Saturday, January 14, 2012

Two Songs, Same Message

My current anthem:
(here's link to Flo's video, but I'm not particularly impressed by it, so I opted for this "video" which is just the song with the lyrics. Also, I think it makes it easier to connect the lyrics and the song, rather than having the video and the lyrics posted below.)


Last week, I finished the last third of Lauren Weisberger's Chasing Harry Winston, a chick lit book by the author of The Devil Wears Prada that TyRoy gave me. (Big Army guy loves chick lit. Go figure.) Not to bash chick lit, but I really didn't expect to have any epiphanies from a chick lit novel. But I was wrong.

To be fair, it started with one of my guilty pleasure tv shows, The Vampire Diaries, when two characters full of not very well disguised but kinda forbidden longing for each other finally kissed.

But, later that same night, while reading the section of the book where the character, who's engaged to the 'perfect man' though she doesn't really love him, has a night of passion with a man she works with. Since this is a chick lit book, of course her and the man she works with are together by the end of the book. But I realized that, now, like a light switch turning on, I wanted a 'real' relationship, that I wanted something more than a fuck-buddy. Recently, I had said that I didn't want a LTRR because I wasn't in a place emotionally to handle one, and I also wasn't as financially independent as I would like to be when entering one. Also, in my most recent experience, and quite a few others, "looking for heaven, I found the devil in me," and I wan't quite sure I'd dealt with that devil yet. All that was true when I said it and all good reasons to put off pursuing one right now. Actually, those things are still true. It's just now I'm willing to take the risk that those things will interfere for the payoff that I might have something great, even if it isn't lifelong, like my relationship with TyRoy. "But what the hell, I'm gonna let it happen to me." At this exact moment, I'm not actively pursuing anyone, in general or specifically, through dating sites or by flirting with people I meet, but I won't turn away opportunities that present themselves.

Just a couple of nights ago, to clear up some of the lyrics I wasn't quite sure of, while listening to "Shake It Out," I looked up the lyrics. Then, I listened to the song two or three times before I continued on with the rest of the album. And I listened to it on repeat before my shower Friday, also after my shower, but we aren't there yet.

While singing along, thinking about they lyrics, I couldn't help but be reminded of things with Moneypenny. "It's a fine romance but it's left me so undone." As I've said in a previous post, even though we've transitioned back to 'only friends' territory, and I live quite far from him and we haven't seen each other since he began an exclusive relationship with his current girlfriend, I seem to be causing strife in his current relationship, though I am trying as hard as I can not to. Honestly, I'm not really sure our friendship is very satisfying for either of us right now, though he can ignore that while his time is filled with a busy work schedule, his girlfriend, his hobbies, and his long-time friends. It's a bit harder for me when he doesn't answer texts or emails and has to frequently cancel the one phone call appointment we might have per week. Guess I naively thought he'd always be around as much as he was when he was 'courting' our renewed friendship, but you know how it is, once you have something, you don't have to work for it anymore. "And given half the chance, would I take any of it back?" Maybe my expectations are skewed. TyRoy has had a girlfriend who he loves and is monogamish with for over a year, though much of that time has been long-distance. He doesn't text or talk on the phone with me, as he doesn't like to do either and he says his phone gets shitty reception where he lives. He has 'classes,' which, as it's the Army, I expect are more full day classes than, say, a typical college undergrad load, plus homework and he often plays intramural sports or works out. But we typically have one long email exchange a day and sometimes a few one or two liners. As for Moneypenny, weeeeelllllll, he often responds to texts during the day while he's at work, but that's about it. I try not to text in the evening unless I know he isn't with his girlfriend as I don't want to stir up shit. No responses to emails. Takes forever to read my blog posts and never comments on the blog. I might talk to him on the phone once a week, if I'm lucky, but, well, things always get in the way. Now, I'll probably sound like a total hypocrite to many of my current other friends, almost all local, who I don't talk to very much and have cancelled on many times, though many of them I do keep up with through facebook-stalking. My excuse would be that, with the ups and downs of the bipolar and the meds, I don't have the attention span or the ability to do things on a schedule that most face to face friendships require. Though I realize that's an excuse, not a reason, and I hope to be better at that soon.

Then, while I was in the shower, trying to find other songs to sing in between listening to Flo's "Shake It Out," this oldie but goody popped into my head:
(No video options with lyrics. I'll post lyrics below it, but, seriously guys, who can't understand what this guy is saying?)

Walking Away-Clint Black
Walkin' away, I saw a side of you
That I knew was there all along.
And that someday I'd say good-bye to you
'Cause one right can still make two wrongs.
Not for each other, not from the start
The diff'rence was day and night.
My finest hour was spent here with you in the dark,
Was just before I saw the light.

It's the people who want love and the people who need love
Who find love on the way.
I'll be looking for someone 'til I find the right one,
Then I won't be walking away.

Now that I know what I'm tryin' to find
There's only one place it could be.
So I'm lookin' ahead, I've stopped looking behind
For someone who's lookin' for me.

It's the people who want love and the people who need love
Who find love on the way.
I'll be looking for someone 'til I find the right one,
Then I won't be walking away.


Maybe it's just that this theme is so universal that there should be two songs so different that pop into my head at the same, two songs that I have loved since the first time I heard them. Gram would argue that it's a sign. Mom would say that you know when you're ready to leave, that you can't force it before then because it won't last. And TyRoy keeps asserting that there are good men (and women) out there that I can have rewarding LTRRs with, if I'm willing to try and willing to lose. I think they're all right.

"I'm always dragging that horse around....All of his questions such a mournful sound. Tonight I'm going to bury that horse in the ground....I am through with my graceless heart so tonight I'm going to cut it out and then restart."

Or at least I might.


Though mine is on a blue background, this is the shirt I was, co-incidentally, wearing while dancing and singing to Flo's song after my shower, bought at last Urge show I went to with Moneypenny. How (Alanis Morissette) ironic. But, yeah, looks like my devil sometimes does to me, except mine has breasts.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Am I a 'Meredith'? (Not about Grey's Anatomy)


Hello gentle readers. Welcome to another post of your beloved author working out her issues through typing.

Regular readers are probably already well aware of my views on monogamy, but I'll repeat myself for those who don't. In my life, I've never been very good at staying faithful in relationships. It wasn't until a few years ago that I started to accept and explore the idea that, perhaps, not all Long-Term Romantic Relationships (hereafter referred to as LTRRs) have to also be monogamous as well. Sex and love advice columnist Dan Savage, who I've read faithfully for over a decade, often advises those that write to him about alternative relationship arrangements, including lately talking much about "monogamish" relationship arrangements. Several years ago I read Stephanie Koontz's Marriage, A History, which, among other things, asserts that the ideal of a monogamous marriage is a relatively recent development, historically speaking. And just this weekend, I read this interview on Huffington Post with the author of a book about men and fidelity in LTRRs. If you read to the end of the piece, the author manages to get past what seems like a 'boys will be boys' apologist attitude and includes the fact that, though it is not what this particular book is about, women also cheat for many of the same reasons as men, in many of the same ways, and he doesn't necessarily believe that their "extradyadic," (a [made up by the author?] word meaning outside [extra] the relationship of only two [dyadic] people) relationships should end their primary LTRR either.

So, of course, I found it interesting Monday when, listening to the afternoon program of an alternative station in a town I have lived in (not saying I currently live there now), the main DJ Lazlo, his sidekick Slimfast, and their board operator Meredith discussed a series of events that happened to/involved Meredith over the previous weekend. Here's a link to the audio of the full 15-minute conversation (it's the 3rd on down, labelled "Meredith is not the type you take home to Mom"), though I'll provide the background and the main story, I've transcribed the last five minutes or so, which is what I find most interesting.

Background: So Lazlo is in his 40s, married, been with the same woman for several years, used to be wild alcoholic and do drugs but is clean now, has one child from a previous relationship and one child in his current marriage. Slimfast is in his late 20s or early 30s, about the same age as I am, recently got married to his girlfriend of a few years, and the two men now often talk about life as married men. Meredith is their board operator who pops up in the show, is in her early 20s, still pretty wild, lives with her boyfriend of a few years who they call 'The Ewok.' The story they discuss in the first ten minutes or so of the segment is that, over the weekend, while her boyfriend was out, Meredith made out with a female friend of hers who was visiting, after a long, deep conversation about the value of their friendship. It happened unexpectedly and Meredith didn't believe it was a big deal because, early in their relationship, her boyfriend had said that he didn't care if she kissed other women, as well as the non-logic that, since he wanted a threesome, he shouldn't care if she kissed other women, whether he was there or not. Meredith told her boyfriend that this happened, it seems in a rather nonchalant way, when he came home, and he's been a bit unhappy ever since, though he hasn't shared any particular feeling with Meredith. The men assert that it is because he feels that she cheated on him by doing this, that he probably assumed that the relationship had progressed to a point where it was exclusive. Meredith does not exactly see it that way, though she does say that if he does think it was cheating, she will apologize and not do it again.

On a side note: I am not sure how Meredith identifies her sexuality. When the men say that if they were her boyfriend, they might be worried that all her kissing of other women and previous sexual experiences with other women might mean she was gay thus why would she need them, she asserts that she is not gay. I am not going to label her sexuality for her. I will just say that I never assert that my bisexuality means I think I am entitled to be romantically or sexually involved with men and women at the same time, and many bisexual find it offensive when others think they feel that way. When I express a desire for an open relationship, it is not because I am bisexual and I do not believe that my problems with monogamy are because I am bisexual. Now, plenty of couples in arranged non-monogamous relationships only allow their partner to be with other partners that are of the sex they are not in situations where one or both of the partners are bisexual, but that is not the only way that bisexuals have relationships.

After all my long-windedness, here is the section of the conversation that really interests me, which starts about ten minutes into it. In this mostly monologue, emphasis are mine, Lazlo asserts that the problem is really with the "kind of girl Meredith is":

Meredith is not the kind of girl you move in with. She's never gonna be the kind of girl you date seriously. She's never gonna be the kind of girl you marry. Meredith isn't that girl. Meredith is the girl you date when you smoke a little too much weed, drink a little too much, and you think you love her. You really think you love her. You really think she loves you. And then on a Thursday, she tells you that she's going to New York with a guy named Paul and she's going for the weekend and she'll be back Monday. And you go "Whoa! We have been dating for two and a half years." And she goes, "I don't really understand what you're freaking out about. I'm just going to New York with some friend of mine." And you go "Oh, I forgot. You're Meredith. You're Meredith. And I thought something changed in the last two years, but it didn't." She will always be the girl, when you come home, who went dancing with a guy friend, who made out with a girl friend, or did this or did that or did this. All of these things that stop you from having a real relationship with her, that's her. And that's you. Truth, truth, you are a good time and a broken heart, wrapped up into a little bundle, packaged and put underneath the tree, [Meredith giggles] that men will have to go through in order to get on the other side and find happiness with another woman. That's you. That's you. You realize that right? [Meredith: Yeah.] And you're the part of the life that men look back on and go "When I was with Meredith, it was a great time." [Slimfast: Yeah, she's a good time.] "She ended up breaking my heart. Unbelievable that I, I didn't see it beforehand, but she crushed my heart. But I'm happy now. I'm married. I have kids." And Meredith will still be out just breaking guys. [Meredith giggles some more.] You just break 'em. That's what you do. You get that right? [Meredith: I guess. Slimfast: And it is cheating.] [Both Lazlo & Slimfast: It's cheating.] And the fact that you don't even recognize it and you give up the look like, "Ugh, it's not cheating" just validates everything I just said. [Meredith: I..ok.] You see what I'm saying? [Meredith: Yes. I do.] Right, because I'm the guy who's in love with you. We've been hanging out for a year and a half. Yeah, it started out you were the crazy girl who made out with other chicks but all the sudden we're living together and everything's cool. Wow, I had no idea I could pull this into a relationship and then one day you come home and go "I made out with these chicks over the weekend." And I go, hmph, "Of course you did. Of course you did." [Slimfast: You gonna stop making out with chicks, Meredith? Meredith: Yes.] The answer is no, Bambam. [Slimfast: I know. The relationships over. The relationship was over before it began. I agree.] He's just gotta figure out how far he wants to go. [Slimfast: Right, she's a good time. And, and, and, if he can make that good time last a little longer, she's not going to say --] Now he's at the point where-- And I've been in this relationship before, he's at the point where it's no longer a good time. [Slimfast: Probably] He's at the point now where, yeah, we have some good times, but it hurts. It stings. And now those stinging moments become more and more and more and more and more and more. And it's no longer just fun, it becomes painful. And he's at that point where he's starting to feel pain. And, therefore, he's gotta go. [Meredith growns.] Now, he'll probably let, let, if he's like every other guy, he'll probably ride this out until he can't take the pain anymore and he'll make you feel the pain too and it'll just end in a blood bath of horrible emotions on a Wednesday night, some night, and you sitting in that apartment by yourself and him packing up his stuff and moving back to Oklahoma. [Meredith: Oh god.] That's the way it ends. That's the way it always ends. Question is, is that six weeks from now or six months from now. It ain't six years from now. [Meredith laughs, kinda sadly though, not the giggle of before.] Fair enough, Bambam? [Slimfast: Fair enough.] Have fun Meredith. [Meredith laughs: Alright. Slimfast: Have a good time.] {End}

Though it probably goes without saying, I'll first interject that, unlike the guys, I think that Meredith could have great LTRRs, with men or with women, if she and her partners honestly embraced some sort of not exactly monogamous arrangement, though, since she asserts earlier in the segment that she would not be pleased with her boyfriend doing the same thing she did, it might be a bit harder to find a partner who is happy letting her play while he (or she) is not allowed to, though those people do exist.

I am intrigued by the apparent swap of gender stereotypes happening in this conversation, as the men seem to be attributing a level of desire for monogamous commitment to men that is usually reserved for women. While 'girls like Meredith' may be a good time, it seems that they are asserting that real happiness for these men that she dates, for any man, will be achieved once they have gotten over her, moved on, and settled down with a more stable (and monogamous) woman and had a child. (There's a whole different language and feminist discussion in the fact that they refer to Meredith as a girl but these men's future spouses as women, but I won't get into that.)

But something more personal stuck with me. I'm slightly dismayed by the thought that I may be a 'Meredith,' either in the eyes of the people I date or just by virtue of how the relationships shake out. Regular readers will probably know that the only LTRR I've been in which I didn't cheat was my open relationship with TyRoy. I somehow even managed to cheat in my open marriage. For me, many times, the risk is the reward, in all kinds of crazy situations. Despite a new found desire for a LTRR, rather than a just fuck-buddies situation (explained further in the next post), I am not sure how much my meds and DBT therapy will reduce my penchant for volatile LTRRs. I recently read, "One woman can break a man," in a compilation of six-word memoirs on love and heartbreak (fourth down.) Hell, I'm ruining relationships I'm not even in. Though Moneypenny and I are merely (barely?) friends at the moment and hundreds of miles away from each other, I appear to be ruining his romantic relationship. (Yes, and the fact that it is not me he is in that relationship with only advocates further for the idea that I am a 'Meredith.' I'm aware of that as well.)

But I don't know how to be anything other than I am. And I think I've changed drastically in the years Moneypenny and I's friendship was burned. But we still seem to be playing out the same roles we always have, which begs the question in my mind of how much people are able to change. Even in the radio segment, the men do not say that Meredith should change, merely asserting who she is. In recent emails, TyRoy asserts that there are men (and women) who would be more than happy with me as I am right now. His contention is that, while I have never been a perfect person in any relationship, it take two to tango and that many of the non-cheating issues I blame on myself have more to do with these men's Peter Pan-ing issues than with some wrong I have done them. My DBT therapy teaches skills, especially mindfulness practices, that are meant to help us behave in more effective ways, though not necessarily the same ways for each practitioner or for each situation. But does changing behavior change who we are? People in AA never stop calling themselves alcoholics, but instead call themselves recovering alcoholics, even if they haven't had a drink in years or decades. Many would assert though that current behavior, as the only thing demonstrable about ourselves, must count for a large part of who we are. I guess it begs the question of if who we are is what other people see about us or how we feel inside. Buddhist tradition says that there is no who we are: can you separate the waves from the ocean? is the flame on the candle the same flame that was on the candle a minute ago or is it a different flame? It's a dialectical dilemma I've struggled with for years and never really found an answer to, often just allowing all things to be true and work as best I can within all those frameworks.

But that isn't to say that thinking I'm a woman who breaks people isn't disturbing me right now.

NB: I'm using the Merriam Webster's second definition of DIALECTIC, concerned with or acting through opposing forces, which is the one I believe my DBT therapy is using in it's name, though my DBT instructors have always also asserted that it refers to two seemingly opposite things being true at the same time, which, when accepted, reduces the extreme and/or black and white thinking that often gets us into trouble.

Psy Treatment Ambivalence

Before I start exploring the side of this situation that I actually find interesting, I want to make something very clear. I am (currently) very happy that the intervention of my loved ones and medical professionals, medications, therapy, and even hospitalizations have saved my life more times that I really like to admit. I am happy to be working on making my life better in ways that I think are necessary and to be on medications that I believe allow me the breathing space to do that. This post is not the predecessor to me stopping either my therapy or my medication, as I have absolutely no plans of doing either. But, as my mother told me recently, I've never been able to not ask "why" of anything and I've been thinking more and more about the other side of this issue, to possibilities other than the current accepted treatment of mental illness in the U.S.

TV junkie that I am, some of this thinking was prodded by a quote I heard on a tv show, the finale to FX's American Horror Story. Though it was only meant to be a cutting comment to one of his former patients, psychologist Ben Harmon declares,“Therapy. Doesn’t. Work.” When the patient then asks why people do it is “Because they don’t want to take any responsibility for their crappy lives. So they pay a therapist to listen to their bullshit and make it all feel… ‘special’ … so they can blame their crazy mothers for everything that went wrong.” I would add 'absent fathers' to that. Of course I heard this only days after I was released from my latest (not exactly voluntary) hospitalization, typically a time of both hope for future treatment as well as bitterness about the circumstance surrounding the hospitalization itself. I have to admit that one of my problems with past therapists I've seen was that I didn't feel like I was progressing anywhere, but just dealing with the problems of the week, a season of Buffy without any overarching, linked storylines. I wasn't getting better. I just had a disinterested third-party to bitch to now. One of the biggest draws to the DBT therapy that I'm currently in is that my individual therapist and I clearly stated goals for what I want to accomplish through therapy while the group sessions are teaching and reinforcing the skills that I'm using to accomplish them. But it's hard to deny some level of truth to what Dr. Ben says.

The next dominoes to fall came after I started receiving bills from my hospitalization. While I find it difficult to say to anyone, especially people who have lost someone to suicide, that anyone, especially their loved one, should be (have been) allowed to die if that is what they want(ed), even if they had the option of medical assistance, when I am said person and that medical assistance costs tens of thousands of dollars...well, let's just say that I was not quite as enthusiastic about those prospects.

In one of the recent GOP presidential nominee debates, this exchange occurred:

Wolf Blitzer, debate moderator: A healthy 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides, you know what? I'm not going to spend $200 or $300 a month for health insurance because I'm healthy, I don't need it. But something terrible happens, all of a sudden he needs it. Who's going to pay if he goes into a coma, for example? Who pays for that?

Ron Paul, Republican nominee, but often described as libertarian: Well, in a society that you accept welfarism and socialism, he expects the government to take care of him.

Wolf Blitzer: Well, what do you want?

Ron Paul: But what he should do is whatever he wants to do, and assume responsibility for himself. My advice to him would have a major medical policy, but not be forced

Wolf Blitzer: But he doesn't have that. He doesn't have it, and he needs intensive care for six months. Who pays?

Ron Paul: That's what freedom is all about, taking your own risks (applause from many in the audience)

Wolf Blitzer: But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?

Audience: Yes!!!

Ron Paul: No. I practiced medicine before we had Medicaid, in the early 1960s, when I got out of medical school. I practiced at Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio, and the churches took care of them. We never turned anybody away from the hospitals. And we've given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves and assume responsibility for ourselves. Our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it. This whole idea, that's the reason the cost is so high. The cost is so high because they dump it on the government, it becomes a bureaucracy.

Now, liberal commie me and the me who knows how high my uncle's medical bills were even with insurance and Medicaid doesn't really agree with that and, if you judge by the laws of our country, our country largely doesn't believe that the choice of whether people receive life-saving treatment should be left to charities and chance either. Emergency rooms are lawfully required to give whatever treatment will continue the life of a patient, regardless of if they have the ability to pay or not. I understand why this is the law of the land and agree that life-saving medical treatment should not be withheld because a person cannot pay, especially if they desire the treatment, but that does not mean that they will not be required or at least asked to pay.

Now, currently, if a person is not competent to make medical decisions for whatever reason and they do not have a specific DNR, living will instructions with them, and no medical proxy to make the decision to refuse treatment for them, doctors will give them the proper treatment to save their life. For the most part, even if they are conscious, people who have tried to commit suicide are automatically assumed to be not competent to make the decision to refuse life-saving treatment. If the person is not able to refuse medical treatment for whatever reason, they will be billed for whatever services are rendered, even though they did not consent to the services and might not have, if able to. For people who are being saved from an attempted suicide, a several day psychiatric hospitalization will be tacked on to their treatment, after their physical health is established and stable. Though the patient is nominally given the choice, this isn't really true. For those people lucky enough not to have experienced this, a person is usually given the chance to decide whether they will be transferred to a psychiatric unit "voluntarily" or the attending psychiatrist can commit them involuntarily with a 72 hour hold, to a dreaded "state hospital" if they do not have insurance. A patient can fight the hold and can fight further commitment afterwards, but, whether true or not, as I've never actually challenged it, patients are told that judges don't usually find in favor of the patient and resisting the hospitalization is generally seen as continued mental instability so no doctor will let you out. Even signing in "voluntarily" doesn't necessarily mean one can just sign out again. Doctors and nurses will tell a patient that their insurance will not pay for their visit if they sign out AMA (against medical advice), which is what they are requesting to do. If this doesn't work, patients will then be told the same thing that people who do not want to be voluntarily committed will be told, that their doctors can decide to put their hospitalization on a 72 hour hold, at which time they can challenge it, but they won't win and it will just be wasted time, since their resistance is seen as further instability. I'm not sure if these are scare tactics or not. I just know that this is what patients are told, from both my experience and the experience of my fellow patients.

My point with all of this is that, while I am not arguing that anyone should just be denied life-saving medical treatment just because they don't have health insurance or the ability to pay for the treatment, I am starting to wonder about our inability to refuse medical treatment on the basis that we cannot pay. I guess maybe I'm just surrounded by (too many) conservatives, but all I seem to hear lately is that people should not do things they cannot pay for and that no one should rely on the government to pick up the slack when they do things they cannot pay for. But in for a dime, in for a dollar, right? Just some examples: Should people not be allowed to drive if they can afford car insurance, but just the bare minimum, which covers anyone they might hit or any damage they might do while driving, but not whatever damage they might do to themselves and end up in the hospital needing life-saving treatment for? Also, if a person cannot work, cannot find work, or just doesn't want to to work, can they kill themselves so they do not require anything anymore? Oh wait...currently they can't. I'd been pondering all this since starting to deal with the bills, but came up a bit short on finding an audience for these views. Then again, I guess my mother was not the best person to start with and the best time was not just as we were about to get to my uncle's grave.

Then, a few days ago, catching up on my RSS feed, I saw this blog article From Risk to Harm and from Harm to Suicide. For some reason, now that I'm writing this I can't find the area of the article where the author discusses how true liberatarianism should advocate against forced hospitalizations and such. Crap. Either way, this article, the second in a series, after Mad Not Crazy, raises questions about the ways race and psychiatry intersect, helped me realize that not only was I not the ONLY person who questioned the mainstream ways of treating mental illness in North America (the author is a Canadian, living in Toronto), but that there is a WHOLE MOVEMENT (however small), called the "mad movement" (not to be confused with the Make A Difference, or M.A.D. movement), which, from these articles, seems to refute the idea that someone who thinks differently is ill in a manner that needs medical or psychiatric treatment, but asserts that there are many different ways in which people think and experience the world which should be embraced. When reading the above articles, my thinking about mental illness and the appropriate ways were challenged in ways that my thinking about anything probably hasn't been challenged since Miss Kee was alive. Though the articles are in depth and full of ideas on race that I'm not sure many of my readers will agree with, I still recommend them as they offer different ways to think about mental illness, about what I'm going through, about what some of you are living with, though I obviously am not telling ya'll to just throw your pills in the toilet and the rest of your life will be all daisies and roses.

I did want to share these ideas with a larger audience though, to show my dear readers that there are other ways to think of these things that are worth thinking about, and that even a person devoted to their current treatment can still be ambivalent about it and the way mental health is currently dealt with in this country, the country most of you are from and reside in. Please read those other articles when you have some free time. Comment. Thanks for reading.

About the title of the post: Quote from "Mad Not Crazy"
"Members of the Mad community may also identify politically as psychiatric survivors. Psychiatric survivors are people who have experienced the mental health system and feel psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, and similar helping professions (called the “psy” complex) can be ineffective, harmful, and even violent. The “psy” complex does not just exist in the hospital or the therapy room, but is pervasive in other spaces such as schools, settlement services, and prisons. It’s present any time behavioral language and psychological practices are put into effect in a workplace. Psychiatric survivor scholars and activists explore how psychiatry is a tool for detention and social control. We lobby to end forced drugging, electroshock, restraint, seclusion, institutionalization, and outpatient torture."

Yes, I am aware that this is a rather non-mainstream view of things, but that is what makes it all the more interesting to me to contemplate.