BlissChick: Most Mental Illness is Manufactured

BlissChick: Most Mental Illness is Manufactured is a most awesomely wonderful post by my Blogger friend and fellow SRBT's (Survivor of Really Bad Things:)), Christine Claire Reed aka the BlissChick.


Over the past year I've noticed peoples heads are turning and as a society we are beginning to question the whole "illness" paradigm that surrounds the mental health industry. 

And Award Winning Scientific Journalist Robert Whitaker has had a lot to do with this. You can check out his blog on Psychology Today by clicking here and visit his personal blog by clicking here. You can also order his book Anatomy of an Epidemic from his blog.

Over the past week or so Christine (aka BlissChick) put on her PissedChick hat and came up with some astounding articles that I would like to share with you here:

1. Medicine Makes Me Sick - Love is the Cure In this post Christine bares her soul and reveals her pain and how pills seemed the easy answer but had some unfortunate side effects - including self harm behavior that had not existed before the drugs - and how she found healing...but it didn't come from the pills.
2. Most Mental Illness Is Manufactured is where we meet PissedChick:) Christine gets it on and makes it clear this illness model of our minds and emotions is questionable and that the "fix" doesn't come in pill form. We who have SRBT's - are not "sick" but injured. 
3. Ignoring Mental Injury is an excellent piece on the fact that there is a reason people feel f***ed up - and its not because our brains are broken.
4. You Are Not Mentally Ill Just Because Is an expose on how our pain - emotional, psychological - and its expression - our behaviors - have become so pathologized that we as a nation and society have been conditioned aka brainwashed - to believe something is wrong with us if we aren't "like everyone else". 

Before I go any further I feel its important to ask you to click here to read my disclaimer before you decide that you need to put me in my place or remind me that there are good therapists out there or that you believe the drugs helped you and how dare I bring this subject up...

In other words - if you are content with your quality of life and current mental health care - bravo!

But don't blast me and others for wanting more than to exist in a drugged stupor and find true, complete and full recovery from the pain of the past...something I never found and was even told in my time in the mental health system - was not possible because - of course - I was "sick" and would need the drugs "for life". 

PissedChick....thanks for taking the chance and putting your voice out there on these issues. 

Its time more of us found our inner bitch and started speaking up about these issues instead of being bullied and shamed into the silence that enables the abuse and crippling to continue as America keeps its proverbial head in the sand and pretends that these drugs are not killing, crippling and destroying lives.

Visit Christine's blog by clicking here.

Some related posts from the archives:

My guest post at Emerging From Broken: Dysfunctional Relationships with Mental Health Providers (yes; this stuff is STILL happening every day in the good ole US of A)

I Wanted to Understand this Paradigm of "Mental Illness"

Creating a New Paradigm for Myself Part 1

Creating a New Paradigm Part 2

Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

Transparency and True "Informed Consent" in Mental Health Care

Photo Credit

Personally I do not advocate "for" or "against' psychiatric medications for anyone. I believe that each individual must come to their own conclusions.

What I DO advocate for is complete and truthful transparency that those who suffer are given all options and accurate information that they can make their own informed and educated decisions regarding their health care with all options provided - including the view that cognitive and emotional distress are not a biological disorder but a normal human response to overwhelming life experiences - and that we can learn the life skills to manage the thoughts that fuel the emotional and cognitive distress called "mental illness".

Below is a quote from and link to an interview between Steve Coe and Robert Whitakre regarding Whitakre's book "Anatomy of an Epidemic"...and the interesting point here is the source of Whitakre's research material.

"And what I'm doing in this book is looking at the research done by the NIMH, the research done by the World Health Organization. And, all I'm doing here is saying, look at what your studies show over time. I'm not doing the research. I'm really only the guy holding up the documents and asking what story do they tell over time." ~ Robert Whitakre Interview with Steve Coe April 2010

"Consumers" of mental health services have been speaking up for years about the issues of overmedicating and available alternatives to the medical management of human distress. But to be anything other than a "compliant" patient is to put oneself at risk of losing what support and resources have been available.

Unfortunately once having been marked with the label of "mental illness" these people are often not heard and frequently dismissed as "disgruntled", "difficult", resistant" and simply "mental", dissidents and troublemakers, who are at risk of being further labeled and experiencing some consequence for having an opinion that differs from that of the mainstream pharmaceutical position.

So thank you, Robert Whitakre, for speaking up for those whose voices have been silenced and dismissed as not worthy of being heard once having been branded as "mentally ill".

Read the entire article here.

Whitakre is scheduled to be a Keynote speaker this fall at the National Conference for the Mental Health Recovery Movement in Anaheim California.

Anatomy of an Epidemic at Amazon.com

Q: Have you had a personal experience that you would like to share - either positive or negative?