One essential factor is keeping the spirit alive. Deep in the recesses of our being there are safe sanctuaries, secure hiding places for salvageable dreams. Anger sustains our stubborn refusal to accept others' dire predictions. Anger protects our hopes and dreams. Author and international lecturer Judi Chamberlin writes proudly and sardonically about having been a noncompliant patient.
Noncompliant patients receive the worst and potentially most harmful treatments.
We have been locked in seclusion, placed in restraints, chemically and physically straitjacketed, lobotomized, shocked and beaten because we protested too much. If we were lucky enough to escape permanent damage, anger helped us. It helped us fight for our rights and shun the role of lifelong mental patient. Anne Krauss, a psychiatric survivor working in the mental health field in New York tells an illuminating story of the effects of suppressing anger. She worked as a peer advocate in a state psychiatric hospital, and on one occasion she was in the ward talking with a patient for whom she was an advocate.