The idea that mental health facilities are as important to the government as physical health facilities is, of course, nonsense and the poor conditions that many mental health patients have to endure is testament to the fact that we have been lied to for decades. The fact is that those least able to complain will be lied to the most; not just because we are easy to forget about when we don’t kick up a storm but because physical health has been fetishised to the point at which fitness is equated to moral gumption while mental health is equated to moral inadequacy. It’s as if, deep down, most politicians on the right, or tory-lite, think we deserve to be ignored.
Today I got angry after reading a tweet. Just a regular day then, you might think, except this one made me so angry I have had to blog for the first time in months. I was reading a thread about a conference on “rapid tranquillisation”. For those who don’t know, on a psychiatric ward this means administering a drug, generally by injection, which knocks the patient out. Patients usually have to be restrained by staff for this to take place. I am very, very fortunate that I have never been restrained or injected, but I can assure you it is difficult to watch, and I have read enough accounts by those who have been subjected to it to know that it can be utterly traumatising (if you want to know more, @Sectioned_ has blogged about her experiences extensively). I had to back away from the thread pretty quickly, because I…
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Nagara 