i'm just thinking abt how many providers i've had who heard my story abt psychiatric abuse + immediately individualized it. "oh, you're so smart + kind+ obviously sane! you didn't deserve that! i can't believe they gave you that diagnosis when you're obviously not like that! they shouldn't have treated u like that when all you did was xyz! they shouldn't have assumed you were crazy like that!"
there is always a third person haunting this interaction- the patient who does deserve that, who is "actually" that evilscary diagnosis, who did Have To be treated like that. if i want to soak up the affirmations of these providers, i must be careful to never become this third person. i must affirm myself by setting myself apart from her- i did not deserve to be treated like that because i am not like that.
i reject this. not only was i like that, she + everyone else like that deserve everything i deserve. they are my siblings + my friends + my lovers. i do not need to cut them out of me to believe i deserved better. i refuse to comfort myself through the lens of someone else's dehumanization. the tragedy is not that psychiatric violence was applied to someone who not insane enough to warrant it. the tragedy is the violence.
i'll sometimes worry like "oh god, am i really mellowing out politically with age? i can't be proving those conservative stooges right..." and then i talk politics with literally anyone who doesn't situate themselves in online circles that necessitate interacting with habitually angry and mentally ill insurrectionary maoist aspirant labor camps guards and it's like ohh, phew, i'm still insane
If you ever feel like you’ve made bad decisions just remember that somewhere out there is a theatre director at an all-white high school about to choose the spring musical