[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Cults Were any of you readers in the audience at the Resource Center of the Americas a few months ago when the speaker was Alexandra Stein, author of Inside Out. The book is her story of being caught up in a cult? This was not any particular kind of a cult, as I remembered it. It was set up merely to control people's lives and have them working at low wages -- some might say slave wages -- while telling them how to live, who to associate with, etc.
I want to tell you about another woman who was caught up in a cult and lived to tell about it. Well, she wanted to talk about the bad time she had in the cult, but instead she got caught up in the mental health system, which may be another cult, and is not allowed to talk about it. I'll give her the name of Mary. You all in the audience seemed pretty normal to me, as far as I could tell, as did the author, as does Mary. I want to tell you about Mary because of what happened to her. She was dumped by the cult when she was ready to blow the whistle on them. Later, she got sucked into the mental health system and I have known her for a few years. She asked me to attend a team meeting with her doctor and nurse this week because they wanted to increase her medications and she wanted them reduced. She had gained 100 pounds since I last saw her. She had been forced to take Zyprexa (Olanzapine) which is well-known to make people gain weight. Two weeks ago, I heard a doctor talking to a group at the National convention of National Alliance for Mentally Ill (NAMI) here at the Convention Center. He was saying, "We don't know how the drugs work, we don't know which ones work better than others or for which symptoms..some people balloon up 60 pounds.." That didn't seem to register with him that it indicated very poor health, a shorter life span and a miserable existence. Nor did he say anything about why they don't test the medications against natural products instead of against other medications of like kind. It's obvious that they have to experiment on someone to make multi-trillion dollars every year and no one of the people forcing the drugs on others are willing to try them themselves. There are natural remedies for the symptoms that do work and they restore health. Mary was short of breath after walking down the hall to the doctor's office. She sat in rhythmic movements leaning back and forth in her chair - back and forth. I told the doctor she could hardly pursue her highest potential with that handicap. This is called Tardive Dyskinesia (TD) and is the result of the drugs. The doctor had her stand up and her hands quivered at her sides. Her tongue trembled when she stuck it out as asked. The doctor did not see any signs of TD. Mary is forced to take an injection of Haldol because she can't tolerate the many pills in high doses that are otherwise forced on her. She can tolerate some of the medications in pills, if they were not forced in too high a dose and too many at a time. "The pills made me a door-stop," she said. It would be instructive for the reader to know that the Physician's Desk Reference (PDR) states that the medications should be given in the smallest dose for the shortest time, and that such poly-pharmacy is frowned on. Why did Mary resist the medications? She said that when she had been on a higher dose before, she became rigid, couldn't move her back, couldn't wipe herself. She had a Personal Care Attendant (PCA) 2 hours a day. It goes without saying that she also was miserable while her liver, pancreas, heart. lungs were being damaged and her life shortened. She told the doctor that she didn't want to live if she were forced to go back on that higher dose. I fear for her life. Now she is measuring her apartment in preparation for having a PCA 24 hours a day. She is a professional and has done that for her clients in the past. So what are Mary's symptoms that she must be forced to be so disabled? One reason, a usual one, is that a higher dose would "mask" the symptoms of TD and she wouldn't have to be embarrassed about them. However, the neurological damage goes on underneath. The reason the doctor gave for medicating her so much that she can't think is that she complains about her time in the cult. Nobody listens to her nor takes her seriously so she keeps on complaining, except for the times she is so gravely disabled that she needs a PCA . She expects to need one 24 hours a day if the doctor carries through. Other people have got into the system and are severely disabled by forced drugs for these reasons: three I know of because they read the Bible, three because they were raped, others because their landlords wanted them out, most get in the system because their parents want them sent away, and one spectacular case because an associate said he was angry. There are natural ways to recover from whatever symptoms. I promise you, if you are dragged into the commitment courts as a result of admitting you heard author Stein talk about cults, I will go and monitor the court for you. I can't promise any benefit of that because no one is allowed to speak in court for a person accused of being "mentally ill." The court-appointed attorneys do not provide an adequate defense even when the injustice is blatant. However, the court is getting to know me now. Several times recently when people asked me to go to sit in the courtroom, the court was postponed, dismissed, or otherwise disposed of when I was there outside the door. Louise Bouta Well Mind Association of Minnesota 4003 Pillsbury Avenue Minneapolis, MN 55409 612-823-8249 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.wellmindminnesota.org TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
