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To
med or not to med
BY
KRISTEN LOMBARDI
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September 2 marks day 18 of the Fast for Freedom in Mental
Health, an ongoing hunger strike to protest the widespread use
of prescription drugs to treat mental illness. On August 16,
six members of the advocacy group known as MindFreedom Support
Coalition International, which is based in Eugene, Oregon,
kicked off the fast with a celebratory brew of juices made
from garlic, beets, kale, and carrots. Since then, nearly two
dozen strikers from across the country have downed nothing
but the dark-red concoction in a spirit of
solidarity.
One of them is Ria Fey, a 36-year-old Cambridge resident
who began fasting in earnest on August 19. When Fey heard
about the goals of the strike — strikers, for instance, want
the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to provide concrete
evidence that mental illnesses are the result of
brain-chemistry imbalances — she didn’t hesitate to
participate. "I believe the psychiatric system dehumanizes
people," Fey explains. The psychiatric-drug industry, she
says, reduces those who suffer from mental illnesses to labels
while mystifying everyday emotions like sadness, fear, and
anger. As she puts it, "Psychiatry represents to me hierarchy
in its purest form, control of actions, attempted regulation
of thought and feeling."
Fey speaks from experience. At age 10, after repeatedly
acting out at school and even biting the hand of a classmate,
her parents sent her off to a mental institution, where she
was forced to take Ritalin. "I still resent that," Fey says.
By the time she turned 18, she found herself in an adult
mental institution: McLean Hospital, in Belmont. There, she
was confined to an inpatient unit for five months, strapped in
a bed by four-point restraints, and required to take
medication for what she describes as "a list of medical
labels." Three years later, she relived the psych-ward scene
after being admitted to McLean again — this time, for a
two-month stint.
The experience of being a psychiatric patient has left Fey,
in her words, "completely wounded." To this day, more than a
decade after her last admission to McLean, Fey shuns
traditional notions of psychiatry. When asked about her past
diagnoses, for example, she replies, "I could give you some
labels, but they would only play into the system." She does
not see a therapist, nor does she take prescription drugs.
Instead, she’s dealt with her mental-health issues by relying
on alternative treatments, such as daily exercise and changes
in diet and nutrition.
That said, there’s no question that MindFreedom Support
Coalition International is on the fringe of psychiatric-reform
advocacy. Toby Fisher of the National Alliance for the
Mentally Ill (NAMI), in Massachusetts, declines to comment
specifically on the group. "I don’t know much about them," he
says. But he notes that most mental-health advocates see
psychiatric medications as an important tool in treatment —
especially among the chronically ill. People who suffer from
schizophrenia or bipolar disorder have been able to hold down
jobs, live normal lives, and stay out of mental institutions
because of their drug regimes. Medications, he says,
"certainly are not a magic bullet. But for many people,
they’ve proven to be enormously beneficial."
At the same time, Fisher says, more and more advocacy
groups, including NAMI, recognize that alternative treatments
like daily exercise and good nutrition are essential to
treating mental illness properly. The bottom line, he says, is
that treatment "is an individual choice. People with
mental-health concerns should make use of all available
options."
Now that Fey has begun her fast for mental-health freedom,
ingesting nothing but juice, water, and vitamins, she’s
content to keep going until the APA meets the strikers’
original demands — or, at least, until the organization talks
publicly about the permanent changes psychiatric drugs can
cause. Fey likens the current strikers to gay and lesbian
activists in the early 1970s, who pushed the APA to change its
classification of homosexuality from a mental disorder to a
sexual orientation. It’s a comparison that many gay men and
lesbians might reject, given that the classification of
homosexuality as a mental illness was rooted in social
prejudice. Nevertheless, Fey and her fellow strikers are
adamant in their belief, as Fey puts it, that "coercive
psychiatry causes more hurt than good. The more distance I put
between myself and therapists, the more happy and together a
life I have."
For daily updates on the Fast for Freedom in Mental
Health strikers, check out the MindFreedom Web site at http://www.mindfreedom.org/
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