Comments on: PSYCHIATRY ALMOST DROVE ME CRAZY

By: Rose Ann

Rose Ann — Sun, 19 May 2013 22:03:46 +0000

Yep, I had some talk therapy in the 90′s and it was very helpful to me. The first thing I said to my therapist was that I want you to listen and I do not want to be “shut up” and I do not want to be abused and negated here, too. Recently after feeling suicidal after traumatic emotional abuse and lies and manipulations of family, employers and the court I didn’t even think to say that. So, you got it the second session was filled with negative labellings of my behavior and personality and what was wrong with me. The conflicts before therapy had centered around dis-empowering and therapy was taking the same path. I walked out. That was Fun! Ajna remarks

By: Alina

Alina — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 05:06:11 +0000

Thank you for writing this – You have described my own experiences with family and psychiatry to a tee.

By: George Steinfeld

George Steinfeld — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 18:52:35 +0000

Being sane in insane place was a sociological study in which “sane” researchers entered a mental hospital and almost went crazy. My wife is writing a book: Friday I went to therapy, saturday I went crazy. I am wring a book on bullshit in psychotherapy. Beware folks of who you see in therapy or you can enter a world of terror. A classic is: Too much anger, too many tears, by Janet Gotkin, written years ago about her experiences.

By: AjnaTwilight

AjnaTwilight — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 15:14:29 +0000

”It occurs to me that in the same sense that psychiatry was killing you by denying the validity of your world view, you were killing your father, by revealing the secret of his abusive and sick nature, thereby threatening the fragile protection he had constructed for himself in order to conceal what he truly was. He was too fragile to handle the truth, so by bringing that into the light, in a sense you really were killing him”

That just makes me wonder though..if paul was ”killing” his father by telling him the truth, and then he was killing the mental-health system by telling ”the truth”, doesn’t that mean that since the psychiatrists almost nearly killed paul aswell..weren’t they pretty much presenting THEIR world view? As they know it to be? It just makes me wonder, what if there is no truth….NO truth…AT ALL…its all just a misconseption of the mind, a mere little idea that we play in our heads that feeds our own insecurities and fears and ego and makes us all powerful because we say we know the TRUTH….the psychiatrist had his OWN truth, his dad the same, and him the same, it just leds me to believe that the ”truth” is pretty much our defense system against our harsh rationalization that we cant face REALITY, because…reality…doesn’t exist,its a deep blank empty void.. and deep down, we know that…and we try to fill it up with happy thoughts and goals and ideas and beliefs and social circles and WHATNOT!!!..But what if this is another misconception? That leads to other greater hallucinations of grandeur?….oh i’m going mad indeed…

By: lindsay booth

lindsay booth — Tue, 15 May 2012 22:15:19 +0000

Thank You Paul, i don’t think i’ll fully get over my psychiatric abuse of 30 years but your story has truly inspired me, as have the great comments that others have made!

By: Jandy Spurway

Jandy Spurway — Tue, 01 May 2012 00:10:08 +0000

I have very recently been through an experience not disimilar to yours with the medical profession and now I suffer from doctor phobia which, having been a nurse, I find sad.
I have been breaking through over a period of 25 years and 6 months ago feel as if i got free. My male forebears were mostly vicars in the church of England but i have lived in India for 5 years and can see my awakening in terms of Hinduism, Islam and Christian.
I intend to write my story which i would like to call ‘Legacy’. From Shrink to Cosmic Wanker!
I feel less angry having read your story and identified with it so much. Thank you . Couldn’t we all get together. I live in the Heart of England and work as a healer.

By: simon dennis

simon dennis — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:19:05 +0000

This is a truey inspiring (and in my case almost life saving) article. By ‘coincidence’ i read this around a year ago when i was at the initial phase of breaking through my unconscious processes. My therapist and certain other individuals who were meant to be helping me were infact symbolically reinacting the abuse that i still denied in myself from my mother. This article and your site in general gave me an abundance of insight to understand the landscape that my deeper psyche was somehow inviting. Thank you for your tremendous generosity in sharing your work and may i salute your personal bravery in surviving such horrendous emotional abuse.

By: Oren Yakovee

Oren Yakovee — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 05:09:06 +0000

Hi Paul,

Thank you for your courage to speak out against your oppressors in life, which ultimately served as the bindings of a chrysallis for the majesty that you now live. A friend of mind recently pointed to a butterfly and shared “butterflies are all about transformation.” My response was, “I think it is the caterpillars who are about transformation. The butterflies are enjoying the results of it.”

Knowing that spiritual energy misguided can be a cause, and also knowing how ill-equipped the “might makes right” model of psychiatry is to nurture and guide it, I often dream of being of service inside of psych wards just as a person who cares and can listen. Your story confirms the tremendous need for this kind of service, and if you were to found such an organization to create volunteers for this cause, I would support it wholeheartedly.

Best regards, from one butterfly to another,
Oren (www.lucidtribemedia.com)

By: MaeMae

MaeMae — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 17:10:21 +0000

Paul – It was hard for me to read what you wrote as it conjured up my own horrific experiences as an “innocent” who got caught up in The System in the same way as you. We were like animals caught in a trap… trying to chew our paw off to escape it. Although I was brilliant – artistic – a “good person” who followed the Heart of Jesus (tho terribly disappointed with the institution of the church)and completely harmless – I was a perfect candidate for the shrinks to “play with”.
I remember when one shrink was telling me all that they were going to “do to me” – I burst out saying “who do you think you are… God?!?” That really pissed him off at my unwillingness to submit to his authority. Ultimately I was hospitalized in the psych ward, send to Juvenile Detention (that term was certainly true!), and eventually sent to an ‘experimental program” where shock treatments were given to teens as those were the daze when it was a “new toy” for the shrinks to play with – and get funding for their “projects”. They gave me 22 shock treatments over a month and a half. And sent me home with drugs – stelazine and thorazine combo! I was in a fog. My memory was destroyed – had to relearn my multiplication tables – have 100% memory loss of the 3 years prior and only vague, random memories from my childhood. I stuffed all this in an attempt to move forward in my life & retain MY values. I ignored the tortures of my family life (adopted only child of Narcissistic mother & her adoring husband) and the cruelties large and small – all directed at me as I was the only one. No one to talk to, I thought it was normal. My parents were barely educated and my father worshipped & did my mother’s bidding. I just thought they were “normal” and I was “weird”. And then I made many “mistakes” in my life, falling in love with other narcissistic partners…repeating the cycle as it seemed “normal/expected”. Only husband #4 was so outrageous that it forced me to return where I dreaded – back to reliving the past to find out HOW I ended up this way by “being nice”… contrary to all the “teachings” I was following and believed in my heart.
Now getting close to 60, I am at the lowest time of my life (since those early years) and it is too late to go back & fix things…and I am running out of “fight” after all these battles. The Health System is totally mechanized and rigid so I suffer by my lack of trust – by my disgust with the doctors. But my walls of defense built up have not truly protected me. And I am officially “down & out” for the count. But I KNOW now… and I have paid dearly for this Knowing.
I just want to be of service – to be a shining light – to not be seen as “scary/weird/unpredictable/”different” – and if I had been raised in the right family, I might just be a World Saviour of sorts – been able to use my genius and talents – and share my Love with THE WORLD.
I guess I am failing to note my “good works” properly – to stuck in defensive mode… working on that. But you never feel “good enough”.
(But…it’s not over yet…!!)
I am always hungry for the LOVE that I never received. For the praise/Thank You’s/confirmation that I am “okay”. I am sure that people do feel like I have done a lot of good – but there is distance – probably my fears of betrayal poisoning every relationship… my Soul Neediness. No – I am NOT NORMAL. And so lonely.
But at least I know now that I am not alone in my trials – and that I am not the guilty one. But those toxic “feeling/fears” still linger.
Tomorrow’s another day… and maybe a good one is coming!
Thanks for your honesty – it is like a cool drink of water in the desert!
“The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness,
and let us put on the armor of light.” Romans 13:12

By: Klarity Belle

Klarity Belle — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 16:06:08 +0000

Hi Paul

I have had similar experiences with the mental health system in the UK. I have always known that the source of my own pain was from loss of my father when I was 7 and from psychological abuse from my narcissistic mother and half brother followed by my mother’s early death. Whenever I have turned to the mental health service I have been either shunned (which was the case when I recently requested EMDR sessions for trauma flashbacks and was told EMDR did not work for this, yet I have endless case studies on my PC to prove otherwise).

Previously on many occasions I have requested support with looking into my past trauma and been told that ‘digging around in the muck of the past’ was completely unnecessary and what I must do is work on my behaviours. What without treating the source of the pain? – the system is mad!

Finally, I found a Jungian Analyst, hallelujah – she gets it, she affirms my atrocious childhood experiences and accepts my sorrow and pain as ‘normal’ for what I have faced. Finally in middle age I am healing from the traumas that have haunted me all my life.

I had a similar experience when looking for support for my 11 year old daughter who suffered narcissistic abuse from her father, i was told by the child psyches “to put the past behind me and move forward for the sake of my children” – what when he is still controlling, shaming, guiltripping and blaming them at every step?! – This too is madness! Even Robert Hare a trained expert in the field of psychopathology has been deeply affected by these types and yet young innocent children were meant to just ‘take it on the chin’! I felt like the very system that was supposed to be there to protect my children were defending his abusive behaviour.

Same went for a bullying situation for my eldest D – the headmistress completely denied that it was happening and called my D oversensitive – even though she had been alienated, pushed, shamed and belittled by her manipulative classmate intermittently over a period of 5 years.

I am anti vaccine too and find great opposition with this from authorities even though there is growing irrefutable evidence that certain vaccines are not safe and effective – at the moment the HPV vaccine is being pushed by governments on young girls around the globe and 73 to date have lost their lives and 1,000′s more have serious/permanent side effects – but even though it puts childrens lives at risk they are sent up there for the jabs like lambs to the slaughter while the pharmas and governments lick their lips and count their loot – abominable!

Trusting our own intuition is of key importance, it’s a web of lies from which we need to become unstuck.