A response letter to receipt of a hard copy print out of my website.
Al Siebert, Ph. D. is creating a repository of psychiatric survivor/victim stories for later use by journalists, lawyers and the like, when hopefully there will be outrage over the millions of lives which have been lost, harmed or damaged by the violence and injustices practiced in psychiatry.
Al Siebert, Ph.D.
email: asiebert@thrivenet.com
With best regards,
Al Siebert
Subject: Re: The Nut Post
The only reason my facts might be inaccurate is that time has passed and I
no longer have my documentation with me. As far as psych drugs go, I was on
them for a bit more than a month in 1996 and less than a month in 1998, at a
level hardly enough to addle my brain at that time or in the future. No permanent damage was done to my brain from that brief exposure to psychotropic drugs.
Right now in the State of Oklahoma and many others,
they are releasing patients with psy' disorders, due to
the lack of funding. Look at the homeless situation!
I do not know about the State of Oklahoma. At the time of my
hospitalizations I was living in New York State.
Moreover, it requires signatures and legal intervention
in order to have someone commited. It is especially
difficult to have an adult commited.
Perhaps it is difficult to get an adult who knows the mental health system
committed, as I now do, but at the time I was hospitalized I was naive and did not realize that being emotional (passion and enthusiasm is my natural state), talking fast (once again my natural state), justifiably angry, etc., were considered symptoms of mental illness. Now that I know the system it would be extremely difficult to have me committed again, too.
As far as signatures and legal intervention this may be true in Oklahoma and
followed through in Oklahoma, but this is not what happened to me in New
York State.
Both my father and mother know people in politics and in the police
department. It is easy enough for them to get a judge or whomever to write a warrant for them but I do not believe they even found that necessary.
I have never been afforded a court hearing prior to the 72-hour observation
period and I do not know if that is the law in New York State. Nor is there
trial by jury in New York State.
I did see documents used to commit me that were signed by doctors. They
were filled with lies about me, including the lie that I had an abrasion on my
hand purportedly caused by putting my fist through a plate of glass. You must
know that glass does not scrape, but rather gashes or cuts. Of course, these
same reports did not document the bruises that my ex-boyfriend had left on my
wrist when he restrained me. Also, when I read my hospital records I was amazed by the lies told about me, even some that I supposedly said myself about going to court when I had previously not even gone to court. Surely you must know that people easily falsify records?
On at least two occasions (my first and third hospitalizations) police came
for me without a warrant. It was after my second hospitalization that my
lawyer informed me about the need for a warrant. When I knew that my mother was going to try to have me hospitalized again, I went to the two closest police departments which had been involved with my prior hospitalizations and informed them of what was going on in my life (for instance how I had been a victim of domestic abuse fasely accused of doing violence to my ex-boyfriend) and informed one police precinct that I had willingly gone along with them in 1988 not aware that they required a warrant. They assured me that perhaps that was true back then but that they follow the law now. Well, lo and behold, several days later they did indeed try to pick me up and acted surprised when I asked if they had a warrant which they obviously did not have because they huddled and then rushed off in their car to now get one with who knows what kind of concocted story. I took off and was eventually captured and forget about showing me a warrant for my captors refused to speak to me at all.
Remember the incident in California wherein a madman
shot a postal worker and shot up a Jewish synogogue?
Guess what? Prior to this frightful incident, he sought
psy' help and asked to be commited. Following his violent
outburst, after being told they would not admit him, the
police were called in!
What the hell does that story have to do with me? I never sought psych help.
I never was violent or threatening. Are you implying that only people with
mental illnesses are violent? Why are our homes filled with so much domestic
violence then?
I happen to be a proponent of non-violence. I don't even kill bugs,
including wasps. All the violence was done to me, not by me. All the violence done to me was done by people who are presumed to be sane and this includes my
ex-boyfriend, my father, the psychiatrist and his staff, and I might as well include the physical intimidation of the two police who came after me without a warrant, cutting off my car and rushing towards me as if they wanted to attack me and I am only a 5'2 woman about 115 pounds. I was standing peacefully by my car talking to a friend when they practically pounced upon me. You really need to wake up and see what's going on around you.
Thus, please don't generalize and paint a picture that the
entire psy' profession is out to get you.
I don't recall saying the entire psychiatric profession was out to get me.
In fact, as my lawyer said, he thinks I taught the last hospital I was in a
thing or two being released from their treatment "twice." That psychiatrist
had actually grown to like me, finding me quite entertaining with all my
outlandish ideas. My point is that I think their theories of mental illness are terribly flawed and that I have the inalienable right to be the Spiritual,
enthusiastic, passionate, energetic individual my Creator made me without being deemed mentally ill and locked up againt my will. The court must have agreed with me because I walked the last two times I contested their so-called expert psychiatric opinions.
Because, the truth
of the matter is there is simply no room for "Proud" nut cases
like you. And that my dear Victoria is a fact.
You know, I think this is part of the reason some people tried so hard to
destroy me: I am just too damned PROUD of everything that I am. And that includes being a woman, being Black, being a nutty Mystic and a nonconformist, hippie "weirdo." I wouldn't want to be anybody else in the world for anything. Like you, they, too, believed there was no room for a PROUD Nut Case like me and tried to destroy me with their debilitating drugs, but I escaped them, didn't I? And as I told my outpatient psychiatrist, if I must I will play their game again and again, and be triumphant again and again because the fact is that I ain't insane and I have better self-control and insight than just about every so-called normal person I've ever met.
Try not to categorically and definitively generalize a
particular subject, blah, blah, blah.
And what exactly do you truly know about coercive psychiatry? Why not sign
yourself into a psych ward and see what it's like, blah, blah, blah.
Poof
May you one day be blessed with an involuntary psychiatric commitment for it
seems you need one in order to see the truth.
Thanks for respondng to my e-mail or my post. It was great dialoging with
you. I doubt it, but perhaps you learned something.
Vicky
Another Guest Book entry:
09/19/00 13:16:49 GMT
My Email: Email Me Location: Aberdeen, UK
Comments:
Politics: From the Greek "poly" meaning many and "tics", meaning blood-sucking parasites. :-) Inspiring site. Thanks
One of the many supportive e-mails I have received in response to one of the many personal invitations I sent out to visit my site:
Subj: Re: Invitation to Visit My Website
Dear Vicky,
I don't know where you came across me on the web, but thank you for sending your site.
I have just spent HOURS reading your story and viewing your webpage. Your pictures are beautiful. Your story ... isn't, obviously. But it makes for very interesting reading and is a story that need to be read. It is beautifully written and presented. Most importantly, it was interesting and inspiring, horrifying and heartbreaking.
I always considered myself "Just An Old Hippie, Trying To Get Along", which is an old C&W song, but it fits how I feel. I married in 1958 and by 1960 had 2 little boys to take care of so I wasn't "able" to live in the era of demonstrating and being a hippie. If was just something I felt, inside.
Good luck to you. I can only hope that something can be done about your TMJ to bring you relief.
Bright Blessings
I think the following two posts speak for themselves:
Vicky-
I read through some of your website, and will probably finish reading it in the future. It is definitely a good example of what lengths people will go through to deal with someone they deem a "threat". But I do have one complaint about your website.
In your story about your (I think) second hospitalization you mention that you refuse (rightly so in my mind) to pay the bills from your involuntary incarceration. Then you refer to not letting "middle-class white men" steal from whatever. I can not speak for your motive in writing this, but I was very insulted.
I wish you luck in the future and I hope that the TMJ gets better.
-John
Dear John,
I am glad that you got the chance to visit my web site and I am sorry you were highly insulted about my comment regarding "middle-class white men stealing from the the American public." Obviously I was not talking about you or others like you. What I was attempting to bring up was more of the truth about the criminality is this country. It is perceived to be a lower-class, minority disease since our prisons are full of such types of people. It is my contention that the minority underclass is not the only one guilty of criminal behavior. They are just the only ones who get caught and are prosecuted and imprisoned. The reality of crime seems to be a matter of opportunity with minority crime often being done out on the street in the open (and being looked for)and White middle-class crime often being done behind closed doors (and being ignored and denied). But crime is still crime and what was done to me was criminal behavior including violence (assault and battery) as well as medical fraud.
One of my sayings has become "Why be a thug and a drug-pusher on the street when you can be one in a psych ward and be well-respected and well-compensated for it." Also, what was done to me was no accident or an exception, it is more the rule. I know this from what I witnessed and heard about during my own incarcerations and from my library and Internet research.
I have seen people who are obviously ill and in need of help discharged once their insurance ran out. And I have seen people, such as myself, who were in no need of "treatment" allowed to be hospitalized for long periods (three months in my case) because their insurance would pay for it. All of the psychiatrists who "treated" me and the ones I have seen when visiting other psych patients were White middle-class men. Minorities and woman were very rare and never treated me. I also must say that I perceived what I interpreted as racism, sexism, and class prejudice in many of these psychiatrists who "treated" me.
In my neighborhood, pot and crack dealers in the poor neighborhood were continually being rounded up and sent to jail. Yet, their mostly middle-class (which I was) and White buyers were routinely ignored and never charged or sent to prison. One day while in the local deli I heard a local policeman talk about how he had just let the drunken son of a local judge go home rather than arrest or charge him with drunkenness. Once again, this policeman and this judge's son were white middle-class people. And my ex-boyfriend, who is White, seemed quite unperturbed about all the lower-class Blacks who he personally knew who were sent to prison but was extremely upset when I said (during my alleged insanity) that his brother, who was guilty of stealing thousands of dollars on several jobs, belonged there, too.
The truth is that there is much violence in psych wards (not from the patients mind you) and much fraud and abuse of the Medicare and/or Medicaid system (I can never remember which is for the indigent)as well as other health care insurance providers. Who should be held responsible and accoutable for this if not largely white middle-class men who run and largely staff these institutions?
Once again,I apologize if I hurt your feelings for that was not my intention. I was not in anyway attempting to imply that every white middle-class male is a criminal or potential criminal.
VGaines
New Member posted 09-15-2000 12:13 PM
Some posting entries I made regarding some of my "psychic" experiences:
I'm glad you're into the spirit of things. Yes, I have quite a lively imagination.
But it's funny about being able to "see", "hear," "sense/feel," imagine and think things that it seems other people cannot or will not.
When thinking about this "nuttiness" I have, I remembered how I was so good at Trig in school. I would actually "see" a laser-beam like stream of white light stepping me through the solution. It was if I barely had to think at all.
Some of my psychic experiences also seemed to involve light or energy, but these times the "color" was either grey or black and the energy was more diffused and mobile. One time it was circular and spiralling, getting larger and larger. Another time it was wide and flat and high up in the sky, zooming south across the continent. It was like the energy of mental telepathy because I was thinking intensely about contacting my lawyer friend who was currently in South America. It's really strange this "power" of my mind/imagination.
I read a lot of Maslow. That's one place where I read about people like me who can spontaneously set up a test (which I had done)in the midst of all else going on around them. He also writes that people like me can seem or act "crazy" and out of it and yet not be and return to "normalcy" whenever they so desire. And of course he wrote about peak experiences which I am very familiar with. He confirmed what I know to be true about myself.
You mention that 2 percent of the adult population regularly experiences peak experiences. I don't know if you recall that I wrote I test(ed) in the upper 2 percent of the population. Not that intelligence and the ability to experience peak experiences correspond, but the number 2 seems to have significance in my life. I also self-tested my personality type, and there, too, I seemed to be in a 2 percent minority. In my "insanity" the number two became my sacred number which I would use to accomplish things (based on the 80/20 Pareto rule) and use in a way of Buddhism concentrating on only two things, right thought and right action. Also I don't know if you know anthing about the esoteric philosophy of seven cosmic rays, but here too I seem to fall mostly under the influence of the second cosmic ray. And then somewhere I read that the special number for a Scorpio, which I am, is the number two. Being that I like to play with different ideas and numbers, I find this quite intriguing.
I have to comment on your saying what people might sense in me. My ex-boyfriend who is a strict materialist (is that the right word for if I can't see it, etc., it doesn't exist) was sitting next to me once and told me that he could "feel" me. I said, sure you can feel my heat, because he always complained about how hot I was whenever he sat next to me. He responded, no that it wasn't my heat but something else which he couldn't describe. Do you suppose it was my Scorpio "magnetism?"
P.O. Box 505
Portland, OR 97207
web: http://www.thrivenet.com
September 7, 2000
Dear Victoria:
Your package arrived last week. Thank you for printing out a hard copy for the Archive.
You have an important story to tell and I like your spirit!
An email response to one of the many bulletin board posts I made:
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 04:10:26 -0400 Status: Normal
From: "Victoria Gaines"
Victoria:
Obviously you had a bad experience, but your facts
are somewhat inaccurate. Entirely understandable, as
you've been away for a bit and medicated.
Name: Ian MY URL: Visit Me
Date: 5/2/2001 5:59:19 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From:
Reply-to:
To: PROUDNut@aol.com