In article <20000817182625.16718.00000228@ng-ba1.aol.com>, travissargent@aol.com (TravisSargent) wrote:

> I would advise anyone currently taking psychiatric medications
> to seriously
> consider alternatives. I suffered through repeated
> hospitalizations, a suicide
> attempt, and electroshock treatments before I finally had the
> courage to say no
> to mind altering medication [...]. When people see me
> now they always say how good I look and are amazed
> by the difference.

You've crossed the line, Travis. Your new disclaimer affords you no protection. You have advised that suicidal psychiatric patients abort active therapy in favor of scientology treatments. Your employer is neither accredited nor licensed for the practice of medicine, and has been specifically enjoined by the courts against such practice. You are legally and personally culpable for any death or injury that results from your advice. Since you operate with scientology's knowledge and approval, culpability extends to your organization as well.

You have not spent a 72-hour watch at the bedside of a suicidal mother, wailing because she survived her last mutilating suicide attempt. She is feverishly plotting her next, working hard to convince us she's well enough to be discharged. You didn't have to explain to her three kids and their desperate dad why this woman wants to die and certainly will die unless we intervene. I had to tell them why there are no mirrors in her room--her face is so disfigured by her razor attack on herself that she is unrecognizable. We mitted her undamaged hands in gauze to keep her from touching what remains of her face.

You have never seen a man survive a self-inflicted gunshot through the head (a disturbing number of patients do). Dan's hell is that he remembers his former, successful life in brilliant detail, but lives imprisoned by a damaged brain that leaves him unable to speak or care for himself. Dan's wife didn't believe his threats and shrugged off his depression as malingering. Of course she's long gone now; Dan is cared for by his 72 year old mother. She is my patient. God only knows how she endures, or how Dan will survive after she's gone.

These are the products of people like you who insist that mental illness does not exist, and that those of us who dedicate our lives to helping the sick actually mean to do them harm. Do you know that anyone who tries once to kill himself or herself is nearly 100% sure to try it again, and more than 75% likely to succeed without aggressive intervention? Your heartless medical advice will do incalculable harm to those most in need of our protection. Have you no decency left?

I thought scientology had some limits, some scruples that excluded society's most vulnerable from your clutches. We cannot respect you, or this cause you represent that would sooner see a man end his life in scientology than have his life saved by medicine. Obviously, a man's life is not worth as much to you as the money in his pockets.

I cannot summon words to express my disgust.

God grant you the mercy you refuse the helpless people you destroy.

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