And, once the label starts the ball rolling, the popular social bias pretty much makes sure that you reach the bottom of the hill.
“Innocent people lose their jobs, get discriminated against, get shunned by friends and neighbors as a direct result of mental health labeling. People get told they have no future and denied important life opportunities as a direct result of mental health labeling.
People get removed from their lives, denied the right to make basic decisions about their own welfare, relationships and belongings. They get denied access to their families, children, property, work. They get locked up, locked in, drugged, shocked, secluded and restrained for minor differences of opinion. No one acknowledges their preferences or recognizes their choices as having meaning or validity.
They get charged enormous amounts of money for this in the name of 'treatment.' They are sent home to lives in ruin, facing enormous bills, relationships have disintegrated, pets have died, employers have moved on, homes and apartments have been lost. There are no resources and few options to rebuild with.
When people respond badly to these kinds of set backs, mental health professionals take the further step of labeling them chronic or 'treatment resistant.' This paves the way for even more invasive procedures like heavy duty neuroleptics, electro-shock, electrode implants and psycho-surgery.
When people legitimately become frustrated, demoralized or outraged by professional 'help' that doesn't help, and professional 'services' that don't actually serve their needs, they are routinely labeled a danger to self or others. In the proceedings that follow, they are legally stripped of personhood and then forced into progressively invasive monitoring to ensure 'compliance' with the very procedures that didn't work (and often caused actual injuries) in the first place .
In other words, instead of looking at itself, and doing an honest self-assessment, the mental health profession blames, coerces and progressively debilitates the very people who come to it for help.
Arguably, this kind of treatment should not happen to any human being, ever, for any reason. In the United States, at the very least, you are supposed to have been convicted of a crime, in a court of law, before a jury of one's peers, knowing the charges against you, with a right to confront your accusers, cross-examine them, and have a lawyer appointed who helps you to prepare for your defense.
In the mental health system, if you remain silent they use it against you. If you deny the charges, they use it against you. If you disagree with the experts, they use it against you. There is literally no way for one private citizen to get rid of the label that another private citizen with the privilege to label has assigned.
— Sarah Knutson, BELOVED Psychiatric Survivor Activist
