1. I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia (a debilitating psychotic mental illness) in February 1996 by Dimitrios Georgopoulos, MD at the George Washington University Medical Center. See Letter from Dimitrios Georgopoulos, MD, to Gary Freedman, dated February 14, 1996. (see comment to this post).
2. I wrote the following Brief on Appeal in May 1997:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/11/freedman-v-dc-dept-mental-health-akin_27.html
I wrote the following Reply Brief in August 1997:
http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2009/11/freedman-v-dc-dept-mental-health-akin.html
I was not on any medication when I wrote these appeal briefs. According to the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) I was disabled and unfit for employment throughout the year 1997. According to the SSA I became disabled and unfit for employment effective October 29, 1991 based on the sworn statements of Dennis M. Race, Esq. of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, who alleged that he had determined, in consultation with a practicing psychiatrist, that I suffered from a psychiatric "disorder" ("ideas of reference") as of October 29, 1991. See Freedman v. DC Dept. Human Rights, D.C.C.A. 96-VC-961 (Sept. 1, 1998) (a pre-ADA case that found that an employer may lawfully terminate an employee who exhibits the psychiatric disorder "ideas of reference").
3. I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia again in February 1999 by Albert H. Taub, MD of the DC Dept. of Mental Health. See letter of Albert H. Taub, MD to the DC Medical Board, dated February 22, 1999 (see comment to this post).
Ideas of reference and delusions of reference involve people having a belief or perception that irrelevant, unrelated or innocuous phenomena in the world refer to them directly or have special personal significance. In psychiatry, delusions of reference form part of the diagnostic criteria for psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia, delusional disorder, or bipolar disorder during the elevated stages of mania.
Persons with ideas of reference may experience:
A feeling that people on television or radio are talking about or talking directly to them
Believing that headlines or stories in newspapers are written especially for them
Having the experience that people (often strangers) drop hints or say things about them behind their back
Believing that events (even world events) have been deliberately contrived for them, or have special personal significance for them
Seeing objects or events as being set up deliberately to convey a special or particular meaning
Thinking persons or groups of persons are plotting against them and that precautions must be taken to avert the threat
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4 comments:
February 22, 1999
Mr. James R. Granger, Jr.
Executive Director
Government of the District of Columbia
Board of Medicine
Dept. of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs
Occupational and Professional Licensing Administration
614 H Street N.W., Room #108
Washington, D.C. 20001
Re: Mr. Gary Freedman: your letter of January 6, 1999
Dear Mr. Granger:
This is not an issue of quality of care. Appropriate medication has been offered to Mr. Freedman who refuses to take the medicine (an antipsychotic). He is insisting that I absolve him of any mental illness in 1988 when he was in a struggle with his law firm. The letter is not possible since I only have been meeting with him since August of 1998 and can make no statement about his mental status in 1988.
My first direct contact with Mr. Gary Freedman occurred last summer [Friday August 7, 1998] when I became his psychiatrist for the purpose of prescribing medication. Ms. Lisa Osborne, a psychology intern at that time, started to see him in weekly psychotherapy.
In view of Mr. Freedman's long record of mental illness (paranoid schizophrenia) I recommended antipsychotic medication which he refused. At first I saw him weekly and subsequently I have been seeing him monthly. He has always refused medication. One week he tentatively agreed to try medication, but changed his mind. At the time he said he might try medication, if I were to sign the letter of August 17, 1998 (revised 8/22/98) vindicating him in his legal struggles with his former law firm which took place approximately ten years ago.
I didn't sign his manifesto since I could make no judgments about events that occurred ten years ago. He didn't seem surprised at my refusal to sign and I don't believe he really expected me to sign. However, it did give him a face saving reason to refuse medication. He has never agreed to take medication that I suggested. Ms. Osborne, the rest of the clinical staff, and I did not feel he was at that time imminently homicidal or suicidal.
Subsequently, he has settled down into his usual lifestyle which includes prolific letter writing. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance to you.
Sincerely,
Albert H. Taub, M.D.
Faculty Member
Department of Psychiatry
Residency Training Program
St. Elizabeths/CMHS
[Docket no. 99-198]
George Washington University Medical Center
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
February 14, 1996
Dear Mr. Freedman,
This letter is being written per your request to know your diagnoses.
In my opinion my working diagnosis has been: Schizophrenia, Paranoid Type (295.30).
Sincerely,
[signed]
Dimitrios Georgopoulos, M.D.
Dr. Georgopoulos wrote the above letter just a few weeks after I gave him the following letter in which I alleged that the George Washington University Medical Center was engaged in illegal activity, namely, disclosing confidential mental health information about me to my former employer Akin Gump, in violation of the D.C. Mental Health Information Act. The above diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia was the first time in my life that I had been given that diagnosis.
The following are pages 484 and 485 of the record on appeal in Freedman v. D.C. Dept. Human Rights, D.C.C.A. 96-CV-961 (Sept. 1, 1998). In the April 1990 I sent a letter to the Anti-Defamation League inquiring into the anti-semitic nature of the harassment I was experiencing at Akin Gump. The letter establishes the long-standing nature of my beliefs. Akin Gump claimed that my belief that I was a victim of job harassment was the product of "ideas of reference," a technical psychiatric term. I do not know whether definitionally the term "ideas of reference" can apply to longstanding beliefs or whether the term applies only to momentary perceptions that the individual tends to forget over time.
May 10, 1993
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC 20008
Mr. Donald M. Stocks
Case Investigations
D.C. Dept. of Human Rights &
Minority Business Development
2000 14th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009
RE: Docket No.: 92-087-P(N)
Gary Freedman v. Akin, Gump, Hauer & Feld
Dear Mr. Stocks:
Enclosed in connection with the above-referenced matter is a copy of a draft of a letter I sent, on about April 16, 1990, to the Anti-Defamation League, 1640 Rhode Island Avenue, NW, (202) 857-6660.
The sending of the letter establishes that I had complained to a third-party regarding the harassment at least as of April 1990. Further, the letter establishes that my perecption that I was a victim of harassment was longstanding--that my complaint of harassment in late October 1991 was not improperly motivated by any bias against any particular individual at that time.
The letter actually sent, like the enclosed draft, did not identify the name of my employer.
I wrote the letter a few weeks after being transferred ["demoted" per Akin Gump in McNeil v. Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld] to the Respondent's Litigation Support Group under Chris Robertson, in March 1990.
I did not receive a reply to the letter, and did not follow up on the inquiry.
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
April 14, 1990
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Apartment 136
Washington, DC 20008
Dear Sir:
I am interested in any comments you might offer or any published material you might direct me to that discusses harassment on the job by fellow employees--harassment that is not explicitly anti-semitic but might be motivated by anti-semitism.
Specifically, the harassment includes:
1) the spreading of a rumor that an employee is a homosexual
2) shuning of the employee by fellow employees and alleging, in turn, that the employee is unsociable and perversely chooses not to "join in"
3) repeated use of sexual double entendres and sexual innuendo by fellow employees in an attempt to harass the employee, and
4) repeated attempts to devalue the employee in the eyes of his employer.
Thank you very much for your assistance.
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
http://saynotostigma.com/
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