What is your single most radical message? |
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an interview with Vicki Wieselthier by Josie Byzek This interview first appeared in Mouth magazine in July 1999.
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And they call it treatment today?
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Let's say it clearly: that the state has chosen to do this because the state has police power and chooses to restrict all kinds of freedom from time to time. Let's not call it treatment unless it is voluntary and freely chosen. Let's call it something else. Let's call it punishment and say we're doing it as punishment. People don't know their rights. |
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Isn 't there a big national push for forced treatment? |
Psych survivors are being screwed big time right now. There's
this push to pass some incredibly repressive state laws --
all over the country -- laws that are to regulate the
behavior of people with mental illnesses. |
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But it's legal...? |
Remember. Everything the Nazis did was legal. They
reclassified people based on disability, or ethnicity, and
made special laws that applied just to them. Then, when they
took it all the way to genocide, they weren't breaking any
laws. They had changed the laws. |
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Some crazy people do commit crimes... |
If somebody's out there with a shotgun, then they need to be put someplace because I don't think anybody deserves to be shot. Jail. Jail sounds good. But
we need to have jails that are humane. Nobody should be
treated like people are treated in our jails today. Whether
they're murderers or pickpockets or persons pissing in the
alley. |
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When did your own moment of truth arrive? |
A doctor wanted me to have shock treatments. I said NO. He looked at me and said, "It doesn't matter what you want. I can take you before a court, and they'll do anything I tell them to do to you." At
that time, I was married. I called my husband. He said,
'Well, they can't do it if I say no, and don't worry. I
won't let them do it.' During
the same hospitalization, the doctor didn't take me to
court. What he did do, though, was say that either I would
start to take the anti-psychotic drugs, or he was going to
put me in restraints until I did. A nurse overheard the
conversation. When the doctor left the room, I said, 'I want
to fire this doctor and I want to fire him now.' |
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What kinds of in-home services does a person with a psychiatric disability need -- so that they don't have to go into an institution? |
Somebody may need company while they're cleaning their house. Or they're going to work and they're taking heavy drugs, they may need somebody to make sure that they actually get up in the morning, and get morning routine done. When
I get severely depressed, and I do, I lose the ability to do
some simple self-care kinds of things. I don't do my dishes,
or I don't take in the mail. Pretty soon I'm surrounded by
such a mess that I don't even know how to get myself out of
it any more. If, when things are falling apart around me, I
can get a little bit of assistance, it would be a lot of
help. I'm employed, I'm competent, and I'm good at what I
do. Fortunately now, I can hire somebody out of my own
pocket to do that. |
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What is Mad Nation? |
Mad Nation is just a web page that's got about 500 pages on it. There's
two parallel sites: one that uses Java script, and graphics,
and then there's one for text only. It has everything from
poetry written by people with psychiatric disabilities to
cutting-edge political rhetoric. Arguments, essays. If
there's news breaking that's important to the psychiatric
community, you will find it on Mad Nation. [http://www.madnation.org/] So
when I said I was getting radicalized, yeah, I was getting
radicalized. But that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm
anti-psychiatry. But I am one of the most outspoken
anti-force people on the web. |
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What do you say about Goodwill and other sheltered workshops? |
I don't know what the current pay rate is for slave labor, but I don't know anyone who's made enough to buy groceries. |
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You don't fit the mad stereotype. |
It's akin to the situation I see all the time, where I'll be walking down the street with a friend of mine who's in a wheelchair and when somebody talks to us, they'll speak louder to the person using the wheelchair. There's no sense of the person behind the disability. How
many times do you have to be shown some sort of evil villain
on television who is portrayed as a person with a
psychiatric disability before you make that connection? When
they decide that people who are sexual predators belong in
psychiatric hospitals? You put them all in psych hospitals,
whether they're somebody who's a baby raper or somebody with
schizophrenia. |
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The entire text of this
interview can be found at the Stop Shrinks website.
To
read it, click here. |
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At right is the cover of the Moment of Truth issue where Vicki SAYS appeared. Click here to link to it in our online Attitude Catalog store.
Or maybe you want to hear from another Mouthy woman, Paula Caplan. She produced a play, "Call Me Crazy," which we sell on video. Click here for a link to it in our Attitude Catalog store. |
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