Carey Roberts
The exploitation of the mentally ill by abuse shelters
By Carey Roberts
In the former Soviet Union, dissidents who saw fit to challenge the prevailing socialist ideology were deemed to be certifiable nut cases. These men were packed off to the loony asylum for a regimen of forced re-education — a bizarre form of treatment that later came to be known as "Soviet psychiatry."
In the United States, feminists believe if a woman suffers from mental illness, the cause must be oppressive patriarchal culture. These women become unwittingly subjected to a rouge brand of therapy called "feminist psychology."
Over the years I've come across cases of women in domestic violence shelters who became unwitting Guinea pigs at the hands of feminist psychology practitioners. These are their heart-rending stories.
In West Virginia, Eileen P. had been diagnosed with a mental disorder and prescribed psychotropic medications. The pills interfered with her sleep to the point that she eventually stopped taking them, lapsing into flare-ups of abuse.
One day in 2007 Mrs. P. became physically abusive of her husband. The police were called in and she was taken to the YWCA Hope House domestic violence shelter in Charleston.
Once ensconced at the facility, Mrs. P. began to fret she wasn't getting essential psychiatric help. "Several days later, I notified my pastor, Reverend Linda Duncan, of my whereabouts. Reverend Duncan, in turn, told my husband," Mrs. P. later attested.
So her husband asked the Mental Hygiene Commissioner to order an examination, directing the sheriff to escort Mrs. Pope to a hearing the next day.
But when the sheriff pulled up to the shelter, the staff claimed they didn't know her whereabouts. As a result, Mrs. P. missed her hearing, sadly concluding, "This prevented me from getting the professional assistance I desperately needed."
Throughout her 3-month shelter stay, Mrs. P. did not receive any professional counseling or medications for her mental health condition.
In nearby Virginia, Mrs. J. went to Bethany House of Northern Virginia, hallucinating about make-believe domestic violence attacks by her husband. When the case went to court, the judge noted her precarious mental state and ruled she was not a victim of abuse.
Thereupon the spiteful woman responded with a teach-you-a-lesson lawsuit, alleging her husband had stolen secret government documents and shipped them off to India. The claim was so preposterous that a psychologist concluded that she was suffering from paranoid delusions.
Eventually on January 8, 2009, Judge Charles Maxfield ruled Mrs. J. had perjured herself by filing a "diatribe of complaints about the integrity" of her husband, thus subjecting him to "Kafkaesque litigation."
A thousand miles away in rural Oklahoma, Mrs. H., mother of five, was afflicted with a severe mental condition that required anti-psychotic pills.
Sometime in 2005 Mrs. H. became enamored of the notion that she and the children were being abused by her husband. County officials investigated the claim, later clearing the man of the allegation. In July of that year, the woman's family had her admitted to a local mental health facility.
But staff at the SafeNet shelter in nearby Claremore decided they knew better. Instructed to never question a woman's vexations, the staff went judge-shopping. Over the next year the shelter obtained five restraining orders against the woman's husband, never once presenting a scintilla of proof of abuse.
Mrs. H. was eventually discharged from the mental health residence and sent to live on her own. But her condition remained unstable, so SafeNet employees traipsed to her house to make sure she swallowed the medicines.
After countless months of baseless accusations, Judge Gary Dean ruled, "Mrs. [H] is a person with serious mental health problems...After approximately 2 ½ years of extensive counseling, through Safenet and other sources, the Court can see no progress on the mental health issues of the mother." The Judge also decreed the shelter director refrain from "any contact with the children at any time."
Recently Mr. H, now divorced from the distraught woman, filed a $6 million lawsuit against the shelter for the incalculable harm it inflicted on him and his children.
Mrs. P, Mrs. J, and Mrs. H are now freed from their shelter tormentors, no longer subject to the vagaries of feminist psychology. And they are the lucky ones.
Because as you read this editorial, thousands of mentally-ill women languish in abuse shelters, battered by the tired feminist bromides about patriarchal oppression. The "help" they receive consists of consciousness-raising classes led by man-hating women whose sole qualifications are a degree in Womyn's Studies.
One can only hope that more salutary lawsuits are in the works. Only then will abuse shelters begin to hire employees whose qualifications are rooted in objective science, not gender ideology.
© Carey Roberts
November 18, 2009
In the former Soviet Union, dissidents who saw fit to challenge the prevailing socialist ideology were deemed to be certifiable nut cases. These men were packed off to the loony asylum for a regimen of forced re-education — a bizarre form of treatment that later came to be known as "Soviet psychiatry."
In the United States, feminists believe if a woman suffers from mental illness, the cause must be oppressive patriarchal culture. These women become unwittingly subjected to a rouge brand of therapy called "feminist psychology."
Over the years I've come across cases of women in domestic violence shelters who became unwitting Guinea pigs at the hands of feminist psychology practitioners. These are their heart-rending stories.
In West Virginia, Eileen P. had been diagnosed with a mental disorder and prescribed psychotropic medications. The pills interfered with her sleep to the point that she eventually stopped taking them, lapsing into flare-ups of abuse.
One day in 2007 Mrs. P. became physically abusive of her husband. The police were called in and she was taken to the YWCA Hope House domestic violence shelter in Charleston.
Once ensconced at the facility, Mrs. P. began to fret she wasn't getting essential psychiatric help. "Several days later, I notified my pastor, Reverend Linda Duncan, of my whereabouts. Reverend Duncan, in turn, told my husband," Mrs. P. later attested.
So her husband asked the Mental Hygiene Commissioner to order an examination, directing the sheriff to escort Mrs. Pope to a hearing the next day.
But when the sheriff pulled up to the shelter, the staff claimed they didn't know her whereabouts. As a result, Mrs. P. missed her hearing, sadly concluding, "This prevented me from getting the professional assistance I desperately needed."
Throughout her 3-month shelter stay, Mrs. P. did not receive any professional counseling or medications for her mental health condition.
In nearby Virginia, Mrs. J. went to Bethany House of Northern Virginia, hallucinating about make-believe domestic violence attacks by her husband. When the case went to court, the judge noted her precarious mental state and ruled she was not a victim of abuse.
Thereupon the spiteful woman responded with a teach-you-a-lesson lawsuit, alleging her husband had stolen secret government documents and shipped them off to India. The claim was so preposterous that a psychologist concluded that she was suffering from paranoid delusions.
Eventually on January 8, 2009, Judge Charles Maxfield ruled Mrs. J. had perjured herself by filing a "diatribe of complaints about the integrity" of her husband, thus subjecting him to "Kafkaesque litigation."
A thousand miles away in rural Oklahoma, Mrs. H., mother of five, was afflicted with a severe mental condition that required anti-psychotic pills.
Sometime in 2005 Mrs. H. became enamored of the notion that she and the children were being abused by her husband. County officials investigated the claim, later clearing the man of the allegation. In July of that year, the woman's family had her admitted to a local mental health facility.
But staff at the SafeNet shelter in nearby Claremore decided they knew better. Instructed to never question a woman's vexations, the staff went judge-shopping. Over the next year the shelter obtained five restraining orders against the woman's husband, never once presenting a scintilla of proof of abuse.
Mrs. H. was eventually discharged from the mental health residence and sent to live on her own. But her condition remained unstable, so SafeNet employees traipsed to her house to make sure she swallowed the medicines.
After countless months of baseless accusations, Judge Gary Dean ruled, "Mrs. [H] is a person with serious mental health problems...After approximately 2 ½ years of extensive counseling, through Safenet and other sources, the Court can see no progress on the mental health issues of the mother." The Judge also decreed the shelter director refrain from "any contact with the children at any time."
Recently Mr. H, now divorced from the distraught woman, filed a $6 million lawsuit against the shelter for the incalculable harm it inflicted on him and his children.
Mrs. P, Mrs. J, and Mrs. H are now freed from their shelter tormentors, no longer subject to the vagaries of feminist psychology. And they are the lucky ones.
Because as you read this editorial, thousands of mentally-ill women languish in abuse shelters, battered by the tired feminist bromides about patriarchal oppression. The "help" they receive consists of consciousness-raising classes led by man-hating women whose sole qualifications are a degree in Womyn's Studies.
One can only hope that more salutary lawsuits are in the works. Only then will abuse shelters begin to hire employees whose qualifications are rooted in objective science, not gender ideology.
© Carey Roberts
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