#in radical autonomy and liberation and with the understanding that it's totally fine and neutral and okay if ppl never stop

[trans-axolotl]

for about two years now ive struggled with relapses in self harm and have not really known how to deal with my desires for harm, health, and existing thoughts on antipsychiatry. ive been accessing psychiatric resources for well over a decade with a lot of trauma inflicted over that time. ive also dealt with really harsh approaches to reducing self harm that both began the problem in the first place and worsened it.

ive been working with my therapist to stop self harming but, to be honest, i have no desire to stop. i try my best to reduce risk where i can such as not self harming in an emotional state, using clean implements, and keeping it light. previously i didnt care about any of those things and self harm was mainly a dangerous coping mechanism. but now i see it almost as a form of body modification with a lot of intentionality to it.

i really dont know what to think. its objectively dangerous since i am harming myself but i also cant agree with the general aims of therapy and psychiatry to stop self harming as an ultimate goal. i want to be happy and healthy and for me that means living with self harm as a reality of something i will continue to do. and i think its my right as an autonomous person to choose what i do with my body, even if its harmful. yet i can feel the claws of psychiatry and feel so much shame and hatred towards the fact i cant stop. or more significantly, that i dont want to.

sorry for such a long ask, but essentially what im getting at is, how does one handle harm reduction when there is no desire to ever fully stop? i believe in my own right to bodily autonomy but ive also been told repeatedly that using my bodily autonomy to harm myself makes me undeserving of it and instead in need of carceral punishment. how do i even begin to navigate those contradictions of feeling like ive been horribly hurt and dehumanized and feeling like on some level ive deserved that dehumanization because of the pain i inflict? is self harm as body modification even a concept or idea that people have discussed? since i mainly just see it discussed as a coping mechanism.

content note: continued discussion of self harm and self harm methods.

Hi, anon. Thanks so much for reaching out.

I really resonated with so much of what you shared. It's really hard to try to navigate all our feelings associated with self harm when we are constantly hearing from society that our self harm makes us dangerous or unworthy or unable to live outside of institutions. For me, it honestly feels really violating when other people like providers try to push their narrative of what self harm means onto me. My relationship with my self harm is so personal and there's a lot of different meaning I attach to it, and I want the room to be able to talk about it in a way that actually makes sense to me.

Something that's helped me in trying to navigate all of this for myself is really just to come back to these values of bodily autonomy and harm reduction. A really important harm reduction value for me is that it is completely okay if people don't ever stop (whether we're talking about drugs, self harm, disorderly eating, etc). It's important to me that we can defend people's right to do all these things and recognize that harm reduction should not be just another method of coercion trying to convince people to stop. I strongly believe that people can have meaningful and valuable lives that also include self harm as a part of our lives. I want to build a world where we can say that we're not interested in completely stopping self harm and that statement is not reacted to with shame or blame, but rather with curiosity and respect for the fact that we are the experts on our own lives and choices. Part of encouraging autonomy is recognizing that we are allowed to make choices about our lives that might not be what the psych system wants us to make.

Anyway, all of this is to say: I think it's okay if you're not interested in ever stopping self harming, and I know a lot of people who also feel similarly to you. You absolutely have the right to interpret your self harm in a way that makes sense for you. I've definitely heard other people talk about self harm as body modification (I think some of the harm reduction zines in this google drive might talk about it, but I haven't read through them in a while. Continued content note for discussion of self harm, self harm methods, and diagrams of anatomy and self harm). It makes a lot of sense why you might connect self harm and body modification, and that's something that would resonate with a lot of other people. You have the right to build a life that includes self harm as a part of it, and find a way to do it that makes sense for your body and life.

That feeling of dehumanization you described is so so real. I really just feel a lot of rage towards a psychiatric system that makes us feel so hurt and conflicted. Untangling that learned shame and hatred towards ourselves is so fucking hard, but just know that you are not alone in that and that we have the right to reject the ways the psych system punishes us.

And I want to be clear that none of this is to downplay the very real harm, pain, or risk that can come with self harm, but rather to point out that abstinence only methods, shame, and carceral psychiatry did not do anything to support me with that. Instead, it left me feeling trapped and like it was worthless to even try to figure out what I needed in really difficult moments. So I also really just want to acknowledge and celebrate all the stuff you listed in your ask--using clean implements, not self harming in an emotional state, and keeping it light. I'm really glad that you've found some steps to take that make self harm more manageable for you. Those are not lesser steps or a waste of your time just because you are not interested in stopping self harm, and those things are such a great example of how harm reduction doesn't require you to stop self harming in order to make some changes that reduce risk.

Just sending a lot of love and solidarity to you, anon, from another person who is not interested in completely stopping self harm, even as my relationship to my self harm shifts and changes over the years. There are a lot of us out here and we deserve to have the space to openly talk about these things without facing judgement.

💜💜💜💜

#asks #self harm tw #antipsych #psych abolition #harm reduction #harm reduction is so important to me. didn't go on this in the main post bc it's a tangent but just like #the co-optation of harm reduction by the gov and nonprofits makes me so fucking annoyed. #i learned harm reduction from other sex workers and drug users bc it was what were doing to survive. to me harm reduction needs to be based #in radical autonomy and liberation and with the understanding that it's totally fine and neutral and okay if ppl never stop #also my own relationship to self harm is not one where stopping it completely is a priority. there's a few forms of self harm i want to sto #bc it's really hard to accurately judge the risks of that self harm. and also because it was really difficult for my loved ones to watch an #i care about that. but i feel totally okay with the thought that cutting may or may not be a part of my future. and that i will find #love joy meaning. all of that. regardless. and that there are times im grateful for how self harm helped me survive #as much as there are times i hate it and times that self harm were so incredibly destructive to other parts of my life. it is soooo complex #for me! and i cannot just label it the way psychs want me to #anyway. lots of love anon.

[trans-axolotl]

hi so ive been reading a lot of your mad liberation stuff (i think thats the term i cant actually remember atm) and im having trouble understanding some of it so i want to like ask this for clarification

is it like. not quite antirecovery but that "recovery" shouldnt be the default? like mad ppl should be able to live as is, and if they want to seek recovery they can but shouldnt be looked down on for not doing that?

or that like. "recovery" doesnt look like psychiatric definitions?

sorry i dont know if im phrasing things right im pretty dissociated lol

ty for your time tho!

hi anon!

I'm always happy to answer clarification questions. I know when I was first learning about antipsych stuff, there were so many terms and concepts that were new to me, and I'm always still learning more.

A lot of what you've said is stuff I agree with! When I'm thinking about the concept of recovery, it feels important to me to really analyze what people really mean when they say "recovery" in the current psych system. I might ask questions like:

Who gets to define recovery? Is the mad/mentally ill/neurodivergent person supported in setting their own priorities and goals, or is the only thing prioritized the mental health professional's ideas about wellness?

How do ableist concepts of normality and conformity contribute to our ideas about recovery? What ways might recovery frameworks get in the way of radical acceptance of mad/MI/ND people's traits? How do ideas of recovery contribute to stigma and violence against mad/MI/ND people?

What ways does the psych system enforce recovery, even at the cost of bodily autonomy and freedom? What ways does psych treatment use violence to enforce recovery?

Within the current psych system, I think that "recovery" is not a neutral concept, and I think it's one that contributes to a lot of fucked up patterns within the psych system. There's so many ableist and sanist ideas that label mad/MI/ND people just existing as a threat, and force cure on us instead of building a society that embraces madness/MI/ND. The language about being a "danger to yourself and others" reveals the ways that mad/MI/ND people are often labeled as inherently unsafe if we're existing in public, if we have nonconforming behaviors, if we talk to ourselves in public, if we stim, etc. There's this pattern set up within the psych system where unless we're actively compliant with treatment, unless we're institutionalized, unless we're taking our meds and going to therapy and doing every little thing the psych system asks us to, we're labeled as dangerous and unstable.

In a system where "treatment" is often violent, coercive, and oppressive, I think that the way recovery is defined is a really harmful framework. Recovery in the psych system is more about compliance then it is about actually listening to our needs. It treats mad/MI/ND people as unworthy unless we're doing every single thing that the psych system wants us to. And I think that mindset is super damaging to mad/MI/ND people. It makes us feel like we're not deserving of support, care, accommodations, and community unless we're willing to give up our autonomy, conform to ableist ideals about "normal" behavior, and give up so much of ourselves. I'm much more interested in separating morality from our ideas of health and wellness, meeting people where they're at, and embracing the idea that it is totally fine to exist openly and fully as a mad person. We do not have to change ourselves in ways we don't want to. My mad community is always going to be one that embraces + prioritizes people who have no interest in recovery, who want and need to keep using behaviors labeled as dangerous, odd, and crazy, who don't comply with treatment and who demand the right to exist anyway.

I think that as mad/MI/ND people, we should have the room to define healing/coping/resistance/resilience/care in a way that is affirming and supportive for us, instead of just being restricted to "recovery." Our distress, pain, and hurt is very real, and we deserve support, skills, resources to help us navigate that in a way where we aren't shamed and aren't forced into coercive treatment. We should be able to set our own goals and priorities about what actually feels important for us in making our lives better/more tolerable. I'm not super interested in telling mad/MI/ND people to stop using the term recovery because I think for a lot of people it's a familiar shorthand to sort of describe a lot of different ways of healing. But I think it really is worth critiquing the concept, doing self inquiry about what it actually means to us, and analyzing the ways we use recovery in our communities and who that might exclude.

Personally, I don't like to use recovery language around a lot of my own madness, because it's important to me to be able to validate and affirm the ways I exist as a crazy person in the world. I think of my bipolar & psychosis as fundamental ways that I engage with the world, and I'm really glad that those are the ways I experience my life. I don't think of my bipolar and psychosis as a transient state that I will "recover" from and wake up one day and have all that taken away from me. I find a lot of value and meaning in my psychosis and my mood cycles, and I think I would lose a lot if I no longer experienced them. At the same time, there are ways that my psychosis and bipolar have changed the way my bad days look, ways that my self harm has really caused me a lot of distress and was really debilitating, and ways that my relationship with suicide is incredibly, incredibly difficult. I've been able to find support, healing, and care from places outside the psych system in a way that feels more meaningful for me than the psychiatric systems definition of recovery. Every time I go into the mental health system and try to express that I don't want to stop having hallucinations, that I want to use harm reduction for my self harm, and that I don't want to go on meds, I am labeled as noncompliant, antirecovery, dangerous, and incapable of living outside of institutions. This is despite the fact that I have worked really hard in building up a support system, access tons of resources, have found a bunch of coping strategies that work for me, and have built a life that accommodates my madness.

So to answer your question, I am against the ideas the recovery should be the default and I am really critical of the way the psych system uses recovery as a foundation for coercive treatment, but I fully support mad/MI/ND people's right to find healing, support, resistance, care, coping skills, resources in whatever way makes sense to them and fits with their needs and autonomy.

Summary: The current concept of recovery in our mental health system is based on ableist ideas about normality and labels mad/MI/ND as dangerous for just existing as mad people. Coercive treatment like psych wards tries to force ideas about recovery onto all mad/MI/ND people, and makes us feel like we are unworthy if we aren't doing everything we can to be compliant. Mad/MI/ND people have the right to define what healing/coping/resistance/care means to them, and if that means rejecting ideas of recovery, treatment, and conformity, our autonomy should be respected.

Feel free to ask any other questions!

#asks #antipsych #antipsychiatry #psych abolition #mad liberation #self harm mention tw #suicide mention tw #other antipsych mutuals if anyone wants to add on what being antirecovery might mean to u. feel free! #i don't usually use the language 'antirecovery' on tumblr because i think it's pretty associated with fatphobic pro ana content on here #but i do think antirecovery like i've laid out on this post is super important to me!