@Silvia Price – Well, no kidding. Antidepressant drugs are known to cause metabolic abnormalities, and one can only be labeled “treatment resistant” if they have a substantial history of taking psychiatric drugs, so therefore it would make sense that nearly every person in that study would have a metabolic abnormality of some kind… caused by the drugs.
Hi Laurie! Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful story. You have clearly gained so much insight & wisdom from your experiences that I’m sure many others can relate to & learn from as well!
“You’ve suffered more than your body stood a chance to bear.”
Wow, this is all so relatable. The only part I can’t relate to is the happy ending of finally having your trauma named & acknowledged & validated. I must say, I’m a little jealous of that. Glad you got that, though. Everyone deserves it.
Thank you for writing this & sharing your experience.
I couldn’t tell whether “belief in a fair economy” meant “belief that the economy SHOULD be fair” or “belief that the CURRENT economy IS fair” until I read the article & realized it was the latter.
I also couldn’t tell if “linked to greater mental health stigma” meant “linked to HOLDING more stigmatizing beliefs” or “linked to being on the RECEIVING end of more stigma” — again, had to read the article to realize it was the former.
Beautiful piece, Steve. Thank you so much for writing this heartfelt essay. Grief is definitely something that needs to be talked about & acknowledged more in our death-phobic, emotion-phobic society. But certainly not swept up under the ever-expanding umbrella of “mental health issues!”
Kevin, thank you for this lovely response! I really appreciate your kind words & will try to take their message to heart.
I certainly will keep writing! I have already written a full-length poetry collection, as yet unpublished. (Apparently most publishers aren’t terribly enthusiastic to invest in a work that openly discusses suicidality & psychiatric abolition — who knew?!) I’m also thinking of writing a memoir one day, and perhaps some other non-fiction works on the MH system and/or eating “disorders.” I’ve always wanted to write at least one novel, too, ever since I was a kid. So I definitely have some ambitious dreams in that area! It’ll probably be decades before I’m able to accomplish all that, though…
In the meantime, I plan to continue submitting my writing to MIA occasionally. I have a substack as well, so you can follow me there if you want (it’s free!): https://substack.com/@madradrecoverybaddie
Again, thank you for taking the time to read this series, and I really appreciate your thoughtful comment! I hope it made a (positive) impact on you!
John, thank you so much for these kind words! I really appreciate you taking the time to read my story & leave such a thoughtful comment.
Wow, it means a lot to me that you would pass along my work to your family & friends! I certainly hope I can help others feel less alone by giving voice to their experience; that is always one of my goals in sharing my writing & art. I hope to continue doing that for the rest of my life!
Hi Birdsong, thank you for sharing that insight! I actually do agree somewhat, though in my opinion, intense spiritual experiences can certainly be transformative by prompting us towards that kind of change. But it is up to us to then carry out these newfound values in our daily lives through slow, gradual, grueling implementation. This is, of course, the less ‘glamorous’ part of healing/transformation.
Though I am quite familiar with that aspect of the process, that is not what I chose to write this piece about, nor the 3-part series of which it is a part, which is specifically meant to be about my experiences going on & off of medication. I did mention at the end of this piece (if you recall) that this was “only the beginning” and “the most difficult parts of my journey had yet to come.”
Perhaps one day I will write another piece about that — including the painstaking, day-by-day, bite-by-bite process of nursing myself back to health from near-starvation, the heartwrenching grief of peeling myself free from multiple abusive relationships one-by-one, the existential horror at unlearning almost everything I’d believed to be true about life, relationships, the world, society, myself, etc, and the humbling labor of rebuilding my entire life & identity brick-by-brick after ‘burning it all down.’ However, as I am still actively going through this process, it may be a long time before I am 1) ‘finished’ with it, whatever that means, and 2) ready to write about it for a public audience.
Though I never claimed to be a ‘perfect,’ spiritually enlightened being (nor will I ever be), and I am very fallibly human & still learning every day, I do think I’ve acquired quite a bit of wisdom through this process so far, and I look forward to sharing it one day. In the meantime, I would invite you to share your own personal story on MIA, as you seem so passionate about this subject matter! I would love to hear how you carry out those values you mentioned in your own life! Here is the link to their submissions page: https://www.madinamerica.com/submitting-personal-stories/
In summary, though I disagree with the notion that the intensity of a spiritual experience means nothing, I do agree that the (transformative) value of my experience wasn’t inherent, but what I chose to make of it. Which makes it a testament to my character, not to the experience itself.
“Contrast”…? “Tone of my reply”…? I’m totally lost. Did I offend you in some way? I thought the tone of my replies has been respectful & honest. I still don’t understand what it has to do with the title of my piece. Besides, I think the content of my work matters more than the title I have chosen for it.
I won’t be responding to any further replies on this thread (for real this time). I don’t think the conversation is going anywhere productive at this point. To reiterate: I respect your beliefs & appreciate your perspective. I hope you found some value in reading my story.
Tamar, first of all, thank you for your kind words!
So actually, I already wrote about (some of) my therapy experiences in my first article on MIA, which was published last year. Specifically, it is about my experience with eating disorder therapy.
I have not written about my therapy experiences pre-psychiatrization, or the other therapies I received while psychiatrized. I do not wish to elaborate at this time.
In the pieces I’ve written, I’ve shared what I felt comfortable with, and what I felt was relevant to that part of my story. None of them are comprehensive accounts of my experiences with the mental health system.
It is very emotionally difficult to write pieces like this, digging up some of my most painful traumas for all the world to see, while also trying to craft a coherent, compelling narrative. I hope you can understand & respect that.
If I do write & publish another personal story about my therapy experiences in the future, it will be on my own accord. It will not be a part 4 of this series. I intentionally wrote this as a 3-part series.
I do not work for MIA or represent them in any way, so I can’t speak to your last comment. But like I said above, I have written about my experiences/criticisms of therapy on here before.
Birdsong, I do not understand what is “curious” about it at all. Having different spiritual beliefs than you does not negate the spirituality of my experience, nor does it contradict my title. My experiences, my beliefs, my narrative, and what I chose to title it, are not open to debate. I respect your beliefs, and I would appreciate it if you could respect mine. Let’s leave it at that.
Birdsong, I am glad you found a worldview that resonates with you, regardless of whether you choose to label it as a “religion” or not. I’m not trying to split hairs over semantics, and I hope it didn’t come across that way. I think this conversation may be getting a little off-topic anyways, so I’m gonna end it here, but I’m genuinely happy for you for finding what works for you, and I respect the differences between our beliefs.
Buddhism is widely recognized as a religion, even if you don’t personally see it that way. I’m glad you found Buddhism helpful for you. I did not necessarily find it helpful for me, but I appreciate & respect your perspective!
Funny you mention it, I actually did take an Intro to Buddhism class in college as an elective. Unfortunately, it did not resonate with the headspace I was in at the time, and even caused further distress. I think this may be in part due to some of the therapy & self-help I’d experienced co-opted Buddhist teachings to fit a Western, medicalized framework. So I’m a bit traumatized by it! But I always try to keep an open mind about different ways of seeing the world (including religion), so I’m open to revisiting it in the future! And there are definitely aspects of it that I remember learning about that I do resonate with & appreciate.
Thank you for your kind & thoughtful comment, Rosalee. And I am really glad that you resonated with my story & found value in it (though I’m obviously not glad that you went through something similar with psychiatry!). That’s part of why I decided to write this — to connect with others with similar experiences — so it means a lot to read comments like this.
Thank you, Ruby, I really appreciate this comment. My purpose in writing this was not only to express these experiences for myself, but to reach others as well, so I’m glad I was able to do that for you.
Thank you, Birdsong. Me too, honestly. Like I’d said in part 2, I’d lost all spiritual belief until this point, but going through this experience catalyzed a re-invention of myself & everything I believe in, including the divine.
I’m curious what you mean by “negative emotion.” Why doesn’t this apply to “positive emotions” as well? Are people also “irrational” (whatever that means) in positive emotional states? Why or why not? Or maybe people are only “rational” when they are in a completely “neutral” mental state– neither positive nor negative?
Is is it really preferable that one is “brought up” out of the “negative emotion band” permanently? I certainly don’t think so.
And is the “biggest problem” truly when it motivates “criminal” behavior? Is lawful behavior always the same as moral behavior? (I don’t think so.) And are negative emotions always necessarily what motivates such behavior?
I know that’s a lot of questions, but your comment really got me thinking & raised some very interesting points.
That’s a really good question. While I do wish I had been warned, I also don’t know if it would’ve made the experience itself much easier to bear. I mean, the pain of withdrawal itself couldn’t be prevented, though at least I wouldn’t’ve blamed myself for it so much, and that self-blame alone was the source of much of my suffering.
It’s hard to imagine my own experience having gone any differently, especially my journey in questioning & challenging psychiatry for myself. That couldn’t’ve happened if someone had warned me in advance. You’ll see what I mean in Part 3 (which is up now, by the way!).
Thank you so much, Ruby, I really appreciate it. It’s so difficult to even put what withdrawal is like into words — it seems to transcend the confines of language in many ways — but I’m glad I was able to do so in a way that resonated with your experience.
Part 3 just went up this morning if you want to read the rest!
Hi, thank you for leaving this comment! I’m so sorry you had that experience. That’s ridiculous that the doctor tried to convince you that “psychosomatics” were separate from “psychiatry.” Sounds like he definitely didn’t know what he was talking about! I’m really glad you asserted yourself & didn’t fall for it though.
By the way, Parts 2 & 3 are up, if you want to continue reading! I hope you find value in those as well.
Thank you so much for reading & leaving this kind & thoughtful reply, Rosalee. “Damned if you do damned if you don’t” definitely describes how I used to feel all the time. I hope you find value in Parts 2 & 3 as well.
Hey Ann, for some reason my reply to you showed up at the bottom of the queue as an independent comment, instead of as a reply under your comment. Just wanted to let you know!
Thank you so much for your kind & thoughtful comment, Ann. I’m really sorry you went through all that as well, and glad you seem to have found a way out.
Thank you so much, Birdsong! I really appreciate your kind words & will try to take them to heart. It’s been a rough journey, and still isn’t over yet.
By the way, like I told Someone Else above, parts 2 & 3 should hopefully be going up sometime later this week, if you’re interested in hearing the rest.
Thank you for your kind comment. I, too, resonate with song lyrics, and so I really appreciate you sharing those. Do you know the name of the song? I’d love to look it up.
By the way, there will be a part 2 & part 3 to this story, probably coming out sometime this week, so stay tuned for that!
Thank you for your kind words, Steve! I always enjoy reading your insightful comments. I would also be interested to hear others’ experiences with this pattern, as it seems to be a common one (though not talked about nearly enough).
Thank you for reading & thank you for your kind words!
Normally, I prefer to create my own artwork, but I didn’t have time on this one. So I told MIA my idea, and I believe they executed it using an AI program they typically use.
@Richard: And THIS formerly severely suicidal person found getting the hell away from psychiatry to be life-saving! Maybe THAT should be the standard treatment, eh?
But seriously, I have some food for thought for you. Barring eating “disorders” or substance use “disorders” (which are the only “mental illnesses” with direct medical consequences), name one “mental illness” that you can actually DIRECTLY die from. Technically the mortality rate of all “mental illnesses” should be zero, right? Because it’s not the “illness” itself that kills a person, it’s suicide (or other causes). But we don’t count suicides as part of the mortality rate for any other illness, do we? And if psychiatry is just like any other branch of medicine, then why do you think this is the case? For example, if a person labeled with depression kills themselves, we say the depression is what killed them & count that as part of depression’s mortality rate. But if a person with cancer kills themselves, we don’t say they died of cancer. We say they died by suicide. It’s not considered part of cancer’s mortality rate; that would be absurd. In fact, people might even say they died because they must’ve been “depressed” or had some other “mental illness” that was “undiagnosed” while they were alive. So why the double standard?
If “mental illnesses” were real, caused by biochemical malfunctions in the brain — what some consider to be the most important organ in the human body — you’d think there’d be a way to die of them DIRECTLY if left “untreated.” Why do you think there isn’t?
There’s that False Equivalence logical fallacy again! Just because you can apply a certain argument to war, doesn’t mean you can apply the same argument to anything else labeled “barbaric.”
Let’s replace war with a different barbaric act. How about child abuse? Rape? Slavery? Lobotomy? Are those ever “just” or “necessary”? I would hope the only way you would consider answering that is with a resounding “OF COURSE NOT!” So just because you could argue that not all things considered “barbaric” are always bad, doesn’t mean that all things considered “barbaric” are NEVER bad. Would you say, “well war is considered ‘barbaric,’ but it is sometimes just or necessary, so therefore child abuse/rape/slavery/lobotomy is sometimes just & necessary, too”?? So then why would you apply that logic to ECT or other forms of “treatment”?
Okay, Richard, I was mostly with you in the beginning, right up until you said this: “Giving ECT to a floridly psychotic patient who has not benefited from meds is ethically defensible ( leaving aside the consent issue for the moment) if the primary intent is to improve the psychosis.”
Let’s break this down.
First of all, define “benefitted” and “improve.” According to whom? According to the patient? Because they’re the only one who should be deciding what “better” means to them. They’re the only one whose opinion matters in their own treatment. It doesn’t matter if you think they’re “crazy” or “incapable” or what. That’s just your editorial bias. Believe it or not, not everyone who hears voices or sees things others can’t wants to get rid of that. Some individuals find meaning or significance in these experiences. Others simply learn to live with it. These experiences are not INHERENTLY negative or destructive to all who have them.
Second of all, what do you mean “leaving the consent issue aside for the moment”? How can one EVER leave that aside?? I have no more words for that at the moment.
Moving on, you say, “The MIA report uses quotes in its report, which suggests a possible editorial bias rather than a more journalistic stance. I don’t think it’s out of line to use a term like treatment-resistant schizophrenia for someone who isn’t benefiting from reasonable and standard meds. If you don’t think schizophrenia exists, or that meds are appropriate ( if not coerced), then the quotes make sense, but you’re still putting your finger on the scale.” Interesting. So you don’t see that believing in “treatment-resistant schizophrenia” or “schizophrenia” or “meds” & using those terms without quotation marks is also a bias? You see that as inherently neutral, and anything that deviates from that default is “bias”? You don’t realize that the very concept of “schizophrenia” or “mental illness” or “treatment resistance” is NOT neutral, but a collection of politically weighty social constructs devised to uphold racism, misogyny, homophobia, ableism, and colonialism, both historically and present-day? That purporting these cultural ideas as objective facts & exporting them around the world is ITSELF a form of modern-day colonialism, eugenics, and cultural erasure?? Interesting.
Now onto what you said about ECT. Memory loss is not a rare side effect, it’s not only short-term, and it’s not the only side effect. In fact, even “side effect” is a misleading term. For any kind of psychiatric treatment — whether it’s drugs or a shock to the brain — there are no “side” effects, only effects. We’ve simply decided which of those effects are desirable or undesirable, but that doesn’t influence their probability of occurring. For example, according to some research, SSRI-induced sexual dysfunction is more common than the drug’s ability to relieve depression! But when it’s being prescribed as an “antidepressant,” we call sexual dysfunction a “side effect.” However, when it’s being prescribed “off-label” to treat premature ejaculation, we call elevated mood a potential “side effect.” Same drug, different framing. In fact, if you read Robert Whitaker’s “Anatomy of an Epidemic,” you’ll learn that most psychiatric drugs were originally designed to treat something else, before they observed elevated or calm mood as a “side effect” in a certain percentage of patients, and then they got the bright idea to repackage & market the very same drug as an “antidepressant” or “anti-anxiety medication.” Anyways, I digress. Basically, the same thing applies to ECT. Both memory loss & a reduction in “symptoms” are neither “side effects” nor “main effects,” they are simply potential effects. Lastly, please type “ECT” into the search bar of this site & read literally any article that comes up. I think that’ll change your view of it pretty quickly, if you’re open-minded & willing to have your view changed. I’ll link a few down below for your convenience:
@Richard: Huh, that’s interesting. Maybe they weren’t sure what they were going to change it to yet. Well, now ya know what the new guidelines are, at least.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy reading the “Fuck Nuance” paper!
Thank you for your reply. You’re right in that i was probably jumping to some conclusions in my critiques made above. I recognize that this is a relatively short piece focusing on one particular issue, and is therefore limited in scope, nor is it representative of your overall views. However, where are you getting the idea that you are limited to only 1200 words? I’ve seen you mention this at least twice now. As someone who’s written for MIA before, I can assure you that there is no submission type (that I’m aware of) that has an upper limit of 1200 words. In fact, even under the new guidelines, the submission type with the lowest MINIMUM requirement still has a lower limit of 1250 words. (If my memory is correct, the old guidelines were 1500-3500 words for all blogs/essays.) For blogs, you can write up to 2500 words, and for essays, up to 5000. Hopefully that helps so that in your next piece you won’t feel so rushed.
@Richard, I second what Steve says, and also wanted to add onto it. You’re approaching each “condition” as though it is the same problem & would therefore require the same solution, correct? Well, there are no “conditions” in psychiatry, only “syndromes.” By definition, every mental “disorder” in the DSM is a cluster of “symptoms,” not an explanation of their underlying “pathology.” That’s part of what makes “mental health” so fundamentally different from physical health. Surely, as a psychiatrist, you know this, right?
Okay, so Person A and Person B may both have the same “Condition X” — let’s say it’s depression. But they very well may have nothing in common beyond that. If the reason underlying Person A’s depression is a toxic workplace, and the reason underlying Person B’s depression is childhood trauma, do you really believe they both need the same treatment? Well, according to what you said above, they do, simply because they share a diagnosis! Let me go even more specific: Let’s say a new study comes out that says 70% of depression patients experienced improvement after quitting their current job, compared to 45% of those in the control group. (I’m keeping the numbers consistent for simplicity’s sake.) Well, that might make it the hottest new “evidence-based” treatment for depression! So as a psychiatrist with two patients presenting with depression, you would recommend both patients that treatment, since they share the same “condition,” right? But regardless of what the “evidence” shows, common sense tells us that that treatment is only going to work for one of those patients — Person A — because it directly addresses the cause of their depression, whereas it has nothing to do with the reasons for Person B’s depression! On the other hand, what if the “evidence-based treatment” in question is some form of trauma therapy or psychodynamic therapy? Well, in that case, it’s probably going to help Person B more than Person A, because it does nothing to help Person A’s ongoing workplace situation, which is the source of their distress.
I guess the only way one could honestly look at mental health & physical health in a comparative way is by recognizing that “mental health disorders” are SYMPTOMS, not diseases themselves. So one physical health ailment that might be comparable is a fever. A fever is not a “condition” in & of itself, it is a symptom that can have many underlying causes. It may actually inform very little about treatment. If you have two patients who both present with a fever, would you give them both antibiotics? What if one of them has a fever due to the flu, and the other has strep? Well, since strep is a bacterial infection, and the flu is a virus, antibiotics would only be effective in one of them, even though they may both have a fever & other overlapping symptoms.
Another physical symptom that could have many potential causes: abdominal pain. But what if we treated abdominal pain as a disorder itself? And what if we found that “Abdominal Pain Disorder” improves in X% of patients after removing their appendix? Are we gonna just go around giving everybody who has abdominal pain an appendectomy now? Well, it’s the “evidence-based treatment” after all! But obviously it’s only helping X% of patients because those were the percentage of patients whose abdominal pain was caused by appendicitis in the first place! What about the others? What about someone whose abdominal pain is caused by pregnancy? Menstrual cramps? Celiac disease? Or maybe they just had really bad gas? Well what if we found the most effective treatment for “Abdominal Pain Disorder” to be Gas-X? Should we just give all patients a prescription of Gas-X and send them on their way? I’m probably beating a dead horse at this point… you get the idea…
In summary, anything “mental health”-related is a SYMPTOM, not a “condition,” and symptoms, whether mental or physical, are signals that something is “off” in a person’s life or body. Treat people as individuals, not “disorders.”
Thanks for your reply. I hope you enjoy reading the paper. I thought it was relevant because you mentioned the need for “nuance” and “shades of gray” (especially in your analysis of critical psychiatry).
If your essay were only about groupthink, and how it can become a problem in any or all groups if left unchecked, then I would totally be on the same page as you. However, you appear to be saying & implying a lot more than just that.
I’ll elaborate a bit on those 3 fallacies and where I found them in your essay.
1. Middle ground fallacy — “Both mainstream psychiatry and critical psychiatry are missing possible chances to find some common ground.” … “Both are partially right. Both should correct each other’s excesses without invalidating everything the other believes.”
Though you don’t use the word “middle ground” specifically, you are alluding to it with words like “common ground” and “correct each other’s excesses.” The underlying premise of the middle ground fallacy is the notion that the truth/ best possible solution must always lie in the middle of two extremes or opposing positions, ignoring the possibility that one or both sides may be entirely correct or entirely incorrect.
2. Straw man fallacy — “[Groupthink in critical psychiatry] can lead to absolute judgments about mainstream psychiatry, such as ‘medication is always bad,’ ‘no diagnosis has any validity,’ or ‘all psychiatrists are manipulated by drug companies.'”
It’s easy to dismiss an argument if you put it in such black-and-white terms: “always,” “never,” “all,” etc. I rarely, if ever, hear critics of psychiatry making such statements seriously. Most of us acknowledge that SOME people may feel helped by medication, not ALL psychiatrists are evil, etc. However, I would have to disagree with your portrayal of “no diagnosis has any validity” as a false statement. If we’re talking about scientific validity, that is simply true. If we’re talking about some other type of validity, then I don’t even know what you mean by that.
3. False equivalence — “Similar to how mainstream psychiatry often views critical psychiatry as having little merit and can’t or doesn’t ‘understand the full picture,’ it’s also true that some within the critical psychiatry world see mainstream psychiatry as without merit, harmful, evil, greedy, and acting with no scientific or other basis for what it does.” … “Although there’s no way to measure which group’s groupthink is more problematic, fairness calls for critical psychiatry to look inward if we’re going to demand that of mainstream psychiatry.” … “How powerful these forces are is open to debate, but to say they’re nonexistent would be akin to saying they don’t occur in mainstream psychiatry.”
Comparing mainstream psychiatry’s pitfalls to critical psychiatry’s pitfalls is like comparing apples to oranges. First of all, without acknowledging the institutional power that mainstream psychiatry holds over critical psychiatry, you’re inherently tipping the scales in mainstream psychiatry’s favor, portraying both sides as “equal” when that is not the case at all. It’s a bit absurd to claim that “there’s no way to measure which group’s groupthink is more problematic,” and that “how powerful these forces are is open to debate” when one side CLEARLY has more social & economic leverage than the other, and thus, more widespread harms.
The first things this piece brought to mind for me were these three logical fallacies:
1. The middle ground fallacy
2. Attacking a straw man fallacy
3. False equivalency
I highly recommend reading and/or watching those if you’re bored and have 45+ minutes to spare.
Anyways, I have a lot more thoughts on this piece… not sure if it’s worth my time to share them all here though. I might have more to say later, might not, we’ll see.
How is that any better than using antipsychotics, like the article was talking about?
I especially take issue with the notion that the purpose of these medications isn’t for the benefit or “peace of mind” of the patient, but the staff. The “peace” it brings the patient is only by putting them at lower risk of maltreatment by inadequately trained staff who do not know how to understand or respond to behavioral issues in someone with dementia.
This sort of thing isn’t exclusive to elderly care homes, it also happens in the foster system, psych wards, the education system, and in dysfunctional families. It’s not about helping the person in distress or “acting out,” it’s about making them more convenient & palatable for those around them.
If someone’s kindness towards me is contingent on them drugging me into sedated oblivion so that I’m nice & “manageable” for them, then we have much deeper problems in our society.
I know this is an old comment and the likelihood that this will be seen is low, but I just wanted to chime in here & say that I really disagree with this framing & can provide several counterexamples which could not be explained by it.
First of all, I’ve heard this before — that antidepressants “don’t cause suicide” and the only reason why they may “appear” that they do is through the same mechanism of action by which they make someone “anti-depressed”: they simply “increase motivation.” This is, in my humble opinion, boloney. From my personal lived experience, I felt less motivated than ever on antidepressants. I felt numb & dull & uncreative & had no desire or motivation to do anything. THIS was a contributing factor to my suicidality, because it was a miserable way to live!!
Second of all, if it were true that antidepressants don’t cause suicide, they just enable it by motivating pre-existing suicidal feelings into action, then how do you explain people who have no history of suicidal ideation whatsoever & then kill themselves after being on an antidepressant for a couple weeks? Especially when it’s prescribed off-label, because then you can’t say, “well it was just their underlying depression.”
Third & finally, what about suicides caused by the withdrawal effects? Many people don’t attempt suicide while on the drugs, but right after going off of them. This cannot be explained away by the drug’s “motivating” effect– the drug is no longer in their body. It’s clearly an effect of the withdrawals.
As much as I love seeing alternatives to the drug-based approach, there is one caveat I want to add here based on my own lived experience. Hopefully this won’t come across as a re-enactment of the “bean soup” video, but I have a feeling I’m not the only one out there who feels this way, so I’m just gonna share my perspective.
As an eating disorder survivor, I cringe a bit every time I see a headline about exercise as a treatment for depression because of the things that I was told during my own struggle with these so-called mental “disorders.” When I would go in for my depression/anxiety checkups, my doctor or psychiatrist would often ask me if I was exercising, or encourage me to exercise. They didn’t consider the idea that exercise could be part of the problem in my case– and in the case of many eating disorder patients. I was already exercising 1-2 hours per day, nearly every day, on top of eating very little. This combination of undernutrition & overexertion was contributing to my mental distress, which they were busy trying to treat with drugs for a fictitious “chemical imbalance” I didn’t have. Yet I kept hearing “keep exercising” or “exercise more.” This was VERY HARMFUL!!! I don’t think I can emphasize enough how harmful it was.
So no, exercise is not “virtually risk-free” for everyone. I think it is very important to consider how much a person is ALREADY exercising, whether they are eating enough, and if they have a past or current eating disorder. This may sound like a very niche issue to some, but I think it’s important to discuss, because so many people with eating disorders end up with a dual-diagnosis of depression/anxiety, or vice versa. It’s not as rare as people think.
The left, on the other hand, is deluded into believing that promoting “mental health treatment” IS social justice. It’s seen as the de facto “compassionate” stance. After all, who could be against “mental health,” right?
I’m not saying it never happens. Some hurt people go on to hurt others. Some don’t. And many people who hurt others are not doing so because they were/are hurt themselves. I think it’s a myth that abuse (always) causes people to become abusive, or that (all) abusers were abused.
As Steve said, abusing others is always a choice.
Trust me, anyone who knows me would tell you that I’m not a person who assumes the worst of others. Quite the opposite, actually. (Sometimes to my own detriment.)
Exactly. This is why I can’t really get behind sayings like “hurt people hurt people” or “all abusers were once abused themselves” or “you know they’re only acting that way because they’re insecure/miserable with their own life.” Like, no actually, they’re not the secret underdog/victim here! They’re feeling pretty damn good about themselves & that’s why they feel entitled to treat other people like shit! They’re pretty happy & satisfied with the status quo. Though it may be a superficial kind of happiness because they’ve severed themselves from the part of their humanity that is capable of experiencing deep joy & love, and their “satisfaction” may come at the cost of never TRULY being satisfied with anything because nothing’s EVER enough for them– but still, that doesn’t make them the secret victim of it all somehow!!
Wow, this is one of the best articles I’ve read on here in a while. This really helps answer that question so many of us have: Why do most self-proclaimed “liberals”/”progressives”/”leftists” endorse psychiatry & misunderstand the psych abolition movement, when they so aptly recognize other human rights violations & stand against THOSE forms of oppression & support THOSE social justice movements? Why aren’t they able to see the parallels? It make me think of the prison abolition movement & how so many supporters believe in “increased access to mental healthcare” as an alternative to the prison industrial complex, totally oblivious to the realities of the mental health industrial complex.
My only concern is that the conclusion of this article makes it sound kind of hopeless. Like every megamachine or oppressive system will one day be replaced by another, so there’s no use in even fighting it. I don’t believe that. Mostly because I don’t WANT to believe that. I’m sure many would call me naive or idealistic. But I think we can do better. How will we know until we try?
That’s kind of ironic. If anything it seems like psychiatry has taken advantage of the internet to spread its propaganda even faster. Have you seen what’s been going on over on TikTok & Instagram for the past few years? It’s not the anti-psychiatry movement that’s spreading like wildfire, that’s for sure…
The reason why I call it professional gaslighting is because the entire premise of CBT is that your thoughts & feelings are out of alignment with reality & therefore need to be “corrected”. The literal definition of gaslighting is “causing someone to question or doubt their own perceptions, feelings, powers of reasoning, or sanity, often leading to dependency on the perpetrator over time.” It can include tactics such as psychological manipulation, denial, trivializing feelings, and blame-shifting.
So let’s break it down: How is CBT a form of gaslighting? Well, first of all, by labeling a client “mentally ill” in the first place, you are causing them to doubt their own sanity. The “perpetrator” in this case is the therapist, and by telling the client not to trust their own thoughts, they render the client dependent on them (the therapist) to tell them (the client) what reality is. As a professional, licensed by the state, they get to be the authority on what reality is & isn’t, while you, the “mentally ill” client are deemed an inherently unreliable narrator or reality. Huge power imbalances like these are practically a set-up for abuse.
You said CBT has been “…[proven] effective for conditions like depression, anxiety, PTSD…” I would like to challenge your conception of these as “disorders.” There is no such thing as a brain-based “illness” such as depression, anxiety, or any other so-called “disorder.” If someone is feeling anxious or depressed, it’s most likely directly caused by things objectively going on in their life. To imply that their “depression” or “anxiety” “disorders” are simply a result of their own “maladaptive” thinking is both absurd & cruel, denying the objective reality of their external circumstances.
Let me give some examples:
– a LGBT+ teenager who is “depressed” because they are being bullied at school
– a single mom who has “anxiety” because she’s working 3 jobs just to pay the bills, and never gets to spend time with her kids
– a woman surviving domestic violence who has been labeled with “bipolar”
Do you think these individuals are truly “mentally ill” & just need to change their thinking? Are their thoughts & feelings actually “maladaptive” or “unhealthy” or even “inaccurate”? Or are they a reflection of their current reality? Would it even be ethical to ask these individuals to change their thinking to better adapt to the abuse, rather than working to stop the abuse and/or help them escape? This applies to systemic issues as well– instead of working to end systemic oppression (e.g. homophobia, transphobia, class oppression, misogyny), we apply a “bootstraps mentality” of victim-blaming & hyper individualism, where individuals are blamed for their circumstances & told that their only obstacle is from within.
I think there’s a fine line between challenging pathologizing language and splitting hairs over semantics. True, ‘addiction’ is a label. ‘Drug use’ is also a label. ‘Tall’ and ‘short’ are labels; so is ‘young’/’old,’ ‘asleep’/’awake,’ and ‘apple’/’orange.’ Because ALL words are labels. That does not diminish their usefulness, or the realness of the things they are meant to represent. You could call it ‘addiction’ or ‘drug use’ or ‘behavior’ or ‘purple people eater syndrome’ if you want; as long as you are referring to the same phenomenon, it doesn’t matter what words you use. ‘A rose by any other name’ and all that. And this thing we call ‘addiction’ or ‘drug use’ undeniably is a real phenomenon. It’s more than just a label, and it’s more than just a behavior or choice, because chemical dependency & psychosocial factors influence a person’s behaviors/choices in ways beyond their direct control.
I was thinking of you & your story when youtube decided to suddenly show me this video! It’s only about a minute long, and I wanted to share it with you & others here because you might relate to this person’s experience with kinds of attitudes & beliefs people hold about “schizophrenia.”
Robert, I do not know if it’s true that having an eating disorder is not as dreadful as having schizophrenia. I haven’t had both experiences, and I don’t think it’s worth arguing who “has it the worst.” I will say that being LABELED with an eating disorder is probably not as dreadful as being LABELED with schizophrenia. I already acknowledged that schizophrenia is far more stigmatized — arguably the most stigmatized among all psychiatric labels — yet I refuse to pretend like eating disorders are not stigmatized at all. Or that they cannot be as traumatic or potentially life-ruining (and health-ruining).
I do not recall if anyone’s ever said it directly to my face, but I’ve definitely heard people say things like eating disorders aren’t real, or that people with EDs are just faking/making it up for attention, or just fundamentally misunderstand what EDs even are. People have said to my face that they don’t think MY eating disorder is real, that I don’t really have one, including doctors. I’ve also been praised by others for being “healthy” when I was literally starving myself to the point that my hair was falling out and my bones were showing.
Trust me, it’s pretty dreadful to be pondering your own mortality at 22 years old when suddenly realizing that you don’t actually want to die once you fear it might be too late. It’s pretty dreadful to be now 24 years old and still partially disabled by the damage your eating disorder has left on your body.
Again, I don’t want to compare experiences, but I also refuse to downplay mine. You seem very self-assured in asserting that eating disorders aren’t as bad despite admitting to know nothing about them. I personally can’t imagine being that confident in making assertions about something I know nothing about, let alone assertions that compare/downplay someone else’s experience. Perhaps you could read my personal story or other ED articles, like I’d suggested, for a better understanding.
Christine, I’m so sorry you went through that, and I didn’t mean to raise any triggers for you. Like I said, I definitely agree that there are people who are falsely/unfairly labeled “manipulative,” and it sounds like you’ve been one of them. I have been too, and I can actually relate to aspects of your story. It sounds like your abuser was the real manipulative one there! Again, I’m so sorry you went through all that.
I hope you had a nice time at the conference! Sounds very cool!
@Joanna, I can see where the misunderstanding might’ve come from in my earlier comment. What I meant was that I don’t believe eating disorders are “mental illnesses,” like so-called “schizophrenia,” and I don’t think they are caused by brain disorders. Not that I don’t think eating disorders are real. The set of experiences and behaviors that we label as “eating disorders” in our society are certainly real.
Btw, I was antipsychotics (or “neuroleptics” as you call them) as well, even though I didn’t have psychosis or a schizophrenia diagnosis. They were prescribed to me “off-label.” So I am quite personally familiar with the harms.
I also agree with what you said above regarding everyone’s right to interpret and/or label their own experiences as they wish. And I disagreed with other commenters who were criticizing Robert as well.
@Joanna: By the way, I realized that I didn’t respond to the part of your comment about psychosis vs schizophrenia. I want to clarify that I’m not denying the existence of the experience of what is called “psychosis.” That is very real and I know many people experience it. I simply don’t agree that it is an “illness” or even a “disorder.” I also don’t believe in dividing mental states into a “normal” vs “abnormal” binary; I simply see it as all part of the continuum of human experiences (including those brought on by trauma). Of course, you’re entitled to frame your own experiences however you want.
Exactly! Not to mention that diet culture promotes a super fucked up idea of what “healthy eating” is, so many eating disorder behaviors are normalized and seen as “healthy.” Ya wanna know how many times I was praised or even envied for being “healthy” during my anorexia? More times than I can count!
Robert, I will not deny that schizophrenia is more stigmatized than eating disorders. In fact, I think schizophrenia is arguably the most stigmatized of any psychiatric label. But I think a lot of your other assertions about eating disorders are false, and quite frankly, rather offensive.
You say that “an eating disorder is not so frightening.” Did you know that eating disorders have the second highest mortality rate (just behind opiate addiction) out of all psychiatric diagnoses? Did you know that every 52 minutes 1 person dies as a direct consequence of an eating disorder? As someone who nearly starved myself to death just over 2 years ago, I can assure you that eating disorders can be absolutely terrifying.
As someone with lived experience with an eating disorder, the solution is NOT that simple, though it may SEEM simple to someone who has never had an ED & doesn’t know much about them. Eating disorders can stem from complex trauma, fatphobia/diet culture, and a myriad of other factors. They are often a way of coping with immense emotional distress — like substance use or self-harm — and therefore it’s not that “simple” to “just stop.” It’s not about “learning to eat a healthy diet” either — in fact, many eating disorders actually stem from an obsession with eating “healthy.” Furthermore, after starving myself for years, there are physiological effects that do not go away overnight. One such effect is that your digestive system literally atrophies from underuse & malnutrition, making eating & digesting extremely physically painful. I’m still dealing with these effects over 2 years into recovery.
Even though (like I said) eating disorders are not as badly stigmatized as schizophrenia, they are still very VERY stigmatized. Depending on how outwardly visible your ED symptoms are (not everyone’s are), there is a high chance that you’d be judged on appearances alone at a job interview without even having to disclose the fact that you have an eating disorder. This could definitely impact someone’s ability to get a job. A lot of people hold harmful biases about people with eating disorders, including that we are “unstable,” “fragile,” “attention-seeking,” and less capable and less competent.
Additionally, eating disorders rarely happen in isolation, so they are often accompanied by trauma histories, self-harm, suicidality, substance use, and other psychiatric labels — all of which carry their own set of stigmas. Carceral psychiatric intervention is quite common in eating disorder treatment, similar to schizophrenia, and because of their medical complications, forced medical interventions may occur as well. All of this can result in spotty work histories from being in and out of hospitals or treatment centers.
I personally never went inpatient or residential (largely because my family could not realistically afford it), but I still experienced trauma as a result of the eating disorder treatment I had. I was coerced into taking multiple psychiatric drugs, including antipsychotics, and I had to fight to break free of psychiatry’s grasp & recover on my own.
Please be mindful next time before you make assumptions about other peoples’ psychiatric labels or experiences that you may be less familiar with. I don’t hold it against you, but I did find your comment really insensitive and minimizing of what I’ve been through. I was hoping a fellow psychiatric survivor would be more understanding.
If you want to learn more about eating disorders, I’d recommend you read my personal story, or one of the other articles I’ve written on here. Perhaps that will help you gain some perspective on these issues.
Joanna, I find your reply rather offensive. I don’t need someone to tell me that “there are really people who starve themselves/make themselves throw up/etc.” It feels like you think I am ignorant and do not know what eating disorders are. I don’t just know about them; I have lived them.
They are not “clearly” disorders any more than any other so-called “disorder.” Are they behaviorally normative? No. Are they physically healthy? No. But does that mean they are brain diseases? Also no.
Similar to “schizophrenia,” many people do believe that eating disorders are lifelong & incurable, especially after one or more “failed” recovery attempts. It’s probably not as bad as the stereotypes about “schizophrenia,” yet there is still a lot of stigma and pessimistic assumptions about prognosis.
I’d recommend that maybe you read one of the articles I’ve written on this site about eating disorders to help you gain a better understanding. Then maybe you’d realize that they’re not “mental disorders,” and are indeed reactions to trauma/distress, much like other so-called “mental illnesses.”
Christine, I didn’t ignore it, and I don’t disbelieve you or think it’s unimportant. I wrote a pretty long reply, and I couldn’t cover everything. I agree that an extreme increase in emotional “baggage,” as you call it, would intensify emotions & thoughts. But I thought we were talking about behaviors? Specifically abusive/narcissistic behaviors? Sure, our emotions/thoughts may affect or motivate our behaviors, but they are still a separate category.
I have my own lived experience too, as does nearly everyone here. I, too, have experienced extreme emotional distress and had to figure it out for myself, since the “professionals” and their “books” messed me up even more. I think we’re on the same page more than you realize. Basically what it comes down to is “everyone’s experience is different,” as I tried to convey before, and I think we are simply coming at the same idea from different perspectives.
From what I’ve seen, the “emotional baggage” and “insecure bully” narratives are wayy more predominant in psychology, psychoanalysis, and society in general; my theory is presenting more of a challenge to those dominant ideas. I just mentioned the class/research to show that I’m not making this up out of nowhere — not to undermine my argument by aligning it with mainstream psychology.
The first thing I’ll say is that neither your experience nor my theory is going to singlehandedly account for every individual’s experience. I’m sure that what you’re saying is sometimes true (as it was for you & your friend). I’m also sure that what I’m saying is sometimes true. So we’re both right, in a way.
However, I also think there’s a difference between crisis/trauma response and actual abusiveness. I think our differences of opinion can be explained by the fact that you’re describing the former while I’m describing the latter. The behavior may look the same on the surface, but context, motivations, and overarching patterns may differ. For example:
– Traumatized response: Lashes out when feeling powerless & out of control.
– Abusive behavior: Lashes out to assert power & control over others.
– Traumatized response: Needs to prevent their autonomy from being taken away again.
– Abusive behavior: Needs to take away others’ autonomy.
– Traumatized response: Anger/superiority/etc is a method of self-defense.
– Abusive behavior: Anger/superiority/etc is a method of domination.
I also want to clarify that there are many ways for a behavior to be learned. Being taught that one is superior by being treated as superior is only one way. However, behavioral modeling is another way behavior can be learned– and this can be witnessed second-hand. For example, perhaps an abused child doesn’t grow up to feel superior or narcissistic because they were “taught” to; perhaps they learn from their environment or from society that those kinds of attitudes/behaviors will earn them power, admiration, safety, control, etc.
Forgive me for citing another psychological study, but it reminds me of the famous Bobo doll experiment. The children didn’t beat up on the Bobo dolls because they were abused or emotionally repressed, nor did they do it because they were taught to feel superior. They did it simply because they saw the adults do it first and learned to model their behavior.
Joanna, my confusion/curiosity is not due to a lack of understanding. I understand that there is no convincing proof that “schizophrenia” is a mental “illness,” or even exists at all. But that is not unique to “schizophrenia”; it is true of all so-called “mental illnesses.” Including eating “disorders.” I was pointing out the double standard.
I don’t know if this comment will ever be read/seen, since this is now a relatively old post, but it suddenly occurred to me that no one here on MIA has ever taken issue with my choice to self-identify as someone with an eating disorder the way that commenters here have taken issue with Robert’s choice to self-identify as someone with schizophrenia. I wonder why that is.
@Birdsong: I hear you, but sometimes I get tired of always “looking within” & relying on self-care, self-compassion, self-understanding… I think it’s reasonable to want (and need) some of it to come from other people; we are social creatures after all. Though I agree, therapists are not the way to go!
@Steve: Gotcha, thanks for articulating that! Just to clarify, I still think it’s a really important skill/mindset to have and don’t want to discount that!
Hey Steve, I think one’s ability to “screen for” such qualities can be a valuable skill, as much as a luxury that many cannot afford. I first started therapy as a teenager, so my mother selected my therapist(s) for me. As a minor, I didn’t get a choice in the matter, and even once I was older & in college, my autonomy was limited as long as my parents held the purse strings. In addition, sometimes the very reasons that bring someone to therapy can be the reasons that they fall victim to the potential abuses of therapy. Pretty much every relationship & setting in my life up to that point had conditioned me to “perform” & worry about keeping the other person happy/satisfied. It was the only dynamic I’d ever known; how could I have known to look for something different?
I know your comment wasn’t making a personal judgment of me or anything, but I just wanted to use my own experiences as an example to add another dimension of nuance 🙂
I completely agree with the latter part of what you said! Anyone can provide a “therapeutic” conversation– as long as they know how to listen– no special qualifications required. But that key caveat: as long as they know how to listen… many unfortunately don’t.
I think what you’re describing definitely can & does happen, and I think that the recent explosion of pop-therapy jargon around “narcissists” has contributed to this problematic usage.
However, I’ve also seen “narcissist” used in a vastly different context, where it is describing a pattern of abusive/exploitative behavior marked by self-centeredness. To me, this is not saying it is “innate” any more than calling someone an abuser implies innateness. Much like “abuser,” “narcissist” (in this context) is not a permanent label so much as a descriptor calling out harmful behavior. It’s not “scapegoating” if the blame is justified. I mean, I don’t think people should also stop calling abusive people “abusers” because it might hurt their feelings!
Whether a “narcissist” or “abuser” is created through mistreatment or social outcasting is a whole nother conversation. If society is “stigmatizing” them for abuses they have already committed… well then, I think you’d be confusing cause & effect in that case. But if you’re saying that being abused/mistreated causes people to become abusive/mistreat others– which is a popular idea– I’d have to disagree. I don’t think abusers/narcissists are created by being told they are less than others; I think they are created by being taught they are superior to others & thus entitled to impose their will on others. The “insecure bully” explanation makes for a nice story, but I remember learning in a college psychology class that it is actually a myth; research has shown that bullies demonstrate much higher levels of self-esteem, on average.
(Real life example: Donald Trump. Or literally any billionaire. They are arguably the biggest abusers/exploiters/narcissists on the planet. Do we really think that’s because they were the most mistreated/excluded in childhood? Or because they were raised to think they’re better than everyone else & entitled to impose their will at all costs?)
On the other hand, genuinely unjustified scapegoating & mislabeling of victims as “narcissists” is definitely a thing that happens. However, I think of it as being similar to how labels like “manipulative” often get falsely applied to folks in emotional distress/crisis. Though this is wrong & harmful in these cases, there is also a real such thing as manipulative behavior, and I don’t think the solution is to say that nobody is ever manipulative, or that we should all stop saying “manipulative” altogether.
Yeah, I felt like I was always “performing” in therapy. Like I was being graded & had to get an “A”. Maybe similar to what you’re describing as feeling like a circus animal.
Honesty, empathy, humanity, understanding– I completely agree. Those things can be hard to come by in our culture though.
Hey Steve, that wasn’t my intention. Sorry if it was getting off-topic. I was just saying I agreed with Birdsong for the most part, yet I can also see what Olga was getting at by trying to make the distinction. I was in no way trying to compare one to the other as better/worse! They obviously both suck!
Clarification: I understand the distinction between “trauma” and “abuse” in the context of Olga’s argument in the video, and I agree with the gist of what she’s saying in that regard, but I simply define those words differently for myself.
I’m really curious to hear more about your thoughts on peer support work, if you are willing to share. I definitely agree when it comes to peer support work that happens within the system, and how it becomes co-opted by the system (as was mentioned in the video), but I also know of peer respites and other peer support organizations that are not connected to the psychiatric system (as Olga identified herself as belonging to) — except perhaps by channeling people *away* from it. What do you think of those? What would you suggest is a better way to build alternatives to psychiatry?
-Jasmine
P.S. I also disagree with the supposed distinctions between “trauma” and “abuse”. To the body/nervous system, they’re virtually the same. The distinction is a semantic one, not a somatic one.
This article is fine, but nothing revolutionary for MIA. Perhaps the target audience is someone a bit newer here than I am.
The author presents people’s experiences within the mental health system in a binary way: Either you went the therapy route, or you went the medication route. The implication being that those who went the medication route were never offered therapy, and thus wound up feeling as though they had no control or responsibility for their recovery outcomes. However, the reality is that there is so much crossover, and many of us who were harmed by psychiatric drugging did try therapy first and/or were continuing to go to therapy while on meds.
As for the author’s perspective on therapy, I’m glad he had a good experience. But that is certainly not everyone’s experience. Therapy can do harm as well. It can also disempower, encourage emotional suppression, and make people feel “broken.”
Also, I understand that maybe it wasn’t the main focus of the essay, but Sal’s story sounds a little too good to be true. So he stopped psychiatric drugs cold turkey and didn’t experience any withdrawals? And all it took was one youtube video to convince him? And if his depression was “spurred by life events,” as the author aptly notes, it makes me wonder what they were, and if/how Sal was able to work through them. Surely it wasn’t instantaneous as the author portrays it.
Of course, different words mean different things to different people, but to me, the word “control” in the context of recovery — such as “He could control his own outlook,” and “Sal regained control” — has a connotation of suppression or domination through sheer willpower. In many ways, recovery is often about relinquishing control. Psychiatry (and therapy in my experience) is the one that teaches us our emotions are something to be “controlled.” Perhaps “agency” or “free will” would be a better word choice.
I hope I don’t sound overly critical; I agree with much of what this article has to say. We absolutely DO need a culture that embraces emotion instead of numbing it!
The author sounds very earnest, passionate & young. (Though I am close in age myself, I feel much older because I’ve been through a shitstorm.) I’m sure his ideas will develop & mature with experience. Best of luck to him!
Research & statistics reflect population averages, not individual experiences. I’m not necessarily talking about the poorest of the poor. Not everyone who is, say, middle class or above survives the mental health system. Not everyone who had “access” to the same “choices” or “resources” as a survivor did ends up surviving themselves. Does agency count for nothing, in your opinion?
You said earlier that “Having pride in our survival is understandable but ignores and excludes those who failed to survive.” First of all, that’s simply not true. At the last Mad Pride event I went to, a large part of the time was spent commemorating a member of the local Mad community who had just been shot and killed in his own home the week before. There was a memorial tent set up where people could mourn the loss of his & others’ lives. I think there is definitely a place for grief & remembrance of those who’ve been lost to psychiatry in the context of Mad Pride; they’re not mutually exclusive.
Second of all, the notion that we shouldn’t do anything that those with the least amount of “privilege” wouldn’t be able to participate in because it would be “excluding” them sounds a little absurd when the “un-privileged” in question are literal dead people. I mean, there’s not much that *doesn’t* exclude them.
You said that “Talking about survival as if it was a choice is pretty insensitive in my opinion.” Of course it’s more than “just a choice.” I don’t think any of us are in disagreement on that. But to me, it’s just as insensitive to discount a person’s survival and chalk it all up to mere “luck.” You also said, “As hard as your struggle has been, you were able to make the choice…” Ah, but there’s the key. Not everyone who is “able” to make that choice *does.* A lot of people give up. That is not to “victim-blame” anyone. But I think we survivors deserve to take some credit for our resilience, after all the world has taken from us. “those of us who have survived… no matter how hard we feel we have it, are just lucky…” That little word “just” reads as inherently discrediting & invalidating. Again, not everyone even with the same amount of “luck” or “privilege” would’ve survived similar circumstances.
I recently read the book “The Perils of ‘Privilege’: Why Injustice Can’t Be Solved by Accusing Others of Advantage” by Phoebe Maltz-Bovy, and I highly recommend it. Here’s a relevant quote: “The biggest glitch in the privilege framework is the it-could-be-worse component… this supposedly hypersensitive way of looking at the world manages to be incredibly dismissive of any plight that isn’t quite as bad as another.”
I think your apt comparison to what happened to Vietnam vets, as well as what you said about not jumping to conclusions/assumptions about people, is very well-put.
Steve made some really great points above. I second all of that.
The idea that our current human-made environment is “built for” the majority of the population is demonstrably false. First of all, which one? There is no single “environment” across culture, time, and place. Human society is not one static monolith. And it evolves far faster than the human genome, so if ADHD is truly a genetic brain abnormality, then how do you explain that?
Furthermore, the assumption that any given human trait or experience always follows a normal distribution pattern is unfounded. First of all, I think we need to unpack that word & the idea of statistical averages. If you google the word “normal”, you will be able to see that the word usage over time ramps up heavily in the late 1800s/early 1900s and peaks around mid-20th century. This was largely due to the eugenics movement. In 1943 — around peak usage — eugenicist Robert Latou Dickinson designed statues named “Normman” and “Norma” based on the statistical averages of 15,000 men and women (respectively), all aged 21-25 years and racially white. According to the eugenics movement, it was believed that being closer to statistical averages (based on samples of exclusively young, white people) inherently meant being closer to ideal health.
The first edition of the DSM was published 11 years later, in 1952.
I think it’s worth noting that a large part of this obsession with “normal” originates from eugenicism, and therefore, bigotry. It’s also worth noting that industrial-capitalist society is not natural or “built for” 99% of humans. In fact, I would argue that society’s not built by/for the 80%, it’s built by/for the 1%. And I think we all know which 1% I’m talking about.
I am firmly pro-Palestine. I also resonate deeply with Yishay’s writing and believe he has a right to share his story. These two truths are not mutually exclusive.
We must remember to be “soft on individuals, hard on institutions.” As Yishay said, we cannot always divide the world neatly into “villains” and “victims.” Maybe in a broad political sense, but not when it comes to individual human beings.
We also can’t always divide the world into a binary of “privileged” and “oppressed.” What happens when a so-called “privilege” is its own form of oppression? It is my understanding that military service in Israel is compulsory.
Furthermore, if you’re a non-indigenous American insisting that Yishay’s story shouldn’t get a “platform” on MIA because of who he is, then posting a comment on MIA yourself is hypocritical. Do you publicly “reflect on” your relationship to colonialism & genocide every time you post here?
Furthermore, how do you know he doesn’t feel remorse or reflect on these things offline? If he shared these reflections publicly, I’m sure he would then be accused of being “performative” or “centering his own feelings” instead.
Lastly, what would be accomplished by such a “reflection” or by de-platforming Yishay altogether? What’s the goal here? Would it end the genocide? Meaningfully advance Palestinian rights? My guess is no. He’s just one person after all.
Your writing always brings me to tears, in a good way. Thank you for sharing it. I love how your style is poetic, yet minimalist. You never overexplain, you simply speak the truth.
This entire piece — but especially the line “or maybe I just learned how to hide the limp” and then what you say about the “cruel optimism” of the “promise” of healing — reminded me of a song I wrote a couple years ago. I would like to share it with you (headphones recommended): https://youtu.be/ZVeOum6c6zs?si=mMHAXN6KSiPWw7IE
Idk if this comment will get posted or not, because it has drifted too far off topic, but I just wanted to say: Honestly, you’re kinda right. I was projecting a bit & leaping to some conclusions based on my own perceptions & personal feelings. I am truly sorry. Poetry/art means a lot to me, and it’s hard not to take these conversations personally. I didn’t mean to cause any harm or hard feelings, and I hope you’ll accept my apology.
I think you’re forgetting that the word “Mad” itself — as in “Mad in America,” “Mad Pride,” or “Mad Rights Movement” — is a reclaimed label that has historically been used to dehumanize & justify violence. We are not the first social justice movement to make use of such linguistic reclamation of derogatory terms or slurs. (E.g. the LGBTQ+ community reclaiming the former slur “queer.”)
That sounds similar to how Robert explained his relationship to the label of “schizophrenia.” In another comment, he said, “Insisting that I am a schizophrenic is my way of proving that psychiatrists are wrong in saying that schizophrenia is incurable.” Sounds like a radical act of narrative reclamation to me!
People still use the language of “illness” metaphorically in such contexts. They may not call it “marital detachment disorder,” per se, but people use words like “healthy”/”unhealthy”/”toxic” to describe relationships all the time. These are all different versions of health/sickness metaphors.
Not sure why you’re bringing this up. Is your intention to compare this piece to David Ingelby’s paper? Are you implying, therefore, that this piece is “overwrought,” “inaccessible,” and that only those who are highly “educated” and “skilled” can “interpret” it?
No one else in the comments complained that this article was elitist or inaccessible. No one else seemed to have a hard time understanding it. Maybe this article wasn’t for you. That doesn’t mean it’s bad or wrong, nor that those who did connect with it must be a certain “type” of person. Do you know the educational background of every person here in the comments, and how their educational background compares to your own? I had no trouble understanding it, and I’m a 24-year-old with only a bachelor’s degree. Roughly 40% of American adults share the same level of education as me or higher. Is that really such a “select few”?
Perhaps it doesn’t have to do with level of education so much, and really comes down to individual understanding and preference. It’s okay to just say, “I didn’t get it.” Or to simply say nothing and move on. But just because you didn’t understand and/or connect with something, doesn’t mean it is “inaccessible” to the “average person.”
You said “…feelings best communicated silently… through the ache that doesn’t need translation, the kind that’s TRULY ‘unspoken’.” That’s nice and all, but how exactly would you propose one communicates without words in a written article?
By the way, I commend your use of poetic language and metaphor in your very condemnation of poetic language and metaphor! “…addiction — a drug accessible only to a select few… cocaine for the intellect… perfume for the ego…”
Sincerely,
Jasmine
P.S. I’m quite curious as to what your exposure to poetry has been, and why you must have such a negative view of it. The way it is often taught in the education system is downright awful, and I believe that’s why most people become turned off to it. If you have 11 spare minutes, I’d highly recommend watching this video (with an open mind): https://youtu.be/FjwJQ0NVyYc?si=BG0gbcnrdJkwptSR
I disagree. First of all, many of my favorite articles/blogs/personal stories on MIA are from several years ago, and are what I would consider very “well-spoken,” “poetic,” etc. To say that MIA “has become” this way is to imply that it didn’t used to be. That is simply not true.
What also confuses me is the notion that “academic” or “poetic” language is somehow antithetical to speaking “plainly” or “clearly.” Why must these be mutually exclusive? To the contrary, any *good* poetic (or academic) writing uses language/metaphor to clarify, not to obscure. I am curious as to where your ideas about poetry/academic writing come from.
I’ve noticed a trend of commenters wanting MIA to be a “safe space”/”sanctuary” for “real survivors” with “lived experience” to express themselves freely in their “authentic voice,” while simultaneously criticizing other survivors (usually the author) for using the language that feels right to them — be that poetic, academic, diagnostic, or otherwise. Hypocritically, this inadvertently undermines the welcoming, survivor-centered, censorship-free environment that they claim to advocate for. I thought our whole schtick was letting people self-define their own story without imposing our own opinions/beliefs/worldviews on them or insisting that they conform to our preferred way that they communicate (i.e. what psychiatry does).
Not a single positive comment here was praising this article for its “cleverness.” You were the first to bring that up. Instead, they found value in this piece through its humanness, relatability, and connection. Is that not the desired outcome of survivors sharing their voices with one another? What would you prefer instead?
Yes, the author is also a very good writer. Would you rather her be a poor writer? I do not think the piece would’ve been nearly as effective, or her effect on other (real, human, survivor) commenters/readers as profound. It’s true, not everyone possesses these gifts. Life’s unfair. But I think that’s all the more reason for those who have them to share them. One commenter literally said the “article really spoke to [them] in ways that are hard [for them] to put into words,” and another said “You’ve given voice to the quiet ache many of us carry.” The purpose of writing/art is not always to perform or “show off” or as an “ego trip,” but to communicate & connect with others (who need it) as well.
If you’re looking for articles that are written in what you call “plain” language, there are plenty of others you can find on here. I regret to inform you that that they will still likely be well-written. Of course Mad in America is going to “favor” those who are good writers; it’s a journalism outlet! If you want a place for indiscriminate venting, I suggest you visit Reddit (they actually have some thriving anti-psych & anti-therapy subs!).
I totally understand and feel the same way myself sometimes. I agree that all victims of psychiatric abuse should show solidarity and respect for each other! Yet unfortunately, that is not always the case (in my experience as well).
Just to clarify, when I said “I want to offer another perspective,” I intended to address this primarily to other commenters, not you. I think that the reason for their disagreement was a misunderstanding; not because your word choice was “wrong” necessarily. I think that you should get to use whatever words you see fit to express yourself/your experiences. I was simply trying to point out that different words mean different things to different people, in different contexts, and maybe they were interpreting it differently than you meant it. I hope my intention was clear, but I apologize for any ambiguity.
First of all, thank you for sharing your powerful story. Though disappointing, it did not surprise me at all that psychiatry wouldn’t own up to its wrongdoings or apologize. I think you really hit the nail on the head with this line: “My story is obviously a scandal, for it raises a very important question: since psychiatrists were wrong in saying that homosexuality is a mental illness and that schizophrenia is incurable, then is it possible that they are wrong about everything else?” Bingo!!
Second of all, I wanted to offer another perspective on what I see being contested in the comments. From my understanding, commenters appear to be objecting to the phrase “illness of the psyche/mind/soul” because they are interpreting it as a pathologization of the person’s soul, but that is not what I got from Robert’s usage in this piece at all.
When it comes to physical illness, there are broadly two types: those which are caused by a defect from within the body (like an autoimmune disorder) and those which are caused by a pathogen/contaminant from the environment (like the flu). So when used as a metaphor for “mental illness,” it can be used or taken either of these two ways. For example, when talking about a rapist or murderer, people might say they’re “sick in the head,” or they have “soul sickness” — that something is wrong with them/their soul, it is “corrupt” or “defective” in some way. On the other hand, people might say that someone who is depressed or showing signs of trauma is “unwell” or has a “spiritual illness” — that they are afflicted by something toxic or troubling in their environment. But because the same word is being used, confusion arises. It also inadvertently creates a lot more stigma by conflating pain/suffering with immorality/corruption.
Thanks for your empathetic & understanding response. I hope I didn’t come across like I was overtly dissing something that you obviously found meaningful. Clearly I have very strong & personal feelings about these ideas, but if you found them helpful, I’m glad for you!
I agree that our trauma & healing journeys all look very different; I guess my main point was that it’s not universal truth or formulaic like it’s often presented as. The problem is, so often when one responds to a certain psychotherapeutic theory with, “well this doesn’t apply to me,” they’re told “well that must be because you’re in denial,” and there’s no arguing out of that accusation (especially when said to them by a therapist!).
Also, I guess I wasn’t referring to just Miller’s book/theories specifically, but moreover the general cultural narrative that “hurt people hurt people” or “traumatized/abused people will pass on the trauma/abuse” UNLESS they heal “properly.” Also the idea that “every abuser was once abused themselves.” Those may be true in SOME cases, but I can think of a lot of exceptions. I also don’t think it’s direct cause-and-effect like it may seem. I won’t give too much more away here, but hopefully you’ll see what I mean when I write that piece.
Anyways, thanks again for your thoughtful reply. Looking forward to bringing a new perspective & continuing this dialogue!
Unfortunately, I am well-aware of these theories. I went to years of therapy, and spent years thinking I was going to become a therapist myself, so I am pretty familiar with most theories out there. It is not for lack of understanding. I simply think they’re wrong.
I actually came across that very book at my local used book store recently; funny you mention it. However, I put it back on the shelf specifically because I found it, well… intolerable. I picked it up because I was labeled “gifted” as a kid (for better or worse) and thought it might be insightful or relatable or something. However, from what I skimmed through standing there in the aisle, it seemed to be either a) things I had already discovered independently in my healing journey & so they weren’t going to be very illuminating to me at this point, or b) things that were just straight-up wrong (or inapplicable to me at least) & also actively triggering because they reinforced damaging & false narratives about myself.
I was “emotionally repressed,” “dissociated,” had “unresolved trauma,” etc for years. I was also highly empathetic, often to a fault. I think my empathy at times was a direct result of my trauma – not in spite of it – for various reasons, and I also think it’s just the way I am to some extent. I am still very empathetic, but now I also know how to be firm if I need to, and prioritize my own needs/feelings.
The reason why narratives like these harmed me is because they planted this idea in my psyche that emotional pain equals morality, and that until/unless I “healed properly,” I was a “bad person” by default. Even if I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I just figured I was probably “unaware” of it or “in denial” or something. This actually (combined with my hyper-empathy) led to me getting taken advantage of in relationships, because others could easily make me feel like I was the problem, that they weren’t emotionally abusing me/ I deserved it, and that with enough self-reflection I could fix the relationship. They gaslighted me to believe that I was simply not having enough empathy/understanding for their side, when in reality, I was almost always being “too nice.”
These kinds of narratives were also a huge contributing factor to my suicidality, self-harm, and general self-hatred. I believed that I should never be in a relationship, get married or have kids because I would surely, inevitably turn into some abusive/neglectful monster if I hadn’t healed by then.
Those narratives may apply for some, but I think for others they can be very damaging. They are far from inherent truths, and like most of psychology, they are more speculation than evidence, yet tend to go unquestioned. Like I said, I plan to write & submit an article about this at some point in the future, so stay tuned for that.
The fact that stories like Phillip’s seem “rare” to most people is no accident. Most psychiatric survivors’ stories & voices are drowned out by the mainstream narrative. This is a very intentional, strategic way for the mental health system to avoid accountability. It is also convenient for most of its victims/critics to be framed as “mentally ill” and therefore not credible narrators of reality.
I wrote about this in a blog that was published here just a couple months ago. I highly recommend that you read it if you are genuinely interested in understanding more about this. Here it is: https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/08/narrative-reclamation/
In the example you gave – of someone hearing voices that repeatedly tell them to kill themselves – is that a specific person you know, or just a hypothetical example? If it is a specific person you know, then I cannot speak to their experiences. If it is just a general hypothetical, then perhaps I can help provide some alternative perspectives.
First of all, not all voice-hearers experience their voices as distressing. Some hear voices that may be positive, encouraging, or even just neutral. They may find meaning in the voices they hear, as it may have some religious, spiritual, or cultural significance to them. They may have no desire to get rid of these voices. Voice-hearers like this really do exist, it’s true.
Second of all, there are people who experience these voices as distressing, that is true as well. In fact, let’s go with the “extreme” example you gave of someone who hears voices repeatedly telling them to kill themselves. Well, I actually know of a person who had this exact experience. Earlier this year, I attended a Mad in America webinar called “The Hope of Harm Reduction” as seen here: https://www.madinamerica.com/calendar/?mc_id=1166 and one of the main presenters was an individual named Caroline Mazel-Carlton. She talked about her lived experience with voice-hearing and suicidality, and mentioned that at one point, she was hearing voices telling her to kill herself. I don’t want to tell her story in an inadequate way, so I will leave these links if you would like to learn more: https://www.madinamerica.com/2022/07/like-living-voices-head/ https://www.madinamerica.com/2022/09/talking-about-suicide-helps-us-stay-alive/
I will, however, speak on my own experiences with suicidality, which were similar to Caroline’s, sans voice-hearing. Conventional mental health treatments & carceral crisis interventions did not “help” me, they traumatized me and contributed to my desire to die. As I wrote in my article “The ‘Sick Enough’ Paradox in Eating Disorder Treatment” (also published on here): “half the reason why I wanted to kill myself was directly because of all the things that were done to me supposedly to prevent me from killing myself.” My suicidality was deeply symbolic. It represented that something in my life – some version of myself – needed to die, in order for me to live.
There are many alternatives to these mainstream psychiatric interventions, such as peer support and Alternatives to Suicide (Alt2Su). From both research & anecdotal evidence, they show promising outcomes. Involuntary hospitalization, on the other hand, tends to increase people’s risk of suicide after discharge. Antipsychotic drugs for “schizophrenia” also tend to worsen outcomes over time. (You can find plenty of articles about both those topics on this site with a quick search, so I won’t link them here.)
You said, “I also wonder what are people’s views on handling aggression.” I think another perspective to consider here is the aggression that is often used against people in crisis. It is not uncommon for force and restraint to be used on people in crisis even when they are not being violent or threatening. It is generally assumed that if the patient was restrained, it was only because the doctors had good reason to do so. Can you imagine what kinds of problems this kind of power imbalance might lead to?
Thanks for sharing that piece of context; your reaction is totally understandable given that you’re completely new to Mad in America & critical psychiatry. I hope I didn’t come across as offensive in any way either. You seem like a very kind, sweet, genuine, self-aware person, and I am glad we were able to have this conversation.
I hope you’ll stick around here on Mad in America & learn more about our perspectives. If not, thanks for stopping by! I appreciate your open-mindedness and compassion.
I know this comment thread is kind of old, so you might not even see this. As a self-identifying artist myself, I had an initial knee-jerk reaction to reading your comments, but upon further reflection, I think I do get where you’re coming from.
I think you’re confusing art with Art.
Anyone can create art. This kind of art is inherently democratic. You don’t have to possess any special kind of education, lots of money, or even talent. You just have to possess the drive to create. These kinds of artists probably don’t make any money from their art. Even if they do, they are still doing it primarily for their love of the art form, not for fame & riches. In this case, they likely fit the “starving artist” stereotype.
Now, Art, on the other hand is a whole different species. Elitism, snobbery, spectacle, pretentious wine-sipping in the gallery – everything you just described. But that is not art, inherently. That is Art.
I think the issue you have with Art is the commodification of art. Not art itself. Essentially, your issue then, is with capitalism. With that, I could not agree more.
“We live in a world where artists have historically been given more credence and respect than people who aren’t.” I think it’s a false notion that art is raised on a pedestal in our society, or that this has historically been so. In fact, I think the opposite could not be more true – art is the least funded in our education system and one of the least respected careers, with a very low likelihood of financial stability. On the other hand, STEM, business, law, and medicine are the fields that better fit your description.
I think you are also confusing a disdain for Art connoisseurs with a disdain for artists themselves. Sure, if the world listened to people in pain, maybe they wouldn’t feel the need to express their pain through art in order to captivate the attention of an audience. Does that mean it is the individual’s fault – who happens to possess artistic talents themselves – for using their talents to try to get people to understand/listen? Or is it the fault of society for pigeon-holing them into that position in the first place? Isn’t their artistic expression just an adaptive response like any other to try to survive otherwise unsurvivable circumstances? In a similar way, mental health patients who are “polite” & “compliant” should not receive better treatment than those who are turbulent & angry. But is this the fault of the “good patient”? Or is it the fault of the mental health system? Is the “good patient” really privileged above the “non-compliant” patient by that much? Or are they both victimized by the system in unique ways? A “fawn” or “freeze” adaptation is just as much of a trauma response as a “fight or flight” response. To blame individuals for their survival responses rather than the circumstances which brought about those adaptations is a form of victim-blaming, regardless.
You mentioned art being “rooted in fetish.” However, I recently read “The Perils of Privilege” by Phoebe Maltz Bovy – highly recommend – and one concept she illuminated in this book is how “privilege” gets a lot more airtime than “power,” and part of the reason for this is our fetishization of powerlessness. Though oppression can certainly disempower people, is the goal of social justice not, ultimately, to (re)empower? If one’s power lies in their artistic ability, is it wrong for them to reclaim their power through artistic expression after experiencing disenfranchisement?
Additionally, you appear to be assuming that people exist in black-or-white – that either they are able to express their suffering through art, or they are not. However, these two opposing experiences may exist within the same person at different times. Us artists are notoriously inconsistent, going through creative bursts as well as periods of “writer’s block,” so what happens when we are not able to reliably alchemize our pain into beauty? (Same thing for those of us who may be able to “code-switch” into intellectualizing language, yet in times of intense distress or crisis, we lose that ability. It reminds me of a post I saw by @dr.jenniewh on instagram that I really relate to, especially slide 5: https://www.instagram.com/p/DI_hHxLJGf0/?img_index=1 ) I expressed the pressure of always having to make one’s pain “beautiful” for others’ consumption in this poem: https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/10/true-story-by-jasmine-marshall/
Lastly, the notion that artists aren’t “real people” with “real pain/suffering” is a troubling one. Of course, our pain/suffering is not any more real than anyone else’s, but neither is it any less. You say, “Suffering does not become more valid when filtered through artistry, meaning talent should never determine who’s seen and who’s not.” Perhaps this is true, but is your proposed solution to this for artists to stop creating art altogether, as though that is the only way for other, less talented people’s voices to be heard? That sounds like bully-logic to me: the logic by which the only way for those who are insecure to be “boosted up” is for those who are smart/talented/kind to be “put down.” (I’m not saying YOU are a bully, but I am saying that that line of reasoning can be a slippery slope towards bullying.)
I am reminded of this quote that goes: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
That is my own goal as an artist: Not to outshine anyone else, but to share my light & hopefully inspire others to do the same, in their own way, using their own unique talents. I’m not taking anything away from anyone else. In fact, art – whether it’s about love, grief, pain, suffering, etc – often has the power to transcend the boundaries of the individual, representing a much more universal experience. An artist may speak not only for themselves, but for many, giving voice to the voiceless during times when they cannot find the light within themselves. That is what I got from India’s poignant video-poem.
I disagree with the notion that “depression” and/or trauma causes people to become abusive. In fact, I think it’s a bit of a sanist notion & can be very stigmatizing for trauma/abuse survivors. I won’t elaborate much here, but I’ll probably write an essay on it in the future.
First of all, this is not about your moral goodness as a person. All the people in your life you have fought for (or hypothetically would fight for) have nothing to do with the fact that people who feel “helped” by the mental health system tend to have a nasty habit of telling psychiatric survivors that we need to tone down our anger or pain or act like our stories are “rare exceptions” to the general rule that the mental health system is innately good & “life-saving” in order to center y’all’s feelings. Which is exactly what you were doing, intentionally or unintentionally.
You said, “It’s when I read the comments that my heart sank and I lost my breath.” Firstly, I feel the same way when reading comments like yours. Secondly, I am struggling to find the “stigmatizing comments” that you speak of. Most of what I have seen here are comments empathizing with Phillip’s story and/or sharing their own similar stories. Some comments do discuss the pseudoscience of psychiatry itself, but that is not “stigma,” it is simply a fact.
You said, “I had symptoms of mania, depression, anxiety, panic, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts long before my diagnosis.” I am not arguing against any of that. In fact, so did I (minus the “mania”). I am not one of those people saying “it’s all in your head”, and I am not trying to argue that you only started having symptoms after your diagnosis because you convinced yourself you were “mentally ill” or something. Quite the contrary; I think your experiences are very real. I also think they are not symptoms of underlying pathology. These are not conflicting beliefs.
From my understanding, it seems like you are mistakenly under the impression that this is a debate between people who are “mentally ill” (such as yourself) and people who aren’t & therefore don’t “get it” (such as the rest of us here). However, many of us carry psychiatric diagnoses ourselves, and were probably in your shoes once – vehemently defending psychiatry and going on about the “stigma” of “mental health.” I can only speak for myself, but I know that me 3 years ago would’ve felt totally attacked & defensive if anyone questioned the legitimacy of psychiatric diagnosis or medication, even if it wasn’t directed at me specifically. I would’ve felt judged, like they thought I was “weak” or “faking it” or something, and I would’ve written off anything they had to say as “stigma.” I was fully convinced that medication & therapy had “saved my life,” despite the fact that they were literally making me worse. It would’ve been hard for me then to imagine feeling the way I do now, and it’s hard for me now to imagine feeling the way I did back then, even though it was not that long ago. I imagine that’s probably similar to the way you’re feeling, and honestly I don’t know if there’s anything I can say to change your mind. Unfortunately, what it took for me was going through it myself.
You seem to believe that you (and other “mentally ill”-identifying folks) are the only one here on the receiving end of “stigma,” but that is simply not true. As I mentioned in my other reply, I personally faced far more “stigma” for quitting psych drugs & therapy than I ever experienced for using them. For me, this “stigma” more than just “didn’t feel good”; it resulted in emotional/verbal abuse, trauma, and threats to my safety. In fact, the concept of “stigma” itself was leveraged to coerce me into taking psychiatric drugs in the first place – by insisting that I only felt hesitation because of the “stigma” – and then was used to guilt-trip me for stopping them as well – by claiming that my personal choice was somehow “stigmatizing” to those who do use them.
You say, “When I read Phillip’s story, right from the beginning I was wondering why did this happen to him and how did the system fail him this bad.” Your surprise amuses me. His story is not a fluke. There are hundreds of other stories like his that you can find & read on this site, if you are willing to listen & keep an open mind.
I’m not sure if you saw my other reply, but if not, I strongly encourage you to check out the links I sent you. Especially the instagram ones.
Lastly, I’m genuinely curious: Do you know what this site is about? And what were you expecting to find here, on a site dedicated to critical psychiatry? If what you are looking for is an echo chamber full of pro-mental healthcare advocates who center experiences like yours & think the only issue is “stigma,” then I’m afraid you’re in the wrong place. Luckily for you though, spaces like that are pretty much everywhere else.
I am sorry for the stigma and shame you have experienced. Please understand that us psychiatric survivors are no strangers to “stigma.” In fact, having to constantly center the feelings of people who have felt helped by the mental health system when we share our stories is part of what perpetuates the kind of “stigma” WE face, and it is far more often that we are the ones locked into silence & hiding for fear of our safety.
I personally faced far more “stigma” for quitting psych drugs & therapy than I ever experienced for using them. (Before you assume that it must be because I live in a particularly “progressive” region, I should mention that I’m from the US South.)
To answer your question, the first thing I would tell her is that her mental & emotional difficulties are valid, regardless of how she chooses to label or cope with them. The second thing I would tell her is that it is understandable to be concerned about the way things are headed with MAHA as someone in her position. Therefore, I would recommend she finds new ways to cope outside of the mental health system, in case that does get taken away. In other words, “join the club”; us psychiatric survivors have been doing it for years, and she might be able to learn something valuable from us by listening.
She might be confused as to how it is possible to cope outside of the mental health system, since she sees herself as “diseased” and these treatments as medical interventions that saved her life. The truth is (which she may not like to hear), there is no such thing as an “actual” psychiatric disorder, and so these are not life-saving medical “treatments,” they are simply ways of coping that she has found helpful, and she can adapt to find new, different ways of coping that may be helpful, just as humans have done (and continue to do) since the beginning of time. As to whether or not she is being medicated “unnecessarily,” I would say that it is no mystery that drugs have a consciousness-altering effect, and some people may prefer the way this effect makes them feel, but it is false to assume that this means it is correcting an underlying pathology in their brain. Some use non-prescription drugs to alter consciousness, some use prescription drugs – both may help a person survive, cope, and “function” – and though there may be a legal difference, there is no difference in regards to morality, health, or biology. Drugs are drugs.
So if she chooses to heed my advice, to learn to “cope outside of the mental health system,” what might that actually look like, in terms of concrete, actionable steps? Well, the first thing I would recommend is to educate herself on psychiatric drug tapering and withdrawal. This is not something her doctor or psychiatrist are likely to be well-educated about – which may be confusing for her to hear given that she has probably revered them as trusted “experts” until now. Mad in America has lots of great resources on tapering, and I would also encourage her to check out Laura Delano’s website https://www.theinnercompass.org/ . Then I would urge her to strongly consider starting to taper off her drugs, as it will be far safer than being forced off of them cold-turkey in the event that these drugs become no longer available. (Especially because she has been on them for 20 years, and typically the longer one is on them, the more brutal withdrawal effects are likely to be.)
The next thing I would do is ask her a question: What is it that she feels she benefits from in therapy? There is nothing inherently magical or irreplaceable about therapy itself. Again, these are not medical “treatments” like any other. So I would ask her to think about what specifically helps her about therapy, not just “therapy” as a concept. Is it the therapeutic relationship? Talking about her emotions? Receiving compassion from another person? Or is it exploring her childhood trauma? Learning new coping skills & techniques? I would argue that all of these things (and more) can be achieved outside of psychotherapy. If what makes therapy helpful to her is just having another person to talk to, then I would encourage her to surround herself with friends who she can talk to about her feelings/struggles without having to pay them. (That’s literally what friends are for.) If what makes it helpful is the coping skills/strategies she learns from her therapist, and so she feels that she could not replace this with friendship alone because her friends are not “qualified professionals,” then I would encourage her to pick up a few self-help books, or better yet, go straight to the source – buy herself the same academic textbooks that they use in counseling school.
As for her last question, I would tell her that no, she is not “misdiagnosed,” because that would imply that there is a such thing as correct psychiatric diagnosis. Which, as I have established, there is not. Experiences are real. Suffering is real. But “diagnosis” is not.
The last thing I’d say to her is that I think it is highly inappropriate to hijack another person’s story of trauma and abuse with “what-about-isms” and making it about yourself & your own (positive) experiences. I hope I’m not too bold in my assumption that the woman you are talking about here in the third person is yourself. It’s like if someone was telling their story about their traumatic, near-fatal car accident that they survived, and the first thing someone says after they finish telling their story is, “But what about me? I need a car to get to work every day! I think cars are great & I wouldn’t be able to survive without them! What would you tell a person like me if they were to ban cars?” Do you see the problem here? Doesn’t that come across as more than a little tone-deaf?
However, to extend the metaphor, I would answer, “I think we could all benefit from better public transport and more walkable cities. Then, maybe cars wouldn’t be so necessary.”
That is the goal of critical psychiatry/psychiatric abolition.
I would like to take this opportunity to correct some of the misinformation in your reply.
“Obesity” is not an eating disorder, it is a weight status under the BMI (Body Mass Index) measuring system, which is a scientifically inaccurate & debunked method of measuring health.
“Eating disorders” are not called “weight disorders” for a reason. People of all sizes can be affected by restrictive eating disorders like anorexia, including people who fall into the “obese” BMI category. Increasing food intake and gaining weight will still likely need to be a major part of recovery for these individuals, just like it is for individuals in the “underweight” or “normal weight” BMI categories.
It is not true that maintaining a “good, balanced weight” is a requirement for recovery, if by “good, balanced weight” you mean “in the ‘normal’ BMI range,” or “avoiding gaining ‘too much’ weight and becoming ‘overweight’ or ‘obese.'” First of all, as mentioned above, BMI is pseudoscience; some people’s set point weight might very well be in the “overweight”/”obese” BMI category, and that is the weight their body naturally settles at when they are at their healthiest. Secondly, most people with a history of restriction will gain what is called “overshoot” weight in recovery, as I mentioned in my essay. This is a healthy, natural part of the body’s healing process from starvation, and is absolutely necessary in order to achieve a full recovery. Gaining enough fat is crucial in recovery – essential for growth, healing, and tissue repair – and actually trying to just gain muscle, reduce or prevent fat gain, or reintroduce exercise too soon can delay healing and increase the risk of relapse. The body is wise, and prioritizes fat restoration first for a number of reasons.
Fatphobia is a driving factor in most (it not all) eating disorders, and so it is really important to understand that fat is nothing to be afraid of! Especially in eating disorder recovery! I know this runs counter to a lot of cultural narratives – and health narratives – that we’ve all heard. But it is true and scientifically based. I highly recommend reading Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison (as I recommend in my essay) or at least clicking on some of the links in my essay to learn more about these topics. You can also look up the “Minnesota Starvation Experiment” to learn more about the body’s response to calorie restriction, including extreme hunger and overshoot, and this podcast from Mad in America is also a great source of information: https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/10/new-perspectives-on-eating-disorders-an-interview-with-shira-collings/
Specializing in both “obesity” and eating disorders is pretty much an oxymoron, since such fatphobia (and pseudoscience) runs counter to the very premise of ED recovery. Unfortunately, however, it is quite common in our healthcare system, and even in ED treatment spaces. That is part of what I was trying to point out in my essay. Encouraging a fear of “too much” or “the wrong kind of” weight gain in recovery is a great business model for providers, but a poor recovery model for clients, as it is likely to result in high relapse rates and repeat customers!
Unfortunately, I will not be responding to future comments on this thread. I hope that you learned something from my article and our discussion!
I’m glad to hear that your daughter has found a physician and had a positive experience. However, I looked up the name of the physician you mentioned, and the only person to come up was a doctor specializing in “Weight Wellness” and “Obesity Medicine.” That sounded strange to me considering the fact that it is at odds with the very foundations of ED recovery. Surely, that’s not the correct person, is it?
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I’m really glad my articles resonated with you on so many levels. I am close in age to your daughter, and my mother was born in the 60s as well!
Congratulations for finding your own recovery path, as well as tapering an antidepressant! My personal experiences with psych drugs were negative, they did not help my ED at all either (maybe even made it worse).
I’m glad you feel like you’ve found what works for you in terms of managing you ED, however I do want to let you know that the scientific evidence does not necessarily support some of those conclusions. I know we’ve all heard a lot of fear-mongering about sugar and “processed” foods in our society, such as the idea that these foods are “addictive” because they “activate the same reward systems in the brain as drugs.” However, actual research (non-diet-industry-funded) has shown that in intuitive eaters – people who do not restrict sugar – there is no discernable brain difference in their reaction to sugar. It is only in chronic dieters – people who restrict sugar – that they tend to have this response. It is the deprivation itself that mimics an “addictive” response, not sugar inherently.
This supports the notion that even eating disorders appearing to involve “overindulgence” or “food addiction” or “bingeing” – including BED & bulimia – actually result from restriction most (if not all) of the time. This restriction may take many forms, such as caloric restriction, restriction of certain foods/food groups, or even mental restriction (e.g. mentally labeling some foods as “bad”/”unhealthy”/”off-limits”), as well as things like food insecurity or illness. To our bodies, famine is famine, regardless of the cause. “Binge eating” is the body’s natural protective mechanism to prevent death by starvation – our bodies are highly intelligent! The reason why it becomes a cyclical “problem” is because the guilt from bingeing can trigger one towards compensatory measures, which keeps the body in a depleted state, which then in turn triggers future binges, etc, etc, resulting in the notorious “binge-restrict” or “binge-purge” cycle. Therefore, the most effective treatments for EDs involving bingeing generally start by addressing the restriction first – not the bingeing itself. Otherwise, it’s like putting the cart before the horse.
However, if you notice you genuinely feel better/worse after eating certain foods, that is actually an integral part of Intuitive Eating, not at odds with it. Paying attention to how foods make your body feel is part of an IE concept called “gentle nutrition.” But, I will also say that the placebo effect is a powerful force. To use myself as an example, I spent several months of my recovery convinced that I couldn’t eat gluten or dairy because of an undiagnosed “intolerance.” Confirmation bias and the placebo effect convinced me that I felt worse/had more digestive issues after eating these foods, and felt better/had fewer digestive issues when I abstained. However, once I challenged these beliefs and began reintroducing these foods back into my diet, I found that there was no difference. The main reason for my digestive issues & general feelings of unwellness was actually ongoing restriction & inconsistent eating patterns!
I learned a lot of this information from the Anti-Diet book I recommended, so if you read it too, you’ll see what I’m talking about!
Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts. You raise some interesting points, and I would like to attempt to address them.
I’ll start by saying that like most survivors on here, my relationship & history with “the establishment,” as you call it, is a complicated one. Some of my feelings and desires are, as you say, “at odds with one another,” that is true. It would certainly be easier – and perhaps seem more “logical” – if things were simpler or more clear-cut, but that is not always the reality.
However, a lot of what I am talking about here is in past tense, though I can see how that would be confusing since my personal timeline is not the focus of this piece. In the past, I certainly desired more of that “validation” & “interaction” from the system, because “diagnosis” & “treatment” were the only way I knew how to understand & approach my experiences. This was before I learned about critical psychiatry.
Now, as a psychiatric abolitionist, I try to live out my values by interacting with the mental health system literally NEVER. This is why, at the beginning of my essay, I established that I am doing “DIY” recovery – meaning without mental health professionals. However, that doesn’t include medical care – true, medical care for physical health issues – in my opinion.
Because the language of psychiatric diagnosis is going to be all that (most) medical providers are familiar with, even us critical psych people have to learn to “code-switch” around them in order to get our needs met. (Furthermore, we have to do this for insurance purposes anyway.) It’s not so much about wanting “validation” for me at this point (though that conditioning runs deep, and I am still in the process of unlearning it) as it is about being believed & taken seriously. It comes down to a simple choice: A) tell them I have an “eating disorder,” or B) explain the entire history of fatphobia, diet culture, and sanism, and why it’s *society* that’s “disordered,” NOT me, every time I see a new healthcare provider. For ease of communication, I tend to go with option A.
Of course, the root issue is embedded fatphobia & diet culture in the medical system, and in society in general. That’s part of the point I was trying to make. If those were recognized (or better yet, abolished), there would be no need for an “eating disorder” label or “eating disorder” doctors. However, that is a topic for another essay (which I will, at some point, write).
You say, “I think [it’s] sensible to want to an ED-literate medical doctor if you have documented medical issues as a result of your ED,” however, I would like to point out that one can only have “documented” medical issues if they have had proper ED healthcare to begin with. Which, most of us have not; that’s exactly my point. Additionally, many of us don’t even know if we have “medical issues as a result of [our] ED,” documented or not, because we have had an ED for so long (since childhood, in my case) and become so detached from our bodies that we are desensitized to the pain/symptoms/issues we may be experiencing; it’s just our “normal.” And some medical issues – like bone density loss, for instance – may show no outward symptoms at all, and require medical testing to confirm.
Although I am, as I’ve mentioned, a psychiatric abolitionist, I also realize that abolition is a long-term goal. Psychiatry is certainly not going to disappear overnight, so I think it can be helpful, in the short-term, to take a “harm-reduction”-type approach to those who are still in its grasp.
I would be curious to hear more of your thoughts. How do YOU think these issues should be addressed? What has worked for YOUR recovery? (If you would like to share.)
Thank you for your support, and I am on the same page as you. To me, it’s a bit of an ad hominem fallacy to focus on someone’s credentials – in a positive or a negative way – rather than the content of what they’re saying.
I always love reading your comments and am glad to see you here! Thanks for reading!
“A safe way to express more radical opinions without being dismissed as a nutcase” pretty much sums it up – and as a survivor, this safety has been a legitimate concern. Safety in a tangible sense – e.g. being perceived as “crazy enough” to lock up – is less of an issue for me now than in the past, as I’ve gotten further into my recovery & also more selective about who I share my views with. But “safety” in the emotional sense – e.g. getting dragged into a trauma response – about something that’s more than just an intellectual discussion for me is still very real. I’ve learned how to use intellectualizing language, cite scientific sources, and set my emotions aside in order to appear more “rational” and “credible,” but you’re right, it is certainly unfortunate that such self-protection is necessary.
I appreciate the latter part of what you said as well. It’s not uncommon to have a bachelor’s degree nowadays, and psychology is literally one of the most common majors. Regardless, I think it’s a bit of an ad hominem fallacy to focus on someone’s credentials rather than the content of what they’re saying.
Thank you for your comment! One would think that… right? The irony is not lost on me!
It truly is our culture that’s disordered, rather than individuals with eating “disorders.” (But that’s a topic for a future essay.) Unfortunately, I was naive & trusting. But I think I learned a lot through the process, however frustrating it was!
Thank you for taking the time to read my article and leave a comment. Speaking from lived experience with an ED, however, I would like to correct some of your misconceptions.
Eating disorders are, in fact, primarily mental. They do not have biomedical causes any more than any other “mental illness.” From what I can tell, you seem to be getting the arrow of causation backwards. They have psychological causes, but result in physiological consequences. Sure, these physiological consequences can then in turn have mental effects: depression, anxiety, brain fog. But the root source was still psychological – usually trauma/stress, internalized fatphobia, or a mix of both.
Yes, the body shows those “unmistakable signs” because those are the effects of starvation. But the body doesn’t just start starving on its own; the cause of that (self-)starvation is psychologically driven. Otherwise, it’s probably something like a GI disorder or hormonal disorder that’s been misdiagnosed as an eating disorder. (Both of which an ED can cause.) I did not experience “appetite, energy, and sensory shifts” until after I’d already been intentionally restricting for some time, not before.
Additionally, the symptoms are not always “visibly physiological.” As I tried to make a point of in my essay, eating disorders do not have one “look”; you cannot tell whether someone has an eating disorder (or what type) by their weight or appearance.
I am saying this all as someone with lived experience, not as an “expert.” As I said to Dead soul, my psychology major actually had surprisingly little to do with the field of mental health; I don’t recall eating disorders – the subject of this article – being covered in any of my classes (though I’m sure we must’ve spent one or two slides on it at some point). All of the information in this article was gathered through my own lived experience. The reason I mentioned my degree was to establish the fact that I understand how to read research papers and interpret data – something that not everyone gets the opportunity to learn how to do – not to establish myself as some kind of “expert.” I do not (and never will) work for the mental health system.
However, I do not apologize for sounding polite or educated in my writing. Would you prefer if my writing was rude and sloppy? I worked very hard to make this piece as clear and articulate as I am capable of, and I am proud of the way it turned out. Additionally, intellectualizing is admittedly a bit of a coping strategy for me. It is something I tend to do when talking about topics that are difficult/vulnerable/personal to me, especially when I want to be taken seriously – which is honestly further “proof” of my survivorship (not that I should have to “prove” it to anyone) – yet I can see how that could come across like I’m some detached, out-of-touch intellectual who is just speaking from a place of “expertise.”
All of those were published before MIA knew I had a degree. In fact, 2 of them were published before I even had my degree. Again, I am not a psychiatrist, therapist, or doctor, and I do not claim to be an eating disorder “expert.” I only have a bachelor’s degree, like roughly 40% of other Americans.
If you would like any further explanation, I would suggest you read the thread between me and Dead soul, because I am too exhausted to repeat myself here.
But as for “representation,” I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but one of the groups this site lacks representation for most is eating disorder survivors! I bet you could find far more articles written by “non-expert” survivors than you could ED survivors, “expert” or not. This is part of what inspired me to begin writing for MIA in the first place; because I want to fill that void, to bring that representation to the table that I saw was lacking. By sharing my voice, I am not preventing anyone else from sharing theirs, but hopefully, inviting them to do the same. Nobody is stopping other ED sufferers or survivors from submitting a blog/personal story to MIA themselves. I am not in charge of who gets published or not, but I believe there is room for all of us at this table.
This is the last time I will be attempting to engage with you in this thread, as you do not seem to be making a good faith effort to engage with me. You are making a lot of unfounded assumptions about me by lumping me in with “them.” Even after my attempts to dispel your assumptions, it seems like you are doubling down.
I already explained the reason why I mentioned my degree. It is quite a minor detail, and I only briefly mentioned it once. Perhaps it was not relevant enough to include at all, as it did not really contribute much to the narrative. Or, perhaps you’re right; to a different audience member it could give my story more credibility in their eyes. I’m not saying that’s the way it should be – I agree, survivors should have credibility simply by virtue of being survivors – however, it might be true.
I don’t think I got published only because I mentioned my psychology degree, I think I got published because of the quality of my writing and my ideas. I find it quite insulting for you to suggest otherwise. This is my third publication on Mad in America, yet the first time I have ever mentioned having a psychology degree. If you think I only got published because MIA sees me as an “expert,” then how do you explain my previous two articles?
I was a victim of The System throughout almost my entire undergrad experience. I was brainwashed into believing that therapy & psychiatry were innately good, and I was the problem for not getting better. As soon as I woke up to the harms The System had caused me (and so many others), I specifically chose not to go to grad school to become a therapist, as had been my plan. Though my major felt like a waste, I was a second-semester senior by then and it was too late to change it. I am not evil for majoring in psych, nor for having wanted to become a therapist. I genuinely wanted to help people, and still do. I now plan to dedicate the rest of my life to peer support and advocacy.
I don’t necessarily agree with your statement that “social justice only happens when you get mean.” Even if that is true sometimes, I don’t think that all “getting mean” equal social justice. For example, I fear that you have accomplished the latter (being mean), in absence of the former (social justice) with your comments, which have honestly been hurtful. I think you’re directing your anger (however justified) at the wrong person – a person, in fact, who belongs to the group which you claim to advocate for. What does getting mean and angry towards a fellow survivor accomplish for our collective goal of social justice? I have been made to feel as though I don’t belong anywhere, and now – in the one place where I typically feel seen – I feel like I am being called an impostor. Undeserving. Taking up space that belongs to others. The MH System ruined my life, and I have nowhere to talk about it. Where am I supposed to go, if not here?
Look, I don’t have all the answers. You are asking a lot of big questions like I’m supposed to know or be responsible for it all somehow. Like some kind of “expert.” I’m just an ordinary gal trying to survive, I promise you. If I don’t pass your purity test, that’s fine. You don’t have to engage with my work. But I deserve to take up space here, and I will continue to share my voice. I am not preventing anyone else from sharing theirs, including you. Perhaps you could direct your energy into submitting your own blog/personal story.
Mad in America never claimed to be an exclusive “survivors-only” club. Let alone having to be the “right” kind of survivor. MIA welcomes all sorts of people sharing all sorts of views here, the only requirement being that they in some way ask us to rethink psychiatry. Not everyone here is an abolitionist. If MIA is not the space you’re looking for, that’s fine. Go elsewhere. Or create your own.
And for the record, I am a psychiatric abolitionist. Everything about my recovery is a form of resistance in line with my abolitionist principles. I do not in any way “depend on the system for survival.” I have set up my life so I don’t have to. I am neither a worker nor a consumer of The System, and I never will be again.
-Jasmine
P.S. If you actually care about getting to know me as an individual at all and engaging with my work in a respectful manner, then I suggest you go read my other two previously published articles. I think you’d find that we agree on more than you realize, and I actually don’t fit your stereotype at all.
I totally agree – it is backwards! As I was reading your advice, I thought to myself, “sounds exactly like what I’ve been doing…” and then I got to the last sentence of your comment, lol. Glad we’re on the same page!
I found the first part of your comment quite upsetting to be honest. I would like to clear some things up.
It seems as though you have assumed that my being an “expert” has given me some kind of platform to share my story of survivorship over “non-expert” survivors. As in, I get to share my voice quite often in other spaces, while “they” don’t. It also appears that you are operating under the assumption that my story being featured on a site like Mad in America – which is presumably intended to elevate the “underdog” voices – is crowding out other, more deserving voices. Am I correct in those observations?
First of all, your assumption that my psychology degree makes me “one of those experts” is incorrect. I do not work for The System. I am not a therapist, psychiatrist, or doctor. My highest level of education is a bachelor’s degree. I only mentioned my degree to establish the fact that I understand how to read research papers and interpret data – something that not everyone gets the opportunity to learn how to do. Would it have made a difference to you if my major was in, say, biology or anthropology instead? My psychology major actually had almost as little to do with the field of mental health as either of those majors. I don’t recall eating disorders – the subject of this article – being covered in any of my classes, though we might’ve spent one or two slides on it at some point. All of the information in this article was gathered through my own lived experience.
Secondly, your assumption that my being an “expert” gives me some platform from which to share my voice/story more than other “non-expert” survivors is also false. Mad in America is the only place I have publicly shared my story. I don’t have a large support system in my personal life either.
That all being said, I do not believe that someone’s credentials or vocation diminish their trauma, or make them a less “authentic” survivor.
I hope that you were at least able to engage with the humanity of my story, as well as the actual content of it, and look past your projections of who you think wrote it. As for the second part of your comment, I completely agree with everything you said. I just wish that you could’ve stated it without the need to undermine my survivorship.
Thank you for sharing, I’m glad my article resonated with you. I’m sorry for what has happened to your sibling. It is unfortunate that many doctors do not seem to take (unhealthy) weight loss seriously as a health issue.
Thank you for your kind words, Steve! I hope it resonates with whoever needs to hear it.
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@Silvia Price – Well, no kidding. Antidepressant drugs are known to cause metabolic abnormalities, and one can only be labeled “treatment resistant” if they have a substantial history of taking psychiatric drugs, so therefore it would make sense that nearly every person in that study would have a metabolic abnormality of some kind… caused by the drugs.
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Hi Laurie! Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful story. You have clearly gained so much insight & wisdom from your experiences that I’m sure many others can relate to & learn from as well!
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“Creativity abandons me”
“Medication that made my body no longer my own.”
“Make sure to budget for collapse.”
“You’ve suffered more than your body stood a chance to bear.”
Wow, this is all so relatable. The only part I can’t relate to is the happy ending of finally having your trauma named & acknowledged & validated. I must say, I’m a little jealous of that. Glad you got that, though. Everyone deserves it.
Thank you for writing this & sharing your experience.
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Hi Laurie!
Oh my gosh, I was just talking about you today! What a coincidence!
Thank you for taking the time to read my series. And yes, I’d love to get coffee soon — let’s get in touch!
-Jasmine
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Very ambiguous & misleading title!
I couldn’t tell whether “belief in a fair economy” meant “belief that the economy SHOULD be fair” or “belief that the CURRENT economy IS fair” until I read the article & realized it was the latter.
I also couldn’t tell if “linked to greater mental health stigma” meant “linked to HOLDING more stigmatizing beliefs” or “linked to being on the RECEIVING end of more stigma” — again, had to read the article to realize it was the former.
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Beautiful piece, Steve. Thank you so much for writing this heartfelt essay. Grief is definitely something that needs to be talked about & acknowledged more in our death-phobic, emotion-phobic society. But certainly not swept up under the ever-expanding umbrella of “mental health issues!”
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Kevin, thank you for this lovely response! I really appreciate your kind words & will try to take their message to heart.
I certainly will keep writing! I have already written a full-length poetry collection, as yet unpublished. (Apparently most publishers aren’t terribly enthusiastic to invest in a work that openly discusses suicidality & psychiatric abolition — who knew?!) I’m also thinking of writing a memoir one day, and perhaps some other non-fiction works on the MH system and/or eating “disorders.” I’ve always wanted to write at least one novel, too, ever since I was a kid. So I definitely have some ambitious dreams in that area! It’ll probably be decades before I’m able to accomplish all that, though…
In the meantime, I plan to continue submitting my writing to MIA occasionally. I have a substack as well, so you can follow me there if you want (it’s free!): https://substack.com/@madradrecoverybaddie
Again, thank you for taking the time to read this series, and I really appreciate your thoughtful comment! I hope it made a (positive) impact on you!
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John, thank you so much for these kind words! I really appreciate you taking the time to read my story & leave such a thoughtful comment.
Wow, it means a lot to me that you would pass along my work to your family & friends! I certainly hope I can help others feel less alone by giving voice to their experience; that is always one of my goals in sharing my writing & art. I hope to continue doing that for the rest of my life!
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Hi Birdsong, thank you for sharing that insight! I actually do agree somewhat, though in my opinion, intense spiritual experiences can certainly be transformative by prompting us towards that kind of change. But it is up to us to then carry out these newfound values in our daily lives through slow, gradual, grueling implementation. This is, of course, the less ‘glamorous’ part of healing/transformation.
Though I am quite familiar with that aspect of the process, that is not what I chose to write this piece about, nor the 3-part series of which it is a part, which is specifically meant to be about my experiences going on & off of medication. I did mention at the end of this piece (if you recall) that this was “only the beginning” and “the most difficult parts of my journey had yet to come.”
Perhaps one day I will write another piece about that — including the painstaking, day-by-day, bite-by-bite process of nursing myself back to health from near-starvation, the heartwrenching grief of peeling myself free from multiple abusive relationships one-by-one, the existential horror at unlearning almost everything I’d believed to be true about life, relationships, the world, society, myself, etc, and the humbling labor of rebuilding my entire life & identity brick-by-brick after ‘burning it all down.’ However, as I am still actively going through this process, it may be a long time before I am 1) ‘finished’ with it, whatever that means, and 2) ready to write about it for a public audience.
Though I never claimed to be a ‘perfect,’ spiritually enlightened being (nor will I ever be), and I am very fallibly human & still learning every day, I do think I’ve acquired quite a bit of wisdom through this process so far, and I look forward to sharing it one day. In the meantime, I would invite you to share your own personal story on MIA, as you seem so passionate about this subject matter! I would love to hear how you carry out those values you mentioned in your own life! Here is the link to their submissions page: https://www.madinamerica.com/submitting-personal-stories/
In summary, though I disagree with the notion that the intensity of a spiritual experience means nothing, I do agree that the (transformative) value of my experience wasn’t inherent, but what I chose to make of it. Which makes it a testament to my character, not to the experience itself.
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“Contrast”…? “Tone of my reply”…? I’m totally lost. Did I offend you in some way? I thought the tone of my replies has been respectful & honest. I still don’t understand what it has to do with the title of my piece. Besides, I think the content of my work matters more than the title I have chosen for it.
I won’t be responding to any further replies on this thread (for real this time). I don’t think the conversation is going anywhere productive at this point. To reiterate: I respect your beliefs & appreciate your perspective. I hope you found some value in reading my story.
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Tamar, first of all, thank you for your kind words!
So actually, I already wrote about (some of) my therapy experiences in my first article on MIA, which was published last year. Specifically, it is about my experience with eating disorder therapy.
You can find that here: https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/03/sick-enough-paradox-eating-disorder-treatment/
I have not written about my therapy experiences pre-psychiatrization, or the other therapies I received while psychiatrized. I do not wish to elaborate at this time.
In the pieces I’ve written, I’ve shared what I felt comfortable with, and what I felt was relevant to that part of my story. None of them are comprehensive accounts of my experiences with the mental health system.
It is very emotionally difficult to write pieces like this, digging up some of my most painful traumas for all the world to see, while also trying to craft a coherent, compelling narrative. I hope you can understand & respect that.
If I do write & publish another personal story about my therapy experiences in the future, it will be on my own accord. It will not be a part 4 of this series. I intentionally wrote this as a 3-part series.
I do not work for MIA or represent them in any way, so I can’t speak to your last comment. But like I said above, I have written about my experiences/criticisms of therapy on here before.
You can also find my other 2 articles below:
https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/08/narrative-reclamation/
https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/10/eating-disorders-where-madness-meets-medicalization/
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Thank you for your kind words, Lynne!!
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Birdsong, I do not understand what is “curious” about it at all. Having different spiritual beliefs than you does not negate the spirituality of my experience, nor does it contradict my title. My experiences, my beliefs, my narrative, and what I chose to title it, are not open to debate. I respect your beliefs, and I would appreciate it if you could respect mine. Let’s leave it at that.
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Birdsong, I am glad you found a worldview that resonates with you, regardless of whether you choose to label it as a “religion” or not. I’m not trying to split hairs over semantics, and I hope it didn’t come across that way. I think this conversation may be getting a little off-topic anyways, so I’m gonna end it here, but I’m genuinely happy for you for finding what works for you, and I respect the differences between our beliefs.
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Buddhism is widely recognized as a religion, even if you don’t personally see it that way. I’m glad you found Buddhism helpful for you. I did not necessarily find it helpful for me, but I appreciate & respect your perspective!
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Funny you mention it, I actually did take an Intro to Buddhism class in college as an elective. Unfortunately, it did not resonate with the headspace I was in at the time, and even caused further distress. I think this may be in part due to some of the therapy & self-help I’d experienced co-opted Buddhist teachings to fit a Western, medicalized framework. So I’m a bit traumatized by it! But I always try to keep an open mind about different ways of seeing the world (including religion), so I’m open to revisiting it in the future! And there are definitely aspects of it that I remember learning about that I do resonate with & appreciate.
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Thank you for your kind & thoughtful comment, Rosalee. And I am really glad that you resonated with my story & found value in it (though I’m obviously not glad that you went through something similar with psychiatry!). That’s part of why I decided to write this — to connect with others with similar experiences — so it means a lot to read comments like this.
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Aw, thank you, Steve!! I really appreciate it. This community means so much to me!
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Thank you, Dan! Me too!
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Thank you, Ruby, I really appreciate this comment. My purpose in writing this was not only to express these experiences for myself, but to reach others as well, so I’m glad I was able to do that for you.
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Thank you, Birdsong. Me too, honestly. Like I’d said in part 2, I’d lost all spiritual belief until this point, but going through this experience catalyzed a re-invention of myself & everything I believe in, including the divine.
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I’m curious what you mean by “negative emotion.” Why doesn’t this apply to “positive emotions” as well? Are people also “irrational” (whatever that means) in positive emotional states? Why or why not? Or maybe people are only “rational” when they are in a completely “neutral” mental state– neither positive nor negative?
Is is it really preferable that one is “brought up” out of the “negative emotion band” permanently? I certainly don’t think so.
And is the “biggest problem” truly when it motivates “criminal” behavior? Is lawful behavior always the same as moral behavior? (I don’t think so.) And are negative emotions always necessarily what motivates such behavior?
I know that’s a lot of questions, but your comment really got me thinking & raised some very interesting points.
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Thank you, Steve; I appreciate your compassion!
That’s a really good question. While I do wish I had been warned, I also don’t know if it would’ve made the experience itself much easier to bear. I mean, the pain of withdrawal itself couldn’t be prevented, though at least I wouldn’t’ve blamed myself for it so much, and that self-blame alone was the source of much of my suffering.
It’s hard to imagine my own experience having gone any differently, especially my journey in questioning & challenging psychiatry for myself. That couldn’t’ve happened if someone had warned me in advance. You’ll see what I mean in Part 3 (which is up now, by the way!).
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Thank you, Birdsong. It’s a kind of pain that’s difficult to describe.
Part 3 just went up this morning, by the way.
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Thank you so much, Ruby, I really appreciate it. It’s so difficult to even put what withdrawal is like into words — it seems to transcend the confines of language in many ways — but I’m glad I was able to do so in a way that resonated with your experience.
Part 3 just went up this morning if you want to read the rest!
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Hi, thank you for leaving this comment! I’m so sorry you had that experience. That’s ridiculous that the doctor tried to convince you that “psychosomatics” were separate from “psychiatry.” Sounds like he definitely didn’t know what he was talking about! I’m really glad you asserted yourself & didn’t fall for it though.
By the way, Parts 2 & 3 are up, if you want to continue reading! I hope you find value in those as well.
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Thank you so much for reading & leaving this kind & thoughtful reply, Rosalee. “Damned if you do damned if you don’t” definitely describes how I used to feel all the time. I hope you find value in Parts 2 & 3 as well.
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Thank you, Dan, I really appreciate this comment! Parts 2 & 3 are up now, if you wanna check them out!
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Thank you, I really appreciate hearing this kind of feedback. By telling my own story, I also hope to give voice to the stories of so many others.
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Hey Ann, for some reason my reply to you showed up at the bottom of the queue as an independent comment, instead of as a reply under your comment. Just wanted to let you know!
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Thank you so much for your kind & thoughtful comment, Ann. I’m really sorry you went through all that as well, and glad you seem to have found a way out.
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Thank you so much, Birdsong! I really appreciate your kind words & will try to take them to heart. It’s been a rough journey, and still isn’t over yet.
By the way, like I told Someone Else above, parts 2 & 3 should hopefully be going up sometime later this week, if you’re interested in hearing the rest.
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Thank you for your kind comment. I, too, resonate with song lyrics, and so I really appreciate you sharing those. Do you know the name of the song? I’d love to look it up.
By the way, there will be a part 2 & part 3 to this story, probably coming out sometime this week, so stay tuned for that!
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Thank you for your kind words, Steve! I always enjoy reading your insightful comments. I would also be interested to hear others’ experiences with this pattern, as it seems to be a common one (though not talked about nearly enough).
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Hi Gretchen,
Thank you for reading & thank you for your kind words!
Normally, I prefer to create my own artwork, but I didn’t have time on this one. So I told MIA my idea, and I believe they executed it using an AI program they typically use.
-Jasmine
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@Richard: And THIS formerly severely suicidal person found getting the hell away from psychiatry to be life-saving! Maybe THAT should be the standard treatment, eh?
But seriously, I have some food for thought for you. Barring eating “disorders” or substance use “disorders” (which are the only “mental illnesses” with direct medical consequences), name one “mental illness” that you can actually DIRECTLY die from. Technically the mortality rate of all “mental illnesses” should be zero, right? Because it’s not the “illness” itself that kills a person, it’s suicide (or other causes). But we don’t count suicides as part of the mortality rate for any other illness, do we? And if psychiatry is just like any other branch of medicine, then why do you think this is the case? For example, if a person labeled with depression kills themselves, we say the depression is what killed them & count that as part of depression’s mortality rate. But if a person with cancer kills themselves, we don’t say they died of cancer. We say they died by suicide. It’s not considered part of cancer’s mortality rate; that would be absurd. In fact, people might even say they died because they must’ve been “depressed” or had some other “mental illness” that was “undiagnosed” while they were alive. So why the double standard?
If “mental illnesses” were real, caused by biochemical malfunctions in the brain — what some consider to be the most important organ in the human body — you’d think there’d be a way to die of them DIRECTLY if left “untreated.” Why do you think there isn’t?
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There’s that False Equivalence logical fallacy again! Just because you can apply a certain argument to war, doesn’t mean you can apply the same argument to anything else labeled “barbaric.”
Let’s replace war with a different barbaric act. How about child abuse? Rape? Slavery? Lobotomy? Are those ever “just” or “necessary”? I would hope the only way you would consider answering that is with a resounding “OF COURSE NOT!” So just because you could argue that not all things considered “barbaric” are always bad, doesn’t mean that all things considered “barbaric” are NEVER bad. Would you say, “well war is considered ‘barbaric,’ but it is sometimes just or necessary, so therefore child abuse/rape/slavery/lobotomy is sometimes just & necessary, too”?? So then why would you apply that logic to ECT or other forms of “treatment”?
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All I’m hearing is “both sides, both sides!” There’s that Middle Ground Fallacy rearing its ugly head again!
Some issues don’t have two valid sides. Not everything is better in moderation.
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Okay, Richard, I was mostly with you in the beginning, right up until you said this: “Giving ECT to a floridly psychotic patient who has not benefited from meds is ethically defensible ( leaving aside the consent issue for the moment) if the primary intent is to improve the psychosis.”
Let’s break this down.
First of all, define “benefitted” and “improve.” According to whom? According to the patient? Because they’re the only one who should be deciding what “better” means to them. They’re the only one whose opinion matters in their own treatment. It doesn’t matter if you think they’re “crazy” or “incapable” or what. That’s just your editorial bias. Believe it or not, not everyone who hears voices or sees things others can’t wants to get rid of that. Some individuals find meaning or significance in these experiences. Others simply learn to live with it. These experiences are not INHERENTLY negative or destructive to all who have them.
Second of all, what do you mean “leaving the consent issue aside for the moment”? How can one EVER leave that aside?? I have no more words for that at the moment.
Moving on, you say, “The MIA report uses quotes in its report, which suggests a possible editorial bias rather than a more journalistic stance. I don’t think it’s out of line to use a term like treatment-resistant schizophrenia for someone who isn’t benefiting from reasonable and standard meds. If you don’t think schizophrenia exists, or that meds are appropriate ( if not coerced), then the quotes make sense, but you’re still putting your finger on the scale.” Interesting. So you don’t see that believing in “treatment-resistant schizophrenia” or “schizophrenia” or “meds” & using those terms without quotation marks is also a bias? You see that as inherently neutral, and anything that deviates from that default is “bias”? You don’t realize that the very concept of “schizophrenia” or “mental illness” or “treatment resistance” is NOT neutral, but a collection of politically weighty social constructs devised to uphold racism, misogyny, homophobia, ableism, and colonialism, both historically and present-day? That purporting these cultural ideas as objective facts & exporting them around the world is ITSELF a form of modern-day colonialism, eugenics, and cultural erasure?? Interesting.
Now onto what you said about ECT. Memory loss is not a rare side effect, it’s not only short-term, and it’s not the only side effect. In fact, even “side effect” is a misleading term. For any kind of psychiatric treatment — whether it’s drugs or a shock to the brain — there are no “side” effects, only effects. We’ve simply decided which of those effects are desirable or undesirable, but that doesn’t influence their probability of occurring. For example, according to some research, SSRI-induced sexual dysfunction is more common than the drug’s ability to relieve depression! But when it’s being prescribed as an “antidepressant,” we call sexual dysfunction a “side effect.” However, when it’s being prescribed “off-label” to treat premature ejaculation, we call elevated mood a potential “side effect.” Same drug, different framing. In fact, if you read Robert Whitaker’s “Anatomy of an Epidemic,” you’ll learn that most psychiatric drugs were originally designed to treat something else, before they observed elevated or calm mood as a “side effect” in a certain percentage of patients, and then they got the bright idea to repackage & market the very same drug as an “antidepressant” or “anti-anxiety medication.” Anyways, I digress. Basically, the same thing applies to ECT. Both memory loss & a reduction in “symptoms” are neither “side effects” nor “main effects,” they are simply potential effects. Lastly, please type “ECT” into the search bar of this site & read literally any article that comes up. I think that’ll change your view of it pretty quickly, if you’re open-minded & willing to have your view changed. I’ll link a few down below for your convenience:
https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/11/electroconvulsive-therapy-ect-its-not-just-the-memory-loss/
https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/08/ect-new-studies-detail-harms-lack-of-efficacy-lack-of-informed-consent/
https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/07/ect-proponents-deny-harms-as-the-tide-begins-to-shift/
https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/09/i-cant-remember-a-single-day-new-survey-shows-disastrous-memory-effects-of-ect/
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@Richard: Huh, that’s interesting. Maybe they weren’t sure what they were going to change it to yet. Well, now ya know what the new guidelines are, at least.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy reading the “Fuck Nuance” paper!
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Thank you for your reply. You’re right in that i was probably jumping to some conclusions in my critiques made above. I recognize that this is a relatively short piece focusing on one particular issue, and is therefore limited in scope, nor is it representative of your overall views. However, where are you getting the idea that you are limited to only 1200 words? I’ve seen you mention this at least twice now. As someone who’s written for MIA before, I can assure you that there is no submission type (that I’m aware of) that has an upper limit of 1200 words. In fact, even under the new guidelines, the submission type with the lowest MINIMUM requirement still has a lower limit of 1250 words. (If my memory is correct, the old guidelines were 1500-3500 words for all blogs/essays.) For blogs, you can write up to 2500 words, and for essays, up to 5000. Hopefully that helps so that in your next piece you won’t feel so rushed.
Here’s the up-to-date submission guidelines if you want to read the rest: https://www.madinamerica.com/submitting-a-blog/
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@Richard, I second what Steve says, and also wanted to add onto it. You’re approaching each “condition” as though it is the same problem & would therefore require the same solution, correct? Well, there are no “conditions” in psychiatry, only “syndromes.” By definition, every mental “disorder” in the DSM is a cluster of “symptoms,” not an explanation of their underlying “pathology.” That’s part of what makes “mental health” so fundamentally different from physical health. Surely, as a psychiatrist, you know this, right?
Okay, so Person A and Person B may both have the same “Condition X” — let’s say it’s depression. But they very well may have nothing in common beyond that. If the reason underlying Person A’s depression is a toxic workplace, and the reason underlying Person B’s depression is childhood trauma, do you really believe they both need the same treatment? Well, according to what you said above, they do, simply because they share a diagnosis! Let me go even more specific: Let’s say a new study comes out that says 70% of depression patients experienced improvement after quitting their current job, compared to 45% of those in the control group. (I’m keeping the numbers consistent for simplicity’s sake.) Well, that might make it the hottest new “evidence-based” treatment for depression! So as a psychiatrist with two patients presenting with depression, you would recommend both patients that treatment, since they share the same “condition,” right? But regardless of what the “evidence” shows, common sense tells us that that treatment is only going to work for one of those patients — Person A — because it directly addresses the cause of their depression, whereas it has nothing to do with the reasons for Person B’s depression! On the other hand, what if the “evidence-based treatment” in question is some form of trauma therapy or psychodynamic therapy? Well, in that case, it’s probably going to help Person B more than Person A, because it does nothing to help Person A’s ongoing workplace situation, which is the source of their distress.
I guess the only way one could honestly look at mental health & physical health in a comparative way is by recognizing that “mental health disorders” are SYMPTOMS, not diseases themselves. So one physical health ailment that might be comparable is a fever. A fever is not a “condition” in & of itself, it is a symptom that can have many underlying causes. It may actually inform very little about treatment. If you have two patients who both present with a fever, would you give them both antibiotics? What if one of them has a fever due to the flu, and the other has strep? Well, since strep is a bacterial infection, and the flu is a virus, antibiotics would only be effective in one of them, even though they may both have a fever & other overlapping symptoms.
Another physical symptom that could have many potential causes: abdominal pain. But what if we treated abdominal pain as a disorder itself? And what if we found that “Abdominal Pain Disorder” improves in X% of patients after removing their appendix? Are we gonna just go around giving everybody who has abdominal pain an appendectomy now? Well, it’s the “evidence-based treatment” after all! But obviously it’s only helping X% of patients because those were the percentage of patients whose abdominal pain was caused by appendicitis in the first place! What about the others? What about someone whose abdominal pain is caused by pregnancy? Menstrual cramps? Celiac disease? Or maybe they just had really bad gas? Well what if we found the most effective treatment for “Abdominal Pain Disorder” to be Gas-X? Should we just give all patients a prescription of Gas-X and send them on their way? I’m probably beating a dead horse at this point… you get the idea…
In summary, anything “mental health”-related is a SYMPTOM, not a “condition,” and symptoms, whether mental or physical, are signals that something is “off” in a person’s life or body. Treat people as individuals, not “disorders.”
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Thanks for your reply. I hope you enjoy reading the paper. I thought it was relevant because you mentioned the need for “nuance” and “shades of gray” (especially in your analysis of critical psychiatry).
If your essay were only about groupthink, and how it can become a problem in any or all groups if left unchecked, then I would totally be on the same page as you. However, you appear to be saying & implying a lot more than just that.
I’ll elaborate a bit on those 3 fallacies and where I found them in your essay.
1. Middle ground fallacy — “Both mainstream psychiatry and critical psychiatry are missing possible chances to find some common ground.” … “Both are partially right. Both should correct each other’s excesses without invalidating everything the other believes.”
Though you don’t use the word “middle ground” specifically, you are alluding to it with words like “common ground” and “correct each other’s excesses.” The underlying premise of the middle ground fallacy is the notion that the truth/ best possible solution must always lie in the middle of two extremes or opposing positions, ignoring the possibility that one or both sides may be entirely correct or entirely incorrect.
2. Straw man fallacy — “[Groupthink in critical psychiatry] can lead to absolute judgments about mainstream psychiatry, such as ‘medication is always bad,’ ‘no diagnosis has any validity,’ or ‘all psychiatrists are manipulated by drug companies.'”
It’s easy to dismiss an argument if you put it in such black-and-white terms: “always,” “never,” “all,” etc. I rarely, if ever, hear critics of psychiatry making such statements seriously. Most of us acknowledge that SOME people may feel helped by medication, not ALL psychiatrists are evil, etc. However, I would have to disagree with your portrayal of “no diagnosis has any validity” as a false statement. If we’re talking about scientific validity, that is simply true. If we’re talking about some other type of validity, then I don’t even know what you mean by that.
3. False equivalence — “Similar to how mainstream psychiatry often views critical psychiatry as having little merit and can’t or doesn’t ‘understand the full picture,’ it’s also true that some within the critical psychiatry world see mainstream psychiatry as without merit, harmful, evil, greedy, and acting with no scientific or other basis for what it does.” … “Although there’s no way to measure which group’s groupthink is more problematic, fairness calls for critical psychiatry to look inward if we’re going to demand that of mainstream psychiatry.” … “How powerful these forces are is open to debate, but to say they’re nonexistent would be akin to saying they don’t occur in mainstream psychiatry.”
Comparing mainstream psychiatry’s pitfalls to critical psychiatry’s pitfalls is like comparing apples to oranges. First of all, without acknowledging the institutional power that mainstream psychiatry holds over critical psychiatry, you’re inherently tipping the scales in mainstream psychiatry’s favor, portraying both sides as “equal” when that is not the case at all. It’s a bit absurd to claim that “there’s no way to measure which group’s groupthink is more problematic,” and that “how powerful these forces are is open to debate” when one side CLEARLY has more social & economic leverage than the other, and thus, more widespread harms.
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The first things this piece brought to mind for me were these three logical fallacies:
1. The middle ground fallacy
2. Attacking a straw man fallacy
3. False equivalency
Also this sociology paper titled “Fuck Nuance” (Healy, K., 2017)– yes that’s literally its name– and a video essay that references it: https://youtu.be/f9CMRMg0zjY?si=Piw3fx48TTvwP5Kg
I highly recommend reading and/or watching those if you’re bored and have 45+ minutes to spare.
Anyways, I have a lot more thoughts on this piece… not sure if it’s worth my time to share them all here though. I might have more to say later, might not, we’ll see.
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How is that any better than using antipsychotics, like the article was talking about?
I especially take issue with the notion that the purpose of these medications isn’t for the benefit or “peace of mind” of the patient, but the staff. The “peace” it brings the patient is only by putting them at lower risk of maltreatment by inadequately trained staff who do not know how to understand or respond to behavioral issues in someone with dementia.
This sort of thing isn’t exclusive to elderly care homes, it also happens in the foster system, psych wards, the education system, and in dysfunctional families. It’s not about helping the person in distress or “acting out,” it’s about making them more convenient & palatable for those around them.
If someone’s kindness towards me is contingent on them drugging me into sedated oblivion so that I’m nice & “manageable” for them, then we have much deeper problems in our society.
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@Steve – Good point about the antidepressant studies! I didn’t even think of that!
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I know this is an old comment and the likelihood that this will be seen is low, but I just wanted to chime in here & say that I really disagree with this framing & can provide several counterexamples which could not be explained by it.
First of all, I’ve heard this before — that antidepressants “don’t cause suicide” and the only reason why they may “appear” that they do is through the same mechanism of action by which they make someone “anti-depressed”: they simply “increase motivation.” This is, in my humble opinion, boloney. From my personal lived experience, I felt less motivated than ever on antidepressants. I felt numb & dull & uncreative & had no desire or motivation to do anything. THIS was a contributing factor to my suicidality, because it was a miserable way to live!!
Second of all, if it were true that antidepressants don’t cause suicide, they just enable it by motivating pre-existing suicidal feelings into action, then how do you explain people who have no history of suicidal ideation whatsoever & then kill themselves after being on an antidepressant for a couple weeks? Especially when it’s prescribed off-label, because then you can’t say, “well it was just their underlying depression.”
Third & finally, what about suicides caused by the withdrawal effects? Many people don’t attempt suicide while on the drugs, but right after going off of them. This cannot be explained away by the drug’s “motivating” effect– the drug is no longer in their body. It’s clearly an effect of the withdrawals.
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As much as I love seeing alternatives to the drug-based approach, there is one caveat I want to add here based on my own lived experience. Hopefully this won’t come across as a re-enactment of the “bean soup” video, but I have a feeling I’m not the only one out there who feels this way, so I’m just gonna share my perspective.
As an eating disorder survivor, I cringe a bit every time I see a headline about exercise as a treatment for depression because of the things that I was told during my own struggle with these so-called mental “disorders.” When I would go in for my depression/anxiety checkups, my doctor or psychiatrist would often ask me if I was exercising, or encourage me to exercise. They didn’t consider the idea that exercise could be part of the problem in my case– and in the case of many eating disorder patients. I was already exercising 1-2 hours per day, nearly every day, on top of eating very little. This combination of undernutrition & overexertion was contributing to my mental distress, which they were busy trying to treat with drugs for a fictitious “chemical imbalance” I didn’t have. Yet I kept hearing “keep exercising” or “exercise more.” This was VERY HARMFUL!!! I don’t think I can emphasize enough how harmful it was.
So no, exercise is not “virtually risk-free” for everyone. I think it is very important to consider how much a person is ALREADY exercising, whether they are eating enough, and if they have a past or current eating disorder. This may sound like a very niche issue to some, but I think it’s important to discuss, because so many people with eating disorders end up with a dual-diagnosis of depression/anxiety, or vice versa. It’s not as rare as people think.
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Exactly. The right is very unlikely to associate itself with anything to be labeled as “social justice.” Reminds me of this article: https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/07/psychiatry-criticism-politics-when-the-enemy-of-your-enemy-is-not-your-friend/
The left, on the other hand, is deluded into believing that promoting “mental health treatment” IS social justice. It’s seen as the de facto “compassionate” stance. After all, who could be against “mental health,” right?
All of which reminds me of this article (coincidentally written by the same author): https://www.madinamerica.com/2026/01/psychiatrys-rightwing-and-progressive-bigotries-how-each-enables-the-megamachine/
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@Birdsong, I would say it sounds like we’re mostly on the same page then!
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I’m not saying it never happens. Some hurt people go on to hurt others. Some don’t. And many people who hurt others are not doing so because they were/are hurt themselves. I think it’s a myth that abuse (always) causes people to become abusive, or that (all) abusers were abused.
As Steve said, abusing others is always a choice.
Trust me, anyone who knows me would tell you that I’m not a person who assumes the worst of others. Quite the opposite, actually. (Sometimes to my own detriment.)
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Yeah, maybe “happy” isn’t quite the right word, but I think we’re on the same page here. 100% agree!!
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Exactly. This is why I can’t really get behind sayings like “hurt people hurt people” or “all abusers were once abused themselves” or “you know they’re only acting that way because they’re insecure/miserable with their own life.” Like, no actually, they’re not the secret underdog/victim here! They’re feeling pretty damn good about themselves & that’s why they feel entitled to treat other people like shit! They’re pretty happy & satisfied with the status quo. Though it may be a superficial kind of happiness because they’ve severed themselves from the part of their humanity that is capable of experiencing deep joy & love, and their “satisfaction” may come at the cost of never TRULY being satisfied with anything because nothing’s EVER enough for them– but still, that doesn’t make them the secret victim of it all somehow!!
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That’s fair. Well, I definitely hope you’re right! Maybe we can organize a movement & try to make anti-psychiatry go viral…
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Wow, this is one of the best articles I’ve read on here in a while. This really helps answer that question so many of us have: Why do most self-proclaimed “liberals”/”progressives”/”leftists” endorse psychiatry & misunderstand the psych abolition movement, when they so aptly recognize other human rights violations & stand against THOSE forms of oppression & support THOSE social justice movements? Why aren’t they able to see the parallels? It make me think of the prison abolition movement & how so many supporters believe in “increased access to mental healthcare” as an alternative to the prison industrial complex, totally oblivious to the realities of the mental health industrial complex.
My only concern is that the conclusion of this article makes it sound kind of hopeless. Like every megamachine or oppressive system will one day be replaced by another, so there’s no use in even fighting it. I don’t believe that. Mostly because I don’t WANT to believe that. I’m sure many would call me naive or idealistic. But I think we can do better. How will we know until we try?
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That’s kind of ironic. If anything it seems like psychiatry has taken advantage of the internet to spread its propaganda even faster. Have you seen what’s been going on over on TikTok & Instagram for the past few years? It’s not the anti-psychiatry movement that’s spreading like wildfire, that’s for sure…
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The reason why I call it professional gaslighting is because the entire premise of CBT is that your thoughts & feelings are out of alignment with reality & therefore need to be “corrected”. The literal definition of gaslighting is “causing someone to question or doubt their own perceptions, feelings, powers of reasoning, or sanity, often leading to dependency on the perpetrator over time.” It can include tactics such as psychological manipulation, denial, trivializing feelings, and blame-shifting.
So let’s break it down: How is CBT a form of gaslighting? Well, first of all, by labeling a client “mentally ill” in the first place, you are causing them to doubt their own sanity. The “perpetrator” in this case is the therapist, and by telling the client not to trust their own thoughts, they render the client dependent on them (the therapist) to tell them (the client) what reality is. As a professional, licensed by the state, they get to be the authority on what reality is & isn’t, while you, the “mentally ill” client are deemed an inherently unreliable narrator or reality. Huge power imbalances like these are practically a set-up for abuse.
You said CBT has been “…[proven] effective for conditions like depression, anxiety, PTSD…” I would like to challenge your conception of these as “disorders.” There is no such thing as a brain-based “illness” such as depression, anxiety, or any other so-called “disorder.” If someone is feeling anxious or depressed, it’s most likely directly caused by things objectively going on in their life. To imply that their “depression” or “anxiety” “disorders” are simply a result of their own “maladaptive” thinking is both absurd & cruel, denying the objective reality of their external circumstances.
Let me give some examples:
– a LGBT+ teenager who is “depressed” because they are being bullied at school
– a single mom who has “anxiety” because she’s working 3 jobs just to pay the bills, and never gets to spend time with her kids
– a woman surviving domestic violence who has been labeled with “bipolar”
Do you think these individuals are truly “mentally ill” & just need to change their thinking? Are their thoughts & feelings actually “maladaptive” or “unhealthy” or even “inaccurate”? Or are they a reflection of their current reality? Would it even be ethical to ask these individuals to change their thinking to better adapt to the abuse, rather than working to stop the abuse and/or help them escape? This applies to systemic issues as well– instead of working to end systemic oppression (e.g. homophobia, transphobia, class oppression, misogyny), we apply a “bootstraps mentality” of victim-blaming & hyper individualism, where individuals are blamed for their circumstances & told that their only obstacle is from within.
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I think there’s a fine line between challenging pathologizing language and splitting hairs over semantics. True, ‘addiction’ is a label. ‘Drug use’ is also a label. ‘Tall’ and ‘short’ are labels; so is ‘young’/’old,’ ‘asleep’/’awake,’ and ‘apple’/’orange.’ Because ALL words are labels. That does not diminish their usefulness, or the realness of the things they are meant to represent. You could call it ‘addiction’ or ‘drug use’ or ‘behavior’ or ‘purple people eater syndrome’ if you want; as long as you are referring to the same phenomenon, it doesn’t matter what words you use. ‘A rose by any other name’ and all that. And this thing we call ‘addiction’ or ‘drug use’ undeniably is a real phenomenon. It’s more than just a label, and it’s more than just a behavior or choice, because chemical dependency & psychosocial factors influence a person’s behaviors/choices in ways beyond their direct control.
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Hey Robert,
I was thinking of you & your story when youtube decided to suddenly show me this video! It’s only about a minute long, and I wanted to share it with you & others here because you might relate to this person’s experience with kinds of attitudes & beliefs people hold about “schizophrenia.”
https://youtube.com/shorts/o0HMBTB1Ksg?si=U3UCleHtGm4PfxoW
Thanks,
Jasmine
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Thanks, Steve, this is exactly what I was trying to communicate!
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Yes, absolutely. I think we have that in common!
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Thank you Joel! Your comment made me smile!
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Robert, I do not know if it’s true that having an eating disorder is not as dreadful as having schizophrenia. I haven’t had both experiences, and I don’t think it’s worth arguing who “has it the worst.” I will say that being LABELED with an eating disorder is probably not as dreadful as being LABELED with schizophrenia. I already acknowledged that schizophrenia is far more stigmatized — arguably the most stigmatized among all psychiatric labels — yet I refuse to pretend like eating disorders are not stigmatized at all. Or that they cannot be as traumatic or potentially life-ruining (and health-ruining).
I do not recall if anyone’s ever said it directly to my face, but I’ve definitely heard people say things like eating disorders aren’t real, or that people with EDs are just faking/making it up for attention, or just fundamentally misunderstand what EDs even are. People have said to my face that they don’t think MY eating disorder is real, that I don’t really have one, including doctors. I’ve also been praised by others for being “healthy” when I was literally starving myself to the point that my hair was falling out and my bones were showing.
Trust me, it’s pretty dreadful to be pondering your own mortality at 22 years old when suddenly realizing that you don’t actually want to die once you fear it might be too late. It’s pretty dreadful to be now 24 years old and still partially disabled by the damage your eating disorder has left on your body.
Again, I don’t want to compare experiences, but I also refuse to downplay mine. You seem very self-assured in asserting that eating disorders aren’t as bad despite admitting to know nothing about them. I personally can’t imagine being that confident in making assertions about something I know nothing about, let alone assertions that compare/downplay someone else’s experience. Perhaps you could read my personal story or other ED articles, like I’d suggested, for a better understanding.
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Christine, I’m so sorry you went through that, and I didn’t mean to raise any triggers for you. Like I said, I definitely agree that there are people who are falsely/unfairly labeled “manipulative,” and it sounds like you’ve been one of them. I have been too, and I can actually relate to aspects of your story. It sounds like your abuser was the real manipulative one there! Again, I’m so sorry you went through all that.
I hope you had a nice time at the conference! Sounds very cool!
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@Joanna, I can see where the misunderstanding might’ve come from in my earlier comment. What I meant was that I don’t believe eating disorders are “mental illnesses,” like so-called “schizophrenia,” and I don’t think they are caused by brain disorders. Not that I don’t think eating disorders are real. The set of experiences and behaviors that we label as “eating disorders” in our society are certainly real.
Btw, I was antipsychotics (or “neuroleptics” as you call them) as well, even though I didn’t have psychosis or a schizophrenia diagnosis. They were prescribed to me “off-label.” So I am quite personally familiar with the harms.
I also agree with what you said above regarding everyone’s right to interpret and/or label their own experiences as they wish. And I disagreed with other commenters who were criticizing Robert as well.
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@Joanna: By the way, I realized that I didn’t respond to the part of your comment about psychosis vs schizophrenia. I want to clarify that I’m not denying the existence of the experience of what is called “psychosis.” That is very real and I know many people experience it. I simply don’t agree that it is an “illness” or even a “disorder.” I also don’t believe in dividing mental states into a “normal” vs “abnormal” binary; I simply see it as all part of the continuum of human experiences (including those brought on by trauma). Of course, you’re entitled to frame your own experiences however you want.
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Exactly! Not to mention that diet culture promotes a super fucked up idea of what “healthy eating” is, so many eating disorder behaviors are normalized and seen as “healthy.” Ya wanna know how many times I was praised or even envied for being “healthy” during my anorexia? More times than I can count!
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Robert, I will not deny that schizophrenia is more stigmatized than eating disorders. In fact, I think schizophrenia is arguably the most stigmatized of any psychiatric label. But I think a lot of your other assertions about eating disorders are false, and quite frankly, rather offensive.
You say that “an eating disorder is not so frightening.” Did you know that eating disorders have the second highest mortality rate (just behind opiate addiction) out of all psychiatric diagnoses? Did you know that every 52 minutes 1 person dies as a direct consequence of an eating disorder? As someone who nearly starved myself to death just over 2 years ago, I can assure you that eating disorders can be absolutely terrifying.
As someone with lived experience with an eating disorder, the solution is NOT that simple, though it may SEEM simple to someone who has never had an ED & doesn’t know much about them. Eating disorders can stem from complex trauma, fatphobia/diet culture, and a myriad of other factors. They are often a way of coping with immense emotional distress — like substance use or self-harm — and therefore it’s not that “simple” to “just stop.” It’s not about “learning to eat a healthy diet” either — in fact, many eating disorders actually stem from an obsession with eating “healthy.” Furthermore, after starving myself for years, there are physiological effects that do not go away overnight. One such effect is that your digestive system literally atrophies from underuse & malnutrition, making eating & digesting extremely physically painful. I’m still dealing with these effects over 2 years into recovery.
Even though (like I said) eating disorders are not as badly stigmatized as schizophrenia, they are still very VERY stigmatized. Depending on how outwardly visible your ED symptoms are (not everyone’s are), there is a high chance that you’d be judged on appearances alone at a job interview without even having to disclose the fact that you have an eating disorder. This could definitely impact someone’s ability to get a job. A lot of people hold harmful biases about people with eating disorders, including that we are “unstable,” “fragile,” “attention-seeking,” and less capable and less competent.
Additionally, eating disorders rarely happen in isolation, so they are often accompanied by trauma histories, self-harm, suicidality, substance use, and other psychiatric labels — all of which carry their own set of stigmas. Carceral psychiatric intervention is quite common in eating disorder treatment, similar to schizophrenia, and because of their medical complications, forced medical interventions may occur as well. All of this can result in spotty work histories from being in and out of hospitals or treatment centers.
I personally never went inpatient or residential (largely because my family could not realistically afford it), but I still experienced trauma as a result of the eating disorder treatment I had. I was coerced into taking multiple psychiatric drugs, including antipsychotics, and I had to fight to break free of psychiatry’s grasp & recover on my own.
Please be mindful next time before you make assumptions about other peoples’ psychiatric labels or experiences that you may be less familiar with. I don’t hold it against you, but I did find your comment really insensitive and minimizing of what I’ve been through. I was hoping a fellow psychiatric survivor would be more understanding.
If you want to learn more about eating disorders, I’d recommend you read my personal story, or one of the other articles I’ve written on here. Perhaps that will help you gain some perspective on these issues.
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Joanna, I find your reply rather offensive. I don’t need someone to tell me that “there are really people who starve themselves/make themselves throw up/etc.” It feels like you think I am ignorant and do not know what eating disorders are. I don’t just know about them; I have lived them.
They are not “clearly” disorders any more than any other so-called “disorder.” Are they behaviorally normative? No. Are they physically healthy? No. But does that mean they are brain diseases? Also no.
Similar to “schizophrenia,” many people do believe that eating disorders are lifelong & incurable, especially after one or more “failed” recovery attempts. It’s probably not as bad as the stereotypes about “schizophrenia,” yet there is still a lot of stigma and pessimistic assumptions about prognosis.
I’d recommend that maybe you read one of the articles I’ve written on this site about eating disorders to help you gain a better understanding. Then maybe you’d realize that they’re not “mental disorders,” and are indeed reactions to trauma/distress, much like other so-called “mental illnesses.”
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@Steve, Thanks for adding that, that’s part of what I was trying to convey. You put it into words.
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Christine, I didn’t ignore it, and I don’t disbelieve you or think it’s unimportant. I wrote a pretty long reply, and I couldn’t cover everything. I agree that an extreme increase in emotional “baggage,” as you call it, would intensify emotions & thoughts. But I thought we were talking about behaviors? Specifically abusive/narcissistic behaviors? Sure, our emotions/thoughts may affect or motivate our behaviors, but they are still a separate category.
I have my own lived experience too, as does nearly everyone here. I, too, have experienced extreme emotional distress and had to figure it out for myself, since the “professionals” and their “books” messed me up even more. I think we’re on the same page more than you realize. Basically what it comes down to is “everyone’s experience is different,” as I tried to convey before, and I think we are simply coming at the same idea from different perspectives.
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From what I’ve seen, the “emotional baggage” and “insecure bully” narratives are wayy more predominant in psychology, psychoanalysis, and society in general; my theory is presenting more of a challenge to those dominant ideas. I just mentioned the class/research to show that I’m not making this up out of nowhere — not to undermine my argument by aligning it with mainstream psychology.
The first thing I’ll say is that neither your experience nor my theory is going to singlehandedly account for every individual’s experience. I’m sure that what you’re saying is sometimes true (as it was for you & your friend). I’m also sure that what I’m saying is sometimes true. So we’re both right, in a way.
However, I also think there’s a difference between crisis/trauma response and actual abusiveness. I think our differences of opinion can be explained by the fact that you’re describing the former while I’m describing the latter. The behavior may look the same on the surface, but context, motivations, and overarching patterns may differ. For example:
– Traumatized response: Lashes out when feeling powerless & out of control.
– Abusive behavior: Lashes out to assert power & control over others.
– Traumatized response: Needs to prevent their autonomy from being taken away again.
– Abusive behavior: Needs to take away others’ autonomy.
– Traumatized response: Anger/superiority/etc is a method of self-defense.
– Abusive behavior: Anger/superiority/etc is a method of domination.
I also want to clarify that there are many ways for a behavior to be learned. Being taught that one is superior by being treated as superior is only one way. However, behavioral modeling is another way behavior can be learned– and this can be witnessed second-hand. For example, perhaps an abused child doesn’t grow up to feel superior or narcissistic because they were “taught” to; perhaps they learn from their environment or from society that those kinds of attitudes/behaviors will earn them power, admiration, safety, control, etc.
Forgive me for citing another psychological study, but it reminds me of the famous Bobo doll experiment. The children didn’t beat up on the Bobo dolls because they were abused or emotionally repressed, nor did they do it because they were taught to feel superior. They did it simply because they saw the adults do it first and learned to model their behavior.
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Joanna, my confusion/curiosity is not due to a lack of understanding. I understand that there is no convincing proof that “schizophrenia” is a mental “illness,” or even exists at all. But that is not unique to “schizophrenia”; it is true of all so-called “mental illnesses.” Including eating “disorders.” I was pointing out the double standard.
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I don’t know if this comment will ever be read/seen, since this is now a relatively old post, but it suddenly occurred to me that no one here on MIA has ever taken issue with my choice to self-identify as someone with an eating disorder the way that commenters here have taken issue with Robert’s choice to self-identify as someone with schizophrenia. I wonder why that is.
–Jasmine
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You’re literally just describing CBT. (Or as I like to call it, “professional gaslighting”…)
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@Birdsong: I hear you, but sometimes I get tired of always “looking within” & relying on self-care, self-compassion, self-understanding… I think it’s reasonable to want (and need) some of it to come from other people; we are social creatures after all. Though I agree, therapists are not the way to go!
This reminds me of this really relatable article from a few years ago: https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/05/we-do-not-have-everything-we-need/#
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@Steve: Gotcha, thanks for articulating that! Just to clarify, I still think it’s a really important skill/mindset to have and don’t want to discount that!
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All good points, Steve! Thanks for adding on!
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Hey Steve, I think one’s ability to “screen for” such qualities can be a valuable skill, as much as a luxury that many cannot afford. I first started therapy as a teenager, so my mother selected my therapist(s) for me. As a minor, I didn’t get a choice in the matter, and even once I was older & in college, my autonomy was limited as long as my parents held the purse strings. In addition, sometimes the very reasons that bring someone to therapy can be the reasons that they fall victim to the potential abuses of therapy. Pretty much every relationship & setting in my life up to that point had conditioned me to “perform” & worry about keeping the other person happy/satisfied. It was the only dynamic I’d ever known; how could I have known to look for something different?
I know your comment wasn’t making a personal judgment of me or anything, but I just wanted to use my own experiences as an example to add another dimension of nuance 🙂
I completely agree with the latter part of what you said! Anyone can provide a “therapeutic” conversation– as long as they know how to listen– no special qualifications required. But that key caveat: as long as they know how to listen… many unfortunately don’t.
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Hi Christine,
I think what you’re describing definitely can & does happen, and I think that the recent explosion of pop-therapy jargon around “narcissists” has contributed to this problematic usage.
However, I’ve also seen “narcissist” used in a vastly different context, where it is describing a pattern of abusive/exploitative behavior marked by self-centeredness. To me, this is not saying it is “innate” any more than calling someone an abuser implies innateness. Much like “abuser,” “narcissist” (in this context) is not a permanent label so much as a descriptor calling out harmful behavior. It’s not “scapegoating” if the blame is justified. I mean, I don’t think people should also stop calling abusive people “abusers” because it might hurt their feelings!
Whether a “narcissist” or “abuser” is created through mistreatment or social outcasting is a whole nother conversation. If society is “stigmatizing” them for abuses they have already committed… well then, I think you’d be confusing cause & effect in that case. But if you’re saying that being abused/mistreated causes people to become abusive/mistreat others– which is a popular idea– I’d have to disagree. I don’t think abusers/narcissists are created by being told they are less than others; I think they are created by being taught they are superior to others & thus entitled to impose their will on others. The “insecure bully” explanation makes for a nice story, but I remember learning in a college psychology class that it is actually a myth; research has shown that bullies demonstrate much higher levels of self-esteem, on average.
(Real life example: Donald Trump. Or literally any billionaire. They are arguably the biggest abusers/exploiters/narcissists on the planet. Do we really think that’s because they were the most mistreated/excluded in childhood? Or because they were raised to think they’re better than everyone else & entitled to impose their will at all costs?)
On the other hand, genuinely unjustified scapegoating & mislabeling of victims as “narcissists” is definitely a thing that happens. However, I think of it as being similar to how labels like “manipulative” often get falsely applied to folks in emotional distress/crisis. Though this is wrong & harmful in these cases, there is also a real such thing as manipulative behavior, and I don’t think the solution is to say that nobody is ever manipulative, or that we should all stop saying “manipulative” altogether.
–Jasmine
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Yeah, I felt like I was always “performing” in therapy. Like I was being graded & had to get an “A”. Maybe similar to what you’re describing as feeling like a circus animal.
Honesty, empathy, humanity, understanding– I completely agree. Those things can be hard to come by in our culture though.
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Hey Steve, that wasn’t my intention. Sorry if it was getting off-topic. I was just saying I agreed with Birdsong for the most part, yet I can also see what Olga was getting at by trying to make the distinction. I was in no way trying to compare one to the other as better/worse! They obviously both suck!
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Clarification: I understand the distinction between “trauma” and “abuse” in the context of Olga’s argument in the video, and I agree with the gist of what she’s saying in that regard, but I simply define those words differently for myself.
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Hi Birdsong,
I’m really curious to hear more about your thoughts on peer support work, if you are willing to share. I definitely agree when it comes to peer support work that happens within the system, and how it becomes co-opted by the system (as was mentioned in the video), but I also know of peer respites and other peer support organizations that are not connected to the psychiatric system (as Olga identified herself as belonging to) — except perhaps by channeling people *away* from it. What do you think of those? What would you suggest is a better way to build alternatives to psychiatry?
-Jasmine
P.S. I also disagree with the supposed distinctions between “trauma” and “abuse”. To the body/nervous system, they’re virtually the same. The distinction is a semantic one, not a somatic one.
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Birdsong,
I completely agree — I know from experience! Being able to do that was what made me “good at” therapy, yet prevented me from actually healing.
-Jasmine
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This article is fine, but nothing revolutionary for MIA. Perhaps the target audience is someone a bit newer here than I am.
The author presents people’s experiences within the mental health system in a binary way: Either you went the therapy route, or you went the medication route. The implication being that those who went the medication route were never offered therapy, and thus wound up feeling as though they had no control or responsibility for their recovery outcomes. However, the reality is that there is so much crossover, and many of us who were harmed by psychiatric drugging did try therapy first and/or were continuing to go to therapy while on meds.
As for the author’s perspective on therapy, I’m glad he had a good experience. But that is certainly not everyone’s experience. Therapy can do harm as well. It can also disempower, encourage emotional suppression, and make people feel “broken.”
Also, I understand that maybe it wasn’t the main focus of the essay, but Sal’s story sounds a little too good to be true. So he stopped psychiatric drugs cold turkey and didn’t experience any withdrawals? And all it took was one youtube video to convince him? And if his depression was “spurred by life events,” as the author aptly notes, it makes me wonder what they were, and if/how Sal was able to work through them. Surely it wasn’t instantaneous as the author portrays it.
Of course, different words mean different things to different people, but to me, the word “control” in the context of recovery — such as “He could control his own outlook,” and “Sal regained control” — has a connotation of suppression or domination through sheer willpower. In many ways, recovery is often about relinquishing control. Psychiatry (and therapy in my experience) is the one that teaches us our emotions are something to be “controlled.” Perhaps “agency” or “free will” would be a better word choice.
I hope I don’t sound overly critical; I agree with much of what this article has to say. We absolutely DO need a culture that embraces emotion instead of numbing it!
The author sounds very earnest, passionate & young. (Though I am close in age myself, I feel much older because I’ve been through a shitstorm.) I’m sure his ideas will develop & mature with experience. Best of luck to him!
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Freya,
Research & statistics reflect population averages, not individual experiences. I’m not necessarily talking about the poorest of the poor. Not everyone who is, say, middle class or above survives the mental health system. Not everyone who had “access” to the same “choices” or “resources” as a survivor did ends up surviving themselves. Does agency count for nothing, in your opinion?
You said earlier that “Having pride in our survival is understandable but ignores and excludes those who failed to survive.” First of all, that’s simply not true. At the last Mad Pride event I went to, a large part of the time was spent commemorating a member of the local Mad community who had just been shot and killed in his own home the week before. There was a memorial tent set up where people could mourn the loss of his & others’ lives. I think there is definitely a place for grief & remembrance of those who’ve been lost to psychiatry in the context of Mad Pride; they’re not mutually exclusive.
Second of all, the notion that we shouldn’t do anything that those with the least amount of “privilege” wouldn’t be able to participate in because it would be “excluding” them sounds a little absurd when the “un-privileged” in question are literal dead people. I mean, there’s not much that *doesn’t* exclude them.
You said that “Talking about survival as if it was a choice is pretty insensitive in my opinion.” Of course it’s more than “just a choice.” I don’t think any of us are in disagreement on that. But to me, it’s just as insensitive to discount a person’s survival and chalk it all up to mere “luck.” You also said, “As hard as your struggle has been, you were able to make the choice…” Ah, but there’s the key. Not everyone who is “able” to make that choice *does.* A lot of people give up. That is not to “victim-blame” anyone. But I think we survivors deserve to take some credit for our resilience, after all the world has taken from us. “those of us who have survived… no matter how hard we feel we have it, are just lucky…” That little word “just” reads as inherently discrediting & invalidating. Again, not everyone even with the same amount of “luck” or “privilege” would’ve survived similar circumstances.
I recently read the book “The Perils of ‘Privilege’: Why Injustice Can’t Be Solved by Accusing Others of Advantage” by Phoebe Maltz-Bovy, and I highly recommend it. Here’s a relevant quote: “The biggest glitch in the privilege framework is the it-could-be-worse component… this supposedly hypersensitive way of looking at the world manages to be incredibly dismissive of any plight that isn’t quite as bad as another.”
-Jasmine
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*Sorry, I meant 9 years, not 11 years in my comment above.
Btw, this is a great video on the topic if you have 30 minutes to spare: https://youtu.be/S2OjueAZGFo?si=SbNj2ZQlfbmdewfi
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Hi Birdsong,
I completely agree.
I’m not sure if you saw my apology under our last disagreement. Just wanted to let you know of that.
-Jasmine
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Tim,
I think your apt comparison to what happened to Vietnam vets, as well as what you said about not jumping to conclusions/assumptions about people, is very well-put.
-Jasmine
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Steve made some really great points above. I second all of that.
The idea that our current human-made environment is “built for” the majority of the population is demonstrably false. First of all, which one? There is no single “environment” across culture, time, and place. Human society is not one static monolith. And it evolves far faster than the human genome, so if ADHD is truly a genetic brain abnormality, then how do you explain that?
Furthermore, the assumption that any given human trait or experience always follows a normal distribution pattern is unfounded. First of all, I think we need to unpack that word & the idea of statistical averages. If you google the word “normal”, you will be able to see that the word usage over time ramps up heavily in the late 1800s/early 1900s and peaks around mid-20th century. This was largely due to the eugenics movement. In 1943 — around peak usage — eugenicist Robert Latou Dickinson designed statues named “Normman” and “Norma” based on the statistical averages of 15,000 men and women (respectively), all aged 21-25 years and racially white. According to the eugenics movement, it was believed that being closer to statistical averages (based on samples of exclusively young, white people) inherently meant being closer to ideal health.
The first edition of the DSM was published 11 years later, in 1952.
I think it’s worth noting that a large part of this obsession with “normal” originates from eugenicism, and therefore, bigotry. It’s also worth noting that industrial-capitalist society is not natural or “built for” 99% of humans. In fact, I would argue that society’s not built by/for the 80%, it’s built by/for the 1%. And I think we all know which 1% I’m talking about.
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To my fellow commenters:
I am firmly pro-Palestine. I also resonate deeply with Yishay’s writing and believe he has a right to share his story. These two truths are not mutually exclusive.
We must remember to be “soft on individuals, hard on institutions.” As Yishay said, we cannot always divide the world neatly into “villains” and “victims.” Maybe in a broad political sense, but not when it comes to individual human beings.
We also can’t always divide the world into a binary of “privileged” and “oppressed.” What happens when a so-called “privilege” is its own form of oppression? It is my understanding that military service in Israel is compulsory.
Furthermore, if you’re a non-indigenous American insisting that Yishay’s story shouldn’t get a “platform” on MIA because of who he is, then posting a comment on MIA yourself is hypocritical. Do you publicly “reflect on” your relationship to colonialism & genocide every time you post here?
Furthermore, how do you know he doesn’t feel remorse or reflect on these things offline? If he shared these reflections publicly, I’m sure he would then be accused of being “performative” or “centering his own feelings” instead.
Lastly, what would be accomplished by such a “reflection” or by de-platforming Yishay altogether? What’s the goal here? Would it end the genocide? Meaningfully advance Palestinian rights? My guess is no. He’s just one person after all.
-Jasmine
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Dear Yishay,
Your writing always brings me to tears, in a good way. Thank you for sharing it. I love how your style is poetic, yet minimalist. You never overexplain, you simply speak the truth.
This entire piece — but especially the line “or maybe I just learned how to hide the limp” and then what you say about the “cruel optimism” of the “promise” of healing — reminded me of a song I wrote a couple years ago. I would like to share it with you (headphones recommended): https://youtu.be/ZVeOum6c6zs?si=mMHAXN6KSiPWw7IE
Sincerely,
Jasmine
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Hi Birdsong,
Idk if this comment will get posted or not, because it has drifted too far off topic, but I just wanted to say: Honestly, you’re kinda right. I was projecting a bit & leaping to some conclusions based on my own perceptions & personal feelings. I am truly sorry. Poetry/art means a lot to me, and it’s hard not to take these conversations personally. I didn’t mean to cause any harm or hard feelings, and I hope you’ll accept my apology.
Sincerely,
Jasmine
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Freya,
I think you’re forgetting that the word “Mad” itself — as in “Mad in America,” “Mad Pride,” or “Mad Rights Movement” — is a reclaimed label that has historically been used to dehumanize & justify violence. We are not the first social justice movement to make use of such linguistic reclamation of derogatory terms or slurs. (E.g. the LGBTQ+ community reclaiming the former slur “queer.”)
That sounds similar to how Robert explained his relationship to the label of “schizophrenia.” In another comment, he said, “Insisting that I am a schizophrenic is my way of proving that psychiatrists are wrong in saying that schizophrenia is incurable.” Sounds like a radical act of narrative reclamation to me!
-Jasmine
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You’re welcome, Robert. I totally understand.
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Dead soul,
People still use the language of “illness” metaphorically in such contexts. They may not call it “marital detachment disorder,” per se, but people use words like “healthy”/”unhealthy”/”toxic” to describe relationships all the time. These are all different versions of health/sickness metaphors.
-Jasmine
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Dear Birdsong,
Not sure why you’re bringing this up. Is your intention to compare this piece to David Ingelby’s paper? Are you implying, therefore, that this piece is “overwrought,” “inaccessible,” and that only those who are highly “educated” and “skilled” can “interpret” it?
No one else in the comments complained that this article was elitist or inaccessible. No one else seemed to have a hard time understanding it. Maybe this article wasn’t for you. That doesn’t mean it’s bad or wrong, nor that those who did connect with it must be a certain “type” of person. Do you know the educational background of every person here in the comments, and how their educational background compares to your own? I had no trouble understanding it, and I’m a 24-year-old with only a bachelor’s degree. Roughly 40% of American adults share the same level of education as me or higher. Is that really such a “select few”?
Perhaps it doesn’t have to do with level of education so much, and really comes down to individual understanding and preference. It’s okay to just say, “I didn’t get it.” Or to simply say nothing and move on. But just because you didn’t understand and/or connect with something, doesn’t mean it is “inaccessible” to the “average person.”
You said “…feelings best communicated silently… through the ache that doesn’t need translation, the kind that’s TRULY ‘unspoken’.” That’s nice and all, but how exactly would you propose one communicates without words in a written article?
By the way, I commend your use of poetic language and metaphor in your very condemnation of poetic language and metaphor! “…addiction — a drug accessible only to a select few… cocaine for the intellect… perfume for the ego…”
Sincerely,
Jasmine
P.S. I’m quite curious as to what your exposure to poetry has been, and why you must have such a negative view of it. The way it is often taught in the education system is downright awful, and I believe that’s why most people become turned off to it. If you have 11 spare minutes, I’d highly recommend watching this video (with an open mind): https://youtu.be/FjwJQ0NVyYc?si=BG0gbcnrdJkwptSR
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Hi Birdsong,
I disagree. First of all, many of my favorite articles/blogs/personal stories on MIA are from several years ago, and are what I would consider very “well-spoken,” “poetic,” etc. To say that MIA “has become” this way is to imply that it didn’t used to be. That is simply not true.
What also confuses me is the notion that “academic” or “poetic” language is somehow antithetical to speaking “plainly” or “clearly.” Why must these be mutually exclusive? To the contrary, any *good* poetic (or academic) writing uses language/metaphor to clarify, not to obscure. I am curious as to where your ideas about poetry/academic writing come from.
I’ve noticed a trend of commenters wanting MIA to be a “safe space”/”sanctuary” for “real survivors” with “lived experience” to express themselves freely in their “authentic voice,” while simultaneously criticizing other survivors (usually the author) for using the language that feels right to them — be that poetic, academic, diagnostic, or otherwise. Hypocritically, this inadvertently undermines the welcoming, survivor-centered, censorship-free environment that they claim to advocate for. I thought our whole schtick was letting people self-define their own story without imposing our own opinions/beliefs/worldviews on them or insisting that they conform to our preferred way that they communicate (i.e. what psychiatry does).
Not a single positive comment here was praising this article for its “cleverness.” You were the first to bring that up. Instead, they found value in this piece through its humanness, relatability, and connection. Is that not the desired outcome of survivors sharing their voices with one another? What would you prefer instead?
Yes, the author is also a very good writer. Would you rather her be a poor writer? I do not think the piece would’ve been nearly as effective, or her effect on other (real, human, survivor) commenters/readers as profound. It’s true, not everyone possesses these gifts. Life’s unfair. But I think that’s all the more reason for those who have them to share them. One commenter literally said the “article really spoke to [them] in ways that are hard [for them] to put into words,” and another said “You’ve given voice to the quiet ache many of us carry.” The purpose of writing/art is not always to perform or “show off” or as an “ego trip,” but to communicate & connect with others (who need it) as well.
If you’re looking for articles that are written in what you call “plain” language, there are plenty of others you can find on here. I regret to inform you that that they will still likely be well-written. Of course Mad in America is going to “favor” those who are good writers; it’s a journalism outlet! If you want a place for indiscriminate venting, I suggest you visit Reddit (they actually have some thriving anti-psych & anti-therapy subs!).
Sincerely,
Jasmine
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Hi Robert,
I totally understand and feel the same way myself sometimes. I agree that all victims of psychiatric abuse should show solidarity and respect for each other! Yet unfortunately, that is not always the case (in my experience as well).
Just to clarify, when I said “I want to offer another perspective,” I intended to address this primarily to other commenters, not you. I think that the reason for their disagreement was a misunderstanding; not because your word choice was “wrong” necessarily. I think that you should get to use whatever words you see fit to express yourself/your experiences. I was simply trying to point out that different words mean different things to different people, in different contexts, and maybe they were interpreting it differently than you meant it. I hope my intention was clear, but I apologize for any ambiguity.
-Jasmine
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Hi Robert,
First of all, thank you for sharing your powerful story. Though disappointing, it did not surprise me at all that psychiatry wouldn’t own up to its wrongdoings or apologize. I think you really hit the nail on the head with this line: “My story is obviously a scandal, for it raises a very important question: since psychiatrists were wrong in saying that homosexuality is a mental illness and that schizophrenia is incurable, then is it possible that they are wrong about everything else?” Bingo!!
Second of all, I wanted to offer another perspective on what I see being contested in the comments. From my understanding, commenters appear to be objecting to the phrase “illness of the psyche/mind/soul” because they are interpreting it as a pathologization of the person’s soul, but that is not what I got from Robert’s usage in this piece at all.
When it comes to physical illness, there are broadly two types: those which are caused by a defect from within the body (like an autoimmune disorder) and those which are caused by a pathogen/contaminant from the environment (like the flu). So when used as a metaphor for “mental illness,” it can be used or taken either of these two ways. For example, when talking about a rapist or murderer, people might say they’re “sick in the head,” or they have “soul sickness” — that something is wrong with them/their soul, it is “corrupt” or “defective” in some way. On the other hand, people might say that someone who is depressed or showing signs of trauma is “unwell” or has a “spiritual illness” — that they are afflicted by something toxic or troubling in their environment. But because the same word is being used, confusion arises. It also inadvertently creates a lot more stigma by conflating pain/suffering with immorality/corruption.
-Jasmine
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Hi Birdsong,
Thanks for your empathetic & understanding response. I hope I didn’t come across like I was overtly dissing something that you obviously found meaningful. Clearly I have very strong & personal feelings about these ideas, but if you found them helpful, I’m glad for you!
I agree that our trauma & healing journeys all look very different; I guess my main point was that it’s not universal truth or formulaic like it’s often presented as. The problem is, so often when one responds to a certain psychotherapeutic theory with, “well this doesn’t apply to me,” they’re told “well that must be because you’re in denial,” and there’s no arguing out of that accusation (especially when said to them by a therapist!).
Also, I guess I wasn’t referring to just Miller’s book/theories specifically, but moreover the general cultural narrative that “hurt people hurt people” or “traumatized/abused people will pass on the trauma/abuse” UNLESS they heal “properly.” Also the idea that “every abuser was once abused themselves.” Those may be true in SOME cases, but I can think of a lot of exceptions. I also don’t think it’s direct cause-and-effect like it may seem. I won’t give too much more away here, but hopefully you’ll see what I mean when I write that piece.
Anyways, thanks again for your thoughtful reply. Looking forward to bringing a new perspective & continuing this dialogue!
-Jasmine
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@Steve Yes, that’s a very good point! Thank you for elaborating on that!
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Birdsong,
Unfortunately, I am well-aware of these theories. I went to years of therapy, and spent years thinking I was going to become a therapist myself, so I am pretty familiar with most theories out there. It is not for lack of understanding. I simply think they’re wrong.
I actually came across that very book at my local used book store recently; funny you mention it. However, I put it back on the shelf specifically because I found it, well… intolerable. I picked it up because I was labeled “gifted” as a kid (for better or worse) and thought it might be insightful or relatable or something. However, from what I skimmed through standing there in the aisle, it seemed to be either a) things I had already discovered independently in my healing journey & so they weren’t going to be very illuminating to me at this point, or b) things that were just straight-up wrong (or inapplicable to me at least) & also actively triggering because they reinforced damaging & false narratives about myself.
I was “emotionally repressed,” “dissociated,” had “unresolved trauma,” etc for years. I was also highly empathetic, often to a fault. I think my empathy at times was a direct result of my trauma – not in spite of it – for various reasons, and I also think it’s just the way I am to some extent. I am still very empathetic, but now I also know how to be firm if I need to, and prioritize my own needs/feelings.
The reason why narratives like these harmed me is because they planted this idea in my psyche that emotional pain equals morality, and that until/unless I “healed properly,” I was a “bad person” by default. Even if I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I just figured I was probably “unaware” of it or “in denial” or something. This actually (combined with my hyper-empathy) led to me getting taken advantage of in relationships, because others could easily make me feel like I was the problem, that they weren’t emotionally abusing me/ I deserved it, and that with enough self-reflection I could fix the relationship. They gaslighted me to believe that I was simply not having enough empathy/understanding for their side, when in reality, I was almost always being “too nice.”
These kinds of narratives were also a huge contributing factor to my suicidality, self-harm, and general self-hatred. I believed that I should never be in a relationship, get married or have kids because I would surely, inevitably turn into some abusive/neglectful monster if I hadn’t healed by then.
Those narratives may apply for some, but I think for others they can be very damaging. They are far from inherent truths, and like most of psychology, they are more speculation than evidence, yet tend to go unquestioned. Like I said, I plan to write & submit an article about this at some point in the future, so stay tuned for that.
-Jasmine
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Hi Lisa,
The fact that stories like Phillip’s seem “rare” to most people is no accident. Most psychiatric survivors’ stories & voices are drowned out by the mainstream narrative. This is a very intentional, strategic way for the mental health system to avoid accountability. It is also convenient for most of its victims/critics to be framed as “mentally ill” and therefore not credible narrators of reality.
I wrote about this in a blog that was published here just a couple months ago. I highly recommend that you read it if you are genuinely interested in understanding more about this. Here it is: https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/08/narrative-reclamation/
In the example you gave – of someone hearing voices that repeatedly tell them to kill themselves – is that a specific person you know, or just a hypothetical example? If it is a specific person you know, then I cannot speak to their experiences. If it is just a general hypothetical, then perhaps I can help provide some alternative perspectives.
First of all, not all voice-hearers experience their voices as distressing. Some hear voices that may be positive, encouraging, or even just neutral. They may find meaning in the voices they hear, as it may have some religious, spiritual, or cultural significance to them. They may have no desire to get rid of these voices. Voice-hearers like this really do exist, it’s true.
Second of all, there are people who experience these voices as distressing, that is true as well. In fact, let’s go with the “extreme” example you gave of someone who hears voices repeatedly telling them to kill themselves. Well, I actually know of a person who had this exact experience. Earlier this year, I attended a Mad in America webinar called “The Hope of Harm Reduction” as seen here: https://www.madinamerica.com/calendar/?mc_id=1166 and one of the main presenters was an individual named Caroline Mazel-Carlton. She talked about her lived experience with voice-hearing and suicidality, and mentioned that at one point, she was hearing voices telling her to kill herself. I don’t want to tell her story in an inadequate way, so I will leave these links if you would like to learn more: https://www.madinamerica.com/2022/07/like-living-voices-head/
https://www.madinamerica.com/2022/09/talking-about-suicide-helps-us-stay-alive/
I will, however, speak on my own experiences with suicidality, which were similar to Caroline’s, sans voice-hearing. Conventional mental health treatments & carceral crisis interventions did not “help” me, they traumatized me and contributed to my desire to die. As I wrote in my article “The ‘Sick Enough’ Paradox in Eating Disorder Treatment” (also published on here): “half the reason why I wanted to kill myself was directly because of all the things that were done to me supposedly to prevent me from killing myself.” My suicidality was deeply symbolic. It represented that something in my life – some version of myself – needed to die, in order for me to live.
There are many alternatives to these mainstream psychiatric interventions, such as peer support and Alternatives to Suicide (Alt2Su). From both research & anecdotal evidence, they show promising outcomes. Involuntary hospitalization, on the other hand, tends to increase people’s risk of suicide after discharge. Antipsychotic drugs for “schizophrenia” also tend to worsen outcomes over time. (You can find plenty of articles about both those topics on this site with a quick search, so I won’t link them here.)
You said, “I also wonder what are people’s views on handling aggression.” I think another perspective to consider here is the aggression that is often used against people in crisis. It is not uncommon for force and restraint to be used on people in crisis even when they are not being violent or threatening. It is generally assumed that if the patient was restrained, it was only because the doctors had good reason to do so. Can you imagine what kinds of problems this kind of power imbalance might lead to?
-Jasmine
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Michele,
Thanks for sharing that piece of context; your reaction is totally understandable given that you’re completely new to Mad in America & critical psychiatry. I hope I didn’t come across as offensive in any way either. You seem like a very kind, sweet, genuine, self-aware person, and I am glad we were able to have this conversation.
I hope you’ll stick around here on Mad in America & learn more about our perspectives. If not, thanks for stopping by! I appreciate your open-mindedness and compassion.
Best wishes,
Jasmine
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Hi Birdsong,
I know this comment thread is kind of old, so you might not even see this. As a self-identifying artist myself, I had an initial knee-jerk reaction to reading your comments, but upon further reflection, I think I do get where you’re coming from.
I think you’re confusing art with Art.
Anyone can create art. This kind of art is inherently democratic. You don’t have to possess any special kind of education, lots of money, or even talent. You just have to possess the drive to create. These kinds of artists probably don’t make any money from their art. Even if they do, they are still doing it primarily for their love of the art form, not for fame & riches. In this case, they likely fit the “starving artist” stereotype.
Now, Art, on the other hand is a whole different species. Elitism, snobbery, spectacle, pretentious wine-sipping in the gallery – everything you just described. But that is not art, inherently. That is Art.
I think the issue you have with Art is the commodification of art. Not art itself. Essentially, your issue then, is with capitalism. With that, I could not agree more.
“We live in a world where artists have historically been given more credence and respect than people who aren’t.” I think it’s a false notion that art is raised on a pedestal in our society, or that this has historically been so. In fact, I think the opposite could not be more true – art is the least funded in our education system and one of the least respected careers, with a very low likelihood of financial stability. On the other hand, STEM, business, law, and medicine are the fields that better fit your description.
I think you are also confusing a disdain for Art connoisseurs with a disdain for artists themselves. Sure, if the world listened to people in pain, maybe they wouldn’t feel the need to express their pain through art in order to captivate the attention of an audience. Does that mean it is the individual’s fault – who happens to possess artistic talents themselves – for using their talents to try to get people to understand/listen? Or is it the fault of society for pigeon-holing them into that position in the first place? Isn’t their artistic expression just an adaptive response like any other to try to survive otherwise unsurvivable circumstances? In a similar way, mental health patients who are “polite” & “compliant” should not receive better treatment than those who are turbulent & angry. But is this the fault of the “good patient”? Or is it the fault of the mental health system? Is the “good patient” really privileged above the “non-compliant” patient by that much? Or are they both victimized by the system in unique ways? A “fawn” or “freeze” adaptation is just as much of a trauma response as a “fight or flight” response. To blame individuals for their survival responses rather than the circumstances which brought about those adaptations is a form of victim-blaming, regardless.
You mentioned art being “rooted in fetish.” However, I recently read “The Perils of Privilege” by Phoebe Maltz Bovy – highly recommend – and one concept she illuminated in this book is how “privilege” gets a lot more airtime than “power,” and part of the reason for this is our fetishization of powerlessness. Though oppression can certainly disempower people, is the goal of social justice not, ultimately, to (re)empower? If one’s power lies in their artistic ability, is it wrong for them to reclaim their power through artistic expression after experiencing disenfranchisement?
Additionally, you appear to be assuming that people exist in black-or-white – that either they are able to express their suffering through art, or they are not. However, these two opposing experiences may exist within the same person at different times. Us artists are notoriously inconsistent, going through creative bursts as well as periods of “writer’s block,” so what happens when we are not able to reliably alchemize our pain into beauty? (Same thing for those of us who may be able to “code-switch” into intellectualizing language, yet in times of intense distress or crisis, we lose that ability. It reminds me of a post I saw by @dr.jenniewh on instagram that I really relate to, especially slide 5: https://www.instagram.com/p/DI_hHxLJGf0/?img_index=1 ) I expressed the pressure of always having to make one’s pain “beautiful” for others’ consumption in this poem: https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/10/true-story-by-jasmine-marshall/
You mentioned in another post that you are not a fan of poetry. That is fine, but may I ask if it is because of these same feelings you expressed here towards Art? In that case, I encourage you to read “Poetry Is Not a Luxury” by Audre Lorde. You can find it here: https://makinglearning.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/poetry-is-not-a-luxury-audre-lorde.pdf
Lastly, the notion that artists aren’t “real people” with “real pain/suffering” is a troubling one. Of course, our pain/suffering is not any more real than anyone else’s, but neither is it any less. You say, “Suffering does not become more valid when filtered through artistry, meaning talent should never determine who’s seen and who’s not.” Perhaps this is true, but is your proposed solution to this for artists to stop creating art altogether, as though that is the only way for other, less talented people’s voices to be heard? That sounds like bully-logic to me: the logic by which the only way for those who are insecure to be “boosted up” is for those who are smart/talented/kind to be “put down.” (I’m not saying YOU are a bully, but I am saying that that line of reasoning can be a slippery slope towards bullying.)
I am reminded of this quote that goes: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
That is my own goal as an artist: Not to outshine anyone else, but to share my light & hopefully inspire others to do the same, in their own way, using their own unique talents. I’m not taking anything away from anyone else. In fact, art – whether it’s about love, grief, pain, suffering, etc – often has the power to transcend the boundaries of the individual, representing a much more universal experience. An artist may speak not only for themselves, but for many, giving voice to the voiceless during times when they cannot find the light within themselves. That is what I got from India’s poignant video-poem.
Thanks,
Jasmine
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Dead soul,
I disagree with the notion that “depression” and/or trauma causes people to become abusive. In fact, I think it’s a bit of a sanist notion & can be very stigmatizing for trauma/abuse survivors. I won’t elaborate much here, but I’ll probably write an essay on it in the future.
-Jasmine
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“…parents and relatives and friends… who like the idea that their own behavior has nothing to do with their children’s distress.” Story of my life.
Not all “profits” are monetary.
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Hi Michele,
First of all, this is not about your moral goodness as a person. All the people in your life you have fought for (or hypothetically would fight for) have nothing to do with the fact that people who feel “helped” by the mental health system tend to have a nasty habit of telling psychiatric survivors that we need to tone down our anger or pain or act like our stories are “rare exceptions” to the general rule that the mental health system is innately good & “life-saving” in order to center y’all’s feelings. Which is exactly what you were doing, intentionally or unintentionally.
You said, “It’s when I read the comments that my heart sank and I lost my breath.” Firstly, I feel the same way when reading comments like yours. Secondly, I am struggling to find the “stigmatizing comments” that you speak of. Most of what I have seen here are comments empathizing with Phillip’s story and/or sharing their own similar stories. Some comments do discuss the pseudoscience of psychiatry itself, but that is not “stigma,” it is simply a fact.
You said, “I had symptoms of mania, depression, anxiety, panic, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts long before my diagnosis.” I am not arguing against any of that. In fact, so did I (minus the “mania”). I am not one of those people saying “it’s all in your head”, and I am not trying to argue that you only started having symptoms after your diagnosis because you convinced yourself you were “mentally ill” or something. Quite the contrary; I think your experiences are very real. I also think they are not symptoms of underlying pathology. These are not conflicting beliefs.
From my understanding, it seems like you are mistakenly under the impression that this is a debate between people who are “mentally ill” (such as yourself) and people who aren’t & therefore don’t “get it” (such as the rest of us here). However, many of us carry psychiatric diagnoses ourselves, and were probably in your shoes once – vehemently defending psychiatry and going on about the “stigma” of “mental health.” I can only speak for myself, but I know that me 3 years ago would’ve felt totally attacked & defensive if anyone questioned the legitimacy of psychiatric diagnosis or medication, even if it wasn’t directed at me specifically. I would’ve felt judged, like they thought I was “weak” or “faking it” or something, and I would’ve written off anything they had to say as “stigma.” I was fully convinced that medication & therapy had “saved my life,” despite the fact that they were literally making me worse. It would’ve been hard for me then to imagine feeling the way I do now, and it’s hard for me now to imagine feeling the way I did back then, even though it was not that long ago. I imagine that’s probably similar to the way you’re feeling, and honestly I don’t know if there’s anything I can say to change your mind. Unfortunately, what it took for me was going through it myself.
You seem to believe that you (and other “mentally ill”-identifying folks) are the only one here on the receiving end of “stigma,” but that is simply not true. As I mentioned in my other reply, I personally faced far more “stigma” for quitting psych drugs & therapy than I ever experienced for using them. For me, this “stigma” more than just “didn’t feel good”; it resulted in emotional/verbal abuse, trauma, and threats to my safety. In fact, the concept of “stigma” itself was leveraged to coerce me into taking psychiatric drugs in the first place – by insisting that I only felt hesitation because of the “stigma” – and then was used to guilt-trip me for stopping them as well – by claiming that my personal choice was somehow “stigmatizing” to those who do use them.
You say, “When I read Phillip’s story, right from the beginning I was wondering why did this happen to him and how did the system fail him this bad.” Your surprise amuses me. His story is not a fluke. There are hundreds of other stories like his that you can find & read on this site, if you are willing to listen & keep an open mind.
I’m not sure if you saw my other reply, but if not, I strongly encourage you to check out the links I sent you. Especially the instagram ones.
Lastly, I’m genuinely curious: Do you know what this site is about? And what were you expecting to find here, on a site dedicated to critical psychiatry? If what you are looking for is an echo chamber full of pro-mental healthcare advocates who center experiences like yours & think the only issue is “stigma,” then I’m afraid you’re in the wrong place. Luckily for you though, spaces like that are pretty much everywhere else.
-Jasmine
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Hi Michele,
I am sorry for the stigma and shame you have experienced. Please understand that us psychiatric survivors are no strangers to “stigma.” In fact, having to constantly center the feelings of people who have felt helped by the mental health system when we share our stories is part of what perpetuates the kind of “stigma” WE face, and it is far more often that we are the ones locked into silence & hiding for fear of our safety.
I personally faced far more “stigma” for quitting psych drugs & therapy than I ever experienced for using them. (Before you assume that it must be because I live in a particularly “progressive” region, I should mention that I’m from the US South.)
I highly recommend checking out @thebooksmartbimbo on Instagram. She has a great way of putting things into words. Here’s a couple of posts by her on this topic:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cc1IIl4grYZ/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CSm8sr5HRJl/?img_index=1
I also hope you can read & learn from this article I wrote about the importance of “mental health” narratives: https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/08/narrative-reclamation/
I would also recommend reading this article to help you understand “stigma” from our perspective. It is an old article, but it still holds just as true today: https://www.madinamerica.com/2013/04/false-arguments-part-2-anti-anti-stigma/
I hope you’re able to learn something from those resources! And welcome to Mad in America!
Thanks,
Jasmine
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Hi Michele,
To answer your question, the first thing I would tell her is that her mental & emotional difficulties are valid, regardless of how she chooses to label or cope with them. The second thing I would tell her is that it is understandable to be concerned about the way things are headed with MAHA as someone in her position. Therefore, I would recommend she finds new ways to cope outside of the mental health system, in case that does get taken away. In other words, “join the club”; us psychiatric survivors have been doing it for years, and she might be able to learn something valuable from us by listening.
She might be confused as to how it is possible to cope outside of the mental health system, since she sees herself as “diseased” and these treatments as medical interventions that saved her life. The truth is (which she may not like to hear), there is no such thing as an “actual” psychiatric disorder, and so these are not life-saving medical “treatments,” they are simply ways of coping that she has found helpful, and she can adapt to find new, different ways of coping that may be helpful, just as humans have done (and continue to do) since the beginning of time. As to whether or not she is being medicated “unnecessarily,” I would say that it is no mystery that drugs have a consciousness-altering effect, and some people may prefer the way this effect makes them feel, but it is false to assume that this means it is correcting an underlying pathology in their brain. Some use non-prescription drugs to alter consciousness, some use prescription drugs – both may help a person survive, cope, and “function” – and though there may be a legal difference, there is no difference in regards to morality, health, or biology. Drugs are drugs.
So if she chooses to heed my advice, to learn to “cope outside of the mental health system,” what might that actually look like, in terms of concrete, actionable steps? Well, the first thing I would recommend is to educate herself on psychiatric drug tapering and withdrawal. This is not something her doctor or psychiatrist are likely to be well-educated about – which may be confusing for her to hear given that she has probably revered them as trusted “experts” until now. Mad in America has lots of great resources on tapering, and I would also encourage her to check out Laura Delano’s website https://www.theinnercompass.org/ . Then I would urge her to strongly consider starting to taper off her drugs, as it will be far safer than being forced off of them cold-turkey in the event that these drugs become no longer available. (Especially because she has been on them for 20 years, and typically the longer one is on them, the more brutal withdrawal effects are likely to be.)
The next thing I would do is ask her a question: What is it that she feels she benefits from in therapy? There is nothing inherently magical or irreplaceable about therapy itself. Again, these are not medical “treatments” like any other. So I would ask her to think about what specifically helps her about therapy, not just “therapy” as a concept. Is it the therapeutic relationship? Talking about her emotions? Receiving compassion from another person? Or is it exploring her childhood trauma? Learning new coping skills & techniques? I would argue that all of these things (and more) can be achieved outside of psychotherapy. If what makes therapy helpful to her is just having another person to talk to, then I would encourage her to surround herself with friends who she can talk to about her feelings/struggles without having to pay them. (That’s literally what friends are for.) If what makes it helpful is the coping skills/strategies she learns from her therapist, and so she feels that she could not replace this with friendship alone because her friends are not “qualified professionals,” then I would encourage her to pick up a few self-help books, or better yet, go straight to the source – buy herself the same academic textbooks that they use in counseling school.
As for her last question, I would tell her that no, she is not “misdiagnosed,” because that would imply that there is a such thing as correct psychiatric diagnosis. Which, as I have established, there is not. Experiences are real. Suffering is real. But “diagnosis” is not.
The last thing I’d say to her is that I think it is highly inappropriate to hijack another person’s story of trauma and abuse with “what-about-isms” and making it about yourself & your own (positive) experiences. I hope I’m not too bold in my assumption that the woman you are talking about here in the third person is yourself. It’s like if someone was telling their story about their traumatic, near-fatal car accident that they survived, and the first thing someone says after they finish telling their story is, “But what about me? I need a car to get to work every day! I think cars are great & I wouldn’t be able to survive without them! What would you tell a person like me if they were to ban cars?” Do you see the problem here? Doesn’t that come across as more than a little tone-deaf?
However, to extend the metaphor, I would answer, “I think we could all benefit from better public transport and more walkable cities. Then, maybe cars wouldn’t be so necessary.”
That is the goal of critical psychiatry/psychiatric abolition.
Sincerely,
Jasmine
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Hi Eri,
I would like to take this opportunity to correct some of the misinformation in your reply.
“Obesity” is not an eating disorder, it is a weight status under the BMI (Body Mass Index) measuring system, which is a scientifically inaccurate & debunked method of measuring health.
“Eating disorders” are not called “weight disorders” for a reason. People of all sizes can be affected by restrictive eating disorders like anorexia, including people who fall into the “obese” BMI category. Increasing food intake and gaining weight will still likely need to be a major part of recovery for these individuals, just like it is for individuals in the “underweight” or “normal weight” BMI categories.
It is not true that maintaining a “good, balanced weight” is a requirement for recovery, if by “good, balanced weight” you mean “in the ‘normal’ BMI range,” or “avoiding gaining ‘too much’ weight and becoming ‘overweight’ or ‘obese.'” First of all, as mentioned above, BMI is pseudoscience; some people’s set point weight might very well be in the “overweight”/”obese” BMI category, and that is the weight their body naturally settles at when they are at their healthiest. Secondly, most people with a history of restriction will gain what is called “overshoot” weight in recovery, as I mentioned in my essay. This is a healthy, natural part of the body’s healing process from starvation, and is absolutely necessary in order to achieve a full recovery. Gaining enough fat is crucial in recovery – essential for growth, healing, and tissue repair – and actually trying to just gain muscle, reduce or prevent fat gain, or reintroduce exercise too soon can delay healing and increase the risk of relapse. The body is wise, and prioritizes fat restoration first for a number of reasons.
Fatphobia is a driving factor in most (it not all) eating disorders, and so it is really important to understand that fat is nothing to be afraid of! Especially in eating disorder recovery! I know this runs counter to a lot of cultural narratives – and health narratives – that we’ve all heard. But it is true and scientifically based. I highly recommend reading Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison (as I recommend in my essay) or at least clicking on some of the links in my essay to learn more about these topics. You can also look up the “Minnesota Starvation Experiment” to learn more about the body’s response to calorie restriction, including extreme hunger and overshoot, and this podcast from Mad in America is also a great source of information: https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/10/new-perspectives-on-eating-disorders-an-interview-with-shira-collings/
Specializing in both “obesity” and eating disorders is pretty much an oxymoron, since such fatphobia (and pseudoscience) runs counter to the very premise of ED recovery. Unfortunately, however, it is quite common in our healthcare system, and even in ED treatment spaces. That is part of what I was trying to point out in my essay. Encouraging a fear of “too much” or “the wrong kind of” weight gain in recovery is a great business model for providers, but a poor recovery model for clients, as it is likely to result in high relapse rates and repeat customers!
Unfortunately, I will not be responding to future comments on this thread. I hope that you learned something from my article and our discussion!
Best wishes,
Jasmine
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Hi Eri Afik Spensieri,
I’m glad to hear that your daughter has found a physician and had a positive experience. However, I looked up the name of the physician you mentioned, and the only person to come up was a doctor specializing in “Weight Wellness” and “Obesity Medicine.” That sounded strange to me considering the fact that it is at odds with the very foundations of ED recovery. Surely, that’s not the correct person, is it?
Thanks,
Jasmine
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Hi Renushka,
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I’m really glad my articles resonated with you on so many levels. I am close in age to your daughter, and my mother was born in the 60s as well!
Congratulations for finding your own recovery path, as well as tapering an antidepressant! My personal experiences with psych drugs were negative, they did not help my ED at all either (maybe even made it worse).
I’m glad you feel like you’ve found what works for you in terms of managing you ED, however I do want to let you know that the scientific evidence does not necessarily support some of those conclusions. I know we’ve all heard a lot of fear-mongering about sugar and “processed” foods in our society, such as the idea that these foods are “addictive” because they “activate the same reward systems in the brain as drugs.” However, actual research (non-diet-industry-funded) has shown that in intuitive eaters – people who do not restrict sugar – there is no discernable brain difference in their reaction to sugar. It is only in chronic dieters – people who restrict sugar – that they tend to have this response. It is the deprivation itself that mimics an “addictive” response, not sugar inherently.
This supports the notion that even eating disorders appearing to involve “overindulgence” or “food addiction” or “bingeing” – including BED & bulimia – actually result from restriction most (if not all) of the time. This restriction may take many forms, such as caloric restriction, restriction of certain foods/food groups, or even mental restriction (e.g. mentally labeling some foods as “bad”/”unhealthy”/”off-limits”), as well as things like food insecurity or illness. To our bodies, famine is famine, regardless of the cause. “Binge eating” is the body’s natural protective mechanism to prevent death by starvation – our bodies are highly intelligent! The reason why it becomes a cyclical “problem” is because the guilt from bingeing can trigger one towards compensatory measures, which keeps the body in a depleted state, which then in turn triggers future binges, etc, etc, resulting in the notorious “binge-restrict” or “binge-purge” cycle. Therefore, the most effective treatments for EDs involving bingeing generally start by addressing the restriction first – not the bingeing itself. Otherwise, it’s like putting the cart before the horse.
However, if you notice you genuinely feel better/worse after eating certain foods, that is actually an integral part of Intuitive Eating, not at odds with it. Paying attention to how foods make your body feel is part of an IE concept called “gentle nutrition.” But, I will also say that the placebo effect is a powerful force. To use myself as an example, I spent several months of my recovery convinced that I couldn’t eat gluten or dairy because of an undiagnosed “intolerance.” Confirmation bias and the placebo effect convinced me that I felt worse/had more digestive issues after eating these foods, and felt better/had fewer digestive issues when I abstained. However, once I challenged these beliefs and began reintroducing these foods back into my diet, I found that there was no difference. The main reason for my digestive issues & general feelings of unwellness was actually ongoing restriction & inconsistent eating patterns!
I learned a lot of this information from the Anti-Diet book I recommended, so if you read it too, you’ll see what I’m talking about!
Thank you,
Jasmine
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Hi Nick,
Thank you for sharing this. I downloaded the PDF and will have to make time to read it sometime. Sounds very interesting!
Thanks,
Jasmine
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Hi Anonymous,
Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts. You raise some interesting points, and I would like to attempt to address them.
I’ll start by saying that like most survivors on here, my relationship & history with “the establishment,” as you call it, is a complicated one. Some of my feelings and desires are, as you say, “at odds with one another,” that is true. It would certainly be easier – and perhaps seem more “logical” – if things were simpler or more clear-cut, but that is not always the reality.
However, a lot of what I am talking about here is in past tense, though I can see how that would be confusing since my personal timeline is not the focus of this piece. In the past, I certainly desired more of that “validation” & “interaction” from the system, because “diagnosis” & “treatment” were the only way I knew how to understand & approach my experiences. This was before I learned about critical psychiatry.
Now, as a psychiatric abolitionist, I try to live out my values by interacting with the mental health system literally NEVER. This is why, at the beginning of my essay, I established that I am doing “DIY” recovery – meaning without mental health professionals. However, that doesn’t include medical care – true, medical care for physical health issues – in my opinion.
Because the language of psychiatric diagnosis is going to be all that (most) medical providers are familiar with, even us critical psych people have to learn to “code-switch” around them in order to get our needs met. (Furthermore, we have to do this for insurance purposes anyway.) It’s not so much about wanting “validation” for me at this point (though that conditioning runs deep, and I am still in the process of unlearning it) as it is about being believed & taken seriously. It comes down to a simple choice: A) tell them I have an “eating disorder,” or B) explain the entire history of fatphobia, diet culture, and sanism, and why it’s *society* that’s “disordered,” NOT me, every time I see a new healthcare provider. For ease of communication, I tend to go with option A.
Of course, the root issue is embedded fatphobia & diet culture in the medical system, and in society in general. That’s part of the point I was trying to make. If those were recognized (or better yet, abolished), there would be no need for an “eating disorder” label or “eating disorder” doctors. However, that is a topic for another essay (which I will, at some point, write).
You say, “I think [it’s] sensible to want to an ED-literate medical doctor if you have documented medical issues as a result of your ED,” however, I would like to point out that one can only have “documented” medical issues if they have had proper ED healthcare to begin with. Which, most of us have not; that’s exactly my point. Additionally, many of us don’t even know if we have “medical issues as a result of [our] ED,” documented or not, because we have had an ED for so long (since childhood, in my case) and become so detached from our bodies that we are desensitized to the pain/symptoms/issues we may be experiencing; it’s just our “normal.” And some medical issues – like bone density loss, for instance – may show no outward symptoms at all, and require medical testing to confirm.
Although I am, as I’ve mentioned, a psychiatric abolitionist, I also realize that abolition is a long-term goal. Psychiatry is certainly not going to disappear overnight, so I think it can be helpful, in the short-term, to take a “harm-reduction”-type approach to those who are still in its grasp.
I would be curious to hear more of your thoughts. How do YOU think these issues should be addressed? What has worked for YOUR recovery? (If you would like to share.)
Thanks,
Jasmine
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Hi joel stern,
Thank you for your support, and I am on the same page as you. To me, it’s a bit of an ad hominem fallacy to focus on someone’s credentials – in a positive or a negative way – rather than the content of what they’re saying.
Thanks,
Jasmine
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Hi Steve,
I always love reading your comments and am glad to see you here! Thanks for reading!
“A safe way to express more radical opinions without being dismissed as a nutcase” pretty much sums it up – and as a survivor, this safety has been a legitimate concern. Safety in a tangible sense – e.g. being perceived as “crazy enough” to lock up – is less of an issue for me now than in the past, as I’ve gotten further into my recovery & also more selective about who I share my views with. But “safety” in the emotional sense – e.g. getting dragged into a trauma response – about something that’s more than just an intellectual discussion for me is still very real. I’ve learned how to use intellectualizing language, cite scientific sources, and set my emotions aside in order to appear more “rational” and “credible,” but you’re right, it is certainly unfortunate that such self-protection is necessary.
I appreciate the latter part of what you said as well. It’s not uncommon to have a bachelor’s degree nowadays, and psychology is literally one of the most common majors. Regardless, I think it’s a bit of an ad hominem fallacy to focus on someone’s credentials rather than the content of what they’re saying.
Thanks,
Jasmine
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Hi Birdsong,
Thank you for your comment! One would think that… right? The irony is not lost on me!
It truly is our culture that’s disordered, rather than individuals with eating “disorders.” (But that’s a topic for a future essay.) Unfortunately, I was naive & trusting. But I think I learned a lot through the process, however frustrating it was!
Thanks,
Jasmine
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Hi Dogworld,
Thank you for taking the time to read my article and leave a comment. Speaking from lived experience with an ED, however, I would like to correct some of your misconceptions.
Eating disorders are, in fact, primarily mental. They do not have biomedical causes any more than any other “mental illness.” From what I can tell, you seem to be getting the arrow of causation backwards. They have psychological causes, but result in physiological consequences. Sure, these physiological consequences can then in turn have mental effects: depression, anxiety, brain fog. But the root source was still psychological – usually trauma/stress, internalized fatphobia, or a mix of both.
Yes, the body shows those “unmistakable signs” because those are the effects of starvation. But the body doesn’t just start starving on its own; the cause of that (self-)starvation is psychologically driven. Otherwise, it’s probably something like a GI disorder or hormonal disorder that’s been misdiagnosed as an eating disorder. (Both of which an ED can cause.) I did not experience “appetite, energy, and sensory shifts” until after I’d already been intentionally restricting for some time, not before.
Additionally, the symptoms are not always “visibly physiological.” As I tried to make a point of in my essay, eating disorders do not have one “look”; you cannot tell whether someone has an eating disorder (or what type) by their weight or appearance.
I am saying this all as someone with lived experience, not as an “expert.” As I said to Dead soul, my psychology major actually had surprisingly little to do with the field of mental health; I don’t recall eating disorders – the subject of this article – being covered in any of my classes (though I’m sure we must’ve spent one or two slides on it at some point). All of the information in this article was gathered through my own lived experience. The reason I mentioned my degree was to establish the fact that I understand how to read research papers and interpret data – something that not everyone gets the opportunity to learn how to do – not to establish myself as some kind of “expert.” I do not (and never will) work for the mental health system.
However, I do not apologize for sounding polite or educated in my writing. Would you prefer if my writing was rude and sloppy? I worked very hard to make this piece as clear and articulate as I am capable of, and I am proud of the way it turned out. Additionally, intellectualizing is admittedly a bit of a coping strategy for me. It is something I tend to do when talking about topics that are difficult/vulnerable/personal to me, especially when I want to be taken seriously – which is honestly further “proof” of my survivorship (not that I should have to “prove” it to anyone) – yet I can see how that could come across like I’m some detached, out-of-touch intellectual who is just speaking from a place of “expertise.”
I believe that strong emotions and “outbursts of truth” certainly have their place, but I decided that this piece was not the place for it. If you would prefer that kind of piece, I suggest you read my previous work here: https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/03/sick-enough-paradox-eating-disorder-treatment/
and here: https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/08/narrative-reclamation/
Or better yet, my “Song of the Week”: https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/04/tunnel-vision-by-jasmine-marshall/
Or “Poem(s) of the Week”: https://www.madinamerica.com/2023/11/self-portrait-as-frankensteins-monster-by-jasmine-marshall/
https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/10/true-story-by-jasmine-marshall/
All of those were published before MIA knew I had a degree. In fact, 2 of them were published before I even had my degree. Again, I am not a psychiatrist, therapist, or doctor, and I do not claim to be an eating disorder “expert.” I only have a bachelor’s degree, like roughly 40% of other Americans.
If you would like any further explanation, I would suggest you read the thread between me and Dead soul, because I am too exhausted to repeat myself here.
But as for “representation,” I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but one of the groups this site lacks representation for most is eating disorder survivors! I bet you could find far more articles written by “non-expert” survivors than you could ED survivors, “expert” or not. This is part of what inspired me to begin writing for MIA in the first place; because I want to fill that void, to bring that representation to the table that I saw was lacking. By sharing my voice, I am not preventing anyone else from sharing theirs, but hopefully, inviting them to do the same. Nobody is stopping other ED sufferers or survivors from submitting a blog/personal story to MIA themselves. I am not in charge of who gets published or not, but I believe there is room for all of us at this table.
Thank you,
Jasmine
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Dead soul,
This is the last time I will be attempting to engage with you in this thread, as you do not seem to be making a good faith effort to engage with me. You are making a lot of unfounded assumptions about me by lumping me in with “them.” Even after my attempts to dispel your assumptions, it seems like you are doubling down.
I already explained the reason why I mentioned my degree. It is quite a minor detail, and I only briefly mentioned it once. Perhaps it was not relevant enough to include at all, as it did not really contribute much to the narrative. Or, perhaps you’re right; to a different audience member it could give my story more credibility in their eyes. I’m not saying that’s the way it should be – I agree, survivors should have credibility simply by virtue of being survivors – however, it might be true.
I don’t think I got published only because I mentioned my psychology degree, I think I got published because of the quality of my writing and my ideas. I find it quite insulting for you to suggest otherwise. This is my third publication on Mad in America, yet the first time I have ever mentioned having a psychology degree. If you think I only got published because MIA sees me as an “expert,” then how do you explain my previous two articles?
I was a victim of The System throughout almost my entire undergrad experience. I was brainwashed into believing that therapy & psychiatry were innately good, and I was the problem for not getting better. As soon as I woke up to the harms The System had caused me (and so many others), I specifically chose not to go to grad school to become a therapist, as had been my plan. Though my major felt like a waste, I was a second-semester senior by then and it was too late to change it. I am not evil for majoring in psych, nor for having wanted to become a therapist. I genuinely wanted to help people, and still do. I now plan to dedicate the rest of my life to peer support and advocacy.
I don’t necessarily agree with your statement that “social justice only happens when you get mean.” Even if that is true sometimes, I don’t think that all “getting mean” equal social justice. For example, I fear that you have accomplished the latter (being mean), in absence of the former (social justice) with your comments, which have honestly been hurtful. I think you’re directing your anger (however justified) at the wrong person – a person, in fact, who belongs to the group which you claim to advocate for. What does getting mean and angry towards a fellow survivor accomplish for our collective goal of social justice? I have been made to feel as though I don’t belong anywhere, and now – in the one place where I typically feel seen – I feel like I am being called an impostor. Undeserving. Taking up space that belongs to others. The MH System ruined my life, and I have nowhere to talk about it. Where am I supposed to go, if not here?
Look, I don’t have all the answers. You are asking a lot of big questions like I’m supposed to know or be responsible for it all somehow. Like some kind of “expert.” I’m just an ordinary gal trying to survive, I promise you. If I don’t pass your purity test, that’s fine. You don’t have to engage with my work. But I deserve to take up space here, and I will continue to share my voice. I am not preventing anyone else from sharing theirs, including you. Perhaps you could direct your energy into submitting your own blog/personal story.
Mad in America never claimed to be an exclusive “survivors-only” club. Let alone having to be the “right” kind of survivor. MIA welcomes all sorts of people sharing all sorts of views here, the only requirement being that they in some way ask us to rethink psychiatry. Not everyone here is an abolitionist. If MIA is not the space you’re looking for, that’s fine. Go elsewhere. Or create your own.
And for the record, I am a psychiatric abolitionist. Everything about my recovery is a form of resistance in line with my abolitionist principles. I do not in any way “depend on the system for survival.” I have set up my life so I don’t have to. I am neither a worker nor a consumer of The System, and I never will be again.
-Jasmine
P.S. If you actually care about getting to know me as an individual at all and engaging with my work in a respectful manner, then I suggest you go read my other two previously published articles. I think you’d find that we agree on more than you realize, and I actually don’t fit your stereotype at all.
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Hi Davey,
I totally agree – it is backwards! As I was reading your advice, I thought to myself, “sounds exactly like what I’ve been doing…” and then I got to the last sentence of your comment, lol. Glad we’re on the same page!
Thanks for reading,
Jasmine
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Hi John,
Thank you for your comment. I will have to add those books to my reading list!
-Jasmine
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Dear Dead soul,
I found the first part of your comment quite upsetting to be honest. I would like to clear some things up.
It seems as though you have assumed that my being an “expert” has given me some kind of platform to share my story of survivorship over “non-expert” survivors. As in, I get to share my voice quite often in other spaces, while “they” don’t. It also appears that you are operating under the assumption that my story being featured on a site like Mad in America – which is presumably intended to elevate the “underdog” voices – is crowding out other, more deserving voices. Am I correct in those observations?
First of all, your assumption that my psychology degree makes me “one of those experts” is incorrect. I do not work for The System. I am not a therapist, psychiatrist, or doctor. My highest level of education is a bachelor’s degree. I only mentioned my degree to establish the fact that I understand how to read research papers and interpret data – something that not everyone gets the opportunity to learn how to do. Would it have made a difference to you if my major was in, say, biology or anthropology instead? My psychology major actually had almost as little to do with the field of mental health as either of those majors. I don’t recall eating disorders – the subject of this article – being covered in any of my classes, though we might’ve spent one or two slides on it at some point. All of the information in this article was gathered through my own lived experience.
Secondly, your assumption that my being an “expert” gives me some platform from which to share my voice/story more than other “non-expert” survivors is also false. Mad in America is the only place I have publicly shared my story. I don’t have a large support system in my personal life either.
That all being said, I do not believe that someone’s credentials or vocation diminish their trauma, or make them a less “authentic” survivor.
I hope that you were at least able to engage with the humanity of my story, as well as the actual content of it, and look past your projections of who you think wrote it. As for the second part of your comment, I completely agree with everything you said. I just wish that you could’ve stated it without the need to undermine my survivorship.
Thank you,
Jasmine
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Dear Camille,
Thank you for your comment. I’m glad my article was able to shed some light on this topic for you.
Thanks,
Jasmine
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Yildrim,
Thank you for sharing, I’m glad my article resonated with you. I’m sorry for what has happened to your sibling. It is unfortunate that many doctors do not seem to take (unhealthy) weight loss seriously as a health issue.
-Jasmine
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