Another thing that really pisses me off is when 'friends' want to shut out any alternative explanation of certain human phenomena that doesn't seek to medicalize them.

I've actually had people blow up at me and walk away in a complete snit when I try to explain why I reject psychiatry's pejorative 'diagnoses' and the false science it uses to justify them.  They seem to view it as a failure of compassion on my part.

The Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs, published by The Icarus Project and Freedom Center, is now available in Greek - thanks to the dedicated volunteer translation work of Marianna Kefallinou and Katerina Tsantila and the design work of Vassilis Betsis. You can download the Greek version here.

Οδηγός Μείωσης της Βλάβης για τη Διακοπή των Ψυχιατρικών Φαρμάκων

I went crazy for nearly eight months. By crazy I mean I believed in something that wasn’t real. I fought though, fought to get paid work, fought for changes I believed had to happen. But instead of fighting for changes that were a reality, I fought for things that didn’t exist and when I applied for work I no longer filled in the application form in the normal manner. What I believed was happening to me took precedence. That’s when you know you’ve been crazy. You know all you were fighting for wasn’t worth the effort. The effort of fighting for what isn’t a reality is merely a destructive action. I wrote things on footpaths and I put stickers on posts around the place, saying things against pirating of DNA and use of human body information in microchips. Now I know experiments exist in the world that do use DNA and microchips and if you ask me whether I still disapprove of it, I’d have to say not to the extent I did. For I created a world of dangerous nanotechnology where my DNA was being used illegally in microchips. There were other people who were also being used and the threat to them was as much as it was to me. The difference between me and most people is that I’d had an operation while going for surgery to have my wisdom teeth removed and during that operation samples of my body energy were taken in the form of frequencies. Those brainwave frequencies that recognised say a needle going into my skin were then overlapped with instructions of various kinds. It was an experiment gone wrong, because it meant I was made aware of what was going on in the field of DNA and microchipping before I looked it up on the net. If I’d been sane at the time I would’ve thought the idea to be fodda for a science-fiction novel or two, but alas I went into the idea like it was non-fiction, in other words I went crazy. I suppose there are people who go on alcoholic benders for eight months. I haven’t ever done that. Closest I got to going on a bender was when I smoked marijuana at age twenty-four and imagined I was having a great time when things were actually quite rotten. Subsequently after that bender I started hearing voices and having tactile hallucinations. So I don’t think marijuana is a harmless drug, particularly if you get addicted and smoke it nearly every day. My days of experimenting with mind altering drugs are over. I’ve had enough mind altering experiences for a life-time and while a few of them have been fun, they’ve been a disaster for my career. People just can’t trust a person that goes crazy. Well, it’s not easy to trust them. Or they can be periodically trusted. Which is a terrible thing for me to admit because it means that my skills are untrustworthy. There are people who believe in things that aren’t real that aren’t exactly crazy, because that’s perception then. For instance people can be duped by a confidence trickster, they can be duped by a cult or religion as much as they can be duped into studying something because they believe there is a career in it and that falsely inflates whatever is being studied into becoming important. There are ways like that people can be lead astray. But at least they are duped alongside other people, at least what they’ve imagined to be true was a shared experience and therefore not quite as crazy as making up a whole belief system yourself then getting lost in it so far that reality isn’t where the sense is anymore. I’ve had several episodes where the craziness has lasted months. I think there was a period where it lasted years even, but when I’m sane and sensible again I look back and just wonder what the hell my mind was thinking. Perhaps that’s why it’s called losing your mind. The part of the brain that minds what you think loses the plot of reality and becomes focused on what should only be experienced as a reality while fast asleep. I hope I never go crazy again, or if I do, I hope it is for such a short time that I don’t do anything like apply for a job during that time. Jobs for people who believe in crazy things are not readily available.

"He isn't sophisticated enough to defend himself against the ideologies and weapons of those who incarcerate and indoctrinate him. And if we act quickly, we can ensure that his nascent rebellion will never find a consciously coherent expression-now or in later life."

New Paradigms for Extreme States

UPDATE: The National Empowerment Center has reversed its controversial decision amid public outcry, including the emails and calls of many Icaristas, and the workshop will be restored. Read about the reversal here: http://www.madnessradio.net/update-coming-off-medication-workshop-restored 

Tragedy struck yet again in Toronto on the afternoon of August 29th when 25-year old Pickering, Ontario resident Reyal Jensen Jardine-Douglas was gunned down by Toronto Police as he attempted to flee from a TTC bus.