One Woman’s Near Destruction and Reemergence From Psychiatric Assault

Abstract

Evelyn Scogin is a 52-year-old woman with a vast range of life experience and accumulated wisdom. She has worked in special education for decades, including many years as a teacher. Evelyn has been on social security disability for about four years, and has not worked for five. Her disability was, like so many of the astounding 1 in 50 of her fellow adult Americans, on psychiatric grounds (Whitaker, 2005), the result of intense iatrogenic damage caused by her treatment at the hands of the mental health system by polypharmacy and electroshock. This article tells a powerful and inspiring story about one woman’s near destruction and inspiring reemergence from damage caused by psychiatric polypharmacy and electroshock. Because of her very hard work and good support, Evelyn is now acting powerfully and assertively in the world, liberated from her role as a mental patient, and from all psychiatric drugs and related “treatments.”