“It made me want to die … I remember that they would stick a rag in my mouth so I wouldn’t bite through my tongue and that it took three attendants to hold me down”
Ted Chabasinski is an American psychiatric survivor, human rights activist and attorney who lives in Berkeley, California. At the age of six he was taken from his foster family’s home and committed to a New York psychiatric facility. Diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia he underwent intensive electroshock therapy (now termed electroconvulsive therapy or ECT) and remained an inmate in a state psychiatric hospital until the age of seventeen. He subsequently trained as a lawyer and became active in the psychiatric survivors movement. In 1982 he led a successful campaign seeking to ban the use of electroshock in Berkeley, California. (source: Wikipedia) (more…)
In 2008 the federal government invested $110 million for a five year demonstration project aimed at providing evidence about what services and systems best help people experiencing serious mental illness and homelessness. The 
A three-year-long intensive multi-city study looking into the effectiveness of Housing First approaches is due to end on March 31, 2013. The federal government funded the research through its Mental Health Commission of Canada initiative. The 
Calen Pick’s famous aunt, Glenn Close, was a keynote speaker last spring at the Mental Health Commission of Canada’s conference about stigma and the way we see mental illness. Together with her sister, Jessie Close, and her nephew, Calen Pick, the three family members helped to put a family face on the experience of living with–and dealing with–mental illness among family members. 
METRO NEWS OTTAWA, February 11, 2013
Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses with significant, life-threatening medical and psychiatric morbidity and mortality, regardless of an individual’s weight. Anorexia Nervosa (AN), in particular, has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder. Risk of premature death is 6-12 times higher in women with AN as compared to the general population, adjusting for age. 