A mentally ill person explains what it's like from her perspecitive.

Article argues if mentally ill should be allowed to refuse medication for treatment.

Schizophrenia Antipsychotic Drugs: Prominent psychiatrist Loren Mosher argues for treatment of schizophrenia without antipsychotics. Describes Soteria Project. Criticizes overuse of Psychiatric Drugs

The only responsible way to manage schizophrenia, most psychiatrists have long insisted, is to treat its symptoms when they first surface with antipsychotic drugs, which help dissolve hallucinations and quiet imaginary voices. Delaying treatment, some researchers say, may damage the brain.

Legal scholar Elyn Saks talks about her struggles with, and surprising triumphs over, mental illness By Elyn R. Saks | December 29, 2009 | Elyn Saks is a law professor at the University of Southern California, a Marshall scholar, and a graduate of Yale Law School.

Explains how the mentally ill could be committed without having the right to choose.

PsychRights® Law Project for Psychiatric Rights Psychiatry: Force of Lawby James B. Gottstein, Esq. November, 2002 The purpose of this article is to set forth just the basic legal principles, underpinnings and practices employed in the widespread use of legal force to compel unwilling patients into locked psychiatric hospitals and, most importantly, force brain damaging drugs and other brain damaging treatments such as Electroshock upon them over their desperate, but hopeless objections.

The right of a patient to refuse treatment is based upon five constitutional protections [1]: n the 8th amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment n the 1st amendment's protection of free speech (freedom of thought / ideas) n the 1st amendment's protection of freedom of religion n the more broadly interpreted right to privacy n the 14th amendment's protection of liberty (the right to be free from unjustified intrusions on personal security).

The Supreme Court, in 1986, ruled that according to the Eight Amendment a legally insane, which is not the same as being mentally ill, prisoner could not be executed because it is "cruel and unusual punishment"(Davison and Neale, p539).

No Where to Lay His Head ... The first answer that most people usually come up with to mental illness is "medication". Medication can help the mentally ill in many cases, even completely cure them. For others, however, medication helps only in a limited way, while inducing a number of side effects.

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This period of destabilization can result in a serious setback to the progress that the patient has made when properly medicated. As their behaviors become increasingly troublesome to others, these people risk alienating their support systems, and they jeopardize the scarce resources that have been arranged for them.