The Campaign to Free John

[spiritual_emergency]

John's friend and supporter Mary Maddock speaks:

Please add your name to the petition if you have not done so already. It is outrageous that Josh will be without his father again this Christmas. It is even more horrific that the only 'answer' the system has is to brain damage and incarcerate his father. This is a crime against humanity. You could give a Christmas present to John, Grainne, Hazel and Josh by signing the petition and passing it on to others.

The Link: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/free-john.html

Music of the Hour:

[shanrucas]

SE, I just got caught up on this topic of John. Personally, I appreciate you for bringing this to our attention. I am more than willing to be a part of helping this young man get the treatment he so deserves. I have no issues or problems in signing this petition.

[spiritual_emergency]

Thank you shanrucas. Admittedly, I am feeling very discouraged by John's situation. He is now approaching five years of forced hospitalization, forced medication, forced separation... and most people are perfectly fine with this because they are also fine with the idea that John is somehow less than human.

I am angry about John's situation. I'm angry about a system of care that seeks to dominate, punish, coerce, force. If we did this to rape victims, people would be appalled. But when we do it to "schizophrenics" people turn a blind eye. They don't care. They don't care. They don't care.

If you signed that petition shanrucas, you've done more than many others have. Some people consider doing such a thing to be too much fucking effort to make on behalf of another human being. John could rot in his cage for all they care.

[shanrucas]

SE, I did sign the petition, I was only 920th person to do so, I think this way to low of a number. John may not be a rape victim in the physical sense, but his mind is and his family is also suffering. I look at this way, we all are here to seek support while we try and manage our various mental disorders, how can we turn our backs on someone that can't share what we share in this community.

Shannon

[spiritual_emergency]

Thank you shanrucas. I do appreciate it. Meantime, I can't remember at the moment when I met Grainne. It was less than a year ago and it began when I read this piece she had written about her relationship with John. She has recently shared it as part of the ongoing campaign to try to get people to at least see John's humanity and thus, to comprehend the violation and betrayal that has occurred under the guise of "professional care".

A few months ago I wrote a piece to purge the pain and devastation I felt at the incarceration of John. I also wanted to re-visit our falling in love. In the visitors room one day he said "It was such an amazing experience 'being' Jesus" and I replied "If you think 'being' Jesus was amazing, you should try sleeping with him!!!" We had a much-needed laugh about that... hence the title, just to explain that;

Sleeping With Jesus.

I never did establish whether or not John heard voices. In any case, one day apparently God checked in with him and informed him that I was 'the one'. I was totally unprepared for the effect that John would have on me and the doors that he would open for me, as doors closed behind him. He reignited the fire in my jaded soul, he taught me to see with my heart, he infiltrated my dreams and he was not so much a navigator, more a dweller, of deep waters. That society and psychiatry would later refer to John as a 'paranoid schizophrenic' seemed nonsensical to me. To my mind he wasn't 'mentally ill', he was the most real, intense and passionate man I had ever had the fortune to meet.

Love came hard and fast like the madness love is. John was the first man I could look deeply into without turning away. In fact, I couldn't look away. It was like entering a love vortex. Was this what it felt like to meet a soulmate? To unavoidably merge with another? The unavoidable merging process. Perhaps this symbiotic union was a return to the Source, back to the familiar bliss of Mother Love and Father love? Perhaps a psychotherapist would clarify that it was indeed a common enough phenomenon; the symbiotic withdrawal. Whatever it was, to me it felt divine. That old adage that when you fall in love "time stands still" was ringing in my ears. I couldn't quite grasp or believe what was happening to me. I was being pulled in and under the current, it was a rip tide. A certain spaciousness of pure energy formed around us when our eyes locked. We had a special bond that unfolded with ease, an unspoken connection that was deeply known. We recognised each other immediately. He was so annoying that he was the last man on earth I would have rationally chosen, but as we all know, there is nothing rational about love.

John was the most remarkable man I had ever met; breaking down walls and barriers with such effortless ease and passion and intensity and urgency that I knew in my heart that I would never love like this again. He became my emotional midwife, he was a spiritual alchemist, a gifted young man. He had the mind of a poet, the body of a passionate boxer and the heart of a romantic idealist. We laughed and laughed, until we couldn't laugh anymore. He made me endless cups of tea, leaving behind a trail of sugar and soggy tea-bags all over my kitchen. Wherever John was, chaos and magic was not far behind. Trivialities like tidying up eluded him. He was, after all, in the throes of saving me. As my heart de-frosted there was a watershed and unleashing of emotions that he was not only unafraid of but that he actively encouraged. He demanded such authenticity from me that all I could do was cave in. He reached places in me that I had forgotten existed; old, old wounds that were frozen and dusty. John had the raw emotional depth of someone as old as the hills and the sea. He was only 23 at the time (whereas I was his age backwards). The inherent wisdom in his eyes seemed to calmly laugh and humour my inexperience, though I was 9 years older than him, had travelled extensively, completed my education, worked for years, had given birth, become a mother and had survived a massive nervous breakdown and a three-year long depression. John had a special kind of earthy spiritualness and sensitivity about him for one so young.

It turned out his was a story of rejection, violence, abuse and loss. He survived this endless hurt and confusion by creating alternative belief systems, alternative realities to live in and purged his anger with street fighting. He played chess and went skate-boarding. He was very, very bright but squandered his intelligence. When I met him, he was writing amateur poetry and selling it on the streets, along with a kind of flakey One Love philosophy. An off-beat, hobo-poet promoting christ-consciousness on the pavements of life. There was one other factor that was contributing to this boundless Love, John was entering into a pre-psychotic altered state and was becoming 'Jesus' Himself. He had even grown a big hairy beard for the experience. He looked just like the actor in 'The Passion of the Christ'. I later discovered that film had moved him and that he felt that Jesus was close to him, by him and with him. But first he had to become him. Due to my own experiences with 'altered states', my own weak boundaries and my wild creative imagination, it was not apparent to me that John was in fact by now in a fully-fledged psychosis, indeed a spiritual emergency. In any case, I was sleeping with Jesus and, boy, was he a good lover! I was too blinded by love to acknowledge a minor detail like psychosis.

John never slept at night. He was too busy preparing for 'The Final Battle', the battle between Good and Evil and Purgatory. He was going to save the planet from destruction by evil. There were seven other planets that he also controlled. He worried incessantly about the children in war-zones around the world and interspersed real world current events, like the war in Iraq, with his alternative reality. However as the sun came up, this imaginary battle ceased to hold such importance and loosened it's grip as he succumbed to sleep only to wake late into the afternoon, when the whole intense process started up again. I found John's imagination and compassion fascinating and encouraged him to write Fantasy. His endless passionate nocturnal descriptions of this 'battle' and his 'ascending' were beginning to take it's toll on me as I was getting by on very little sleep. Despite this reality I had become intrigued by his use of poetic and metaphorical language. Clearly this was a powerful renewal process, a deeply meaningful experience full of rich imagery and laden with symbolism. I knew this by gut instinct and a few years later I was introduced to John Weir Perry's 'Roots of Renewal in Myth and Madness' which confirmed this...

Cont'd in next post

[spiritual_emergency]

Continued...

John explained the 'Holy Trinity' to me. He said he was part Beast, part God, part bleeding Heart. I interpreted it as Body, Mind and Soul. He said he could understand both Good and Evil. He talked a lot about the 'Holy Spirit'. He talked a lot about 'Heart Consciousness'. His inner world was rich with creativity, vast inner landscapes clearly suggested to me that John was a writer by nature. I was astounded by the depth of his insights and his inability to be anyone other than himself. His confidence was intoxicating and liberating. However, I was starting to wish that he could explain his theories to me in the early evening rather waking me in the middle of the night with endless revelations and epiphanies. It was impossible to disagree with him, and he wouldn't and couldn't listen anyway. He was becoming overwhelmed with his experience. He was becoming more and more preoccupied with these exciting ideas until one day he suddenly withdrew and became unreachable. From talking incessantly, interrupting and having pestered me into taking over our conversations for weeks on end he suddenly became almost mute, even hostile. The religious glint in his eye was replaced by a terrified yet wounded expression. Such a depth of sadness hung around him and I struggled to connect with him. But it was impossible. He was in the matrix, the labyrinth and he was lost in the maze of his mind.

If indeed, John was a misunderstood modern-day Jesus, I was not prepared for the chemical crucifixion that ensued. With hindsight John was silently preparing, which may have accounted for the terror and untrusting, shut-down fear state into which he had entered. He further retreated into himself and was most likely terrified beyond measure. It turned out he had been sectioned before and 'bled' as he put it and put through a range of humiliating brain tests. He broke down and cried and pleaded with me not to become "one of them". Later I realised this was a reference to the bio-psychiatric medical model and it's staff who treated him as sub-human, a 'chemical imbalance'. He fought them all the way, violence being familiar territory. He was held down and injected with clopixol depot shots, known by patients as 'the needle'. He was crucified and battered with chemicals every time he reminded them of their pseudo-science. If he refused their drug-treatment, it was forced on him. Behind closed and locked doors, isolated in a forensic maximum-security 'treatment centre' with no visitors, it is no wonder that he experienced more paranoia and more terror.

I shut down. Silently and alone I wept at the injustice of it all. I wept at my powerlessness, at John's powerlessness in the face of the psychiatric machine. I railed at the heartless wall of psychiatry and society, for wanting to assimilate and crush people, rather than heal or empower them. I knew John was 'difficult' and 'defiant' and 'spirited' and 'stubborn' but it didn't warrant chemical sedation or incarceration. I soon realised that bio-psychiatry was also suffering from 'delusions of grandeur' and it's autocratic nature did not like to be challenged. I slowly realised that society at large didn't like to tolerate the discomfort of distressed and fragile people. And psychiatry, at least the biological model, punished trauma survivors and didn't view madness as meaningful. Their priority, as far as I could see, was to control the symptoms and behaviour rather than address the root of the problem and society, by it's very silence, colluded in this. And I painfully colluded with their fear. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, between prejudice and discrimination. And John was at the sharp end of the needle. When he got his nose broken, in high-security, he swallowed the blood and the trauma. It was rough. When he broke a member of staff's nose, in the more supportive hospital, understandably, there was out-cry. One difficult truth was emerging for me though; it was one rule for John and another rule for staff. It was glaringly obvious in the high-security but more subtle in the realms of more civilised environments. I blocked out the violence. I didn't understand it. I knew that John hated it but I also knew that he had had to learn it young.

The chemical crucifixion continued and they called him 'treatment-resistant', 'unpredictable' and 'deviant'. Continuous use of largactil rotted his teeth, he turned yellow from liver damage, his hands shook, he couldn't sit still, or he shuffled and his composure was stiff from the 'chemical straitjacket'. They tried him on every drug in the 'schizophrenia' market until they moved on to the 'bipolar' market. They kept him inside, so he could only breathe in the fetid, stagnant air of the hospital. When he wasn't sleeping off the effects of their toxic medications, he paced up and down corridors, agitated and frustrated, smoking endless cigarettes, hassling and pestering staff for cups of tea and coffee and cans of coke, reminding everyone of his right to his place on this planet, in the only way he knew how, until he was injected again for talking too much or for raising his voice or for being anxious. Anyway, the drugs induce anxiety. He was described as 'chronic'. If he slept too much or withdrew, he was called 'un-cooperative'. He was punished for having his own opinions. He talked transparent nonsense, gleaned from TV shows and newspapers in a futile effort to keep them on their toes. He has become a tragic figure with no shoelaces, a broken spirit, sleeping in his clothes, until they become rags, for weeks on end and stinking of hopelessness.

And after four long years of this soul-destroying 'treatment', they wonder why he isn't 'improving'. And through all of this he forgives, in his chemical-induced haze, them all. He bears no grudge to psychiatry and has now accepted the medical framework. The multi-layers of drugs have made him somewhat stupid and passive. This wild colt has been broken in; it took two years to break his spirit and a further two to institutionalise him. He is now maintained and contained; a shadow of the passionate, intelligent and mixed-up young man I once met. It is the single most heart-breaking thing I have ever witnessed. Our wonderful son a precious reminder of our bond and love that has survived the unspeakable.

Source: Sleeping with Jesus

[spiritual_emergency]

...society, by it's very silence, colluded in this....

One of the first English physicians to write extensively on madness, its nature, and the proper treatment for it was Thomas Willis. He as highly admired for his investigations into the nervous system, and his 1684 text on insanity set the tone for the many medical guides that would be written over the next 100 years by English mad-doctors. The book’s title neatly summed up his views of the mad: The Practice of Physick: Two Discourses Concerning the Soul of Brutes.

His belief—that the insane were animal-like in kind—reflected prevailing conceptions about the nature of man. The great English scientists and philosophers of the seventeenth century—Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, John Locke, and others—had all argued that reason was the faculty that elevated humankind above the animals. This was the form of intelligence that enabled man to scientifically know his world, and to create a civilized society. Thus the insane, by virtue of having lost their reason, were seen as having descended to a brutish state.

They were, Willis explained, fierce creatures who enjoyed superhuman strength. ““They can break cords and chains, break down doors or walls … they are almost never tired … they bear cold, heat, watching, fasting, strokes, and wounds, without any sensible hurt.”” The mad, he added, if they were to be cured, needed to hold their physicians in awe and think of them as their ““tormentors.””

Discipline, threats, fetters, and blows are needed as much as medical treatment … Truly nothing is more necessary and more effective for the recovery of these people than forcing them to respect and fear intimidation. By this method, the mind, held back by restraint is induced to give up its arrogance and wild ideas and it soon becomes meek and orderly. This is why maniacs often recover much sooner if they are treated with tortures and torments in a hovel instead of with medicaments.

A medical paradigm for treating the mad had been born, and eighteenth-century English medical texts regularly repeated this basic wisdom. In 1751, Richard Mead explained that the madman was a brute who could be expected to ““attack his fellow creatures with fury like a wild beast”” and thus needed ““to be tied down and even beat, to prevent his doing mischief to himself or others.””

Thomas Bakewell told of how a maniac ““bellowed like a wild beast, and shook his chain almost constantly for several days and nights … I therefore got up, took a hand whip, and gave him a few smart stripes upon the shoulders… He disturbed me no more.”” Physician Charles Bell, in his book Essays on the Anatomy of Expression in Painting, advised artists wishing to depict madmen ““to learn the character of the human countenance when devoid of expression, and reduced to the state of lower animals.””

Like all wild animals, lunatics needed to be dominated and broken...

Source: Rad Geek Review: Mad in America

We think we have evolved as a species. We have not.

Meantime, today I am angry and hurting, just like Grainne is angry and hurting. And today, for all those "professionals" out there who would rather invest themselves in their own ego identification and tell themselves what good and compassionate people they are... to all those who stood by and did nothing, who still do nothing... today, I would like them all to choke in the filth of their own hypocrisy.

Music of the Hour:

[spiritual_emergency]

Jungian analyst, Maureen Roberts...

Cultural Scapegoating vs Personal Soul-searching

In this sense, as a quick-fix, technocratic culture which believes that anything can be made to tap-dance to monetary tunes and polite policies, we are, I suggest, too busy looking at 'mental illness' as a 'problem to be solved' (by funding and biologic band-aiding), instead of honouring, as the great soul-centred psychiatrist C. G. Jung did, the needs of 'soul', including its need to pathologise and crystallize its vast spectrum of pain and joy into wisdom, compassion, living art, and the art of living a meaningful, natural and fully human life.

To move in the opposite direction by scapegoating unhappy, traumatised, suicidal, grieving, wounded and schizophrenic persons as 'mentally disordered', cleverly absolves the rest of us from the need for personal soul-searching and conveniently detracts from any serious cultural criticism, including an urgently needed critique of a souless medical model which, ironically, may well be exacerbating, not alleviating the high incidence of suicide, depression and psychosis.

Instead of accusing already suffering people of being 'ill', perhaps we should therefore be seeking to cure the 'illness' of a society which cannot accept emotional, relational and spiritual suffering as essential to the human condition, or addressing the illness of a psychiatry which has deleted 'soul' from its vocabulary and lost the ability to heal in favour of becoming a business dispensing toxic drugs to 'consumers'; or exposing the illness of a government which remains willfully blind to psychiatry's human rights violations, abuses of power and materialist dogma.

Many others - including various relative and carer-based organizations and fellowships professing to be 'concerned' for sufferers' well-being - still cling to psychiatry's biologic fantasy and so betray those whom they claim to be helping. It has become a fashionable trend among 'consumers', practitioners, politicians and drug companies to compare depression, for example, to a blood nose, or broken ankle, but such pseudo-medical attempts to dump all human suffering into the 'biologic' bin, betray both a willful blindness to the lack of medical proof of such beliefs and a muddled lack of appreciation for the psyche's unique needs, qualities and responses to pain.

Biologic Arrogance & Dogma

By the same token, one frequently comes across a hubristic boast that biologic medicine will one day discover the physical source of - hence cure for - emotional or 'mental' disorders. This kind of presumption and arrogance reeks of biologic dogma and its metaphysical cum materialist bias, which refuses to acknowledge the equal 'reality of the psyche', hence refuses to appreciate that psychiatry as (ostensibly and once-upon-a-time) the 'art of curing the soul', requires personal qualities and skills, as well as training, education, modes of consciousness and experience of a kind, depth, richness and scope that biologic medical training does not even begin to touch upon.

Furthermore, a materialistic psychiatry, because it denies its opposite, has no room for appreciating the spiritual needs of folk who are (therefore) often wrongly diagnosed as 'mentally ill' and in need of medication and/or incarceration. Given this conflict between sufferers' often spiritual needs, experiences and values and psychiatric biologism and authority, I am disturbed by the blatant contrast between the gratitude, empathy, friendship, enthusiasm, respect and trust with which sufferers respond to my work and approach to therapy, and the reactions of biologic practitioners, politicians, Government mental health staff and Schizophrenia Fellowships, who for the most respond with blank incomprehension, hostility, fear, mistrust, willful ignorance, moral cowardice, or indifference.

Indeed, instead of supporting sufferers by condemning the toxic drugs and forced "compliance" as a breach of the medical Hippocratic Oath and an abuse of human rights, the latter Fellowships tend to side with biologic psychiatrists and with drug companies (who sometimes fund them), in viewing sufferers' denial of sickness and 'noncompliance' with medication as problems to be overcome with bullying, or forcing sufferers to accept that they're 'ill' and need to take damaging drugs.

Perhaps, then, instead of bemoaning the 'mental illness' epidemic, it would be more fitting to talk about the sickness of a psychiatry which in many instances rationalizes its own bigotry, paranoia and neuroses (concerning irrationality, spiritual crises and soul) by negatively projecting them onto others who are conveniently labelled as sick, hostile, or resistant to damaging 'treatment'.

Perhaps we should talk, as well, about the sickness of a society which has spawned such arrogant and pseudo-medical reductionism, a society whose temples of worship at its cities' centres are the towering financial buildings which sanction the altars of its consumerist priesthood...

Source: Maureen Roberts: Psychiatry Without Soul

Still the Music of the Hour:

[shanrucas]

Thanks SE for sharing this..It has left me speechless, and at the same time in awe of Grainne and John. It's hard to believe that this sort of treatment still exists on our planet.

Shannon

[spiritual_emergency]

sharucas: It has left me speechless, and at the same time in awe of Grainne and John.

According to Grainne, she and John were together for one magical, inspired year. That was six years ago.

Until Grainne began her campaign, John had only been out of the hospital once -- to attend his son's christening. It wasn't until after some attention had been generated at the local, national and international level that John was permitted passes out of the hospital.

I remain very discouraged by what has happened with John and continues to happen. I also remain angry at the professionals who purport to care but don't. There are times I'd like to take the lot of them, lock them up, tie them down, inject them with drugs, isolate them, shame them, demean them, take away their children, take away their wives, husbands, family and when they beg for help, when they beg that others see their humanity... if I turned my back on them and walked away... maybe something in them might recognize that other people are every bit as human as they are.

I would like them to be ashamed of themselves shanrucas. I would like them to question what kind of human beings they are.

I have sat with this feeling for days and it's not going away.

Meantime, funny story...

I was doing some reading the other day and I came across a term I'd not heard before: Drapetomania

Drapetomania was a bizarre form of mental illness. It was the unnatural desire of slaves to run away from their masters. Only black people got it.

Cartwright described the disorder — which, he said, was "unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptom, the absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers" — in a paper delivered before the Medical Association of Louisiana that was widely reprinted.

He stated that the malady was a consequence of masters who "made themselves too familiar with [slaves], treating them as equals."

"If any one or more of them, at any time, are inclined to raise their heads to a level with their master or overseer, humanity and their own good requires that they should be punished until they fall into that submissive state which was intended for them to occupy. They have only to be kept in that state, and treated like children to prevent and cure them from running away."

In Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race, Cartwright writes that the Bible calls for a slave to be submissive to his master, and by doing so, the slave will have no desire to run away.

In addition to identifying drapetomania, Cartwright prescribed a remedy. His feeling was that with "proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many Negroes have of running away can be almost entirely prevented." In the case of slaves "sulky and dissatisfied without cause" — a warning sign of imminent flight — Cartwright prescribed "whipping the devil out of them" as a "preventative measure."

Source: Drapetomania

See also: Drapetomania - A Disease Called Freedom

[spiritual_emergency]

It's this thread that produces such sadness in me.

I feel my arguments fall on deaf ears.

I fear John will die in that place.

I am pained by the lack of response from professionals to what is actually happening to and for him. Even now, a full month later, when I come back to this space, I want to know that others can feel his pain and most specifically, I'd find it reassuring to know that "professionals" -- a label which should be every bit as damning as "schizophrenic" -- that they especially can feel his pain.

I don't think they can. They have separated from him. They have made him an other.

But if it was them in that cell, oh! How intimately they would feel the pain of John. And in that moment they would know how very wrong they were.

John is there because others do not have the strength to feel their own pain and face their own demons. He was right and so was Grainne. His life has been sacrificed for the benefit of others.

Music of the Hour:

[Luna-]

When you said it, I figured it was this thread.

I was hesitant to reply, since it upsets you and I didn't want to trigger that, but then I figured you had already brought it up ...

What surprises me is that he has a support system to go to, so why not discharge him? Unless he posed a threat to others, the scarcity of resources here in South Africa would mean that with this support system to go to, he'd be readily discharged to community care. ("Community care" translates to "come to the clinic and get your pills".) They err on the side of discharge here.

Yes, I'm sure he is firmly labelled as other. Very other.

I don't know what to say. It's mysterious to me. It's also heartbreaking.

[finding my way]

This thread has received a great many views, SE, so it may have more impact on people than you think. You have done a great deal of good here in many of your threads raising people's awareness. It is difficult for people to know what to say maybe, since this is a case that is outside of personal experience for some, and this site is one of people sharing their own experiences. I hear your frustration and pain over the power of professionals to make such horrifying decisions that take away a person's life. Abuse, bullying, rape, torture, all these things I hate, and they are all so very very dangerous for the mind:(

I am doing tonglen for this utter humiliation and powerlessness:(. I hope that if you are feeling this way too about things in your life, that you would feel able to talk about it to someone. Such trauma is too much for a person to carry alone.

[spiritual_emergency]

Thank you Luna and fmw. Many months ago, in some other distant dialogue, I ended up in a conversation with a medical student in Iraq. He was studying by candlelight, because electricity had become a luxury, as the bombs and assaults fell on a daily basis, killing his friends and family, destroying their homes and lives, stripping them of everything that was good in their lives. I could feel his pain too. It is the least we can do sometimes, in bearing witness.

Meantime, tonglen helps. Sometimes too, I take my pain to Kali. In my own way, I pray to her too.

Unless he posed a threat to others...

For years, his doctors said he did, Luna. They said they wouldn't release him because he posed a threat to his family. His family on the other hand said they were not frightened of John, they were frightened of John's doctors.

Meantime, I asked Grainne about any history of violence, very candidly, and she responded in kind. John grew up in a household where domestic violence was the norm. He learned to fight at his father's hands so he could protect his mother, his brothers and sisters, himself. In his teen years, he got in some street tussles -- nothing apparently so out of hand that it involved legal authorities. What appears to be his most damaging history of a violent outburst occurred very early in his hospitalization experience, during a time when he was being restrained. There were four of them and one of him. He fought and somewhere in there, a fist landed, breaking an orderly's nose. He has been labelled as dangerous and defiant since then. But, as Grainne pointed out -- it's a double standard -- when an orderly later broke John's nose in a similar situation, authorities looked the other way.

The laws regarding treatment of the mentally ill in Ireland are archaic. There are many people who are fighting to change that but I don't know if that will happen soon enough for John. As for John, Grainne says he doesn't fight for himself anymore. This pains her for she feels that without that fighting spirit, he will not be capable of enduring. I pointed out to her that John probably doesn't dare fight for himself, he put that part of himself away because he had to. But even as I say that I wonder, how much can a person endure? Not just John, but Grainne too. How much can she endure? Meanwhile Josh is five. His father has missed the entirety of his formative years. There is nothing that can give those years back to any of them.

I have entertained fantasies of breaking John out. Of taking him and Grainne and their family away to some quiet place in nature, filled with greenery and tumbling streams where they could heal. I wonder how long it would take for the fear to leave John? How long before he can feel safe again? How long before the pain leaves his body? How long before John can come out again from those interior places he has withdrawn to for his own protection. I imagine it would take a very, very long time and if he never forgave those who inflicted that trauma upon him, I would understand.

[finding my way]

I'm so sorry for all this pain :)

[shanrucas]

SE, this just breaks my heart so...I wish there was something I could do more than sign a petition. Whats being done to John and his family is such crime in itself, the whole situation just leaves me speechless.

I feel the pain of it all, and can't imagine what it must be like for them. If there is something I can do from here let me know, if its something I can do I will do it.

SE, you are a wonderful and caring person for keeping this in front, I feel I should help you in doing that. I know its hard for you, you were the first person to welcome me to the community and I will always remember that.

Shannon

[spiritual_emergency]

Thank you shanrucas. It is discouraging to know that it has gone on for so long and that it's taken such an incredible effort to win John even the smallest of privileges. I know that Grainne has had some despairing moments herself. Fortunately, she is connected with some very good people in Ireland who serve as intimate supports to her and she also draws on sources of online support.

Meantime, the Irish Sunday Mirror did a piece on John today. The headline read -- State Dopes Patients in Staffing Scandal: My child's father DRUGGED and HELD in a ward against his will for 4 years. Grainne says in spite of the sensationalistic flavour it was a good write up. Other media outlets have also done stories on John. It helps raise awareness in Ireland but systems are slow to change, old stigmas prevail, people are disinclined to get involved.

Several weeks ago I did take the time to write to John Moloney. He is the "Minister for Equality, Disability and Mental Health" in Ireland. If anyone else wishes to do the same, there is a direct email link to his office at this page: http://www.fiannafail.ie/people/john-moloney/. That may make a difference for it wasn't until John's situation attracted attention at an international level that any real positive change was seen for him.

At this time, it's my understanding that Grainne still feels the best plan would be to transfer John to the hospital in Bantry, closer to her and Josh and working with psychiatrist, Pat Bracken. The newspaper article today will likely win her a few more signatures on her petition, perhaps it will make some politicians uncomfortable, perhaps John's doctors will decide that his presence has brought too much negative publicity to the doorstep of Carraig Mor and they'll be happy to ship him off to Bantry. We can hope.

The only other thing to do is to keep walking, keep talking to people, keep praying, keep putting pressure on and hoping it's eventually going to produce a productive change.

Meantime, Grainne made another video for John not long ago: John Hunt.

[Luna-]

That video gave me gooseflesh. Very poignant.

(That ought to send a few people over there - go on, admit it dear reader, you're curious now! )

I see there are quite a few of them there.

[Luna-]

Something occurred to me:

Several weeks ago I did take the time to write to John Moloney. He is the "Minister for Equality, Disability and Mental Health" in Ireland. If anyone else wishes to do the same, there is a direct email link to his office at this page: http://www.fiannafail.ie/people/john-moloney/.

I'd be happy to send an email if I had some idea of what to write. Maybe others here will be, too? Any chance you could write an outline of a letter and a couple of salient points to pick from, or important things to mention, so that it would be easier to write? I think if you write a letter than can just be modified a little by each person, people will be more likely to participate. What do you think?

[spiritual_emergency]

I'd be happy to send an email if I had some idea of what to write. Maybe others here will be, too? Any chance you could write an outline of a letter and a couple of salient points to pick from, or important things to mention, so that it would be easier to write? I think if you write a letter than can just be modified a little by each person, people will be more likely to participate. What do you think?

When I wrote to John Moloney before, I was sharing more than just my concerns about John. I also shared some of these very promising approaches to treatment that we have quietly known about for decades. In particular, I promoted Open Dialogue Treatment. Jungian approaches are closer to my own heart but I feel the world is more open to hear the voice of Jaakko Seikkula no matter how fond I am of John Weir Perry.

Ireland is also in a bit of an economic mess at the moment and I do think politicians might be capable of recognizing a dollar sign before they are capable of truly feeling the impact of human suffering. Open Dialogue Treatment produced a very high rate of recovery -- within two to five years, people were back to full-time work, back to school, re-engaged with the largesse of Life. And all this, with only one-third of them ever having been on neuroleptics. In the long run, that adds up to less human suffering and more saved dollars. It's a possible win-win situation.

But that was my personal message for Mr. Moloney. In terms of John... I've asked Grainne what she feels would be best for them right now. I'll let you know what she says.

Thank you for listening and sharing my concerns.

~ Namaste

Music of the Hour:

[spiritual_emergency]

My apologies for not returning sooner to share some information. Life is keeping me very busy in a number of venues and I had to follow up with Grainne. One thing I am trying to establish is... Carraig Mor was privy to an inspection several months ago. Several breaches were recognized and the facility was ordered to adequately address them:

OVERALL CONCLUSIONS

The First Floor of Carraig Mór was a continuing care unit and many residents were quite disabled. There was no rehabilitation team and while there were some activities available for the residents there were no integrated care plans. THE LACK OF INDIVIDUAL CLOTHING WAS SURPRISING and should be addressed in an imaginative way where there were practical difficulties in the provision of individual clothes. The unit requires one rehabilitation team, an overview of the requirements of the residents and a plan to relocate residents to more appropriate settings.

Residents on the Ground Floor had access to a reasonably full therapeutic programme of activities under the direction of two activities nurses. Residents had integrated care plans that were reviewed frequently, but there was no clear documented link between the care plan and activities. The Ground Floor was well maintained and clean. THE LACK OF A REHABILITATION TEAM WAS REGRETABLE PARTICULARLY IN VIEW OF THE FACT THAT A NUMBER OF RESIDENTS HAD BEEN RESIDENT FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS.

RECOMMENDATIONS 2009

First Floor

1. Integrated care plans should be put in place immediately on the First Floor.

2. All six-monthly physical reviews should be completed

3. There should be no use of communal clothing. All residents should have individual clothing.

Ground Floor

4. Policies for staff training in relation to seclusion and physical restraint must be implemented.

5. The facilities used for seclusion must meet the requirements of the Rules.

6. Therapeutic activities must be linked to the individual care plan. The care plans or clinical files could be enhanced by recording the multidisciplinary team members present at team meetings.

7. The multidisciplinary team should include a psychologist.

8. A rehabilitation team should be appointed.

Source: http://www.mhcirl.ie/Inspectorate_of_Mental_Health_Services/Approved_Centres_Inspection_Reports_2009/carraig_mor_report_2009.pdf

That document provides some background into why John is experiencing some of the problems he has experienced in treatment: lack of staff training in using physical restraint; lack of personal clothing; no psychological treatment; no rehabilitation team; no integrated treatment care plans; lack of reviews.

Certainly, those are issues that Mr. Moloney and his department should be addressing and could be included in any message to him. I've asked Grainne to let me know which of the above have been rectified, if any.

Meantime, Grainne has remained very busy behind the scenes:

- A journalist has taken an interest in John's predicament and wants to do a documentary on him. This same journalist has a good reputation and formerly produced a documentary on abuse by the clergy that was well-received. This is very encouraging to hear however, that documentary is not due to be released until September. That's still several months away. It seems intolerable to imagine the situation continuing for months more and yet, it has already gone on for more than 60 months. Grainne is both frightened of and longs for the exposure the documentary may bring.

- Following the last published article in the paper, John's mother seems willing to lend her son some support. Their relationship has been a tenuous and rocky one over the years and John has some strong feelings about their relationship. No doubt, both are in need of some healing.

- A rehabilitation center is available in Cork that John could be transferred to as an alternative to transfer to Bantry. There is an almost desperate feeling of urgency to get John out of Carraig Mor with an accompanying feeling that surely, anywhere else would be better. But that's not always true. Grainne is working to try to find a good solution for John. She is looking at alternative facilities because she doesn't believe the authorities would ever consent to release John to come home. She also believes a transition period, between the trauma of Carraig Mor and home will be beneficial to allow everyone to adjust to a new way of being. She notes that part of the problem is John's reluctance to re-invest faith in any potential professional caregivers. Grainne has continued to seek professional support from psychiatrist, Pat Bracken, along with personal support from other survivors of the Irish mental health system.

That system is crippled by lack of economic resources and pocked with attitudes regarding "the mentally ill" that many of us have not seen in decades. It is reassuring to know this is not the case all across Ireland. Some hospitals and programs are very current and forward in their approach. Carraig Mor happens to be one that's still stuck in the 1950's. No doubt, the presiding mindset will have a lot to do with the attitudes of those who practice/work there.

~ Namaste

Music of the Hour:

[spiritual_emergency]

Over the past few days, John's petition has finally hit 1,000 signatures. It took only a few weeks to get the first 500 signatures, months to get the next 500. Quite possibly, the surge in interest is related to the article about John that recently came out in the Irish media. It's now available online: My child's father has been drugged and held in a ward against his will for years. This part of the article saddened me.

... Mental Health Minister John Moloney stunned the nation when he admitted he knew that some psychiatric units were sedating patients for long periods of the day.

He also expressed concern about the long-term consequences of certain addictive drugs - such as benzodiazepines - being given to patients, and accepted they played an increasing role in poisoning deaths.

He said: "I'm opposed to the whole notion of using them long- term. I've been moving on protocols on how and when we should use them."

Grainne claimed John has been prescribed benzodiazepines for a long time.

She said: "The amount of psychiatric medication John has been put on over the years has incapacitated him and damaged him considerably.

"This has been devastating for our family as John has not been given the chance to be a proper father to Josh."

A damning State report into Carraig Mr, released in December 2009 by the Inspectorate of Mental Health Service, found the unit did not have a rehabilitation team in place for long-term patients such as John and added: "The lack of a rehabilitation team was regrettable." Grainne said that this proved there was no way John could get better while staying at the unit and lashed out, saying: "This is a human rights violation served up as 'care'."

She said: "I welcome Mr Moloney's acknowledgement that psychiatric patients are sedated because of low staffing levels, not for therapeutic reasons, and I welcome the fact that he is drawing up measures to tighten prescription rules.

"However, this is too little, too late for John - and others in his situation - where the damage from years of drugs and psychiatric conditioning has already been done."

Those words tell me that Grainne is wrestling with hopelessness and the frustration of an injustice that has gone on for far too long. Her endurance has run to thin.

Meantime, an article also recently came out regarding regarding poor conditions in Irish hospitals...

The Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has published a report based on its fifth periodic visit to Ireland, which took place from January 25 to February 5, 2010.

During the course of the visit, the CPT examined the treatment of inmates and conditions of detention in a number of prisons, as well as visiting three psychiatric hospitals and an institution for people with intellectual disabilities.

It also reviewed the treatment of people detained by the Garda Síochána.

The three psychiatric units visited were St Ita's Hospital in Portrane, Dublin, St Brendan's Hospital in Granegorman, Dublin and the Central Mental Hospital (CMH) in Dundrum, also in Dublin. The intellectual disability service at St Joseph's in Portrane was also visited.

The CPT delegation noted that while some progress had been made since its last visit in 2006, ‘a considerable number of recommendations from the government's 2006 mental health policy document, A Vision for Change, had not yet been implemented.

When it came to the treatment of patients at the three psychiatric units, the CPT said it ‘did not receive allegations of ill treatment of patients by staff.' On the contrary, it observed dedicated staff committed to providing care and treatment to patients, often under difficult conditions.

"However, at the hospitals of St Brendan's and St Ita's, there was a significant level of violence, both between patients and directed towards staff. For instance, at St Ita's in 2009, there were 183 assaults registered (both on staff and on other patients). At St Brendan's Hospital, in the second half of 2009, there were reports of 25 assaults on staff.

"At times, the violence was of a particularly severe nature. For instance, at St Brendan's Hospital, the death by strangulation of a staff member by a female patient with a billiard cue was only avoided by a last minute intervention by the security officer. An incident of a similar nature had taken place on the female unit at St Ita's Hospital when an elderly patient attempted to choke another patient during her sleep," the CPT report noted.

When the CPT's delegation discussed the significant rate of violent incidents with management in both hospitals, it was repeatedly told that many of the more serious incidents were caused by a few so-called ‘difficult patients'.

The CPT said that it fully accepts that the behaviour of a limited number of patients may have a major negative influence on the overall atmosphere in a given unit. However, in its view, the security of both staff and patients on a particular unit is also linked with other factors, such as material conditions, training of staff, staff-patient ratio, the availability of activities and the mix of patients on a particular unit.

"In this respect, as regards both hospitals, the poor material conditions in many of the units visited, the large dormitories and the lack of sufficient, experienced staff, contributes to a climate where a patient's behaviour is difficult to monitor and to manage by staff. Moreover, the mix of patients (long-term patients with new arrivals or old patients with very young patients) on certain units appears to contribute to a volatile atmosphere.

"In such an environment, the staff's role is downgraded from providing care and treatment to maintaining order. For instance, the female admission unit at St Ita's Hospital accommodated 22 patients between the ages of 19 and 80years and suffering from a wide variety of mental disorders, in a single dormitory. A similar situation was found in that hospital's male admission unit," the report said.

Meanwhile, the living conditions at St Brendan's and St Ita's ‘left much to be desired'. For example, patients had ‘very little privacy and were at risk of being exposed to aggression from other patients'.

During the course of its visit last year, the CPT delegation observed ‘considerable understaffing, particularly of nurses, in the institutions visited'. For example, there were 29 vacancies for nurses at St Brendan's, 23 vacancies at the CMH and 20 vacancies at St Ita's.

"The general moratorium in place on recruitment of public employees, including nurses, meant that vacant posts could only be filled with nurses on short-term contracts, students and staff working overtime," the CPT pointed out.

Other professions were also affected. For example, three of the seven psychologist posts in the CMH remained vacant, while St Ita's lacked a psychologist and a social worker. These vacancies ‘were not permitted to be filled'.

Source: Poor Conditions in Irish Hospitals

On a possibly brighter note, a politician has expressed interest in John's case: David McCarthy - The Real Issues in Our Lives. It's quite possible Mr. McCarthy's interest is related to nothing more than him buying public favor but I don't think anyone interested in trying to help John really cares.

Meantime, Grainne shares this video on her blog, one of John's favorites:

[Luna-]

I'm not surprised Grainne feels hopeless. I feel hopeless just reading this.

[spiritual_emergency]

This radio program isn't about John although it contains echoes of his own experience of being institutionalized...

Lives Less Lived

In the early 1950's a young girl in the south of Ireland entered a psychiatric institution. Two years earlier, she had been raped.

Now, almost 60 years later, that young girl is an elderly woman and still in a psychiatric institution - in fact she never left.

'Lives less lived' traces this woman's journey into the world of institutionalisation and along the way questions how this can happen to somebody and what can we do to ensure this story isn't repeated in 2010.

Compiled and Narrated by John McCarthy

Produced by Liam O'Brien

An Irish radio documentary from RTÉ Radio 1, Ireland - Documentary on One - the home of Irish radio documentaries.

John McCarthy is a mental health campaigner and founder of Mad Pride Ireland

Source: Lives Less Lived

[spiritual_emergency]

This thread still produces sadness within me. I was watching the video Grainne had posted shortly after I had first met her (and John, through her). There was a more hopeful feeling in the air then but, even then, I was disturbed by what I saw in that video -- most notably, John's swollen upper lip. That was from the tooth decay that Grainne had spoken of. In the pictures, you can see him carefully eating his birthday sweets. This is because it hurts. Puppy mills have been shut down for less. Why has that never been taken care of?

Many months have passed since then. A thousand voices have been raised in his defense. Probably close to 10,000 people have read of the plight of John. And this was not enough to change the chain of his bonds. This was not enough to free John.

I also watched the later video Grainne had also shared. It has a feeling that could be called forlorn. It shows the John that was abandoned and written off by those who professed to be acting in his best interests. It still pains me that this is considered "acceptable" because John was considered: Schizophrenic. Incurable. Hopeless. Beyond redemption.

There is a reason that people turn their back on the medical profession. John's experience is one that I'll walk with for a long while. In some faraway place I will continue to hold out hope that he is able to find what helps him. I think he can only do that when he gets away from the people who have hurt him. This includes his doctors; their abuse was all the more so because they were being paid to help him -- it is a double betrayal.

To those individuals, I could only wish that they go through what John has been through or that they have to stand by helplessly, as Grainne has done, and watch the life of someone they love be destroyed.

Meantime, I have not forgotten the overwhelming lack of signatures by those who identify themselves as professionals on John's petition. They were protecting themselves. They were protecting their peers. They were protecting their profession. They were not protecting John. They never were. But it made them feel better to think that they were. I'm not willing to believe their lie so they can feel better. If they need to feel better, we have medication, restraints, isolation, degradation, electro-shock therapy to help them feel better.