Girls, Girls, Girls – Judi Chamberlin

You're listening to Girls, Girls, Girls, the podcast rewriting history One episode at a time. I'm Bea Duncan. Hello, everybody. You are listening to Girls, Girls, Girls with me, Bea Duncan. And we're here on women's radio station. If you're new, this is the show that attempts to rewrite history one episode at a time. Every single week, I will be tackling the story of a fantastic woman through history who should be a household name, but for whatever reason, she isn't. And today we're talking about the fantastic Judy Chamberlain, who was a mental health activist in America and she made some really, really amazing changes and strides and was really advocating for better rights for people with mental health issues. But before we get into her story, as always, we're going to start off with the cell hybrration. So this is a little bit of a segment where I just talk about somebody or multiple people in this case actually, who I think deserves a great shout out, whether it be a project that they're doing, something that they've achieved or just somebody that I think is really great. And as always, if you have somebody that you would like to celebrate, please feel free to just let me know on Twitter or Instagram or vi email, because it would be great to shout out some of the people in your life that you want to shout out as well. But today's celebration, yes, as I said, multiple people. So earlier in kind of the middle of last week, I'm sure a lot of you will be aware that the US had their midterm elections. And luckily, I mean, for me, and I assume for most of the people who listen to this podcast, we'll be pleased to know that the Democrats took control of the Senate. But I, I want to celebrate the many, many, many firsts of women that happened in this election. So a record number of women won seats in the House and there were a certain number of firsts. So for example, the youngest woman ever to be elected into Congress, she's 29 years old. Her name is Alexandria Casio Cortez, Charisse Davids and Deb Harland, the first Native American women to be voted into Congress. So two of them, which is incredible. We have Rashida Talib and Iman Omar, who were the first Muslim women ever to be voted to Congress. Ayanna Pressley, the first black congresswoman from Massachusetts. There are so, so many firsts in this election. And I think it's really, really amazing that even in this current political climate in America, women are still being able to kind of find the resources within themselves to make massive change. And it really shows a huge amount of SP dedication that they haven't allowed that to kind of knock them down. They've just gone, got back up and it has worked. There are some incredible, incredible people. So we have a whole load of firsts in this election. And so I want to celebrate all of them. There are plenty more names. I'm not just going to run our list for you because that might be a bit boring, but you can go and have a look and research them and support them, please, because that's what they need now. And yeah, I think it's just really, really great. And hopefully we can sustain that energy. And in the US come the elections in two years, maybe things will be different. Let's hope. We can only hope so. Yes, as I said, if you've got somebody that you would like to celebrate, please do let me know. And I would be more than happy to chat about them on this show, but I think it's time to get into our main story for today. So we're going to be talking about Judy Chamberl, who, as I said, was an incredible mental health activist. This is a quote from her in the New York Times. She was talking about the time that she was involuntarily put into a psychiatric hospital. And she said there are real indignities and real problems when all facets of life are controlled, when to get up to eat, to shower and chemicals are put inside our bodies against our will. So that's a really powerful quote. We're going to be talking a little bit more about what we what that means, about what she witnessed and what she did about it. So she was born Judith Rosenberg in Brooklyn, October 30, 1944, and she was the only daughter of Harold and Shirley. And her father was a factory worker, but he later on went and started working as an executive in the advertising industry. And her mother was a school secretary. Now, all of her, I guess everything started when she was 21 years old. She had just got married and in 1966 she suffered a miscarriage. And according to her own account, she's written many books about this and about her life and what happened. She became incredibly depressed and she was really, really struggling. So she went to the doctor, as you would do. She said, I need help. I'm feeling really, really depressed. What can I do? And this is a quote from her about what happened. She said, after a while, he suggested I sign myself into a hospital because I was not functioning. Him being the doctor, I was so depressed And I just thought, oh, a hospital is a place where you get help. And, you know, I'd been in hospitals for surgery and things like that, and didn't think of it as having anything to do with your fundamental rights. So I just said, okay, I'll try it. So she voluntarily signed up first to be an inpatient at a psychiatric hospital. So she was going for a couple of sessions voluntarily, but after several times of going, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. And after that, she was basically involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward in a New York hospital, and she was left there for five months. Bear in mind, this is just a woman who had suffered a miscarriage, and she was depressed. She was incredibly low after that, as you would be. And she was. She just needed help. She needed support for that. But what happened was she was just put into a hospital for five months, and she couldn't escape. She was told by the doctors there that she was never going to leave, that they were never going to let her out. And during her five months there, she witnessed a lot of. A lot of abuse, basically. And there were seclusion rooms that were used. Patients would be just put into a room by themselves, almost like a prison. And she said that that would happen even sometimes when they weren't being violent or anything. They were just kind of peacefully protesting something or being maybe slightly difficult. They would just be whacked into a seclusion room. And she was given medication against her will. And she said that it affected her memory, it slowed her down, and it basically left her feeling like a different person, a shell of herself. And that's not what you want to do to somebody who is just trying to work through the trauma of having a miscarriage. You shouldn't just give them medication that is going to make them forget or slow them down and not give them the energy to care about it anymore. That doesn't seem to work, she said. I was consumed with the clear conviction that there was something fundamentally wrong here. Who were these people that had taken such control of our lives? Why were they the experts on what we should do, how we should live? Why was the ugliness and the brutality of what was happening to us overlooked and ignored? Why had the world turned its back on us? So, as I said, she was there for five months. She was eventually discharged, even though she was told she was never going to leave. And this is when she really started her activism and started trying to make a change. She had seen awful abuse happening in the hospitals, and it had probably traumatized her even more. Which is not what it's meant to do. And so once she was discharged, she became involved in the psychiatric patients rights movement. So 1971 she joined the Mental Patients Liberation Front in Boston and she also became associated with the center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Boston University. One really amazing thing that she did quite early on was she was the co founder of the Ruby Rogers Advocacy and Drop in Centers. These centers were kind of self help institutions and what was amazing about them was they were all staffed by former psychiatric patients. So it was there to empower people who had been in psychiatric facilities and support them basically. So its mission statement was to carry a message of recovery, empowerment, hope and healing to people who have been labeled with mental illnesses. So there was relationship support, there was free food, there were social activities, computer classes, and all of it run by people who had also been through the same traumas. So really, really incredible thing that she was involved with. But that wasn't the only thing. As I'm sure you can tell. There is going to be multiple more things that she gets involved with. She worked with the national association for the Rights Protection and Advocacy and she was a leader and she of started and really framed what's known as the Mad Pride movement, which we will talk about a little bit later on. But the national association for Rights Protection Advocacy, their mission is to promote policies and all of that kind of stuff that will result in individuals with psychiatric diagnoses kind of making their own choices when it comes to treatment. Because that was her huge thing. She didn't want to tell anyone what they could and couldn't do in terms of their treatment. Treatment. She was happy for people to want to take medication. It wasn't for her. She was forced to do it. And she was happy for people to be in facilities that were good for them. So that was her big thing. She really wanted to make sure that policies and legal things were being done in a way that included the person that it was about. Now as I'm sure you know, there's going to be lots and lots more in her life that we're going to chat about. But for now we're going to have a little quick break. We'll be back very shortly after just a couple of adverts. So please do make sure you keep tuned in and you can learn more about this fantastic woman. WRS women's radio station, Voice of Women Worldwide, Sarah's Universal Soul Show. What is your soul or spirituality mean to you? Welcome to future Classical Woman Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte on women's radio station. Welcome back. I'm Russ Caine. You're listening to in conversation with on women's radio station. I'm Angie. And I'm Patsy and we're open. To see what other programs we have on Women's radio station, head to our website womensradiostation.com hi, my name is Michelle Bartlett, the founder of Live Love, Laugh Love Ladies Club. 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We're currently welcoming donations to help towards our running costs to keep this important initiative alive. To donate, simply head to our website. Every little will help. You're listening to Girls Girls Girls, the podcast Rewriting history one episode at a time. I'm Bea Duncan. Welcome back Everybody you are listening to Girls, Girls, Girls. It is still me, unfortunately for you, Bea Duncan, and you're tuned in to women's radio station. We're right smack bang in the middle of chatting about Judy Chamberlain, who was an incredible mental health activist in America. So where we left off, we were talking about the national association for Rights, Protection and Advocacy, which was a project that Judy was involved with for three whole decades. Three decades, which is incredible. And just to recap, the whole aim of that was to help individuals exercise their legal and human rights when it came to treatment. And their end goal was actually to abolish all forced treatment. As I kind of mentioned before, Judy was hugely. She was very into the whole idea of autonomy and about people making their own choices when it came to medication. And she also wanted to promote the idea that that madness as such, which is kind of the phrase that she would use, was not something to be ashamed of, which is definitely something that has been brought up a lot in conversations about mental health at the moment. There is still a huge push to make sure that mental health is not something that you hide away, that you talk about. You should be able to just be proud of it and go, you know what? This is part of me. This is part of who I am and I'm not going to hide away from it. And as I said, she was on the board for three decades, so she was the president, she was also the secretary through her time. And she argued that society was part of the contribution to a lot of people's mental health. That obviously she knew that there were going to be certain people and certain mental health conditions that were just going to happen, but she thought that they were made worse by society and by certain societal stresses. And I think you can see that, especially in her case, just a woman who was going through the trauma of having a miscarriage that could have been handled so much better. But there is a huge trend even now of women's issues being just shoved under the carpet. And you can even see that through history with the whole idea of hysteria and everything like that. But that's another discussion for another day. So Chamberlain met David Oakes in 1976. He was the chief executive of Mind Freedom International. And they met because they were both members of the Mental Patients Liberation Front. And our Mind Freedom is an independent non profit group and it unites about 100 grassroots groups and thousands and thousands of members. And they're trying to peacefully take action for mental, mental health, human rights, basically. And David said about Judy one thing, she immediately helped Teach a lot of People was basic 101 about mental health liberation, that we're equal, that we have rights, which seems obvious, I think, to me, but it's incredible that she was one of the only people really pushing for it. And she started that conversation. She later became a board member of Mind Freedom international and in 1978 she published her own book. So it was called On Our Patient Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System. And this book eventually became the standard text for the psychiatric survivor movement. So this was the book that everyone went to as the definitive guide, basically. So she was really a pioneer in that regard. And she even coined the term mentalism. It was used in this book first. And this has now become a very widespread term that is used. It's incredible that that is where it came from. She was a huge contributor to the National Council of Disabilities Report. This is a really long title. It's called From Privileges to Rights. People labeled with psychiatric disabilities speak for themselves. And essentially this report was arguing that psychiatric patients should have the same human rights as other citizens. And this was more concentrated on when patients were inside certain facilities because, as Judy had experienced, there was a lot of abuse and people were treated like prisoners, which they shouldn't be, because they hadn't done anything wrong. They were just there because they needed help. And so they were advocating for patient privileges, essentially. So things like good behaviour in the facility that would result in just small things like being allowed to wear your own clothes, being able to leave every once in a while to see your friends and family as visitors, all really simple, tiny things. I'm sure, as anyone who's ever stayed in a hospital, psychiatric hospital, any kind of facility like that, just wearing your own clothes is such a huge thing, can make you feel more like yourself and make you feel more comfortable. And so these were the tiny, tiny things that they were asking for, just for a psychiatric hospital to treat people like people, really. And she was a huge player in that. In 2001, Judy was elected co chair of the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry. Now this is another organization, it's also run and governed entirely by users and survivors of the psychiatric facilities, psychiatric world. And it was once again trying to fight for rights. But this was for all disabled people. She had kind of moved on and she was recognizing that a lot of the discrimination and the experiences that she had faced as somebody from a psychiatric hospital who was disabled in that way, it was the same sort of things that were being faced by disabled people everywhere. And so she changed her, changed her Track a little bit, I suppose, and started arguing for the same similar rights and similar things, but umbrella for everyone. And so. So this group was kind of more about home and community based services, more things about autonomy. And she worked as the co chair for about three years, so 2001 to 2004. And it was during this time that she actually served on the panel of experts who were advising the United Nations. So she was really working her way up. She got right to the top, essentially. And this would have made a huge difference to people who were living with all kinds of disabilities who just wanted again to be treated like human beings and to be able to have autonomy, be able to go around in their own house, have services that come to them, be able to be helped with education and housing and socializing, everything, things that a lot of people take for granted. And I think it's really, really amazing that this young woman, when she was 21, she suffered this horrendous experience and made it her life's work literally to make a change. I mean, I'm only 22, and the thought of being involuntarily kind of put in a psychiatric hospital of this kind that she was in, I don't think I would come out the other side being able to make such a change as she did. I think I would have a lot more trauma to work through. So it really is incredible. Now, aside from all of this and the trauma she'd experienced from that, Judy also had an underlying lung disease that she was battling. And this was what she died from in January 2010. She was only 65 and she died in Arlington, Massachusetts. And basically her insurance company had told her she'd run out of hospice benefit and she was going to have to be put into a nursing home. So she started an incredible blog that I would hugely recommend you going to have a look at and having a read, if you're interested, called Life as a Hospice Patient. And it was basically about her fight to be allowed to die at home. She didn't want to be put into a nursing home. But yeah, insurance America, it's a whole, whole different ball game, so. And yes, but she did eventually die, and she was allowed to die at home eventually after this, this big fight. And she made a huge impact. You've been listening, so I'm sure you have realized that she made a huge impact. But she was awarded the Distinguished Service Award of the President of the United States in 1992 by the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities. That is a mouthful. Don't know how that would fit on a trophy. And she was also given the David J. Vail National Advocacy Award, as well as the 1995 Pike Prize, which honors people who have given outstanding service to those people with disabilities. Yeah, I really hope that you enjoyed this episode. I think that Judy was an incredible person and she really made massive change. I mean, I know I've mentioned it before, but her entire life was dedicated to this. She was on so, so many different panels and groups and grassroots activism and she made a huge change. And so a lot of the mental health, education, legal rights we have now, mostly in America, we can thank Judy for that. So, yes, I hope that you've enjoyed that. And please, please don't forget that if you want to contact me, you can do so on Twitter. I'm GGGpod. Or on Instagram GirlsGirlsGirlsPod or email me as well. GirlsGirlsGirlsmail.com I love talking to you guys. I love hearing what you have to say. If you've got a suggestion for a celebration or a topic, I'll listen to anything and I'll chat. So I hope you've enjoyed the episode and I look forward to talking to you next week. Have an amazing week and, yeah, I'll see you next time. Sam. Welcome to women's Radio Station, the voice of women worldwide. Hungry an average woman eats about 2 to 3 kilos of lipstick in her lifetime. Women's Radio Station, we want to hear from you. This is Women's Radio Station. You're listening to Avril Price with Kitchen Sink Spirituality. It's Anna Kennedy, top in all things autism, and my guest today is Karen Nunn. I listen to Women's Radio station Women. The possibilities are endless. That's what makes us different. Hi, I'm Valentina Barbacci and I'm the executive director of Media Matters for Women. 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