#critical psychiatry

[dromaeocore]

At risk of outing myself as a Reddit User (though I guess those are cool nowadays?), I have created a wiki page of US mental health resources that aren't, like, psych wards or suicide hotlines that will call the cops on you, lol. It's got support groups, warmlines, and (as far as I'm aware), the most updated list of peer respites in the US to date, along with states that are in the process of passing bills/getting funding to do so.

It is about half complete, and I plan to add a lot more information to the peer respite list, such as links, phone numbers, etc.

Also, feel free to join the subreddit. Anyone is welcome to post, I'm just currently the only active member lol :)

#peer respite #peer respites #peer support #mental health #mental illness #psychology #psych wards #psychiatric hospital #psychiatry #psychiatry critical #critical psychiatry #psych critical #antipsych #antipsychiatry #mad pride #therapy #crisis support

[devinsturk]

Copies of Mad Thought: a zine about being psychiatrized are available on my Etsy! It's a text-based, 12-page zine (or self-published booklet) of thoughts on my experience with psychiatric treatment. It also features a related ~400 word creative nonfiction essay I wrote. This zine measures roughly 8.5 by 5.5 inches and it is staple-bound. Thanks for checking out my work!

#actually autistic #Disabled #psychiatric survivor #critical psychiatry #psychiatry #mental health #mental health matters #mental health awareness #therapy #mental illness #mentally ill #chronic illness #depression #treatment resistant depression #abolitionist #anti psychiatry #psych abolition #writing #trans #writer #devin s turk #queer #neuroqueer #zine maker #zine #zines #creative nonfiction #creative writing #writers of tumblr #queer writers

[funeral]

[Laing] described the schizoid existence of persons split from the world and themselves. This way of being is based on anxiety due to ontological insecurity because of the lack of a strong sense of personal identity. This deficient sense of basic unity leads to the unembodied self, which experiences itself as detached from the body. The body, therefore, becomes felt as part of a false-self system ... Transition to psychosis occurs when these defences fail in their primary purpose of keeping the self alive. The inner self loses any firmly anchored identity and if the veil of the false-self is removed, the individual expresses the 'existential' truth about him/herself in a psychotic matter-of-fact way.

D.B. Double, Critical Psychiatry: The Limits of Madness

#psychiatry #r.d. laing #the divided self #critical psychiatry #p #d.b. double #philosophy

[stimpunks]

Stimpunks Guide to the NeurodiVerse Issue #3: Mental Health and Epistemic Justice

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. We dedicate this issue to epistemic justice, something sorely missing in the treatment of neurodivergent and disabled people’s mental health. Negative stereotypes stifle voices and useful tools. Lack of epistemic justice proliferates harm. Epistemic justice is an essential component of good psychiatric care.Epistemic justice is an essential component of good…

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#autism #critical psychiatry #epistemic injustice #epistemic justice #guide #mental health #minority stress #neurodiversity #psychiatry #trauma

[dropintomanga]

On Depression and Taking Antidepressants

So this post isn’t going to be manga-related, but more about a psychiatry report about the causes of depression that has made a splash among researchers and peers. I wanted to talk about it because of my personal dealings with depression over 20+ years and a subject that can generate a bunch of debate - the usage of antidepressants.

An article published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry last week found that the idea of a chemical imbalance as the cause of depression has no validity. The article stated that low levels of serotonin (a chemical in our body linked to mood) does not lead to depression. People with low serotonin still function as well as people with higher levels. What made this article stand out was it was a peer-reviewed umbrella review with multiple researchers going over everything possible with regards to serotonin’s impact on depression. It’s considered to be a striking blow to the continued viewpoint promoted by medical professionals and psychology books for decades that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance.

When I was diagnosed with depression in 2000, I was told to get on Prozac right away while talking to a psychiatrist since I was also having suicidal thoughts. I took the medicine at first, but nothing seemed to have improved. I would get a dosage increase over time. I still felt like crap. I was later prescribed Zyprexa as a supplement alongside my Prozac. However, I felt that either medication didn’t work. A friend at the time said the medication was working because I was at least trying to enjoy my life. I later decided to stop Zyprexa because I never felt that I was better and I think it had allegations of being a dangerous drug to take. I continued Prozac, but was prescribed another supplement psych pill, Wellbutrin. Around that time, I started to feel much better and decided to stop taking all psychiatric medication. However, I never talked to my psychiatrist about them. It took me a couple of years to come clean about not taking medication under my own willpower.

To be honest, I don’t know if taking antidepressants helped me as much as it did for other people I knew. I did, however, subscribed to the chemical imbalance theory about the cause of my depression from studying psychology in college. A part of me still thinks I’m a “high-functioning” person. My mother thought I was born differently. Looking back as to how my depression started, it was because I kept failing college courses in the first university I attended despite my best efforts and worried that no one would care about me anymore. I was afraid of being yelled at for being a failure. I won’t lie that some of those insecurities still haunt me today since competition feels forced onto almost everything in life.

I’ve been med-free for maybe 10-15 years and can say they never helped. I now see kids at a young age being prescribed antidepressants/antipsychotics and told that their heads are messed up inside. I hear about ADHD being misdiagnosed on several youth whose problems are related to societal and environmental factors. I’m scared to hear this because children are humans too and are often very vulnerable to stress and trauma.

Over the years, I’ve read how the cons of psychiatric medications (i.e. powerful side effects) outweigh the pros. With notable exceptions, I don’t think everyone should be prescribed them when their mental health is suffering. And even if they do take meds, I don’t think they are a long-term solution or the only solution when long-term issues like bigotry/racism/poverty/abuse affect the person taking them. 

If you’re taking psychiatric meds and want to get off them, please talk to your doctor first and foremost. One thing I regret is not talking to my doctor earlier because I read stories about medicine withdrawal and heard how frightening it can be. I never went through any of that at all and count myself extremely lucky. I also realize that there’s certain doctors who gaslight their patients into taking all kinds of medication with ridiculous promises of a 100% cure rate.

I’m glad the research paper got published because the mainstream view of “chemical imbalance causes depression” still seems prevalent. My feelings of sadness don’t stem from my brain being messed up. They stem from frustration and anger of how some people treat one another and how we’re being set up to fight one another for the sake of a few powerful people. My emotions are valid.

Sure, I might be “mentally sick”, but I’m also having a human response to terrible circumstances. I was recently told by my primary doctor to get some psych meds for stress and I was like “Thanks, but no thanks.” I’ve been trying to reframe the good kind of stress (related to things I care about and want to do) as there’s definitely an anti-stress bias in the United States. It’s okay to be nervous about something you love because you want to put the utmost care in expressing your love for it. You show that you care and are willing to go beyond certain limits to do what you want to do. 

I don’t want to say I’m glad that I got clinical depression because I don’t want to wish this on anyone else. I’m just making due with what I have. So to anyone who struggles with depression, I want to say that I don’t think it’s all in your head. The world is shit. Life is shit. People may be gaslighting/grooming you. Medical professionals may not have the right answers for you. Know your rights as a consumer/patient as mental health systems are still crappy. Find alternative outlets full of people (i.e. peer support) that genuinely do care. You have some say. You have some choice in how to decide your life.

I don’t want people to rely on pills that kill off whatever humanity that’s still left of us after already being told to ignore our honest emotional reactions to the troubles of life for the sake of a “collective” that doesn’t care about our wellbeing at all. I hope you read summaries of that paper and stay mentally healthy. You’re more than just your diagnosis and/or your circumstances. 

One of the researchers on the “chemical imbalance /= depression” paper in  Molecular Psychiatry, Joanna Moncrieff, has a wonderful response post about her work and how to address depression going further.

#depression #mental health #psychology #antidepressants #critical psychiatry #labels

[actuallyverynormalbtw]

i dont like to talk about self-diagnosis because i dont enjoy people making assumptions about me, my illnesses, and my diagnostic status. but i will say:

i have self diagnosed and gone on to be medically validated with an official diagnosis. multiple times actually. i was never wrong about my self-diagnoses.

however, i have been misdiagnosed by professionals FIVE TIMES. and let me tell you, a professional diagnosis being wrong is far more harmful than a self-diagnosis being wrong.

if your self diagnosis is wrong, maybe you used the wrong language or put yourself in a box or now feel invalid and whatnot. but if your professional diagnosis is wrong, it can lead to abuse, medical trauma, panic attacks, issues with medication, even suicide.

i was misdiagnosed with BPD when i was 15 by a psychologist that i spoke to for hardly even 10 minutes. this diagnosis was based on my parent's description of my reactions to abuse, and the diagnosis was used to validate and excuse their abuse.

i was misdiagnosed with MDD when i was 12 and put through several different types of anti-depressants. we never found anything that worked, because it was actually ADHD and dissociation, but i did end up with panic attacks and insomnia all throughout middle/highschool!

when i self-diagnosed with autism however, it saved my life. it took me out of active suicidality because i was able to finally able to accept myself after years of feeling like i am just "being a person wrong". i had the knowledge to accomodate for myself and the language to advocate for myself. this was life changing. even if i was wrong, which i wasnt, i dont see how it couldve caused any harm.

my opinions on self-diagnoses arent black and white, and im not entirely settled on them either, but i do think this is important to understand. doctors and psychologists are not all knowing. we live in a time where we can access thousands of dollars worth of university level education on the internet, even the same exact resources medical students use. plenty of people are capable of interpreting themselves and that information to come to a conclusion about what they are experiencing and what might help.

sure, self-diagnosis might be biased. but a professional is most likely going to be just as biased, and possibly less aware of it. its just silly to use bias as a primary argument when it is an inescapable feature of human psychology. there is a reason ADHD is underdiagnosed in women. there is a reason anxiety disorders are underdiagnosed in men.

an incorrect self-diagnosis wont take away resources or your space in your comminities. but professional misdiagnosis can cause real damage.

(i am not trying to fear-monger about professional diagnosis, moreso responding to the fear-mongering surrounding self-diagnosis)

#self diagnosis #psych critical #actually mentally ill #self diagnosed autism #anti psych #anti psychiatry #discourse tw #tw discourse #madpunk #neurodivergent #neuropunk

[hereticalradical]

Men have no. Business. In. The. Psychiatric. Therapy. Of. Girls. And. Women.

Not only because men are much more likely to be biased and more likely to mindlessly accept misogynistic theory in psychiatry, but also because especially young, vulnerable girls and women cannot differentiate an adult male in authority being understanding and offering a space to be vulnerable "without consequences" from a romantic or sexual interest. There were so many more comments of girls admitting they're in love with their male therapist. This is fucking scary.

#radblr #radfem do touch #radfem #radical feminism #radical feminist #radfems do interact #gender critical #radfems please interact #radfems do touch #psychiatry critical

[valeriesrevenge]

How come that you’re anti psychiatry?

The history of psychiatry is one of extreme misogyny, a legacy which continues today. Lobotomies, hysteria “treatments”, over-medication (a-la 1950s housewives), experimental medications and other horrific abuses to women and the mentally ill have taken place in the name of psychiatry.

Even today, psychiatry is heavily influenced by popular culture and “trends”, which cannot be said for regular medicine. This leads to waves of over-diagnosing and medicating those who don’t need medication. It leads to the warping of medical diagnosis (hence a completely new DSM every few decades with everything changed), which is not a strong foundation for a medical science. In fact, much of it, in my experience, can be seen as a pseudoscience with MUCH human experimentation.

I don’t disagree that people with severe mental illnesses, perhaps those who experience hallucinations/manic episodes can possibly benefit from medication. I won’t speak for them. But in my own experience, psychiatrists and even untrained MDs are FAR too willing to hand out serious diagnoses without hardly any consultation with the patient. Sometimes within 10min of meeting them, which has happened to me.

And so women are trusting these diagnoses and medicating and pathologizing every thought and action as part of an illness. Many women I know have gone through a difficult, high-stress period in their lives and been given a diagnosis of Clinical Depression or Generalized Anxiety or BPD (this is the big one now) or Bipolar 2 or, slightly less likely, ADHD. Some of the medications for these conditions are HARSH and can cause serious side effects, yet the psychiatrists will hand them out incredibly quickly.

I can’t support this industry that profits off women already struggling in life and treats women and mentally disabled people so flippantly. And therefore I am anti-psychiatry or at the very least, highly critical of the field as a whole.

#psychiatry #gender critical #radical feminism #radfems please interact #radfem do touch #gender non compliant #radfem safe

[rattusn0rvegicus]

Sometimes, when talking about the current psychiatric system, we get lost in anger and don’t look towards alternatives and what a better tomorrow might look like. Here’s some cool mental health/psychiatry reform things that I think are neat (Somewhat US centric bc that’s where I live). Lots of them focus on psychosis, because I think psychosis is a sorely ignored subject in mental health activism.

US Peer Respite Directory - A list of voluntary, community-based, non-clinical crisis support group-home like environments that are staffed by people with lived experience of mental illness and/or lived experiences in the psychiatric system.

Students With Psychosis - A nonprofit that empowers students with psychosis through virtual programming, support groups, etc. They’re run by the amazing Cecilia McGough, an advocate with schizophrenia.

Hearing Voices Network - A network of support groups for people who hear voices, see visions, and have other extreme experiences. Focused on supporting individuals without judgement and giving them a place to explore their experiences and grow from them.

Open Dialogue - An psychosocial approach to psychiatric services that focuses on treating clients with respect, shared decision-making, dialogue between client, providers, and family (if the client wants family involved), and more minimal use of medication.

CommonGround software - A software developed by Dr. Pat Deegan that allows clients to communicate their needs to their providers more efficiently to support shared-decision making. Dr. Deegan has a lived experience of being diagnosed with schizophrenia and believes in personal medicine and med empowerment.

Project LETS - A radical approach to peer support and healing that has a disability justice centered approach, giving people with lived experience a voice and focusing on mutual aid. They provide peer mental health advocates, self-harm prevention, and more.

Integrative Psychiatry - A holistic form of psychiatry that focuses on nutrition, exercise, therapy, and psychosocial factors, where medication is just an aspect of treatment. US database of integrative psychiatrists here.

Soteria Houses - Community homes with peer support that provide residents with personal power, responsibilities, and “being with” residents, that focus on a humane and person-centered approach.

Relating to Voices Using Compassion Focused Therapy - A self-help book by Drs. Eleanor Longden and Charlie Heriot Maitland about managing distressing voices and building a respectful, cooperative relationship with them. Views voices as potential allies in emotional problem-solving rather than enemies.

Clubhouse International - A non-profit organization that gives people with mental illness opportunities for friendship, employment, housing, educational, and medical services all in one place. It was founded by a group of friends who survived a psychiatric hospital together.

Psychosis Research Unit - A group of psychology researchers who are doing research on and developing psychotherapeutic techniques for coping with and managing psychosis, such as CBT for psychosis and Talking with Voices therapy.

#mental health #psychiatry critical #psychiatry reform #anti psychiatry #psych critical #psychosis #psych reform #mental illness #uhhhhhh idk what else to tag this with so people see it #social justice #neurodiversity #idk

[dromaeocore]

A list of US mental health activism/policy/peer support/etc conferences that sound really cool:

Peerpocalypse in Seaside, Oregon: A convention for peers who experience mental health challenges to network, connect as friends and allies, share expertise and skills, and trailblaze new models within and as alternatives to the current mental health system. There are workshops, continuing education opportunities, social activities, and more. There are both in-person and virtual options.

ISPS-US Humanity in Solidarity Conference in Newark, Delaware: The International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches To Psychosis's conference for mental health professionals, people with lived experience, allies, and more. Includes presentations, workshops, and connection with a diverse community of individuals dedicated to creating positive change in mental health care. There are both in-person and virtual options.

International Peer Respite/Soteria Summit: A group promoting the creation and sustainability of peer repsites and Soteria houses. They have mentoring circles, webinars, etc. Seems to be mostly virtual.

Alternatives Conference (location unknown as of July 8, 2023): A conference which includes many diverse perspectives on mental health recovery. It is for people all across the board; those who choose traditional mental health treatment, those who choose peer support, or alternative therapies, etc. Last year, it was held virtually.

A Disorder For Everyone! Online Festival: A whole day of change-making talks, presentations, conversations, poetry etc challenging the culture of diagnosis and disorder. Virtual, September 22nd, 2023.

National Association of Peer Supporters Conference "Pathways" in Norfolk, Virginia: A conference for peer supporters to network and organize. In-person conference.

Wisconsin Peer Recovery Conference in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin: A conference for advocates, individuals interested in effective support, peer specialists, and mental heath professionals, to explore innovative applications of peer support within communities and enhance individual skills. Looks to be an in-person conference.

#posting mostly for my own convenience but i thought some of ya'll might like this too #i reallly reallly really want to start getting involved politically about this shit and stuff #like i want to be part of boards and shit #idkkkk #mental health #mental illness #neurodivergency #mad pride #psychiatry critical #psych critical #critical psychiatry #anti psychiatry #antipsych #antipsychiatry #psychology #peer support #wow i should go to bed lol

[devinsturk]

They warned me of becoming a “professional patient.”  Interesting, I thought, chewing on this new diagnosis, this label beyond all labels, this phrase meant to shame me into submission. I spit it out.

How sly a way to say I know too much.

#madness #mad studies #mad pride #mad movement #psychiatry #critical psychiatry #mental health #mental illness #disability #disability studies #mad justice #disability justice #shame #stigma #devin s turk #mad thoughts #anti psychiatry #writing #my writing #creative writing #neuroqueer #feminism #feminist #psych hospital #therapy #psych trauma #complex trauma #psychiatric survivor

[yellowyarn]

Sometimes i wonder what the people at the psychiatric hospital did with the cords from my pants. i wonder what they do with all the tings they take from us. do they just get thrown away like they are nothing? i cried over losing the cords from my favorite frog pajamas i wonder if the nurses knew i would cry about that.

#they probably dont think about it #antipsychiatry #antipsych #anti psych #anti psychiatry #antipsychology #psych survivor #psych abolition #psych critical #psychiatric victim #psych hospital #psychiatric hospital #psych ward #mental heal hospital #tw psychiatric hospital

[sophieinwonderland]

We are a tulpagenic system, I told my mom and sister about my headmates and they were accepting and supportive! But after meeting with a psychiatrist that changed.

One day during a depressive episode, a new headmate appeared. This new headmate started fronting everytime I was distressed. He scared me a little because he is kinda aggressive. (I say it in past tense because he doesn't scare me anymore! He has his reasons to be that way).

So yeah I told a psychiatrist about us, because I didn't know what to do and wanted help. She asked me if I had a video of me switching. One of us likes to make videos so we had one. After watching the video she asks me "what happened to you?" I say nothing, she says "something should have happened, because multiple personalities happen because of trauma". So she kept asking if something happened in my childhood, I really didn't know what to answer other than "nothing happened".

I didn't want to tell her about tulpamancy because I thought that would make everything more complicated.

After a time the new headmate fronted and got angry at her, and then she says "I don't want to talk with [new headmate's name] anymore, talk to me as [my name]".

She told me if I keep changing with these "characters" she would send a letter to my university that says I can't study psychology (the career I'm currently studying). At that moment I regretted telling not only her, but my mom and sister about us. My mistake. I admit I didn't think much about the consequences. Also as I said before, I was scared of the new headmate.

After that day when I mention my headmates to my mom and sister, they react strangely. Before, they would be enthusiastic, but now they just keep silent and try to change topics.

Sorry for writing the Bible, I wanted to get this off of my chest. 😅 Have a nice day/afternoon/evening!

Oh, WOW! I'm so sorry that happened. That is awful! And I'm pretty sure illegal.

Even assuming the therapist is ignorant of endogenic systems, this isn't even how you treat someone with DID. DID often comes with amnesia, and this may extend to forgetting of traumatic events. And even if traumatic events aren't remembered, people with PTSD tend to not want to talk about trauma. Avoidant behavior is a key aspect of trauma, and asking you if you're traumatized and getting mad if you say you're not is just a really bad practice, even for patients who actually have DID.

On top of that, while I don't know where you're from, in the United States at least, sending a letter to your university feels like a huge violation of HIPAA. I'm not certain if it's technically illegal to merely threaten to violate a patient's rights, but the fact they did, and in order to bully you into denying your experiences, at least indicates that they have no business treating other patients.

I would highly recommend finding a new psychiatrist immediately if you haven't already.

You did NOTHING wrong by coming out.

The psychiatrist who you seen is a terrible doctor and a danger to their patients. You aren't to blame for their actions.

#syscourse #pro endo #pro endogenic #multiplicity #sysblr #system stuff #plural #plurality #psychiatry #psych critical #therapy #mental health #systems #actually plural #actually a system

[pathologising]

I'm not entirely antipsychiatry mainly because I'm seeing it turn into this thing on here where it's like "my diagnosis/es is/are not real" but not in a "diagnoses are merely a tool to identify and explain experiences that impact one's ability to function and are not an indicator of morality or what have you" way, rather in a "there is nothing wrong with me, there can't be anything wrong with me, anyone who says there may be something wrong with me is the problem and the doctors are evil" way and I feel like thats a bit of a recipie for disaster but what do I know I'm literally just some guy

#like im going to be real with u yall are starting to sound like 'meds are evil and anyone who says that my behaviour may be less than ideal #is also evil' #and not to say that psychiatry us perfect goodness no i have many criticisms #but like utter denial that you have mental illness doesnt seem like a good idea guys

[fragmentating]

They way that once you are in the psych system everything you do can get pathologized is so wild. As a teen I spent a couple months in a day program where we would have ~2 hours of school a day to keep us from falling behind too much from our peers. This one time I was in a foreign language class with a much younger kid and he asked the teacher for help with a grammar thing he very obviously did not fucking understand in the slightest, and the teacher just said "oh you can figure it out yourself". I watched him struggle for minutes. I couldn't stand it anymore and gave him some help.

On my monthly report by that teacher she described that situation as "an inability to control myself from talking over others when I perceive myself to be smarter"

This genuinely made me angry cry when I read it. I was trying to help a kid she was fucking ignoring when it asked for help! We were two students in that room. If she didnt help, and I didnt, he would have just like. Not gotten any work done for the rest of that lesson. But instead of being like "this kid is helpful! A great quality!" It was twisted into a problem behavior, an indication of "thinking im better than everyone else", ...

#madpunk #psych critical #anti psych #anti psychiatry

[chronicbitchsyndrome]

something to keep in mind while reading: i experience psychosis, i am professionally diagnosed with a variety of extremely stigmatized mental health diagnoses, and i identify strongly with the label "borderline."

sooner or later, the ~mental health awareness~ and ~neurodivergent awareness~ movements as a whole are going to have to reckon with the fact that mental health diagnoses are labels put on classifications of behavior patterns, and those behavior patterns can be actively harmful to other people. and what i mean by that is that classifying people's behavior is not identifying ontological attributes of people's personalities or biology; it's loosely grouping different behavior patterns into categories and slapping a label on them. there is no difference between "having borderline personality disorder" and "enacting a behavior associated with borderline personality disorder;" the only criteria for the diagnoses are that you enact some or all of the behaviors associated with the label.

the idea of "these stigmatized diagnoses do not make you a bad person" is objectively correct, in that the label "bad person" is inherently not useful and erases the material factors behind someone's behavior. however, framing mental health diagnoses as if they are some ontological attribute of the self divorced from behavior doesn't actually serve to "destigmatize" mental health as a whole.

people labeled as mentally ill are put in this catch-22 where we either admit that some of our maladaptive behaviors associated with diagnoses can be harmful to others (and thus are used as rhetorical supports for how mental illness labels are describing an ontologically bad and evil category of person), or we push the party line that "mental illness doesn't make you a bad person" and divorce any harmful behaviors entirely from the mental illness label of the person performing them (thus further stigmatizing those of us who have maladaptive and externally harmful behavior patterns associated with our diagnoses, as of course these can't be "because" of our mental illness--ignoring the fact that the mental illness label does not exist outside of our behavior to begin with).

it's a well-documented fact that the DSM buries the role of trauma and other material factors in shaping the behaviors it categorizes to begin with; the desire to divorce the label from any materially harmful behaviors it ascribes to itself is yet another case of ~mental health awareness~ pushing the responsibility of reshaping society and interacting with trauma onto the individuals suffering under these systems of oppression and systemically enabled trauma. in order to actually do the dirty work of addressing material harm, we need to get down into the weeds of why someone enacted that harmful behavior to begin with--what environment that maladaptive behavior arose from, and what material factors need to be addressed in order to solve that behavior and redirect it into healing and positive interactions.

like... that's the problem, at the end of the day. in order to address harm, you need to humanize and understand the person doing harm. shoving people off into more and more categories of "bad person" does nothing to actually, materially address the harm caused, and further enables more harm in the future. mental health labels, if used in a lateral and non-oppressive way, should be used as shorthand to refer to a category of behavior in order to more fully understand the material factors that go into shaping that behavior, in order to better promote healing and a functional community. there should not be a stigma around admitting that a label could describe someone who commits actions that are materially harmful, and that label is applied directly because of their behaviors--to say otherwise is just shifting who the group it's okay to oppress is, rather than trying to agitate for collective liberation.

(note: plenty of behaviors associated with mental health labels are not harmful to begin with. we could also do a lot better by examining how we conceive of "harm", because "someone existing with an emotion that makes you feel uncomfortable" or "someone doing something you think is weird" is not it. but that's not what this post is about, so i am choosing not to address it in-depth.)

#antipsych #antipsychiatry #anti psychiatry #psych critical #mad liberation #mad pride #madpunk #dyspunktional #mad punk #actually insane #psychiatric survivor