In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, there were a great many calls for “more mental health services” or “better access to mental health services.”
Many of us on this side of the fence groaned, because we knew that any official or private response to this call would be on the lines of more of the same. The same spurious concepts; the same pseudo-illnesses; the same destructive drugging; the same destructive electric shock “treatment”; the same involuntary confinement; and the same stigmatization and loss of empowerment.
Many of us spoke out, of course, but we were the voices in the wilderness, and our pleas were drowned by the psychiatry/pharma-inspired clamor for more.
There’s an excellent post on Mad in America this week by Deron Drumm which addresses this matter from a survivor’s point of view. It’s called Family Members – Allies or Adversaries? Here are some quotes:
“I will point out flaws in the system. I will become emotional when I see the medical model rearing its ugly head. I will also speak out on the mechanisms that humans have used to deal with troubling experiences for hundreds of years;”
“We can better encourage parents who are currently screaming for more access to the status quo – to be angry that the status quo is not good enough and needs to do better than just prescribing drugs.”
It’s an important article – well worth a read.