In 1999, New York State passed the first Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) law, which creates a regime of civil courts to force psychiatric interventions on those found to have “serious and persistent mental illness” who “struggle to engage voluntarily” with care. As of 2023, such laws were on the books in 47 states and the District of Columbia—leaving just Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maryland as holdouts. In these three states, coalitions of psychiatric survivors, harm reductionists, peer advocates, disability rights advocates, and civil rights attorneys have fended off multi-year efforts to expand involuntary treatment. But last month in Maryland, HB 576 and SB 453, entitled Mental Health – Assisted Outpatient Treatment Programs, flew through the legislature after nearly 20 years of stalemate.
What made this year different? The answer lies largely in changing political winds, on both the state and national levels.
Nationally, the past eighteen months have witnessed an uptick in popularity for policies of psychiatric force among Democrats. In December 2022, New York City Mayor Eric Adams unveiled his controversial “involuntary removals” policy, allowing for the involuntary psychiatric detention of largely unhoused people who “appear mentally ill” in public.
In September 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment (CARE) Court, which bears similarities to AOT, became law. CARE Court forces primarily unhoused people to accept court-ordered psychiatric interventions; any noncompliance with the orders could be used as evidence in a future conservatorship hearing.
And last month, California’s Prop 1, also championed by Governor Newsom, passed by a razor-thin margin. Prop 1 upends the millionaire tax-funded Mental Health Services Act and will reduce funding for voluntary, peer-delivered, and culturally-specific supports. Prop 1 also establishes a $6 billion bond, some of which would go toward building locked facilities to confine unhoused people who use drugs or have psychiatric disabilities.
These recent policy developments have a long, complex historical context. For over fifty years in America, pro-force family advocacy organizations, closely allied with the medical and judicial establishments, have worked to roll back the clock to the days when they had more legal control over the lives of those under their care.
Since the 1990s, the assault on the civil liberties of people deemed “severely mentally ill” has been led primarily by the Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC), a well-funded group whose efforts are fueled by a national grassroots network of family advocates. TAC can be said to be largely responsible for the spread of involuntary outpatient civil commitment laws throughout America. Early on, family advocates rebranded the law to the more politically palatable and benign-sounding “Assisted Outpatient Treatment,” and commenced selling their courts-as-care formula to politicians, the media, and the public.
AOT is not just a law; it is a philosophy and an approach that centers around “anosognosia,” a pseudeoscientific notion that a small subset of individuals labeled with serious and persistent mental illness are too ill to know they need help. Therefore, they must be “assisted” into a regime of civil courts that would theoretically ensure their ongoing treatment under supervision. In reality, the laws are drafted with fairly broad eligibility criteria.
True believers in AOT co-opt language from human rights and disability rights principles, claiming that it is a “less restrictive alternative” to jails, prisons, and psychiatric incarceration. Yet, in many of America’s underfunded and under-resourced community-based systems, it is often impossible for people to access care until and unless they are in a crisis. The help that is on offer is often largely biomedical in nature, with social determinants of health such as housing and community support left unaddressed, fueling cycles of distress.
Proponents of court-ordered treatment also frequently argue that it is voluntary. But coercion and force are baked deeply into these laws, from the “Black Robe effect” resulting from a judge’s presence in the room; to treatment orders that one usually has little say in or choice over; to the ever-present possibility of forced evaluation, hospitalization, or conservatorship for noncompliance.
How AOT came to Maryland
Maryland’s 2024 legislative session took place against the backdrop of policy changes favoring mandated treatment in New York and California. As with California’s proposals, this year the demand came from the top, with Maryland’s newly-elected Democratic governor Wes Moore making AOT a central part of his legislative agenda soon after election.
Governor Moore’s reasons for championing the legislation may have had something to do with his tenure as head of the Robin Hood Foundation, an anti-poverty nonprofit based in New York. Proponents of AOT widely view New York’s program as the gold standard, despite reports finding glaring racial disparities in its implementation. The governor’s own chief of staff, Eric Luedtke, has spoken openly about a family member’s diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, and even testified in favor of the bill in February. A new senior health official, Deputy Secretary for Behavioral Health Alyssa Lord, also previously hails from New York, and Secretary of Health Laura Herrera Scott completed her medical degree there.
Courtney Bergan, a Maryland attorney who identifies as a person with lived experience of involuntary institutionalization, told Mad in America that once the Moore administration sponsored the legislation, most opposition to the bill vanished. “The Democrats were like, ‘We don’t want to go up against a Democratic governor.’ That’s really what it came down to.”
Advocates immediately found the broad eligibility criteria alarming. Those with a “history of treatment nonadherence” who have had two hospitalizations, even voluntarily, within three years; or have self-harmed or attempted self-harm; or attempted suicide or an act of harm to others; or have made credible threats of harm to others during a three-year “lookback” period, would be deemed eligible for the program.
Under these criteria, “Essentially anybody with a mental illness could be put into AOT,” Bergan said.
Any adult with a relationship to the respondent can file the petition—as psychiatrist Dinah Miller wrote on X: “your mom, your kid, your roommate, your ex.” To move forward, the process requires the sign-off of only one psychiatrist, contravening Maryland’s own involuntary treatment certificate that requires two evaluators to agree.
Sole evaluators are “undeniably vulnerable to bias, whether explicit or unintentional,” according to testimony submitted to the legislature by On Our Own of Maryland, which coordinates the longest-running statewide network of independent peer-operated organizations in the nation. “This bill seems to propose much lower standards for civil commitment.”
Of equal concern to advocates was the near-unlimited range of interventions that would theoretically be allowed in a court-ordered treatment plan, including electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) or long-acting contraception.
Last month, Senator Clarence Lam, one of two physicians in the state legislature, introduced a bill amendment that would ban the involuntary use of long-acting injectable antipsychotic drugs and ECT in AOT orders. It would also protect reproductive rights by prohibiting a judge from ordering non-psychiatric medications or devices such as birth control implants.
Senator Lam’s chief of staff Scott Tiffin told Mad in America that the legislator had been hearing about AOT for years from Disability Rights Maryland, the public defender’s office, and others. He had examined the medical ethics literature on ECT and informed consent, and had seen troubling precedent involving judges’ violations of respondents’ reproductive rights. An AOT judge in Ohio had pressured a respondent to take long-acting contraception, and a guardianship judge in Massachusetts ordered a woman to have an abortion and undergo sterilization.
During their March 29 meeting, Finance committee members entered into an extended conversation about Senator Lam’s amendment, with some defending the practice of ECT. “ECT is a good thing and people should get it—that’s basically what was being said,” Bergan said. “It was wild.”
Senator Lam attempted to clarify his rationale to his colleagues: “…Because [ECT] is a very extreme measure, has some history there, can we put some limitations on that specifically?…Is that boundary a little bit too far for this to be ordered by a judge on someone without their consent?” But with scant support from fellow legislators or the Department of Health, Senator Lam withdrew the amendment at the next Finance committee meeting.
“I continue to be concerned about the lack of reasonable guardrails in the AOT bill,” he wrote in a statement emailed to Mad in America. “But, I hope the Department will take seriously the concerns about the rights of potential AOT patients as they begin implementation. I think it was important that the General Assembly included a five-year sunset on this bill so we will be able to keep a close eye on implementation.”
There was one small win in the bill, in the provision on psychiatric advance directives, highly under-utilized legal documents that outline a person’s wishes regarding treatment. A previous version of the bill said that such documents would be “considered”; in the final version, that word was crossed out and changed to “honored.” While the language reflects the aspiration that psychiatric advance directives will be respected in practice, nationwide trends do not bear this out.
A choice movement for mental health in Maryland
New, independent coalitions have emerged to challenge the steady advance of involuntary outpatient commitment laws. Californians Against Prop 1 and partners were nearly successful in defeating the ballot measure, forcing the governor to scramble for votes.
In Maryland, Bergan launched the “My Mind, My Choice” coalition, inspired by the messaging of the reproductive rights movement. “I want people to see that this could be them,” she said.
“What would you want if you were in this position? Do you want to be forced to take a medication that you feel has really harmful side effects? I want to change the narrative on this and make it about choice.”
The coalition is pursuing a multifaceted harm reduction approach to the new landscape. One strategy is to establish psychiatric advance directive clinics throughout the state to help people develop the most legally-sound documents. Another idea is to create a hotline for those facing inpatient and outpatient civil commitment, where anyone petitioned could obtain quick, free legal advice about their rights.
Advocates in Maryland are also exploring the promise of self-directed care, an approach to supporting people who would otherwise meet criteria for involuntary outpatient commitment that aligns with human rights principles of choice and bodily autonomy set forth in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
This legislative session, Senator Lam introduced a self-directed care pilot bill drawing on the success of such programs in other states such as New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Utah.
This approach addresses underlying material issues driving participants’ distress by providing individualized peer support and funds for an array of supports they want and need.
While the bill did not move this year, Bergan said advocates hope to raise awareness among stakeholders and policymakers this year to galvanize support in 2025.
And then there were two…
Supporters of the law in Maryland adopted a narrative that AOT signified progress, claiming that their state “lags behind” those with involuntary outpatient commitment laws on the books. The bill noted in its preamble that only three states in the nation still lacked the authority to institute court-ordered mental healthcare. Now, just two states remain: Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Like Maryland, Massachusetts’ coalition has had to fight efforts to expand involuntary treatment annually, and this year is no different. At this writing, advocates are awaiting the outcome of a committee vote that will determine whether this year’s involuntary outpatient commitment bills, H.1694 and S.1238, will advance to the next phase of the legislative process.
Sera Davidow, executive director of the Wildflower Alliance, a Massachusetts peer support, advocacy, and training organization dedicated to harm reduction and human rights, told Mad in America that she has been tracking recent developments in Maryland as AOT returns to her state legislature. To educate and inform community engagement, she created an Involuntary Outpatient Commitment Information Center with a petition, sample letters to legislators, and videos featuring people who’ve experienced court-ordered psychiatric intervention. In one video, Earl, who identifies as a parent and a person with psychiatric history, said, “It’s going to make people go to the fringes. It’s going to make people hide, it’s going to make people run away.”
Wildflower Alliance and allied communities in Massachusetts are trying to build up non-coercive, human rights-based supports, circulating a petition in support of a significant peer respite bill currently moving through the state legislature. Davidow, along with Wildflower Alliance peer respite director Ephraim Akiva, advocate Thomas Brown, and Mental Health Legal Advisors drafted the bill, first introduced last year. It would fund at least one peer respite program in each of the state’s 14 counties, including the first two LGBTQ+ respites in the world.
The prospects of an involuntary outpatient commitment law passing in Connecticut remain slim for now. The administration and the legislature have not been enthusiastic about adopting the law over the last 25 years, and most statewide advocacy groups oppose it. Kathy Flaherty, executive director of the Connecticut Legal Rights Project, submitted testimony during Maryland’s legislative session this year noting that in her state, “Much time and effort has been expended on examining IOC, only to have the legislature reject it each time it is proposed.”
For her part in Maryland, Bergan remains steadfast, even as a potential bill looms in 2025 that could remove a key administrative barrier to rebuilding locked psychiatric facilities. “I just want people to know that even though it seems like we’re freaking failing, I’m convinced that it means we just need to be louder,” she said.
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Editor’s Note on May 6, 2024: This article previously stated that Dr. Laura Herrera Scott was from New York. It has been updated to indicate more clearly that she earned her medical degree there.
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MIA Reports are made possible by donations from MIA readers like you. To donate, visit: https://www.madinamerica.com/
This is a great article. I’m a survivor of psychiatric torture and harmful psychiatric drugs for a bipolar illness I’m now not convinced I have. I’m a certified teacher who through some kind of fate through into the world of teaching and supervising at-risk children and youth. My actual passion in life is critiquing our nation’s unjust foreign policy. You can say that is my calling, while at the same time you might say at-risk youth called me. In my time at the child shelter, at least three residents were prescribed Zyprexa (I drug I have been prescribed as well). This drug was harmful enough for me when I was prescribed as an adult. I can only imagine the negative effects on children.
Any way, I decided to run for Congress in West Virginia on a platform of ending our foreign wars, questioning the role of psychiatry in the lives of at-risk youth and in support of public education.
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As one who ran art and S.T.E.A.M programs to help educate middle class and underprivileged students. I agree, the psych neurotoxic poisoning of the American children, is child abuse. Good luck in your run for Congress.
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I’ve had a couple of news interviews where a broached the subject of the prevalence of psychiatric drugs with these youth, but the interviewer didn’t follow up on it. I spent most of my career as a substitute teacher, so I didn’t have much interaction with parents. Also, none of my teacher training in the 1990s broached on the subject of trying to persuade parents to have their child see a psychiatrist. So I don’t have much first hand knowledge of how the children get diagnosed. I just know from my recent experience at the child shelter, that benzodiazepines, anti-depressants, mood stabilizers, ADHD medications iand neuroleptics are commonly prescribed to these kids.
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I was in a psychotic state for two years and was not receiving treatment because I was convinced I was in hell and that people weren’t real. Thankfully, I was on probation for a DUI and was forced to get the help I needed, which included a one-month stay in a state hospital. Were it not for forced intervention and forced-treatment by my probation officer, I have no doubt that I would be dead or in prison today. This issue is much more complicated than just “forced-treatment is an impediment to civil liberties.” Forced treatment is sometimes necessary. Many people would be lost without it, myself included.
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Well said, John, and I am glad you are alive to tell your story. May you live and thrive! The world needs the talents and gifts of each individual, including those suffering from brain diseases. Once the brain’s chemistry is balanced, you are liberated to offer the world everything you have and, Lord knows, we need everyone on board these days. Thank you for sharing your experience.
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MBC, haven’t you heard? The ‘chemical imbalance’ theory has been debunked so ‘brain diseases’ are figments of your ill-informed imagination.
And if you refute that, tell us all names of the lab tests that identify such ‘diseases’.
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John,
I recently helped a loved one heal from a bad heart drug cocktail being abruptly – but appropriately – withdrawn, albeit without an appropriate alternative heart med being introduced, plus also likely “alcohol encephalitis.”
My loved one was stabilized, and has been doing fairly well, since last fall, by being given a low dose of lithium, and largely … but not completely … getting off the alcohol. He’s now off the lithium, albeit I don’t know for certain if we’re out of the weeds yet.
I know, from my beloved grandmother’s and my personal experience, that my family does not react well to the anticholinergic drugs, which seem to be the “gold standard treatment” for all “psychotic” people, in the ER’s.
But if a low dose of lithium can be used to stabilize the most “psychotic” person I’ve personally ever seen, and I think the ambulance driver had ever seen (albeit, my loved one wasn’t violent).
Maybe the psych “professionals,” and ER doctors, should start to calm down the non-“dangerous” “psychotic” people, with something milder and more natural than the antipsychotics and other anticholinergic drugs? Since the anticholinergic drugs (which includes the antidepressants and antipsychotics) are known to actually create “hallucinations” and “psychosis,” via anticholinergic toxidrome?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxidrome
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Putting someone in a safe place like a soteria house for example would be great to protect them. Loren mosher head of the NIMH did it and it showed better results than the psych ward alternative. For your information, in soteria houses people choose freely whether not they take the drugs. Peter breggin has won court trials proving that the drug caused murders or suicides… I would make sure I know what patients advocates fight for first and take seriously what they say and their knowledge before pushing for protogenocidal measures. Psychiatrists fired Mosher after he returned from vacation in spite of his superior results. Maybe you can now more easily detect who the enemy is here?
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I would only caution you about the impact of what you wish for. Psychiatric drugs have many side effects, and your history of psychiatric incarceration can be used against you in many ways.
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John, I’m glad you are able to live a full life.
However, you note something very important in your comment that makes what you describe happened to you not fundamentally discriminatory in the way that “Assisted Outpatient Treatment” typically is. Specifically, you name that is that you were legally involved and ordered to get treatment by the courts. This is already something that can and does happen (ie., judges ordering treatment) with some regularity after someone has something that has criminal implications.
While I don’t endorse the actions of the courts in this regard as it is full of its own problems, that is a different conversation. The bottom line is that there is an enormous difference between the legal system ordering use of force and coercion for *all* people who are legally involved versus the court *only* ordering the use of force and coercion for people with psychiatric diagnoses in spite of lack of legal involvement.
Involuntary Outpatient Commitment laws allow for highly discriminatory use of force and coercion based on extraordinarily subjective terms, commonly without any legal involvement at all. In order to earn an IOC order under the currently proposed IOC bill in Massachusetts one could do as little as having been hospitalized twice in the last three years, or having made a threat of suicide once in the last three years. The bar is extraordinarily low and discriminatory.
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Well, “In order to earn an IOC order under the currently proposed IOC bill in Massachusetts one could do as little as having been hospitalized twice in the last three years.”
I was there, decades ago.
But given the fact that both the antidepressants and antipsychotics can create the positive symptoms of “schizophrenia,” via anticholinergic toxidrome poisoning. And the fact that the neuroleptics can also create the “negative symptoms of schizophrenia,” via neuroleptic induced deficit disorder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxidrome
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroleptic-induced_deficit_syndrome
Anyone who has ever dealt with incompetent doctors (I had a “bad fix” on a broken bone), is in danger.
Because I was considered a “dangerous” person by my former, easily recognized malpractice committing and covering up former PCP, and her husband, who was the “attending physician” at the “bad fix” on my broken bone.
Despite the fact I hadn’t even bothered to hire a lawyer to sue them, for their easily recognized malpractice, since I don’t think doctors are God, thus I don’t think doctors can fix all the problems in a person, nor most definitely within our society.
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You thought people weren’t real, but you understood to pull over your car for the police when you were driving under the influence? I’m not sure how much stock anyone can put in this one personal experience.
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All I had to do was look at TAC the “Treatment Advocacy Center” founders, and Behold The Great and Powerful E Torrey Fuller, behind the curtain operating the gears and spewing pharmaceutical propaganda (never meant a drug he would not give to someone else).
This should improve their profits and greatly increase the suffering of those already suffering..
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Again, you could not be more wrong. For your information, Dr. Fuller is a tireless, selfless advocate for those suffering from Chronic Serious Mental Illness, like his own beloved sister,
and the Treatment Advocacy Center is a nonprofit organization.
I am sorry for your personal experiences — it sounds hellish. However, you do not speak for everybody, and certainly not for the vast majority of the patients suffering from chronic, serious brain disease, such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and psychosis. These people, once they are compelled into consistent, monitored treatment, are immensely grateful that there were people and regulations in place to help them live and thrive. See John’s testimony in the above comments. Don’t deny treatment and appropriate community and medical support to others based on your sad history of being misdiagnosed and mismanaged. Certainly, your case and others like it deserve to be rectified and I am sorry for all the ways things went wrong for you, but not everyone falls into the same bucket. Apples and oranges.
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MBC,
Do you get money from the TAC? And “you do not speak for everybody” either. But I totally agree, “Certainly, your case and others like it deserve to be rectified.” Yet they haven’t been yet.
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And you speak for them? The whole thing about forced psychiatry is that psychiatry claims that their patients don’t know what is best for them. If you disagree with the psychiatrist, they say say you are suffering from the made up condition of anosgosia (sic).
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MBC,
The idea that “most” people put on IOC orders are “grateful” for it in the end is pure fantasy. It’s based on hugely flawed “research” of a tiny sample size from one state. I’ve been living this work for decades and its just wildly untrue.
-Sera
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John’s story is “testimony” but the millions who were harmed by psychiatry only have “sad” “personal experience”? The number of people harmed greatly outnumber the ones who were helped.
These are typical psychopharmaceutical linguistic gymnastics designed to make the atrocity of forced treatment lool like “the right thing to do”.
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This is really sharing to feel like a propaganda piece by mbc. Creepy vibes. I have been to a partial hospitalization program and a couple rehabs. Never helped anything. I’ve been told I’ll never have a “psychotic diagnosis” because of i were prone to psychosis i would have developed it by now. I have derealization/ depersonalization. Makes me feel like things aren’t real even though iknow they are. It’s a detachment and not a break. A dissociative disorder. Anyways, mbc and group, might we start with anyone offering up data on percentages of people who feel helped vs. Harmed by the psychiatric industrial complex? Perhaps that can guide us to a more immediate answer.
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I know all about the impropriety of giving “a drug to someone else!”
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….the “E” in E.Fuller Torrey stands for EVIL….
And in the “Time Magazine” obituary for Dr. Thomas Szasz,
the ONLY quote was from guess who?….Ironic, isn’t it?….
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This article grossly, irresponsibly and dangerously misrepresents AOT. Google: Treatment Advocacy Center for true, informed, explicit understanding of AOT. AOT provides evidence-based treatment services focused
on engagement and helping the participant maintain stability and safety in the community;
continually evaluates the appropriateness of the participant’s treatment plan throughout the AOT period, and makes adjustments as warranted.
Individuals with chronic Serious Mental Illness suffer from anosognosia, meaning the illness itself prevents them from knowing that they are ill, and they are notoriously non-compliant with the medication that is needed to keep them stable, functional and alive! AOT is by no means draconian. It has been hugely successful and the author should interview the innumerable clients and families whose lives have been saved because of AOT.
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So perhaps we should add a new disease in the DMS and call it “anosognosia”. If you don’t know you are crazy then for sure you are crazy…I love the implications..
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No, clearly that’s not what I said and that’s not what anosognosia is. It is a feature of a brain disorder, not a disease in and of itself. Please do not trivialize the hell and suffering of the 14 million adults in the United States with Chronic Serious Mental Illness and their millions of family members who are desperate to help them.
The brain is an organ, and like all other organs in the body, it is susceptible to disease, and such diseases manifest in wholly consistent ways and result in observable behavioral changes.
While the anguish and anger caused by misdiagnosis and inappropriate treatment of some people is justified, that is a separate issue that must be addressed, and in no way mitigates or invalidates the need for people with brain diseases to receive appropriate diagnoses and lifesaving treatment.
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The problem is, the assumption that all of these “disorders,” created by committees and literally voted on, are “brain disorders.” There is not one of these “disorders” which is proven to be caused entirely or primarily by biological causes, let alone a single cause for a single “disorder.” The most optimistic data suggests a 10% biological contribution, while environmental causes account for 80% or more of “mental illness.” So be careful not to simply repeat beliefs you have heard. Read Robert Whitaker’s books and then take another look.
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A brain disease would be for neurology to solve, not chiropractors.
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MBC, your experience is not the norm. Forced treatment harms more people than it helps, which is why the WHO does not support it.
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Read Rob Wipond’s new book on forced psychiatry. I don’t know how familiar you are with this site, but it’s founder Robert Whitaker has researched the outcomes from the use of psychiatric and has show their long term outcomes to be worse for those taking them than for folks who don’t.
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“Individuals with chronic Serious Mental Illness suffer from anosognosia,”
Circles and circles and circles again
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“Continuously evaluates” – is a myth. The evaluators are people inside a system who have widely varying degrees of training and understanding, frequent staff changes so that nobody knows patients full context, goals, efforts towards changes and what kind, their lives, nor do they know the resources available for help and training near a person, but instead complete the same checklists of symptoms and come up with pronouncements respected by the society and system.
No one needs to know all these things, for the universal effect of drugs to change whatever was going on, eliminate the need for details. The fact is, society itself has been going through rapid changes that impact the ability of outliers to keep up, catch up, even communicate with those already educated.
There are needs for actual limits, and soteria houses present an alternative, places for stressed people to take a break and rest and regroup. In addition, behavior evaluations around self care could mandate training in that respect as well. Those efforts could be mandatory – not mandatory to turning people over to a system that controls by mind and body changing pharmaceuticals.
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You have a grave misunderstanding of AOT. AOT is not institutionalization. AOT is outpatient, with wrap-around services to support the patient, who continues to openly and freely live in society. It is as much about holding the support agencies and personnel accountable as it is about helping the patient to hold themselves accountable. The entire team — patient, caseworker, housing assistance, job assistance, medical personnel, as well as parole officer and lawyer — if the patient has involvement with law enforcement — voluntarily reports to a judge in informal hearings at regular intervals to ensure that all members of the team are working together towards the same goal of the health and safety and productive future of the patient. Adherence to medication is the patient’s responsibility, and it is one of a myriad of factors to keep the patient stable, prevent further encounters with the law, reduce future hospitalizations, and create opportunities for successful, independent living.
This is a far cry from institutionalization. AOT offers hope where other efforts previously failed.
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Being forced-medicated is NOT “living openly and freely” in society, it violates a person’s right to bodily autonomy.
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Yes.
Fourth amendment! Your body belongs to you and only you.
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Ha.
…national grassroots network of family advocates…
Right. Grassroots. In the hearing in the 2023 legislative session, if you check out the testimony hearing video, and you will see a dozen folks in matching green scarves, most of them clearly homeless or vulnerable inner city Baltimore residents. Did they each of them go out and buy a green scarf? No. E Fuller Torrey got money from one or two large donors, Ted and Vada Stanley, angry parents of a so called schizophrenic son who would not take his meds. That money clearly bought green scarves for everyone who would testify positive, and I am guessing they also got some fun goodies like a free trip to Annapolis, free dinner, and god knows what else, which is kind of a huge deal for a homeless person in Baltimore. Grassroots, my ass.
On Our Own of MD and some other organizations, including MHAMD led by Dan Martin, opposed the AOT bill in 2023 because it was competing with their model, where they trained peers to pressure each other into taking meds as prescribed, so it was still a biomedical model where peers would apply various methods to pressure others into complying with the prescriptions, rather than a judge with their Black Robe effect. In one of the hearings, a state legislator asks outright, hey, are you guys just against AOT because it would take funding and power from your approach, the peer pressure teams? And you can see one of the OOOMD or MHAMD folks answering quite defensively, as she realizes she and her nonprofit have been called out on her motives for opposing AOT.
Ha, and as far as the statistical, science based approach that I see is so beloved by Whitaker and some other writers on Mad In America, you can once again check out the 2024 committee testimony videos from the Maryland General Assembly. Michelle Livshin explains how unpleasant it is to be restrained, tortured, and forced to take pills that already stand in your medical record as ones that cause severe allergic reactions. In response, state legislator Bhandari asks, well, where are the statistical evidence based studies that show torture leads to negative outcomes rather than positive outcomes? Michelle says, those statistics are already in the testimony which you never bothered to read, dear legislator Bhandari. Anyway, it is all pure theatrical farce, just a big old circus show.
And as far as the forced contraceptives, ha, it is just another step beyond psych drugs that already make patients infertile or destroy their sex drive, both for male and female patients. So, at least having the government policy of making mentally ill people not reproduce, whether through so called side effects of psych drugs or through actual forced birth control, out in the open as a stated goal…well…I find that level of honesty refreshing.
At a family gathering a few years ago, my partner’s sister, Rebecca Reznek, a high level social worker supervisor in Baltimore, serving mentally ill poor people, had some great news. Rebecca commented how she helpfully pointed out to one of her mentally ill clients how great an option it would be to have an abortion rather than keep the baby, given that parenting is something best left to mentally healthy women. Rebecca’s husband, Travis Windsor, was at that time employed as a prison social worker in Maryland, helping women who were about to be released plan what they would do as returning citizens. I am guessing he had some say in any parole or early release decisions. Rebecca and Travis also commented that once they got tired of international traveling and playing board games, they would adopt two kids from the pool of Baltimore kids available for adoption, a six year old and a seven year old, hopefully siblings, hahaha, like choosing from a supermarket. Sooo….you do the math. Rebecca and Travis obviously have a lot of power to advise vulnerable women to have abortions, to make other reproductive choices, to put kids into foster care and adoption…and then they seem to have their pick of the litter. Helping mentally ill women avoid the burden of parenting. Helping good deserving couples, including themselves, enjoy parenting without the gross process of pregnancy and childbirth, and perhaps even skip the years of diaper changing and toilet training. Ha.
In general, I am liking the right wingers more than the left wingers these days. The right wing politicians say straight out, hey, we are going to starve you to death or straight out have extrajudicial execution by cop. That, at least, is honest. The left wing politicians say, we are here to help you not suffer, so we will choose the right choices of lifestyle for you, including pharmaceutical choices, housing choices, and reproductive choices, all because we are here to help end your suffering. The result is the same, so at least I opt for the more honest folks, that straight out tell you in advance that they plan to kill you.
Sera, good luck out there. I suggest you find ways for people to flee to Connecticut rather than waste more of your precious time and energy on Massachusetts.
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Connecticut isn’t safe. I fled decades of psychiatric and medical abuse in CT during the height of Covid and came to Western Massachusetts. I thought it would be different here. It isn’t. But I did it with no help, despite that I was extremely ill and had just had surgery. My understanding after what I experienced is that there are no services that help people to flee psychiatric oppression or to get services in the place they flee to.
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“Life, liberty and the pursuit of freedom”
Every citizen whom you remove the right to liberty from – based on someone else’s opinion (not fact) – is angry. Under threat of medical violence (the gang of 8) – you will have your mind chemically altered – whether you consent to this, or not.
Every person who has experienced this unsolicited violence will tell you “how right those people who did violence to them, was” – it is in the survival instinct.
Neither the “opinion” of “anosognosia” or the victims declaration of how right the abusers are (in forcing them to cope with mind altering drugs) – sounds like the America I was raised to believe this country was. It sounds like the disposal of dissidents.
If it looks like a rat, and smells like a rat – perhaps it is one.
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Hidden
Nice, very nice.
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One common assumption is that if one person is not in control of himself/herself, no people are. All people are potential mental patients.
Anyone from the industry can own whomever is accused.
A mental health worker is superior to any accused person?
It is easy to be accused of mental illness. Your neighbor can do it.
“The help you need”? ???….
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My son who has paranoid schizophrenia had to decompensate to homicidal tendencies before a hospital in Maryland would treat him. He had taken himself off of his medications a year prior. At that time he had called mobil crisis and they asked him if he felt like he wanted to commit suicide or homicide, he said no, they said call your psychiatrist. He eventually built a bomb in my front yard and wrote notes about stabbing someone. He was in florid psychosis loosing grey matter in the brain on the daily. He didnt know what year it was, or who his family was when he we eventually petitioned the court for involuntary treatment. An attorney was provided to him to assure they he had every right to be as sick as he wanted to be but ZERO rights to be well. The judge would not allow the preponderance of evidence, put him in an uber and sent him to a homeless shelter in Baltimore city, a young man who grew up in Howard county. He diverted the uber back to Howard county where his Aunt lived, he went for her knives, she petitioned for an involuntary hold. A year later he is stabalized on medication, and a long acting injectable. I refused to make him homeless, or out him in jail, he was my son and I was fighting for him to be well, to be stable. AOT could have helped me get him to his appointments, for his health. AOT could have helped me navigate the broken Behavioral health system. Severe neurologic brain illnesses need support, they can prevent tragedies. My son has a caregiver that cares, many do not, and get lost in homelessness and jail. Your opposition to this is based only on your lived experience, and not considering those who cant write oppositional blogs, who cant stand up for themselves. I implore you to become more empathetic to those who suffer from the most serious brain illnesses.
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Many of us who were force treated — I was to the point of permanent disability after decades of psych drugs and ECT. I am now mostly bedridden and completely alone, spit out by an abusive and corrupt “system of care” (what a joke!)
You don’t know and you can’t know what experience. Any particular person who is opposed to forced Psychiatry has. I had many many people in my immediate family diagnosed as severely mentally ill and force treated. My brother is dead (He was force treated for what they called that paranoid schizophrenia for years. He died in his early ’50s of cancer and an infection. Maybe the Haldol and Thorazine shots destroyed his health. Two others immediate family members I am not sure as I have not had any contact with them. As I said I am bedridden for years now.
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I was a clinical case manager on an ACT team that serviced lots of patients on AOT. Sometimes, when I read articles like this, I have to wonder if the writer has ever met someone on AOT. These are people with multiple psychiatric hospitalizations within a year, who have suffered tremendously and in many instances fallen between the cracks of the system. Sadly, a lot of the time their psychosis is so severe that their judgment is severely impaired and they need wrap around services to help them get healthy again. It can really help tremendously. I did this work for years. And we’d have a client for years and they’d get on AOT and start to do well. Then the AOT order would end because they were doing better and eventually, over time, we’d help them become as independent as possible, they’d start to access treatment on their own. We’d eventually close their case and I can’t tell you how many times within 1-2 years they’d be right back, and they were just as sick as they used to be and we’d have to start all over, almost always because they stopped taking their meds and stopped accessing treatment. AOT can save lives and help people turn around their mental health for the better.
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Rene
Perhaps they should have been assisted in gradually tapering off the meds, then they would not come back worse then they began.
The meds are not “treatment”.
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Wonder no more…
Meet Eric. I interviewed him a few weeks ago. He was on an IOC (aka “AOT”) order for around four years. https://youtu.be/6czp_T1ss-E?si=1_JF9C4PaxvPyI2c
Or Elliot. I interviewed him a week or two before that. Also was on an IOC order. https://youtu.be/dXAYdINvVsU?si=DykmYhVqJia4bO7f
Also, ditto what James said.
The problem here is that often you’re comparing “AOT” vs. NOTHING. How about “AOT” versus actual quality support? Preferably before people are decimated by the “helping” systems?
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Btw, hospitalized multiple times in a single year? Not saying I agree with that, but please note that the proposed IOC legislation in MA proposes at least TWO hospitalizations over the course of THREE years. What low bar hell is that?
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“Wonder no more…”
I used to wonder about the descent into insanity of the National Socialists’ in Germany 1940s style. Reading this I realise that it was a creeping up on the public until the mugging could be done (with laws).
I find myself wondering if there is any ‘cross pollination’ with the people pushing for Euthanasia laws….. it would make sense. Aware of their genetic and intellectual superiority, and reading some of the supporters comments above, no wonder they can’t see the wood for the trees……anososgnosia? Head up their arse syndrome more like.
“What low bar hell is that?”
In Australia the bar is set at ZERO. A Community Nurse in order to get around the ‘legal protections’ simply calls Police and requests “assistance” with their “patient”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ9UQKBUrsg&t=38s
“concerning aspects” says the Minister? And then refers the matter to the ‘black hole’ of Police cover up (professional standards ….. think about that euphemism after looking at the video. Thugs don’t have standards), while the victim is placed in a chemically induced coma to ensure he doesn’t get to speak to a ‘legal representative’ until a ‘throw you under a bus practitioner’ can be appointed.
The request from the Community Nurse to Police is for an “acute stress reaction” because most sane people would refuse to speak to our corrupt public officers who have a reputation of fabricating evidence via the practice of “verballing” (putting words in your mouth should you open it). So a little persuasion may be necessary to get them the ‘help’ they need (or don’t need as can be the case on many occasions).
The staff at the hospital when the victim is delivered by Police then assume that the person the ‘Nurse’ has tortured and kidnapped was referred to him/her by police, and that the legal protections have been afforded the victims.
This means that no one is safe from psychiatric incarceration. Now I mention ‘legal protections’ as there is in our Criminal Code a crime which means the Community Nurse simply can not do what I am suggesting (Procuring the apprehension or detention of a person not suffering from a mental illness [ie they need a “referral source” before calling police)…… but, the person responsible for enforcing that ‘protection’ doesn’t know of the existence of the law.
Our own Chief Psychiatrist who provides “expert legal advice to the Minister” wouldn’t pass a first year law course (care to see the letter? It was forged by my very own ‘legal representative’ at the behest of the Minister in covering up their modus operadii to arbitrarily detain and torture. Some of them DO have the stomach for it) and so the idea of anyone ever being held to account for breaking the law is ……. well, police ‘refer’ anyone complaining about being arbitrarily detained and tortured using this unlawful method back to the criminals for ‘treatment’ …… and I hope you understand what I mean by ‘treatment’? We now HAVE Euthanasia laws, and with police assistance and the ability to “edit” legal narrative (and ‘legal representatives’ who are not ‘over zealous’ when it comes to human rights abuses), we now have a treatment for the ‘anosognosic’ who doesn’t know when to shut their mouth about the ‘treatment’ they are receiving, for an illness a nurse made up on the spot.
And keep in mind our Chief Psychiatrist has no problem with people being ‘medicated’ covertly (‘spiked’) with date rape drugs before they are even seen by a doctor or the police. The prescription of their ‘regular medications’ which they have never taken before can be completed post hoc. Combine the ‘spiking’ with the ‘acute stress reaction’ and most of them confess to whatever is being put to them as their new found ‘illness’…… complaint? You’ll be treated for it.
Good to see your still around Sera
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My heart goes out to people who have been diagnosed with mental illness and traumatized by Involuntary treatment and if they are angry should be because post hospitalization they needed to be therapeutic explanation of why this happened and how to prevent it and validate their suffering.
I am a parent and a Mental health Clinician.
I know what it is to take child to ER and walk the stairs to visit. Followed by medical complications my child had that made her medically hospitalized for 35 days. I am angry too and can tell you many stories how institutionalization has made people dependent and abused. So I am not advocating institutionalization. As a Psychiatric screener an Act worker and a tireless advocate for mentally ill in Mental Health Association and NAMI NJ. Please take stock of what de- institutionalization has done. What American civil liberties extreme position has done of advocating for mentally ill to be symptomatic and not take meds even if they eat out of garbage can, be homeless as their right to make a choice. It’s not a choice this is neglect by society. In this moral dilemma to lock people up(hospital or jail 25% jail population is of mentally ill) or let them live homeless and get victimized and suffer. Assisted out pt tx is a a happy medium. I know hundreds of mentally ill they are quite a range and spectrum there is Dr John Nash who won Nobel prize after being dx with schizophrenia vs people who commit crime or suicide or just live horrible poor quality of life. You can’t have 1 size fits all approach. Advocates need to seek better community based Progroms and housing and supports I agree and those who have proven hx of poor insight and Resistence to medications need extra push to comply for their own good. If my son or daughter refused meds and got hospitalized several times I would want them safe first then worry about their equal rights. The issue is nuanced and complex pls don’t simplify it and be superficial. Lives depend on Progroms like this the graveness needs to be comprehended.
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Just for the record, John Nash recovered without or despite his psychiatric “help,” and spent many years avoiding the psych system before his spontaneous recovery. The movie played it differently because they didn’t want to discourage current patients from using their “meds.” Nash complained about this to the producers but was not listened to.
https://www.mentalhealthforum.net/forum/threads/john-nash-healing-from-schizophrenia-the-real-story.34784/
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NAMI is an evil organization that treats the diagnosed mentally ill like human scum with no rights while taking all that sweet pharma money with both hands. They have blood all over their hands.
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Yes! It is alarming to see NAMI’s mission to infiltrate every institution in the west.
I witnessed it in an American church. The clergy actively acted in a NAMI skit on church property!
NAMI is quick to label any inconvenient family member as in need of their perpetual, harmful control. Family members who are at the bottom of family pecking order are at risk of losing their lives.
There are so many insightful responses on this thread, but please let me add this: some states have statutes that can protect the accused. Courts are ignoring those laws.
A US supreme court decision, that is at least 20 years old, establishes the right of the accused to remain at home if someone is willing to care for the accused in that setting. This seems to be an extension of “least restrictive care”.
Bottom line: law is customarily ignored.
Other bottom line” who benefits from this unjust activity?
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Hi BANANAS
you write;
“some states have statutes that can protect the accused. Courts are ignoring those laws.”
Is it the case that some of these matters are being presented to the Courts? Or is it like Australia where the Police are the gatekeepers and ensure that ‘organised criminals’ receive the protections being afforded the ‘medical fraternity’? (due to the need to maintain the trust of the public aka cover ups ……. and oh how they are failing miserably to maintain that trust. The need to ‘unintentionally negatively outcome’ whistleblowers a sign of how desperate they are becoming. The Emperor seems to still admire his new cloak)
I watched a tv series from Canada recently called Cardinal. Series 3 has reference to a psychiatrist who was pushing his ‘clients’ to suicide (literally. To protect his reputation which is more important than any human life …… I can relate to that. Though the modus operandii differs in the use of the E.D. to involuntarily euthanize the ‘problem’).
It was fascinating to see his arrogance when confronted by a police officer whose wife was one of his victims. Contact the College of Psychiatrists and they will deal with him he claims lol (raising the drawbridge they call this in business). Shame that this matter also never went to Court as the producers might have understood just how these things actually play out in reality.
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YOU SAY
Family members who are at the bottom of family pecking order are at risk of losing their lives.
I RESPOND
In that case, we can see that forced psychiatry is just a tool, similar to that of setting an unwanted daughter in law on fire, as is somewhat accepted in some parts of South Asia, or burying an unruly child alive, or slitting their throat, which sometimes happens in some Middle Eastern or Mediterranean places. In Western society, burning, stabbing, or choking someone to death carries some legal consequences for the perpetrators, so the powerful family members need a more legally acceptable tool. That is where forced psychiatry comes in handy, in its guise as actually helping and caring for the burdensome weaker family members. Anyway, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
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Hi Boans! It’s nice to see you again.
Involuntary commitment is done in a court in the USA. However, the proceedings too often are corrupted. The law is ignored. Yes, I should better explain what I meant.
I don’t live in Washington, but I am intimately familiar with a case there. It’s an example. It can’t be the only indecent because the machine was lying in wait so to speak.
I’ve posted this incident before.
A woman was in extreme benzo withdrawal because her doctor claimed to be an expert in the matter. He ordered 10.0 milligram reductions of Valium per month. The result was crisis. The doc became scared. He sent her for a ‘hold” claiming mental illness and inability to care for herself. This hid his incompetence.
Fast forward, this woman, unable to write in neurological hell signed many papers shoved onto her lap. This came with the warning. “it will go better for you if you sign” How do I know? Two people separately told me. She had signed away her right to be represented and mount a defense. Neither she not her husband knew that that hospital room was the venue of a mental health court. No one had a chance to defend her. No one knew that she was actually incarcerated. She was drugged. Her brain was damaged. She never recovered.
The law provides for an attorney to represent the interests of the accused. It calls for in court statements from one doc and one psychiatrist to establish an emergency. Neither showed up at court. A copied statement was substituted.
No one can be drugged without his/her permission. She was.
Now the big one: Neither she nor family was or were served. No one knew that she was to be tried without defense, and incarcerated at a state mental institution. Well, if the accused is not served with notice of trial, the sentence is invalid. So what? Her life is over.
I did meet a man whose aunt had the experience.
A US Federal Supreme Court decision verifies the right of the mentally-accused to be cared for at home if a friend or relative is willing to take on the care.
All of these protections were denied this woman. The process was so well oiled that I suspect the violations are standard.
I am unrelated to this victim. I was not acquainted with her then. I did later see the records, and I do see the before and six months after picture. She had been vivacious. Now she is silent and vacant.
Had the law been honored, I am sure that she would not have been convicted and forever brain-damaged. She would not have been denied the right to continue her benzo withdrawal course.
The law provides protection. In practice, it doesn’t.
It appears to be different in Australia. I am grateful for your input. I was unaware of the practice in Australia.
Legal action requires representation. Representation will take cases that require little work and large monetary award. The abuse and loss of life continue unaddressed.
I believe that an unlawful system continues without public condemnation because the public are actively made fearful of anyone suggested to be “mentally ill”. Bluntly, no one cares.
Everyone and anyone is a risk of false accusation. It is not just “the crazies” as one attorney put it to me.
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Being homeless is not a mental illness. Eating from a garbage can, when there is no other food, obviously is not a mental illness.
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This is an except from the Guardian, on line news. I would trust you heart not your local experts, many who are profiting from this massive deceit. Some perhaps commenting on this article.
Tens of thousands of bogus research papers are being published in journals in an international scandal that is worsening every year, scientists have warned. Medical research is being compromised, drug development hindered and promising academic research jeopardised thanks to a global wave of sham science that is sweeping laboratories and universities.
Last year the annual number of papers retracted by research journals topped 10,000 for the first time. Most analysts believe the figure is only the tip of an iceberg of scientific fraud.
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Being hospitalized, picked up by the police, had my blood tested for drugs…not the ones they prescribe..then taken to the hospital then stripped and strapped down, five points… hands, feet, and head.. very dignified process,,,Just what I needed to get my agency back…and a little stigmatism to boot…
All this was very helpful.
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“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” (Anatole France)
The homeless are among the most vulnerable populations subject to state power, where the rule of law covers for mob hatred, from raiding Hoovervilles to instituting camping bans (a Grants Pass, Oregon case now before the Supreme Court could establish an even more draconian natiowide reign of terror).
It’s the poor and powerless who pay most of all, with life lost, for progress of the class rule of capital, from poor houses for the ‘vagrants’ dispossessed of land and livelihood by private property monopolization, to psychiatric wards and warehouses for the ‘mentally ill’ victims of an abusive social system of exploitation and alienation, altogether a carceral network for managing and eliminating inefficiencies in the machinery of production like so many ‘useless eaters’.
As “the welfare of people has always been the alibi of tyrants” (Camus), all the many projects and programs by which ‘the homeless problem’ has been ‘taken care of’ are promoted as humanitarian causes in order to sell the public and normalize practices of population control, like torturing these criminals of poverty for experimental purposes, turning them into lab rats for the latest Frankenscience to be tested for rollout to the general population.
In 2019, for example, homeless people in Austin, Texas were rounded up and cattle tagged with microchips in one of the pilot programs for ID2020, itself one of the many initiatives of capitalist colonization of people as livestock long planned and now underway by the biodigital security state launched with the convid plandemic.
Particularly since the end of WW2, corporate state fascism has been creeping along to construct a police state indistinguishable from martial law to replace the semblance of representative government; SWAT, for instance, conducts over 80,000 interventions a year, often for minor matters like traffic violations, but the law of the land up to the Supreme Court has upheld its lawless counterinsurgency methods of warfare, including no-knock house raids and killings, even of people at the wrong address.
A techno-totalitarian dystopia, where precrime death squads enforce the law with equal contempt for all but a predator class living off organized crime against humanity, is coming into place as the new (ab)normal. If we don’t, as it were, realize how our fate is bound up with others, not least of all the most vulnerable who routinely serve as canaries in the coal mine, we the people will soon enough end up as outpatients of medical tyranny.
“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.” (Aldous Huxley)
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Niko, you are extremely articulate. I would like to quote your post at my newer website, including author and source and date published. The issue, at hand, probably has two aspects, the biological and the legal. Please share more of your writing.
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“The battle is not over land or resources but over the essence of what makes us human: our ability to think, feel and act freely.The elite’s goal is disturbingly straightforward: to hollow out the individual, leaving and empty shell while stripping away the soul.”
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“Psychiatric Slavery: When Confinement and Coercion Masquerade as Cure.”
Szasz, Thomas. (1997).
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Hi again Bananas,
I’m posting a new thread because the other is getting a little on the thin side.
I find it disgraceful that such things you describe can happen without any oversight or someone noticing. Maybe, as was the case with me, they are simply afraid of being targeted by the State should they dare speak up? That is certainly a consequence of people becoming aware that the State is killing anyone who dares question ‘their’ authority (my “we’ll fuking destroy you” conversation with the Operations Manager).
I appreciate your confirmation of facts etc via the two witnesses etc. This is vital with these people, as they rely on ‘disappearing’ the evidence and witnesses via threats and intimidation. I will reread your comment again later.
I understand why people might like to disbelieve me and not examine the documented facts because well….. it would mean following the trail all the way to the E.D. And importantly, back from the arbitrary detention and torture.
Someone (a professor no less) picked up the ball when the fire was raging and there were concerns about the police doing their duty. So the plan to have me ‘silenced’ in the E.D. was interrupted, and the documents retrieved (or so they thought.
This is where the modus operandii of the State is important. Aware that someone was up to a bit of nasty and using the ‘mental health system’ to bring those outcomes about, they have given fair warning about ‘outcoming’ people in the E.D. without the authority to do so (though knowing full well that the State could not have such ‘outcomes’ known about by the public. ie they would cover it up if detected).
But what about me running around with my complaint and seeking the assistance of legal representation (who had a lawful right to examine the unredacted documents which clearly showed the crimes AND the motive for trying to snuff me in the E.D. Yeah, the critics will no doubt say “they wouldn’t do that” and that’s how they are getting away with it)
So what transpired was that I was ‘put on ice’ so to speak by my legal representatives (and the State assuming they had retrieved the proof via threats to my wife) for a period of about two years.
I then returned to the legal representatives and asked what had transpired regarding the draft complaint they had made to the Chief Psychiatrist (our ‘saviour’ when it comes to wrongdoing in the mental health arena). The legal representatives then reactivated my draft complaint and finally lodged it based on the “edited” documents they had received. This included a complaint about the “editing” of the documents, which should have been provided under an Operational Directive from the Chief Psychiatrist which is designed to meet the requirements of the Convention against the use of Torture. ie someone meeting the confidentiality agreement gets to see the whole legal narrative. The problem being that the hospital would have had to provide the documented evidence of the crimes and human rights abuses, and then, in writing, ask the lawyers to conspire to pervert the course of justice. Bit of a problem.
So, the legal representatives then submitted the complaint to the Chief Psychiatrist (or so they told me. They didn’t), and they then forged a response to that complaint which makes the C.P. look like a drunk level 5 clerk. Handing the letter to me with a letter saying they hadn’t the time to read it, and they could provide no further assistance.
The Chief Psychiatrist rewrites the law to remove the protections he is responsible for by Law, claims that because the doctors don’t work there anymore that he can’t do anything (wrong on two counts, they did still work there, and he has powers beyond employment status), says he had no idea why his directive protecting the community from arbitrary detentions and torture wasn’t met and so what if it wasn’t. It is a letter designed to gaslight someone who has already been subjected to the worst of abuses imaginable.
And looking back I wonder about the conscience of the people who did this (the Law Centre ‘lawyers’ and the Minister [or her Parliamentary Sec.]), sending their minions to do their dirty work lest they have to humanise the people they deliberately push to suicide. Or is the ‘treatment’ they receive as a result of such gaslighting considered ‘humane’? I’d like the opportunity to vomit on these people in a Court someday.
It becomes obvious to others when they read the letter that this is a cover up of human rights abuses……. and should they have any power, they will quickly realise if they take the matter further their families will become targets ….. of people already murdering people to conceal their offending. I mean, I truly understand why they have the need to murder rather than have the public aware of how it works……. see the case of David McBride who got 5 years for exposing war crimes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GPplTKCYpQ&t=80s
So whilst your case suggests a behind the scenes concealment of human rights abuses, in Australia, the people boasting of being ‘human rights defenders’ are actively and materially involved in the abuses. People knowing they can” trust these ‘legal representatives’ means the State can not exploit the relationship.
Imagine the problems when the Police realised I still had the documents showing the crimes AND that the letter from the Chief Psychiatrist had been forged? They broke into my ‘home’ to steal my laptop and find out “who else has seen the documents”, threatened others I had shared these documents with (social worker, psychologist, psychiatrist etc) and …. well, it was like watching vampires have Holy Water thrown on them every time I went to a Police Station. They needed time to get their heads together with the criminals as to how to pervert the course of justice…… not easy in this instance because they weren’t sure who was watching.
I guess if we compare it to National Socialist Germany, they’re telling Jews wishing to escape that they will help them, and get to keep the gold teeth when they hand them over to the Gestapo. But then I think about what might happen to them should they not ‘assist’ the powers that be in their concealment of these crimes. They got to watch while they arranged to have me snuffed, and they’re going to speak up?
So the Mental Health system in Australia is a one way track like Auschwitz. Nobody ever comes back. Their insurance is stripped, their dignity and position in the community is “fuking destroyed”, if their family tries to speak up they too will be targeted. And the ‘defenders’ of human rights are nothing more than backstabbing hypocrites taking advantage of the situation.
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that this is the situation in other countries. Mainly because the people who have infiltrated our public service seem to have links to the ‘old country’ in common. They’re just setting up the corrupt systems they were thrown out of there for, here. Which makes me long to return ‘home’ because they’re obviously dealing with corruption there, as the corrupt are ending up here.
One further problem, the fact that I am a ‘foreign National’ (not that my Embassy/Consulate was of any assistance that I could see. That was left to another Nation to deal with. Seems the corrupt can rely on their ‘partners’ when it comes to the murder of teach others citizens.
I will reread your comment in detail to be sure I’m up to speed with how they’re getting away with these disgusting crimes in other places. Because I’m sure there are those on the lookout for the latest in ‘scam technology’.
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You know Bananas, just thinking about it I wonder if what you describe isn’t the result of pretty much everyone knowing that the State is providing carte blanche to anyone who claims to be a ‘medical person’, and the only people not aware of this are their victims?
I was considering the thief who starts out being really careful, and then after a while he/she no longer bothers with the pretense? Why would they bother with policies and procedures when the outcome is already known? Some sort of theatre for the unaware? Why bother when they are having police snatch people from their bed and can literally murder them and it looks like medicine? Well, it looks like medicine after the documents have been “edited” and the appropriate people threatened.
No need for witnesses to be called, or evidence, or even a ‘Court’ as you describe above. This is the ‘advanced’ stage of mental health. The National Socialists went through this too…they truly believed that what they were doing was for the benefit of their society….. until it looked like someone else might take a closer look, then they started burning the documents. Which is pretty much what they did in my instance….. all with the assistance of the State Police.
I wonder what you think about this? Are these people who truly believe that what they are doing is for the benefit of our communities? And they have gone insane and we didn’t actually notice….. mainly because, like the NSDP they have ‘closed the loop’ on the system? Even laid open for all to see they still deny reality, and are prepared to conceal to maintain their power to exploit the vulnerable community.
No true legal representation, then lawyers will stop turning up right? Might serve to train a few of the more ignorant and useless trainees in how the system actually works. Beat the idealism out of them. “we don’t torture waaaahahahahaha, we call it ‘medicine’ and it avoids all the problems with ‘lawful sanction'” Jokes on you counselor. And once they are ready, they too can be throwing victims under the bus for the State.
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Pills that notify the police or authorities when they have or have not been taken is the next step. Link here: https://www.pfizer.com/news/articles/the_future_of_pharmacovigilance_monitoring_medicine_and_vaccine_safety_using_ai_and_other_tech
closely followed by the Neuralink chip which Musk assures us will after further testing, ( a week or so ) will be ready to “help” people with schizophrenia. Link here for that pearl. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=elon+musk+schizophrenia
In the mean time the defense department with their advanced weapons department called DARPA is working on what they are calling Neurowarfare which would include implants, pills, what ever they can come up with. Link here: https://unlimitedhangout.com/2024/03/investigative-reports/weaponizing-reality-the-dawn-of-neurowarfare/
So all this maters, if we allow people to be picked up and drugged or tagged now in a few years we will all be cannon fodder.
Hold on to your freedom hold on to your loved ones.
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Well, you said it, Boans, all of it.
I still hope that when everyone knows that the law has no effect in this arena and that ANYONE can be targeted by anyone else. Something, one day, will call for law and order and honesty. Maybe that hope is a denial system.
In the meantime, I maintain copies of records in more than one place. I have an attorney. I am not a target, but I know that anyone can become one.
By “records” I include phone records or records of time and duration. My former provider would not allow me to have this information. I changed providers.
Another deterrent is to have friends. Be somewhat engaged in community. Do not appear to be a loner who can be taken and not missed.
Nurturing a full life may be difficult. Not nurturing it can destroy us…I think.
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If you can imagine the ‘panic’ when I walked into the Police Station with the documents they thought had been retrieved. I was ‘flagged’ on the system which became obvious by their response (ie trying to have me referred for producing the documents demonstrating the crimes, threatening to arrest me for having my medical records).
As a result of me turning up with the proof, the people (psychiatrist, psychologist couple) who had tried to arrange for me to be euthanised fled the State literally overnight.
I think what is happening is that the State is ensuring that these people can flee the State and they then ensure that they close down any investigations into their criminal conduct, which after all was to be of benefit to the powers that be. Not the State I note, but the people in power. Because surely it can’t be of benefit to the State to be murdering it’s own citizens?
So the murders they had already completed go unpunished (Targeted Review of Emergency Dept Admissions), and they get to set up shop in another State. The ‘network’ which they were a part of simply continues uninterrupted, though legal changes required to ensure a lack of accountability (ie cut the ties of “joint enterprise”).
And there not a thing the Feds can do about it. I imagine it was similar in NSDP Germany (interfering in State politics a no no), though I can’t think of a good example for the moment.
I know when I found out about the couple fleeing as a result of me still having the documents. The Minister being sacked (dereliction of duty. Fail to report suspected corruption), and the Law Centre being closed down and another organisation receiving the funding I thought maybe the Federal Police had picked the matter up but ……. and I guess the local police are busy sending children who steal packets of colouring pencils from Walmart to prison (mandatory sentencing) to be bothered with such matters.
Though I do note there are mandatory sentences for attempting to pervert the course of justice. But the police aren’t sure of how those laws work apparently. It really doesn’t look good that such organised criminals are receiving support from such high places….. which explains the reasons for shutting it all down.
You write: “I have an attorney.” This is something which I am being denied. The person who stepped up turns out to be ensuring the interests of others who found themselves inadvertently involved, and not interested in the victims. Good career moves don’t necessarily involve actually helping anyone who don’t have the dollars to reward such inside information.
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