I have been surfing the Net looking for individuals and organizations such as yours in an attempt to elicit the aid of ordinary citizens to help end psychiatric abuse in the United States and abroad. Although my email (and site) addresses issues in the United States, I know that psychiatry is practiced much the same worldwide.

Please visit my site which is titled The Story of a PROUD Nut Case. It is about the politics of the involuntary psychiatric commitments of a Spiritual, confident, free spirited, nonviolent, unconventional and enthusiastic (hence "manic") woman who found herself swept up into the insane world of psychiatrists and forced "treatment."

It is a horror story of another face of America that denies millions of its citizens basic human rights while mocking, denigrating, abusing and traumatizing them.

The last thing you want to do in one of these "treatment" centers is to demand your legal rights for you will then be assaulted and injected with powerfully debilitating psychotropic drugs as happened to me.

Luckily, I learned quickly the rules of the game and was able to escape from their violence and insanity by going to court and successfully contesting their "expert" diagnosis and prognosis.

Millions of others are not so fortunate. They desperately need the help of people like you, who are not stigmatized with the label of mental illness, to stand up for them or with them to demand that all citizens enjoy full rights of citizenship and protection from false allegations, violence, mistreatment and abuse.

How can you help? You can educate yourself and help educate the public. You can join marches. You can respond to alerts. You can stand up in defense of the allegedly insane. You can make the civil and human rights of the allegedly insane as important as the rights of any other group of people. And, if possible, you can link to my site to make the cause of social justice for psychiatric clients/survivors/victims/escapees more easily accessible to the general public.

Please join with psychiatric survivors to humanize this profession and to end the tyranny of psychiatric coercion.

Thank you for seriously considering what I have written here. The address of my Web site is:

http://www.crosswinds.net/~vdgaines/index.html

At the minimum, I hope my site will make you think differently about so-called mental illness and the functions of psych wards.

If I'm lucky, perhaps, my site will inspire many of you to get actively involved in this fight for justice for some of the most vulnerable people in society.

Remember these psychiatrists act in your name. Is this really how you want them to treat fellow citizens who have committed no crime? Do you really want them representing you and what your country stands for? I hope not.

Most sincerely,

Victoria D. Gaines (vdgaines@crosswinds.net)

A PROUD Nut Case
(Wouldn't, couldn't, be anything but!)

P.S. For more information about widespread psychiatric fraud and abuse, please visit these other sites: 1)antipsychiatry.org, 2) mindfreedom.org and 3) madnation.org. Happy learning!

PPS I have appended some responses to my pleas hoping that they might help to persuade you to join this most important cause. Thank you for your time and consideration.

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Forwarded Message:
Subj: Re: FreeForm: Official Church Business [12057]
Date: 8/24/2000 12:01:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From:
To:
CC: vdgaines@crosswinds.net

At 08:30 AM 8/24/00 -0700, you wrote:
(j - tell me what you think. I might forward this to our list. -S)

Dear S,

Thank your for taking me seriously and for considering forwarding my e-mail. I believe your initial reaction to my appeal is the correct and democratic one. I hope that you will follow through with it despite any qualms you might have.

s - Please don't! She IS nuts!

Her rambling webpage is obviously the work of a manic depressive.

Dear j,

I am sorry you had such a response to my web page. As I mentioned there, I am suffering from a debilitating form of TMJ (temperomandibular joint disease which affects the jaw/mouth and eventually the entire body) that I can barely see (for reasons including being unable to keep my glasses on) and function. Due to physical discomfort, I find it exceedingly hard to concentrate, also. Consequently, I could do minimal editing of my web site. I would love to reorganize it and delete the many occasions where I repeat myself; I am just not physically able to do that. I hope most people will be able to see beyond these problems to the more important issues I bring up.

My ideas were written spontaneously (or rambling), as you say, as they popped into my head. Ideas do not normally come to everyone in a chronological or linear order, but quite often in an associative manner where one thing reminds a person of another. I think this is true even for people who predominantly are linear thinkers (as are most males). Women and other minorities quite often think in a more lateral or associative manner which can appear rambling and incoherent to linear thinkers who must process information linearly or chronologically, otherwise they are confused or think the person speaking is incoherent and insane as others and you have quickly judged me.

I am an extremely logical person. I was a programmer and spent decades solving logic problems as a hobby. I do know how to think and present information in a logical, chronological order as I had to do for my ex-boyfriend and on my programming job. Please, try to have a little insight and understanding. Also, what makes you feel you can read my web site and, thereby confidently judge me manic-depressive? What does it mean to be manic-depressive anyway? Does it, perhaps, just mean that a person is out of the norm, different from the "average" person. This I admit to. I am a harmless, fun-loving, wacky, hippie-type person who is very spiritual. That is why I came to your site.

As I stated most explicitly on my web site, I never broke any law. I never threatened anyone and I was never a danger to myself or others, although these were some of the many lies that were told against me. And if you read my web site carefully, you will notice that two judges agreed that I was "sane" enough and mentally "competent" enough to be released from involuntary commitment.

Should a manic-depressive be denied the inalienable right to be different? Should a manic-depressive be denied civil and human rights when no law has been broken? How can you support such a philosophy?

She's hardly a good representation of psychiatric abuse, her story is incoherent.

j

I am a good representative of psychiatric abuse because I was denied my civil (even as defined in the mental health laws) and human rights while involuntarily committed. Should I have been denied these rights simply because I may have appeared to be incoherent to people who did not care to hear or see anything in my defense? Should I have been denied the right to meet my accusers, to participate fully in my treatment plan, to express my spiritual beliefs (religious freedom), to speak in the manner most natural to me (freedom of speech)? Should I have been subjected to mockery and daily harassment of attempting to force toxic, psychotropic drugs on me (which I said stood against my beliefs in that the strongest medication I take is aspirin and I had recommended alternative treatments such as conflict resolution with my ex-boyfriend and family members). What was done to me I consider intentional infliction of emotional stress upon someone who was already traumatized by being a victim of domestic abuse.

It is quite funny that once it was court ordered that I be released, these same psychiatrists who had documented me as incoherent, hostile, etc., could now understand me quite easily and could admit that I am, in fact, quite a reasonable and cooperative person. For that is the truth about me.

To be fair to me, and to your church members, I believe you should forward my original email (and this email, too) and let each individual decide if my story is too incoherent for them to understand the basic issues I am attempting to raise. Add your disclaimers and qualms as you see fit, but please, do not stand godlike between me and them.

Thank you both for replying to me. I greatly appreciate that you responded and that you were willing to let me know what you thought about me and my web site.

God bless,

Victoria D. Gaines (Vicky)

vdgaines@crosswinds.net

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At 12:01 PM 8/24/00 EDT, you wrote:

>Should a manic-depressive be denied the inalienable right to be different? >Should a manic-depressive be denied civil and human rights when no law has >been broken? How can you support such a philosophy?

Hi Victoria,

God sure works in mysterious ways. First, I have also been accused of being manic-depressive, and even spent months in jail waiting for a "trial", for a non-crime in which the "victim" apologized to me, and her father was one of my biggest supporters. I had a bad case of Lyme Disease at the time, but the "authorities" thought I was pretending, they didn't even check my medical records. As the saying goes, "Innocent until proven indigent."

As a result of my ordeal I made many friends in the "system", incuding the psychiatrists and other mental health workers who examined me. ( 3 of them are now "church" members. hehehe!)

I know first hand what it's like. I also know how one must present ones' self in order to be heard. If you want help with your webpage, or editing your story to make it more it more clear and effective, feel free to let us know. I was able to turn my anger into a new religion and progressive political group.

I sent your e-mail to "s"
Sienna Wildfield
sienna@wildfieldstudios.com

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You are positively wonderful! I love you! Yes, I do believe that God works in mysterious ways. I feel I am on a mission. My "manic," crazy, "divine" voice told me that I must do all that I can to fight against these terrible injustices in the world and I am going to use my last breath to do so.

I was working like a maniac last night to e-mail and send out as many posts as I could, and thank God, I have found you and you have offered to help me. You have made my dreams come true for I will take you up on your offer of help. I need help desperately, for I am amazed that I am still here on this earth with how my body has been so cut up with TMJ. I am literally swallowing parts of myself and becoming engulfed in my mouth. I know it sounds crazy, but it is true nonetheless. (I feel that I can trust you enough to talk my crazy talk and that you will understand that it is not insanity.)

It is unbelievable that we connected and that you felt comfortable enough with me to tell me about your personal experiences. I especially liked your "innocent until proven indigent" and your "3 of them are now church members hehehe!" comments. Isn't life a trip?

I was also glad to hear that you made many friends in the system (I hope this includes patients). Perhaps they might be encouraged to join this fight against abuse and injustice. There are so many wrongs in this world and in the psychiatric profession.

Now down to business. I definitely want help with my site and you can start anytime from any place. I don't know how best to do it, whether you want to just copy my source code from my site or whether you want me to send you my one huge HTML file somehow. But feel free to print it and start deciding on how you can make it more clear and effective. It probably should be more than one file so that it will load easier, etc., so decisions like that can be made by you. In fact, as I type this I am thinking that perhaps I should turn over the site to you or someone you know who might be interested because I will not be able to maintain it. I was going to leave it up there forever hoping my host wouldn't delete it when I am gone. Do you think someone might be interested in getting to know me and taking on my site and my cause(s)?

I also have poetry which I would like to add to the site. Most of it is spiritual poetry and there is one that I think I would call a psalm to my Self/Soul. Is it possible that someone there can help me get it online? Some poems must be retyped because they are handwritten, then they need to be coded, decorated and uploaded. I am going to call my lawyer friend today and see if I can get his secretary to send me a copy. I think you'll like my poems.

I am usually such an independent, self-reliant person who has never needed to depend on anyone that I feel so bad asking so much of you, a complete stranger no less. (Yet I feel you are a brother soul, if you know what I mean.)

Do not hesitate to say no or feel bad if you cannot help with these things; it is a lot to ask of someone, but I have to accomplish as much as I can while I can, and that includes getting people to do what I can no longer do.

I was never the angry type, before. It was my "crazy" sacred voice that told me now is the time to learn how to express anger and use it to keep certain people at a distance and as the fuel to complete my mission. I literally felt the "wrath of God" lift me out of my car seat when I was thinking about what was done to me and how they tried to commit "Soul " murder. My crazy voice said "Look what they have done to me, to one of mine, no, this cannot be." Perhaps, now you understand why I stay "angry" and so committed, because at heart and underneath it all I still am an ecstatic individual about all the mysteries and wonders of life. I am looking forward to the afterlife and perhaps being able to haunt some people into doing the right things. See, what a nut I am? And how naive I was to say such nutty things to psychiatrists, nonbelievers and other Soulless people.

I didn't mention that when I was working regularly I was a paying member to over 20 liberal and progressive organizations including the ACLU, NOW, NAACP and Greenpeace. I have always, in some way, tried to support all the things that I believe in: beginning with being the crazy nut that I am.

Well, enough chatter. It was so nice to find a kindred soul. You have made my day.

God bless you for I do believe you were heaven sent. My voice is looking out for me and is still there helping me. I will make a difference before I die. I was beginning to lose hope, until I met you. Think about all that has occurred between us in such a short time. It is truly amazing! It must mean something.

If nothing else happens between us I will remember you and what you had to say in this email, forever. It brought tears to my eyes. There is hope for this world yet.

Much much love and gratitude,

Vicky, the PROUD Nut

*********************************************************

Dear Vicky,

I have added you to our list. Thank you for sharing your story. Our >members will be able to view your story and access your links via our community board. All stories are of value to me, and as you know, the difficulty comes with finding those who accept them with any level of understanding. Most of our members are extremely open-minded and as far as I can see they are accepting in various degrees. ;-) Several have experienced similar situations with the criminal (un)justice system.

Dear Sienna,

Thank you for adding me to your list. I have already started reading the article about Biotech. I used to keep up with all this stuff calling myself, perhaps, an eco-feminist. I am very much into environmental concerns being a nature lover and part Native American. I consider trees sacred and possessors of much wisdom.

I know I will enjoy your forwards: I am interested in everything and I used to be an avid reader.

I am more than eager to share my story for I had wanted to be able to create an international sensation which would help turn this world around. Thanks goes to you for being so willing to accept my story and to post it on your community board.

Thank you also for adding links to my site and others. That will help to make the information much more accessible.

I know what happened to me is routine and commonplace. I talked to many patients and did much research (even about the psychiatrists' role in the Holocaust and how the physically handicapped and the mentally ill and those alleged to be mentally ill were their earliest victims--prior to the Jews).

I am glad to hear that most of your members are open-minded and that some have experienced the criminal (in)justice system. This should make it easier for them to understand the issues I raise (including questioning the definition of mental illness). Perhaps, I will get a sizable response that will help raise the tide of resistance to psychiatric tyranny. I must believe that we can change the world. Knowledge is power.

[Paragraph deleted due to confidentiality concerns]

So once again, thank you, thank you, thank you. And please thank your members for me, too--just for being willing to read my post/e-mails.

Blessings,

Vicky

Once again, thank you and be well! To follow is an advanced article to be sent to our list for your review. Many of our forwards are regarding environmental and health issue. I hope you enjoy them.

Warm regards,
Sienna Wildfield

*********************************************************

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08/25/00 00:48:53 GMT
Name: joann MY URL: Visit Me

My Email: Email Me Location:

Comments:
God Bless You. What a SPIRIT!!

08/21/00 23:58:15 GMT
Name: Douglas A. Smith MY URL: Visit Me

My Email: Email Me Location: USA

Comments:
Thank you for joining the fight for liberty for all law-abiding citizens of the USA.

*********************************************************

From:
Subject: Re: Bravo
Date: August 31, 2000 at 5:25 pm PST

In Reply to: Re: Onward non believing soldiers!!!! posted by Victoria D. Gaines on August 31, 2000 at 2:38 pm:

You go girl. A noble cause and a great site. I have read one or two things over the years about this sort of institutionalized abuse. Another indicator of the wide spread social dysfunction at work in our culture. Good luck in your campaign to educate people and raise their awareness.

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your site was cool, and it did take awhile to download,
but i understood the format, and it din't bother me. :)

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Amazing coincidence I should get your email after just finishing Marge Piercy's _Woman on the Edge of Time_, a powerful, tho depressing, book that along the way suggests a possible Utopia set in 2137 that might not come to pass because of many thwarting influences. Don't know if you've read it, but it sounds like you went thru many of the experiences the main character sustained while in. She was not as lucky as you, was able to get out the first time, but was stuck the second go round.

Please let me know what things I can do to help this cause.

Regards,

*********************************************************

Hi,

I read your eight adaptive-behavioral principles and agree with them wholeheartedly. However, I would like to add that I believe my outspoken faith in the rightness of such principles is what contributed to my being labeled insane and involuntarily committed. How can one change the world when so much of it is ruled by force and ignorance?

*********************************************************

Subj: Re: The politics of insanity
Date: 8/29/2000 1:46:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From:
To:

Victoria,

Thanks for your email. I found it extremely interesting. You would be interested particularly in Justice, the chapter in Principles of Adaptive Behavior, which tells why the law so often fails to achieve justice and how we can correct it. Now the law is based on what you called, "force and ignorance," not principle.

Don't give up, Victoria. We have to keep up the fight and teach people to care or we'll lose the battle.

[deleted due to irrelevance to issues]

Thanks - and all the best