#antipsychiatry

[toddchavezwatchescartoons]

#antipsychiatry

[soupmetal666]

I think something people don't understand or often misrepresent about psych wards in the US is that even if you sign yourself in voluntarily, you're often doing so because the alternative is being committed. They tell you you'll be able to leave whenever you want if you go in "voluntarily," but this is very often not true if, once you're admitted, they decide it's "too dangerous" or you're too unstable to let you leave. And then, you're essentially committed anyway. I see posts by people that make it seem like involuntary and voluntary stays are a sort of...binary thing at US hospitals/facilities and it's just not true. Or that voluntary stays are somehow safer or offer people more autonomy. If you go in, they have the final say about when you leave whether you're "voluntary" or not. They can ship you to a state hospital long-term against your will from a "voluntary" stay in a psych ward. I know firsthand. Just...look out for yourselves and your loved ones, folks.

#antipsychiatry #antipsych #institutionalization #psych wards #psych survivor

[trans-axolotl]

saw a post the other day that said that psych survivors were overexaggerating and fearmongering for saying that people should be aware that having diagnoses on your record can be a danger + impede your life. and the more i think about it the more annoyed i am. because i think people need to know that there are exceptions to health privacy laws that can make having psych diagnoses and psych hospitalization history on your record risky depending on your circumstances. diagnoses follow you through your health interactions-you do not have to consent to have your information shared between providers. judicial proceedings are also an exception to the HIPAA privacy rule, so for things like custody battles, guardianship, getting orders of protection--the court can petition for medical records. there's so many other situations where even if they can't legally access your information without your authorization, people will require you to disclose diagnoses, records, previous hospitalizations and refuse to give you services/hire you/whatever unless you share that information with them. for example in many states anyone (a provider, a cop, friends and family) can disclose that you have certain psych diagnoses like bipolar to the DMV which then might require that you undergo drivers license review as frequently as every 3 months. my university is actively trying to kick me out right now because i had to disclose my medical record, psych diagnoses, and hospitalization history to them as a requirement to stay enrolled.

and i don't want to scare people or make people think that having a diagnosis on their records is automatically going to mean that it is weaponized against us. because i do know plenty of people who have never faced issues with their records. but i do expect that the community supports the people speaking out about the ways that we have been harmed by diagnoses creating barriers to accessing necessary parts of our life. instead of attacking us or saying that we're lying about things we are currently experiencing.

#personal #antipsych #antipsychiatry #mad pride #mad liberation #saneism #it's just like. i think we need to be realistic! and not deny people who are literally talking about things happening to them #and also allow people who have the option. to make informed choices about seeking diagnosis #bc for many of us that isn't up to us. but if you are considering seeking formal diagnosis. there can absolutley be some good and helpful #things that come from that! im not denying that at all! but there's also some negatives #and i think also like. if people refuse to acknowlege the ways this is structurally a problem #how are we going to make it better so that we don't have to deal with thsi stuff

[chronicbitchsyndrome]

it's so annoying when i criticize a structure or system as being, quite factually, inherently abusive and severely harming the people forced to be in it, and someone comes in with "but people NEED that system? isn't it ableist to say we should get rid of a thing people NEED?"

like i don't know how many more ways i can say "the fact that people literally need this system and rely on it to live means the system doesn't have room to be even mildly flawed, much less actively fucking abusive."

the only available system for legal guardianship being abusive means people die. the only available system for receiving psych medication being abusive means people die. the only available system for income & housing for people too disabled to work being inherently abusive means people die. the people who aren't outright killed by these abusive systems live in abject poverty and under constant surveillance, endure constant trauma, have no legal recourse to escape abuse. the people who are subject to these systems are surviving them, not being helped by them, and that is completely unacceptable. How Much More Clear Can I Get.

#dyspunktional #cripplepunk #cripple punk #mad liberation #antipsych #madpunk #antipsychiatry

[neuroticboyfriend]

not that people who've been to the ward are immune from being pro-psych, but if you've never been to a psych ward*, i sincerely don't want to hear about how psychiatry/psychology is good because you've had such a good experience with X provider, or X medication saved your life. *i also don't want to hear about how the forced treatment was what you needed or how the ward you went to let you have your cellphone etc. etc. i genuinely do not want to hear it.

like. the first hospitalization traumatized me so bad, i became dangerously delusional, was re-hospitalized, and sent to state. when they transferred me, i was strapped down into a gurney at all points on my body, *head and neck included*, and loaded onto an ambulance. my parents lost most of their parental rights; i was a ward of the state and had near zero rights. when i got there, they made me choose if, "if necessary," if i wanted to be wrangled down and forcibly injected with a sedative... or wrangled down and locked in a padded room all by myself (but at least i had a choice, right?). i signed consents and paperwork that i did not fucking understand. then i was told i'd be locked inside for 2 straight weeks (which yes, they followed through with). the psych ward was remote, nothing but barbed fences and trees around us. cant even see the sun through the heavily tinted windows. that was the *start* of the stay. i'm sure you can imagine nothing good came after.

so like. if you walk out of a place like that thinking it was good for you, then i can only imagine how traumatized you are and i hope you heal someday. but if you've never faced the destruction of your autonomy like that and go around being like "oh this is good actually" then shut the ever living fuck up.

#julian rants #this is okay to rb but im mainly venting #psych ward #psych survivor #psych ward tw #abuse tw #sanism #ableism #antipsychiatry #antipsychology #antipsych #psychiatric abuse #psychiatric trauma #trauma #psych abolition #psych hospital #psychiatric hospital #inpatient

[joy-haver]

I hate when I bring up accessibility and people are like “well, in the hypothetical situation where something like that were to happen-“.

it’s happening. Disabled people currently exist. I’m not giving you a thought experiment, I’m asking you to have consideration for other peoples real experiences.

#disabled #hypermobile ehlers danlos #physical disability #spoonie #anarcho disability #disability justice #cpunk #anti doctor #disability #cripple punk #mobility aids #accessibility #anarchism #bipolar disorder #addiction #antipsychiatry

[dromaeocore]

So, Peer Respites are a not-very-well-known alternative to psychiatric hospitalization. They are 100% voluntary and staffed by peers, AKA individuals with lived experience of mental illness/emotional distress/what-have-you. Generally, they are a homelike environment where you can come and go as you please, and there is lots of voluntary programming like groups, art, yoga, etc. You can bring your own food or cook meals together with staff and other residents. Stays are usually anywhere from five days to two weeks, depending on the respite house and also your own wants and needs. There are no restraints, strip searches, or seclusion.

They're also on the rise!! I know this because I've spent all day today compiling data on peer respites in the US so I could create this fun graph for ya'll.

In the past ten years, at least 38 new peer respites have opened in the US. The data for 2023 is incomplete, but at least one has already opened, and another is scheduled for a soft opening later this year.

Some things about the data:

I did not include peer respites which were permanently closed (2) or could not find an opening date for (1)

I used the National Empowerment Center's Directory of Peer Respites, along with some internet sleuthing to find a few more (and to find the opening dates for each one). Because of this, I may have missed a few.

There were a handful of peer respites for which I could not pin down a for-certain, exact date for. I did include these in the dataset as I was able to find rough estimates.

I have also not done a deep dive for all peer respites that were unsuccessful, which may skew the data a little bit.

I included Soteria Vermont as well, as it technically fits the definition despite being specifically for people with psychosis

If you would like to help get a peer respite off the ground, I would recommend donating to Peer Support Space Inc.'s Orlando FL Peer Respite. Their soft launch is November 2023, and they are scheduled to open to the public in January 2024. This is really important, because Florida's only peer respite has recently permanently closed.

If you're interested in starting your own peer respite, the National Empowerment Center has a list of resources here.

If you are interested in seeking help from a peer respite, there is a directory of most of them here. You can also look at the Google Doc I created to compile my data, which has a few more/is slightly more updated - though it's not nearly as nicely put together as the other one!

If anyone would like to add any information, non-US peer respites, etc, feel free to!

#peer respites #peer respite #psych ward #psych hospital #psychiatric hospitalization #psych critical #psychiatry critical #anti psychiatry #antipsych #antipsychiatry #mental illness #neurodivergency #disability #hospital diversion #psychiatry #disability pride month #psychiatric survivors #putting in all the tags I can think of so ppl see this lol

[transrevolutionaries]

Marsha P. Johnson was a psychiatric abuse survivor. In Pay it No Mind, friend Bob Kohler says

"She would go down christopher street, and be picked up midway... they would take her away for about two-three months, and they would put an implant in her spine, thorazine i think it was, that would calm her down, and she would come back, and be a zombie for about a month, and then she would go back to being old Marsha"

We must not erase this aspect of her life, and its important to celebrate marsha as a Black Mad Street Transvestite, not whatever sanitized version of her life the mainstream wants to celebrate. The parts of Marsha that made her such a celebrated and mythologized part of NYC gay and trans life is the same thing that got her institutionalized, a victim of state violence. Marsha was the patron saint of Christopher street, and she was also a Mad, Black, Street Transvesite, and many of the people who swear they owe their protection to her did not fight for her, all of her, the way she did for them.

Make sure you do

#marsha p johnson #anti psychiatry #antipsychiatry #mad pride #transgender history #trans history #lgbt #lgbt history

[starblaster]

"oppositional defiant disorder” is a bullshit diagnosis that only exists because psychiatry has never been willing to admit that:

1. children can be traumatized, especially by their parents and authority figures; and

2. irritability, anger, defiance, and resentment toward wrongdoers are common reactions to trauma, especially trauma that is caused by abuse

pathologizing a traumatized child for being defiant toward an authority figure who has fucking traumatized them is victim-blaming, plain and simple

#antipsychiatry #psych abolition

[soapthatglows]

everyone's all "prisoners need rights" and "prison abolition" until psych wards come up and then we just don't have rights apparently

#soap meows #antipsychiatry

[toddchavezwatchescartoons]

Imagine if you had a lung problem but you didn't know that, so you go to the heart doctor by mistake.

Instead of recognizing that you don't have a heart problem and helping you figure out which doctor you should see, the heart doctor just keeps putting you on heart medications with increasingly harsh side effects.

Every time they decide a pill isn't working they just put you on a new one. If you question this process they accuse you of not wanting to get better and shame you into continuing.

When you ask if they can do some kind of actual medical testing to see what's wrong with you you're told that there are no tests. The pills are meant to treat a chemical imbalance that is supposedly causing your condition but that it's conveniently impossible to actually test your body for these chemicals.

If you decide that you don't have a heart condition, they lock you up and refuse to let you go until you smile and say "Yes doctor, I have a heart condition and I need this medication. Thank you so much doctor." several days in a row until they're convinced that you mean it it.

When a more responsible doctor does the testing they said didn't exist and diagnoses you with a lung condition, the heart doctors say "Well I don't study lung conditions so how was I supposed to help you?"

This is how psychiatry works.

#antipsychiatry

[equalperson]

i think we should always take predominant sexes and races for psychiatric disabilities into question.

are men really more likely to be antisocial or narcissistic, or are women just overlooked because ASPD/NPD are seen as too "aggressive" for them?

are women really more likely to be borderline or histrionic, or are they just seen as so "hysterical" that they have to be feminine?

are black people more likely to have schizophrenia or ODD, or are labels of "psychosis" and "defiance" simply used to further dismiss, oppress, and imprison BIPOC?

are white people more likely to have autism and ADHD, or are doctors just more willing to accept that white children are disabled and not just "bad?"

oppressive biases are everywhere in psychiatry. never take psychiatric demographics at face value.

#hi i'm back. i got covid and also into anti-psychiatry #anti-psychiatry #antisocial personality disorder #narcissistic personality disorder #borderline personality disorder #histrionic personality disorder #schizophrenia #oppositional defiant disorder #autism #ADHD #sexism mention #racism mention #antipsych #ASPD #NPD #BPD #HPD #ASD #antipsychiatry #anti psychiatry #anti-psych #anti psych

[trans-axolotl]

Antipsychiatry must include prison abolition as a guiding value. I'm tired of seeing people organize around antipsychiatry while throwing other incarcerated people under the bus. Criticizing psych wards for "treating us like criminals while we haven't broken to law" ignores the real problem: that the tools of restraint, strip searches, solitary confinement, and incarceration are violent no matter who they are forced upon. No one should be treated that way, no matter what form of incarceration you're surviving, whether that's in a prison, a psych ward, or any other institutions of total control. We are not inherently morally better than people incarcerated in prisons, and we have to build intentional solidarity to ensure we don't just replace one cage with another.

#personal #antipsych #antipsychiatry #prison abolition #have three asks and a reply that r about prison abolition topics #and they require in depth responses i cant give today #so going to reblog a few posts and reply to those later

[chronicbitchsyndrome]

also i think a lot of support needs discourse completely overlooks the fact that the reason functioning labels and autism levels are problematic to begin with is because there is no across-the-board way to generalize support needs across dozens and dozens of different daily activities usefully, realistically you end up categorizing almost every disabled person as "mid support needs" because of splinter skills and that just isn't materially useful

"can't feed or bath themself" and "completely independently handles their finances and works an accounting job from home" can and do coexist in the same disabled person

"nonverbal and uses aac" and "is capable of completing a college degree" can and do coexist in the same disabled person

"can't live independently and needs a carer" and "is a carer for the other disabled people they live with" is something that applies to literally every disabled person i know

(and like, yes of course i think that people who are profoundly incapable of participating in abled hegemony in any way need language to describe themselves, but the ability to access abled hegemony is already overlooked as the main axis of disabled oppression, instead trying to localize it within our bodyminds? and yeahyeah i get it "i'd still be disabled under socialism" thats not really the point there, the point is regardless of how little you can access abled hegemony the disabling feature is still the access to abled hegemony, current language and discourse abt support needs obscures that imho)

(particularly because the visible markers of disability more profoundly limit someone from accessing abled hegemony, and arguments abt what is "more" or "less" disabling aren't centered on the axis of "how much is this person able to access the benefits of this hegemony, incl. income, respect and authority, social acceptance." i've seen people who have no ability to access institutions like work and school, 0 degree or qualifications and 0 income, being implied as ~less disabled~ due to current discourses on support needs, than people who draw on hegemonic authority via academic and professional accreditation.)

and like, separating out those into categories and representing access to those categories with ur language is fundamentally more accurate than drawing broad lines around dozens of categories of daily living and shunting disabled ppl off into those 3 or 4 categories. the experience of someone who cannot feed or toilet independently + has a masters degree is fundamentally different from the experience of someone who is independently physically mobile + labeled as violent and dangerous due to their disability and currently street homeless. and trying to determine whose "support needs are higher" in that axis or trying to plot them on an axis of "more or less disabled" is fundamentally useless in comparison to describing how their disability positions them in relation to abled hegemony and what parts of it they have access to and what parts they dont!

#actually disabled #actually autistic #cripplepunk #cripple punk #anti psychiatry #antipsychiatry #mad liberation #madpunk #dyspunktional

[npdmonoma]

"NPD as a diagnosis was created by bigoted psychiatrists who use the diagnosis to label and punish people they think are bad, and that needs to stop" and "some people find value in the diagnosis and use it as a framework to understand their experiences, and they shouldn't have the label taken away from them by force" are two ideas that can and should coexist

#narcissistic soliloquizing #actually npd #npd safe #actually narcissistic #psychiatric survivor #antipsychiatry #psychiatric abolition

[neuroticboyfriend]

no but being told to use your communication coping skills when talking to abusive people is bullshit. abusers do not listen to their victims no matter how reasonable we are.

like. anything that shows we're an individual with thoughts and feelings is going to make an abuser double down. using "i feel" statements isn't going to help if your abuser lashes out at you for showing feelings. speaking calmly isn't going to help if your abuser is threatening you. gently stating what you need isn't going to help if your abuser neglects even your simplest needs.

also so many of us hide our anger and rage. we dont speak our mind, because it's dangerous. it's the most threatening thing to an abuser... but it's also the most empowering for us. anger is the feeling that tells us something is wrong, and we need to embrace it. because our anger is not the danger - our abuser's reaction to it is, and that reaction is not our fault.

#softspoonie #abuse #abuse victim #abuse survivor #trauma #trauma survivor #trauma victim #abuse tw #survivor #antipsych #antipsychiatry #anti psych #anti psychiatry