1. Letter To VA and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur on 11-15-05
2. Recent comments - Stigma is actually "menacing by stalking", a crime
3. The Fear response - fight, flight, or compassion?!  - Truth that experts ignore!
4. Good people are willing to support evil as a group.
5. What people do not experience they tend not to believe.
6. My life - mental illness is creativity or danger?
7. What I have learned by running this website
8. My crazy beliefs:  God, Life, Universe, Everything
 · Who is the AntiChrist?
 
 

Served Country, now Forgotten!

I was a soldier defending your freedom.  Now I am ignored and forgotten.  Instead of support for being a disabled veteran, I have been attacked and isolated from society.  The reason is that my "mind" was damaged in the army. Now I fight a war for the millions like myself called mentally ill.  I must convince people to listen to a "nutcase", myself.  The real enemy is a tradition of fear, stigma, bigotry, and hate.  Currently I am alone in fighting this war.  This website tells why and gives my intentions.

Notice:   By writing these ideas down I can keep correcting what I say until someone understands.  It is even harder to talk about in person.

What is Stigma?

Instead of seeing that I was helpless as a child, my mental illness was considered dangerous.  The claim took away my freedom and caused self fear.  Is "Freedom and Justice for all" a lie to those called mentally ill?

Ideas like law and order, justice, and government are creations of the human mind just as stigma and mental illness are.  What makes any of these ideas less important or serious than others?  Who has the wisdom to say that I am wrong?

If the nature of the mind is important to life, then does it matter if "illness" is biological, experience, or caused by ideas?
 
 
 

Do I have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?

I believe that I developed "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" (PTSD) in the army. Other soldiers would threaten my life and get away with it. The situation started in 1989 after being diagnosed with another mental illness, BiPolar Disorder.  Instead of medical support I was forced to survive a year of trauma and stress in a hostile environment.

The evidence to support my having PTSD, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, is on this website. I refer to the VA's own PTSD website in the following:
 

1. I developed PTSD?

My army  roommate and his friends got away with physically attacking me. After fleeing to the safety of the headquarters with them chasing me, they claimed that I went crazy. When you life is threatened by 4 people, would you stand still and let them injure or kill you?

After the attack my company would not let me move to different room. I was terrified so I slept outside in a storage shed for several days until they finally gave me a new room. No one cared if I lived or died!

Here is what the commander wrote about the incident - army-90-1001.pdf :

Was there a detailed record and investigation into what happened? I had told my side of the story. Apparently I was not to be believed because I had been previously diagnosed with mental illness.

The VA and others claim PTSD it is a response to "life-threatening events". Unlike many examples that cause PTSD, my trauma and stress developed over a year - then exploded with the physical attack against me. See the counseling statements from 1989 to 1990 from my army experience for examples. Previously I called it stigma. PTSD is a better description.
 

2. Here is how my symptoms describe PTSD:

a. This is my life for the 15 years since leaving the army:

"People who suffer from PTSD often relive the experience through nightmares and flashbacks, have difficulty sleeping, and feel detached or estranged, and these symptoms can be severe enough and last long enough to significantly impair the person's daily life."

- from VA website.

From Item 1:
"Those who experience ... uncontrollability ... responsibility ... betrayal."

Item 2:
"Those with prior vulnerability factors ... lack of functional social support, and concurrent stressful life events."

Item 3:
"Those who report greater perceived threat or danger, suffering, upset, terror, and horror or fear."

The army was definitely a "social environment that produces shame, guilt, stigmatization, or self-hatred" for mental illness.  My army evidence does not lie!
 

3. What "symptoms" are, or are not, important:

Hear are my current mental symptoms in a nutshell:
a.  My life is directed by extreme memory, experience, hopes, and fears.
b.  Some of my symptoms could be Bipolar Disorder, PTSD, or both.
c.  Practical evidence of my life seems to get ignored by doctors.
 
 
 

Lack of trust is a central problem with mental illness:
Why is it ignored by the mental health industry?  I lost trust in myself after I was diagnosed with mental illness in the army.  I lost trust in other people because of how they have acted due to my mental illness.  What happens in your mind if you loose trust in everything?

I had blamed stigma and possible PTSD, but trust is the more basic issue.  In the 15 years since the army I have not found anyone who I trust to actually help me.  Compassion does not seem to be given to people diagnosed as mentally ill.
 
 
 

Recent Comments: I have experienced the worst of human behavior from people for 15 years.  Look at this website.  Then I am told that it is a "personal problem".  Why do people defend destructive social behavior and blame victims like myself? Most people tell me to give up one way or another because I am mentally ill.  I am forced to live with society so giving up is not an option.  Ask Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur why the mentally ill are ignored when they need help. The Surgeon General claims 5% of the population has a mental illness, then why is it not 5% of the news? Stigma is actually "menacing by stalking", a crime: This crime has been committed against the mentally ill for recorded history.  The criminals believe they are "protecting society" when in fact the hate and stigma cause harm.  I am one of the victims.  It started over 15 years ago in the army, again in a civic group and by the State (law) . A prosecutor admits "a pattern of conduct that ... causes mental distress" is the crime of stalking - see exhibit-04 . It always seemed one sided to me - they called me a criminal and they were acting like the criminals.  The Bowling Green Ohio prosecutor refused to see stigma as a crime, and he also engaged in and supported stigma - see prosecutor-2-n-3 .  Compassion could have prevented all of the hate and misunderstandings which drove the Bowling Green attack on me.  Apparently mental illness did not deserve compassion.   Truth does not help unless you use it productively.  You must find that wisdom yourself from a world of lies. This society has killed non-violent mentally ill people for having mental illness, then ignores the seriousness of mental illness?  People diagnosed with mental health problems are stuck in the middle and suffer from the bigotry, hate, and absurd logic applied to them.  Look at va-award-mental-illness.pdf . The Veterans Administration went with the "cheaper" diagnosis instead of providing counseling and support!  Ignoring smoke lets a fire burn out of control.

 
 

Additional hardball Subjects: . A poem - Stigma is society's hate crime. . In court, they say that I will kill them "persons suffering from manic depression ... kill others" . Society's problem with mental illness (a web page to put stigma where it belongs).  Society is suffering from a mental illness problem, showing bigotry and hate to the mentally ill and causing stigma. . Stigma + Bipolar Disorder = Schizoaffective Disorder? - I supply evidence that when I was facing extreme stigma, my diagnosis was changed to Schizoaffective disorder.  This has happened more than once. When when environment causing stigma went away, my diagnosis returned to Bipolar disorder.  Other aspects of Schizoaffective disorder appear stigma related.   I believe that society is killing people with mental illness by ignoring the destructive influence of bigotry, hate, and stigma.  Many are called criminals because they are not wanted.  Death by poor health, poverty, depression and suicide is caused by this social problem.  Here is the result of stigma: . Is killing yourself the only way the mentally ill can escape bigotry, hate, and crime?  Is this what society wants? . Before you kill yourself to escape bigotry and hate, consider where it is coming from.  Before you kill the people causing bigotry and hate, consider why they have it.  My belief has always been in compassion, so understanding bigotry, hate, and society's desire to kill has been difficult.   Why did doctors not help me with the stigma?  Their training is the treatment of symptoms.  The mental health industry would make less money if they helped stop the bigotry and hate or the resulting depression and stigma. The people claiming to have all the answers were wrong.  Society knows so little about the truth of mental illness that I had to find it for myself.  If I had fully trusted experts then I would be in a mental hospital, prison, or worse.  Perhaps many experts believe they know everything, so they learn nothing. · Hate crimes are acceptable against the mentally ill?

Good people are willing to support evil as a group- that is stigma. I could not understand why good people turned their backs on me.  Hitler is the easiest example, because he convinced people that evil was good.  It is interesting CineManiaStigma.com starts out attacking ideas that made Hitler powerful! The connection between evil, attacks on the mentally ill, and Hitler is well documented.  He supported killing anyone who might have mental illness.  I see the same acceptance of evil by good people here in Ohio, USA.  Groups of people in Bowling Green and Marion Ohio were willing to attack me for having mental illness. Who was my advocate to protect me from this evil?  Me, myself, and I.  Dealing with and tolerating stigma, bigotry, hate, and harassment might make anyone crazy.  The fact that the attacks seemed true made the stigma more self destructive.  See my army experience for example. Sooner or later people in the Civic Group, the State, and others will find out about this website.  They will feel blamed as individuals.  Without the group, they may have been compassionate and good people.  They call this process "groupthink". I can forgive individuals for groupthink.  I can not forgive the group.  The group needs to change or be labeled for what it supports.

Fear response - fight, flight, or compassion? - Truth that experts ignore! No one can explain exactly how the mind/brain works.  Yet life and death decisions assume knowing the motives of other people!  Instead of allowing "I think therefore I am", I have been told "Your motives are what we tell you"!  This foolishness needs to stop.  I am not as crazy as the people who were worried about my "fears".  They speculated at my motives and failed to see compassion.  Compassion or sympathy is one response to having fear, instead of fighting or fleeing?!  Compassion can explain why heroes ignore fear to save lives.  It can also explain why some victims help kidnappers, like Patty Hearst.  It is important because fear can be an automatic reaction, as in blind fear.  You may have little control over your actions.  The relationship with mental illness is what personally concerns me. Fears about mental illness are focused on the "fight or flight" response.  How many like myself choose compassion before fighting or running away?  Compassion compelled me to admit my "fears" in a civic group.  The result was the "fight or fight" response from police and others who attacked me.  (See Civic Group in the evidence.) The fear response appears responsible for hate, stigma, and threats against the mentally ill.  Compassion may be why most people with mental illness are not dangerous!  A person with mental illness would find it hard to fight or flee from their fears.  How do you fight or run away from mental illness?  Compassion, for yourself and other people, seems to work better than "fight of flight".  It may be called "self love", caring, concern, or "anti-stigma". When the Civic Group called me a "dangerous person", what were their fears and actions?  I wrote the "fears" letter because fear was their central complaint.  Compassion was forcing me to find a compassionate way to deal with it!  (I had no choice, "fear blinds people" as I said in the letter.  Did they care that they were destroying a compassionate person?) See New Orleans is proving that "Society can not survive without compassion!" to consider the fear, violence, and looting in New Orleans, Louisiana (LA) after Hurricane Katrina.

A child dies in the nation from E. Coli and it is national news.  Millions die in isolation from mental illness and no one seems to give a damn!  What the hell is wrong?  What would Jesus say?

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