Thursday, April 25, 2013

Transgenerational protest and social change



 
My mother’s big protest kabooie was sexism and so was my nana’s. Nana receiving half the wages of a male teacher, to feed her family with, really wasn’t okay; particularly as her husband died as a result of doing things in the war he didn’t want to do, like mowing down people with a tank. He relived the horror of doing such a disgusting act, blaming himself over and over for those he was ordered to kill… My mother’s experience involved severe trauma, so she hurled her protest around in a way that was upsetting to her children. But she didn’t do it all the time and she really didn’t have full control when society was still blaming her for the violence perpetuated against her. The mental health system at the time treated trauma, as it mostly still does, like the victim of crime has ‘problems.’ Court cases were discussed and I knew at quite a young age that a woman could be horrifically brutalised, but if she could be proven to be ‘loose,’ then she would not win a case against her attackers…
 

                My father, although he didn’t talk much, carried environmental and wartime conspiracies. His father had been pushed off a building in Cairo during WW2. My father had also worked on environmental studies where, any information that contravened what the mining companies wanted to do disappeared, and, a colleague leading the environmental project ‘suicided.’ My father was also stopped from teaching ‘the hothouse effect’ which is a precursor theory to ‘the greenhouse effect.’ He was a very silent man, my father. But he did show his anger on occasions, generally with a big fog-horn booming voice. So I somewhat felt his protest at a young age.


                I think most people carry some of the baggage from their parents and do try to make the changes to society happen, which their parents couldn’t. It kind of is the subliminal ‘job’ of the progeny to do that. But the progeny have to do it differently from the parents, if the parents really couldn’t handle the backlash of their times, together with the trauma they most likely suffered, it's no good parroting what they said.

Transgenerational protest… it’s not about genes, it’s about society, what society needs to do to become more humane, and, it’s definitely not a chemical imbalance and not something that should be said to be the ‘fault/ illness/ disease’ of the progeny, who understand the previous generation of protestors, and are trying to cope with that, and get their own needs met... lest we forget.

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Friday, April 19, 2013

How do you agitate the psychiatric martini glass?


I went to a poetry reading ready to agitate.

I wanted instigate change.

I wanted to rearrange. 

But I let the organisers know I was coming
 

So I thought they left me out

Of the big martini glass

That had all the names to be drawn

For the open mic night…

Until the MC asked if it was time

To put in ‘these two now?’

Meaning me and my lover, I suspected,

Who the organiser may well have thought

Would be in cahoots with me.

So I got put in the glass

And my name was drawn out

And I was given the microphone.

It was late and well after the precious

Psychiatrist had featured at the gig.

Couldn’t upset his

Vomiting out of derogation

By my reminder of his crimes.

Woah, he might get nervous

And muck up his performance.

Which was already full of muck

Because it was about his profession!

Him teaching people to communicate?

Him teaching people to listen more?

Did he want to listen to me

Or any other people abused by psychiatry

That have the ability to speak out?

Of course not. The smug smarmy

Bag of ugly went out to smoke

When I read my poem.

Couldn’t recite of course,

Because my brains have had a blast

Of nasty neuroleptics for fourteen years and that’s

Changed my natural knack of remembering lines.

I find it hard to live in a society

That cramps my voice

Yet allows psychiatry to speak out

Its horrible eugenics doctrine,

Its crimes I have known and felt for so long.

Don’t people know how offensive

The terms psychiatrists use are?

They hit me hard every time they’re uttered

With threat, judgment and trauma flashback fear.

Don’t people understand that these terms

Are used time and time again

To threaten, abuse and vilify?

I don’t mind what sort of nonsense

Someone wants to talk, be it even pseudo-science,

But if you use it to justify the crimes,

Of your profession and lie about

Benefits of your chemicals

On humans who tell you again and again

That they do not want to be harmed

By these substances, then, well then,

You’re one big bag of ugly muck

And if you can’t stand up on stage

After I have spoken, well then,

You’re a lot less than me,

Because I could stand on stage

And deliver after that bag of muck

Got up and did his derogatory drool,

His psychiatric statements that make racism

Seem like Pollyanna in a wheelchair.

Because we should all know racism is wrong,

We should shouldn’t we? We do. It’s policy,

It’s against the law to be racist.

But does everyone know psychiatry is equally,

Equally wrong, if not more so, because,

Psychiatry tortures on a daily basis

Every hour, every minute, every second,

In Australia, in Victoria, in Melbourne


But we can’t call it torture,

Even though it is torturous,

Because there’s a loop-hole that says

This torture is medicine and it’s for the best,

To help and to care and besides,

Psychiatrists are doctors

And a doctor’s motto is to do no harm.

I’d like one day for that word, psychiatry,

That word to be spat out so hard against

Those who use those statements to harm.

I’d like to have it so that one day

If a person called you a damn psychiatrist

You’d understand they mean no compliment,

They’re telling you that you’ve been

Hideously slanderous and could be

Sent off the field for your words,

Bleeped off radio and television,

Called into court…

One day I see these things happening.

Until then it is my lover and I who are

Rudely left out of the big martini glass…

Only able to agitate when the night is old...

Or so it is I seem to think... as I sip a memory.

When there is no time to laboriously stir,

Apparently agitating a martini is the best way,

Rather than shaking it up and bruising the spirits,

Which I’ve probably done now! Ouch...

Got to be careful I what I think happens,

My lover says, it may not be as it seems,

That my accusations are considerably defamatory,

And that we were in the glass all the time

And the MC was talking about some other people

Whose names had been left out.

I slug that down and think: bitter eh? Bad taste!

I’m not much of a drinker anyway

And dash the rest down the sink.

Discrimination in the poetry scene?

Too rough, way too rough for poetry,

My lover makes far more sense...

Okay, okay, I may’ve been wrong

For thinking such stuff like that

In the past, that, yeah
That, but even back then when
I thought like that for a longer time period,
I never deserved to be

Tortured with painful chemicals for that.

Everyone makes mistakes,
Not all of them are as bizarre as mine,
But everyone makes mistakes.

Got to get my spirit levels right though

And not mistake eyes for ice
And community for carpentry tools
And drinks for balance,
Even though that's the symbols
Of the feelings mixed up in the martini.
But seriously, I've got to never make the mistake
Of saying something is when it isn't,
Like that psychiatrist did,
Or I am as bad as him
Repeating old lies about medication 
Being very effective and helpful
And people's thoughts making
Less sense than pseudo-science,

Making up disgusting bruised drinks

Because the words repeat and repeat,

‘Shaken, not stirred’ and meaning

Meaning something mean, some thing

Other than the order for the bar.
 
Something poetry hits with its farrier.



                       go to: Strengthen Our Voices 2013

Friday, April 12, 2013

Meeting psychiatry half way


Idealism. Who is going to have to cross the river? Not the protesters! Been there and done that after being abducted, drugged, threatened and brain-washed… Besides, they're boring over there, very little understanding of art and healing.

What should be happening to meet half way? People with lived-experience should be included in crisis-assessment and certainly there is a major right being violated when a person with lived-experience is not included on the Mental Health Review Board. (Which at the moment is utterly biased. Totally on psychiatry's side of the river.)

What? Does society actually think we're not capable? Recovery is more than just possible. It is something that would be happening more than it is, if we were not drugged and denied recovery. And, people with lived-experience are generally more understanding of others in crisis who are experiencing an altered state of consciousness, because they've been through something similar themselves. People with lived-experience have a vastly better understanding of coping mechanisms, and, I know it would've calmed me down immensely, when I was in a crisis state, to know there was someone who was meeting me on my side of the river.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Psychiatry in jail!




Appeal to your better nature,

Give reparation,

Be considerate,

Recognise the law needs correction,

Because people need

Fair treatment,

Hearing,

Honesty,

Impartiality,

Justness

And reasonableness to heal.

Humanity’s crisis cannot be overcome

Without recompense,

Redress,

And review,

So human-rights will no longer

Be so horrifically abused.

Truth must be given

So injustice won’t persist.

And psychiatry needs a sentence

That will mean its regime is stopped.

Does anyone want to claim

That they're not aware of this?*
 
 
(*If you do, then please read the rest of my blog, have a look at some of the links I give. Familiarise yourself with the stories of people who have suffered, or, are currently suffering psychiatric abuse and recognise what it was that led you to think psychiatric abuse wasn't happening. When care isn't care and medicine isn't medicine, there is not only 'card stacking' happening, but 'glittering generalities', 'the lesser of two evils', 'name calling', 'pin-pointing the enemy', but also 'plain folks devices', 'simplification', heaps of 'testimonials' to get others on the 'bandwagon' and plenty of 'transfer'... Work it out, psychiatry needs to be in jail, it has made me and so many others suffer horribly. It is not a regime isolated to Australia. It is something that has infiltrated many, many countries. It claims to help, when it hinders, it claims to care when it makes people despair. Psychiatry forcefully drugs, which is assault in the second degree, but since it is repeats this on so many individuals over long periods of time, electrocutes and uses other invasive measures, I would term this ill treatment to be something far more malevolent and horrific.)