My replies are what I want people to know.

A talk


We were talking about human rights. Me and my doctor.

He says "Human Rights? You bring the patients to your house and you take care of them. You have your human rights but you step on other people's rights".

And I discussed about him.
So I talked to                        her.

She commented that that didn't make sense at all. She was puzzled how I was stepping on other people's human rights, and wondered if the hospital was his metaphorical house.

[Talking about me being drugged for two years]

[Talking about Steve Morgan's article]

[My thoughts on Emily Sheera's testimony to the UN Special Rapporteur.]


We talked about wanting to die, how not all suicide attempts are due to mental illness. Moreover, many people who are diagnosed with mental illnesses do not necessarily have an illness, but are experiencing the aftereffects of trauma. The problem is that psychiatric diagnoses are currently made based on symptoms rather than cause.

She is of the view that even if people do have a mental illness, people become suicidal not necessarily because of the mental illness itself but because of societal messaging about who is valued in society. For instance, we are constantly told that we need to be economically productive in order to be good citizens, or that we need to recover so as not to be burdens on others.

[Me talking about being suicidal because I do not want to be tortured in IMH]

She agreed that psychiatric wards and hospitals can make people feel suicidal, and that she too had felt like killing herself as a result of her stay in a psychiatric ward, even though she was not thinking of death when she went in.

[People may attempt suicide in an attempt to escape abuse, e.g. the boy who jumped to his death recently. Also because of financial difficulties.]

[I saying that even though I am diagnosed with bipolar disorder, this does not make me mentally ill]

Agreed that it does not mean you have a mental illness, might be effects of trauma, which you had in spades due to the abuse you endured in the psychiatric hospital. The UN calls it torture. It's ironic that in the end, you are deemed to be the one with the problem.

[I talking about medication making you feel suicidal]

She had been given antipsychotics as a first-line treatment for anxiety. It was her first session with him, and the doctor did not even tell her that he was prescribing her an antipsychotic, just said it was something to correct her irrational thoughts. When she asked him why he had prescribed her an antipsychotic the following session, he got defensive and said that medications only enhance, not adversely affect someone. Moreover, he said, antipsychotics are not addictive.

In fact, atypical antipsychotics are very powerful drugs with serious adverse effects. They increase the risk of getting diabetes and heart problems. They should only be used when necessary. Prescribing antipyschotics for anxiety involves off-label prescription, and should not as a first-line treatment before psychotherapy, SSRIs or anti-anxiety medications are tried. She took the drugs for a year, until she finally decided that she could no longer trust her doctor and took herself off it. She later found out that her psychiatrist was very fond of prescribing antipsychotics to patients, and was made aware that some doctors like to do so because of the profits it brings them.

[Me talking how people are forced to have ECT]

... metaphorical house.

Commented that in other countries, there are peer respites that people can go to as an alternative to coercive psychiatry and involuntary hospitalisation.

And that many people find involuntary hospitalisation traumatic rather than helpful.
Also, the trauma caused by involuntary hospitalisation and forced treatment can be worse than the problem they went in for, and that they subsequently may have to take months, even a year or more, to recover from.