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Record 6
Name: Donald Leeper
Website:
Referred by: Just Surfed On In!
From:
Time: 1998-02-12 00:53:36
Comments: Here is a small article I wrote on Christmas of
95. Any comment? After a long absence I am back in
cyberspace and I have something to say. What follows I am
presenting as my own opinion and not that of Support
Coalition, that I am the spoke for in Northern CA. I am
rehashing some old material here incase you have forgotten
and because I am also sending this material to people and
bulletin boards that are not aware of my story. Please bear
with me I have some new observations to present for
discussion.The following material is presents for the
purpose of stimulating discussion only, and it is not
intended to advocate or incite any illegal or even
inappropriate actions or behavior. Straight Talk (by Donald
Leeper) I fell into the hands of the mental health system
after I attempted suicide because my frustration and anguish
over my inability to stay sober after thirty-five years of
alcoholism. I had brief encounters with psychiatry before.
In every incident I was detoxing from alcohol and sometimes
drugs. I always became very depressed when I was sobering
up, and twice I was a little emotionally high.This time, as
be before, I was told that I was mentally ill and I suffered
from a chemical imbalance and I needed to take mental health
medicines for the rest of my life. My diagnose was bipolar.
The doctors told me that I suffered from a physical illness
and it was treatable. I was at a very low point in my life.
Depressed, recovering from a suicide attempt; I had
exhausted all my inner resources and I was desperately
looking for a better way. So I brought in to the "Mental
Health Way." Through the years I was treated with mellaril I
gained one hundred pounds. From the first dosage I never had
so much as an erection or even a wet dream. I was unable to
masturbate. I didn't have any feeling to speak of. I went
too bed at 7:00 ever evening. At the Monastery where I was a
member people thought that I had a highly developed
spiritual life because I seldom became upset. I didn't read
anything, and I lost my ability to think clearly and
critically. I never questioned authority. I showered less
than once a week. I never got any exercise. I was unable to
have adult relationships. I was on mellaril for nine years.
Most of that time seem like a dream and the memories of my
life are very vague. I took 800mg a day. The maximum
possible dosage recommended in the PDR.After years of effort
I have managed to get off mellaril. I was sick for months.
Now I have lost some weight and my mind has cleared. I
opened a little business and I am able to support myself. I
am strong psychically and mentally. I have gone along way in
reclaiming my life. I suffer serious and permanent physical
and sexual damage as a result of taking this medication.
(Which was not even the appropriate medicine for my
"bipolar" condition.) The greatest harm has been done to my
sexual organs which are permanently damaged. The only way I
can have some romance is by injecting 60mgs of a drug called
Papaverine into my penis with a syringe. Neither the Mental
Health Department, the County (as represented by the Board
of Supervisors) or the medical profession will accept any
responsibility for crippling me and I must pay for this
medicine myself. It cost me $100 for 10 injections. I take
what happened to me in a very personal way and I feel that
psychiatry has done great violence to me. They have a
complete unwillingness to address the great physical,
sexual, emotional, and mental damage that they did to me.
They won't even talk to me. When I have personally
confronted them they have tried to have me lock up in jail.
I have been told that the system would like to have me
locked up under the mental health laws but I am somewhat
well known and I have a lot of friends, doctors, a judge,
and many people in the media, who support my work, they
don't feel that they can get away with it. I have publicly
challenged the Director of the local Mental Health
Department, Bob Wolf, many times, in the newspaper and on
the radio to meet me in any public form to discuss these
important issues, and his policy so far is to ignore me. It
didn't take me long to see that what I an involved in is not
a contest where everyone plays by the rules; but I am
engaged in a street fight where anything, and everything is
fair. What happened to me is very common and very mild in
comparison to the stories I have heard from other victims of
psychiatric abuse.I have told this story in one form or
another in different newspapers, magazines, computer
bulletin boards, and on the radio several times. I have
given public talks about the destructive component of
psychiatric treatment. I have received several replies,
e-mail and by phone with a common theme that goes like this.
From Grace Heckenberg of Portland, OR."Often, though, I find
that there is sort of complacency about other survivors that
doesn't fit with my feeling. As you wrote in Dendron,"
(paraphrased so not be repetitive) about taking what
happened to you in a very personal way, and feeling that the
mental health system did great violence to you...... "Most
survivors aren't so passionate."Just as the antiabortion
movement (that I don't support) didn't become effective
until they quite talking about abortion in a wishy washy way
and starting calling what was going on as murder; I
personally feel that we should not be watering down our
experiences by pulling our punches and not being direct and
real in our descriptions about what is going on. There is in
middle and upper class American culture a great deal of
emphasis on being polite and not being rude, and never
expressing anger or outrage directly against the people and
systems that make you angry. (I have been told by some
people with an vested interest in the status quo that I
should not express my anger against the system that did
violence to me but I should be dealing with it in a therapy
setting). The powers to be would love that. All of us pissed
off survivors off in a rubber room, venting our rage on
padded walls instead of confronting the system. Another
thing that I would like to address is the concept that
although misguided the system has good motives and
intentions. This kind of thinking misdirects our focuses
away from what they "are doing". For decades they have been
cutting out our brain cells, running high voltages through
our head, (even attaching electrodes to our gentiles if we
were gay), destroying our bodies and our lives with terribly
destructive drugs that were meant to control wild animals.
All of us in this movement have seen Coroner's Reports
demonstrating that psychiatric treatment KILLS THE PEOPLE
that they claim they want to help. They have been using
their treatment (documented) disproportionately forced on
people of color, gay people, the poor, the elderly, and the
disabled. I could go on and on. The point I want to make is
that by looking at their behavior you can clearly see they
are evil. I am not really concerned about why they are evil.
When a rabid dog comes for you, you don't take the time to
find out where and how the dog became infected you defend
yourself to the max. Please bear with me there is a bit
more.There is a whole litany of the names of the people who
have had serious violations of their lives by the government
in the form of law enforcement. Mumia, Anna Mae Aquah,
Lenard Peltier, Geromino Prat, Bear Lincoln, Judi Bari. All
heroes of the radical movement. My dear friend Cindi Pickett
had her man (a Indian) murdered by the Sheriff's Department
here locally and she has received unbelievable love and
support from people. There is great outrage over the
treatment of these unfortunate people. Where is the outrage
and concern over the mistreatment of people labeled (many
times miss labeled) as mentally ill by psychiatry? Awhile
ago I was on Judi Bari's ( a great leader of Earth First!
who paid dearly for her nonviolent radicalism when someone
bombed her car when she was in it in Oakland six years ago
and crippled her for life. She has an important lawsuit
against the F.B.I. going) program on public radio and, after
a brief discussion she asked "how does psychiatric treatment
differed from the torture that is prevalent in South
America?" She couldn't see any difference and either can
I!The reason that people are not concerned about us (and
also the reason that we are the most disenfranchised people
in the entire world) is that our concerns as seen a medical
issues instead of in the context of human rights violations.
It's hard to rally around some poor unfortunate sick person
that is being treated (either forcibly, or fraudulently by
being lied to and tricked into it as I was). It is easy to
pick up the banner when someone’s basic rights are
being violated but hard for most people to question the
authority of the medical profession when the say that they
are treating a sick person for their own good. I have been
told by members of CAMI (CA Alliance for the Mental Ill)
that if you force treatment on someone mentally ill that
when they respond and regain their senses they will thank
you for locking them up and treating them. Going into great
detail about this is beyond the scope of this discussion,
but it can be proven by historical documentation that when
the profession had (has?) the power to treat people against
their will their is a great deal of abuse. These laws are
used primary against people of color and other minorities
(what ever happened to the Violence Initiative?), and for
years they having been locking adolescents up on flimsy
pretences (many for original unconventional thought) until
they recover, usually around the time their insurance runs
out.We have to get off our asses and do some direct actions.
There is a great freight train run wild out there and
somebody has too disrail it. I personally feel that the
existing system is so evil, so out of control, so brutal, so
murderous, that it needs to be dismantled by any means
necessary. David Oaks is fond of saying that in the family
of social change our movement is the aunt in the attic. Well
maybe when this old, tired, abused, aunt comes home we
should give her a tank to drive around in. From a press
release of May 8, 1996.Donald Leeper, the local Support
Coalition spokesman, said, "there are more and more of us
who have been seriously damaged by psychiatric treatment who
feel a responsibility to speak out, not only for ourselves,
but for the legions that have been so damaged by this
treatment that they are unable to speak at all." Peace and
love. DL
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