You’re Invited to My Pity Party!

I don’t usually feel this sad for this long, at least maybe not since I started writing this blog so bear with me if this is  a massive pity party and attempt to form sentences.

I feel horrible. I feel….I’m feeling to much but it feels like very little. it might be because I’m used to explosions, I’m used to big feelings so feeling something closer to numb makes me feel tiny.

I could not move from the couch and stare at the wall all day.

It’s not fair.

I think what’s made this worse was hearing my social worker, J, empathize with me. I was joking about that last night with Michael. “Is is wrong to want to go to therapy because you know that they’re going to validate everything you feel?” We laughed about it but it did feel great to hear J say, “I can understand why you’re angry after some of the things you’ve gone through.”

Fuck yes I’m angry!

Just something about hearing her say it…It’s like I realized  how much I hide. I don’t think I’ve ever faced anything that has hurt me because I was always so desperate to figure out how to stop the pain. There’s nothing wrong with feeling pain. I just need a safe place to feel it and I don’t have that place.

I laugh to much at what should pain me and it’s not because I’m over it, it’s because I want to be over it. I want to forget it. I know that I can’t change the past but I’m finding it easier to gloss over the shit so I can keep going.

I’m mad as hell.

I’m upset that doctors never took me seriously. Now we’re all into youth mental health in Canada but I’m not a youth anymore. Left behind….

I’m upset that my peers shit on me for being different.

I’m upset that I’m a hypocrite! Telling myself that it doesn’t matter what doctors say, it’s what I think that matters but then I desperately want them to admit that I’m ok, that I just have some issues, not an illness. I hate that I’ve been told I need their validation. Because I don’t.

What a down day I’m in for. Only for today! That’s my maximum.

 

 

Dear “Experts”

Dear “Experts”,

Sometimes you don’t help.

Sometimes you are the reason people with mental health issues are stigmatized.

You create stigma when you label yourself as experts. Claiming that you know more about my life than I do. You are the reason every person who took a psychology course at one point in their life feels they can now diagnose everyone and understand what mental illness is. I hate it when random people play “expert” and tell me what my symptoms are and what treatments I should consider because “I took a psychology class once.” If you have not lived it you will never get it. When you don’t listen to me when I say that something isn’t working because you can’t trust the judgement of someone who is “crazy”.  You create stigma by taking away my right to choose all because you are the “expert”.

When you withhold valuable information on side effects you are creating stigma. You are keeping all knowledge to yourself and not sharing it with those who deserve to hear it; those taking the medications and treatments you offer. You keep us in the dark so we need to look up to you and trust you because we don’t have access to this information ourselves. You have the power. We become powerless.

When you blame the disease and not the drug, you are creating stigma. It is a horrible feeling to think that you are so sick that not even the industries “wonder drugs” can help you. This leads to “common” knowledge being that these medications WILL help and if they do not then you are a lost cause. This also creates a fear for those who have mental health issues but are not on psychiatric medication, such as myself. “Rarer than corpses are the unmedicated Mad” (Terrence McKenna). We must be truly crazy and out of control since we are not on medication.  Maybe this is because we’re thrown into an industry that can’t admit it’s flaws. Only patients fail. The Industry can only succeed. Stop spreading this lie.

“Experts”, when you don’t take us seriously you create stigma. I was talking to my Mother last night about my Prozac-induced suicide attempt at 16 years old and how I’m afraid to talk about it on national TV. She began telling me that the hospital just waved off my attempt. They had always waved me off claiming it wasn’t a big deal. I got worse. If those who are supposed to help us cannot take us seriously then who will? And why should they?

What, you may ask, should you do about this? “Experts”, stop being experts. Value our insight, value our knowledge, value our lives. See us as equals, see us as valid. We should be your partners, your answers to everything you want to know.

We cannot be helped, we cannot recover if those who help us are apart of the problem.

Signed,

Kristen

 

“Big, Bad” Anti-Psychiatry

I’m writing this as requested by an amazing woman I know <3

Anti-psychiatry.

You’ve either never heard of it or have heard of it and may think you get it but probably don’t.

Stick “anti” in front of anything and it is (and rightfully so) assumed that it is 100% against whatever the word that follows it is. This is not the case with anti-psychiatry…not completely anyways.

I only recently, within this past year, found out what anti-psychiatry was and had actually never heard of it before. Many, because of their lack of understanding of what anti-psychiatry is, usually immediately write off as being, dare I say it, “crazy”. Who could possibly be against a system that helps them?!!? Well…….

Here is my understanding of what the general population thinks anti-psychiatry is all about: not believing that mental illness is real, not believing in medication or other treatments and believing psychiatrists are full of garbage.

To be honest that assumption is right but it’s also wrong!

I recently read a book called Talking Back to Psychiatry: The Psychiatric Consumer/Survivor/Ex-Patient Movement by Linda J. Morrison that explained what anti psychiatry or “the C/S/X movement” is.

Like many things in the world anti psychiatry exists on a spectrum. There are many ways to “be” anti psychiatry and they all have valid points to make. You have groups of people who believe in mental illness, seek treatment, are on medication and consider themselves apart of the C/S/X movement. Then there are the groups of people who do not believe in mental illness or in anything psychiatry has to offer. There are people in the middle as well (which is where I would place myself).

Regardless of where you are on the anti psychiatry spectrum the groups all have one motivating factor in common and that is POWER. Anti psychiatry is against the God-like power that psychiatrist hold over their patients.

If you’ve ever sought treatment and seen a psychiatrist you have seen their power. They tell you how you  think, how you behave, what it means and only they can provide you with the cure. That’s a lot of power for one individual to have.

Those in the C/S/X movement want doctors and patients to work together. They want recognition of their knowledge on their life and their mental illness or do not want to be labelled as having an illness (which can then become a symptom of a mental illness).  Having a partnership instead of a hierarchy of one being better than the other can improve the recovery process because the individual with mental health issues is seen as important and valuable instead of just an illness that knows nothing and needs to be treated by the educated one.

We have seen in cases such as women’s and civil rights when the hierarchy was removed, and those in the groups were seen as having value, they were able to rise up and be successful in the world.

 

Another part of the power struggles in anti psychiatry and the C/S/X movement is choice in treatment. The treatments most commonly prescribed are talk therapy and medication (especially medication). What happens to those who do not want talk therapy or medication (such as myself)? Not much can happen because we really haven’t created options! This can lead back to power because if we take away medication and therapy as being the first, and sometimes the only, option given then psychiatry loses out. (see: http://www.mindfreedom.org/campaign/choice)

It was this need for options within mental health that helped create peer support; support groups run by those with lived experience of mental illness. This provided a unique experience that you just couldn’t get in a therapists office or in a bottle. It allowed people to connect with others like themselves, to share their struggles and triumphs and support each other. When someone gets it and you know they get it, wonderful things can happen.

A more recent example that is happening within my city of Toronto, Ontario is a running club for young people who have mental illness. These young people run a few times a week and it allows them to clear their head and be active. (see: http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/1096474–teen-suicide-chasing-down-demons)

A final part of anti psychiatry, the C/S/X movement and power is stopping forced/involuntary treatment. As it sounds, this is when a person is  given treatment without their permission. This happens more than we may think. Forced treatment definitively keeps alive the power imbalance between patients and psychiatrists and continue, to a worse extent, a lack of choice. It also helps to perpetuate stigma by telling society that people with mental illnesses are unable to care for themselves, do not know what they need and therefore the “normal, rational” ones need to step in and provide what they feel is the appropriate care. Once you get into forced treatment is it very hard to get out.

   

In total this amounts to PATIENT RIGHTS!

This means:

• The right to choice in treatment and accurate information on those treatments
• The right to be an expert in one’s life and illness
• The right to not be forced into treatment
• The right to refuse treatment (voluntary or involuntary treatment)
• The right to informed consent
• The right to be treated with dignity and respect

How can we change this power imbalance? It’s actually very simple.

SPEAK UP! 

I say simple because it should be a basic act for us to say, “Hey, I don’t want to do this! I want to do this instead!” But the power imbalance as I have been mentioning helps to silence us. But really, who knows you better than you? No one! Especially not someone who speaks to you for 5 minutes and then can magically determine the course of your life.

This YOUR LIFE! You have ALL RIGHT to demand what you feel is best and reject what will not work. Your body, your mind! if someone won’t listen to you, keep talking or find someone else who will! Gather family and friends to advocate with you for your desired treatment (even if it is no treatment).

In summary (sorry this was so long): anti psychiatry is a mix of pro and con psychiatry but 100% for eliminating the power imbalance between doctor and patient, improving treatment options for people with mental health issues, stopping involuntary treatment, and informing and improving patient rights.