Please remove Anne Ganzer from your e-mail list. Thank you.
I regret to inform you that my mother, Anne Ganzer, died on 31, July, 2011. Please remove her from your mailing list, and also from any financial solicitation lists. Please DO NOT SOLICIT my father for money for your worthy organization. The expenses of the funeral and celebration service and brunch, the loss of her social security income (my father is a retired state of Illinois teacher, and they did not pay into social security, and as a result get nothing out of it for their teachers' salaries).
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
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Anne did get a lot from her affiliation with NAMI - although so much of what you have to offer is predicated on the unfounded hypothesis that there exists a classification of diseases known as "mental illnesses." Nonetheless, there powerful dynamics and bonds can be developed when people who have shared experiences come together specifically to speak of those experiences, engage honestly in dialogue, and to let their true emotions out, to share one another's common burden, thereby making the load far more easy to carry.
That said, it mist be noted that a reading of the DSM IV will lead the reader to the most obvious and basic of all conclusions: that (almost all) of those conditions classified as "mental illness" have no etiology - there is no way to predict the path the alleged "disease" will follow from one individual to the next, nor even to make generalizations accurate enough to have predictive utility, save for this:
A "mentally ill-labeled" human being {MILHB} will ALWAYS seek to go off their medications, and once they stop, they will almost invariably eventually (and rather sooner than later) return to a depressed state (although up the initial cessation of the meds, the MILHB will do some things which appear, most assuredly based on more recent and depressed (even severely depressed) behaviors to be quite out of character {OOCB}.
But the OOCB, the unbounded joy, optimism, enthusiasm, etc, etc, etc, can be perfectly and logically explained and understand by this analysis:
After an extended duration of depressed feelings, where the depression is palatable, when the human body's own healing mechanisms {HBOHM} begin to reach a point where they can quell the depression and reverse it, ridding itself of the things (thoughts, ideations, dreams) forming the root cause(s) of the depression (invariably different degrees of loss, which may be psychic or more tangible, depending on the individual. There are a wide varieties of responses to loss - ranging from rage to grief, to denial, to acceptance, with a couple of others tossed in between.
Furthermore, it is quite unlikely, given that since most of the mental health "experts" {MHE} who have known the have known the MILHB only in a depressed state (only here is one normally willing to voluntarily surrender his will to taking anti-depressants; a person experiencing a so called "manic episode" {ASCME} only when depressed, as any of you can attest), will never voluntarily surrender the joy and celebration of that moment in time when the depression has been eradicated while the body's attempt at achieving homeostasis through electro-magnetic-bio-chemical changes, has overshot the mark, that the MHE has sufficient knowledge of the "normal" range of emotions and behaviors of the so-called (and entirely mis-labeled) "mentally ill" client.
And too, especially in the case of the parents of a child who has left "the nest," gone out on their own, established themselves in their career, the social circles, their spiritual circles, their various communities, have a CLUE about what that child has become to the other people with whom he (the universal "he" intended to include all human being - male, female, trans-gendered) have the foggiest or faintest clue about what the child has become; about how that child has blossomed; about what that child has morphed into. And parents being flawed to the extent that they are not perfect, and most of them falling short by omission (things not done for) rather than commission (things done to), are typically NOT ready to even want to know what their child has become (unless the adult child is typically getting many accolades; an accoladed child's honors somehow or another rub off on its parents).
One trained in the scientific method would logically draw these following conclusion, which could then be tested experimentally:
(1) Major depressive episodes are hellish for every one involved.
(2) Medications for MILHB merely mask symptoms; they do not get to root causes.
(3) Until the root causes are fully understood, dealt with, and explored, and options for coping with the root causes are emplaced, the MILHB will exhibit "classic" symptoms of bipolar
illness, either being "too sad" or "too glad," in the eyes of those legally empowered to make such judgments.
(4) The human body is a miraculous creation, and at all times attempts to keep itself in a state of balance (homeostasis). When body functions become severely compromised, what is
required of the body to reverse the effects invariably will "over shoot" the mark, and the results will be a "relapse" into the previous state.
(5) The most effective therapy to lead a MILHB out of the wilderness of one extreme or the other is a combination of medication, talk therapy, diet, exercise, choosing to be around
mentally healthy people.
(6) If "mental illnesses" really were medically based, then one could be cured of their mental illness. Such is NOT the case of the MILHB, for that person can NEVER RECOVER FROM
THE INITIAL MISDIAGNOSIS.
(7) The diagnostic tools for classifying any of the so-called mental illnesses come from a laundry list of about 20 behaviors. For a specific "illness," between nine and twelve laundry list behoviors are selected, and a MILHB who exhibits three or more of these
is deemed "to have it!"
(8) Enough is known about the history of DSM-series and the classification of mental illness to further support that "mental illnesses" are not illnesses at all, but merely a labels used to classify a MILHB and prescribe a treatment program (typically by injecting potentially lethal drugs to counteract the MILHB's bio-rhythms). Because a canon of literature exists, it is virtually impossible to sue a mental health professional for malpractice in the event a MILHB's proscribed medication management program cause serious damage, even including loss of life.
(9) Further evidence that the DSM-series defines not a family of illnesses, but serves only to assist the reader of said series to label a MILHB is suggested by what were formerly included as "mental illnesses," e.g:
Excessive masturbation
Homosexuality
Chain smoking
and by recalling that in the earlier days of classification, the hall mark distinction between a so-called "manic depressive" and a "schizophrenic" was social-economic class: the upper classes were labeled "manic depressive" and had available rather nice rehabilitation hospitals, while the "schizophrenics' " lot was rather far more bleak.
And thus we arrive at where we are today, with four cohorts permanently vested with propagating the belief that there exists such a thing as a group of illness which are called "mental illnesses:"
The pharmaceutical companies who spend a fortune advertising anti-depressants on TV so that the patients can tell the doctor what they need to prescribe!
The psychiatric community at large, including the teaching colleges and universities.
The legal profession which uses "not guilty by reason of insanity" verdicts to let perfectly guilty well off white people get out of paying for their crimes and having to be left to live amongst the "savages - frequently of darker hue" in the lower 99.
Since "mental illness" is not a classification of disease, but rather a describer of behaviors, the American Psychiatric Association, The American Medical Association, and all the teaching hospitals which have programs dedicated to behvior modification, have been committing medical malpractice for the duration; they have kidnapped human beings (involuntary commitments), poisoned human beings (injection of potehtially lethal drugs against the patient's will), and slandered and libeled human beings because, while one might be cured of cancer, one can never be cured of the various mental illness labels.
What NAMI provides is talk therapy, for the family and loved ones of the MILHB, and possibly for the MILHB too (if they are willing attend meetings, which, I suspect, usually they are not). You share your experiences in a non-judgmental environment where everybody has experienced pretty much the same thing. That is comforting, and reassuring, and by voicing one's feelings, one releases them from the grave in which they were buried alive; one has an opportunity to be healed and made well again.
However, for as long as programs of treatment focus only on the symptoms, and not at getting to understanding the root cause of the loss which triggered the depression, the roller coaster ride is but one word, or one triggering event away from taking off again.
Your organization is worthy. It can BE better and DO better.
Thank you for your attention to these matters,
Sincerely,
MARK RAYMOND GANZER, who has had the following labels placed on me at various times:
Bi-polar
Manic-depressive, axis II, hypomanic state
Schizophrenic
Paranoid schizophrenic
Alcoholic
Manipulative Personality Disorder
Fractitious syndrome (also called Ganser's syndrome; how ironic)
Borderline personality disorder
Obsessive compulsive disorder
In other words, one real sick mother fucker.
What a crock of fucking bull shit; one from which I refuse any more to eat. You can be cured of the label by moving to where you are given a fresh start, a chance to prove (or disprove) your worthiness and value to community; where your past matters not, only your present, only your future. You must bury your past and treat as dead all those who love you, but believe you to be sick, all the while refusing to investigate their own pathologies.
Peace and blessings upon you, your family, your loved ones, your home, your organization, and your community,
Mark Raymond Ganzer
