Epiphany, revelation, a-haâs. The people who run Mad in Finland have experienced profound awakenings in the course of their lives, moments of awareness when they understood the failures of the psychiatric disease model and saw its harmsâin their own lives, and in othersâ.
Theyâre now working to bring that same awarenessâthose same a-haâsâthrough their efforts with the Mad in America affiliate. Theyâre spreading the word, illuminating the facts on withdrawal and non-medical conceptions of depression and psychosis. Theyâre reaching new eyes and drawing new voices into the conversation.
âThere are more and more people who see our pages,â said editor Heidi Tommila, âand start to think about their own experiences, also.â
Tommila was on a Zoom call with her colleague Soili Takkala, who founded the countryâs first SSRI peer-support withdrawal group and co-founded the NGO that spawned Mad in Finland. The way they see it, getting the word out is half the battle: Once someone has that critical awakening, thereâs no quashing it.
âItâs like letting the genie out of the bottle. You canât put it back, once itâs out. . . because it resonates with peopleâs actual experience,â Takkala said. âIt changes things.â
The Finnish mental health system is famous, in critical-psychiatry circles, for its innovation and implementation of the non-medicalized Open Dialogue model of care. First developed in Western Lapland, the model âis almost nowhere in Finland,â Takkala said. In general, the biomedical paradigm still prevailsâand too often, she added, someone might suffer some human struggle and wind up placed on psych drugs.
In her case, she was 20 when she first experienced depression. Three years later, in 1988, her father died by suicide. Sometime after that, she started therapy, then SSRIâs. Over the years she tried to go off themâagain, and again, and againâbut each time, her withdrawal symptoms were misdiagnosed as relapse. Doctors fed her the âbrain chemistryâ line. They told her sheâd need the drugs for life. Finally, in 2011, she managed to quit them for good.
In recounting her story, she recalled a piece of wisdom a Buddhist meditation teacher gave her. Regarding the psych drugs, the teacher said: âEventually youâll get rid of those. And when you get rid of those, then you can help other people with those experiences.â
That, she said, was the key. Helping people.
Just how became clear when, in 2014, psychologist Aku Kopakkala appeared in âDepressing Drugs (Masentavat lÀÀkkeet),â an episode of the Finnish investigative-journalism series MOT. In it, he bluntly criticized the biomedical approach; the next day, he was sacked from his job with a private health care provider. Journalists âhad a field day,â Takkala recalled. About a month later, Kopakkala gave a public lecture on the topicââand I was listening to him, and it felt like a revelation. I finally saw the connection between my own long-lasting withdrawal struggle and this whole sort of ideology.â
From that revelatory moment, the basis for the MIA affiliate was formed. As a writer with years of experience in publishing, she reached outâinitially with a book in mindâand ultimately formed the SSRI-withdrawal group. Every other week, they organized lectures and similar events, bringing in Kopakkala and others to speak, in public, about withdrawal and related issues. And an NGO was created: Need Based Treatment (Tarpeenmukainen hoito, or TaHo).
That was November of 2016. A year or two later, TaHoâs web page morphed into MadinFinland.org.
The site is now jam-packed with content: articles on research; personal stories, commentary, diary entries and other blog posts; reflections on âMieletön psykiatriaâ (a play on words translated as âinsaneâ or âmindlessâ psychiatry) by Tommila and an anonymous author with lived experience; stories and information on SSRI detoxification; translations of Mad in America articles and links to MIA global affiliates; a data bank offering info on side effects, instructions for tapering, and other topics; Tommilaâs correspondence with a history researcher and philosopher; and links to various sites and resources.
Operating on a voluntary basis, Mad in Finland isnât run by professionals, Tommila said. Its contributors arenât trained in journalism. âWeâre more like thinkersââmostly people with stories and insights, doing their best to share them.
Her own epiphany came several years ago, as a young mother on maternity leave. She had just moved to a new location with no friends nearby, and âI was quite alone, quite alone.â In that isolated state she experienced psychosis for four or five days, enduring it at home. A month and a half later, with a resurgence of anxiety, she entered the hospitalâalready understanding âthat it was not what I needed. But I didnât know where I could go.â
What she knew: âI just need peace, and I need rest, and I need someone to talk with me about my new ideas, my new thoughts that my head was full of. And everything was just taken as symptoms when I was in hospital.â
After five days, she went back home; two months later, she stopped antipsychotics on her own. She had difficulty sleeping. Difficulty with other aspects of living. But she went back to her old jobânever planning to stay for long, but proving to herself and her family âthat there is naturally nothing wrong with me.â After a year, she quit. Thatâs when she resolved to work toward positive change. And thatâs when, four years ago, she became involved with Mad in Finland.
Being proactive, putting herself out thereânone of that is easy, Tommila said. But bearing witness feels necessary. So does the sense of âcooperating and supporting each otherâ in a community, gradually building, thatâs committed to challenging the paradigm.
âThereâs many people in mental health who want to do something differently,â said Kopakkala, also on the Zoom call, âbut they donât know how.â In his own case, his life was altered when he spoke the truth eight years ago. But there are more voices in the wilderness these days, he said. Compared with a decade or so ago, many more people are aware of the controversies surrounding mental health and the problems with drugs.
âBut practices are not people,â he added. And those need to change, too.
So far, the affiliate has seen some evidence that they are, in fact, reaching more populations and prompting more a-haâs. Most notably: In 2019, the official Finnish guidelines on depression treatments were updated, citing the dangers of prolonged withdrawal syndrome and advising slower tapering. The change was âjust an inch,â Takkala said. âBut, you know, a critical inch.â Getting the message through was a triumphâânot the final triumph,â but a significant strike in the right direction.
What gives them hope? For a start: Other MIA affiliates around the world. While each country has its own particular focuses and areas of concern, Takkala said, âItâs wonderful to be part of a global communityâand it gives the backup and the background support we need.â It also demonstrates that their efforts and experiences arenât limited to a handful of survivors.
Another cause for hope: The gradually shifting conversation across media. More and more, challenges to the pharma-driven disease narrative are being published in mainstream outlets; more and more, psychiatric survivors are being heard; and more and more, professionals are opening themselves to alternate views. Moving ahead, Tommila would like to bring them into the dialogue as contributors at Mad in Finland.
But already, in Kopakkalaâs own practice, he and his colleagues shun words like âdiagnosis.â He explained: âWe want to know who they are, how theyâre living, what their problems are, how they see themselves. We donât diagnose.â
Raising his hands to his eyes like spectacles, he added, âWe donât want to see them through glasses. We want them to tell their own story in their own words. . . . And I think we shouldnât be allowed to put diagnosis on other peopleâitâs violent, somehow. Itâs abuse of power, to diagnose other people. Itâs not fair. Itâs not fair.â As it stands, instructing those in distress to accept such labels âis self-stigmatizingâand thatâs the most terrible thing in this whole power play.â
But at least some shifts in attitude are happening, Takkala said. âAt least thereâs sort of a wider perspective to different ideasâand at least there are ongoing, public dialogues on psychiatric drug withdrawal via her work with TaHo. The next one, on April 7, will feature prominent neuroscientist and researcher Mark Horowitz.
âAnd thatâs great progress,â Tommila said.
True progress will come when such conversations arenât even necessary. The best possible outcome, as she sees it: to ânot needâ Mad in Finland any longer. To not need so many voices raised in protest. To not need a platform pushing against the system, because the system is wholly reformed.
âThe change,â she said, âis more important.â
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MIA Editors: Over the next 10 weeks, we will be publishing a profile of each of the Mad in America affiliates. They have banded together as a âMad in the Worldâ network.
“….In recounting her story, she recalled a piece of wisdom a Buddhist meditation teacher gave her. Regarding the psych drugs, the teacher said: âEventually youâll get rid of those. And when you get rid of those, then you can help other people with those experiences.â…”
I remember a buddhist monk being asked a question regarding the taking of antidepressants – He Didn’t Say “I’m not a doctor” – He said “Try to come of the drugs very slowly and very carefully” .
Buddhist Meditation is a brilliant cure for “low mood”.
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