"Those who profess to favor freedom yet deprecate agitation,
are people who want crops without plowing up the ground.
Power concedes nothing without a struggle.
It never has and it never will."
Frederick Douglass
Today's Saturday Survivor is long time Civil Rights activist and MindFreedom International member, Ted Chabasinski. Ted's incredible story of psychiatric trauma inflicted upon him in psychiatric facilities for most of his childhood, and his recovery are a triumphant testimony of his innate indomitable spirit.
via Mind Freedom International
"When Miss Callaghan had discovered enough "symptoms," I was sent to the Bellevue children's psychiatric ward, to be officially diagnosed and to made an experimental animal for Doctor Bender. I was one of the first children to be "treated" with electric shock. I was six years old."
Born: 20 March 1937
Contact info: Berkeley, California, USA
Currently doing: Ted is working as the directing attorney for Mental Health Consumer Concerns (MHCC).
Mental health experience: Shocked, Inpatient, Outpatient, Forced Treatment, Raped, Restraints, Tortured, Solitary Confinement
Psychiatric labels: Schizophrenia
Recovery methods: Peer Support, Self-Help, Social Activism, One-on-one Therapy, Group Therapy, Diet, Exercise, Art/Music, Family/Friends
Brief History:
Psychiatrists and social workers had already decided before I was born that I was going to be a mental patient. My natural mother had been locked up just before she gave birth to me and was locked up again soon after. The social worker from the Foundling Hospital told my foster parents that my mother was "peculiar," and Miss Callaghan soon had them looking for symptoms in me, too. Every month Miss Callaghan would come and discuss my "problems" with my foster parents. If I only wanted to stay in the back yard with my sister and make mud pies, this was a sign that I was too passive and withdrawn, and my mommy and daddy were supposed to encourage me to explore the neighborhood more. When I started to wander around the neighborhood, I went to a neighbor's garden and picked some flowers. The neighbor complained, and Miss Callaghan held a long session with my parents about curbing my "hostile" impulses. read here.
Ted has been active in the psychiatric survivor movement for decades. In the summer of 1970, there was a gathering of psychiatric survivors at the Highlander Center in Tennessee. Ted and the other survivors who gathered forty one years ago are the leaders in the Civil Rights Movement for people with psychiatric diagnoses in the United States. See: "Nothing About Us Without Us History" page above for more.
The general public is largely unaware of the history of the psychiatric survivor movement. Even worse is the fact that the public has been misinformed about the efforts of Ted Chabasinski and other survivors to obtain basic Human Rights for people who have a psychiatric diagnois. Ted Chabasinski and other survivors in the psychiatric survivor Civil Rights movement have been diligently pursuing basic Human Rights for decades. This Civil Rights movement is following the examples of Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr., among others. Ted and other survivors have been seeking basic Human Rights for themselves and for all people who are denied equal rights under the law, due to a psychiatric diagnosis. Our Founding Fathers declared that human equality is "self-evident" in the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
The rights of all individuals were effectively and adequately defined and secured by the framers of The Constitution of the United States; yet these rights are denied people who have a psychiatric diagnosis as a matter of course; as they have been denied to other people based on heritage or gender historically in this Nation. 235 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Ted Chabasinski, a member of Mind Freedom International, is advocating for Individual Rights that the Constitution of the United States of America declared belong to all American equally. Rights are not effectively secured if they are not protected and defended, these are Human Rights, and are applicable to all Americans equally. September 17th of 2011 it will have been 224 years since this document was sent to individual States to be ratified. Isn't it time that the Law of the Land is applied equally to all Americans?
Ted survived horrific treatment as a child and adolescent, and has spent much of his adult life helping others by sharing his experience and demonstrating his devotion to the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Ted knows these principles are applicable to every one of us, and he knows the harm that happens to people when their Individual Rights are not protected or defended.
Ted became an attorney to more effectively help psychiatric survivors; his advocacy benefits all of us, it is a service to humanity.
Ted Chabasinski on Wikipedia
via Mind Freedom International
| Ted Chabasinski |
Born: 20 March 1937
Contact info: Berkeley, California, USA
Currently doing: Ted is working as the directing attorney for Mental Health Consumer Concerns (MHCC).
Mental health experience: Shocked, Inpatient, Outpatient, Forced Treatment, Raped, Restraints, Tortured, Solitary Confinement
Psychiatric labels: Schizophrenia
Recovery methods: Peer Support, Self-Help, Social Activism, One-on-one Therapy, Group Therapy, Diet, Exercise, Art/Music, Family/Friends
Brief History:
Psychiatrists and social workers had already decided before I was born that I was going to be a mental patient. My natural mother had been locked up just before she gave birth to me and was locked up again soon after. The social worker from the Foundling Hospital told my foster parents that my mother was "peculiar," and Miss Callaghan soon had them looking for symptoms in me, too. Every month Miss Callaghan would come and discuss my "problems" with my foster parents. If I only wanted to stay in the back yard with my sister and make mud pies, this was a sign that I was too passive and withdrawn, and my mommy and daddy were supposed to encourage me to explore the neighborhood more. When I started to wander around the neighborhood, I went to a neighbor's garden and picked some flowers. The neighbor complained, and Miss Callaghan held a long session with my parents about curbing my "hostile" impulses. read here.
Ted has been active in the psychiatric survivor movement for decades. In the summer of 1970, there was a gathering of psychiatric survivors at the Highlander Center in Tennessee. Ted and the other survivors who gathered forty one years ago are the leaders in the Civil Rights Movement for people with psychiatric diagnoses in the United States. See: "Nothing About Us Without Us History" page above for more.
The general public is largely unaware of the history of the psychiatric survivor movement. Even worse is the fact that the public has been misinformed about the efforts of Ted Chabasinski and other survivors to obtain basic Human Rights for people who have a psychiatric diagnois. Ted Chabasinski and other survivors in the psychiatric survivor Civil Rights movement have been diligently pursuing basic Human Rights for decades. This Civil Rights movement is following the examples of Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King Jr., among others. Ted and other survivors have been seeking basic Human Rights for themselves and for all people who are denied equal rights under the law, due to a psychiatric diagnosis. Our Founding Fathers declared that human equality is "self-evident" in the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
The rights of all individuals were effectively and adequately defined and secured by the framers of The Constitution of the United States; yet these rights are denied people who have a psychiatric diagnosis as a matter of course; as they have been denied to other people based on heritage or gender historically in this Nation. 235 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Ted Chabasinski, a member of Mind Freedom International, is advocating for Individual Rights that the Constitution of the United States of America declared belong to all American equally. Rights are not effectively secured if they are not protected and defended, these are Human Rights, and are applicable to all Americans equally. September 17th of 2011 it will have been 224 years since this document was sent to individual States to be ratified. Isn't it time that the Law of the Land is applied equally to all Americans?
Ted survived horrific treatment as a child and adolescent, and has spent much of his adult life helping others by sharing his experience and demonstrating his devotion to the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Ted knows these principles are applicable to every one of us, and he knows the harm that happens to people when their Individual Rights are not protected or defended.
Ted became an attorney to more effectively help psychiatric survivors; his advocacy benefits all of us, it is a service to humanity.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Ted Chabasinski on Wikipedia
1 comment:
Ted is an awesome person and someone i am proud to call a friend. Well done!
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