Mary had a bad reaction to nitreous oxide which was given to her during the birth of her daughter. This led to multiple drugs and a series of electroshock treatments. After many years Mary decided to come off all her drugs and was overjoyed with her ability to feel and to think clearly once again.
Thank you so much for this wonderful presentation. I was weeping while watching this, thinking of that my beloved boyfriend, Joe, must have felt something like the way Mary’s husband felt while I was going through a similar experience with shock and drugging. I am sad that he died a good decade before I finally walked away from the Mental Health System, and he’ll never see me now, free of their brainwashing, their merry-go-round of forced lockup disguised as “care,” and the endless obligatory appointments. Perhaps I’m sloppy. Perhaps rough around the edges. Definitely raw. Far more creative. I piss people off and I love doing so. But I’m me, the rebel I was born to be. Take care, wonderful people from the US, Julie Greene, writer and activist
Thanks so much Julie! It is great we are both free now and allowed to be the people we were born to BE! I am fortunate we stayed together as a family through the harm we all received from the ‘mental health’ system. I am sorry that Joe did not live to see you walk away from the ‘mental health’ system Julie. Lots of Love!
Mary, thanks for responding. I am happy for you that your family stayed together. My bio family was also torn apart, not because of “illness,” but because of the mental health system’s lies. But I have my little dog, Puzzle, and a few friends, far and near. I think it’s essential and life-saving to connect with others who have been through similar things. It’s been the only way I’ve been able to survive it all. Julie
Thank you for publishing this. I went through 12 shocks at the end of 4 consecutive hospitalizations that increased in extremity at the age 21. I’m still going through the process. Honestly, seeing your story being a some clarity to me. I haven’t felt my baseline in forever, and sometimes that’s all I have to hold on to, but it becomes conflicting because I know Ill never return to the place that preceded all the hospital stays. Now I’m just trying to get things normal around me and work and avoid the four walls again. Along the way find some meaning. But I won’t lie, I feel the struggle. Please keep encouraging others. It means the world. I would have never believed I’d be typing this under one of these videos in an entire lifetime. God bless everyone who’s withstood this treatment.
bravo, mary. I am very glad to have met you and I love you. I pray for you and other psych survivors I’ve met. I like the outdoor pic of your family. I recently went to a raw food academy and the biggest indoor farmer’s market in Atlanta.
it’s still chilly in north Carolina, but the azaleas are blooming.
bravo, mary. I am very glad to have met you and I love you. I pray for you and other psych survivors I’ve met. I like the outdoor pic of your family. I recently went to a raw food academy and the biggest indoor farmer’s market in Atlanta.
it’s still chilly in north Carolina, but the azaleas are blooming.
I did not duplicate all comments, if any.
You are a truly amazing lady, Mary. You have a gorgeous family and a shining spirit. It is amazing what you endured at the hands of an ignorant mental ” death” system. It is hard to believe the insanity of ECT continues today, supported by some high profile doctors of psychiatry. How can something scientifically proven to cause brain damage, a fact further supported by the anecdotal accounts of thousands of victims, still be administered as a “treatment”? Because it is a 5 billion dollar industry?
If peaceful protests and conferences are having no impact, what can be done? This has been going on for 80 years! It has its own public relations campaigns and the “poster patients” gushing it “saved their lives”!
Mary, I wrote my original comment in March 2014. In May of that same year, I left the USA in secret. I am happy today, free of forced psychiatry, and more importantly, free of the label “mentally ill” that had caused societal bigotry. I have started a brand new life in South America. I turned 57 yesterday. I look back on my days of shock “treatments” and realize that the “hospital” knew darned well that they’d screwed up, messing me up badly, making me terribly confused, then tried to cover up their mistake by giving me more phony diagnoses again and again. To this day, I still get bullying online comments from people who refuse to believe there’s nothing wrong with me and I’m doing perfectly fine without brainwashing and pills. But I am. They cannot believe they aren’t making money off of me anymore. I’m not on the Medicare rolls anymore, either. Julie
https://www.facebook.com/groups/mentalhealthdiscussionsedinburgh/
For more discussions of these issues see my Mental Health Discussions Edinburgh Facebook Page
See also my psychiatric home page http://www.thomashoskynsleonard.co,uk/psychiatric_home.htm
See also my submission to the Scottish Government
https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=mhb108
Todd M Antin, MD, DFAPA is the founder and CEO of PACT Atlanta, LLC. He is Board Certified in Psychiatry, Addiction, Forensics, and Geriatrics by the America Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and has been honored as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He has been named a Top Doctor in Atlanta Magazine every year since 1999.
Mary, while it is commendable that CEPUK had included your video on its site, is there any reason it has not stated its position on shock or had any of its experts comment on the fact ECT causes brain damage?
The focus on the dangers of psychiatric drugs is fine, but in my case, far more harm came from being shocked than being drugged.
Why is it that there are seemingly only two psychiatrists willing to condemn ECT loudly and often- Peter Breggin and Jock McLaren?
I got ect at age 18 knocked out all my memories before I was 18 went on to be hospitalised at 21,28, 34 and suicide attempt at age 54 years old I am on high dosage of antipressents during the day and loads of antiphisosis tabs and an injection once a month so i feel goodvat the moment and just thank god to wake up everyday and enjoy the day I always got jobs after each hospitalisation and now working 40 years didn’t let my illness ruin my likebtotslly
Hi Mary! Yours is a truly wonderful and remarkable story of survival against great odds. And you are an inspiration to many others. 7 years ago my husband passed away in a mental institution dying of lung cancer. Before because basically I realized all about the lies I had been told over the years and that my husband couldn’t deal with my condition physically because of the drugs and my sons overwhelming anxiety and then the impact of anti depressants and SSRIs on his life the marriage broke up. But I nursed him in the end. He was taken off all his medication abruptly and also the realization his was dying brought about hallucinations and delusions on him. He having manic depression for many years I now believe was caused by a traffic accident. My dilemma was he remained symptom free for 17 years until our break up. Whilst I did not and suffered physically.
For the past three years I have been consulting an existential psychotherapist and I have come leaps and bounds.He has been amazing and I have worked through all of my feelings of guilt, shame and anxiety. Which caused my ill health for many years.
For 7 years I have been attempting to come off the Haldol injections. First my doctor refused. Then a second doctor not educated in withdrawals advised I come off too quickly. So caused rebound withdrawals in me and then I experienced paranoia delusions etc and was hospitalized again several times. But now at my request and after having a female psychiatrist who is willing I am having my drug reduced by 1mg a month. I visited Dr. David Healy and consulted him because I was suffering from dystonia and he recommended Closaril and Tetrabenazine. I can’t understand the man or where he was coming from and why he recommended these drugs? Now the medication is lowered and after 12 months my dystonia has gone.
I have decided and found solicitors who are acting for me and will be attempting to sue for clinical negligence the doctor who was insisting I stay on medication and who didn’t know that after 35 years you don’t reduce someone’s medication from 60mg a week to 25mg a month. In a course of weeks. Please wish me luck! I hope to make a precedent by law somehow so others are protected.
Thank you so much for all you do. And I so admire you for it!.
Mary, you’re beautiful! Thank you so much for sharing a little bit of your life through this video, it is awesome.
For those of you who have suffered as a result of psychiatric intervention / behavioral management, I applaud you for having the courage to speak against such abuse. I am a survivor of over-drugging and 60 + ECT’s (documented) and I am moving toward being an over-comer; no longer affected by my misfortune/connection to a system that identifies with medicine but in all actuality has everything to do with behavior management and law.
Mary. Congratulations on video. The message was clear. Thank u for doing this. It will make people stop and think before they go to psychiatry. Great to hear Jim and your daughter talk. Thank u.
I am coming off meds and i too would advise people to try other methods besides psychiatry.
Life is for living not for being held in a chemical straight jacket. We need choices. Coping skills. Not mind altering drugs. Do not trust a psychiatry. They do not treat u with the truth. They give a diagnosis and medication. Human beings deserve better.