Don't Listen To Him, He's Crazy
Fritz Flohr 2006 fritzflohr@gmail.com
A few years ago, I attended the True Spirit Conference-a fun, social, cruisy event held troublingly at a big fancy hotel (though not without scholarships)-for folks on the female-to-male transgender spectrum. Many of the young transmen and genderqueers at the conference identified as radical, quite a few as punks, and a number of them worked in the field of social services. Quite a few, I could also mention, were really really hot. I allowed myself to be distracted from the vital task of sex and socializing, and participated in a workshop by Dylan Scholinski, author of The Last Time I Wore A Dress.
After talking to us about his traumatic experiences as a young person forcibly institutionalized in an attempt to cure him of his "Gender Identity Disorder," Dylan was criticized by several audience members for his unfavorable depiction of the psychiatric industry. One self-identified psychiatrist hijacked the question-and-answer period to loudly and authoritatively affirm the acceptable assimilationist philosophy for dealing with this sticky issue:
"Well yes, yes, it was bad for you to have been put in that mental institution, you did not belong in there, because you are not really mentally ill, you are just transgender, but mental institutions are good and necessary because 99 percent of the people in there are actually mentally ill, and that is where they belong."
The psychiatrist was reaffirming his right to abuse those he did not consider capable of passing as normal, winning support from the trannies by simultaneously releasing them from this category. I was the only person who expressed the opinion that no one, no matter how crazy in appearance or actions, belongs in a mental institution. People insisted that I simply didn't understand how sick and dangerous and helpless these "mental patients" really were.
I responded, "How could I possibly understand, when I used to be one?" Here I was, yet another trans person who had been institutionalized and abused as a child, but unlike Dylan, the abuse inflicted upon me had not occurred specifically because I was trans. I had been labeled with what the people in this workshop considered to be "legitimate mental illnesses." Did this mean that what was done to me as a child was okay? Did it mean that these people, several of whom identified as radical, thought it was okay to institutionalize trans children, as long as they were also labeled as something "genuinely" crazy in addition?
I choose to out myself about everything if it affords me an opportunity to educate, but it makes sense to me why so many other psychiatric abuse survivors remain closeted about their experiences. Our society does its best to maintain the status quo, often attempting to silence abuse survivors both by questioning the veracity of our stories and by hinting at our supposed culpability in the violence that has been inflicted against us.
The same logic that claims, "You got raped because you were a slut," tells us, "You got drugged because you were crazy." The strategy is the same whether we are talking about psychiatric abuse, sexual abuse, or the ever-popular combination of the two. It is stressful and triggering to talk about this stuff when you know that you are liable to be attacked. I couldn't do it for years without freaking out, and only recently have I been able to write about it. Countless people have been similarly victimized, and many have suffered such severe brain damage as a result of the "treatments" that were inflicted against them that their ability to speak out has been permanently compromised.
Unfortunately, this leaves us with a situation where the story of the psychiatric experience is told solely by compliant model patients, handpicked as representatives for faithfully taking their pills and parroting back psychiatric industry propaganda. Once inside the psychiatric system, few manage to fully escape. Many see their lives destroyed. It is up to those of us who have managed to get out relatively intact to speak out.
The psychiatrist at the workshop tried to shut me up by telling me that I didn't seem "that bad," effectively letting me know that I could pass for sane; as a counterpoint he gave the example of a female patient "so disturbed" that she had bitten his hand.
The truth of the matter is that if he had encountered me a few years earlier, when I was drugged and disempowered, he would have easily bestowed the same diagnosis on me. Anyone subjected to such dehumanizing conditions will become dehumanized. The hand-biter could just as well have been me, or the psychiatrist, or anyone else at the workshop.
I believe that we all have a right to express strong emotions without the fear of losing our liberty. Isn't this obvious? Perhaps it is not fair to expect all queers and trannies and punks to be radical or anti-authoritarian, but for those folks who do identify as radical, shouldn't the authoritarian practices of the psychiatric industry be condemned?
A little over a year ago, a friend of mine attended a so-called "open discussion" on mental health at an anarchist community center presented by a group called The Icarus Project. What she found was a pro-drug, pro-psychiatry propaganda session. When she tentatively voiced her difference of opinion, they tried to silence her by announcing that she was "in need of drugs." As she recounted this experience to me, I was aghast. She told me that she had left the anarchist space that day feeling deeply shaken and confused. Now aware of the need to openly express a dissenting opinion, I began work on a zine called Against Psychiatry!
Although I had originally intended my zine to address the anarchist/activist punk scene, I have distributed far more copies to queer/trans homeless youth, a huge percentage of whom are fellow survivors of sexual and psychiatric abuse. This population is often unwillingly caught up in the psychiatric system through reliance on social programs for survival at a time when urban gentrification has decimated historically underground economies (such as street level sex work) and placed basic needs (such as housing) out of the reach of all but a privileged few.
As a privileged kid running from psychiatric abuse, I have passed through many different worlds. Initially drawn to participate in communities with a stated anti-authoritarian political analysis, I desired an opportunity to unite with other creative folks affected by what are commonly labeled "mental health" issues to discuss the problems we experienced and work together toward mutual aid and collective solutions. When I first heard of The Icarus Project, I thought it might be something like what I was looking for. Unfortunately, however, despite doubtlessly good intentions, what the Icarus Project presents is something quite different.
The Icarus Project travels around the country distributing propaganda and holding workshops, often at anarchist or other radical spaces, which ignore the social/political causes of emotional problems such as abuse, oppression, drug toxicity, poverty and malnutrition and side with the psychiatric industry on the claim that "mental illness" is a biological disease caused by a "chemical imbalance in the brain," and "treatable" with drugs. In this way, The Icarus Project turns its back on the anti-authoritarian harm reduction based philosophy of tolerance and instead invokes the authoritarian clout of the psychiatric industry. Instead of recognizing drugs of all sorts as a coping strategy, and realistically acknowledging potential harms, The Icarus Project promotes the idea of psychiatric drugs as a "treatment", replicating the propaganda of the psychiatric industry while issuing contradictory and ambiguous statements simultaneously opposing and advocating forced drugs and institutionalization.
The Icarus Project, in a classic example of psychiatric doublespeak, claims to support a message of "freedom of choice" to take psychiatric drugs, but in my experience, once inside the psychiatric system, consent becomes meaningless. As the government increasingly promotes psychiatric drugging in rich communities and enforces it in poor ones, you might hope that radicals would see the need for an alternative.
I read the Icarus Project book, Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness, a blueprint for how to supposedly support "mentally ill" community members.1 To make psychiatric industry propaganda acceptable to the target audience (anti-authoritarians), the Icarus Project claims throughout to support a diversity of viewpoints, but in actuality they have a very specific message to get across. The social construct of "mental illness" as a biological defect is affirmed rather than challenged and thus some sort of medical "treatment" is supposed to be in order.
The text is sprinkled with feel-good claims about how "special" and "gifted" we "bipolar folks" are, while sections devoted to "alternative" (non pharmaceutical) treatments are presented in a watery and haphazard context. Alongside all the fluffy talk about the "magical" nature of "mental illness", rambling letters about the struggle "to rely on natural healing herbs" create an appearance of multiple perspectives, but seem to have been merely selected for easy dismissal so that drugs can again be embraced as an inevitability (with standard regrets). Drugs are frequently praised as "lifesaving", but the fact that many popular psychiatric drugs, such as SSRIs2, have been implicated as a cause of suicide is never even addressed.
It is clear rather quickly that The Icarus Project is strongly pro-drug. "Stopping medications" is described as a "severe warning sign", and it is stated that "bipolar people" are in danger the longer they go "unmedicated." But I was still shocked to discover an article with a glowing introduction by a self-identified "Anarchist Mom" who calls the police on her 16-year-old son when he skips a psychiatrist appointment and tries to run away from her, and has him forcibly institutionalized and drugged. This is promoted as a necessary compromise to support a person in crisis.3
By advocating forced "treatment" in the guise of support, The Icarus Project tells us it's possible to deny individual consent while still identifying as an anarchist. The Icarus Project promotes itself as a radical, alternative voice on mental health, but what does it take to pass as "radical" or "alternative"? Is this a style of clothes or music? Does it mean stencils on patches and cut-and-paste zine-style presentation? Or does it have some sort of political connotation? Doesn't radical mean challenging the established authority?
I think that alternative can mean more than an "alternative" aesthetic. It can mean alternative networks of support that exist independently of the psychiatric industry. It can mean mutual aid, support through times of crisis, shared meals, art groups and gardens, and sanctuary on land away from the cities, but all this is meaningless if the dynamics of abuse are perpetuated. Support can mean many things, but one thing it certainly does not mean is calling the cops. Where can an emotional person striving to live drug-free find safety and not have to fear forced institutionalization at the hands of their supposed comrades? Apparently no longer in the larger anarchist/activist scene.
One particularly troubling social phenomenon enabled both by the psychiatric industry takeover of social services, and by the increasing acceptance of the psychiatric industry by folks who identify and pass as radical, is the sight of these radicals, many of whom are queer and trans punks, taking an active role in psychiatric abuse of people who they may not view as community members. At drop-ins centers, clinics, shelters, and even inside the locked gates of psychiatric institutions, radical-identified folks are actively dispensing toxic drugs to marginalized populations, promoting the eugenics-based philosophy that claims emotional pain and social deviance are caused by biological defects.
How can I take an "anti-authoritarian feminist activist" seriously when hir job involves telling teenage sexual abuse survivors at a homeless shelter that their pain is "the result of a genetically inherited chemical imbalance in the brain" and then forcing them to take drugs in exchange for housing? How can I sit around a table and plan a political action with a "radical queer" whose night job includes preventing people like me from escaping the psychiatric facility where they are being held against their will? Services such as showers, needle exchange and medical care are vital resources, and I don't mean to suggest that radical folks are mistaken in their effort to help provide them, but they need to be aware when the social service agencies they work for are promoting psychiatric abuse as a tool for gentrification.
"Homelessness" and "Mental Illness" are increasingly used as synonyms. In the public consciousness poverty is yet again being redefined as something genetic and biologically based. As urban centers which once possessed ample affordable housing and vibrant underground economies gentrify, marginalized queers and artists who cannot or will not work full time are left with few options to afford inflated rents. No longer able to scrape together money for communal housing in cities like San Francisco and New York, many queers and creative folks are engaged in a desperate struggle to get off or stay off of the streets. Because other public assistance programs have been slashed, people who would normally avoid the psychiatric system are increasingly pressured into accepting psychiatric diagnosis in exchange for paltry Social Security checks. Though they often secretly refuse to take the drugs prescribed to them in private, the constant psychiatric surveillance SSI recipients are subjected to makes this survival option a dangerous one. SSI recipients, and in particular residents of public housing or subsidized SROs, are frequently forced to take drugs or else face the possibility of their benefits being cut, custody of their children denied, or of being institutionalized or kicked out onto the streets. Psychiatrists and social workers call the increasingly popular practice of forcing entry into a victim's home to drug them against their will "assisted outpatient treatment."4
Housing and other basic resources are the carrots that the government dangles in front of socially marginalized populations in order to entice them to accept psychiatric "treatment." If the poor refuse to "bite," then the ever-helpful social service agencies will return with force. In many locations, submitting to psychiatric drugging is already a prerequisite for homeless folks to receive basic services such as showers, meals, and shelter, but homeless folks who refuse shelter may be kidnapped off the street by vans that carry them away, against their will, for psychiatric "treatment."
Urban social service agencies often recruit homeless folks for experimental studies. I have witnessed this predation play out first-hand at drop-in centers where psychiatric drugs are pushed on exhausted people who are simply overwhelmed while trying to cope with the stress of survival on the streets and a lifetime of traumatic experiences (which often includes a history of psychiatric abuse). It is hard to understand how these drugs could be promoted as universal treatments to restore a person to "normality", when the brain damaging "side effects" of these drugs form the basis for so much of the stigma around what is commonly understood as "mental illness". The truth, according to several studies cited by Dr. Peter Breggin, in his classic text Toxic Psychiatry, is that more than 60 percent of people who have been drugged with neuroleptics (commonly referred to as anti-psychotics) will develop Tardive Dyskinesia, a permanent condition of often severe, painful, and disabling spasms and tics.5 The stereotypical twitchy behavior of a seemingly "crazy" person, often older and homeless, is in fact not a symptom of a psychiatric disorder, but evidence of the harm inflicted by psychiatrists. Meanwhile, tests are being conducted at the University of Pennsylvania with a brain control implant. Once placed under the skin, it cannot be removed, and delivers high doses of neuroleptics continuously for up to a year6.
While sharing experiences with other abuse survivors, a common thread is seen to emerge. Children and adults who survive rape or other abuse are frequently labeled as "Mentally Ill", particularly if they attempt to report the abuse, flee their abusers, or otherwise bring attention to the abuse through emotional reaction to the experiences they have survived. For bringing attention to the abuse, survivors may be drugged, institutionalized, or even subjected to electroshock. Time and time again I have heard of how psychiatrists and other mental health professionals have sided with abusive families (or the notoriously abusive foster care system) to silence the victims and allow the abuse to continue. Abusive families and the inherently abusive psychiatric industry form a powerful alliance that is hard for a frightened survivor to escape. As many as 80% of women inpatients in psychiatric facilities report serious physical and/or sexual abuse as children,7 but "There is still considerable confusion and resistance within psychiatry about the relevance and meaning of abuse for understanding and treating psychiatric disorders."8 Even in those situations where abuse has been acknowledged by authorities, accompanying psychiatrists will still drug and blame the brain of a survivor if ze does so much as complain.
Based on my personal experience, and the experiences of many of my friends, sexual abuse within the psychiatric system is epidemic. Official publications from within the psychiatric system that acknowledge this abuse are sparse, compared to the unofficial and undocumented testimonies of socially marginalized survivors. In addition to protecting social norms by silencing abuse survivors, the reluctance on the part of the psychiatric system to honestly address issues of sexual abuse makes much more sense once you know that "women with disabilities who live in institutions are twice as likely to be victimized as women who live in the community"9 and that, although psychiatrists only comprise 6% of physicians in the country, a 1998 review of U.S. medical board actions taken for sex-related offenses revealed that psychiatrists were responsible for a whopping 28% of these sex-related offenses.10 The connections between sexual abuse and the psychiatric industry were illustrated for me quite graphically when I was 14 years old, incarcerated in a mental institution, forcibly drugged, and sexually assaulted repeatedly by my psychiatrist.
The government promotes drugs because addicted people-no matter what they are addicted to-are easier to control. Society prefers for its addicts to be strung out on pharmaceuticals because they are easier to regulate that way. As an added bonus, the money goes to the U.S. pharmaceutical industry (top government donors). People who seek help to get clean off of illegal drugs will usually be prescribed psychiatric drugs. These supposed "detox" programs simply shift addicts from one substance to another, convincing them that their brains are actually defective and that they require the new drugs in order to function.
Clinics and shelters for homeless folks are vital resources. I relied on drop-in centers for basic needs, such as showers, condoms, and medical care, for much of my time on the streets. I am not suggesting that all the radical-identified folks who work at these places should give up on their effort to help provide these resources; on the contrary, more resources are desperately needed. People have a right to housing. People have a right to be assisted in detoxing from meth or heroin without being simultaneously hooked on some new pharmaceutical. People have a right to get care for physical injuries and diseases without being coerced into taking psychiatric drugs. Social service workers also have rights. They have the right to help people without being coerced into simultaneously abusing them.
As a queer trans person who ended up homeless after escaping psychiatric abuse as a teenager, there were no housing programs that would have respected my need to live free from psychiatric drugging and labeling. The past six years on the streets and on the road nearly killed me several times. Unlike many friends of mine, I was fortunate enough to possess racial and economic privilege, and to have a taste for adventure; but, perhaps more than anything else, it was my association with the anarchist punk scene that helped empower me to avoid getting strung-out and instead encouraged me to keep busy traveling and squatting and dumpster-diving and stenciling and riding bikes and writing zines. For this constructive influence I am eternally grateful.
Although my associates in the anarchist scene were not particularly supportive of my struggle to withdraw from psychiatric drugs (a difficult process that took nearly two years), I felt safe around anarchists because I knew that no matter how annoying I might become, their desire to pass as anti-authoritarian made it unlikely that they would ever call the cops to have me institutionalized. Now this is changing, and coercion is being made to pass for support. My association with this community was extremely helpful as I struggled to get clean, but in the wake of increasing psychiatric influence on this subculture, I often wonder if a younger version of myself simply would be pressured back on drugs.