Download BAY DIARY: A spiritual journey towards recovery

Mental health impairment
BARRIERS HINDERING
SUCCESSFUL INTEGRATION
INTO TERTIARY EDUCATION :
a personal experience
Presented by: Lois ROBERTS
INTRODUCTION
• 1 in 5 Australians has experience of mental
illness, either depression or psychosis
• Professor David Healy says they are caused by
childhood abuse leading to adverse life
experiences
• Traditional psychiatry believes problems are
caused by chemical imbalances that require
dangerous and addictive medications to relieve.
• Learning how to form safe relationships in
therapy is one good protective mechanism
INTRODUCTION
PART 1
My experienced problems in tertiary settings and
how teaching staff helped
PART 2
Bay Diary: my own personal journey of discovery
about the facts relating to mental illness
PART 3
Exploring my website: an archive of information on
mental health resources
Thank you for listening …
PART 1
Mental Health impairments and
barriers to learning.
Mental health impairments &
barriers to learning
Effects of medication:
• Poor concentration
• Drowsiness
• Weak memory
• Tiredness due to insomnia
• Physical side effects include:
Mental health impairments &
barriers to learning
http://breggin.com/index.php?option=com_c
ontent&task=blogcategory&id=15&Itemid=
42
http://www.breggin.com/index.php?option=c
om_content&task=view&id=187
Mental health impairments &
barriers to learning
Effects of impairment: due to being
abused in childhood:
• Confusion
• Skewed conceptual ability: difficulty to
conceptualise
• Difficulty in discerning the grey areas of an
issue; focus leaps from black to white to
black again
• Incoherence or hysteria
Mental health impairments &
barriers to learning
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~thinkmh/mental/O
THER%20CONTRAINDICATIONS%20RE
V.htm
Mental health impairments &
barriers to learning
Effects of being labeled and diagnosed
and medicated
• Incoherence, inability to articulate
• Depression, anxiety, tearfulness
• Low self confidence; low self esteem
• Disempowerment
• Distrust
• Isolation and inability to connect to people
Mental health impairments &
barriers to learning
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~thinkmh/mental/T
HE%20ISSUES%20REV.htm
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~thinkmh/mental/T
RADITIONAL%20PSYCHIATRY%20REV.
htm
Mental health impairments &
barriers to learning
Combining these effects in a classroom:
what happens?
Do similar things apply in any given
workplace?
Mental health impairments &
barriers to learning
How can lecturers help?
• Summarise and repeat statements frequently
• Demonstrate tolerance
• Point out to the person gently they may be
conceptually skewed and it is not unusual
• Quietly encourage their interaction and inclusion
in the group
PART 2
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards
recovery
‘To be human means to be a
question in search of an answer’
Patricia Deegan, Survivor
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
• Toxic Psychiatry… Peter
Breggin, US antipsychiatrist
1991
• Recovery is a journey of the
heart…
Patricia Deegan 1997
survivor - therapist
• Court cases in US 2003
challenging Eli Lilly over
their drug Zyprexa causing
heart; pancreatic disease;
death…
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
Toxic Psychiatry:
Why therapy, empathy, and love must replace the
drugs, electroshock, and biochemical theories of the
“new psychiatry.”
by Peter Breggin, M.D. 1991
The most complete overview of psychiatry and psychiatric
medication. It has influenced many professionals and lay
persons to psychosocial approaches
http://breggin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=bl
ogcategory&id=15&Itemid=42
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
Patricia Deegan is a psychiatric survivor
whose profound story is told in Recovery
as a Journey of the Heart. Winter 1996
She retrained as a counselor consultant
therapist and advisor and talks frequently
at consumer conferences across the US
http://www.patdeegan.com/
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
• TRANX assist with
withdrawal
• Withdrawal insomnia
assessed by TRANX as
classic psychiatric
symptom
• Seek medication review –
advised all antipsychotics
available have similar
side effects
New Norfolk pines
Dusk – Elwood Beach
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
• My new drug Solian
causes weight gain and
cholesterol problems
• Researching issue more
thoroughly. Discover
www.breggin.com
Your Drug May Be Your
Problem, 1999
Yachts off Elwood Beach Mid
week - Winter 2008
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
• Begin seriously
withdrawing using 10
percent method
• Become a little
outspoken, could cause
problems on the job
• Move out from disability
unit to unit in ordinary
community
Port Melbourne Beach Winter
2008
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
• Criticised for working too
hard: Resulting in
inappropriate email from
me: Secondary result:
major argument with
Manager and job loss is
threatened
• Use my disability as an
excuse for the way the
argument with Manager
escalated
Pathway between Elwood Beach
and St Kilda marina
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
• Stress - out of control:
Sick leave not enough to
enable recovery
• Seek help for tension - an
excruciating withdrawal
symptom exacerbated by
lack of recognition of
work strength: rejection
• No professional in
Melbourne knows what to
do about withdrawal
symptoms
City skyline from track near Point
Ormond
June 2008
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
• Access to two university
libraries leads to more
refined research
• News is shocking
• Entire scientific grounds
on which psychiatry is
based can be easily
refuted
St Kilda marina
Winter sunshine 2008
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
Professor Mary Boyle, Professor of Clinical
Psychology, University of East London
Schizophrenia : a scientific delusion? Routledge,
London, 2001
Refuting the scientific basis of psychiatry:
Kraepelin and Bleuler’s shoddy research …
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~thinkmh/mental/ANTIPS
YCHIATRY%20REV.htm
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
STATISTICS
• Big Pharma makes 5 x profits of its nearest rival on the US Fortune
500
• Dangerous antipsychotics and antidepressants are put on market with
FDA approval after only 5 week trials
• Big Pharma obscures adverse results of drug trials from everyone
• Psychiatrists practicing traditional psychiatry make approximately
$1million every 2-3 years
• Most people requesting psychiatric assistance have been abused as
children and are further abused within official Victorian Mental Health
Services
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
• Evidence proves
psychiatry resembles
Nazi Germany in its
approach to human rights
• Australian antipsychiatrist
Dr Yolande Lucire (NSW)
suggests my symptoms
are akathisa (drug
related) not schizophrenia
as diagnosed.
• Misdiagnosis
Luna Park, St Kilda Triangle, built
1912
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
Dr Yolande Lucire, NSW Forensic psychiatrist
http://www.lucire.com.au/
Her leading article New Drugs, New Problems
http://psychrights.org/articles/newdrugsnewpr
oblems.htm
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
New Drugs, New Problems
Dr Yolande Lucire
• Antidepressants such as Prozac and Zoloft cause violent
suicidal ideation
• Similar effects for new generation antipsychotics such as
Zyprexa
• 2001 study, after only 2 weeks, patients presenting as
violent, agitated with suicidal and homicidal thoughts not
previously present
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peterbreggin/the-real-mental-healthle_b_46327.html
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
• Slow withdrawal takes 13
months to complete
• Work management take
discriminatory attitude
towards my work ethics
and attitude
• Ordered to find outside
work counseling which is
costly – part time income
does not meet expenses
Chardonnay beside the Bay June
2008
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
• Feel I am being pushed
off the job. Walk out in
despair at workplace
injustices
• Obtain information written
by Prof David Healy UK
for withdrawal relief
• Onset of raging
symptoms – auditory
hallucinations
Moroccan mosaic
St Kilda sea baths
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
http://www.healyprozac.com/
“Let them eat Prozac”
UK Professor David Healy offers support to
medical professionals disputing traditional
psychiatric treatments as well as
pharmaceutical industry behaviour
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
• My voices rage day and
night for 4 months
• Walks on the beach bring
no relief, during my 3.5
months of unpaid sick
leave
• Finally self esteem rises
with successful job
application in Geelong
• Entails 4 hours of travel
per day
Palms - South Melbourne Beach late winter 2008
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
• My new website – an
archive of information re
antipsychiatry – is posted
• My ex-employer refuses to
provide me with a
reference
• To recover some vestiges
of self-respect claims of
discrimination against my
ex-employer are lodged.
• It has been a traumatic 18
months
The Spirit - Station Pier
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
• Rebekah Beddoe’s Antidepressant
Awareness Forum leads to Mind website in
UK
http://www.dyingforacure.com/
BAY DIARY:
A spiritual journey towards recovery
Rebekah Beddoe’s Forum
The Antidepressant Awareness Forum
http://antidepressantawareness.com/forums/
Links from Rebekah’s Forum to Mind in the UK
Points to Tardive Dementia or Tardive Psychosis being a
potential results of heavy antispsychotic or
antidepressant drug regimes. This may explain my
excruciating “voices” problem.
http://www.mind.org.uk/Information/Booklets/Making+sense
/antip.htm
PART 3
Lois’s new website:
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~thinkmh/
mental/Index.htm
THANK YOU
Has anyone got any
questions?