Wow!Congratulations on the publication of your letter in the Journal. Thank you for advocating for so many people by doing so. I really love how the authors will have to answer your questions. This is an enormous victory in my opinion.

RE:Schizo
The religion of taking a chemical to fix behaviour and cognitive problems only results in physically damaged brains. Tardive Dyskinesia etc.
In schizophrenia psychiatry needs to prove a chemical imbalance, to justify introduce "fixing" chemicals.
There is plenty of examples of schizophrenics recovering{link} , something the drug manufacturers don't want the public to know.
There is no profit to be had in a recovered schizophrenic.
I was diagnosed schizo at the age of 17 (I denyed being schizo)and drugged extensively over the years, in 2003 age 35 I finally became schizo or stopped being in denial, take your pick. Today I do not take psychiatric drugs for schizo, and I do not believe the chemicals work on a persons non-physical mind/soul.

Would it be possible to publish the aforementioned letter here, at the blog?

i'll link to it on here as soon as it's published but that may be a few months away

Re:Mark: Please explain how you are a successful self-accepted schizophrenic off of medications, because that is what people need to hear.If there is a chance at recovery off of medications I am positive that someone needs to set an example of a medication-free based life.Which therefore challenges the psych world and it's limited vision for mental health wellness and long term recovery options. I feel time is of the essence for those who live medication free to speak, because when you speak it is on the behalf of the silent ones who cannot speak for themselves, and frankly it is time to give the 1-2-3 plan instead of an opinion.What works?Why /and How?

RE:"successful self-accepted schizophrenic" please explain, asked Stephany.

== personally ==
Success is in the eye of the beholder, I in my own eyes am not successful, as I can not/do not have a typical job. I could be considered successful by another as I am not homeless or in jail or a hospital costing society maybe $500.00-1000.00 a day. For about the last 18 years I have lived independantly.My own appartment, payed my bills with the monthly welfare check.
Neither am I self-accepted, as since 2003 it has been fairly hell-like , with only brief pauses in the schizophrenia. Before 2003 my inner voices of self doubt and worry were a part of me(so I wasn't schizophrenic). Today, it can be an endless repetative drone. Chemicals(from the years) may have caused this (as in physical changes in my brain), my life experiance may have caused it, God knows what caused it. I hate psychiatry for its pseudo science.

I can only hope it gradually goes away, or magically goes away one day.

== The Big picture ===
(Note:There are two types of mentally ill the voluntary and the involuntary. This is critical to remember)

With all the lies of psychiatry, progress can not be made. Foundations are based on truth and facts.
Psychiatric treatment is founded on jail and torture.
Chemicals (balanced or not) do not make a person think (logically)incorrectly, chemicals can make a person feel a certain way, with the feelings we justify and create our reality. For example a patient who thinks about red cars all the time, does not have some (outside) chemical in his brain making him think of red cars. He has some reasons and motivation for thinking of red cars.

No one officially recognizes what psychiatry did in the past, how that past is still the core of psychiatry today. Confinement and forced chemicals to force someones behaviour to change.
I believe the opposite, love would help more people. I assume this was used in Soteria, and other successful treatments.

The story of the competition between the wind and the sun.Illustrates love is better than force. Story goes like this.

The wind and the sun were having an arguement on which was more powerful. The wind boasted it was very strong, and the sun protested it was just as strong or stronger. They agreed to a test of their powers. They chose a man on a walk , "I bet I can take that mans jacket off", said the wind. The wind started in on the man, and the man gripped his jacket to himself. The wind grew stronger and the man held his jacket even stronger. The wind realizing he would injure the man if he blew an harder, conseded defeat, and stopped blowing. The sun said "Now let me try" and shone down warmly on the man. The wan loosened his grip on his jacket and continued on his walk. The sun continued to shine pleasantly down, and the man loosened it up. The man being warm thought to himself "what do I ned this jacket for?" and took it off, and hung it on his arm.

The suns warmth had beaten the winds use of force.
The jacket represents the patients behaviour (needed or created), that is unwanted by those in authority.

What works and doesn't work can only be done on an individual basis.
(In general THEORY) The patient has a mother and father, only the mother and father care for the well-being of the child-patient. Yet paradoxically the mother/father that raised them may be least able to help. As illustrated in physical cases such as an overweight mother/father have overweight children. Whatever character deficits the parent has can be magnified exponentially in the "patient". So an outside force/another person is necessary.

In general REALITY
Its all fucked up, specially when psychiatry throws mind altering addictive chemicals into the mix.
Punishment for a behaviour is supposed to be done in childhood, and then internally self done by the adult-child.
The drugs from what I gather are supposed to make the patient more compliant.
Who gives the motivation to change?
What is the motivation to change?
What needs changing?

The patient has to have cognitive ability to decide to change their life for the better. Some can't, some are too doped up by psychiatry or some have been too damaged by psychiatry to give a fuck.
If the patient has had a life of drugging and jail, even if given cognition they can not make good decisions due to their life experiance of torture and mind fog.

Mark, thanks for writing an insightful reply to my questions, I think it's really well written.

Mark, I want to second Stephany's thanks to you. Your response is insightful and well written. I know all too well what it's like to go from a troubled family to an incompetent and corupt psychiatric system and applaud the courage it must have taken you to get to this point.

I hope your comments give strength and hope to the thousands of people out there trapped by a "corrupt and inept" mental health "system". I have come to believe that the majority of medications given, particularly Zyprexa and the other atypicals, and the SSRIs, are dangerous and life threatening, if not life taking.

I have lost both my father (ECT when I was a baby and it was new) and my son (Zyprexa - profound hyperglycemia) and will fight the battle the rest of my days.

In an earlierr discussion about ECT, most were against it - feeling it had done permanent damage. However, suicide would have been worse and it was suicide that led us to this point. I am against forced ECT but I am also against taking away what is often the only alternative left.