Over the decades, I have had the good fortune to be immersed in what many of us call Mad Culture. In various cities, at a number of events, there would be a confluence of writers, researchers, artists, and otherwise creative people who all wanted to peacefully overthrow the psychiatric industry and find a new way of helping people in crisis. I am glad to hear that one of your chances for Mad Culture will be from October 9-12, 2014 in Massachusetts, because the Mad In America International Film Festival will bring many film titles and speakers together. In fact, I have been invited to speak for a few minutes via Skype near the end of this great event.

I wish I could be there physically, but in honor of this Mad film event, here are some movies that I have watched lately, along with my brief review.

Bettie Page Reveals All (2012, Documentary, 101 min., via Netflix streaming)

That’s right, one of the main pin-up personalities from the 20th century was a psychiatric survivor. Bettie Page was famous as a charismatic and sexual model whose images are still admired long after her death. This documentary reveals that from 1979 to 1992, after the height of her fame, Bettie Page was in psychiatric institutions in California.

This film is mainly a lot of fun, showing her history and how she became one of the leading underground characters in Americana. In fact, she may be more popular today than in the 20th century. There is a very sad part of this story though, because Bettie Page was a trauma survivor, her childhood was awful, she experienced abuse as an adult, and the men in her life were mainly negative. When Bettie retires down in Florida, her past seems to catch up with her and she ends up having a major mental crisis.

You can watch this documentary on Netflix and I highly recommend it. Bettie Page is a fascinating person, and you can get some insight into how our society misinterprets trauma as “mental illness.”

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Update 4/6/2015: Craig Wanichek from Summit Bank is the newly – elected chair of the Board for Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce.

 

On Sunday, September 21, 2014, here in Eugene Oregon, I participated, with my wonderful wife Debra, in a local rally to support the major march in New York City for climate justice.

Everyone and every group working for mental health justice ought to make fighting global warming a priority right now. Of course, the whole disability movement, and in fact all sentient beings should be concerned about climate crisis, but those of us working for human rights and more choices for mental wellness have special reasons to make this planetary catastrophe a unifying theme for all of us.

Martin Luther King frequently talked about the importance of creative maladjustment as an answer to oppression, and many environmentalists are wondering where humanity’s creativity and maladjustment are right about now. The Mad Movement knows that the psychiatric industry has ground down the human spirit for centuries, but we never ever give up! MLK resisted the war in Vietnam toward the end of his life, and some civil rights activists were mystified that he seemed to be off topic. However, MLK knew that we are all in one big movement for the “beloved community,” as he put it.

But if you need something very specific to connect the Mad Movement to global warming, here it is: Those of us called psychotic are often coerced to take neuroleptic drugs (sometimes called antipsychotics), and these drugs are well known to suppress the temperature-regulatory part of the brain. During a heat wave, prison reformers have been talking about how horrible it is that those in non-air-conditioned prisons where people are forced to take these drugs often die. Well, most USA states have laws allowing citizens to be forcibly court-ordered to take these drugs while living at home out in the community.

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EUGENE, OR — FALL 2014 — News Release

A recent blog entry by long-time activist David Oaks is receiving quite a lot of attention among fellow activists working for major change of the mental health industry. In the blog, David tells his friend Marcia’s story of mental health rights abuse and activism. He writes, “Marcia’s story riveted me because it involves activism, madness, psychiatric torture of her beloved daughter, Unitarianism, secret poisoned-pen letters, Scientology and global warming!”  The story is certainly intriguing, and has quickly gathered more than 30 lively comments.

It has been 40 years since David W. Oaks was locked up for the first of five times by the psychiatric system. For 25 years he served as director of MindFreedom International, one of the main independent human rights groups in mental health. Then he broke his neck, and for the last 18 months he has been in a powerchair with a new label of “quad.” He prefers PsychoQuad, and people can find his new website name www.psychoquad.com. David W. Oaks continues to speak out, and he is making waves.

Today, Oaks devotes himself to the intersection of the mental health system, disability and the environmental destruction of planet Earth resulting in global warming. Oaks calls this dangerous combination Normalgeddon.

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My very good friend Marcia Meyers of Portland, Oregon is one of the most powerful leaders I have seen in my nearly 40 years of activism in the little-known movement for deep change in the mental health industry. She joined my amazing wife Debra, some friends and me for a backyard party at our Eugene home this summer and brought to my attention an issue that deserves a larger audience. Marcia’s story riveted me because it involves activism, madness, psychiatric torture of her beloved daughter, Unitarianism, secret poisoned-pen letters, Scientology and global warming!

So while I have been blogging for a few years, please understand that this post is the longest one yet. The major web site Mad in America, which is now like the Huffington Post of over-throwing psychiatry and inspired by the books of journalist Bob Whitaker, is picking up my blog for re-distribution. My primary concern here is with honoring the incredible work of Marcia and her group Rethinking Psychiatry. Marcia can teach our whole social change movement an important lesson about unity that can help all people as we struggle against environmental catastrophe, which I call “Normalgeddon.”

I include my top 11 ways that our Mad Movement can reunite, none of which involved any religion.

Thank you Marcia Meyers!

Marcia is a 68-year-old, effusive retired teacher, who in her own words, “Identifies, in this order, as a grandmother, a teacher and an activist.” She dedicated 33 years to teaching in the public school system, during which she was active in the teacher’s union, both locally and nationally. Marcia describes this work as foundational to the activism that would follow. As she puts it, “From my many years of teaching and my years of union work I honed my skills as an organizer and activist.”

Marcia retired in 1999 and attended the World Trade Organization protest, the huge Battle in Seattle, later that year. This event was particularly transformative. She told me, “The new and privileged freedom of retirement along with this historic event catapulted me into local and national economic justice activist work.” It was in the wake of the Battle in Seattle that Marcia began her work with the Economic Justice Action Group of the First Unitarian Church of Portland. This branch of the Unitarian Universalist (UU) church is one of the largest congregations ever, and for five years, has provided a safe, supportive home and platform for Marcia to fight corporate personhood.

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BELOW you will find my open letter that combines my  main identities and interests: I am a survivor of abuse in the mental health system, a disability activist (labeled quad), environmentalist focused on the climate crisis, and spirituality: I am a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Eugene, Oregon, USA.

Please comment here. Whether you comment or not, please forward this open letter for anyone far and wide. Help it go viral. Thanks. If you wish to send me a direct message, please use the contact form on the right to reach my office. Because of quantity, I cannot always respond to everything but I try to read your vision.

If you wish, you can use my tweet as a model:

Your mental health justice vision? I’m a psychiatric survivor disability UU activist. 5 tips take on climate crisis http://www.davidwoaks.com/mental-health-justice

Everyone everywhere is welcome to share your ideas about mental health justice.

Please post your public comments here on this blog entry. I especially would love to hear personally from other survivors of psychiatric abuse, people with disabilities and Unitarian Universalists. You may also email me by using the Contact My Office form on the right of this blog.

Please forward this post to others. If you would like to print out my open letter you may find a PDF of it here.

To read the text of my open letter, simply click “More” below. Thanks.

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The Sunday, Jan. 5, 2014, Register-Guard daily newspaper ran a huge piece by journalist Randi Bjornstad about me, my fall, my broken neck, activism, our supportive community, changing the mental health system, and even the Chamber of Commerce protest on climate crisis. There are two great photos by professional photographer Paul Carter, plus how to give to my irrevocable trust fund.

You can read, download, print a PDF of the article here: R-G-DavidWOaks-1-5-2014

You may wish to write a letter to the editor about this excellent article, contact information is here:  http://registerguard.com/rg/opinion/#letter

For news about the protest of the Chamber of Commerce, see the next blog entry below:

 

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