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I have decided to join a hunger strike

14:44 / 20.08.03

you can read about the purpose and background of it here. under the Activism section of disinfo.com you can find a short post with relevant links to pass on. please inform the media and if you work for the media please join in with this.

if you live near Boston Massachusetts area as I do especially where I live and can give you interviews. NAMI, the APA and the Attorney General have little reason to do anything until the media and/or the public speak. I hope that this can turn into a Stonewall for the psychiatric rights movement.

you can also join my friends list of my LiveJournal which I hope to update. perhaps this can personalize the issues a little for people who read LJ.

relevant to the Conversation I hope because this involves me personally. and because when I posted on Switchboard only one person responded. to say that the link I gave a broken URL, which I had.

14:47 / 20.08.03

Drink lots of water.

I'm not sure the kind of media I'm involved with would give the coverage you want, if they'd be interested at all. I can try, though.

What do you think a good "hook" would be?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

15:39 / 20.08.03

Good Lord. Not sure what to say, really. Do take care, won't you, Ria?

I second grant's warning to drink lots of water. A lot of our food contains a considerable amount of water, so when you fast you risk dehydration unless that water is provided by drinking. Are you allowing yourself fruit or vegetable juices, or invalid drinks like Complan or Nurishment? What about vitamin and mineral supplements?

15:45 / 20.08.03

y'know, Grant, I thought of you in reference to this. considered making a joke about tabloids' "usual balanced, accurate" coverage!

I will drink lots of water. lots of protein drinks, fruit juice, etc.

as for hooks, I don't know about that one. psychiatric survivors says, "no faith in the system, can only hope of change from below."

the psych rights movement has no "metaphor" as yet. like the gay and lesbian* movement does: "just like everybody else, we just sleep with our own sex." this movement encompasses so much. varied labels, varied experiences. all the way from suburban women who took Prozac and decided to stop to people on the street to people put in those thought-reform terror schools by their parents and also to say "just like everybody" distorts the truth.

so no hook as yet. no hook for me and no hook for the greater movement. once so perhaps this will catalyze. now anyone reading this, please, stop and do something to help! and that includes myself, of course.

[to self:] Ria, go off-line, now! call those media people!

* -- yes, I acknowledge the larger queer scene. I belong to that scene.

16:45 / 20.08.03

Ria, good on you for following your passion and becoming active in your support of this issue. As the others have said, just make sure you take care of yourself properly.

Good luck and I hope your effort makes the impact you are hoping for.

Will send good vibes your way.

19:33 / 20.08.03

of all the issues out there none affects me so viscerally as that in the psychiatric system.

I will do the best I can to maintain my health. I kind of began this on a lark and talked to media contacts in a merry, hyper manner. I expect that by tomorrow I will feel rather less jolly.

time seems to have more meaning once you devote it to something worth doing.

thank you for your kind replies. please do whatever you can to make the campaign known by everybody!

Goodness Gracious Meme

19:56 / 20.08.03

Make sure you've got medical advice/medics on hand.

Good luck, take care.

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:28 / 20.08.03

All of the above. Medics, fruit juices, vitamin supplements, lots of water, and lots of *hugs*... take care of yourself, Ria.

Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey

22:22 / 20.08.03

I've no advice or any major argumentative contribution to give to this thread.

What I can say, though, is best of luck, Ria - it's a rare person that's willing to go to such extreme lengths to defend a cause. I'll be thinking of you, and make sure you keep us posted.

22:31 / 20.08.03

I do not have medical assitance here doing it from my own home. tomorrow I can do some research on anatomy and physiology. other than that I have fasted before for three days on nothing but water and know something of my own limits. will hope to update you here. have not gotten around to updating the LJ. you guys can always check by their. hugs back, by the way!

02:04 / 21.08.03

I've never understood why a hunger strike works. Frankly, if someone refuses to eat food that they could easily have I don't understand why I should feel sorry for them and cave in to their views. I didn't know that suicide could be used as a form of persuasive argument.

02:20 / 21.08.03

Slim, the people at NAMI seem to agree with you! I have spoken with them.

I just updated my LJ. too tired to do the coding so you can check the link above.

BTW folks I have no intention to fast unto death. just so you know. I have a modelling gig on Sunday, wouldn't want to skip out on that!

04:17 / 21.08.03

I didn't know that suicide could be used as a form of persuasive argument.
I find it odd too. Its like taking yourself hostage. But people seem to feel pity for people who suffer for a cause...

BTW folks I have no intention to fast unto death. just so you know. I have a modelling gig on Sunday, wouldn't want to skip out on that!
So your threatening a show of support until you reach your ideal modeling weight?

Tryphena Absent

08:50 / 21.08.03

Well Slim it could be the fact that there's food around and they're sacrificing it to put a point across. I wouldn't be strong enough to do that but that just makes me have respect for those who do.

10:10 / 21.08.03

more flexible state-controlled psychiatric care would be excellent. being able to sue nhs/drug companies for getting people addicted to ssri's would be great for the old bank balance.

but a hunger strike with

'Medics, fruit juices, vitamin supplements, lots of water'

isn't a hunger strike at all, it's the slimfast plan.

ria you sound like you like fasting. is there much history of this issue being confronted with other methods?

10:24 / 21.08.03

So your threatening a show of support until you reach your ideal modeling weight?

that is so not what Ria said.

and hunger strikes did help women to, like, get to vote.

16:47 / 21.08.03

Han't you people ever heard of folks running marathons for charity? Same deal, only moreso.

16:24 / 22.08.03

Khaologan23ris and Kegboy, reading your comments hurt. I mulled over making a jokey response but I do not feel bothered to do so now.

I spent most of Wednesday and part of Thursday trying to secure media coverage and then I get to read this. the slim-fast plan (sans medics) I have found not so tough. the trying to get anyone to the story has exerted more energy from me. in answer to Khaologan23ris' question I have not fasted for a cause before now. nobody AFAIK has done a fast for these issues. direct action of the psych rights movement has so far consisted of showing up APA conventions with signs.

the psych rights as a whole surged up in the late '60's as a social more'n' than political movement then subsided and sort of crept on for the next few decades . the CCHR, a Scientologist puppet organization, has done some legal cases. to my relief the CCHR has not tried to involved itself in the fast in any way.