Talking about suicide, suicidal feelings and the desire to die. Alternatives to being locked up and mistreated.

Everyone should have a safe place for this deep work. Despair generally disappears in the light of day …

Suicidal thoughts are treated like a crime: that’s why people don’t seek help.

“Exactly. My sister told her GP she felt suicidal. The police took her away in hand cuffs.” so REALLY?? they tell us to be sure to ask for help. What do we do when there is no help available? Until we are, as a society, willing to answer that question people will continue to die without being offered a chance to share and thus process their pain.  …

Parallels in obstetrics and psychiatry

By Leah Harris — As I got deeper into the research about childbirth options, I began to notice the commonalities between the natural birth movement and our movement of users and survivors of psychiatry. The first commonality is that we are confronting industries – the birth/obstetric and psychiatric industries, respectively. In both cases, the trend is toward the most invasive medical technologies, which also just happen to make a lot more money for these industries. When it comes to mental health – as we all know, it’s institutionalization, shock, and expensive psych drugs. … (post included information and a trailer about a new documentary too) [click on title to read the rest]

Suicide: Learn to listen to and support yourself and others

People who are suicidal are all too often met with terror and control. Most people who feel suicidal need to talk about it. Approaching people with love and openness means NOT being terrified of that persons dark places. And not reacting in a knee-jerk and controlling manner. That has never allowed anyone to feel safe to open up about the painful vulnerability they are most assuredly experiencing when feeling suicidal. …

Guest authors

This blog owes much of its success and influence to the great authors who chose to share their work here. Below are just a few of the more prolific contributors. There are links to their blogs or websites in the body of the posts where you can get more information about each author. There were…

Drug free healing from depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, etc…

 Stories of healing and transformation This post may be cut and pasted in its entirety and shared without further permission. These are all stories of recovery (or the word I prefer is transformation) that involve freedom from drugs/medications. Most everyone on these pages were told they would need psychiatric drugs for the rest of their…

In memory of Robin Williams…

By Leah Harris
Like millions, I am sitting with the fact that one of the funniest people to grace the planet has died by his own hand. Robin Williams’ death has hit people of my generation, Generation X, especially hard. After all, his face flashed often across our childhood screens. Mork and Mindy episodes were a source of solace for me as a little girl, as I bounced around between foster homes and family members’ homes, while my single mother cycled in and out of the state mental hospital, fighting to survive. I could laugh and say “nanu, nanu – shazbot” and “KO” and do the silly hand sign and forget for just a little while about living a life I didn’t ask for.

“You’re only given one little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it,” may become one of Robin Williams’ most famous quotes. I was always struck by how he moved so seamlessly between wacky comedy and the most intense dramas. He was so magnificently able to capture the human experience in all its extremes. He threw all that intensity right into our faces, undeniable, raw, frenetic. He showed us our own naked vulnerability and sparks of madness and gave us permission to laugh in the face of all that is wrong in this world. … [click on title to read and view more]

From Self Care to Collective Caring

As a trauma survivor growing up in various adolescent mental health systems, I learned that my current coping skills (self-injury, suicidal behavior, illicit drug use) were unacceptable, but not given any ideas as to what to replace them with. No one seemed to want to know much about the early childhood traumas that were driving these behaviors. Instead, I collected an assortment of diagnoses. I was told that I would be forever dependent on mediated relationships with professionals, and an ever-changing combination of pills. The message was that my troubles were chemical in nature and largely beyond my control. Care would always be something I would have to accept from others, not to perform for myself. … [click on title for the rest of the post]

From the protest at the American Psychiatric Association

Mental health advocate Leah Harris speaks at MindFreedom’s 2014 annual protest of the American Psychiatric Association in NYC. … [click on title for the rest of the post]

First They Ignore You: Impressions From Today’s Hearing on H.R. 3717 (Murphy’s Bill)

by Leah Harris

As I walked alone up the stairs to the Rayburn House Office Building this morning to attend the hearing of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health on H.R. 3717 – the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act – I thought about how I wasn’t truly alone. In spirit with me were all the people who had experienced scary, coercive, and dehumanizing interventions in the name of help. In spirit with me were all the well-intentioned family members who didn’t want to force treatment on their loved ones, but didn’t have access to or know about alternative voluntary, recovery-oriented community resources. In spirit with me was every mental health provider who went into the field hoping to really make a difference in their communities, but became cynical and discouraged in the face of so many broken systems and broken spirits. … [click on title for the rest of the post]