Growing Concerns

By Patricia Lefave, Labeled, D.D.(P)

Our current Prime Minister is a “˜law and order” kind of guy I think. He also belongs to a section of the political right here which has stated, at least twice, to my personal knowledge, that if they (the Conservatives) get into a position of power, they intend to repeal the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, so that individuals cannot base court challenges upon it.Canada is also currently moving towards the legal creation of a separate court for people who are labeled “mentally ill,” just as I was.

This often sounds like a good idea to those who have not (yet) been labeled in such a way. (This label I myself was given is something which still exists by the way, in the government records)The latest from our current Prime Minister is the suggestion of an idea to change the laws pertaining to people defined as “dangerous offenders” by placing the onus of “proof” of status on the offender. That means that prosecutors would not have to prove the offender should be classified, or continue to be classified, as “dangerous” but rather the offender would be required to “prove” to the court he is not or , no longer is, a danger.The alarm bells are ringing for me here more and more often lately. I am of course feeling the effects of my own experience of the system. For rather than requiring psychiatry to prove that what we say is not reality and that we are delusional if we think so, we are first assumed to be delusional, then labeled as such, and then we are required to “prove” to the “experts” that we are NOT delusional, and that what they claim to be true is NOT the case. We are also expected to do this while being invalidated every time we try it. We who are declared to be “delusional” for telling some expert something they decide in ten minutes they simply do not believe, often compare this to the legal system which is currently used in the opposite way. There, the onus is on the system to prove guilt, not on the accused to prove innocence. It is the essence of our justice system, and that of other nations, which call themselves democracies, that a person is considered to be innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. The premise is designed to at least ATTEMPT to avoid conviction of the innocent, even though many mistakes are made even now.

The last thing Canada needs is a legal system which gets redefined as an abstraction in the same way the mental illness system has done it. That is what reverse onus means to me. Oh. It may sound good, especially when the public fears are being soothed by the sound of it, but it is not about evidence or changes that define crime and improve sentencing for violent crime. It is about a kind of political power that can’t quite be qualified or quantified and that is what makes it so dangerous in itself and something of which we need to be fully aware and not kid ourselves about the possible implications of going through with this. I find this parallel to the mental illness system very disturbing.

Let me spell that out as I see through a murky glass. The individual is presumed to be guilty/crazy first and has the label applied. Those who have total control over the prisoner/subject then tell her it is her job now to talk her way out of the situation by convincing her controllers with all the power, as an abstraction without concrete evidence, that she is not guilty/crazy/dangerous, knowing that they don’t believe a word she says anyway. Also, she must not be angry/fearful/resentful because if she is, that will be seen as a ‘sign’ that she is still guilty/dangerous/crazy. So neither the mental illness system not the legal system will be required to prove their case first; is that HOW it is going to go now?

You know what that reminds me of; reverse marketing. We once had an interesting little attempt here to supply everyone with cable T.V. The idea was similar. The company would send you more channels you did not want and did not request and then it was the customer’s job to get it cancelled or they would be obliged to pay for it. The ploy did not succeed. I hope this same ploy will not succeed regarding the legal system either. If it does, I am going to be even more worried about what is going on in my country.

This ‘reverse onus’ bit is not an appeal to rational minds but to our fearfulness. It works by creating and reinforcing a ‘them’ and ‘us’ mentalityWe who are labeled have often stated the desire to have at least the SAME rights under our Constitutions, or Charters, as any criminal, convicted or otherwise. In the Brave New Canada which we seem to be headed towards, are we now going to treat criminals by trapping them in the same tautological psychology as that used on psychiatric patients.While I agree Canada needs to have much stiffer and clearly defined penalties with appropriate sentencing for legally convicted, violent offenders, I could not disagree more with indeterminate, open ended sentencing base on “metaphysical” sophistry. Doing so will only leave the identifying of “reality” open to the same kind of “interpretations” of meaning now used in the mental illness system.People who propose such vague and ambiguous nonsense are either incredibly naive or covertly cunning. The fact that either possibility exists I find to be deeply disturbing.If we want to keep truly dangerous offenders locked up for 25 years or for life then we need to do that in a direct, open and legitimate manner based on the crime committed, the concrete evidence of that crime, and the pre-determined sentencing criteria the law provides to deal with it.Justice cannot be a “debate” of abstract concepts, between opposing viewpoints, held by the powerless OR the powerful; not ever. That is not justice and to suggest that it is, causes me to seriously question the thought processes, and the agenda behind those thought processes, in those who suggest such “solutions.” Let’s hope this idea of a”solution” does not become the final one.

Understanding Things Like "Understanding"

One of the things that disturbs me in this doctor’s thinking and decision making is that he obviously believes that fact that he IS a doctor should be enough to convince people to accept his ‘interpretation’ of the whole experience. When he later describes being at the point where he could not make sense of it, nor decide whether the leader was a hero or a devil, that is the point of breakdown, or “tearing him down,” as was stated as part of the goal.

I reached very much the same point in my dealings with the ‘game boy’ and his supporters, while under enormous, sustained pressure, which had no parameters at all; such as being contained within a closed training room. That is what happens to people when one of these ‘trainees’ decides he is going to use his ‘experience’ by ‘re-creating it’, out her in the world of reality.

Nevertheless, when I perceived what was being done to me as a battle with the demon ‘Trickster”, a schizophrenic combination of good and evil, creator/destroyer, with evil dominating, MY experience was defined as ‘paranoid delusions and hallucinated conversations.”

The difference in ‘assessments’ of the same experience appears to me to have a lot more to do with WHO we are perceived to be by others, then WHAT we are perceiving .

I should also say that I am not as impressed by ‘doctors’ as many of them seem to be of themselves, so this particular ‘trainee’ being a doctor doesn’t convince me to accept his view of the reality of this, especially since he seems to miss an important point made in his own ‘training,
“Reality is that which you experience; it is NOT defined by either ‘authority’ (which he seems to be suggesting he is) or by ‘group consensus” which everyone in my case seems to think mine should be. Dr. Mengele was also a doctor, and we frequently hear how astounded everyone is that “bona fide psychiatrists” and others in Nazi Germany could have been fooled or manipulated into doing what they did. I sometimes think if I hear the words “bona fide doctors” again, I will scream. I question everything that doesn’t seem right to me, whether a doctor thinks all is just hunky dory or not. That of course, is why I am considered by some of them to be so ‘difficult’ and ‘non compliant.’

There is a point made here which is rarely seen and that is; we all have a tendency to look for reason in the “unreasonable” – even doctors. Some doctors are also pretty talented when it comes to looking for the unreasonable in the reasonable when they are habituated to doing so. That is why, especially for some, this ‘switch’ works so effectively. Just ask Dale T. the presumed ‘reasonable’ one. He can explain that as well as I can. It is just that he doesn’t want to since his power is based on keeping the concepts of his training a ‘secret.’ It is about a hidden agenda of domination. What is no longer ‘hidden’ is no longer powerful.

Do you get that? He is the “power’ side of the paradigm and I am the ‘enlightenment’ side. If you still can’t wrap your well educated heads around this, I will write out the same words from me to Dale which will become an accurate accusation when I use them and a revelation to those of you watching the action. He hears them as an instruction, I think and we could prove that if all of you would just stop pretending you didn’t do anything, and that you don’t know anything.

Hey Guelphites!

As most of you know, Homewood and CMHC have instructed me to restrain myself and not confront any of the poor darlings who have been persuaded to join Dale T. in the psychological assault on me. Since refusal to obey the Voodoo Priests of the psychiatric faith may possibly result in further incarceration, treatment and coercion, I must comply.

So, I will confront you here through the written word instead, which respects your personal boundaries while allowing me to express myself as the person I really am at the same time.
When I see you on the streets, buses, at the library, in grocery stores, etcetera, I will not confront any of you. I will not say a word about it, even to those of you I know personally, who continue to gossip with everyone else.
What I WILL do, is put a little smile on my face and, ever so briefly, raise my eyebrows at you.
That will mean, "Hello asshole. How's it going? Are you still deluding yourself that you are my superior and are therefore "hidden" from me, or, have you started to come out of your group delusion, gained some self awareness, and come to realize what, "That which you are observing is observing you" actually means in plain, direct language.

Of course, if you ask me if this is what my little smile/eyebrow move means, I will deny it. I will act mystified, wonder why you would think that, and perhaps suggest to you that you should consider the idea that you just may be reading too much into things. (There is treatment for that you know.)
In any case, whether you admit that you are "sick" or not, I will leave you wondering, whenever you see me smile and raise a brow, "Is THIS one of the times she is secretly calling me an asshole, or one of the times she is just smiling at me and making a facial expression intended to be nothing more that a greeting?"

You never know. As Dale T. could certainly tell you, "It's about communication."

Remember, until or unless, Homewood and the university gives us all permission to speak openly, we are all to pretend that we don't know a thing and that the Emperor is NOT parading around town in his underwear.
Stay compliant! Strive to belong! Lies are truth! Remember to Forget! And Speak up about the benefits of remaining silent!

And Speaking of Oxymorons

The second psychiatrist who decided I needed an assessment was told by me that I had been targeted for an attack by a psychiatric nurse playing a "secret" game with me. She responded to this revelation with, "Why, that would be like saying that mental health professionals were playing head games with someone."
She then offered me my very first ant-psychotic to make the truth she could not accept go away.