Mad Pride?
As most "mental illnesses" are due to nutritional problems, "mad pride" makes about as much sense to me as "beriberi pride" or "scurvy pride".
Find the cause, fix it, get well.
See http://alternativementalhealth.com
and
http://nutritionalhealing.com.au

The sad thing is that Mad Pride can't be reduced down to a catchy, simplistic slogan. Presenting its ideas to another person calls for actual thought and engagement on the other person's part. Sadly, most people don't bother with these things any more.

Ah, but Philip, people are concerned about mental illness and violence.

Take the school shootings/incidents that have taken place in the last 18 years or so. SSRI Stories has 48 of these posted on their site. Not one of these school shooters was taking an antipsychotic or mood/stabilizer for either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

They were ALL taking medication for depression. Many of them were judged "bipolar" or "schizophrenic" after the fact such as Kip Kinkel [schizophrenia, Prozac Withdrawal] or Eric Harris [bipolar, on the SSRI antidepressant Luvox] and so on and so on.

But the general public doesn't "get it". They think that these kids were schizophrenic or bipolar before the shootings. They don't stop to think that the meds these kids were taking were for depression, a notoriously benign disease as it relates to violence.

Actually, "schizophrenics" or "bipolars" are more likely to be the victims of violence or murder [while they wander the streets] than to be the perpetrators.

I say that the antidepressants, especially the SSRI and SNRI antidepressants, have given "serious mental illness" a bad name. They are helping to create a stigma and there is nothing that David Oaks/Mad Pride or anyone else can do about it. It just goes on and on.

There are over 1,000 murders now on www.SSRIstories.com. This doesn't count the attempted murders, the assaults and weird behavior violence.

But reporters don't want to mention that the antidepressants are doing this because, Dana Millbank, White House correspondent for the Washington Post, told an audience at Yale University in May of 2003 that 40 percent of reporters for that newspaper are on anti-depressants.

How is that for ironic??

Nice catch, Rosie!! :) Thanks.

Good for David Oaks! The reason so many folks who commit violent crimes beg for psych labels after getting caught is because it's about the only way to avoid the death penalty. As Rosie mentioned, virtually no violent crime is committed by people previously labeled schizophrenic or bipolar, and even with these labels generally saving one from the electric chair, the percentage of people with such labels post crime is exceptionally rare. The most dangerous people are the ones who never seek any psych treatment and don't have any diagnosis - what is society doing to protect us from them?!

It is interesting that depression is also considered a severe mental illness and that lots of people who commit violent crimes have that label beforehand and yet AOT is never mentioned as a way to "help" the depressed. Could this be because so many "normal" people love the benefits they get from being so labeled? Or perhaps it's because the drugs people with BPD and Schizophrenia get are so sedating that when taking them you generally can't wipe your own a*s much less commit violence, chemical straight jacket ya know, whereas the drugs prescribed for depression label acceptors cause violent behavior?

Sally, it won't surprise you that Fuller Torrey promotes forced drugging for three groups: the schizophrenics, bipolars and the severely depressed (psychotic).

I agree there is less focus on the latter group. In my experience, it's hard to get depression taken seriously. As long as you're not bothering anybody (and the seriously depressed tend not to) you can pretty much fly under the radar.

I wasn't able to view the ABC segment but I imagine it's pretty much like every other mainstream media opinion piece. Ex-mental patient off meds and living independently successfully isn't much of a story. If it bleeds, it leads.

Sally,

Yes, the drugs [antidepressants] given to people who are labeled depressed or PTSD, etc. can actually cause violence. Japan now has a warning on thier antidepressants that they can CAUSE violence.

The side effects of antidepressants that are listed in the PDR, such as psychosis, mania, hostility, abnormal thinking, etc. are NOT listed as rare. They are listed as either Frequent or Infrequent.

Go to the cover of www.SSRIstories.com for a complete list of adverse reactions and for information on what the FDA has warned about in regard to antidepressants. They have warned about far more side effects than suicide.

Response to marlborojones:
Here is the Wikipedia entry on Mad Pride -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Pride
Most mental disorders are the result of physical disorders, and not a matter for either pride or shame. But not being able to diagnose and treat these disorders - the case with most doctors and specialists - is usually the result of mis-education by pharmaceutical interests - and is shameful, unprofessional and criminal.
As long as consumers and physicians fail to understand the physical causes of mental disorders, abuse and drugging will continue, to the profit of the unscientific and the unscrupulous.
And THAT is insanity.

The day this program aired I was not home to view it.

My daughter who is labeled Schizophrenia and at the time was nonverbal (for 2 years solid)had wandered away from a residential care place. They called the police.

Police were supposedly called to "bring her back safe" as a "vulnerable person".

Well, she was thrown down hard, face down into gravel by a woman police officer working alone, who had NO skills or attempt at using them to "bring back someone safely".

My daughter was thrown into the back of a police car HANDCUFFED. Like a criminal.

The cop wouldn't open the car door for me to write my daughter a note, instead she threatened to commit her.

WHY? she was told she was a schizophrenic. Plain and simple.

In all of these years I have been on this comment section, I never imagined I would be able to write a story about my innocent daughter being treated like the Fuller Torrey horror story, because she WAS committed without my knowledge within 48 hours and she DID receive a forced injection of long acting Haldol.

She has been talking since 2 days after the police woman assaulted her. Now my daughter says "no shots" and "the cops captured me".

She's only 21 and also carries autism on her dx chart. She does not appear like a threatening person, but that cop knows one thing. That SZ are violent, right? She was a victim of her diagnosis, and was treated with force, and left with bruises. Nice job, society.

There is nothing fair or right about how people are treated in public perception in the mental health world.

Stephany, I wish I could make your pain cease - all our pain.
Sometimes the only good thing that can come of this suffering is making sure that it does not happen to someone else. And you
are doing a great job at that.
URL correction - http://www.nutritional-healing.com.au/

Anxiety disorders are just as serious as other disorders, but the media doesn't really focus on them. Anxiety disorders are just as much of mental disorders as other disorders. How does someone judge which disorder is more serious than another? Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Atypical Depression and Separation Anxiety Disorder and other anxiety and mood disorders that aren't as well known in the media can affect someone just as strongly as more serious disorders. How does one decide which disorder is most serious? All mental disorders whehter they are anxiety disorders, mood disorders or other disorders experienced stigma, separating them and labeling them and judging which one is more severe separates people with mental health issues more. Just putting in mental health brings people together, especially people who have multiple mental health diagnosis.

Response to Lilly NC:

Thanks for the link.

My understanding is that a Pride Movement seeks to reject socially constrained definitions of normative/non-normative behavior. Its members see themselves as simply variations--nothing more, nothing less--on this grand theme called Life and they refuse to make apologies for it. They find validation, cohesion and strength in the statement "I am what I am. Get used to it."

Or at least, that's what I, as a queer, understand a Pride Movement to be.

So you'll have to understand that I'm very confused when you use words like disorder, diagnosis and treatment. They seem to have such negative, non-normative connotations. People who use such words generally view the behavior described as undesirable and would want this facet of human expression wiped off the face of the earth. This would be the exact opposite of a Pride Movement.

Response to marlborojones:
It is what we make of ourselves that is cause for real pride.
I am NOT for conformity nor, except in rare cases, for forced medication or supplementation. I support eccentricity and original human beings and their right to choose their identity.
If someone's chemistry is working for them, and they are committing no crimes, great. Most who have mental disorders suffer, and it is cruel to withhold nutritional and diagnostic info from them - and offer nothing or damaging drugs instead. An understanding of orthomolecular nutrition gives us opportunities to bring our brains up to optimum function - and to escape when malfunction becomes confining. Look into the medical causes of mental symptoms here -
http://www.nutritional-healing.com.au/content/articles-content.php?heading=Medical%20Causes%20of%20Mental%20Symptoms