download and print out oneself); you will
find the full version as a PDF file (for viewing on-line or printing
out) on the website www.revolutiondestroyed.net, that currently
contains several early chapters and an old overview. I intend to be
upbeat after Obama's victory - while there are still many problems to
be solved, the consequences of a McCain win would have been terrible
as seen by the Mumbai bombings (it is no accident tha al Qaeda
supported McCain, tactically waiting until after the election to tell
the world this, since it would have been the excuse for many Mumbais
the world over - and the excuse for such a massive clampdown on civil
liberties that socialism would become impossible!)
My sone "I Wish Cath Was A Folk Rocker (with flowers in her hair)"
predicted revolution again in the air in 2007. OK, I was rather
optimistic, but surely it will be back in the air with a vengeance in
2009!
Happy New Year to all other good people!
--
Steve Wallis (Manchester, England)
Preferred email address: revolutionary...@yahoo.co.uk
Blogs: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steve-wallis-socialist-blog,
http://blog.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
My socialist website: http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk
My pages at Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1038291480,
MySpace:http://www.myspace.com/galaxiasteve and Bebo:
http://www.bebo.com/SteveW519
Founder, Ethical Capitalism Network: http://www.ethicalcapitalism.net
Founder, Foundation for Proportional Representation-based Socialism:
http://www.PRsocialism.org
Founder, Revolutionary Platform Network: http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net
My revolutionary socialist band, Galaxia:
http://www.galaxiamusic.net,http://www.myspace.com/galaxiamusic,
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Galaxia-a-revolutionary-socialist-band/84310120180,
http://www.bebo.com/galaxiamusic.
My socialist band, Red Day: http://www.red-day.net,
http://www.myspace.com/reddayband,http://www.facebook.com/pages/Red-Day/27468311341
Author, "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist
revolution will never happen?":http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net
For discussion of the credit crunch, go to
http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=156
For discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories, go to
http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net/forum/index.php?board=89
stephen
Happy New Year!
srd
jos boersema
Psychiatry is corrupt IMHO. First of all they use physicians to
rule over things often psychological. So these physicians treat
"unhappiness" with a pill, because they look at things from the
body point of view. Secondly the manufacturers of psychotropic
drugs (is that the word?) are constantly lobbying the psychiatrists
with pseudo science about their drugs, and psychiatrists fall for
the bait and the lies. In the mean time society thinks it benefits
because it doesn't have to face being guilty of destroying the lives
of people, all guilt is transferred unto the patient/victim. I don't
say that pills have no function, if administered for the right
problem and in sensible dosage, or that some patients don't (also)
have themselves to blame (in part), but what is happening in
psychiatry is abusive and a disgrace.
Psychiatrists have to be removed from their position of power.
They could become medication advisors from the side-line, and be
stationed within neurological sections of the general hospital.
That makes a lot of sense, because they are "physicians," while
most of the psychological problems have nothing whatsoever to
do with the body.
In the mean time the public is being told all is well and "never
better," while those close around a psychiatric patient are all
too happy to learn that it was not their fault. The psychiatrists
get rich and job security from keeping the patients sick and suffering,
by withholding functional treatment, or even treating the patient as
human - I imagine this is also part of the power-kick psychiatrists
get off of. Count that as a personality disorder I guess.
Psychiatrists don't care *), they are busy with themselves and their
research field, and their position in it. Psychologists can be helpful,
if at least they are not themselves suffering from something.
Stay off their sick drugs to the greatest extend possible.
Anti-psychotic drugs can kill you by completely destroying the quality
of life. On the other hand some people want them because otherwise they
get psychotic, and they tend to suffer less from quality of life
destruction (?). You should find out if there is an understandable
reason for psychosis, if you can think of one: solve it there. Don't
rely on psychiatrists, they only see their own noses. If you can't
find a realistic reason for psychosis, and you seem to react well to
anti-psychotic drugs, then be careful in lowering the dosage, and
it may pay off more to lister to the psychiatrist. Also don't sit
around and wait for the psychiatrist to prescribe a treatment. THey
don't want you treated, they want you as a cash-cow to prescribe
drugs and rejoyce in seeing you suffering, which makes them feel
superior. You will have to try to formulate your own treatment, because
at present nobody will do it for you. They don't care, all they care
for is their carreers and peer-pressure from their fellows, who do the
same. The problem here is that psychiatrists don't know when not to
prescribe: they are prescription automatons. This is again, because
they are trained in the wrong field. They don't recognize there is
something human and psychological to humans, it is all chemistry and
nerves for them which is what their physician training was all and
only about, their only answer is to drug, or ultimately to operate,
to restrain, to shock, etc etc, anything physcial/chemical.
Curiously this whole situation apparently was the 180 reverse in the
sixties, when there was a complete overdosis of focus on things
"soft."
Actually this whole problem is an outgrowth of the capitalist system.
The banks stimulate the most profitable fharmaceutical companies.
Those companies are the ones who push out corrupt science, and who
lobby psychiatrists, and who sell most pills. That's what gets for
profit finance money flowing to them, so they expand and expand their
operations, meanwhile swallowing up the whole psychiatry field. Believe
it or not: fharma is actually sponsoring psychological wards in
University hospitals where objective research is supposed to get done,
and they have their pens, notebooks and like merchendize laying around
on these wards. The effect is that patients become cash-cows for these
pharma companies, and the staff becomes loyal to that system because
they know that's where they (in part) get their funding from. Nurses
not that smart, apparently (I'm sad to say!), they don't understand
why this type of funding is disastrous and virtually criminal. They
don't understand that if they money isn't coming from pharma, then
it would/should be coming from taxation and Government (medical
insurance), and from a lowered cost in pills. Pharma wouldn't "sponsor"
(read: buy) scientists if it didn't pay out for them. They do it, so
they are altering science and prescription policy, costing the tax
payer more money.
But psychiatrists are some of the worst arrogant people there are,
they always think they are right, who can disprove them anyway ?
Who cares, anyway ? So they are always ready with their excuses,
or think they can "handle" the pharma pressure. If they could, they
would reject it, that is the only way it can be "handled." In the
west a whole generation of psychologists is dirty. This at least in
the whole anglo-saxon system (which includes Holland, but not Germany.)
Sad, sad, sad ...
*) Unless you're lucky to find one that cares and actually does
something useful.