#medical abuse tw

[genderkoolaid]

medical literature about intersex people be like "there are problems that can be caused by forcing surgery on babies. luckily we are solving this by forcing surgery on even younger babies. it is vital that this baby CANNOT be left alone to develop normally. here is our 36 step guide on which surgeries you should force on which babies. also some people have said that forcing surgeries on babies might be "harmful" so consider that too I guess"

#m. #intersexism #igm tw #medical abuse tw

[giritina]

(Edit: just to be clear I don't mean to emphasize this girl with the tattoo as the primary perpetrator if this stuff. Idk her story, it's in kind of bad taste but there's more to this than a tattoo)

I saw this great video discussing a critique of "lobotomycore"/"lobotomy chic" and the erasure of the racist history of lobotomies.

I can't add further on the subject of race, but as a person with schizotypal I did connect it with this image

(Source, though I have not verified it by sifting through the archive)

"Lobotomy chic" and the humor surrounding it is used so often by people who I've seen have zero empathy for schizophrenic people. For disables people generally.

Even just looking at how they treat an actual lobotomy victim, Rosemary Kennedy, even when she's that archetypical 40s white woman. Her disability is erased.

Here's a popular tiktok about her. No context, just images of her younger self and her older self. Simply "she was normal, glamorous, and then she became strange, disabled." Oftentimes, her intellectual disability is treated more as a conspiracy theory than a fact of her not receiving enough oxygen at birth. People are happy to relate to her as a ~poorly behaved woman~, but not as an intellectually disabled one.

It just reminds me how this has become a sort of coquetteish phrase and a universal joke that erases everything except the low support needs disabled white woman's experience. The idea that for your eccentricities, you'd be at risk. That you might be the only one at risk, so there's no need for solidarity with the intellectually disabled, the schizophrenic and psychotic, anyone with profound or uncomfortable disabilities. Times ten thousand if those disabled people are black. And god forbid they are disabled, black, AND homeless.

#disability theory #schizophrenia #actually schizophrenic #schizospectrum #disability rights #disability justice #long post #psychiatric abuse tw #racial abuse tw #ableism tw #medical abuse tw

[nerves-nebula]

dream i had. the rest was too meandering and complicated but i really liked this part of it. what ended up happening is that a bunch of people's heads got swapped and this angler fish's memories belong to an evil scientist/doctor.

#nnstuff #rambling #nnart #blood #art #comic #original art #cartoon #medical abuse tw #blood tw

[trans-axolotl2]

I've been reading Cripping Intersex by Celeste Orr and one concept that I think is absolutely crucial and one of the best resources I've found for understanding my own experiences as an intersex person is the term Compulsory Dyadism.

Dr. Orr coins the term: "I propose the expression 'compulsory dyadism' to describe the instituted cultural mandate that people cannot violate the sex dyad, have intersex traits, or 'house the spectre of intersex' (Sparrow 2013, 29). Said spectre must be, according to the mandate, exorcised. However, trying to definitively cast out the spectre via curative violence always fails. The spectre always returns: a new intersex baby is born; one learns that they have intersex traits in adulthood; and/or medical procedures cannot cast out the spectre fully, as evidenced by life-long medical interventions, routines, or patienthood status. And the effects of compulsory dyadism haunt in the form of disabilities, scars, memories, trauma, and medical regimens (e.g., HRT routines). Compulsory dyadism, therefore, is not simply an event or a set of instituted policies but is an ongoing exorcising process and structure of pathologization, curative violence, erasure, trauma, and oppression." (Orr 19-20).

They continue on in their book to explore compulsory dyadism as it shows up in medical interventions, racializing intersex + sports sex testing, and eugenic and prenatal interventions on intersex fetuses. This term makes so much sense to me and puts words to an experience I've been struggling to comprehend--how can it be that so many endosex* people express such revulsion and fear of intersex bodies and traits, yet at the same time don't even know that intersex people exist? Why is it that people understand when I refer to my body in the terms used by freak shows, call myself a hermaphrodite, remember bearded ladies and laugh at interphobic jokes--yet do not even know that intersex people are as common as redheads? Understanding the term compulsory dyadism elucidates this for me. Endosex people might not comprehend what intersex actually is or know anything about our advocacy, but they do grow up in a cultural environment that indoctrinates them into false ideas about the sex binary and cultivates a fear of anything that lies outside of it.

From birth, compulsory dyadism affects every one of us, whether you're intersex or not. Intersex people carry the heaviest burden and often the most visible wounds that compulsory dyadism inflicts, as shown through often the very literal scars of violent, "curative" surgery, but the whole process of sex assignment at birth is a manifestation of compulsory dyadism. Ideas entrenched in the medical system that assign gender to the hormones testosterone and estrogen although neither of those hormones have anything to do with gender, a society that starts selling hair removal products to girls at puberty, and the historical legacy of things like sexual inversion theory are all manifestations of compulsory dyadism. For intersex people, facing compulsory dyadism often means that we are subjected to curative violence, institutionalized medical malpractice that sometimes includes aspects of ritualized sexual abuse, and means that we are left "haunted by, for instance, traumatic memories, acquires body-mind disabilities, an ability that was taken, or a 'paradoxical nostalgia....for all the futures that were lost' (Fisher 2013,45)." (Orr 26).

Compulsory dyadism works in tandem with concepts like compulsory able-bodiedness and compulsory heterosexuality to create mindsets and systems that tie together ideas to suggest that the only "normal" body is a cisgender one that meets capitalist standards of function, is capable of heterosexual sex and reproduction, and has chromosomes, hormones, genitalia, reproductive system, and sex traits that all line up. Part of compulsory dyadism is convincing the public that this is the only way for a body to function, erasing intersex people both by excluding us from public perception and by actively utilizing curative violence as a way to actively erasure intersex traits from our body. Compulsory dyadism works by getting both the endosex and intersex public to buy into the idea that intersex doesn't exist, and if it does exist then it needs to be treated as a freakshow, either exploiting us to put us on display as an aberration or by delegating us to the medical freakshow of experimentation and violence.

Until we all start to fully understand the many, many ways that compulsory dyadism is showing up in our lives, I don't think we're going to be able to achieve true intersex liberation. And in fact, I think many causes are tied into intersex liberation and affected by compulsory dyadism in ways that endosex people don't understand. Take the intense revulsion that some trans people express about the thought of medical transition, for example. Although transitioning does not make people intersex and never will, and the only way to be intersex is to have an intersex variation, I think that compulsory dyadism affects a lot more of that rhetoric than is expressed. The disgust I see some people talking about when they think about medical transition causing them to live in a body that has XX chromosomes, a vagina, but also more hair, a larger clitoris--I think a lot of this rhetoric is born in compulsory dyadism that teaches us to view anything that steps outside the sex dyad with intense fear and violence. I'm thinking about transphobic legislation blocking medical transition and how there's intersex exceptions in almost every one of those bills, and how having an understanding of compulsory dyadism would actually help us understand the ways in which our struggles overlap and choose to build meaningful solidarity, instead of just sitting together by default.

I have so much more to say about this topic, and will probably continue to write about it for a while, but I want to end by just saying: I think this is going to be one of the most important concepts for intersex advocacy going into the next decade. With all due respect and much love to intersex activists both current and present,I think that it's time for a new strategy, not one where we medicalize ourselves and distance ourselves from queer liberation, not one where we sort of just end up as an add on to LGBTQ community by default, not even one where we use a human rights framework, nonprofits, and try to negotiate with the government. I agree with so much of what Dr. Orr says in Cripping Intersex and I think the intersex and/as/is/with disability framework, along with these foundational ideas for understanding our own oppression with the language of compulsory dyadism and curative violence, are providing us with the tools to start laying a foundation for a truly liberatory mode of intersex community building and liberation.

*Endosex means not intersex

Endosex people, please feel free to reblog!

#personal #actuallyintersex #intersex #curative violence #compulsory dyadism #intersexism #interphobia #medical abuse tw #h slur #igm tw #disability studies #actually disabled

[compassionatereminders]

I just started reading this book and it's definitely raising a very important critique of psychiatry, even as it's horrific to dive into...

#kat gets personal #medical neglect tw #medical abuse tw #forced treatment tw #forced hospitalization tw #forced medication tw #psychiatric abuse tw #hospitalization tw #institutionalization tw #ableism tw

[trans-axolotl]

this time last year, it was my seventh week institutionalized and it was one of the hardest weeks to survive. one of my dear friends said later that they saw the light completely go out of my eyes, and i think it was the week i cried the most. i remember desperately wanting to go outside, and feeling so much despair about not being able to experience the last few days of summer outside. i felt violated. it was finally starting to sink in that i was going to spend several more months locked up, and the extent to which my autonomy was taken away.

and then another patient who could go outside brought me back a pinecone, and i nearly started sobbing. that tiny kindness meant everything. even despite all the violence of confinement, we found ways to exist together.

today i walked outside and saw so, so many pinecones. it's been a year, and i survived, and all i can think is how much love i have for fellow psych survivors and how much i wish we were all free.

#personal #psych ward tw #medical abuse tw #psych survivor #surviving psych #psych abolition #antipsych #mad liberation #the friend who gave me the pinecone is instituionalized right now. i love her and i miss her so much #texted her today. going to try to send her a gift package if the facility allows it

[sonicattos]

shadow being a victim of medical experimentation and malpractice having to deal with constant modifications and changes in his body. trial and error. invasive procedures. auuughh head in hands. let him heal.

#tw abuse #medical abuse tw #saltcat text #sonic hcs #this isn’t entirely canon but it seems inevitable considering he is a lab experiment #shadow the hedgehog #sth

[allthecanadianpolitics]

McGill University and a group of Indigenous elders have reached a deal to search for the possibility of unmarked graves at the former site of a Montreal hospital, following a court ruling described as precedent setting.

The Mohawk Mothers allege there are bodies of Indigenous patients buried on and around the old grounds of the Royal Victoria Hospital, which McGill is renovating to expand its campus.

"I'm glad that everybody agreed with that, and we all want this to happen and we're going toward justice," Kahentinetha, one of the Mohawk Mothers, said in an interview. "We always said we're here for the children and we want justice for all the children."

The Mothers say they have uncovered evidence of graves following interviews with survivors of mind-control experiments that took place in the 1950s and 1960s at a psychiatric institute affiliated with the hospital. Canada and the United States allegedly funded abusive psychological experiments on vulnerable patients with the MK-ULTRA program, which included experimental drugs, rounds of electroshocks and sleep deprivation.

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

#cdnpoli #canadian politics #canadian news #canada #canadian #MK-ULTRA #Indigenous #genocide #colonialism #Mohawk Mothers #mcgill university #medical experimentation #medical abuse #genocide tw #colonialism tw #medical abuse tw #murder tw #death tw #montréal #québec #montreal #quebec

[intersex-support]

Something I really want to say: Intersex people, it is not your fault if you have faced medical abuse. I know for a long time after I faced the worst medical abuse I went through, I felt very ashamed and embarrassed. I felt like I must have done something wrong to be treated that way, and that I was just somehow broken. But absolutely none of that is true. It took me years to start speaking about what I had experienced, and took me a long time not to feel ashamed about what had happened to me. The medical abuse I experienced as an intersex person still affects me--going to the doctors is incredibly challenging for me, and the trauma made it difficult for me to feel at home in my body. And it's okay that I haven't gotten over it yet, and okay if I never get over it.

Intersex people, we are so much more than the things that they have done to us. Know that you do not need to feel ashamed about being harmed by doctors, and know that it's okay if you don't feel like you're able to be proud about being intersex. You are worth so much, and fuck doctors who treat our bodies like we need to be saved from ourselves. We deserve love, respect, care, and safety in all aspects of our lives, including the doctors. If you've faced medical abuse, know that you are not alone and that you did not deserve it, and there is absolutely nothing you could have done that made it your fault.

#mod e #intersex positivity #intersex #actuallyintersex #intersex pride #medical abuse tw

[promptsforyourwhumpfic]

Whump Prompt #1263

Submitted by Anon - thanks!

TW: Hospital settings | Medical abuse/malpractice | Loss of a loved one

Imagine three different characters who all happen to be apprehensive in hospitals/ around doctors. One has an inexplicable phobia of medical environments due to the urgency and secrecy of it all and the visuals of the medical equipment; the second has been a victim of medical abuse in the past and the third has had someone close to them die in a hospital (whether the death was a result of injuries, illness or medical neglect/malpractice is up to you) so attending a medical facility of any kind really impacts their mood and critical thinking.

Now.

Imagine that all three need to get poor Whumpee to a hospital ASAP 😊 (nobody has a phone so they can’t call an ambulance for plot reasons either)

#OHOHOHO #YEs #whump #writing #prompts #hospitals #medical phobia #medical abuse tw #medical trauma tw #hospital tw #medical malpractice tw

[sepublic]

You know those medical horror stories of nurses who abuse their power? Basically the meanest bully in high school who decides to pursue the medical profession because of the authority it grants them over others? Doctors who dismiss and gaslight your issues? I wonder if THAT’s what the Healing Head will be like...

Given the social commentary of this show, especially with disabilities... I can imagine the Healing Head being a critique of nurses and doctors who mistreat their patients, medical malpractice and all that, all while insisting they know what’s better for you and it’s ‘for your own good’ with that smug, belittling condescension. Basically the kind of person to work at those old-school stereotypes of psyche wards that abused their patients and treat them as ‘broken’... 

In other words, the kind of person Eda would REALLY hate, who would’ve given her further apprehension over her curse as a child, and maybe even a person Eda encountered when she was younger! Or someone Gwen tried to appeal to, only to be laughed off and have her daughter’s disability downplayed... And while we’re at it, given the show has already commented on the exorbitant costs of medicine, the Healing Head could also be that type of doctor who charges a TON just for a checkup, and is also a critique of the medical industry’s predatory price-gouging; The Healing Head could be a shameless capitalist like Tibbles.

#the owl house #medical abuse tw #eda clawthorne #edalyn clawthorne #gwendolyn clawthorne #speculation #theory

[genderkoolaid]

im being genuine but im an idiot so forgive me if asking this sucks, but for doing surgery on babies, aren’t those for when like the um. parts won’t function to keep the baby alive? that’s all i’ve heard of,, if they’re forcing cosmetic surgery to affirm the sex binary that’s so horrid, i don’t know how to think about it

Oh they are absolutely forcing cosmetic surgery on children to enforce the sex binary.

There are times where surgery on children is necessary for healthy functioning, but when talking about intersex children, surgeries are regularly done for no other reason than making the child "look normal." Medical literature regularly tells doctors it's vital to pick a sex & perform whatever surgeries they deem necessary to make the child's body fit that sex, often including forced HRT at puberty. They often argue that not forcing them into the sex binary could result in trauma– but that trauma only exists because they will live in an intersexist society that tells them they should be ashamed of their body. It's a real "being trans will make you depressed because of how I will treat you" type situation. & a lot of people are lied to about surgeries performed on them as children, because doctors tend to be weird about admitting that intersex variations exist & act like they are doing people a favor by not telling them.

That's why being against forced surgery is such a big part of intersex activism. If you want to know more check out advocacy groups like InterACT:

#m. #ask box #intersexism #igm tw #medical abuse tw

[lumberjackloverboy-moved]

You know, last year with dracula daily I was scrambling to blacklist every word I could think of. Since I was hospitalized, dracula has been a huge trigger. But this year that didn’t happen, and I genuinely believe it’s because of renfield. When I was in the hospital, I read dracula over and over; i was Jonathan Harker, trapped by the villainous dracula and his wives, escape seemingly impossible as I was gaslighted and abused. Dracula the character *became* my doctors, my staff, that hospital. It came alive and became one with my trauma. But in renfield, renfield escapes. Dracula abuses him and *he escapes!* dracula was beatable. And it’s stupid to say a horror gory comedy helped me stop seeing dracula as an impossible demon and instead an escapable creature, but it really did.

#mental hospital tw #abuse tw #medical abuse tw

[oopsallfictives]

I saw a post the other day that basically said "psych abolition is bad because I'm mentally ill and need treatment". I think OP was overlooking some very important things so I'm gonna talk about those

First of all, psych abolition is a movement by and for psych survivors. We're people who have been through the psychiatric system because we ourselves are mentally ill or traumatized, and who have suffered because of it. A lot of people come to this movement because psychiatry isn't safe for us, and no alternatives exist unless we build them ourselves

Our system finally stopped going to therapy because after how much harm was done to us by psychiatry we can't trust any therapist enough to actually be helped by it. We've been lowkey retraumatizing ourselves for years trying to get help from the same system that did so much harm to our body and minds. Harm that we can't heal on our own, but can't get help for because there are no alternatives

Second of all, this isn't a vibes-based movement. There are actual principles involved here. Patient autonomy, informed consent, the right to refuse treatment, the right to culturally-appropriate healing, the right to define our own experiences, pushing back against over-pathologization, and more. These things are guiding the movement, and will guide the alternatives we build now, as well as what we build in the ashes of psychiatry when it's gone

And to be clear, abolishing psychiatry doesn't mean doing away with everything that's currently encompassed within that system. Therapy and medications aren't going to go away, but the way they're handled is going to have to look a lot different. Anyone seeking mental healthcare of any sort must be informed of the potential risks of that treatment even if it means they might refuse it. If people aren't told the risks they can't give informed consent. They also need to be free to make decisions about their care without being shamed, manipulated, or threatened with a loss of care or being labeled noncompliant. People shouldn't be involuntarily incarcerated in hospitals for the crime of being suicidal or psychotic, and no one should be medicated against their will

Are there people online that will say they're for psych abolition and actually mean they think mental illness isn't real and meds should be gotten rid of? Yeah, probably. There's also a lot of people on twitter who call themselves socialists while advocating for the most right-wing shit you've ever heard of, but that doesn't mean that's what socialism really is

At the end of the day, psych abolition is about creating alternatives to psychiatry so that we can tear it down and replace it with ways to help mentally ill, neurodivergent, and traumatized people without stripping away their rights and autonomy. If you don't understand why that's necessary, you need to listen to psych survivors when we tell our stories

#psych abolition #psych survivors #anti psychiatry #mad pride #the quicksilvers say #psychiatric abuse tw #medical abuse tw #suicide ment

[marshvlovestv]

This started out as a silly post but then it turned into me rambling about a character I am very not normal about.

Given that he was more proportional in his memories, I choose to interpret Fred's weird stubby little arms as a sort of visual representation of the fact that he no longer has full use of his arms and hands after years of them being contained in a straitjacket, possibly without any breaks.

Augh, now that I'm on the subject I can't help but think about why he's even wearing a straitjacket in the first place (besides the obvious answer of the devs not fully understanding the garment's purpose and just using it as a shorthand for "crazy guy lol"). I say this knowing that straitjackets are basically torture devices and no one should have to wear one, dangerous or not, but of the Thorney Towers patients, Fred is far and away the least obviously dangerous to himself or others. So why would he need to be restrained?

Do you think maybe he requested it, in an early moment of lucidity? He was an orderly at the asylum, after all, who more than likely had experience fitting patients with straitjackets. He was obviously not a bad guy and pretty well-meaning in his job, but I still imagine he was pretty... ignorantly complicit in the abuse going on, because he didn't have the expertise to know better than his orders and went along with it because that's what the doctors said to do. He just knew "straitjackets are what we give to crazy people," and as he felt his own mind going, he was afraid and asked that he be given one because he couldn't recognize his own needs.

Ugh. The "failure to live up to family legacy" thing is interesting but Fred being a former employee of the asylum is the layer of his character that I really love. It's a little bit karmic, but mostly tragic and very sad, to see someone who was once complicit in an abusive system become a victim of that system themself.

In conclusion Fred Bonaparte makes me want to pull my hair out. I like him very much :) But his hands are weird

#psychonauts #fred bonaparte #ableism tw #medical abuse tw

[compassionatereminders]

i have an eating disorder but im not ready to recover right now. its too much. i know i cant do it on my own but im too scared of getting put in residential treatment and getting abused and broken there, even though my ed isnt that severe, so i have to hide everything. i feel guilty but my ed is comforting and familiar to me

It can take a while to get from knowing what you're supposed to do to feeling ready to actually do it, and that's understandable. I hope you manage to prioritize harm reduction, even if you aren't ready to commit to recovery, and I hope that you'll eventually reach a point where your illness start scaring you more than the recovery process. Because you do deserve to get better ❤️

#chat with kat #eating disorders tw #food issues tw #abuse tw #medical abuse tw #psych ward tw #kat plays games