Do you remember Poe?

For those who visit FuriousSeasons on a regular basis Poe must be in some people's memory. He wrote some long comments and I've saved one of them that he wrote on the post Europe, Seroquel Wants You! for I believe it says a lot about the loneness, social status, family relationship, work and many issues that we, after being under psychiatry care, have to face. He also raises many questions that I also ask myself from time to time and I see other people asking themselves.

"I don't know, life after psychiatry is never the same. It's like a sharp stinking cheese. You can't just pick up your former life dreams because you've seen the dark side."

"I may not be crazy, but I am not an all or nothing kind of guy. At the moment I'm doing nothing. Well actually i'm training in a career separate from mental health so I can work part time on this issue and retire young and do full time activism.

If I wanted to live my label and draw disability for the rest of my life no one could stop me. I'm just sick of the indignity of it all though. In all likelihood I'm gonna work hard in this other sector of the economy and heavily invest 50% of my salary for ten years and then live off an amount similar to disability from my own investments. Kind of like a manufactured endowment to sit at home and write books and do websites or something. Maybe a holiday here and there. I've decided to rent for the rest of my life. The only reason I am even going to get this job and degree is so that none of my money is dependent on me identifying as having a disease.

It will also shut my family up when I go and 'interact' in the 'real world' for some years. And again, when someone renders you disabled, and you continue to act disabled forever, you'll be seen as disabled. Especially when you are completely well apart from psychiatry induced trauma, people will call you a malingerer.

I don't know it's hard to keep the faith for so long. I've got no problem having the courage to stand alone, but when no one who you see face to face understands your radical positions, it is lonely. I've been fine being lonely for many years, as introspection saves your life in mental health, but maybe I'm reaching the end of that loneliness tether.

Maybe I should get a girlfriend. Gotta lose the penchant I have for self abuse first. You see when the state and psychiatry don't care what goes into your body, you end up not caring and you get in habits. I smoke and I've gotta lose my zyprexa weight yet. And more than that I've got to be a nice person to be around for said girlfriend. I'm an angry traumatized dude at the moment. No one wants to hear my crap as they say.

It's so far reaching... I never thought I'd have to watch grandparents die with them in tacit disagreement with me on the issue so close to my heart. And I know all their opinions are formed with nothing but media spin, folklore and myth. So I'm left wishing someone who is dead could have understood my life. The cascade effects never end with this issue. I'll probably be thinking about the day I pass away. Yet no one will ever pay for it but me.

Tom Szasz and others talked me down from training as a psychologist. There is no money in antipsychiatry unless you write books. I plan on doing a book.

There's no scope for autonomous psychotherapy anymore. Psychology is just the talking branch of psychiatry. All the training is DSM focused, true believers in the notion the distressed human beings have inferior minds, brains you name it. It seemed like a hostile working environment for someone like me. And even if I did start a private practice, which is the only thing I would ever consider doing because managed care is a controlled joke, the people I want to help wouldn't be able to afford to pay me. I'm not about to spend three days marriage counselling to do two days pro bono 'labeled schizophrenic' work. How can you even get access to someone on court ordered forced meds anyway? They are always in control.

I don't know. I'm sort of able to do all my college work over a rapid period of intensity every semester and then cruise round online the rest of the time, when I should be starting my book. I've got most of the research done. Christ I should be getting fit and giving myself the best shot against what the meds have probably done to my heart. My liver is in terrible shape. I have fatty liver. I have ultrasounds and levels done regularly. It's a worry. All from the atypicals. I should stop smoking. But all I see is a negligent silent consenting public content to hang me out to dry for life. And I wouldn't even be alive or have organic neurology to enjoy life if it hadn't been for my own actions... so I kind of am going through a process of 'forgiving' my fellow man in a way. I'm not a total hermit by any means. I do harbor resentment though.

I don't know. I'm actually seeing a psychologist to clean up psychiatry's mess. I still suffer from the problem of deciding how to get over obscene harm done to me that I will never get justice for. I don't know that he is helping. What i'd really like to do is go and meet those freedom center guys but I don't have the cash. I need to actually some guys who have done what I have done.

You can't sue for malpractice when they will just hide behind the subjectivity of diagnoses. You see diagnoses are 'objective' everywhere but in a court room, make that a civil case tort law court room actually.

I still become out of control angry living in a world where only a select group of people on the internet even understand the harm done to me. No validation from family, friends, the law, the state that violated me, it's a tough thing to face and begin your adult life with. All anyone else cares about is 'when are you going to productive in the economy and stop being a slacker'

I've got the potential to do some good things. Things I would actually enjoy. This is the only game in town as far as I am concerned. But alas I will be forced to endure at least a decade of working primarily for money. Hopefully I invest and save extraordinarily well so I can be free to throw into this issue in a big way. I've chosen the most amiable wage slavery I could think of rest assured. But it won't be my labor of love. Mental health activism will always be my labor of love.

I don't know, life after psychiatry is never the same. It's like a sharp stinking cheese. You can't just pick up your former life dreams because you've seen the dark side. I barely know how to enjoy going for a walk in the sun knowing all the harm that is going on around the world to the kids etc..

I really don't know. Mainly I find solace looking at a bird outside, or the sky, and knowing the things I see are coming into my brain unadulterated by a chemical haze. The human world kind of disgusts me.

A world prepared to let somalia fester for 20 years, and let africa starve, can hardly be expected to suddenly dawn an age of reason in mental health. I don't know. I'm having a very weak day today. Very weak. It's good to hear some positive comments from you.

I don't know I can handle it if I see another person get a huge payout for being burned with a hot coffee. As a matter of fact I wish my childhood was spent some other way than being told by the society that those wronged could expect a right to justice. The only reason I 'feel' entitled is because it was drummed into me all my life that people do have a right to free from harm.

When harm lasts thousands of days and grows in intensity, its hard to land again."

Posted by Poe at June 10, 2008 09:58 PM