Michael

And a great deal of the rights violations persist to this day, regardless of some of the treatments being viable presently to stabilize individuals.

Lifelong prescriptions are misappropriated and are too common (see Soteria Houses - they use psychiatric drugs in first-episode psychosis/schizophrenia with consent for stabilization and only for a few months to achieve remission in some individuals), people are kidnapped (sometimes in the middle of the night) and taken without due process by individuals who aren’t able to assess mental illness, medicalized rape or forced psychiatry is rampant (patient choice is disregarded), there is essentially zero outside oversight, court access is wholly insufficient, you generally can’t get second opinions, forced treatment orders still exist (so even when you’re released you have to get court-ordered intramuscular shots), and so forth.

Some medications like neuroleptics carry a pretty big risk (20%~) of causing a condition known as Tardive Dyskinesia, which can be permanent and extremely debilitating. Polypharmacy is rampant and unregulated (some people can be on a pretty extreme cocktail of drugs).

There’s still atrocities and those who fall through the cracks in the system, but there are success stories presently, which is contrasted by the horrors even in the 80’s (which was fairly tame compared to psychiatry in the decades that came before it).

Psychiatry is in need of reform, and it doesn’t seem like psychiatrists or the for-profit hospitals behind them are interested in enacting that serious reform.

What if locking people up indefinitely (as many were in institutions decades ago) and diagnosing them with subjective criteria isn’t ideal? I’m not dismissing anybody’s diagnosis or hand-waving real symptoms or illness - I’m merely suggesting that an authoritarian system where human rights are stripped with minimal outside observation (with sometimes flimsy criteria and fallible actors) is potentially damaging to mental health and is probably not conducive to healing. It can be a very imbalanced power dynamic, especially as it was in the institutions of the past as you pointed out.

We need an answer to retain the rights of those involuntarily held as best as possible. I think it’s important to make courts more accessible to patients (and their loved ones), providing those held involuntarily with access to second opinions or different facilities (in some cases), and having established (and independently enforced) criteria for release - with appeals available for patients to argue their case for release with legal representation and other expert witnesses (e.g. other psychiatrists, qualified individuals directly involved in their care past or present) and perhaps even family members and other people who were involved with the patient.

Involuntary commitment (for any extended period) should be reserved for the severely mentally ill, who are determined by independent review to be in need of treatment to stabilize - and only those who are a danger to themselves or others, those who committed crimes, and those who are actively violent should be held in higher-security (locked) facilities.

I feel the rest would benefit greatly from conditions akin to a Soteria House (without locked doors, forced medication, or coercion) - the Soteria House model could be expanded, adapted, or modified. Treatment could be loosely mandated by courts, with reviews conducted and alternative treatment plans established if the patient wishes to modify or discontinue treatment before they are thought to be stabilized by their psychiatrist(s) and care team. I feel that maintaining consent, valuing patient input in forming treatment plans, and avoiding coercion is key to address certain states of trauma - otherwise patients are potentially faced with more trauma.

For those who are not thought to be severely ill, but who are thought to be in temporary crisis (and who are not thought to be violent or a threat to themselves or others), stabilization could be attempted in a temporary hold to assess their state, and continued onward with care akin to Soteria Houses or intensive outpatient care and other forms of observation and forms of support (e.g. with their environment and other distressing situations they are facing).

And to respond directly to you, I definitely feel like society was incapable or very underequipped to fix the institutions back then. Society is still largely unable to address distress and its very real manifestations or consequences - such as homelessness and the prevention of individuals from becoming homeless against their will.

Chaos, artificial scarcity, and violence feeds the system and justifies its existence.

Otherwise, why would we still have a mass incarceration system? Why is it still punitive in nature with terrible and inhumane conditions normalized?

A cycle is created that makes people unemployable and industries and those in power reap the benefits at every stage of these people’s lives - any police contact is effectively a scarlet letter. Specifically, many corporations benefit from the slave labor sourced from prisons and the private prison industry is its own can of worms.

With AI tooling screening job applicants with proprietary criteria, public data brokers, mass surveillance disguised as “adtech”, people search websites, social media (where people have a tendency to overshare personal details), systematic reporting of arrest records/etc. in newspapers (generally with no updates to reflect the person’s current situation); you can literally be unemployable in the US with no conviction or crimes that have been expunged or sealed.

If you have a felony or misdemeanor on your record - good fucking luck getting a job in today’s market - background checks are normalized and are extremely accessible to employers. It’s no wonder why people turn to crime to exist, discrimination is effectively legalized - there is insufficient regulation and protections for job applicants.

The only way to prevent crime is to rehabilitate those who commit crime and to provide services to enrich people’s lives before they would otherwise commit crime. We also need to respect people’s privacy upon rehabilitation - we shouldn’t be permanently labeling (or dehumanizing) those deemed to be fit to return to society (e.g. people that aren’t violent or who aren’t a threat). We have to give them a path to participate in society.

It definitely seems to be the case for me. VPNs and other privacy settings can trigger the aggressive captchas as well.

And then failing that one too because you take literally any measure to protect your privacy. And then the next one.

If these countries were given the ingredients to be able to develop and there was no outside demand for mined materials, these children wouldn’t be in the mines.

Big if, but less of an “if” if more people are made aware. It’s absolutely sickening how much we rely on lithium considering how it is sourced.

We are collectively enabling modern slavery and child slavery. These corporations prefer to act innocent because they aren’t sending the children themselves into the mines, but they buy the materials they mine regardless (and there’s no way that they don’t know the reality). Many corporations profit off the back of these people and children and they should be required to pay significant reparations.

What is in our power to stop this? We can spread the awareness of our exploitation of third-world countries - including their children, we can develop technologies that don’t rely on rare materials or difficult to mine materials, we can employ automation to mine what we do need in first-world countries, and we can hold the corporations that profit from these supply chains accountable.

There are battery technologies (e.g. sodium-ion) that we could grasp and avoid mining altogether for energy storage. China is proving that sodium-ion batteries are a very promising technology, even in cars, and the sodium can be sourced from seawater or from the byproducts of desalination (the latter which likely needs to be very quickly scaled considering the fresh water crisis).

When you put it that way, I guess we better hand over thousands every year to Apple for the new iPhone. Wouldn’t want a child slave to be unemployed.

Buy 10,000 disposable vapes every year while you’re at it (if you really care). Maybe a couple cents will trickle down to the children you claim to care about.

If you’re worried about these children losing their wonderful life in the mines, feel free to support them through other means.

Make it your life’s work to spread awareness, bring aid to the affected countries, and support their development - you only enslave yourself by learning to do absolutely nothing against what you see as oppressive.

And getting companies that profit off of these children to support them would likely be fair. Apple, Google, and many others can handle the hit.

Your trolling aside, we all share a personal responsibility to not buy from companies that e.g. utilize cobalt/lithium in their products - slavery/child labor is rampant in those supply chains and Apple et. al are responsible for supporting it.

If there was no demand, these children wouldn’t be forced to work in mines - it’s that simple.

You enslave others by consuming most common products on the shelves. Modern slavery (and child slavery) is more expansive than most know and third-world exploitation is rampant - western supply chains are not immune.

While you support the enslavement of others with your consumption, corporations continue to become more and more powerful.

Our produce and ingredients suck here in the US. It’s all devoid of nutrition and usually gamed to look better than it actually is. Lots of things taste funny to me, and if it’s not flavorless, it tastes like chemicals or metal. There’s simply no regulation or oversight.

When I have food that is grown or produced locally (and ethically) or food that is imported from Europe or even Canada, the difference is stark — I feel like I can actually digest and the flavor is night and day.

If I was there, if I was involved in law enforcement, if I had access to the crime scene and raw footage and evidence, I might be able to speculate. Armchair speculation is insufficient for me.

There are plenty of events that raise legitimate questions and concerns - like suspicious, high profile deaths that are immediately ruled as suicide. Everybody is free to hold their own positions and perspectives as far as I am concerned. Question on, sate your concern and curiosity, you’ll get no arguments against that from me.

Of course, a true conspiracy unfolds because the masses are unaware. The masses are gaslit if they start catching on.

But in the absence of compelling evidence, it’s pointless to wildly speculate about from my perspective.

I believe action can come in a lot of different forms. I very often give advice online, barring my ability to do anything in the real world - due to my body not cooperating. There’s a lot on my list for myself, the people I love, and the community around me.

Advice still isn’t the same thing as direct support and intervention, despite giving helpful tips and (hopefully) life-changing advice to probably hundreds of people by now.

If I was pretending, I would’ve already deleted my account. I don’t choose to lie. I recently moved to a new area and I have checked out my opportunities for volunteering, but unless I travel to a major city (which I am unable to currently do), my impact will be minimal unless I spearhead an organization or group myself. I live in a very rural area with relatively few homeless or overtly disadvantaged people.

But, of course, it’s okay to disagree. And, it isn’t a big deal at all. I chimed in to not virtue signal, but to be the person that I am, and to show that the world may not be as cold as your (valid) perspective sheds light to.

I believe your experience is what you make it. I could easily fall into doom and gloom and let that be my reality, or I can open myself up to the idea that people who care are limited by their reality, but given the time, opportunity, and means would help others out.

A vulnerable person could read your perspective and hurt themselves or worse. That was my specific reasoning for response. Hope that makes sense.

Thanks for the response, I enjoyed reading it and our sentiment largely aligns.

Hope probably requires action too, otherwise nothing backs it up and grounds it into reality.

Thanks for chatting, sorry it wasn’t worthwhile for you - it was worth it for me.

I’ll keep working on myself, and when I am the shining beacon that even you could stand beside, maybe we could have another chat about caring and action.

You’re saying you don’t do anything to help them but you want to seem like you do.

I am not doing well. It’s not an excuse and it doesn’t make me lesser. I am working to be healthy. You are free to perceive reality however you wish, I choose to believe the world is a friendly place. If I was healthy, I would be able to do more for myself as well as others.

I have experienced some pretty terrible things. I know very well that life can be unkind, but I still persevere and I’m working towards healing. Thanks for your feedback, not everybody is the saint you expect them to be, but it doesn’t make them lesser or bad.

Considering that I have volunteered my time to help and feed the homeless when I was healthy, and have volunteered a significant amount of time in my life, I’d be willing to if I had an organization alongside me.

Why do you feel the need to purity test me?

Well considering that a lot of people suffering are experiencing economic problems in my country or problems with their environment; like not being able to receive health care and suffering from treatable physical illness, not being able to get out of sticky situations with abusive people or dynamics, having employment issues, or being homeless/in debt and so forth - I can’t exactly give them a place to live or give them money because I really have none to give.

In those cases, what can I personally do for them? Of course I can listen, I can give solicited advice, and I can point them to the resources they have access to.

I advocate for those resources to be more accessible for all. Health-allowing, I want to volunteer my time and become more politically active.

For me, I have a stigma to medication because the side effects are terrifying. I almost died from SSRIs, I got very ill and also suicidal. On benzos, I got paradoxically anxious and angry after cessation/when I wasn’t taking them (I am not an angry person). I took them as prescribed - always.

I only got more and more unstable after taking various psychiatric drugs, and everyone in my family who has taken psychiatric drugs was not better off for it. Seems like suicidal ideation is a common reaction for those in my family. Perhaps there is a genetic cause for it, like how we metabolize drugs.

I don’t know a single person in my life who has had a good experience, but if you or someone you know has had a good experience, I’m happy for you. It’s just unfair to say it’s magical thinking when there are real life reasons why people are hesitant.